Emerging Infectious Diseases
The Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) intends to provide $14 million and expertise support for the advanced development of an investigational Ebola treatment being pursued by Ridgeback Biotherapeutics of Miami.
Ridgeback is manufacturing the therapeutic drug known as... Read More »
Despite the World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) recommendations -- since 2013 -- that a single dose of yellow fever vaccine will protect people for a lifetime, new research shows that might not hold true for the youngest among the populace.
The aforementioned WHO recommendation was based on... Read More »
A Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security report commissioned by the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board (GPMB) released this week showed the foundations for responding to a high-impact respiratory pathogen pandemic could use some work the world over.
A high-impact respiratory pathogen... Read More »
U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar met with the Republic of Uganda President Yoweri Museveni this week to discuss a multilateral response to contain the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
The United States has long had a partnership with Uganda on... Read More »
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) will add five accelerators to its network to enhance biotechnology innovates with technical and entrepreneurial support.
The new accelerators include Emory University & Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta; the Plug and Play Tech... Read More »
U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar led a contingent of U.S. officials on a tour last week of an Ebola treatment center in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
The delegation, which toured a facility in Butembo, DRC, observed the detection, infection prevention, and... Read More »
Joined to fight the threat of malaria, the governments of Kenya, Ghana, and Malawi have launched a landmark vaccine pilot program known as RTS,S.
Malaria is estimated to kill a child every two minutes and is a leading killer of children in Kenya. As such, a major goal of the new vaccine is its... Read More »
Faced with the rise of anti-vaccination movements in the developed world, the European Commission and the World Health Organization (WHO) hosted the first Global Vaccination Summit last week, to counter those movements and promote action against vaccine-preventable diseases.
The European... Read More »
The Trump Administration announced this week that Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar would lead a delegation to three nations currently faced with one of the worst outbreaks of Ebola in world health history.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) -- where the outbreak began and... Read More »
Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) became one of at least six institutions this week to win grant funding for a long-lasting and more effective flu vaccine as part of the Vaccine & Gene Therapy Institute’s Grand Challenge for Universal Influenza Vaccine Development.
Of the $12 million... Read More »
Ebola containment efforts in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) will now be bolstered by $21 million in additional humanitarian assistance from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).
The funds are in response to a continually worsening condition in the country, where an... Read More »
A new study published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases journal concluded that Ebola patients might face an increased risk of death for an entire year after being released from the hospital.
Conducted on 1,130 members of the Guinean populace that survived the 2013-2016 West African Ebola... Read More »
Under threat from its worst recorded outbreak of dengue since 2000, Bangladesh has turned to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and World Health Organization (WHO) to help outline a plan to test a nuclear technique to combat mosquitoes spreading the disease.
More than 38,000 have been... Read More »
Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance last week announced a $7.4 billion fundraising drive among its donors to immunize another 300 million children to 18 diseases in developing countries by 2025.
Their calculations show that such an ambitious goal could save as many as 8 million lives between 2021 and... Read More »
Emergent BioSolutions Inc. said Tuesday it was awarded a contract for its smallpox vaccine from the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) valued at approximately $2 billion over 10 years.
The contract... Read More »
An Ebola outbreak that has ravaged the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) since August last year and sparked fears of a global health crisis reached a deadly new milestone last week when officials noted 3,000 cases underway and 2,000 deaths.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services... Read More »
Human behavior lies at the heart of fighting mosquito-transmitted diseases, according to a new study published in PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases.
How humans commute and what their living habits are is key in mosquito mitigation planning, the report says, because, without such considerations,... Read More »
Researchers from the Centenary Institute and the University of Sydney in Australia have created and tested a new vaccine type that provides substantial protection against tuberculosis (TB), following more than five years of work and research.
