Countermeasures
The Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) gave the okay for a conditional marketing authorization for V920 Ebola Zaire vaccine developed by Merck.
If affirmed by the European Commission, the vaccine will be authorized under the brand name... Read More »
The ministries of health in Belize, Guatemala, and the Dominican Republic announced the development of a surveillance network to identify and track acute febrile illnesses (AFIs), now with the assistance of experts from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and academic... Read More »
Rep. Ro Khanna introduced Monday a measure designed to consider federal employee cybersecurity training and information on the risks of Internet of Things (IoT) devices.
“The Internet of Things Cybersecurity Training for Federal Employees Act will ensure that our federal workforce is aware of... Read More »
Sandia National Laboratories researchers have embarked upon a seven-year campaign focusing upon developing the science, technology, and architecture to aid autonomous satellite protection initiatives.
STARCS (Science and Technology Advancing Resilience for Contested Space) will fund dozens of... Read More »
Rep. Mark Green (R-TN) recently introduced H.R.4720, legislation that would establish an assistant secretary of defense for space.
The position would be responsible for the growth and expansion of the United States Space Force and would report to the secretary of defense.
“As China and... Read More »
Democratic members of Congress from Massachusetts are urging the Department of Homeland Security to broaden its efforts to help state and local governments to fight the growing number of ransomware attacks.
The lawmakers expressed their concern with the rise in these attacks on police... Read More »
Tests conducted by National Institutes of Health scientists showed that a single dose of a highly diluted VSV-Ebola virus (EBOV) vaccine is fully protective against the disease in infected monkeys.
The dose is approximately one-millionth of what is in the vaccine being used to help control the... Read More »
Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) officials recently joined global parliamentarians in discussing means of implementing the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC).
During the 141st Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) in Belgrade, Serbia, parties met to exchange... Read More »
Marine Corps personnel recently joined subject matter experts in executing Island Marauder, an annual technology demonstration involving the integration of current and future technology in a realistic combat environment.
Marine Corps Base Hawaii served as the site of the endeavor, which... Read More »
New cases in the ongoing Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) Ebola outbreak slowed in the 21 days from Sept. 23 to Oct. 13, 2019, a World Health Organization (WHO) Emergency Committee heard this week.
While the epidemic is primarily concentrated on the Mandima health zone in the DRC, new... Read More »
The Department of Commerce has appointed Karima Holmes and Matt Slinkard to the First Responder Network Authority Board (FirstNet Authority).
The FirstNet Authority’s mission, per authorities, is to ensure the building, deployment, and operation of FirstNet, the nationwide broadband network... Read More »
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) officials said the agency is partnering with a firm to develop technology designed to prevent emergency responder collisions.
Chicago-based HAAS Alert is standardizing C-V2X cellular vehicle-to-everything technology... Read More »
Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) is calling upon the Department of Defense (DoD) and Department of State to deliver a plan to Congress outlining efforts to eliminate ISIS permanently.
Ernst recently issued a resolution in which the agencies would submit the plan of action within 30 days as a means of... Read More »
Ways to develop effective vaccines for Lyme disease and the need to stop the infection were published Thursday in an issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases. The paper is based on highlights from a conference of industry, government, and academia experts earlier this year.
Lyme disease is caused... Read More »
Mathematical modelling could make efforts to predict and control disease outbreaks much easier and more reliable, according to a new study conducted by researchers at the University of Waterloo, University of Maryland, and Yale's School of Public Health.
"Mathematical models of disease spread... Read More »
A new facility, or bank, opened that will deliver low enriched uranium (LEU) to an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) facility in Kazakhstan.
“This is a historic achievement for the IAEA and the government of Kazakhstan, and I am grateful for the hard work and perseverance needed to... Read More »
Terrorist threats against the United States continue to grow and evolve, including the use of non-conventional weapons, begging the question of whether this country is well-equipped for such attacks.
The conclusion of experts who testified Thursday before the U.S. House Homeland Security... Read More »
The global nonprofit research and development organization Battelle won a two-year contract with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) this week, for research on vaccines for influenza strains.
