CQ HealthBeat: Obama to Seek Funding Boost for Antibiotic Development “The health care portion of President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address was mostly focused on a call for more research dollars for ‘precision medicine.’ But the new plan will also fund efforts to fight antibiotic resistance — an…

Financial Times: Budget 2015: Fleming Fund to fight drug-resistant infections “[British Chancellor of the Exchequer] George Osborne announced the creation of a £195m [$289.5 million] fund to fight drug-resistant infections worldwide, with contributions from the government, the Wellcome Trust, and other international charities. The Fleming Fund is being set up…

International Business Times: World Tuberculosis Day: Why are rates of drug-resistant TB so high in Russia? “…Tuberculosis is the leading infectious killer in Russia. The problem in the region, one of the ‘high priority countries’ highlighted in a recent World Health Organization report, is being fueled by multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB).…

The Hindu: Candidate malaria drug may cure with single dose “Last year, AstraZeneca, the global drug company, closed its research center in Bengaluru. One of the legacies of the work carried out there is the identification of a novel candidate drug for malaria. In laboratory tests, this molecule has shown…

SciDev.Net: Study links antibiotic resistance to corruption levels “Scientists have found an association between antibiotic resistance and the corruption level within a country. High level of corruption increases the chances of poor control of antibiotics distribution and poor management of agriculture and water sanitation, which support the growth of antibiotic…

News outlets highlight findings of the 2015 National Risk Register of Civil Emergencies, produced by the U.K. government. BBC News: Antibiotic resistance: 80,000 ‘might die’ in future outbreak “About 80,000 people could die if there were a ‘widespread outbreak’ of an antibiotic-resistant blood infection, according to a government document. The…

Huffington Post: Top 10 Global Health Moments of 2013 Karl Hofmann, PSI president and CEO “Global health saw plenty of victories and setbacks in 2013. Drug-resistant TB, slowing donor funding, new outbreaks of polio and a devastating typhoon showed how easily progress can stall. Amid these challenges emerged a changing…

The Guardian: Disease resistance to antibiotics at tipping point, expert warns “The director of the Wellcome Trust has warned that resistance of disease to antibiotics has reached a tipping point at which it could creep into the U.K. almost without notice. Professor Jeremy Farrar said the effects would be gradual…

Media sources report on two recently published studies — one in Genome Biology and the other in Nature — showing how the malaria parasite becomes resistant to insecticides and makes changes allowing it to infect humans. Agence France-Presse: Revealed: How malaria parasite beats top insecticides “Gene detectives on Tuesday said…

VOA News: Does Ebola Reveal WHO Shortfalls? “As the Ebola outbreak rages in three West African countries — and raises fears abroad — some are questioning whether the World Health Organization is being stretched too thin. A proposal for a new global agency to deal strictly with infectious diseases is…