News highlights on health security threats and countermeasures curated by Global Biodefense
This week’s selections include re-emergence of Ebola virus in Guinea and the DRC, legal analysis of mandatory vaccination, and the first human cases of H5N8 avian flu in Russia.
POLICY + INITIATIVES
Scientists Are Trying to Spot New Viruses Before They Cause Pandemics
The new Global Immunological Observatory envisions an immense surveillance system that can check blood from all over the world for the presence of antibodies to hundreds of viruses at once. That way, when the next pandemic washes over us, scientists will have detailed, real-time information on how many people have been infected by the virus and how their bodies responded. New York Times
We Need a Global Outbreak Investigation Team—Now
The WHO’s fact-finding mission into the origins of Covid-19 was limited and late. But there are models to help prepare for the next crisis. “We should have international agreement that any novel unexplained epidemic event with high international impact will be rapidly and impartially investigated using all the tools of the latest global science.” Wired
What Will Be the Contours of the Biden Administration’s Global Health Agenda?
The administration has already taken several actions including: releasing a National Strategy on COVID-19 and Pandemic Preparedness; issuing a National Security Memorandum and Executive Order on U.S. global leadership on COVID-19 and global health security; restoring funding for and membership in WHO; joining COVAX; and rescinding the Mexico City Policy. Yet the extent to which the administration will seek to champion core global health programs beyond COVID-19 and preparedness remains unknown, as does the level of support from Congress. KFF
Can Troops Be Ordered to Take the COVID Vaccine? Analyzing the Law
Army Judge Advocate Major Whitney L. Wiles unpacks the legal architecture for mandatory troop vaccination. In situations involving vaccinations with only “emergency use” authorization, that statute requires “informed consent” – which military members can withhold. Lawfire
The C.D.C. Needs to Set Air Guidelines Now for Workplaces, Scientists Say.
Action on air standards in high-risk settings like meatpacking plants and prisons are even more urgently needed now because vaccination efforts are off to a slow start, more contagious virus variants are circulating in the United States, and the rate of Covid-19 infections and deaths remains high despite a recent drop in new cases, the scientists said in a letter to Biden administration officials. New York Times and CIDRAP
MEDICAL COUNTERMEASURES
On-Demand Biomanufacturing of Protective Conjugate Vaccines
Conjugate vaccines are among the most effective methods for preventing bacterial infections. However, existing manufacturing approaches limit access to conjugate vaccines due to centralized production and cold chain distribution requirements. To address these limitations, researchers developed a modular technology for in vitro conjugate vaccine expression (iVAX) in portable, freeze-dried lysates from detoxified, nonpathogenic Escherichia coli. Science Advances
In Lab Experiment, Pfizer-BioNTech Vaccine Less Potent Against Coronavirus Variant
The Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine loses some potency against the coronavirus variant that first appeared in South Africa. The lab experiment only looked at one arm of the immune system, neutralizing antibodies, so it’s possible that combined with T cells and other immune fighters the reduced antibody response can still mount enough activity to have an impact. Vaccine makers are already working on booster shots specifically for the B.1.351 variant. STAT News
Ebola: DR Congo Launches Butembo Vaccination Campaign
An Ebola vaccination campaign has been launched in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo after an outbreak earlier this month. A previous Ebola outbreak there was declared over in June 2020 after having claimed the lives of 2,287 people since August 2018. About 8,000 doses of the Ervebo vaccine, which were kept after the outbreak, are being used in the latest inoculation campaign. BBC News
WHO Says More Than 11,000 Ebola Vaccines Will Go to Guinea
11,000 Ebola vaccines are being prepared in Geneva and are expected to arrive in Guinea over the weekend. An additional 8,600 doses will be shipped from the United States. The vaccination campaign could start as early as Monday. The WHO has called on the sub-region to be on high alert and surveillance in neighboring countries is ongoing. AP
Delay a Shot? Skip One? Vaccine-Dosing Messaging Is a Nightmare.
