News highlights on health security threats and countermeasures curated by Global Biodefense
This week’s selections include the return of Ebola virus in the DRC, development of a National Pandemic Prediction Agency, and an eye towards a darker bioweapons future.
POLICY + INITIATIVES
COVID, Choices and a Darker Biological Weapons Future?
Major advances in the life sciences in recent decades raise the possibility of technical improvements that would make Cold War-era biological arms more effective or herald a new, more targetable generation of these weapons. But it is wrong to conclude that the 21st century will be a bioweapons century and we should avoid falling into the trap of technological determinism. Militarily useful biological weapons programs still require sophisticated organization including funding, contracts, equipment, facilities, and considerable expertise. Such programs are beyond most non-state actors and require State support. As such, it is useful to consider the incentives and disincentives that can – and do already – shape states’ strategic choices. UNIDR
Accelerated COVID-19 Vaccine Development Status and Efforts to Address Manufacturing Challenges
As of January 31, 2021, companies had released 63.7 million doses—about 32 percent of the 200 million doses that, according to OWS, companies with EUAs have been contracted to provide by March 31, 2021. Vaccine manufacturing supply chains have been strained by the global demand for certain goods and workforce disruptions caused by the global pandemic. GAO
Improving US-EU Effectiveness in Health and Health Security
A coordinated US-EU plan to address health security research gaps will help in the continuing response to the SARS-CoV-2 virus, as well as for future health security threats. Potential research areas include: Better data collection and learning from clinical care; Behavioral norms and how to introduce public health measures that will be adopted; and Vaccine effectiveness and mixing and matching vaccines. Wilson Center
It’s Time for a National Pandemic Prediction Agency
A federal office that collects outbreak data, models epidemics, and spreads the word to the public could keep the next Covid from being another Covid. “To improve the United States’ preparedness, the (Biden) Administration will work to secure funding and Congressional support to establish an integrated, National Center for Epidemic Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics to modernize global early warning and trigger systems to prevent, detect, and respond to biological threats.” Wired
Global Fund Contributions to Health Security in Ten Countries, 2014–20
The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria is a robust vertical global health programme. The extent to which vertical programmes financially support health security has not been investigated. This research examined budgets for work in Kenya, Uganda, Vietnam, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Guatemala, Guinea, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone to quantify the extent to which the budgets support health security. The Lancet Global Health
MEDICAL COUNTERMEASURES
Biden Administration Purchases Additional Doses of COVID-19 Vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna
The orders placed today bring the vaccine purchased by the U.S. government from these two companies to a total of 600 million doses, enough to vaccinate 300 million people. Each company is delivering 300 million doses in regular increments through the end of July 2021. Each company will leverage U.S.-based manufacturing capacity to fill, finish and ship vials as the bulk material is produced. HHS
GSK, CureVac to Make COVID-19 Vaccines Aimed at New Variants
GSK plans to invest $181 million to support the research of CureVac to develop new mRNA vaccines targeting emerging variants of COVID-19 amid concerns that some mutations are making the virus harder to combat. GSK also said it will help make up to 100 million doses of the company’s existing COVID-19 vaccine candidate this year. AP
FDA Approves Radiation Exposure Treatment
On 28 January, FDA approved Amgen’s NPLATE (romiplostim) for Hematopoietic Syndrome of Acute Radiation Syndrome (HS-ARS) to increase survival in adults and pediatric (including neonate) patients acutely exposed to myelosuppressive doses of radiation. Research was conducted in collaboration with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the BARDA. FDA
Janssen Investigational COVID-19 Vaccine: Interim Analysis of Phase 3 Data
The interim analysis assessed 468 cases of symptomatic COVID-19 among 44,325 adult volunteers in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, South Africa, and the United States. The investigational vaccine was reportedly 66% effective at preventing the study’s combined endpoints of moderate and severe COVID-19 at 28 days post-vaccination among all volunteers, including those infected with an emerging viral variant. National Institutes of Health
Two Billion Nanobodies. One Global Pandemic. Go.
