How Zika Leads to Fetal Brain Abnormalities (
Newsweek) The outbreak of Zika virus in Brazil in 2015, which brought the pathogen to widespread attention, came as a shock. The virus, discovered among caged monkeys in the Zika Forest of Uganda in 1947, had been presumed to be harmless to humans.
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UTMB Researcher is Co-Inventor of a Faster and More Accurate Test for Diagnosing Zika (
Galveston.com) Researchers from The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, in conjunction with the New York State Department of Health's Wadsworth Center, have developed a new detection test for Zika that is faster and more accurate than currently available tests. The new test can detect Zika in a very small sample of blood in less than four hours. The new test is detailed in EBioMedicine.
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Biological Agents & Infectious Diseases
At Least 27 Killed by Plague in Madagascar (
IOL) At least 27 people in southern Madagascar have died from the plague, health authorities on the island said Monday. At least 68 people have been infected with the plague in the Atsimo-Atsinanana and Ihorombe regions.
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Government Affairs & National Security
CIDRAP Antimicrobial Stewardship Project (
CIDRAP) Antimicrobial stewardship is a critical strategy to preserve available treatment options and slow the loss of effective antibiotics due to bacterial resistance (Spellberg 2013). Stewardship principles extend to veterinary medical practice and animal agriculture, in which a wide range of antibiotic drugs important to human medicine are used.
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Congress Needs to Prepare Itself, the Nation, for the Next Pandemic (
The Hill) South Korea became the latest country to go on high alert status last month after a rapid outbreak and spread of the bird flu virus. With more than 50 confirmed avian flu cases in humans in less than a month, Seoul's response has included quarantines, a temporary ban on moving, and the precautionary slaughter of more than 12 percent of the country's poultry flock.
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Trump's CDC May Face Serious Hurdles (
Scientific American) On day one of the Donald Trump administration, Schuchat will already be grappling with numerous threats as the agency continues its work of investigating outbreaks and seeking to prevent new ones. In the past seven and a half years under Frieden's leadership the CDC has been roiled by crises including government furloughs, H1N1 flu, lab safety issues and the US responses to Ebola and the Haiti earthquake.
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Global Health Security
How to Turn Competitors Into Collaborators (
Nature) Four years ago--14 months before the Ebola epidemic began--more than 20 laboratories around the world formed an unusual global collaboration to rapidly develop treatments for Ebola and other severe threats. The efforts of the collaboration, of which we are all part, produced the first Ebola drug deployed during the outbreak, as well as the first to demonstrate human benefit. Since then, we have become convinced that the collaborative strategy we followed could work as a model for finding treatments for other diseases.
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European Strategy for Vaccine Development Against Infectious Diseases (
Vaccine) Immunisation efforts save millions of lives every year, but vaccines hold the potential to deliver even greater health benefits for mankind. Vaccine research and development is highly complex, and it requires concerted public funding efforts to support. In this paper we discuss EU funding priorities and the resulting recent advancements in European vaccine research, and we lay out the EU strategy for aiding promising vaccine candidates to successfully reach the market.
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Medicine & Public Health
Interest in an Ebola Vaccine Among a US National Sample During the Height of the 2014-2016 Ebola Outbreak in West Africa (
Vaccine) From 2014 to 2016, an unprecedented epidemic of Ebola virus disease spread through West Africa, leading to over 28,000 cases and over 11,000 deaths. The scope, severity, and challenges with containing this epidemic spurred intensive Ebola vaccine research, development, and clinical trials and. Early results from vaccine trials hold promise, with two candidate vaccines proven safe and well-tolerated in humans. As part of future control and response strategies, the licensure of an Ebola vaccine would be an invaluable asset--particularly for people living in West Africa and other regions where the disease is endemic.
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Science & Technology
NIH Scientists Identify Early Impact of Ebola Virus on Immune System (
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases) A new mouse model of early Ebola virus infection has shown NIH scientists and colleagues how early responses of the immune system can affect development of EBOV disease. The model could help identify protective immune responses as targets for developing human EBOV therapeutics.
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As Ebola Interest Ebbs, Experts Push for Optimal Vaccines, Readiness (
CIDRAP) In its third report in as many years, a team of vaccine, public health, and industry experts today urge global leaders to not let up on developing as many Ebola vaccines as needed so the world will be better prepared for the next outbreak of the deadly disease, even though public attention has shifted to other threats, including Zika virus.
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Advancing Phage Therapy (
American Society for Microbiology) Bacteriophages, viruses that infect bacteria, are the planet's most numerous microorganisms. They kill vast numbers of bacteria in natural environments. They can also be used to treat bacterial infections.
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Targeted DNA Sequencing and in Situ Mutation Analysis Using Mobile Phone Microscopy (
Nature Communications) Molecular diagnostics is typically outsourced to well-equipped centralized laboratories, often far from the patient. We developed molecular assays and portable optical imaging designs that permit on-site diagnostics with a cost-effective mobile-phone-based multimodal microscope. We demonstrate that targeted next-generation DNA sequencing reactions and
in situ point mutation detection assays in preserved tumour samples can be imaged and analysed using mobile phone microscopy, achieving a new milestone for tele-medicine technologies.
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