Infections emerging

Tauxe, Robert V. (2001). Food Safety and Irradiation Protecting the Public from Foodborne Infections. Emerging Infectious Disease 7(3, Supp.) 516-521. Also available from . 

Despite the many advances in the understanding of the HIV virus and its treatment, there is not yet a cure for the infection. Emergent resistance to clinically proven drugs such as the reverse transcriptase inhibitors and (he protea.se inhibitors has complicated the picture of good (herapeutic targets. The idea of using a vaccine os a therapeutic tool has... 

Among natural antiviral agents of carbohydrate nature, sulphated PS such as X and k carrageenans showed a potent inhibitory effect on the replication of HBV in the human hepatoma cell line PLC/PRF/5 [112], The two types of carrageenans resulted in concentration-dependent reduction of HBV-antigen expression and HBV infectivity, emerging as promising candidates for chemotherapy of acute hepatitis. 

Donlan RM. Biofilms and device-associated infections. Emerg Infect Dis 2001 7 277-81. 

Soil-borne fungus which can remain dormant as sclerotia for years when active, infects emerging cereal plants, developing rapidly in dark and humid conditions, i.e. under snow. Continuous winter barley increases the risk of this disease. 

Kayhty H, Eskola J. New vaccines for the prevention of pneumococcal infections. Emerg Infect Dis 1996 2 289-298. 

Resistance to Tetracyclines. The tetracyclines stiU provide inexpensive and effective treatment for several microbial infections, but the emergence of acquired resistance to this class of antibiotic has limited their clinical usehilness. Studies to define the molecular basis of resistance are underway so that derivatives having improved antibacterial spectra and less susceptibiUty to bacterial resistance may be developed. Tetracyclines are antibiotics of choice for relatively few human infections encountered in daily clinical practice (104), largely as a result of the emergence of acquired tetracycline-resistance among clinically important bacteria (88,105,106). Acquired resistance occurs when resistant strains emerge from previously sensitive bacterial populations by acquisition of resistance genes which usually reside in plasmids and/or transposons (88,106,107). Furthermore, resistance deterrninants contained in transposons spread to, and become estabUshed in, diverse bacterial species (106). 

As an example, consider a system of size 20 x 20, and take N = 100, px = 2 and Pj = 3. What happens if we vary the parameter u between the value 1 and, say, 20 Gerhardt and Schuster found that when this system evolves from a random initial state (using the Moore neighborhood for updates), some combination of four basic behavioral types emerges [gerh89]. Behavioral types - which appear to depend most strongly on the value of the parameter u - are characterized by both the manner in which the fraction of sites that are infected (= / ) varies as a function of time and the kind of transition-wave spatial patterns that develop ... 

The dramatic decrease in the morbidity and mortality of HIV-infected individnals in the last decade, due to the wide use of HAART, has been somewhat tempered by the emergence of mid-long term toxicities. A characteristic body fat redistribntion and metabolic changes, inclnding dyslipidemia and insnlin resistance, are amongst the most prevalent and worrisome consequences (Carr et al. 2003). As HIV-infected individnals have increasing life expectancies, the risk for cardiovascnlar complications has emerged as an important canse of morbidity and mortality and preventive measnres should be considered to minimize their impact (Weber et al. 2006). 

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