See what we’re reading this week at Global Biodefense on topics including mishandling of select agents, WHO pandemic preparedness funding, and balancing the risks and benefits of Dual Use Research of Concern.
BIOPREPAREDNESS
- WHO has a plan, but not the funding, to save the world from the next pandemic (Quartz)
- Medical allocations to persons with special needs during a bioterrorism event (PJPHI)
- Biodefense indicators: Events outpacing federal efforts (Blue Ribbon Biodefense Panel)
- Wadsworth Center participates in food emergency response network exercise (NYSDOH)
POLICY, PRACTICES & POLITICS
- Records reveal ‘biological hazards’ at Fort Collins CDC (Coloradoan)
- CDC concludes CDP ricin exposure inspection (Pandora Report)
- Congressional panel demands answers on ricin at Anniston’s CDP (Anniston Star)
- Forty years later, FDA finally restricts use of antibiotics in livestock (The Fern)
- CDC hid mishandling of deadly germs: report (Yahoo News)
- NIH supporters worry: Will research get a funding increase this year? (STAT)
- Government includes spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in injury report (TribLive)
- How to balance the risk and benefit of Dual Use Research of Concern (IJB)
SELECT AGENTS
- Particulate delivery systems for vaccination against bioterrorism agents (Wiley)
- Ebola virus found hiding in lungs of health-care worker (WaPo)
- Optical screening for rapid antimicrobial susceptibility testing with B. anthracis (JCM)
- Buccal viral DNA as a trigger for brincidofovir therapy in smallpox model (SD)
- Highly-Expressed Y. pestis small RNA following infection of cultured macrophages (PLOS)
- Transcriptome analysis of vaccine responses to F. tularensis or VEE (Walden U)
- A molecular survey for F. tularensis and Rickettsia spp. in H. leporispalustris (JME)
- Plague: A new old disease (ScieForschen)
MEDICAL COUNTERMEASURES
- Promising malaria vaccine disables key parasite genes (Science)
- Merck’s vaccine won’t be the end of Ebola (MIT Tech Review)
- Increased vaccine production capacity needed to better prepare for outbreaks (Contagion)
- Dual-use vaccine for humans and animals against MERS-CoV and rabies (JVI)
- More efficient vaccine production (Phys.org)
- Tightened rules for antibiotics for food livestock go into effect (STAT)
OUTBREAK NEWS & THREAT SURVEILLANCE
- PulseNet helps WA solve largest Salmonella outbreak in recent history (APHL)
- Bird flu will continue to flare into 2017 (Deutche Welle)
- Holidays reduce influenza transmission, delay trajectory of seasonal epidemics (Healio)
- Pakistani city launches new polio campaign after rare strain found (Reuters)
- Korea confirms H5N6 in cat deaths as Ireland reports H5N8 (CIDRAP)
- CDC reports influenza A(H7N9) developments over four annual epidemics (CDC)
RESEARCH & TECH
- Pathogen capture technology for infectious disease therapeutics and diagnostics (Wyss)
- Epidemic arboviral diseases: priorities for research and public health (The Lancet)
- New software simplifies CRISPR methodology for gene editing (TechTimes)
- Livestock susceptibility to Infection with MERS coronavirus (CDC EID)
- How we know Zika virus causes Guillain-Barre Syndrome and birth defects (MedXpress)
- Can bacteria-infected mosquitoes stop spread of dengue, Zika? (Guardian)
- MRSA strain outbreak of skin and soft tissue infections in Belgium (Springer)
SPECIAL INTEREST
- Bioterrorism and CBRN: preparedness, response and capacity (BIDMC Fellowship)
- Fifty years of global immunization at CDC, 1966-2015 (Public Health Reports)
- The sled dogs that stopped an outbreak (The Scientist)
HISTORICAL REFLECTIONS
- Cherokee medicine, colonial germs: An indigenous nation’s fight against smallpox (JHU)
- Evolutionary clues in 17th-Century smallpox genome (Contagions Blog)
- America and the eradication of smallpox in the Cold War era (JCH)
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