Category Archives: Emerging Diseases

New antibiotics needed: Salmonella

Posted on November 16, 2018 by

As part of World Antibiotics Awareness Week, we are continuing our New Antibiotics Needed blog series with Salmonella. Salmonella is the gram-negative genus of bacteria in the Enterobacteriaceae family and iscommonly associated with food poisoning. The genus contains just two species; S. enterica and S. bongori. … Continue reading →

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New antibiotics needed: Enterobacteriaceae

Posted on November 14, 2018 by

  Enterobacteriaceae is a family of bacteria often associated with the gut. Some Enterobacteriaceae may be more familiar than others, including Salmonella, Escherichia coli and Shigella. Another important bacterium in this family is Klebsiella pneumoniae. When in the lungs, this … Continue reading →

Posted in Clinical and Medical Microbiology, Emerging Diseases | 3 Comments

Microbe Talk: West Nile Virus

Posted on August 17, 2018 by

West Nile Fever is a disease spread to humans and horses by mosquitoes. In Europe this year, there have been 230 cases of West Nile Fever, and 17 deaths. This month, we spoke with an expert to discuss where the … Continue reading →

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Emerging Zoonoses and AMR – a view from Twitter

Posted on July 9, 2018 by

The Emerging Zoonoses and AMR Focused Meeting took place on 2 July at the University of Surrey’s School of Veterinary Medicine in Guildford. We’ve turned to Twitter to look at some of the highlights of the event. In the days … Continue reading →

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A killer snake fungus has been found in wild British snakes for the first time

Posted on July 20, 2017 by

Back in April 2016, we wrote about an emerging disease that’s been killing wild snake populations in North America. Snake fungal disease, or SFD, is an infection that leads to blisters and lesions on snakes’ skin, turning scales yellow and … Continue reading →

Posted in Animal Microbiology, Emerging Diseases | Tagged | 3 Comments

Researchers are hunting for viruses that could cause the next pandemic

Posted on July 13, 2017 by

Scientists around the world are looking for the next SARS or MERS virus in wildlife from disease emergence ‘hotspots’. giulia/Flickr/CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 In late 2002, a new kind of lung infection began to emerge in the Guandong province of southern … Continue reading →

Posted in Animal Microbiology, Emerging Diseases, On the Horizon, Virology | Tagged , , | 5 Comments

Investigating Lyme disease on the South Downs

Posted on April 6, 2017 by

The South Downs National Park is an area that stretches for 140 km along the South Coast of England, and is home to a huge diversity of plants and animals. Some of the smaller inhabitants of the park are ticks: … Continue reading →

Posted in Animal Microbiology, Clinical and Medical Microbiology, Emerging Diseases | Tagged | 3 Comments

On the Horizon: What is Oropouche virus?

Posted on January 23, 2017 by

In this edition of our On the Horizon series, we take a look at an obscure virus that may cause an important emerging disease in 2017, or may remain in obscurity for much of the world. That is, except for … Continue reading →

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On the Horizon: Monkeypox

Posted on January 4, 2017 by

On 8 May 1980, after a global vaccination campaign, the WHO declared that smallpox had been eradicated. Wiping out this viral disease, which has claimed the lives of hundreds of millions of people throughout history, should be considered one of … Continue reading →

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Let’s Play – Plague Inc: Evolved (with a scientist)

Posted on December 2, 2016 by

Plague Inc: Evolved is a video game where players try to evolve a pathogen that can infect and kill the whole of humanity. While this is obviously not our aim here at the Society, the game does provide an interesting angle for looking … Continue reading →

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