See what we’re reading this week at Global Biodefense on topics including the upcoming Biological Weapons Convention review conference, how a mutation improved Ebola’s ability to enter cells, and potency studies on expired Tamiflu.
POLICY, PRACTICES & POLITICS
- It’s time to modernize the bioweapons convention (Bulletin Atomic)
- Balancing science with security: Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (DipNote)
- Keeping the Biological Weapons Convention relevant (Bulletin Atomic)
- 2017-2022 Health Care Preparedness and Response Capabilities (ASPR)
- Open source monitoring to verify the bioweapons convention? (Bulletin Atomic)
- Congress must address the overuse of antibiotics in animal agriculture (The Hill)
BIOPREPAREDNESS
- Bioweapons and scientific advances (Center for Security Studies)
- Ebola was just the beginning. A big epidemic is coming we must be (Wired)
- As earth warms, diseases within permafrost become a bigger worry (Salon)
- Bioterrorism 2.0: Should we fear a human-designed super virus? (PC Mag)
- Omaha facility to train doctors to battle deadly diseases (OWH)
- UNMC to develop national training center to fight infectious diseases (UNMC)
- Here’s what we could be doing to stop pandemics like Zika and Ebola (Time)
- Inside the Garage labs of DIY gene hackers (Transgenic News)
- Getting ahead of infectious disease outbreaks (Yale)
SELECT AGENTS
- Has a new mutation in the Ebola virus made it deadlier? (Science)
- Characteristics and outcomes of pediatric patients with EVD (CID)
- Swedish court convicts German of stealing toxins (My Plainview)
- Ebola evolved into deadlier enemy during the African epidemic (NY Times)
MEDICAL COUNTERMEASURES
- Study finds long-expired Tamiflu still potent (CIDRAP)
- Yellow fever vaccine co-administered with dengue vaccine in toddlers (PID)
- Herd effect from flu vaccination in non-healthcare settings (Eurosurveillance)
- Vaccination against yellow fever in French Guiana (Travel Med)
OUTBREAK NEWS & THREAT SURVEILLANCE
- Drug-resistant TB rates in W. Africa much higher than previously thought (Guardian)
- Exposures among MERS case-patients, Saudi Arabia, Jan–Feb 2016 (CDC EID)
- Influenza transmission on aircraft: a systematic literature review (PubMed)
- How Angola reined in its worst yellow fever epidemic in 30 years (WHO)
- Outbreak rates of influenza A(H3N2) among persons attending ag fairs (CDC)
- Improving influenza virological surveillance in Europe (Eurosurveillance)
- Candida auris: An emerging fungal infectious disease (UPMC CHS)
RESEARCH & TECH
- Zika not uniquely stable at physiological temperatures (mBio)
- The promise and potential perils of CRISPR (Fortune)
- Engineers design a new weapon against bacteria (MIT News)
- How blockchain could help to make the food we eat safer (Forbes)
- Complete and incomplete genome packaging of Influenza A and B viruses (mBio)
- Inside look at lab where doctors intentionally infect people with malaria (Stamford)
- Multi-body-site microbiome and culture profiling of military trainees (mBio)
SPECIAL INTEREST
- See how global health has changed since you were born (NPR)
- Visit to a German military medical biodefense facility (Pandora Report)
- Battling Zika…and armchair critics with wacky suggestions (USA Today)
- Veterans of the war that saved the world (Tracking Zebra)
HISTORICAL REFLECTIONS
- Largest bioterrorism attack in US history was attempt to swing election (Paleofuture)
- Cholera 101: Why an ancient disease keeps on haunting us (NPR)