Today's Headlines: March 22, 2019
Biological Agents & Infectious Diseases
Ebola Total Approaches 1,000 as Cases Reappear in Beni (CIDRAP) Continuing a recent surge in new Ebola cases, the Democratic Republic of the Congo's (DRC's) health ministry reported 11 more cases today, including 2 in Beni, an area that had been an epicenter earlier in the outbreak, bringing the outbreak total to 991 cases.
China Declares Victory Over African Swine Fever but Cover-Up Claims Call Success into Question (South China Morning Post) African swine fever is spreading and becoming more entrenched in China despite assurances that the situation has been brought under control according to industry insiders, with fears local authorities are covering up outbreaks while journalists are being ordered not to cover the story due to fear of spreading panic. Go to article
TB in US at All-Time Low, but Global Decline Small (CIDRAP) The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released new numbers today about tuberculosis (TB) in the United States in advance of World TB Day, which takes place on Mar 24, noting that cases have reached an all-time low.
Government Affairs & National Security
Research & Development Coordination Has Improved, but Additional Actions Needed to Track and Evaluate Projects (GAO) The Department of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Directorate is required to coordinate research and development (R&D) across the department, which helps to prevent duplicative efforts. We found that the department's R&D project information is stored in various disparate sources (e.g., reports, data systems, etc.)—which makes it difficult to identify and track. By developing a method to align these sources, the directorate can better compile and analyze R&D project information. Go to article
Global Health Security
New Index Offers Tool to Monitor Global Disease Outlook (Homeland Security News) A new global index offers an original way to monitor national-level preparedness for infectious disease, providing a holistic view of a country’s capacity to mitigate the spread of illness and pandemics.   Go to article

WHO Reveals Delayed Pick for H3N2 Flu Vaccine Strain (CIDRAP) After waiting an extra month to decide on the H3N2 strain, World Health Organization (WHO) vaccine advisors today finalized their recommendations on strains to include in the Northern Hemisphere 2019-20 flu vaccines. Go to article

Sudan Set to Protect Over 8 Million People with its Largest Ever Yellow Fever Vaccination Drive (WHO) The Federal Ministry of Health, in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO), Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, and UNICEF has launched a large-scale mass vaccination campaign in Sudan to vaccinate over 8.3 million people aged from 9 months to 60 years against yellow fever in the states of Blue Nile, Gezira and Sennar during 10–29 March 2019. Go to article
Medicine & Public Health

Methodology for Whole Genome Sequencing of MRSA In A Routine Hospital Microbiology Laboratory (Journal of Clinical Microbiology) There is growing evidence for the value of bacterial whole genome sequencing in hospital outbreak investigation. Our aim was to develop methods that support efficient and accurate low throughput clinical sequencing of methicillin-resistant  Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).  G o to article

UPS Eyes In-Home Health Services with US Vaccine Project (Reuters) The world’s largest package delivery firm is preparing to test a U.S. service that dispatches nurses to vaccinate adults in their homes, Reuters has learned, as the company and its healthcare clients work to fend off cost pressures and competitive threats from Amazon.com. Go to article
Science & Technology
Intradermal Syncon® Ebola GP DNA Vaccine Is Temperature Stable and Safely Demonstrates Cellular and Humoral Immunogenicity Advantages in Healthy Volunteers ( Journal of Infectious Diseases ) Non-live vaccine approaches that are simple to deliver and stable at room temperature or 2-8°C could be advantageous in controlling future Ebola virus (EBOV) outbreaks. Using an immunopotent DNA vaccine that generates protection from lethal EBOV challenge in small animals and NHPs, we performed a clinical study to evaluate both intramuscular (IM) and novel intradermal (ID) DNA delivery. Go to article
A dversarial Attacks on Medical Machine Learning ( Science) With public and academic attention increasingly focused on the new role of machine learning in the health information economy, an unusual and no-longer-esoteric category of vulnerabilities in machine-learning systems could prove important. These vulnerabilities allow a small, carefully designed change in how inputs are presented to a system to completely alter its output, causing it to confidently arrive at manifestly wrong conclusions. These advanced techniques to subvert otherwise-reliable machine-learning systems—so-called adversarial attacks—have, to date, been of interest primarily to computer science researchers. Go to article
Demonstration of End-to-End Automation of DNA Data Storage (Nature) Synthetic DNA has emerged as a novel substrate to encode computer data with the potential to be orders of magnitude denser than contemporary cutting edge techniques. However, even with the help of automated synthesis and sequencing devices, many intermediate steps still require expert laboratory technicians to execute. We have developed an automated end-to-end DNA data storage device to explore the challenges of automation within the constraints of this unique application. Go to article
Essential Metabolism for a Minimal Cell ( Scientific Reports ) JCVI-syn3A, a robust minimal cell with a 543 kbp genome and 493 genes, provides a versatile platform to study the basics of life. Using the vast amount of experimental information available on its precursor,  Mycoplasma mycoides capri, we assembled a near-complete metabolic network with 98% of enzymatic reactions supported by annotation or experiment. Go to article
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