Emerging Infectious Diseases
The shift in Project BioShield Act of 2004 funding from its original 10-year appropriations cycle to year-by-year funding has posed challenges for the program by creating an uncertain climate for private-sector firms investing in developing medical countermeasures (MCM) against chemical,... Read More »
Following President Donald Trump’s release of his Fiscal Year 2019 budget proposal last week, U.S. Rep. Susan Brooks (R-IN) applauded the inclusion of a control shift of the Strategic National Stockpile (SNS) from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to the Department of Health... Read More »
A study by the Center for Radiological Research at Columbia University Irving Medical Center (CUIMC) has found that light exposure may provide a path to killing airborne flu through the use of far ultraviolet C (UVC) light.
In findings published in Scientific Reports, CUIMC determined that... Read More »
Recognizing the threat that unpredictable biohazards could pose, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has proposed development of a new biosurveillance technology that would rapidly screen unfamiliar bacteria to establish their capacity to harm.
The program, “Friend or Foe,”... Read More »
Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Alex Azar held a briefing this week on preparedness and response efforts for seasonal and pandemic influenza.
Secretary Azar discussed his experience overseeing HHS ongoing flu activities and his time working with other public health leaders during his... Read More »
Bavarian Nordic, a biotechnology company based in Denmark, announced this week the results of a successful Phase 3 clinical trial that demonstrated the safety and efficacy of its investigational, non-replicating smallpox vaccine, IMVAMUNE.
The U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious... Read More »
A new study published in the Bulletin of the World Health Organization found that the global spread of a serious infectious disease could cause 700,000 deaths and annual economic losses of US$500 billion.
"Pandemic risk: How large are the expected losses” applied a theoretical model to... Read More »
While careful to advise that nothing is certain for humans yet, researchers from the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found that West Nile virus--like Zika--has the ability to cross from a mouse to her fetuses, causing brain damage.
The two viruses are known to be... Read More »
Using rabies as a case study, researchers from across the world joined together to assess and promote the effectiveness of public awareness campaigns in spotting and preventing the spread of infectious diseases.
The study--published in the journal Epidemiology and Infection--focused on the... Read More »
A report released last week by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that birth defects linked to Zika virus infection during pregnancy saw a 21 percent rise over the second half of 2016 in parts of Florida, Texas, and Puerto Rico.
Over a broader spectrum, about three out of... Read More »
The Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) recently received a $6 million grant from the Open Philanthropy Project that will help strengthen its efforts to mitigate global biological threats that have increased as the world has become more interconnected.
According to Dr. Elizabeth Cameron, NTI’s... Read More »
Decreased and episodic funding from the United States government has stakeholders questioning the true commitment federal lawmakers have for sustaining the nation’s preparedness and response capabilities during a catastrophic event linked to infectious diseases, natural disasters or chemical,... Read More »
A long-acting therapy to prevent malaria could supplant the current daily oral dosing regimen that is susceptible to non-adherence, researchers at the University of Liverpool and the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine have found.
Researchers set out to manipulate the molecular makeup... Read More »
With 35 confirmed cases of yellow fever and 20 deaths reported in Brazil from July 1, 2017, through Jan. 14, public health officials have launched an intensive vaccination campaign in an effort to head-off a widespread outbreak.
Yellow fever cases have been confirmed in São Paulo, Rio de... Read More »
Mice immunized by a synthetic horsepox virus show promise in the development of an alternative smallpox vaccine, outside the boundaries of existing--often troublesome--vaccinia virus use.
In a study published in the Open Access journal PLOS ONE, researchers from the University of Alberta,... Read More »
A monkeypox outbreak in Nigeria probably originated from within the country recently highlighted the need for local surveillance and advanced genetic characterizations to help pinpoint the origins of outbreaks, a team of multinational researchers said.
From Sept. 4 to Dec. 9, 61 cases of... Read More »
The Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) recently called on senators to take a series of steps in reauthorizing the Pandemic and All Hazards Preparedness Act (PAHPA) to ensure that states, local communities, and medical providers can protect against threats to public health.
