Dr. Gabriela Rodriguez-Caprio, MD

TUESDAY, June 18 (HealthDay News) -- Armed with MRI imaging tests, Michigan doctors have detected spinal infections in patients who received tainted steroid injections for back pain but were showing no signs of illness.

The effort to identify patients with "hidden" infection was developed...Full Article

MONDAY, June 17 (HealthDay News) -- The younger you are, the less likely you are to realize you are infected with HIV or receive treatment for it, a new study finds.

Early diagnosis, prompt and continued care, and antiretroviral drug therapy are key to lowering the risk of illness and dea...Full Article

FRIDAY, June 14 (HealthDay News) -- Certain proteins in saliva help protect seniors from influenza, according to a new study from China.

The findings improve understanding of why older people are better able to fight off the new strains of bird and swine flu than younger people, said rese...Full Article

THURSDAY, June 13 (HealthDay News) -- This past flu season started earlier, peaked earlier and led to more adult hospitalizations and child deaths than most flu seasons, U.S. health officials reported Thursday.

At least 149 children died, compared to the usual range of 34 to 123, accordi...Full Article

THURSDAY, June 13 (HealthDay News) -- A close look at some very old bones is shedding light on the elimination of leprosy in Europe, where it was a major scourge until medieval times.

Leprosy was common across medieval Europe and nearly one in 30 people are thought to have had the disease...Full Article

WEDNESDAY, June 12 (HealthDay News) -- An antiviral drug may help protect injection drug users from HIV infection, a new study finds.

The study of more than 2,400 injection drug users recruited at 17 drug treatment clinics in Thailand found that daily tablets of tenofovir reduced the risk...Full Article

THURSDAY, June 6 (HealthDay News) -- Anyone who has watched the movie "Contagion" has seen how fast a virus can spread and how deadly it can be, but is it reality?

Much like the film, a new emerging virus called the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV), which kills ha...Full Article

THURSDAY, June 6 (HealthDay News) -- Genetic mutations in two emerging "bird" flu viruses could turn them into potential sources of pandemics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers report.

One expert who was not involved with the new studies, however, said virus changes that m...Full Article

WEDNESDAY, June 5 (HealthDay News) -- Women are less likely to develop infections related to receiving health care than men, according to a large new study.

After examining thousands of cases involving hospitalized patients, researchers found that women were at much lower risk for bloodst...Full Article

THURSDAY, May 30 (HealthDay News) -- People with a severe case of the flu don't benefit from taking double doses of the antiviral drug Tamiflu, according to a new study conducted in Southeast Asia.

Tamiflu (oseltamivir) stocks could be conserved during pandemics if doctors prescribe only ...Full Article

WEDNESDAY, May 29 (HealthDay News) -- Since the start of last year's outbreak of fungal meningitis cases linked to tainted steroid injections, federal health officials have recommended three to six months of antifungal therapy to combat potentially fatal infections.

But health officials r...Full Article

WEDNESDAY, May 29 (HealthDay News) -- Gene therapy that turns cells in the nose into factories that crank out super antibodies against the flu protected mice and ferrets against lethal doses of several pandemic strains of the virus.

If the approach works in humans, it could offer several ...Full Article

TUESDAY, May 28 (HealthDay News) -- Chinese scientists say they've identified the first cases of resistance to the flu drug Tamiflu in a person infected with the emerging H7N9 avian flu virus.

According to BBC News, there have been 131 confirmed cases in China of the new "bird" flu...Full Article

MONDAY, May 20 (HealthDay News) -- The older vaccine for whooping cough that was phased out in the late 1990s is more effective than the current version of the vaccine, a new study contends.

Teenagers who received four shots with the older vaccine -- called whole-cell vaccine -- before th...Full Article

FRIDAY, May 17 (HealthDay News) -- Liver transplants to treat a common type of liver cancer are a viable option for people infected with HIV, according to new research.

The Italian study, published May 10 in the journal The Oncologist, found that the AIDS...Full Article