See what we’re reading this week at Global Biodefense on topics including pandemic simulations, Canada’s anthrax vaccine stockpile, animal feed biosecurity, and CRISPR’s promise for better animal models.
BIOPREPAREDNESS
- Assessing the epidemic potential of RNA and DNA viruses (EID)
- Pandemic simulations: Preparing for catastrophes we hope will never happen (WB)
- Strategic National Stockpile emergency medication and equipment (EM)
- FDA updates its food emergencies response (Food Engineering)
- GlaxoSmithKline CEO discusses disease outbreak preparedness (NY Times)
- Opportunities to finance pandemic preparedness (The Lancet)
POLICY, PRACTICES & POLITICS
- Future of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (Council of Councils)
- World Health Organization Grade 3 and Grade 2 funding gap emergencies (WHO)
- Using gene-editing patents to force scientists to open their labs to scrutiny (MIT)
- The ethics of hunting down ‘patient zero’ (NY Times)
- Blueprint for a Healthier America 2016: Priorities for the next administration (TFHA)
- Hospitals add sinks to help fight infections – bad move (Pandora Report)
- How much did your state get in health services block grants? (TFHA)
- Feed biosecurity is critical to global animal health (Pork Network)
- CBRNe advice for the new US President (CBRNe World)
- Zika virus research agenda (WHO)
SELECT AGENTS
- Gene-editing might eradicate disease — or be Pandora’s box in a bottle (STAT)
- Risk of severe adverse events from replicating smallpox vaccine (Wiley)
- Diagnostics in Ebola Virus Disease in resource-rich vs. limited settings (PLOS)
- Helminths as weapons of bioterrorism: An unrecognized threat (JoB&B)
- Canada orders anthrax vaccine – but who will get access to it? (Montreal Gazette)
- Texas hospital reaches settlement with nurse infected with Ebola (Reuters)
- Hitting Ebola, to the power of two (Science)
MEDICAL COUNTERMEASURES
- Terrorists hamper polio eradication efforts in Africa (NatGeo)
- MRSA uses decoys to evade a last-resort antibiotic (BBSRC)
- Sanofi partners with Brazil to accelerate Zika vaccine work (Reuters)
- A water-chilled coolbox gets vaccines on tap to the world’s poorest (The Guardian)
- How polio vaccination affects poliovirus transmission (BioRxiv)
OUTBREAK NEWS & THREAT SURVEILLANCE
- Chloroquine-resistant Plasmodium vivax in Pakistan: An emerging threat (The Lancet)
- Centre forms high-level panel to monitor bird flu situation (The Hindu)
- Scientists are bewildered by Zika’s path across Latin America (WaPo)
- Public health concern as superbug breaches Australia’s final drug defence (MedExpress)
- The changing landscape of tracking infectious diseases (Contagion Live)
- Cholera in Haiti: No respite from unintended consequences (Tracking Zebra)
- Mosquitoes — and diseases like Zika — flourish when economies tank (STAT)
- Preventing Zika exposure in healthcare settings (CDC)
- Texas and its measles epidemics (PLOS)
RESEARCH & TECH
- Fatal measles complication more common than thought: U.S. study (Reuters)
- Leveraging CRISPR to create better disease models (WSJ)
- Blue marble health and the global burden of disease study (PLOS)
- Study: Dangerous bacteria can end up on nurses’ scrubs (CIDRAP)
- IBM World Community Grid Project to accelerate Zika virus drug discovery (PLOS)
- Los Alamos disease-fighting technology showing promise (ABQ Journal)
- First-time reconstruction of infectious bat influenza viruses (Science Daily)
SPECIAL INTEREST
- Google Doodle honors science’s first microbiologist (STAT)
- Check out these resources on biodefense before seeing Inferno (HSDL)
- The 2016-2017 National Health Security Awards Program (NACCHO)
- Halloween quiz: how much do you know about global disease costumes? (NPR)