Word: bacterium
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Lyme disease is nothing to fool around with, especially for those in the groups at highest risk--children ages 5 to 14 and adults ages 50 to 59. Caused by a spirochete bacterium called Borrelia burgdorferi that is transmitted via the bite of the so-called deer tick, the disease is usually accompanied by an expanding bull's-eye rash (at least 2 in. in diameter) at the site of the bite. Secondary symptoms may include muscle pain, headache and swollen glands. Left untreated, the bacterium can lodge in various body tissues (where blood tests may not detect...
...lethal African virus that triggers severe internal bleeding and kills up to 90% of its victims. Experts have long feared that Ebola could be turned into a devastating bioweapon. Meanwhile, at Harvard, researchers created an anthrax vaccine that, unlike older vaccines, targets both the toxins created by the bacterium and the bug itself...
...safe and able to generate an immune response in both adults and children. But malaria, which claims the life of at least one sub-Saharan African child every minute, is notoriously quick to develop drug-resistant strains. The disease is caused by a parasite, rather than a virus or bacterium - and no vaccine has ever been developed for a human disease caused by a parasite. Still, genome sequencing and other advances are fueling hopes that malaria can be sharply reduced...
...disease triggers flulike symptoms--high fever, coughing, shortness of breath--but because it hasn't been responding to either antibiotics or antivirals, doctors can't immediately tell what causes it. For now they are calling it SARS--for Severe Acute Respiratory syndrome. Scientists speculate that it may be a bacterium or a virus that has mutated into a new, more virulent form...
...processed-meat industry is patting itself on the back for getting the Bush Administration to water down a new plan aimed at keeping a deadly bacterium, Listeria monocytogenes, out of deli meats. Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman pledged to step up testing after last summer's outbreak of listeriosis--seven deaths, three miscarriages and dozens of hospitalizations--was traced to tainted turkey from a processor near Philadelphia. Veneman came up with a blueprint directing federal inspectors to hunt down Listeria on the equipment, surfaces and drains of every major producer of ready-to-eat meat and poultry. (Though the USDA selectively...