Last year the new respiratory virus emerged in Middle East that make people sicker faster than SARS, but it doesn’t spread easily according to the latest report of four dozen cases in Saudi Arabia.

The World Health Organization has reported 90 cases of MERS, the Middle East respiratory syndrome, including 45 deaths. Most cases have been in Saudi Arabia, and other virus has also been identified in countries like Jordan, Qatar, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Tunisia. MERS is related to SARS and the two diseases have similar symptoms including a fever, cough and muscle pain.

“The virus is still confined to Middle East. Since this is a corona virus and are able to cause pandemics “said Dr. Christian Drosten of the University of Bonn Medical Centre in Germany,”

Corona viruses are a group of viruses that cause respiratory infections like common cold, but it also includes SARS, the virus that killed about 800 people in a 2003 global outbreak. MERS is distantly related to SARS but there are major differences between the two. Unlike SARS, MERS can cause rapid kidney failure and doesn’t seem as infectious.

Drosten said in October millions of Muslim pilgrims visit Saudi Arabiais worrisome. On Thursday, WHO said the risk of an individual traveler to Mecca catching MERS was considered “very low.” The agency does not recommend any travel or trade restrictions or entry screening for the hajj.

Recent study shows that 42 of the 47 cases in Saudi Arabia need intensive care. Of those, 34 patients are bad and needed a breathing machine. These cases were in older men as one of the biggest outbreaks was among dialysis patients at several hospitals. The research was published Friday in the journal, Lancet Infectious Diseases.

MERS also appears to be mainly affecting men; nearly 80 percent of the cases in the new study were men. Drosten said there might be a cultural explanation for that.

“Women in the (Middle East) region tend to have their mouths covered with at least two layers of cloth,” he said, referring to the veils worn by women in Saudi Arabia. “If the corona virus is being spread by droplets, (the veils) should give women some protection.”

Scientists still haven’t pinpointed the source of MERS WHO says the virus is capable of spreading between people but how exactly how that happens — via coughing, sneezing or indirect physical contact — isn’t known.

More than 250 people in six states have been sickened with a stomach bug which may be due to food borne illness, according to the CDC.

The Food and Drug Administration is investigating the cyclospora infections, which are often found in tropical or subtropical countries. It causes diarrhea and other flu-like symptoms.

The Centers for Disease Control said in a statement that as of July 22, the cyclospora infection causing diarrhea and other flu-like symptoms had been reported in Iowa, Nebraska, Texas, Wisconsin, Georgia and Connecticut and New Jersey

The CDC said 10 people have been hospitalized and most of the reported illnesses occurred from mid-June to early July.

The Food and Drug Administration is investigating the cyclospora infections, which are most often found in tropical or subtropical countries and have been linked to imported fresh produce in the past.

The agency said it is not yet clear whether the cases from each of the six states are part of the same outbreak.

The illness is usually spread when people ingest foods or water contaminated with feces. The agency said it isn’t yet clear whether the cases from all of the states are linked.

The number of reported illnesses expanded from more than 200 to more than 250 on Tuesday, according to the CDC. The CDC added Georgia and Connecticut to the list of affected states.

The agency said it is investigating additional illnesses and the number of those sickened could grow.

A way to treat cancers caused by a tumor-driving protein called “myc,” paving the way for patients with myc-driven cancers was found by UC San Francisco researchers.
Myc acts somewhat like a master within cells to promote uncontrolled growth. This has been impossible to target with drugs.

The discovery of biochemical link within tumor cells lead to clinical trials for experimental drug treatments that indirectly target myc and that are being evaluated in human studies, the researchers said.

UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center scientists led by Davide Ruggero, PhD, and Kevan Shokat, PhD, used one such drug to stop tumor growth in a mouse model of myc-driven lymphoma and multiple myeloma types of blood cancer.

Their study is published online in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). Previous Drug Therapies Unrestrained myc activity results in poor treatment including death.

Although other cancer-associated proteins have been successfully attacked with targeted therapies in recent years, the myc protein has continued to elude efforts to develop drugs that target it. In the PNAS paper, the UCSF researchers describe how they found a way too.

The researchers discovered that cancerous myc can be thwarted by treatment that targets a specific function performed by another protein, called mTOR. Protein Production in Cancer Is Promising Target Ruggero has for several years been probing the ability of tumor cells to make extraordinary amounts of protein to sustain their rapid growth and immortality. He also explores ways to target this excess protein production in cancer.

