News highlights on health security threats and countermeasures curated by Global Biodefense
This week’s selections include a prion disease diagnostic innovation challenge, drug repurposing for chemical threat MCMs, and personalized protective biosystems.
POLICY + INITIATIVES
Global Health Security Capacity and Capability Measurement Framework Within the Biological Threat Reduction Program
The Biological Threat Reduction Program recently designed a metrics and evaluation framework to measure its impact and effectiveness in partner countries. The framework focuses on capacity and capability strengthening related to biosafety, biosecurity, and biosurveillance. This is a marked shift from the previous approach, which relied on more tangible outcomes such as the elimination of WMD production assets, delivery devices, munitions, and construction activities. Health Security
Watchdog Group Votes to Punish Syria For Chemical Weapons Use
Eighty-seven countries approved the measure at a meeting in The Hague, with Russia and 14 others opposing. Thirty-four countries abstained. A two-thirds majority of voting member states was needed for passage. The vote followed a pair of OPCW forensic investigations in the past year that officially linked the Syrian government to chemical attacks in 2017 and 2018. Washington Post
WHO, FAO, and OIE Call for Stronger Coordination in Mitigating Health Threats
The Tripartite committed to establishing and supporting a regional coordination mechanism to foster multisectoral coordination in combating health threats and to also establish a Regional One Health Partner Platform to provide strategic advice and foster the implementation of the One Health agenda in Europe and central Asia. World Health Organization
Biden Wants $6.5 Billion for New Health Agency to Speed Treatments
The Biden administration today began to flesh out a proposal for a new agency—modeled on the military’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)—that would seek to speed the development of medical treatments by funding risky, innovative projects. The agency, dubbed ARPA-Health (ARPA-H), would be housed at the National Institutes of Health and have a 2022 budget of $6.5 billion, according to a White House spending request released today. Science
8 Questions the U.S. Senate Should Ask Ambassador Bonnie Jenkins On Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Threats
Of particular interest for the nonproliferation and arms control community, Biden nominated Ambassador Bonnie Jenkins to be the Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security Affairs. Jenkins formerly served in the Obama Administration as the Coordinator for Threat Reduction Programs at State in the Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation (ISN) and brings immense expertise and experience to a broad range of nonproliferation, counterproliferation, and arms control issues. Council on Strategic Risks
USAID and CDC Funding, Activities, and Assessments of Countries’ Capacities to Address Infectious Disease Threats before COVID-19 Onset
In this report GAO examines the 5 fiscal years before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic to assess the status of USAID’s and CDC’s Global Health Security funding and activities and U.S. agencies’ assessments, at the end of fiscal year 2019, of GHSA partner countries’ capacities to address infectious disease threats and of challenges these countries faced in building capacity. GAO
Biden’s Foreign-Policy and Domestic Teams Have a Long-Standing Difference on Pandemic Diplomacy
The Biden administration’s announcement last Monday that it would soon export tens of millions of doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine completed a dramatic policy U-turn. It came after a tumultuous week in which the administration’s carefully constructed pandemic-diplomacy plan fell apart as the COVID-19 crisis in India worsened. The Atlantic
MEDICAL COUNTERMEASURES
Inovio Considers Moving COVID-19 Vaccine Trial Overseas as U.S. Ends Funding
The U.S. government pulled funding this week for a late-stage study testing Inovio’s COVID-19 vaccine candidate. Shares of the drug developer slumped 26.7%, as the decision followed the U.S. FDA in September putting the Phase 3 portion of the mid-to-late stage trial on hold for more information on the device used to inject the shot. The DoD JPEO-CBRND, in coordination with other health officials, will continue to fund Phase 2 development for the vaccine-device regimen. After that, Inovio says it will focus on developing the vaccine outside the U.S. Reuters
Enalare Therapeutics Announces Partnership with BARDA to Advance Development of Its Lead Product ENA-001
The funding will be used to advance development of an intramuscular formulation for ENA-001, a New Chemical Entity with a novel mechanism of action and potential broad applications as an agnostic respiratory stimulant. The funding is provided via the BARDA Division of Research, Innovation, and Ventures’ (DRIVe) Repurposing Drugs in Response to Chemical Threats (ReDIRECT) program to support development of therapeutic candidates as MCMs against a range of chemical threats. BioSpace
Is Russia’s COVID-19 Vaccine Safe? Brazil’s Veto of Sputnik V Sparks Lawsuit Threat and Confusion
A confusing and unusually nasty fight broke out this week over the safety of a Russian COVID-19 vaccine known as Sputnik V after a Brazilian health agency declined last week to authorize its import because of quality and safety concerns, and were threatened with a defamation lawsuit. Brazilian Health Regulatory Agency (Anvisa) defended its decision, maintaining that documentation from some of the Russian facilities making Sputnik V shows that one of its two doses contains adenoviruses capable of replication, a potential danger to vaccine recipients. The vaccine uses two different adenoviruses, which cause the common cold, to deliver the gene for the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVD-19. Both are supposed to be stripped of a key gene that allows them to replicate. Science and STAT
Will SARS-CoV-2 Variants of Concern Affect the Promise of Vaccines?
