See what we’re reading this week at Global Biodefense on topics including the INTERPOL bioterrorism workshop, Ebola resurgence, Congress skipping town without approving emergency Zika funds, and the Yellow Fever outbreak in Angola.
BIODEFENSE POLICY & PRACTICES
- Congress just went on spring break without voting on emergency Zika measure (STAT)
- Would old vaccine work if needed during a pandemic? (ASPR Blog)
- Deliberate act cannot be ruled out for Germany’s 2011 outbreak (Food Safety News)
- INTERPOL holds bioterrorism workshop (INTERPOL)
- Defense Threat Reduction Agency Strategic Plan 2016-2020 (DTRA) .pdf
- Politics and Ebola are not such strange bedfellows, report says (NPR)
- Bio-threat protections inadequate (Center for Public Integrity)
- House Speaker Ryan says U.S. has ‘plenty of money’ for Zika (Reuters)
- WHO begs for $4 million to prepare for millions of Zika cases (Reuters)
- Jay Ambrose: Brussels and the threat of bio-terrorism (Desert Sun)
SELECT AGENTS
- Non-randomized Ebola trials—lessons for optimal outbreak research (The Lancet)
- Bioterrorism list change could improve vaccine research (1310 KLIX)
- Hundreds of contacts identified and monitored in new Ebola flare-up in Guinea (WHO)
- NIAID provides additional funding for heat stable ricin vaccine (Soligenix)
- Fostering collaboration on post-Ebola clinical research in Liberia (The Lancet)
- Key facts about Ebola epidemic two years after it was first declared (Reuters)
- Yellow Fever outbreak continues in Angola (WHO)
INFECTIOUS DISEASE COUNTERMEASURES
- To slow down antibiotic resistance, focus on the basics (NatGeo)
- Experimental vaccine shows promise against a form of dengue (NY Times)
- How to stop overprescribing antibiotics (NY Times)
- Cat noses and golf courses: ‘bioprospecting’ for new antibiotics (ACSH)
- Robert De Niro pulls anti-vaccination film from Tribeca film festival (The Guardian)
CHEMICAL THREATS
- Syria and the future of the chemical weapon taboo (BioChem Security 2030)
- Chemical weapons nonproliferation tutorial (NTI)
- Belgian police raid finds explosives with nails, chemicals, ISIS flag (US News)
- Chemical Weapons Convention and a dynamic world (OPCW)
OUTBREAK NEWS & THREAT SURVEILLANCE
- Meet the U.S. military super scientists fighting to destroy the Zika virus (Military Times)
- How could releasing more mosquitoes help fight Zika? (NY Times)
- Concerns grow over care of patients with serious Zika complications (CIDRAP)
- Superbugs from hospitals end up at sewage plants (Star Tribune)
- Laboratory testing guidelines for Zika virus infection (WHO) .pdf
- New test for Zika approved for emergency use (The Scientist)
RESEARCH & TECHNOLOGY
- Experimental tools to clean infected blood raise hope for fighting major killer (STAT)
- Guardian system can predict risk of dangerous diseases (News Medical)