A UCSF team has engineered a tiny antibody capable of neutralizing the coronavirus. With Big Pharma laser-focused on developing vaccines and traditional antibodies, finding a quick path to commercialization has proved challenging. UCSF
Containers Used for Ebola Vaccines Could Help With COVID-19
A giant thermos called Arktek widely used during the Ebola 2014-2015 outbreak, capable of maintaining arctic temperatures for weeks on end without any power, may be the answer to keeping and distributing vaccines safely for the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Interesting Engineering
On-Demand Biomanufacturing of Protective Conjugate Vaccines
Cell-free protein synthesis offers opportunities to accelerate vaccine development and enable decentralized, cold chain–independent biomanufacturing by using cell lysates instead of living cells, to synthesize proteins in vitro. The proteins can be freeze-dried for distribution at ambient temperature and reconstituted by just adding water, and circumvent biosafety concerns associated with the use of living cells outside of a controlled laboratory setting. Science Advances
BIOSECURITY + BIOPREPAREDNESS
Life-Science Research and Biosecurity Concerns in the Russian Federation
Research involving advanced biotechnologies present opportunities for public-health advancement, but their dual-use capabilities raise biosecurity concerns that carry global economic and security implications. While experts have raised such concerns about possible Russian misuse of biotechnologies, Russia is not a top-tier nation for life sciences research, by many metrics. The Nonproliferation Review
Lessons from the Open Source Hardware Response to COVID-19
Thousands of individuals met the moment of need during the pandemic to activate engineers, medical professionals, logistics experts, and regulatory specialists on open source hardware (OSH) to quickly create, collectively iterate, and disseminate designs for medical supplies. Once the designs reached a stable point, makerspaces, hackerspaces, university machine shops, and small batch manufacturers began production in communities across the country. Wilson Center
The Changing Needs of the Public Health Lab
Due to funding issues, a retiring workforce and higher than average turnover rate, the United States public health workforce was estimated be understaffed by more than 250,000 people by 2020. Currently, public health laboratories are trying to deal with an unprecedented volume of testing due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Job openings will most likely have a strong focus on current or new molecular detection techniques. ASM
SELECT AGENTS + CBRNE THREATS
New Ebola Case in Congo Likely Linked to Virus That Remained Active in Survivor’s Semen
A woman who died of the Ebola virus in eastern Congo on Feb. 3 was “almost certainly” infected by her husband, who survived an outbreak that ended in June, according to the WHO’s emergency response coordinator in Africa. Washington Post
Ebola Kills Second Person in Congo in a Week
A second person who had contracted the Ebola virus died this week in the Democratic Republic of Congo, marking another outbreak just three months after the nation outlasted the virus’s second-worst outbreak in history. NPR
Discovery of RTA Ricin Subunit Inhibitors
Ricin is a potent toxin derived from the castor bean plant and comprises two subunits, RTA and RTB. Over the years, many groups attempted to propose small-molecules that bind to the RTA active site, the catalytic chain. Despite such efforts, there is still no effective countermeasure against ricin poisoning. The computational study carried out in the present work renews the discussion about small-molecules that may inhibit this toxin. PubMed
The Future of Weapons of Mass Destruction
An apparent retreat from nuclear arms control, unraveling of the JCPOA, continued expansion and enhancement of nuclear arsenals in North Korea and South Asia, and recent extensive use of chemical weapons are reducing legal, normative, and practical barriers to WMD proliferation and use. The increasing and often contentious wielding of U.S. financial clout through financial sanctions is sowing the seeds of its own demise, promising to diminish over time the utility of this powerful weapon against proliferation and other bad behavior. National Intelligence University .pdf
In Momentous Hearing for Navalny, Moments of Absurdity
In a roughly 30-minute speech given from the courtroom’s glass-walled holding pen, Navalny cut into his main opponent, Putin, whom Navalny has repeatedly blamed for his near-fatal poisoning with a military-grade nerve agent in Siberia last summer. The poison was allegedly administered via his underpants, by a secret team from the Federal Security Service — an accusation the Kremlin has dismissed. RFERL
FBI Called in After Hacker Tries to Poison Tampa-Area City’s Water
Someone had taken remote control of a plant operator’s machine – and in just a few minutes, they increased the level of sodium hydroxide in the city’s drinking water by a factor of 100. After spiking the caustic substance to unsafe levels, the hacker immediately left the system. NPR
SURVEILLANCE + DETECTION
African Swine Fever Mutates, Heightened Biosecurity Measures Set To Be Put In Place
Australia’s chief vet Mark Schipp said the new variant could have been established through the use of an illegal vaccine. “As with any virus, we expect that there will be mutations and evolution of the virus in new environments, and it may be that this is a natural variation,” he said. “But the deletions that we’re seeing in this virus are the same deletions that are being used in the development of vaccines.” ABC
Electrochemical Detection of Bioterrorism Agents: A Review of Diagnostics and Sensors for Class A Bioweapons
The ability to detect the agent of infection is a key factor in the success of isolating and managing a biohazard incident. Electrochemical sensing displays many distinct advantages, such as its low limit of detection, low cost to run, rapid generation of results, and in many instances portability. All of these characteristics are important for the rapid mobilization of detection programs in response to an attack. Microsystems & Nanoengineering
What Will the Future of Biological Warfare Look Like?
