The spending bill released Friday by the Senate Appropriations State and Foreign Operations subcommittee, proposing the first increase in funding for the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief in nearly a decade, and the robust increase proposed by the House Appropriations State and Foreign Operations subcommittee for USAID’s global efforts to combat tuberculosis, demonstrate a welcome awareness of the tremendous value of continued U.S. leadership of crucial global health responses.
Praising the treatment policy decision of South Africa health officials to replace painful injections that brought irreversible side effects to many tuberculosis patients whose disease was resistant to first line treatments with a newer medicine that had been proven effective had remained out of reach for most patients, TB response advocates are calling the move “historic,” and also hoping it is just a first step.
MedPAC Support for Balanced Medicare Payments a First Step
House appropriators soundly rejected White House proposals for global and domestic health program and biomedical research funding cuts that would threaten decades of progress in controlling infectious diseases.
The U.S. House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly last night to approve the Eliminating Opioid-Related Infectious Disease Act and the Substance Use Disorder Loan Repayment Act of 2018.
New data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention document that invasive methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infections occurring in people who inject drugs more than doubled, from 4.1 percent to 9.2 percent between 2011 and 2016.
Highly effective drugs that can cure chronic hepatitis C infection in approximately 95 percent of patients first became available in the U.S. in 2014.
The SECURE Act introduced by Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) represents a major step toward preparedness for future public health emergencies.
IDSA members at Cleveland Clinic, Steven Schmitt, MD, FIDSA; Adarsh Bihmraj, MD, FIDSA; and Steve Gordon, MD, FIDSA, Chief of the Infectious Diseases Department, recently hosted congressional staffer for U.S. Senator Rob Portman (R-OH) Josh Prest for a tour of the clinic’s ID department, and a discussion about the value of infectious diseases physicians to patient care and innovation in therapeutics, diagnostics, and vaccines.
IDSA Presents Priorities at World Health Assembly 2018-05-29 The Infectious Diseases Society of America participated in the 71st World Health Assembly in Geneva during the week of May 21 -25, presenting and joining statements reflecting IDSA priorities.
HCVguidelines.org — a website developed by the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD) and the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) to provide up-to-date guidance on the management of hepatitis C (HCV) — has updated several sections of the website to reflect new testing and management recommendations for pregnant women, people who inject drugs, men who have sex with men and people who are incarcerated.
More than 900 physicians, scientists and researchers confronting tuberculosis across communities in the United States and around the world have signed a letter urging U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley to ensure that the September UN General Assembly High Level Meeting Ending Tuberculosis leads to concrete commitments aimed at eliminating the impacts of the world’s leading infectious disease killer.