“One of the major effects of myc activation is a dramatic increase in the capacity of affected cells to make protein,” Ruggero said “This, in turn, leads to increased cell survival and proliferation, and to unstable genomes that foster additional mutations that turn these abnormal cells into tumor cells.” In his earlier studies that myc not only drives protein production, but also that myc-driven cancer cells become absolutely dependent upon this ability to make abnormal amounts of protein. When he genetically manipulated myc-driven cancer cells to slow protein production, they committed suicide, as abnormal cells are supposed to do for the greater good. Also he added “Tumors become addicted to excessive protein production, and mutant myc itself seems to depends on it,”

In the new study, the UCSF team discovered that mTOR disables a protein that acts as a tumor suppressor, called 4EBP1. The disabling of 4EBP1 releases normal constraints on protein production within the cell.

The researchers targeted mTOR with an experimental drug based on a prototype first designed by Shokat, an expert in designing molecules, called a kinase. Our discovery may provide a novel solution for these patients.”

“We are excited by the work of Dr. Pourdehnad and believe these results are an important advance in understanding the role of myc pathway dysregulation in multiple myeloma, and allow for the development of therapeutic strategies,” said Jeffrey Wolf, MD, a UCSF blood disorder specialist, a sponsor of the research.

The drug used in the study, called MLN0128, is made by Millennium, an independently operated subsidiary of Takeda Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., based in Cambridge, Mass., and it is being evaluated in clinical trials to treat a variety of cancers. It had not previously been viewed as a weapon against myc-driven tumors, according to the UCSF researchers.

Currently sold drugs directed against mTOR do not inhibit its ability to target 4EBP1, which Ruggero refers to as a “master regulator” of protein production.

“This is a unique therapeutic approach to make myc druggable in the clinic,” Shokat said

The Fairfax County Health Department is recommending that students and staff at a northern Virginia high school be tested for tuberculosis.

The health department said Monday that 1,900 letters were sent to affected staff and students at Robert E. Lee High School in Springfield. Tests will be done at the school in August.

Last month, the county reported three active TB cases at the school. At the time, the county recommended only a limited

number of people be tested.

But those tests showed a higher number than expected tested positive for exposure to the disease on their skin, so the county is recommending a wider testing as a precaution.

Health department spokesman Glen Barbour said no additional active TB cases have been found beyond the three cases already reported

The deadly H7N9 bird flu virus will be easily transmitted from human to human, a new study says.

Chinese scientists have found that the virus is highly transmissible between ferret, a mammal often used to study possible virus transmission between humans. This discovery could portend a time where the virus might become pandemic, the researchers added.

So far, more than more 130 people in China have been infected with the H7N9 flu, and at least 37 have died, the researchers noted.

However, one U.S. expert stressed that it isn’t known whether large-scale spread among humans will actually occur.

“We already know H7N9 can spread human-to-human,” said Dr. Marc Siegel, an associate professor of medicine at NYU Langone Medical Center in New York City. ” The new study shows that the H7N9 virus does not sicken poultry, Chen said. This can make the virus hard to track as it infects people, since they can be around infected birds without being aware of it.

“Our results suggest that the H7N9 virus is likely to transmit among humans, and immediate action is needed to prevent an influenza pandemic caused by this virus,” Chen said.

The new report was published July 18 in the online edition of the journal Science.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is keeping a close eye on the H7N9 virus.

“Anytime a new flu virus emerges, especially one that can cause severe disease in humans, it’s a virus we get very interested in,” said Dr. Joseph Bresee, chief of the epidemiology and prevention branch in the CDC’s Influenza Division.

Bresee noted that, so far, the H7N9 virus does not spread easily from human to human, but it is still concerning. “It can cause severe disease and deaths in humans. The one thing that gives us comfort so far is that it doesn’t seem to be able to spread efficiently between humans and that’s what allows a flu virus to develop into a pandemic virus,” he said.

Not only is the CDC watching this virus, Bresee said: “The whole world is watching.”

The agency is studying the virus, watching for mutations and trying to understand what medicines work against it. Moreover, the CDC is developing a vaccine against the H7N9 flu, he said.

“When the virus was first discovered and we got our samples here at CDC, we started vaccine development right away,” Bresee said. “The U.S. government is developing and testing vaccines just in case we need to use them at some point.”

The Chinese researchers investigated the virus from a variety of sources.

Chen’s team identified dozens of H7N9 strains from more than 10,000 samples taken from poultry markets, poultry farms, wild bird habitats and slaughterhouses across China.

The researchers looked at the genetic makeup of these strains, comparing them with the genetic makeup of five of the strains found in people.

All strains of the virus could go to airway receptors in humans, and some could be transmitted to birds as well.

All of the H7N9 strains from birds easily went to chickens, ducks and mice without causing any disease. The human strains, however, caused mice to lose up to 30 percent of their body weight, the researchers said.

In addition, one of the human strains easily went from ferret to ferret.

Whether the virus will mutate, making it easier to transmit from human to human, is not assured, Siegel said.

“That’s probably better left to science fiction, because mutations also occur that make something more benign,” he said.