The test was a preclinical run using mouse models... Read More »
A genomics study undertaken by Scripps Research recently uncovered a previously undiscovered and underreported outbreak of the Zika virus that hit Cuba in 2017, prompting scientists to call on health, academia, and government organizations to step up efforts to share and coordinate... Read More »
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has earmarked $23 million to support the manufacturing of an investigational Ebola vaccine as a means of addressing the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) virus outbreak.
The effort will also meet domestic biodefense goals. The HHS... Read More »
A growing lack of vaccination among Texas youth is leaving schools and the cities that house them increasingly at risk to measles outbreaks, according to new findings published by the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health.
The findings were published in the journal JAMA... Read More »
A new antibiotic workaround for drug-resistant infections is the focus of a collaboration between the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Defense and VenatoRx Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
“Developing new antibiotics that represent an improvement over standard of care... Read More »
The danger of malaria is growing worldwide, according to Dr. Mark Travassos, assistant professor of Pediatrics at the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM), and that demands greater access for those with serious cases to intravenously-administered (IV) drugs.
At present, access to... Read More »
U.S. Sens. Todd Young (R-IN) and Bob Menendez (D-NJ) recently introduced legislation to significantly increase U.S. efforts in prevention, research, and technology development to help end the global tuberculosis epidemic.
The End Tuberculosis Now Act of 2019 would alter the existing Foreign... Read More »
As various bacteria continue to evolve and resist current vaccine treatments, West Virginia University (WVU) researcher Mariette Barbier is working to preserve vaccine effectiveness against pertussis or whooping cough.
Her efforts have been awarded $2.6 million from the National Institutes of... Read More »
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today approved drug treatment for resistant tuberculosis (TB) of the lungs.
The FDA approved Pretomanid Tablets in combination with bedaquiline and linezolid for the treatment of a specific type of tuberculosis of the lungs, specifically drug-resistant,... Read More »
A recently published The Lancet Infectious Diseases article detailed the identification of new markers aiding the effort to expedite the timeframe of Yellow Fever detection.
“Many patients admitted to the health services with a diagnosis of yellow fever aren't initially severely ill,” Esper... Read More »
Scientists at the UNC School of Medicine have discovered that certain molecules can boost the efficacy of antibiotics in fighting Staph infections and powering through antibiotic resistance.
The molecules are known as rhamnolipids, and their targets are staphylococcus aureus bacteria --... Read More »
Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal) study findings revealed the RTS,S malaria vaccine could bolster protective antibodies production upon subsequent parasite infection.
The work involved the authors investigating how vaccination impacts natural immunity to the parasite upon... Read More »
The Strategies to Address Antibiotic Resistance (STAAR) Act was reintroduced to the Senate this week, raising the issue of what to do in the face of growing antibiotic resistance.
The legislation was introduced by U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) in an attempt to increase data collection,... Read More »
Smallpox, eradicated globally in 1980, is on the cusp of a comeback thanks to advances in synthetic biology. Residual immunity in individuals who were previously vaccinated could mitigate the impact of a smallpox outbreak, but “a high degree of uncertainty” exists regarding the duration and... Read More »
A Colorado State University (CSU) study maintains the advent of Rift Valley fever in the state would deliver significant consequences for humans and livestock.
The virus is a global health concern caused by infected mosquitos and the handling of infected animal carcasses. Every 10 to 15 years,... Read More »
Biotechnology firm Public Health Vaccines, LLC has secured a Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) contract of up to $43.6 million to develop a single-dose Nipah virus vaccine.
Public Health Vaccine is slated to partner with Crozet BioPharma during the initiative while up to $9... Read More »
In a study published in the International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents, a scientific team reported that continued resistance to two critical antibiotic types that are still widely distributed in Southeast Asia is raising the risk of untreatable infections.
Carbapenems and polymyxins are being... Read More »
A new study published in the journal iScience reveals that the already Food and Drug Administration-approved drug nitazoxanide may hold promise as an Ebola treatment.
Nitazoxanide, or NTZ, is not traditionally used for Ebola treatment. Rather, it is a treatment for gastrointestinal infections... Read More »