Initial optimism regarding the development of COVID-19 vaccines has been tempered by the emergence of new variants of SARS-CoV-2. Will vaccination be able to contain the pandemic? How can we best optimize the limited supplies of vaccines available and what should future COVID-19 vaccines look like? Nature Reviews Immunology
BIOSECURITY + BIOPREPAREDNESS
How COVID-19 Prepared the Military for Future Biological Warfare
As the military concentrated on fighting violent extremists in the Middle East in recent years, chemical and biological threats weren’t a pressing threat and the Defense Department largely put those activities “on a low simmer”. The pandemic forced the military to relearn old skills for operating in compromised environments. Military.com
Addressing Biological Threats in the DOD CB Defense Program
Some national security analysts are suggesting that the United States should re-examine its preparations for deliberate biological releases, and in particular, biological terrorism. The reasoning seems to be, if a natural disease outbreak like COVID-19 can be so devastating, surely a violent extremist group, armed with the latest technology and access to biological organisms, could duplicate such an event. This concern that COVID-19 has demonstrated vulnerabilities of the general public to biological weapons is unfounded. Let’s get past the dubious point of whether any sub-state group could actually develop a biological weapon for the purposes of mass casualties. USAF Center for Strategic Deterrence Studies
NIH Funding for Vaccine Readiness Before the COVID-19 Pandemic
This work examines the maturity of ten technologies employed in candidate vaccines (as of July 2020) and NIH funding for published research on these technologies from 2000–2019. NIH funding contributed substantially to the advance of technologies available for rapid development of COVID-19 vaccines, suggesting the importance of sustained public sector funding for foundational technologies in the rapid response to emerging public health threats. Vaccines
SELECT AGENTS + CBRNE THREATS
Achieving Data Quality and Integrity in Maximum Containment Laboratories
To help address the challenges associated with ensuring data quality and integrity in regulated studies conducted in BSL-4 laboratories to support MCM development, FDA and the University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston National Laboratory collaborate to provide an annual training course June 14-18 on how to meet GLP requirements in BSL-4 facilities. FDA
DARPA-funded Fabric Protects Against Chemical, Biologic Threats
FLIR Systems was awarded a contract potentially worth more than $20 million under DARPA’s Personalized Protective Biosystems program. Under the PPB award, FLIR will rapidly develop fabrics with embedded catalysts and chemicals that can be incorporated into boots, gloves and eye protection. Defense Systems
Role of the DoD CWMD Community in the Biological Threat Environment
The significant impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is altering national security posture regarding biothreats. The wide-reaching and destabilizing impact that infectious disease outbreaks can have on the world may result in greater interest by terrorist organizations in developing or utilizing bioweapons. Nefarious actors may seek to exploit security vulnerabilities in laboratories currently housing dangerous pathogens to obtain such samples. Adding to this problem is the increasing number of high containment facilities worldwide that house the most dangerous pathogens, some of which lack suitable security measures to protect their pathogen stockpiles. Real Clear Defense
Comparison of Three Non-Human Primate Aerosol Models for Glanders, Caused by Burkholderia Mallei
AGMs provided an optimal model of acute, lethal glanders; and the selection of this NHP affords researchers with a single NHP model for studies on severe inhalational disease by both of the pathogenic Burkholderia species, B. mallei (glanders) and B. pseudomallei (melioidosis). Microbial Pathogenisis
Annual Report on Compliance with the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC)
This report Condition (10)(C) Report is current with updates as of December 31, 2020 and addresses continued efforts throughout the reporting period to address CWC noncompliance by Syria, Russia, Iran, and Burma. State Department
SURVEILLANCE + DETECTION