While still years away from potential deployment, Army Research Office scientists and academics have demonstrated a massive breakthrough by combining cellulose with a biologically-based protein-secreting yeast to identify specific materials in the air. “Our premise was to engineer living systems like cells or bacteria to use novel materials that could be used in a non biological circumstance.” The National Interest
The COVID-19 Testing Toolkit
The COVID-19 Testing Toolkit provides information about the different types of COVID-19 tests with EUA as well as what testing services are available, how they work, and what is known about their accuracy. The Toolkit provides resources for employers or decision makers to develop testing strategies to fit their testing needs. Center for Health Security
Acute Flaccid Myelitis: Thanks to COVID-19 Measures, Doctors See Fewer Cases of Polio-Like Condition in Children
Spikes in AFM cases have been documented in 2014, 2016, and 2018, with cases largely occurring between August and November. But 2020 brought masks, physical distancing, activity restrictions, and, in many communities, still-shuttered schools. The result: There were just 30 confirmed AFM cases in 2020, compared to 238 in 2018. STAT
How CRISPR Might Help Diagnose and Halt Dangerous Outbreaks Faster
DARPA’s DIGET program has two tracks for developing devices to detect causes of sicknesses, with a focus on sepsis, respiratory, febrile, vector-borne and gastrointestinal illnesses. DARPA awarded MRIGlobal a DIGET prime contract in mid-January to work on both projects, along with multiple partners, including Mammoth Bioscience. Axios
HISTORICAL REFLECTIONS
Smallpox Used to Kill Millions of People Every Year. Here’s How Humans Beat It.
For all the devastation Covid-19 has wrought, it’s hard to escape the feeling that it could have been so much worse. Imagine that instead of killing less than 1 percent of those infected, it killed 30 percent — and that it would take centuries, instead of months, to develop a vaccine against it. That’s smallpox. Vox
George W. Bush Set Out to Vaccinate Health Care Workers in Case of a Smallpox Bioattack. It Was a Disaster.
The goals of the program’s Phase I, as it was announced in late 2002, were to immunize 500,000 military personnel on a mandatory basis and to persuade 500,000 people who would be on the front lines in the case of a bioterror attack—health care workers, public health officials, emergency personnel—to take the vaccine voluntarily. In the end, the program was a failure—and, given some reports of health care workers’ hesitancy in the course of the COVID vaccine rollout, perhaps an instructive one. By January 2004, less than 40,000 frontline health care workers opted to take the vaccine. Slate
SPECIAL INTEREST
COVID-19 Clinical Update #47 with Dr. Daniel Griffin
Daniel Griffin joins host Vincent Racaniello and company for a review of phase 3 results for Novavax and J&J vaccines, transmission in K-12 settings in Wisconsin, data on Lilly and Regeneron monoclonal antibody therapy, and a study of colchicine for treatment of disease. This Week in Virology