The coronavirus is a moving target, and both vaccines and vaccine protocols will almost certainly need to shift along with it. But some experts worry that the debate over dosing strategies will undercut public trust in the vaccines themselves. In the race to protect billions of people, vaccine makers don’t need an immunologically perfect schedule—they need an effective one. But any regimen needs both transparent science and public trust to succeed. The Atlantic
BIOSECURITY + BIOPREPAREDNESS
One Planet, One Health
The key to a spillover becoming an international crisis is a combination of transmissibility and virulence. Species susceptibility is one aspect of studying emerging diseases, as it helps focus surveillance efforts on the appropriate animal populations. Furthermore, it is critical to appreciate all the factors that can make an animal stressed, which also adds to its susceptibility. Stress is a physiological response in the body, and some stress hormones, like cortisol, are known to suppress parts of the immune system, such as the inflammatory response. Being in a cage at a wet market is one source of stress for an animal, but there are many others. Los Alamos National Laboratory
Preparing for the Next Pandemic: Early Lessons From COVID-19
Some of the capabilities established in response to COVID-19 should remain in place, including and especially reinforced early alert frameworks that can serve as a proverbial tripwire that a novel virus, vector-borne disease or other bio threat has surfaced. These early alert systems are a global tripwire framework that all countries must contribute to and believe in. Similarly, once the tendencies of vaccine and resource nationalism are overcome, countries must realize that in the face of pandemic and other global threats, we are in effect as strong as the weakest link. Brookings Institution
A Recipe for Disaster? Dual-Use Knowledge During COVID
Popular past examples of research of concern include the chemical synthesis of polio in 2002, the reconstruction of the causative viral pathogen for the 1918 influenza pandemic in 2005, the H5N1 avian influenza gain-of-function experiments in 2012, and the synthetic re-construction of a horsepox virus in 2018. Now the debate is reignited with the Jan 29, 2021 publication in Nature Protocols of detailed protocols on how researchers can engineer variants of SARS-CoV-2. Council on Strategic Risks
Guinea Knows How to Fight Ebola. But Can It Handle Four Outbreaks at Once?
Medical centers are already stretched thin as Guinea confronts the coronavirus pandemic on top of yellow fever and measles outbreaks. People are tired of locking down and losing work in an era of seemingly endless restrictions. And the flare-up emerged where the last epidemic started: a region near the borders with Liberia, Sierra Leone and Ivory Coast. Washington Post
SELECT AGENTS + CBRNE THREATS
The Other 4+1: Biological, Nuclear, Climatic, Digital, and Internal Dangers
This paper proposes that the U.S. focus intently on a separate 4+1 list of dangers: biological weapons and pandemics, nuclear weapons, climate change, nefarious aspects of digital technologies, and America’s own weakening internal cohesion and strength. This last one is different from the others in that it chiefly concerns the United States itself, so it is the “plus one” on the list. Brookings Institution
Working for Syria’s Chemical Weapons Program and Spilling Its Secrets to the CIA
When civil war broke out in Syria in 2011, CIA officials were seized with the fear that Damascus might lose control of its vast stores of sarin and other deadly nerve agents. As revealed in the new book “Red Line,” those fears were bolstered by more than 14 years of secret reports fed to the agency by one of Syria’s top military scientists. Washington Post
Threatcasting Lab Envisions Digital Mass Destabilization, Provides Strategic Insights for The Future
The lab’s mission is to imagine future problems and solutions so plans can be prepared for them. The latest report — on digital weapons of mass destabilization — was commissioned by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, a Department of Defense agency tasked with countering weapons of mass destruction like chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear weapons. Arizona State University
How Biden Has Already Changed Disaster Management and the US COVID-19 Response
In direct contrast to his predecessor, President Joe Biden is treating this as a national-scale crisis requiring a comprehensive national strategy and federal resources. If that sounds familiar, it should: It’s a return to a traditional – and in many ways proven – approach to disaster management. CBRNE Central
SURVEILLANCE + DETECTION
Guinea Declares Ebola Epidemic: First Deaths Since 2016
Five years after it was declared Ebola-free, officials in Guinea declared an outbreak Sunday after at least three people died in recent weeks from the Ebola virus. Four more people were confirmed to be infected. Health officials have traced this latest outbreak to a funeral at the beginning of February for a nurse from a rural health facility. Six people who attended the funeral reported Ebola-like symptoms; two later died. The other four have been hospitalized. NPR
Bird Flu: Russia Detects First Case of H5N8 Bird Flu in Humans
Russian officials said on Saturday that seven workers at a poultry plant in its south had been infected with H5N8 avian influenza virus, in what appears to be the first case of the pathogen being passed from fowl to human. There is no sign of onward human-to-human transmission so far. Siberia’s Vector Institute said on Saturday it would start developing human tests and a vaccine against H5N8, RIA news agency reported. BBC News and Reuters
Government Rushes Virus Gene-Mapping as Mutations Spread
The U.S. is scrambling to expand DNA mapping of coronavirus samples taken from patients to identify potentially deadlier mutations that are starting to spread around the country. Officials said the administration will spend $200 million for the CDC to increase genomic sequencing to about 25,000 samples a week, or triple the current level. On a parallel track, a U.S. Army biodefense institute will increase coronavirus gene mapping to 10,000 samples a week by the end of the month, up from about 4,000. Associated Press
HISTORICAL REFLECTIONS
President Nixon’s Decision to Renounce the U.S. Offensive Biological Weapons Program
By the late 1960s, the United States and the Soviet Union had both acquired advanced BW capabilities. The U.S. biological weapons complex consisted of a research and development laboratory at Fort Detrick in Maryland, an open-air testing site at Dugway Proving Ground in Utah, and a production facility at Pine Bluff Arsenal in Arkansas that manufactured biological warfare agents and loaded them into bomblets, bombs, and spray tanks. Center for the Study of Weapons of Mass Destruction
