WSU BIOL209 Microbiology

It turns out that the reason bugs like Staphylococcus aureus are capable of resisting antibiotics is because they develop a lipid-based outer membrane.

"After mosquito spraying programs were cut, we've seen a return of malaria, which the country has kept under control for the past four decades. New HIV infections have jumped more than 200 percent," he noted.

"Greece is an example of perhaps the worst case of austerity leading to public health disasters," Mr. Stuckler explained in a telephone interview.

HIV spiked because government needle exchange programs ran out of clean syringes for heroin addicts. By Stuckler's estimate, the average Greek junkie requires 200 clean needles in a given year. "But now they're only getting three a year each," Stuckler said.

The pathogen the frogs are spreading is a fungus called Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, or Bd.

No approved human vaccine exists against San Joaquin Valley fever or, for that matter, against any other fungal disease (7).

Retrospective evidence from patient studies suggests that people who contract an acute pulmonary or disseminated Coccidioides infection and recover develop lifelong cell-mediated immunity against recurrent coccidioidomycosis.

Based on this observation, together with results of protection studies with experimental animals, it has been proposed that generation of a vaccine against this respiratory mycosis is feasible.