Diphtheria is Spreading Fast in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh (
WHO) Diphtheria is rapidly spreading among Rohingya refugees in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, WHO warned today. More than 110 suspected cases, including 6 deaths, have been clinically diagnosed by health partners, including Médecins Sans Frontières and the International Federation of the Red Cross.
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Domestic Preparedness & Response
This Year's Hurricane Season Was Intense. Is It a Taste of the Future? (
npr) With the 2017 Atlantic hurricane season finally over, scientists are taking stock of what they say was a monumental year. A total of 10 hurricanes swept the region. Six were major storms of Category 3 or higher, and three of those were Category 4 or higher when they made landfall, spreading havoc from the Caribbean to Texas.
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Global Health Security
Leading the Prevention of Global Health Threats (
The Interpreter) Australia's tyranny of distance is no protection from global health threats. In recent months, the government has taken a number of positive steps to reaffirm the importance of international norms and cooperation to protect against threats to global health security.
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Zambia's Multipronged Strategy for Eliminating Malaria (
devex) Joba Edwards spends the night outside in a tee-shirt and shorts, with a flashlight in hand, waiting for mosquitoes to bite him. When they do, he catches the bugs by sucking through the tube on a mouth aspirator, which traps them. He then funnels the mosquitoes into a Styrofoam cup, covered with a net. He has 12 of these cups, each marked by pen with a different hour of the night. Edwards sits on a wooden stool doing this from 6 pm to 6 am, 5 nights per month.
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Medicine & Public Health
Hepatitis A Outbreak in California--Addressing the Root Cause (
New England Journal of Medicine) On October 13, 2017, Governor Jerry Brown of California declared a state of emergency in response to a hepatitis A outbreak that began in the homeless population in San Diego. In the past year, more than 649 people throughout California have been infected, 417 have been hospitalized, and 21 have died from hepatitis A, making this the largest outbreak in the Us in the past 20 years.
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Science & Technology
Gene-Drive Technology Needs Thorough Scrutiny (
Nature) At a meeting in Montreal, Canada, this week, scientists and green campaigners will be among those discussing how a gene-editing technology could influence the environment. And although it might not always be obvious, both critics and advocates of the technique--called a gene drive--tend to agree on many things.
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NEIDL BSL-4 Lab Gets Green Light (
BU Today) After years of scrutiny by regulatory agencies and city, state, and federal officials, Boston University's National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories has received final approval from the Boston Public Health Commission to conduct research at Biosafety Level 4.
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Other 21st Century Threats
