Biological Agents & Infectious Diseases
El Salvador Reports Typhoid Epidemic, Hundreds of Suspected Cases (
Outbreak News Today) El Salvador Minister of Public Health, Violeta Menjívar, said that there is an epidemic outbreak of typhoid fever that has affected some 26 municipalities in the country. Deputy Minister Julio Tobles Ticas with the El Salvador Ministry of Health and Social Assistance (Minsal) was more specific saying they have registered 644 suspected cases of typhoid fever, to date.
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Kellogg's Recalls Honey Smacks Cereal: Now 10 Salmonella Outbreaks in 2018 (
Forbes) If you bought a 15.3 oz. (UPC Code 38000 39103) or 23 oz. box (UPC Code 38000 14810) of the cereal with a "best if used by" date from June 14, 2018, through June 14, 2019, you may want to replace that date with a "never" until further notice. That's because on June 14 the Kellogg Company announced a recall of these cereal products due to concerns that contamination with Salmonella Mbandaka may have led to an outbreak.
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Rift Valley fever - Kenya (
WHO) On 8 June 2018, the Ministry of Health for Kenya confirmed an outbreak of Rift Valley fever. The first patient was admitted to a hospital in Wajir County in north-eastern Kenya on 2 June with fever, body weakness, and bleeding from the gums and mouth. The patient reported having consumed meat from a sick animal; the patient died the same day.
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Global Health Security
Global Trends: Forced Displacement in 2017 (
ReliefWeb) Wars, other violence and persecution drove worldwide forced displacement to a new high in 2017 for the fifth year in a row, led by the crisis in Democratic Republic of the Congo, South Sudan's war, and the flight into Bangladesh from Myanmar of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees.
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Government Affairs & National Security
Are Countries Prepared for the Increasing Threat of Engineered Bioweapons? (
Harvard Business Review) Amid current outbreaks of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Nipah virus in India, an even scarier threat looms. Last year, researchers recreated an extinct smallpox-like virus with DNA bought online for just $100,000 and published how they did it. Their feat heightens concerns that rogue regimes and terrorists could similarly modify or engineer pathogens and use them as weapons.
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Medicine & Public Health
Blood Signature Could Improve Early TB Diagnosis (
EurekAlert!) A gene signature in the bloodstream could reveal whether someone is going to develop active tuberculosis (TB) disease months before symptoms begin. Such a signature has now been developed by a team led by the Francis Crick Institute and University of Leicester, in collaboration with BIOASTER and bioMerieux in France and the University of Cape Town in South Africa.
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Neuroinfluenza: A Review of Recently Published Studies (
Avian Flu Diary) Although primarily a self-limiting infection of the respiratory tract, for a small subset of cases - most often among children - influenza can present with a variety of subtle, and sometimes profound, neurological symptoms. The exact mechanisms behind these neurological manifestations are unknown, as seasonal flu viruses are generally regarded as being
non-neurotropic.
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Science & Technology
Biodefense in the Age of Synthetic Biology (
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine: Subscription Required) Scientific advances over the past several decades have accelerated the ability to engineer existing organisms and to potentially create novel ones not found in nature. Synthetic biology, which collectively refers to concepts, approaches, and tools that enable the modification or creation of biological organisms, is being pursued overwhelmingly for beneficial purposes ranging from reducing the burden of disease to improving agricultural yields to remediating pollution.
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US Military Wants to Know What Synthetic-Biology Weapons Could Look Like (
MIT Technology Review) A study ordered by the US DOD has concluded that new genetic-engineering tools are expanding the range of malicious uses of biology and decreasing the amount of time needed to carry them out. The new tools aren't in themselves a danger and are widely employed to create disease-resistant plants and new types of medicine.
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De Novo DNA Synthesis Using Polymerase-Nucleotide Conjugates (
Nature Biotechnology) The overwhelming majority of biological research and bioengineering requires synthetic DNA, including oligonucleotides (oligos) and longer constructs such as synthetic genes and even entire chromosomes. Massively parallel oligo synthesis has dramatically reduced the cost of high-throughput and genome-wide functional screens and target capture for next-generation sequencing.
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Zika Virus Vaccines (
Nature Reviews Microbiology) The recent epidemic of Zika virus (ZIKV) in the Americas has revealed the devastating consequences of ZIKV infection, particularly in pregnant women. Congenital Zika syndrome, characterized by malformations and microcephaly in neonates as well as developmental challenges in children, highlights the need for the development of a safe and effective vaccine.
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LC2018: VolTRAX (
Omics! Omics!) In my preview ahead of London Calling, I suggested that VolTRAX is a device that still hasn't found its raison d'etre. With the meeting, the device officially pre-launched and the company is now taking pre-orders for delivery in the Fall. And it still feels like a device which hasn't yet found its purpose, though Clive Brown presented a dazzling (if perhaps distant) vision of where VolTRAX might go.
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