See what we’re reading this week at Global Biodefense on topics including pandemic vaccine planning, minimizing Q fever outbreaks, and assessing scalability and supply chain challenges for rapid diagnostics.
BIOPREPAREDNESS
- FBI: We need to collaborate with industry on bioterrorism, WMD (Forensic Mag)
- Global Civil Society Coalition for the Biological Weapons Convention (BWPP)
- Pandemic vaccine planning: Pharmacy and public health collaboration (ASTHO)
- On CDC’s 70th anniversary, Director Tom Frieden looks ahead (JAMA)
- CGHE takes part in Georgetown’s pandemic influenza tabletop exercise (CGHE)
- Better preparing for future Ebola outbreaks globally (ASPR Blog)
- Biosurveillance Resource Directory (BRD)
POLICY & POLITICS
- National health security strategy: Strategic messaging guide (NACCHO)
- Teaching scientists, policy makers how to control the rise of bioterrorism (GMU)
- Best practices for limiting access to your lab (Lab Manager)
- MIT-USAID releases supply chain evaluation of malaria diagnostics (MIT News)
- After 40 years, most important weapon against mosquitoes may be failing (Science)
- A path to global health security (DipNote)
SELECT AGENTS
- Amid crisis, Ebola drug narrowly missed threshold to prove effectiveness (STAT)
- A randomized, controlled trial of ZMapp for Ebola virus infection (NEJM)
- Killing reindeer to stop anthrax could snuff out a nomadic culture (NPR)
- How Nigeria won the fight against Ebola (Relief Web)
- Detection of Y. pestis in environmental samples in plague remediation (EPA)
- The evolution of Ebola virus: Insights from the 2013–2016 epidemic (Nature)
- We may have just lost our best hope against Ebola (Vice)
- Blue dye could help keep Ebola doctors safe (Engadget)
- Research to minimize Q fever outbreaks (Vet Practice)
- A new lead on treatment for Ebola (NEIDL)
MEDICAL COUNTERMEASURES
- The $5.8 billion argument for getting your flu shot (WaPo)
- DoD will conduct flu immunization program without FluMist (Health.mil)
- FDA approves Flublok quadrivalent influenza vaccine (Protein Sciences)
OUTBREAK NEWS & THREAT SURVEILLANCE
- Who is immune to Zika? (The Scientist)
- Niger Rift Valley Fever outbreak could spread across borders (Reuters)
- Improving influenza virological surveillance in Europe (Eurosurveillance)
- Sick birds don’t fly…or do they? (Science)
CHEMICAL & RADIOLOGICAL THREATS
- U.S. pushing for international action to destroy Syria’s chlorine stocks (Chicago Tribune)
- Working to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of terrorists (NTI)
RESEARCH & TECH
- Innovation: Taking the neglect out of neglected disease (Gates Foundation)
- Deploying drones to fight Zika, future disease outbreaks (Miami Herald)
- Epstein – Barr virus in patients presenting with acute febrile illness (PLOS)
- Writing the first human genome by 2026 is synthetic biology’s grand challenge (SH)
- Assessing pathogens for natural versus laboratory origins (BioRxiv)
HISTORICAL REFLECTIONS & SPECIAL INTEREST
- When poison was everywhere (The Atlantic)
- Long-forgotten research unearths new mystery about Lyme disease (STAT)
- Pathogenesis: Where players are bacterial pathogens (Kickstarter)
- Private SNAFU learns about Malaria (Contagion Blog)