Lab Confirms Norovirus in Chipotle Customer; at Least 60 Sick (
Food Safety News) An announcement by local health officials that they have identified at least 60 people who became sick after eating at a Chipotle Mexican Grill location in Virginia this past weekend combined with a viral video of rodents in a Dallas location Thursday to drive the company's stock to a four-year low. At least one of the customers of the Sterling, VA, Chipotle restaurant has tested positive for norovirus, according to David Goodfriend, director of the Loudoun County Public Health Department.
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HIV Drug Resistance Report--2017 (
WHO/CDC/The Global Fund) This report considers the levels of pretreatment HIV drug resistance in populations initiating antiretroviral therapy (ART), and acquired HIV drug resistance in people receiving ART in low- and middle-income countries, in the context of treatment scale-up and global efforts to eliminate AIDS as a public health threat by 2030. The report presents recent data (2014-2016) from 16 surveys (15 in adults) conducted in 14 LMIC, which are contextualized by findings from four systematic reviews of the relevant published medical literature.
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Domestic Preparedness & Response
Emergent BioSolutions to Acquire Raxibacumab, an FDA-approved Anthrax Monoclonal Antibody, from GSK (
Pipeline Review.com) Emergent BioSolutions Inc. announced today that it has entered into an agreement with GSK, one of the world's leading healthcare companies, to acquire raxibacumab, a fully human monoclonal antibody approved by the FDA for the treatment and prophylaxis of inhalational anthrax. Emergent also plans to assume responsibility for a multi-year contract with the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, valued at up to approximately $130 million, to supply the product to the US Strategic National Stockpile.
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Government Affairs & National Security
Global Health Security
National Microbiology Lab in Winnipeg Gets $5M to Expand Ebola Containment Lab (
CBC News) The federal government is putting millions more into Canada's National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg to help detect high-risk infectious diseases such as Ebola and various types of avian influenza faster. The $5 million will be used to convert current Level 3 containment laboratory space to the "highest level of biosafety," the federal government said in a news release on Thursday. The facility already holds a Containment Level 4 lab, which will be expanded by the investment.
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Cholera Is Slaughtering Yemen and We're Letting It Happen (
Fortune Insiders) Since April, more than 350,000 people have come down with cholera in Yemen, which has killed 1,790 of them. It is an appalling, inexcusable man-made disaster witnessed by a world that seems as impotent to stop the bacteria's spread in the Middle East in 2017 as it was in post-earthquake Haiti in 2010.
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Role of Fomites in SARS Transmission During the Largest Hospital Outbreak in Hong Kong (
PLOS: One) The epidemic of SARS had a significant effect on global society in the early 2000s and the potential of its resurgence exists. Studies on the modes of transmission of SARS are limited though a number of outbreak studies have revealed the possible airborne route. To develop more specific and effective control strategies, we conducted a detailed mechanism-based investigation that explored the role of fomite transmission in the well-known Ward 8A outbreak.
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Medicine & Public Health
Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus Emerged Long Before the Introduction of Methicillin into Clinical Practice (
Genome Biology) Methicillin use was not the original driving factor in the evolution of MRSA as previously thought. Rather it was the widespread use of first generation beta-lactams such as penicillin in the years prior to the introduction of methicillin, which selected for
S. aureus strains carrying the mecA determinant. Crucially this highlights how new drugs, introduced to circumvent known resistance mechanisms, can be rendered ineffective by unrecognised adaptations in the bacterial population due to the historic selective landscape created by the widespread use of other antibiotics.
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Zika Rewrites Maternal Immunization Ethics (
Kennedy Institute of Ethics) A new report written by an ad hoc group of prominent researchers, bioethicists, clinicians, and drugmakers concludes that pregnant women should be included in trials of Zika vaccines, once safety in animals and nonpregnant adults is demonstrated. The risk/benefit issues spelled out in the report also apply to experiments with maternal immunization for other diseases, which are winning increasing support.
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Multiplex Array White Paper: Clinical Utility of Multiplex Tests for Respiratory and Gastrointestinal Pathogens (
American Society for Microbiology) In spite of the continued utilization of conventional diagnostic methods in clinical microbiology laboratories, the expanded availability of molecular methods for detection of pathogens directly in clinical specimens is changing the paradigm for diagnosis and management of patients with infectious diseases. One of the recent reasons for these changes has been the development of syndromic-based multiplex molecular panels with the ability to simultaneously detect, differentiate, and even subtype bacterial, parasitic and viral pathogens in patient specimens.
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Evacuation of Pets During Disasters: A Public Health Intervention to Increase Resilience (
AJPH) During a disaster, many pet owners want to evacuate their pets with them, only to find that evacuation and sheltering options are limited or nonexistent. This disregard for companion animal welfare during a disaster can have public health consequences. Pet owners may be stranded at home, unwilling to leave their pets behind. Others refuse evacuation orders or attempt to reenter evacuation sites illegally to rescue their animals. Psychopathologies such as grief, depression, and posttraumatic stress disorder are associated with pet abandonment during an evacuation.
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Science & Technology
Report Details Economic Benefits of US Global Health R & D (
CIDRAP) Against the backdrop of steep cuts in global health spending proposed in President Donald Trump's budget, two health advocacy groups today released a new report documenting how earlier government research and development investments have increased jobs in the US and saved lives around the world.
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Contemporary Status of Insecticide Resistance in the Major Aedes Vectors of Arboviruses Infecting Humans (
PLOS: Neglected Tropical Diseases) Both
Aedes aegytpi and
Ae. albopictus are major vectors of 5 important arboviruses (namely chikungunya virus, dengue virus, Rift Valley fever virus, yellow fever virus, and Zika virus), making these mosquitoes an important factor in the worldwide burden of infectious disease. Vector control using insecticides coupled with larval source reduction is critical to control the transmission of these viruses to humans but is threatened by the emergence of insecticide resistance.
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Other 21st Century Threats
3D-Printed Gun Designs Are Selling for $12 on the Dark Web (
Defense One) In the darker corners of the Internet where search engines cannot go, black markets offer pistols, machine guns, even explosives--and most worrisome to security researchers, computer aided design, or CAD, files for 3D-printed guns. A new report from RAND looked at 811 weapons listings on a dozen dark-web markets, which continue to thrive despite the shuttering of sites like the Silk Road and, just this month, AlphaBay. Firearms were the top-selling category, with 339 active listings, roughly 42 percent of the market.
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