See what we’re reading this week at Global Biodefense on topics including the growing plague outbreak in Madagascar, characterization of Francisella tularensis strains, and the public health crisis in Puerto Rico.
POLICY, PRACTICES & POLITICS
- A new public health order for Africa’s health security (The Lancet)
- The Trump administration’s misaligned approach to national biodefense (PR)
- Health security is a crisis. And you can’t negotiate with a disease (Wired)
- Biodefense: Federal efforts to develop biological threat awareness (PR)
- Extracting business intelligence requirements of biosurveillance systems (ATMPH)
- Puerto Rico’s health care is in dire condition, three weeks after Maria (NYT)
BIOPREPAREDNESS
- Are we prepared for the next Ebola-scale epidemic? (Telegraph)
- Global spread of hemorrhagic fever viruses: Predicting pandemics (Springer)
- Study: West Africa at risk of Ebola, similar epidemics (VoA)
- Medical supplies shortage could leave U.S. with deadly pandemic (Newsweek)
- North Korea’s biological weapons program: The known and unknown (Belfer Cntr)
MEDICAL COUNTERMEASURES
- Pharma’s Puerto Rico problems could mean drug shortages: FDA chief (Reuters)
- British biotech’s universal antiviral raises £13M (Labiotech)
- GlaxoSmithKline’s shingles vaccine gets approval in Canada (Reuters)
- Durable end to the HIV/AIDS pandemic likely will require an HIV vaccine (NIAID)
SELECT AGENTS
- The travel diaries of tetanus and botulinum neurotoxins (Toxicon)
- Ask the disease specialist: Why is it so hard to beat the plague? (NPR)
- Development of a novel Francisella tularensis Live Vaccine Strain (bioRxiv)
- Characterization of Yersinia from food and environmental sources (Helda)
- Ebola vaccine gets the nod from British experts (Labiotech)
- Membrane Protein characterization from F. tularensis Strains (mBio)
- Interaction of Francisella tularensis with the host immune system (Frontiers)
OUTBREAK NEWS & THREAT SURVEILLANCE
- Puerto Rico investigates post-hurricane disease outbreak (STAT)
- Seychelles reports imported plague in Madagascar traveler (CIDRAP)
- Yemen’s cholera outbreak worst in history as millionth case looms (Guardian)
- Botswana finds anthrax outbreak after spate of hippo deaths (Reuters)
- China under threat from haemorrhagic African swine fever (MedXpress)
- Superbugs don’t respect borders (PEW)
- Italy culls birds after five H5N8 avian flu outbreaks in October (Reuters)
- Florida confirms 1st Zika infection from mosquito for 2017 (STAT)
RESEARCH & TECH
- A fashionable chemical and biological threat detector-on-a-ring (SD)
- Nursing homes—insight into a network of microbial resistance (Contagion Live)
- Deadly parasite could be stopped by Scottish researchers’ discovery (Labiotech)
- Long sleeves on doctors’ white coats may spread germs (Scientific American)
- Scientists create nanoparticles that help kill drug-resistant bacteria (MSN)
- The MERS CoV receptor and areas for new research (Virology Down Under)
SPECIAL INTEREST
- Was the fall of Rome a biological phenomenon? (LA Times)
- Century-old vial sheds light on one of medicine’s enduring mysteries (STAT)
- NSF eliminates fixed deadlines for biological sciences proposals (NSF)
- Other Transaction Agreement training event (NBC Industry Group)
- My PhD thesis research was a dead end, but that’s why it was important (SciAm)