Even healthy children can be severely affected by RSV
Peer-Reviewed Publication
This month, we’re focusing on infectious diseases, a topic that affects lives and communities around the world. Here, you’ll find the latest research news, insights, and discoveries shaping how infectious diseases are being studied, prevented, and treated globally.
Updates every hour. Last Updated: 16-Dec-2025 15:11 ET (16-Dec-2025 20:11 GMT/UTC)
It is not only premature babies and children with underlying diseases who suffer from serious respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infections. Even healthy, full-term babies are at significant risk of intensive care or prolonged hospitalisation – especially during the first three months of life. This is according to a comprehensive registry study from Karolinska Institutet in Sweden published in The Lancet Regional Health – Europe.
Chikungunya is a vector-borne disease that affects both adults and children. While global efforts are ongoing to tackle chikungunya in adults, progress in addressing pediatric chikungunya remains inadequate. To shed light on this, researchers have investigated the presentation of pediatric chikungunya and proposed multipronged approaches to diagnose, prevent, and manage this disease. These insights may help clinicians, researchers, and policymakers to develop effective measures to tackle pediatric chikungunya.
This study found interesting, complex and important interactive effects among meteorological factors and ambient air pollutants on influenza incidences in Huaian, China.
Scientists have discovered why older people are more likely to suffer severely from the flu, and can now use their findings to address this risk.
In a new study, which is published in PNAS, experts discovered that older people produce a glycosylated protein called apoplipoprotein D (ApoD), which is involved in lipid metabolism and inflammation, at much higher levels than in younger people. This has the effect of reducing the patient’s ability to resist virus infection, resulting in a more serious disease outcome.
A new study reveals that frailty-associated gut dysbiosis significantly elevates the risk of gastrointestinal complications following intracorporeal urinary diversion for bladder cancer. Despite short-term antibiotic prophylaxis, residual intra-abdominal bacteria and fungi—particularly Enterococcus and Enterobacter—were strongly associated with postoperative ileus and infections. The findings underscore frailty as a key determinant of surgical outcomes and point toward microbiota-based management strategies to improve recovery and reduce complications.