News highlights on health security threats and countermeasures curated by Global Biodefense
This week’s selections include detection of H10N3 in humans; a new VC arm for BARDA; and how animal disease labs can be better utilized to prevent future pandemics.
POLICY + INITIATIVES
WHO to Hold Pandemic Treaty Talks in November
Member States agreed to meet again in November, at a special session of the World Health Assembly, to discuss a global treaty to strengthen preparedness for health emergencies and give early outbreak investigative authority to the international organization. CIDRAP, World Health Organization
BARDA Looks to Get the Jump on Next Pandemic with VC Arm Targeting ‘Transformative’ Tech
BARDA, the US’s top pandemic preparedness agency, is launching its own VC fund to invest in technologies that could be deployed against future outbreaks or other public health emergencies. It follows a similar model to other public health VCs, such as the Gates Foundation’s fund, giving capital to early-stage companies with promising platform technologies in exchange for assurances they use it partly for infectious diseases that might not have a significant market. Endpoint News
HIV: 4 Decades of Progress and Setbacks
Dozens of countries achieved or exceeded ambitious 2020 UN targets to control HIV—but services are still out of reach for many of the world’s most vulnerable, confirms a new UNAIDS report marking the 40-year anniversary since the first HIV/AIDS cases were discovered. Global Health Now
Proposed Limits on Public Health Authority: Dangerous for Public Health
In recent months, at least 15 state legislatures have passed or are considering measures to limit severely the legal authority of public health agencies to protect the public from serious illness, injury, and death. Measures include prohibiting mask mandates, including in cases of active tuberculosis; blocking the ability to close businesses to prevent spread of disease; banning use of quarantine; blocking hospitals and universities from requiring vaccinations from employees or dormitory residents; and setting arbitrary time limits on public health actions. NACCHO .pdf
The U.S. Government and Global Health Security
The COVID-19 pandemic has led to an intensified focus in the U.S. and elsewhere on the importance of addressing global health security going forward. Several global health security bills have been introduced in Congress calling for more funding and U.S. action. President Biden’s initial FY 2022 budget request includes nearly $1 billion for global health security, and the administration has also taken several steps to bolster U.S. global health security efforts, as outlined in this report. KFF
The Name Game for Coronavirus Variants Just Got a Little Easier
Each variant of concern will be given a name from the Greek alphabet, in a bid to both simplify the public discussion and to strip some of the stigma from the emergence of new variants. Under the new WHO naming scheme, B.1.1.7, the variant first identified in Britain, will be known as Alpha and B.1.351, the variant first spotted in South Africa, will be Beta. P.1, the variant first detected in Brazil, will be Gamma and B.1.671.2, the so-called Indian variant, is Delta. When the 24 letters of the Greek alphabet have been exhausted, another series like it will be announced. STAT
Biden’s First Budget Request Seeks $6.5 billion for FDA
The agency said the $6.5 billion budget would be used for “investments in critical public health infrastructure, core food safety and medical product safety programs and other vital public health programs,” which includes $3.6 billion in budgeting authority and $2.9 billion in user fees. RAPS Regulatory Focus
MEDICAL COUNTERMEASURES
Johnson & Johnson Documented Contamination Risks at Emergent BioSolutions Plant Months Before Vaccine Was Ruined
The House Oversight select subcommittee on the coronavirus crisis, which is investigating the manufacturing failures by Emergent BioSolutions, released a staff report as part of a hearing Wednesday which documented in new detail Emergent’s persistent problems with contamination, unsanitary conditions, mold, poor training and insufficient attention to procedures. Washington Post
Moderna Partners with Thermo Fisher to Scale Up COVID-19 Vaccine Production
Under the terms, Moderna said Thermo Fisher’s commercial manufacturing site in Greenville, North Carolina will be used to provide fill/finish manufacturing services and supply packaging for hundreds of millions of doses of the vaccine. Reuters
A Pandemic Upside: The Flu Virus Became Less Diverse, Simplifying the Task of Making Flu Shots
