Emerging Infectious Diseases
Though efforts by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) have helped many countries hit by the Zika virus since its emergence in 2015, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) determined that its efforts could do with improvement, particularly when tracking funds and planning... Read More »
The U.S. Senate is fast tracking bipartisan legislation to reauthorize the nation’s all-hazards preparedness and response law, according to the Alliance for Biosecurity.
U.S. Sens. Richard Burr (R-NC) and Bob Casey (D-PA) on May 8 sponsored S. 1379, which has been referred to the U.S. Senate... Read More »
A new study led by Georgia State University states that the timing of hurricanes is a primary force in the spread of mosquito-borne diseases.
Such infectious diseases, like West Nile Virus or Zika, bloom with an increased mosquito population. Stagnant water helps drive those populations upward... Read More »
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently made final guidance available to government stakeholders on testing to extend the expiration date of stockpiled medical countermeasures (MCMs) used during public health emergency preparedness and response for anthrax exposure.
Stockpiles of... Read More »
The TB Alliance was awarded a grant by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) last week to aid in the development of two new clinical stage tuberculosis drug candidates.
Development is being undertaken by partners at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Harvard... Read More »
U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) is seeking additional federal funds to fight a superbug called Candida Auris that is spreading throughout New York.
Schumer is urging the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to designate the spreading and multidrug-resistant fungus an official emergency, which... Read More »
An amendment increasing federal funds by $300 million for the Strategic National Stockpile received U.S. House Appropriations Committee approval on Wednesday as part of an almost $190 billion fiscal year 2020 spending bill covering the departments of Labor, Health and Human Services (HHS) and... Read More »
In a 14-year study focused on outbreak investigations in Bangladesh, an international team of scientists has gained new insights into the deadly Nipah virus -- in particular, that age and respiratory troubles are substantial factors in its transmission.
The bat-borne paramyxovirus is a staple... Read More »
It’s not far-fetched to think that Ebola could be used as an agent of bioterrorism, according to researchers working on vaccines and treatments for the virus.
In theory, a terrorist could mass disseminate the hemorrhagic virus by small particle aerosol. It is a possible but unlikely scenario... Read More »
With an Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) ongoing, in part due to ongoing incidents of violence hindering the ability to respond effectively, the World Health Organization (WHO) has revised its vaccination strategy and issued new recommendations for the best path... Read More »
In a first federal collaborative report between the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Department of the Interior (DOI) and Department of Agriculture (USDA), a federal list now tracks the most concerning illnesses spread between animals and people in the United States.
These... Read More »
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) officials are touting the benefits of ReVector, a new program from the agency's Biological Technologies Office, in combating mosquito disease transmission.
ReVector seeks to actively repel mosquitoes by engineering the skin microbiome to alter... Read More »
Ke Du, a professor and researcher from the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), created a microfluidic device based on CRISPR gene-editing technology to detect and monitor indicators of Ebola.
The small, automated device tracks nucleic acid markers indicative of the virus. Once approached... Read More »
The most common mosquito-borne viral disease -- Dengue -- will now be preventable in endemic regions, thanks to the approval of the first dengue vaccine by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Dengvaxia, as it is called, blocks all dengue virus serotypes in ages 9 through 16, providing a... Read More »
Climate change could affect the spread of animal to human diseases more than previously thought, according to a recent study from researchers at the University of Queensland and Swansea University.
Their research, published in Trends in Parasitology, found a link between environmental factors... Read More »
A joint research project between American and Japanese interests has yielded a new technology that could ease development of H3N2 flu vaccines, by attacking one of their most common causes of concern: mutation during the development process.
Such mutations cause mismatches between the seasonal... Read More »
A landmark study maintains while 2016 global malaria spending totaled $4.3 billion, it fell short of the World Health Organization's target goal of $6.6 billion.
The University of Washington School of Medicine Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) analysis, published in The Lancet... Read More »
Mount Sinai researchers have found detected sizeable delays in the reporting of cases of West Nile virus in the United States, which could actively harm efforts to track and predict the disease.