IDSA’s... Read More »
A stratified biodefense hospital system would provide the United States with a protective shield in the event the country experiences a man-made or natural biological catastrophe, panelists told members of the Blue Ribbon Study Panel on Biodefense.
The suggestion is one the panelists strongly... Read More »
Public health, when threatened not by Obamacare but by exposure to infectious diseases, natural disasters or chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear (CBRN) agents, is an area where members of Congress have been able to build bipartisanship.
Continuing such cross-party work will be... Read More »
Though the discovery comes with some worrisome caveats, researchers have begun the journey to reversing the memory loss effects of West Nile virus through the use of a drug.
In a study focused on mice, scientists identified the potential cause of the neurological issues: unresolved inflammation... Read More »
Through genome analysis and chemogenetics, researchers at the University of California (UC) San Diego School of Medicine, along with national and international associates, have confirmed genetic modifications that have led to malaria’s drug resistance and revealed new drug targets contained... Read More »
Regents of the University of Michigan (U-M) and the Duke University Hospital now share a distinction among infectious disease and antimicrobial experts with their recent designation of Antimicrobial Stewardship Centers of Excellence by the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA).
The... Read More »
Duke University researchers recently conducted a study that showed how the Dengue virus reproduces in an infected individual without triggering the body’s normal defense mechanisms.
According to the study, the virus slowly takes over the endoplasmic reticulum, an accordion-shaped structure in... Read More »
A five-year partnership agreement has been reached between the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC), representing a $28 million investment in the fight against viral outbreaks.
DARPA’s Pandemic Protection Platform will be... Read More »
National Institutes of Health (NIH) scientists recently conducted a small clinical trial at the NIH Clinical Center of an experimental treatment for Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) coronavirus infection in which the treatment was well tolerated by healthy volunteers.
SAB Biotherapeutics... Read More »
Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) recently gleaned new understanding into how an antibody neutralizes the Marburg virus, a pathogen with no known treatment that holds the same pandemic potential as the Ebola virus.
Previous research indicated that an antibody known as MR191... Read More »
During a visit to the plague-shaken nation of Madagascar, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), called for a $4 million investment to effectively combat the biological threat.
The most recent outbreak of pneumonic and bubonic plague in-country left... Read More »
Researchers at the University of Queensland recently “supercharged” an old antibiotic by modifying its membrane-binding properties to successfully attack deadly antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria, or superbugs.
Mark Blaskovich and Matt Cooper of the University of Queensland’s... Read More »
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) launched a new program last week that aims to predict and prevent cross-species transmission of viral diseases to bolster military readiness.
The program, called Preventing Emerging Pathogenic Threats (PREEMPT), will explore how pathogens... Read More »
The parasite Leishmania may be getting aided by viruses in its infection of invertebrates, as well as causing significantly worse disease than those without, according to a new evolutionary study.
The paper, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, comes from the head of... Read More »
An enzyme that makes pandemic cholera resistant to last-line antibiotics acts on a different mechanism than similar proteins in bacteria, researchers at the University of Georgia reported last month.
Cationic antimicrobial peptides (CAMPs), which naturally produced by both bacteria and human... Read More »
The World Health Organization (WHO) recently prequalified the first typhoid conjugate vaccine on Wednesday that’s been shown to boost immune response typhoid in infants as young as six months old.
Prequalification of the typhoid conjugate vaccine, called Typbar-TCV, allows procurement... Read More »
The ability of the Ebola virus to copy itself and spread through hosts can be “switched off” by manipulating a host factor enzyme, according to a recent study by European researchers.
Researchers at the University of Copenhagen and Phillips Universität Marburg in Germany discovered that... Read More »
Twenty-two districts in Uganda were recently identified by researchers as cholera “hotspots” that should be targeted by cholera control programs in the country and elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa.
Researchers from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health identified the areas as high-risk... Read More »
Though scientists have been working steadily toward understanding and prevention of Zika since 2016, a recent report published in the Journal of Infectious Diseases makes it clear that many questions remain.
For one thing, scientists cannot yet say that another Zika pandemic will not re-emerge,... Read More »
