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The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has taken some steps to implement new authority to speed up innovation of medical countermeasures like vaccines for COVID-19, but has not yet chosen a private, nonprofit partner to work with on this problem, according to a recently released... Read More »
A COVID-19 diagnostic created by Yale School of Public Health -- the SalivaDirect test -- became the first of its kind to gain a United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) emergency use authorization (EUA) last week.
SalivaDirect approaches the processing of saliva samples in an entirely... Read More »
Members of the Congressional Cyberspace Solarium are introducing a bill to modernize and secure state and local government information technology.
The bill, the State and Local IT Modernization and Cybersecurity Act, addresses a recommendation from the Solarium’s pandemic white paper that... Read More »
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced a new funding opportunity to expand the uses of electronic health information via health information exchanges (HIEs) to support public health agencies.
Strengthening health data exchange between HIEs and state and local public... Read More »
Insurance-exempt and cost-share free, a new bill introduced to the Senate this week would waive any costs for Americans in need of a COVID-19 vaccine, whenever one emerges.
Introduced by U.S. Sen. Tina Smith (D-MN) and co-sponsored by U.S. Sens. Kamala Harris (D-CA) and Michael Bennet (D-CO),... Read More »
A group of Congressional Republicans is urging the Department of Justice (DOJ) to require media company Al Jazeera to register as a foreign agent.
The lawmakers said that Al Jazeera, which is owned by the Qatari government, have engaged in activities that align closely with the priorities of... Read More »
Legislation that would require the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP), the United States Marshals Service (USMS), and state governments to collect and report data about COVID-19 in correctional facilities was introduced in Congress.
Prisons and jails have become hotspots for the spread of COVID-19,... Read More »
Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), and Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) introduced a bill designed to help veterans who served at Karshi Khanabad (K2) Airbase in Uzbekistan to obtain the health screenings and services they need.
According to a U.S. Army study conducted in 2015, service... Read More »
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) launched the Medical Imaging and Data Resource Center (MIDRC) this week, beginning a new effort to fight the COVID-19 pandemic through a mix of artificial intelligence-created tools and medical imaging.
MIDRC is a collaboration of multiple institutions,... Read More »
As the White House and states tussle over mail-in voting, U.S. Rep. Don Young (R-AK) introduced a bill this week known as the Emergency Assistance for Safe Elections (EASE) Act, which proposes to ensure safety at the polls and accuracy in mail-in counts.
“The November election is fast... Read More »
Rapid manufacturing and distribution of a COVID-19 vaccine will rank as one of the most challenging U.S. government initiatives ever undertaken, though it can successfully happen with aggressive planning, management, and funding, concludes a newly released report that includes a powerful indictment... Read More »
The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) Joint Program Executive Office for Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Defense (JPEO-CBRND) awarded Johns Hopkins researchers $35 million for clinical trials to test a convalescent blood plasma outpatient treatment to fight COVID-19.
The treatment... Read More »
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) recently hosted the third Tabletop the Vote initiative, which officials said serves as a test of Election Day response plans.
The exercise executed July 28 to 30 included 37 states and approximately 2,100 total participants, officials... Read More »
Under an agreement reached with global biopharmaceutical companies Sanofi and GSK, the U.S. government will pay as much as $2.1 billion for development and delivery of 100 million doses of a vaccine to combat COVID-19.
It’s the largest agreement yet negotiated by Operation Warp Speed and it... Read More »
As COVID-19 caused deaths in the United States have crossed 150,000, the Center for Health Security has released a report noting policy actions and data reporting needed at all levels of government to effectively turn the tide against the pandemic.
“Unlike many countries in the world, the... Read More »
A COVID-19 vaccine candidate -- mRNA-1273 -- produced by Moderna, Inc. and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) brought broad immune responses and protection to the upper and lower airways of nonhuman primates, NIAID scientists reported this week.
After two doses of... Read More »
A proposed COVID-19 appropriations bill released on Monday by U.S. Senate Republicans takes solid steps toward providing urgently needed relief and resources, but it also falls short of necessary responses, according to the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) and the HIV Medicine... Read More »
At sites across the United States, a phase 3 trial of the investigational vaccine mRNA-1273, jointly developed by Moderna, Inc. and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) is set to enroll 30,000 volunteers for testing.