Flu viruses continuously evolve, to evade the immune defenses humans develop to fend them off. But after 2012, H3N2 started to behave differently, making the process of choosing the version of H3N2 to include in flu shots an increasingly challenging task. With Covid suppression measures driving flu transmission rates to historically low levels around the world, it appears that one of the H3N2 clades may have gone extinct. STAT
Nonhuman Primate Models for SARS-Cov-2 Research: Infrastructure Needs for Pandemic Preparedness
The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has significantly increased the demand for NHPs, the preclinical model most predictive of disease and treatment outcomes in humans, and for biocontainment laboratory spaces adjacent to facilities housing NHPs. Accompanying this requirement for biocontainment and research laboratory space is the need for skilled personnel to work in these facilities. Nature Lab Animal
100 Million Vaccine Doses Held Up Over Contamination Concerns, Firm Reveals
Executives from Emergent, which ruined millions of coronavirus vaccine doses, divulged to Congress the scope of the regulatory review of its troubled Baltimore plant. The New York Times
Previous COVID-19 Linked to Risk of Adverse Events Post-Vaccination
An increased risk of adverse events after the first Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-vaccine dose was associated with previous COVID-19 infection, according to a letter to the editor late last week in the Journal of Infection. CIDRAP
BIOSECURITY + BIOPREPAREDNESS
Nominee for OSTP Director – Dr. Eric Lander – Sees Key Federal Role for Creating and Sharing Synthetic Biology Toolkits, Best Practices
The field of synthetic biology has enormous potential for constructively impacting society, already contributing products such as drugs, food ingredients, and living fertilizers. As the field continues to develop, standardization of synthetic biology tools, techniques, and processes could help realize that potential. This idea was explored during a late April hearing held by the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, convened to discuss the nomination of Dr. Eric Lander to be director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy. Federation of American Scientists
Why Some Researchers Oppose Unrestricted Sharing of Coronavirus Genome Data
Global-south scientists say that an open-access movement led by wealthy nations to share all sequencing data deprives them of credit and undermines their efforts. Fears of inequitable data use are amplified by the fact that only 0.3% of COVID-19 vaccines have gone to low-income countries. “Imagine Africans working so hard to contribute to a database that’s used to make or update vaccines, and then we don’t get access to the vaccines. It’s very demoralizing.” Nature
California Could Become First State to Mandate Biosecurity Screening By Mail-Order DNA Companies
California lawmakers on Thursday will vote on a bill that would require the state’s growing gene synthesis industry to adopt screening protocols to keep dangerous DNA out of the hands of the wrong people. The proposed legislation would be the first in the nation to tackle the biosecurity risks that accompany cheap and easy DNA writing technologies. STAT
Bio-Security in the Age of Global Pandemics
The digitalization of life sciences and the rise of accessible gene-editing tools introduce vulnerabilities that should be of concern to policy-makers and the national bio-security community. Global Health Security Index prepared by Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security found that international preparedness for epidemics and pandemics of natural or synthetic occurrence remains very weak. Global Security Review
Addressing Biodisaster X Threats with Artificial Intelligence and 6G Technologies
It is paradoxical that while greater access to biotechnology on a population level has many advantages, it may also increase the likelihood and frequency of biodisasters due to accidental or malicious use. Similar to “Disease X” (describing unknown naturally emerging pathogenic diseases with a pandemic potential), we term this unknown risk from biotechnologies “Biodisaster X.” JMIR
Animal Disease Labs Stepped Up During COVID-19 And Could Help Prevent The Next Pandemic
In the past 10 years, more than 70% of the emerging diseases that have affected humans have an animal component. That’s according to Ken Burton, a coordinator for the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility (NBAF). “We should have been ready and been watching for all these coronaviruses that we know can jump species earlier.” KOSU NPR