Their findings, published in the JAMA Network Open, uncovered reporting delays of anywhere between... Read More »
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced last week that the number of measles cases in the United States have reached levels unseen since the disease was declared eliminated in 2000 and poses a real threat of a country-wide endemic.
In all, 695 cases have spread across 22... Read More »
The anti-malaria drug primaquine is the focus of an upcoming, mass treatment routine in Thailand and Myanmar in an effort to prevent relapses of the disease.
A grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) makes that possible. Researchers from the University of South Florida will receive... Read More »
Raytheon, as part of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s Friend or Foe program, is developing a portable biosurveillance device capable of evaluating bacteria and whether or not they could be harmful to people.
It is an area the company has identified as currently underdeveloped.... Read More »
Malawi recently launched the world’s first malaria vaccine in a pivotal pilot program.
The country is the first of three African nations in which the vaccine will be made available to children up to two years old. Ghana and Kenya will introduce the vaccine in the coming weeks.
The vaccine,... Read More »
As the U.S. government seeks to build its National Biodefense Strategy, more than 200 heavy hitters from federal, state and local agencies, national stakeholder organizations, academia and the private sector informed its future implementation during the April 17 Biodefense Summit held in... Read More »
Due to declines in measles vaccinations in recent years, there have been outbreaks of the disease all over the world, and medical experts say it could rebound in full force if not addressed.
Experts at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National... Read More »
A new study published in eLife concludes that the path to fighting malaria at a community level could be through widespread deployment of antimalarial drugs.
Importantly, researchers theorize this would not only protect those who take the drugs but even those untreated, as the drugs would help... Read More »
EcoHealth Alliance, a nonprofit organization focused on global animal, environmental and human health, has generated a report maintaining there are gaps in pandemics related events readiness.
The organization presented Building Resilience to Biothreats at an event earlier this month featuring... Read More »
Researchers from Florida International University's Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine have created a novel, broad-spectrum antibiotic containing arsenic to combat the rise in antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
"The antibiotic, arsinothricin or AST, is a natural product made by soil bacteria and... Read More »
A vaccine being developed by Emergent BioSolutions Inc. to treat the chikungunya virus showed strong results in an analysis of a Phase 2 clinical study, the company said on Tuesday.
The chikungunya virus virus-like particle (CHIKV-VLP) vaccine candidatewas well-tolerated and no... Read More »
Research members from the Jefferson Vaccine Center of the Philadelphia University and Thomas Jefferson University have created a new drug to combat Nipah virus, which currently has no approved vaccines.
Nipah is an RNA virus transmissible from animals such as bats and pigs to humans. It’s a... Read More »
Researchers from Virginia Tech were awarded a $1.4 million grant from Unitaid to perform economic and environmental impact assessments of a four-year project in Africa aimed at reducing malaria cases.
That project is called the Board One Health Endectocide-based Malaria Intervention in Africa... Read More »
A recent report from the Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics & Policy (CDDEP) lays out present problems in global access to antibiotics.
The majority of the world’s annual 5.7 million antibiotic-treatable deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries. The mortality burden from... Read More »
Scientists from The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, Saudi Arabia and Canada have created a vaccine to defend against Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), which has caused hundreds of deaths since being identified in 2012.
For testing, two versions of the potential vaccine... Read More »
A recent report from the Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics & Policy (CDDEP) lays out present problems in global access to antibiotics.
The majority of the world’s annual 5.7 million antibiotic-treatable deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries. The mortality burden from... Read More »
The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) recommends that military recruits entering basic training continue to be inoculated with a vaccine for the adenovirus, a DNA virus considered to be a major cause of febrile illness.
While adenoviruses are usually spread through coughing, sneezing or after... Read More »
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) officials said they are expediting efforts to develop an African Swine Fever vaccine and diagnostic initiatives.
African Swine Fever is a viral disease capable of wreaking havoc in a pig’s body, causing... Read More »
