See what we’re reading this week at Global Biodefense on topics including expanding veterinary biosurveillance, mapping anthrax risk, and the yellow fever outbreak in Brazil.
BIOPREPAREDNESS
- Position paper: Bioterrorism preparedness & response (IAB)
- Proliferation of bird flu outbreaks raises risk of human pandemic (SciAm)
- How prepared is the US for an avian flu redux? (CIDRAP)
- Global coordination for R&D to prevent and respond to epidemics (Chatham)
- Review of the pandemic influenza preparedness framework (WHO)
- 2016 National profile of local health departments (NACCHO)
POLICY, PRACTICES & POLITICS
- The importance of understanding the DURC debate (Contagion Live)
- S&T innovation, and partnerships in the future of USAID (NAP)
- Why the CDC’s power to quarantine should worry us (NY Times)
- WHO seeks new leader to rebuild damaged reputation (Reuters)
- Biodefense director talks growing threats, lack of action (GMU)
- 2017 list of priority diseases – World Health Organization (WHO)
- Q&A: The future of genome editing and how it will be regulated (UoV)
SELECT AGENTS
- Missing Russian smallpox researcher (Pandora Report)
- Congress gets answers on Anniston CDP’s Ricin mix-up (AL.com)
- Ebola’s forgotten victims – what we can learn from them (ReliefWeb)
- Modeling the ecological niche of B. anthracis to map anthrax risk (ASTMH)
- Stability of a plant-produced anthrax vaccine candidate (Science Direct)
- Immunobiology of Ebola and Lassa virus infections (Nature)
- Cowpox and Mousepox homologs of Smallpox B22 protein (DRUM)
- Wildlife plague surveillance near China–Kazakh border: 2012–2015 (Wiley)
- Tularemia from a One Health perspective (Springer)
- Modeling rabbit responses to aerosol exposures of B. anthracis spores (Wiley)
MEDICAL COUNTERMEASURES
- WHO vaccine pipeline tracker (WHO)
- Brazil orders 11.5m yellow fever vaccines amid worst outbreak in years (DW)
- New therapeutic targets for Zika virus revealed (DDD)
OUTBREAK NEWS & THREAT SURVEILLANCE
- Expanding veterinary biosurveillance in Washington, DC (Science Direct)
- New medical worry: deadly fungal infection that resists treatment (NPR)
- Deadly yellow fever outbreak in Brazil sparks fears of Zika-like epidemic (FP)
- CDC: Flu now widespread in 37 states (CIDRAP)
- W.H.O. warns of worrisome bird flu in China (NY Times)
- Superbug resistant to last-resort antibiotic shows up in E. coli in China (STAT)
- H7N9 is having a big season…Happy New Year! (Virology Down Under)
- H5N8, other strains strike birds in Europe, Japan, Israel (CIDRAP)
- New bird flu virus type confirmed on German turkey farm (Reuters)
- CDC expands search for rats and people infected with Seoul virus (STAT)
- Brazil yellow fever outbreak kills 40 (Reuters)
RESEARCH & TECH
- Researchers invent a faster and more accurate test for diagnosing Zika (MedXpress)
- India begins outdoor caged trials of genetically modified mosquitoes (Healio)
- Sorry, Silicon Valley, but ‘disruption’ isn’t a cure-all (Boston Globe)
- New sensors can detect single protein molecules (SD)
