Biological Agents & Infectious Diseases
China MOA: H7N9 Outbreak in Ningxia Province (
Avian Flu Diary) Although greatly subdued this past winter--likely due to last year's aggressive H5-H7 poultry vaccination campaign--for the second time in 2 weeks China's MOA is reporting another large poultry outbreak of H7N9, this time in Ningxia Province.
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Domestic Preparedness & Response
In A Puerto Rican Mountain Town, Hope Ebbs As The Hardship Continues (
shots) Helicopters from the power company buzz across the skies of this picturesque valley, ferrying electrical poles on long wires to workmen standing on steep hillsides. The people of Castañer, an isolated village in Puerto Rico's central mountains, view the repairs to the electrical grid warily. Crews have come and gone, and people living along the mountain roads don't expect to get power until late summer, if ever.
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Government Affairs & National Security
Global Health Security
Uganda: Ministry of Health Set to Roll Out Oral Cholera Vaccine (
H5N1) As part of its strategic plan to eliminate Cholera in Uganda, Ministry of Health is set to roll out the Oral Cholera Vaccine (OCV) in Cholera prone districts. The districts that will benefit from this plan--also known as Cholera hotspots are; Hoima, Buliisa, Pakwach, Nebbi, Kasese, Ntoroko, Zombo, Moyo, Busia, Namayingo and Arua.
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Medicine & Public Health
Can Triage Nurses Help Prevent 911 Overload? (
shots) Most people are familiar with some form of triage: When you go to an emergency room, you first sit down with a triage nurse who records your symptoms, takes your vital signs and assesses the urgency of your medical need. As of Thursday, that's happening over the phone for 911 callers in Washington, DC, where triage nurses now sit alongside 911 dispatchers to help field calls.
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Science & Technology
True CRISPR: A Genetic Genre with Novel Twists (
GEN) CRISPR truth is stranger than CRISPR fiction, where the revolutionary gene-editing technology is being exploited as a fairly conventional plot device. In an X Files season finale, aliens weaponize CRISPR to attack the human immune system. In Change Agent, a science fiction novel that has been optioned by Netflix, a criminal syndicate uses CRISPR to develop a range of illicit genetic services. And in C.R.I.S.P.R., a procedural thriller that Jennifer Lopez hopes to develop for NBC, a CDC scientist and an FBI agent flirt with romance while thwarting the schemes of a mad scientist.
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Other 21st Century Threats
The Taboo on Chemical Weapons Has Lasted a Century--It Must Be Preserved (
The Guardian) At about 5pm on 22 April 1915, French and Algerian troops on the Ypres front in Belgium noticed a lull in the German artillery fire that had been targeting their lines. Bracing themselves for an expected infantry advance, they were puzzled instead to observe a greenish-yellow cloud drifting towards them, then lapping over the tops of the trenches.
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