Research tools offer new look at common cold

CHICAGO (Reuters) — It used to be called the common cold. Now scientists are starting to put some not-so-common names to the hundreds of viruses that make people cough, sneeze, wheeze and worse.

This week they described how new research techniques are uncovering a host of new respiratory viruses — including a new, monster-sized virus — and spurring efforts to better understand the role of these viruses in disease. "We've added a bunch of viruses, some of which we have never heard of before," said Kenneth McIntosh of Harvard Medical School, speaking at a microbiology meeting in Chicago.

Many of these newly named viruses have been causing coughs and runny noses for hundreds of years, alongside better-known viruses such as rhinoviruses and adenoviruses.

But scientists have only recently had the molecular research tools to identify these bugs, McIntosh said. "We know they are there ... but we don't know what we really need to know about their capacity to produce disease," he said.

That information may prove to be important as cold viruses are the main culprit behind 50 percent to 80 percent of asthma attacks. "In children, up to 80 percent of the time when you have a bad asthma attack, it's because you've got one of these wimpy cold viruses," said Dr. Jim Gern of the University of Wisconsin

Diarrhoea bacteria lurk quietly in some

WASHINGTON (Reuters) — Bacteria that cause a troublesome and sometimes fatal type of diarrhoea in hospital patients can be found in and on the bodies of people who have no symptoms at all, US researchers reported on Friday.

Their findings could help explain how the bacteria, called Clostridium difficile, manages to thrive despite efforts to eradicate it. Incontinent patients and those who have been treated for the infection before are among the likely carriers, Dr. Curtis Donskey of the Louis Stokes Cleveland Veterans Affairs Medical Center and colleagues found.

They tested 73 patients in two wards of their hospital, five of whom had diarrhoea at the time.

They found that 35 of the 68 patients who did not have symptoms — half the total — were carrying dangerous C. difficile bacteria. Twenty percent had the bacteria or spores on their hands but not on rectal swabs — suggesting that they had picked them up from other patients or hospital staff.

Many had also spread the bacteria to beds, bed rails and other surroundings. "Our findings suggest that asymptomatic carriers of epidemic and non-epidemic C. difficile strains could contribute significantly to transmission in long-term care facilities," Donskey said in a statement.

"Simple modifications of current infection control practices, including glove use by health care workers and use of ten percent bleach for room disinfection, could reduce the risk of transmission from asymptomatic carriers."

Racial differences seen cirrohis severity

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) — African Americans and Hispanics with primary biliary cirrhosis — a rare form of cirrhosis characterised by the destruction of small bile ducts in the liver — often present with more severe disease than their Caucasian counterparts, results of a study suggest.

Primary biliary cirrhosis, or PBC, is an uncommon chronic liver disease that primarily afflicts young and middle-aged Caucasian women; there are limited data on non-Caucasian patients with this disease, Dr. Marion G. Peters, of the University of California, San Francisco, and colleagues note.

They analysed information on 535 individuals with PBC being screened for a clinical trial. Of these, 462 were Caucasian, 21 were African American, 42 were Hispanic, and ten were from other racial and ethnic groups.

The team found that non-Caucasians were significantly more likely than Caucasians to be deemed ineligible to participate in the clinical trial (46.6 percent versus 25.1 percent). This was mainly due to greater disease severity in non-Caucasians. They also found that African Americans and Hispanics were much more likely than Caucasians to have a lower activity level, severe or difficult-to-control chronic itching, and more advanced disease.

The reasons why are unclear, the researchers note. "It is not clear whether these patients had more rapid disease, less access to care early in their disease, or misdiagnoses due to inadequate testing, the absence of liver biopsies, or the presence of (other illnesses) that may have led to a delay in treatment," the investigators explain.