SELECT AGENTS + CBRNE THREATS
The History of Lab Leaks Has Lots of Entries
Smallpox, anthrax and influenzas have escaped facilities — sometimes with deadly consequences. When lab leaks take place in a secretive society, the difficult job of confirming the source of an outbreak gets much harder. A good case in point was the infamous anthrax outbreak in Sverdlovsk, an isolated city in the Soviet Union. Bloomberg Opinion
The Overlooked, Dangerous Nexus Between National Security and Public Health: The Case of Smallpox
After smallpox was officially eradicated, the world’s remaining samples of variola virus were locked away in vaults in biosafety level 4 laboratories at CDC Headquarters in Atlanta, GA, and the Vector Research Institute in Novosibirsk, Siberia. An estimated 5 million lives annually since the disease’s eradication have been saved, a testament to the awesome power and great lengths taken to end this disease. However, even though the last known naturally occurring case was reported in Somalia in 1977, smallpox still poses a dramatic risk to United States national security. Global Security Review
UN: Biological, Chemical Agents Tested on Iraqi Prisoners
The Islamic State group tested biological and chemical agents on Iraqi prisoners, some of whom died, according to a May 2021 UN report. Although the existence of the extremist group’s rudimentary chemical weapons program has been known for several years, the report by the UN Investigation Team to Promote Accountability for Crimes Committed by Da’esh/Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (UNITAD) revealed previously unknown experiments on human subjects. Arms Control Association
Synthetic Bioweapons Are Coming
The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed critical weaknesses in the human domain of warfare at just the moment technology has emerged that gives bad actors new power to exploit those weaknesses. Developments in synthetic biology will create next-generation bioweapons, “human-domain fires” that will fundamentally change the strategic environment and create a threat naval planners must consider now, before it is encountered at sea. U.S. Naval Institute
SURVEILLANCE + DETECTION
China Reports Human Case of H10N3 Bird Flu, a Possible First
A man in eastern China has contracted what might be the world’s first human case of the H10N3 strain of bird flu, but the risk of large-scale spread is low, the government said Tuesday. The 41-year-old man in Jiangsu province, northwest of Shanghai, was hospitalized April 28 and is in stable condition. AP
The Next Pandemic: Rift Valley Fever?
Rift Valley fever used to mostly affect livestock in Africa. But the virus that causes it is also spread by mosquitoes whose habitats are expanding because of climate change. If it were to make its way to the rest of the world, it would decimate livestock causing agricultural collapse as well as affecting human health. Gavi
Philippines Declares State of Calamity Over African Swine Fever
A national emergency has been declared through the end of the year in the Philippines due to the spread of ASF, which has reached 12 regions, 46 provinces and 2,561 villages nationwide since it hit the country in 2019. “The ASF is responsible for the significant reduction in the country’s swine population by around three million hogs, resulting in more than PHP100 billion ($2.08 billion) in losses due to the local hog sector and allied industries, and leading to increased retail prices of pork products.” Anadolu Agency
Subway Swabbers Find a Microbe Jungle and Thousands of New Species
An enormous international team of researchers has created an atlas of microorganisms collected in 60 cities on six continents, discovering more than 10,000 previously unidentified species of viruses and bacteria during their deep dive. Antimicrobial resistance genes were also widely detected, present in air and surface samples from every city, but their type and abundance varied enormously between geographies. The New York Times
Estimated Annual Number of HIV Infections ─ United States, 1981–2019
During 1981–2019, there were an estimated 2.2 million new HIV infections among persons aged ≥13 years in the United States. The estimated number of infections increased from 20,000 in 1981 to 130,400 in 1984 and 1985, then declined rapidly to between 84,200 and 84,800 annually during 1986–1990. HIV incidence remained relatively stable from 1991 to 2007, with about 50,000 to 58,000 infections per year, and declined in recent years to an estimated 34,800 in 2019. MMWR