Under the terms of the contract, Battelle will assist the CDC in expanding its vaccine... Read More »
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced this week that it has partnered with the City of Houston and the Houston Airport System (HAS) as a means of combating human trafficking.
The effort stems from the Blue Lightning Initiative (BLI) program, officials said, which is an extension of the... Read More »
Barbara Barrett has garnered Senate confirmation to become the nation’s 25th Secretary of the Air Force, with lawmakers voting 85-7 to approve the action.
“I can think of no position that offers more excitement, challenge and meaning than the secretary of the Air Force,” Barrett, replacing... Read More »
The Department of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) recently awarded CrowdVision Ltd. $160,902 to develop an airport passenger counting and measuring system for U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
Funding is for phase one of the project.
The company, a... Read More »
A group of U.S. Senators recently urged the Department of Defense (DoD) to address the increasing suicide rate among members of the National Guard.
Recent reports show that the suicide mortality rate for the National Guard has been consistently higher than the rate among active duty and reserve... Read More »
The Coalition of Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) issued a call Tuesday for funding applications for platforms capable of developing any number of vaccines to respond to as-yet-unknown emerging infectious diseases and unknown pathogens.
Such pathogens, collectively labeled Disease X,... Read More »
Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ), ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ), a member of the House Armed Services Committee, praised Tuesday the awarding of $41 million for a new Munitions Disassembly Complex at Picatinny Arsenal in Wharton, N.J.
The... Read More »
Reps. Mike Levin (D-CA) and Abigail Spanberger (D-VA) recently introduced a bill targeting $10 billion investment in the National Institutes of Health (NIH) supporting antibiotic resistance and rare diseases research.
“The National Institutes of Health support critically important research... Read More »
A model created by the University College London could be used to predict the next Ebola outbreak by tracking how changes to ecosystems combined with human societies affect the disease’s spread.
The model takes into account factors such as human population, land use, and the impact of climate.... Read More »
U.S. Sen. Edward Markey (D-MA) is calling upon President Donald Trump to remove nuclear weapons stored in Turkey.
Markey, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the U.S. stores roughly 50 B61 nuclear weapons at Incirlik Air Base in Turkey. The airbase is located about 250 miles... Read More »
A team of scientists led by Dr. Florian Klein successfully showed how the human immune system responds to the Ebola vaccine currently being used to fight an outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and create antibodies against the Ebola virus.
Involved in the study of the rVSV-ZEBOV... Read More »
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) maintains the Coast Guard’s recent decision to modify the Offshore Patrol Cutter (OPC) contract with Panama City-based Eastern Shipbuilding provides certainty for Northwest Florida’s communities.
“Hurricane Michael had a devastating impact on our local economy,... Read More »
Oshkosh Defense recently unveiled the new Light Combat Tactical All-Terrain Vehicle Command and Control (L-ATV C2) in addition to displaying a series of Joint Light Tactical Vehicles (JLTV).
The display occurred during the Association of the United States Army (AUSA) National Conference in... Read More »
Model-based predictions of mosquito species distribution need to be improved in many parts of the country, researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder found.
Researchers assessed and combined previously developed computational models to generate new predictions of where Aedes aegypti and... Read More »
The Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) has achieved a milestone, with more than 50 approvals by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) over the past 12 years of health security solutions it helped develop.
The approvals and licensures are for products that... Read More »
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) allowed last week marketing of the OraQuick Ebola Rapid Antigen test began, marking the first time a rapid diagnostic test for Ebola was permitted in the United States.
OraSure Technologies, Inc will market OraQuick. The test detects Ebola virus... Read More »
Coppell, Texas-based QED Secure Solutions has secured $200,000 in Department of Homeland Security (DHS) funding to field test a secure trust anchor for the Internet of Things (IoT).
The funding allotment via DHS’s Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) is in conjunction with S&T’s Silicon... Read More »
Four U.S. senators recently sent a letter to the Federal Acquisition Security Council (FASC), urging for stronger coordination of supply-chain risk management across the federal government.
FASC was established to reduce federal supply-chain risks by creating a “combined information-sharing... Read More »