UNICEF Guinea Ebola Situation Report
As of April 24, 2021, 16 cases of Ebola were confirmed in Guinea, including 5 confirmed deaths and 10 recoveries. 8,082 people have been inoculated (including 2,434 frontline staff) since the official launch of the vaccination on February 23, 2021. ReliefWeb
Detect to Protect Challenge: A Live Animal Test for CWD
This innovation challenge, sponsored by Sensis on behalf of the USDA, invites innovators to submit their idea for a diagnostic test for the early detection of Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) in a live animal, prior to clinical signs. Challenge.gov
Note on Growth Rate of SARS-CoV-2 B.1.1.7
It is likely that B.1.1.7 infection is associated with lower Ct values, suggesting higher viral RNA load, than ‘wild type’ infection. However, lower Ct values do not necessarily equate to an increase in infectious virus. Lower Ct values may indicate faster replication, a change in the relative expression of a particular gene target, or a change in replication kinetics. Competitive replication assays in primary human airway epithelial cells or cell culture support a slight advantage in B.1.1.7 over other SARS-CoV-2 variants. Data are inconclusive on whether the duration of viral shedding is different in B.1.1.7 compared to other variants. NERVTAG
HISTORICAL REFLECTIONS
Serbian Project on Lessons Learned from Europe’s Last Smallpox Epidemic Unveiled at Visions du Réel
The film’s unique aspect comes from its source material and archive footage: the filmmaker is assembling images scanned for the first time from 50-year-old film reels. These were mostly given by one source: Radio Television of Serbia, which inherited the huge archive from the Yugoslavian Television, yet all of the footage related to the smallpox epidemic was on yet-to-be-developed film. Variety
North Korea and China Accused America of Biowarfare During the Korean War
In early 1951, Chinese media made repeated claims that America was preparing biological weapons for use against the Chinese and North Korean people. The U.S. grant of immunity for Shiro Ishii, former director of Imperial Japan’s biological warfare center Unit 731, played a central role in these accusations; specifically, that the Japanese and American forces were collaborating in the production of bacterial weapons for use on the war front. The National Interest
Could 1960s Smallpox Vaccination Strategies Help Eradicate Covid Today?
There are some key differences with smallpox that made it ideal for ring vaccination compared to Covid-19. When someone has smallpox, you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to recognize the characteristic skin lesions. Villagers could report possible cases without even having a confirmatory blood test. Not so with Covid-19, since the virus could be confused with multiple other respiratory illnesses, and even some cases are asymptomatic. Forbes
Illinois Supreme Court History: School Vaccinations and Smallpox
In 1918, an outbreak of smallpox occurred in Granite City, and the school and local board of health denied admission to Clifton Hagler and others because they had not been vaccinated. The case reached the Illinois Supreme Court in Hagler v. Larner, 284 Ill. 547 (1918). The Court ruled in favor of the school district and the local board of health, arguing that “no child has a constitutional right to carry to others in school the loathsome disease of smallpox. Vaccination is now recognized as the only safe prevention of the spread of smallpox. It is approved by medical science generally and by governmental authorities throughout the civilized world.” Illinois Courts Connect
A Revolution Is Sweeping the Science of Ancient Diseases
If you know exactly how and where to look, you can find DNA from ancient pathogens in old bones. Over the past decade, scientists have used ancient DNA to study diseases including the plague, syphilis, hepatitis B, and a mysterious “cocoliztli” epidemic—all using techniques honed through decoding the Neanderthal genome. A boom in ancient pathogen DNA is uncovering hints of forgotten and even extinct diseases. The Atlantic
IN MEMORIAM
Thomas Brock, Whose Discovery Paved the Way for PCR Tests, Dies at 94
In 1966, he found heat-resistant bacteria in a hot spring at Yellowstone National Park. That led to the development of the chemical process behind the coronavirus test. New York Times
