See what we’re reading this week at Global Biodefense on topics including a pandemic bond fund, Europe’s AMR action plan, and using drones to deliver medical supplies.
POLICY, PRACTICES & POLITICS
- World Bank launches ‘pandemic bond’ to tackle major outbreaks (Reuters)
- Preventing pandemics and the necessity of funding prevention (Pandora Report)
- US retreats from its lead on epidemic preparedness (Yale Global)
- More lawmakers want the Army to hold a hearing on Zika vaccine pricing (STAT)
- WHO spends more on travel than on key diseases. That’s actually okay. (WaPo)
- Lessons from Zika and Ebola: Global health is a defense issue (Geopolitical Monitor)
- Bioviolence: A very brief history (Bifurcated Needle)
- Europe announces new action plan on AMR (CIDRAP)
SELECT AGENTS
- How to treat Ebola virus infections? A lesson from the field (Virology)
- Ebola aftermath: Restoring trust in hospitals in Guinea (USAID)
- VCIP135 dictates duration of botulinum neurotoxin A intoxication (PNAS)
MEDICAL COUNTERMEASURES
- Cholera vaccine faces major test in war-torn Yemen (Science)
- Antiviral inhibits epidemic SARS, MERS and animal coronaviruses (Medical Xpress)
- CDC: 2016-17 flu season was long, vaccine protection fairly low (CIDRAP)
- MerLion, Dstl score DTRA grant to support biothreat antibiotic development (GEN)
- Clinical laboratory values as early indicators of Ebola primate infection (EID)
- The next generation of flu vaccines? Just peel-and-stick (LabRoots)
- Stability of hemagglutinin: toward a universal influenza vaccine (BDJN)
OUTBREAK NEWS & THREAT SURVEILLANCE
- Yemen’s cholera outbreak grows by 5,000 cases per day (CIDRAP)
- India: 8,648 swine flu cases and 345 deaths reported (Doctor NDTV)
- How war brought cholera and polio back to the Middle East (WaPo)
- Mutant strains of polio vaccine now cause more paralysis than wild polio (NPR)
- Influenza D in animal species in Guangdong Province, Southern China (CDC)
- Experts find new strain of cholera that spreads faster (Deccan Chronicle)
- A new bat-HKU2–like coronavirus in swine, China, 2017 (Avian Flu)
RESEARCH + TECH
- We should use drones to deliver medicine—here’s why (MIT Tech Review)
- UK MOD signs into service Thales biological surveillance solution (CBRNe World)
- Researchers develop yeast-based tool for worldwide pathogen detection (Phys.org)
- Meta-analysis shows rise in drug-resistant bacteria at the Hajj (CIDRAP)