Anyone 18 years of age and older, who does not... Read More »
A LabCorp COVID-19 diagnostic test became the first of its kind to gain a United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) emergency use authorization (EUA) last week, for its potential to diagnose COVID-19 infections in those without symptoms.
An EUA was also granted to allow its use in pooled... Read More »
The United States Department of Defense (DoD) awarded a $4.9 million contact to the Pall Corp. last week for efforts to expand the domestic industrial base capacity for medical ventilator filters.
The COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare a critical need for ventilators in the U.S., but over the... Read More »
Progress on protecting nuclear materials and facilities against theft and sabotage has slowed significantly over the past two years, the Nuclear Threat Initiativeʻs 2020 NTI Nuclear Security Index has found.
The decline in the rate of improvement to national regulatory structures and the global... Read More »
The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness (CEPI) has extended a call for proposals on COVID-19 vaccines until September, pushing for licensure, efficacy and safety in quick order: a timeframe of just 12-18 months.
The coalition is working to guarantee that manufacturing capabilities and capacities... Read More »
Up to 600 million doses of a vaccine candidate produced by Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech could be acquired by the United States government under a deal penned this week.
All of this would be conditional on the vaccine’s successful manufacture and either Emergency Use Authorization or licensure... Read More »
CureVac and GlaxoSmithKline plc (GSK) have signed an agreement to work together on the research, development, manufacturing, and marketing of as many as five mRNA-based vaccines and monoclonal antibodies for use against infectious diseases.
By collaborating, CureVac gains access to GSK’s mRNA... Read More »
Several biopharmaceutical companies are working in unprecedented fashion to develop, manufacture and deliver a safe and effective vaccine to combat COVID-19 as soon as is humanly possible.
Executives from five companies developing COVID-19 vaccine candidates — AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Johnson &... Read More »
A group of U.S. Senators recently called on Congress to provide at least $5.6 billion in federal funding to support the COVID-19 vaccine infrastructure.
The funding -- needed to boost the country’s vaccine supply and distribution system -- should be included in the next coronavirus relief... Read More »
While treatments for COVID-19 remain under research, Novartis announced a new initiative for low- and middle-income countries this week that will supply 15 generic and over-the-counter medicines at zero-profit as a way of treating symptoms.
The policy is only meant as a hold-over until a vaccine... Read More »
The Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA), along with other infectious disease associations, are opposed to the Trump Administration’s decision to withdraw the United States from the World Health Organization (WHO).
The decision will weaken the nation’s ability to control the... Read More »
The U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee approved legislation on Wednesday to strengthen public health security by bolstering the Strategic National Stockpile (SNS) and boosting the domestic manufacturing of medical supplies to fight the COVID-19 pandemic.
The bipartisan Strengthening... Read More »
Sandia National Laboratories is turning to machine learning to assist COVID-19 researchers in combing through existing coronavirus studies and data.
Through a mix of algorithms, analytics, and data mining, Sandia wants to make it easy for scientists to find the data they need right at their... Read More »
Reps. Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ), Anna Eshoo (D-CA) and Diana DeGette (D-CO) seek answers from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on its process to determine the accuracy of COVID-19 diagnostic and serological tests.
“Public health experts have consistently called for increased access to... Read More »
U.S. Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA) is sponsoring a bill that would establish limits on the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF).
The 2001 AUMF — which passed in response to the September 11th terrorist attacks — has been used by presidential administrations to deploy American... Read More »
The executive council of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons’ (OPCW) voted to condemn the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian Arab Republic in 2017.
The vote followed an investigation by the OPCW Investigation and Identification Team (IIT), which concluded that there are... Read More »
A group of House Democratic leaders sent letters to the CEOs of the major social media companies to request information on how they are responding to disinformation related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The letters were sent to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, and Twitter CEO... Read More »
Together with $34.6 million in funding from the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), Mountain Sinai Health System, Emergent BioSolutions and ImmunoTek Bio Centers will collaborate on the development of a hyperimmune globulin treatment for COVID-19.
That treatment, known as COVID-HIG, was created by... Read More »
