Thousands More Cholera Cases Reported in Yemen, Somalia (
CIDRAP) In a pair of outbreak updates yesterday, Yemen confirmed another 35,000 cholera cases, while Somalia reported a slight slowdown, with only 1,121 cases reported in the past few weeks. The outbreaks are part of ongoing outbreaks in several countries in the Horn of Africa and Gulf of Aden regions.
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Government Affairs & National Security
DIUx Set to Get Emergency Cash Infusion (
Defense News) The Pentagon's commercial outreach office needs an emergency infusion of cash to keep key programs moving forward - and the department is ready to give it to them. Gen. Paul Selva, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, revealed Tuesday that the Pentagon is preparing a fiscal reprogramming request to keep the Defense Innovation Unit Experimental, or DIUx, running at full speed.
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Global Health & Security
Biosecurity Imperative: An Urgent Case for Extending the Global Health Security Agenda (
NTI) In 2014, dozens of governments, international organizations and non-governmental groups from around the world came together to accelerate global capacity to prevent, detect, and respond to urgent infectious disease threats and to elevate health security as a global priority. The Global Health Security Agenda was conceived as a five-year initial effort that would run through 2019 - but it's already clear that this vital partnership with a proven track record must be extended well into the future.
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WHO Estimates Cost of Reaching Global Health Targets by 2030 (
WHO) The SDG Health Price Tag, published today in
The Lancet Global Health, estimates the costs and benefits of progressively expanding health services in order to reach 16 Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) health targets in 67 low- and middle-income countries that account for 75% of the world's population.
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Why Zika Is Especially Hard on the Women of Brazil (
NPR: Goats and Soda) Did the Zika virus put a heavier burden on women than it did on men when the virus swept through Brazil? A new report by Human Rights Watch argues that the answer is yes. It started with the task of keeping mosquitoes at bay - a task that often fell to the women and girls in a family. And it continues today with women shouldering much of the care for babies born with congenital Zika syndrome, which includes microcephaly, a birth defect characterized by a smaller than normal head and brain damage.
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The Changing Landscape of a H7N9 Influenza Virus Infections in China (
Lancet: Infectious Diseases) Before 2013, zoonotic influenza infections were dominated by A H5N1 viruses. These viruses had spread across the globe with almost 700 cases detected. Their dominance was challenged by the emergence of A H7N9 viruses, which have now surpassed A H5N1 viruses in laboratory confirmed human infections despite limited dissemination outside of China. No evidence exists for sustained human-to-human spread of either virus.
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Medicine & Public Health
"
Post-Ebola Syndrome" Is Something Else to Keep You up at Night
(ars Technica) After the ghastly symptoms subside, Ebola may not be done; it may just shift to a clever stealth mode, a new study suggests. Examining archived tissue samples from infected monkeys, researchers found that Ebola can create a cryptic viral reservoir in certain immune cells and hide in corners of the body where the rest of the immune system has little reach. The study, published this week in Nature Microbiology, echoes the reports from human Ebola survivors who complain of lingering symptoms and complications that researchers have struggled to understand.
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Improving Vaccine Trials in Infectious Disease Emergencies (
Science) Unprecedented global effort is under way to facilitate the testing of countermeasures in infectious disease emergencies. Better understanding of the various options for trial design is needed in advance of outbreaks, as is preliminary global agreement on the most suitable designs for the various scenarios. What would enhance the speed, validity, and ethics of clinical studies of such countermeasures?
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Falsified Medicine - Tackling a Serious Threat to Public Health (
devex) In January 2012, at least 100 people died after receiving substandard medication while being treated at Lahore's Punjab Institute of Cardiology. Unfortunately, this is not an isolated case. In 2008, more than half of antibiotics sampled in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia were found to be substandard. Similarly, poor-quality antimalarial medication is estimated to have cost the lives of 122,350 children under 5 years old in 39 sub-Saharan countries in 2013 alone. Falsified and substandard medicines have become a threat to public health, and risk undermining many of the gains of the last 20 years.
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Science & Technology
The Uncertain Future of Genetic Testing (
Atlantic) Thousands of people have had their BRCA genes tested for increased genetic susceptibility to breast, ovarian, prostate, and other cancers. About 5 percent have learned that they carry a VUS. That number is even higher for other genes: In one study, almost 20 percent of genetic tests returned a VUS result.
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Advances in Ebola Virus Vaccination (
Lancet: Infectious Diseases) The Ebola virus outbreak in western Africa between 2013 and 2016 was the largest and deadliest since the discovery of the virus in 1976. The epidemic provided the impetus to fast-track several promising vaccines into clinical trials during the tail-end of the outbreak, including the rVSVĪG-ZEBOV-GP viral vector vaccine, which was used in ring vaccination trials in Guinea.
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Building the Safe Genes Toolkit (
DARPA) DARPA created the Safe Genes program to gain a fundamental understanding of how gene editing technologies function; devise means to safely, responsibly, and predictably harness them for beneficial ends; and address potential health and security concerns related to their accidental or intentional misuse. Today, DARPA announced awards to seven teams that will pursue that mission, led by: The Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard; Harvard Medical School; Massachusetts General Hospital; Massachusetts Institute of Technology; North Carolina State University; University of California, Berkeley; and University of California, Riverside. DARPA plans to invest $65 million in Safe Genes over the next four years as these teams work to collect empirical data and develop a suite of versatile tools that can be applied independently or in combination to support bio-innovation and combat bio-threats.
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Next-generation Ice Core Technology Reveals True Minimum Natural Levels of Lead (Pb) in the Atmosphere: Insights from the Black Death (
GeoHealth) Contrary to widespread assumptions, next-generation high (annual to multiannual) and ultra-high (subannual) resolution analyses of an Alpine glacier reveal that true historical minimum natural levels of lead in the atmosphere occurred only once in the last ~2000 years. During the Black Death pandemic, demographic and economic collapse interrupted metal production and atmospheric lead dropped to undetectable levels. This finding challenges current government and industry understanding of preindustrial lead pollution and its potential implications for human health of children and adults worldwide.
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Other 21st Century Threats
Texas Actress Who Sent Obama Ricin Sentenced to 18 Years (
CNN) The Texas actress who admitted sending ricin-laced letters to President Barack Obama and then-New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg was sentenced to 18 years in prison Wednesday, the US attorney's office said. Shannon Guess Richardson, 36, also was ordered to pay $367,000 in restitution.
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