Researchers Unlock Mystery of How Zika Spreads in Human Cells (
USA Today) Researchers have discovered a piece in the puzzle of how the Zika virus spreads in human cells and neutralizes the body's defenses. A study by scientists at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine answered a fundamental question posed by biologists: What happens when the virus enters a human cell?
Go to article
Will Winter Kill Zika? (
The Atlantic) Okay, good news first: Mosquito season in the US is basically over-even in warmer regions, like Florida and areas along the Gulf Coast. "The risk of mosquito transmission of viruses goes way down by the end of October," says Peter Hotez, a pediatrician and the dean for the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College. By early November, he told me, West Nile Virus and dengue fever pretty much "disappear" for the winter. Does this mean everyone can stop worrying about the Zika virus, too?
Go to article
More Zika-tainted Blood in Florida (
CBS Miami) The FDA has confirmed to CBS4 News that donated units of blood in Florida have tested positive for the Zika virus. The FDA will not say where or when the tainted blood was discovered, but it is the first since one unit of Zika-infected blood was discovered at an undisclosed donation center in August.
Go to article
Male-to-Female Sexual Transmission of Zika Virus - US, January-April 2016 (
Clinical Infectious Diseases) We report on nine cases of male-to-female sexual transmission of Zika virus in the US occurring January-April 2016. This report summarizes new information about both timing of exposure and symptoms of sexually transmitted Zika virus disease, and results of semen testing for Zika virus from two male travelers.
Go to article
Zika Virus Reveals Broad Tissue and Cell Tropism During the First Trimester of Pregnancy (
Scientific Reports) The outbreak of the Zika Virus and its association with fetal abnormalities have raised worldwide concern. However, the cellular tropism and the mechanisms of ZIKV transmission to the fetus during early pregnancy are still largely unknown. Therefore, we ex vivo modeled the ZIKV transmission at the maternal-fetal interface using organ culture from first trimester pregnancy samples.
Go to article
Biological Agents & Infectious Diseases
Government Affairs & National Security
A National Security Blind Spot (
Project Syndicate) Erin Saltman saw a disturbing trend. For months, the senior counter-extremism researcher at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue had obsessively tracked the profiles of more than 130 Western women who had joined the Islamic State. Saltman and her team noticed that instead of journeying through Turkey to reach ISIS headquarters in Syria, the women were heading straight to Libya.
Go to article
Medicine & Public Health
Revising the ICD: Explaining the WHO Approach (
The Lancet) From the late 19th century, the
International Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems has been the backbone of cause of death statistics. Over time, country uses of the ICD have moved beyond tracking mortality, and now include morbidity statistics, health financing, research, and clinical care.
Go to article
Pharmaceuticals and Public Health (
JAMA Network) The national debate over increasing costs and spending for pharmaceuticals has reached a fever pitch. Special concern has focused on new "specialty" drugs, for which per-patient treatment costs often exceed $1,000 per month or more than $10,000 for a course of a therapy. The most commonly discussed solutions include approaches to pricing these drugs based on their value to individual patients. However, for pharmaceuticals vital to public health, such as immunizations and drugs to treat communicable diseases, policy makers should broaden their perspective to consider the population as a whole.
Go to article
Why Doctors Without Borders Refused a Million Free Vaccines (
The Atlantic) This week the medical-aid organization Doctors Without Borders refused a donation of one million vaccine doses from the pharmaceutical corporation Pfizer. It offered inoculations against a commonly fatal pneumonia--deliverable immediately, to people in need anywhere--and the doctors said no.
Go to article
Science & Technology
Stop "Gene Spills" Before They Happen (
MIT Technology Review) An MIT biology professor says he plans to use patents in an unusual way: to push gene-editing scientists out into the open. Kevin Esvelt has helped develop a technology called "gene drive," an evolution-warping technique that could be used to wipe out malaria-causing mosquitoes or invasive species like rats on Pacific islands.
Go to article
21st Century Threats
Arctic Cities Crumble as Climate Change Thaws Permafrost (
Wired) At first, Yury Scherbakov thought the cracks appearing in a wall he had installed in his two-room flat were caused by shoddy workmanship. But then other walls started cracking, and then the floor started to incline. "We sat on the couch and could feel it tilt," says his wife, Nadezhda, as they carry furniture out of the flat.
Go to article
