See what we’re reading this week at Global Biodefense on topics including pandemic prediction, select agent detection, and the backstories on how leading diseases got their names.
BIOPREPAREDNESS
- Pandemic countermeasures risk communications exercise scenario (JHSPH CHS)
- Is it possible to predict the next pandemic? (The Atlantic)
- Rehearsing for a pandemic that will come ‘sooner than we expect’ (WaPo)
- US roadmap for international action to prevent next pandemic (PATH)
- HHS’s preparedness for and response to the 2017 hurricane season (BN)
- Strengthening the disaster resilience of academic biomedical research (NAP)
POLICY, PRACTICES & POLITICS
- ASM urges supplemental public health emergency funding (ASM)
- How a blunder over Robert Mugabe has cost the WHO goodwill it needs (STAT)
- Ethical issues in national pandemic influenza plans (Euro J of Pub Health)
- Global Health Security – WHO & PATH reports and GHSA Meeting (PR)
MEDICAL COUNTERMEASURES
- Violence in Syria reportedly destroys cold room and vaccines (UNICEF)
- Building the antibiotic pipeline for resistant pathogens (Battelle)
- Andy Serkis’s Breathe is a haunting reminder of the pre-vaccine era (Conversation)
- The antibiotic resistance crisis resolved by bacteriophages (Reflections on IPC)
- Structural explanation for low effectiveness of influenza H3N2 vaccine (PLOS)
- CDC panel recommends a new shingles vaccine (NY Times)
- Roche, Warp Drive form antibiotics pact (C&EN)
- Typhoid vaccine set to have ‘huge impact’ (BBC)
SELECT AGENTS
- Mapping neutralizing epitope clusters on RiVax (ASM)
- Synthesizing biological threats – A small leap from horsepox to smallpox (Contagion)
- Screening of full human anthrax LF neutralizing antibody in transgenic mice (NCBI)
- LCMS detection of ricin in forensically relevant samples (Toxicon)
- Fast on-site visual detection of active ricin (Analytical Chemistry)
- Bacillus anthracis lethal toxin negatively modulates ILC3 function (PLOS)
- A monoclonal–monoclonal antibody based capture ELISA for abrin (Toxins)
OUTBREAK NEWS & THREAT SURVEILLANCE
- More than 1,300 suspected plague cases reported in Madagascar (CIDRAP)
- Puerto Rico textbook example of how waterborne disease outbreaks spread (Quartz)
- Plague kills 124 in Madagascar, cities most affected – report (Reuters)
- Global measles deaths fall, but elimination goals far off (Reuters)
- Aid group says Madagascar plague outbreak yet to reach peak (ABC News)
RESEARCH & TECH
- Superbug ‘sleuthing’ finds secret outbreaks (BBC)
- Point-of-care testing for influenza (ASM)
- $1.4 million in grants announced to fight disease in bats (Seattle Times)
- Dynamic decision process for evaluating pandemic flu intervention strategies (VHJ)
- ‘Incredible’ editing of life’s building blocks (BBC)
HISTORICAL REFLECTIONS
- Why do we call it that? Backstories of seven disease names (STAT)
- Viking trade in red squirrels may have spread leprosy (BBC)
- Historical context of the origins of the Biological Weapons Convention (UCL)
- From vomiting kids to evil spirits—how infamous diseases got their names (Science)
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