Today's Headlines: June 22, 2018
Biological Agents & Infectious Diseases
Ebola update:
Epidemiological Situation (
Ministry of Health of the Democratic Republic of Congo) A total of 61 cases of haemorrhagic fever were reported in the region, including 38 confirmed, 14 probable and 9 suspected. 3 new suspected cases in Bikoro.
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Ebola update:
Ebola Virus Disease - Democratic Republic of the Congo (
WHO) The Ministry of Health and WHO continue to closely monitor the outbreak of Ebola virus disease in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. There is cautious optimism. Slightly over a month into the response, further spread of EVD has largely been contained.
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Domestic Preparedness & Response
Global Health Security
Vaccination Coverage in Brazil at Lowest Historical Level (
Agencia Informativa Latinoamericana Prensa Latina) The coverage of vaccination programs in the country reached the lowest level ever registered during Michel Temer's administration, according to the digital newspaper Brazil 247. Until last year, the newspaper explained, that portfolio said it was still too early to verify a downward trend in vaccination. The federal government now admits the problem, it stressed.
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Strategic Response to an Outbreak of Circulating Vaccine-Derived Poliovirus Type 2 -- Syria, 2017-2018 (
CDC) Since the 1988 inception of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, progress toward interruption of wild poliovirus transmission has occurred mostly through extensive use of oral poliovirus vaccine in mass vaccination campaigns and through routine immunization services. However, because OPV contains live, attenuated virus, it carries the rare risk for reversion to neurovirulence. In areas with very low OPV coverage, prolonged transmission of vaccine-associated viruses can lead to the emergence of vaccine-derived polioviruses, which can cause outbreaks of paralytic poliomyelitis.
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Medicine & Public Health
For MERS, Two Drugs Are Better Than One (
Asian Scientist) Scientists in Hong Kong have found that a combination of interferon and cyclosporine could be used to treat Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus infection. Their findings are published in Anti-Viral Research.
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Zika: An Emerging Disease Requiring Prevention and Awareness (
PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases) The Zika virus was overlooked as a potential threat for more than half a century. It was discovered first in a Rhesus monkey in 1947 in the Zika Forest of Uganda, hence its name, but not until its emergence in 2007 did the flavivirus grab the attention of researchers. Originally, it was thought that the infection was isolated to only sporadic appearances in Asia and Africa, but this idea quickly changed with the first infections documented outside of its regional endemicity.
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Vector Competence of Aedes Aegypti, Culex Tarsalis, and Culex Quinquefasciatus from California for Zika Virus (
PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases) Assessing the ability of common mosquito species to transmit ZIKV and characterizing variation in mosquito transmission of different ZIKV strains is important for estimating regional outbreak potential and for prioritizing local mosquito control strategies for
Aedes and
Culex species. In this study, we evaluated the laboratory vector competence of
Aedes aegypti,
Culex quinquefasciatus, and
Culex tarsalis that originated in areas of California where ZIKV cases in travelers since 2015 were frequent.
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Understanding, Preventing, and Stopping Epidemics (
The Lancet)
Outbreak: Epidemics in a Connected World, at the US Smithsonian Institute's National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC, brings the 1918 influenza pandemic back to life, along with many of the other major global public health threats of the past century. The exhibition explores the ecology of epidemics and what it takes to prevent, detect, and respond to outbreaks.
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Science & Technology
Will Launching Plants into Orbit Yield New Medicines? (
STAT) The test tubes didn't look much like planet Earth. There were four of them stuck into a white, 3-D printed frame, each one home to a spindly plant sprouting from a dab of lab-made jelly. It was to a garden what Soylent is to confit de canard with fingerling potatoes and mesclun greens. But once inserted into an aluminum metal box, propelled out of our atmosphere, and plugged into the International Space Station, this arrangement was supposed to mimic everything about our world - except for one important detail.
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Surveying What's Flushed Away (
Nature Reviews Microbiology) The development of global-scale initiatives to characterize the human gut microbiome, like the Human Microbiome Project or the Metagenomics of the Human Intestinal Tract consortium, is enabling us to better understand associations between its compositional variability and the development of diseases such as cancer, obesity and inflammatory bowel diseases.
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US Center Will Fight Infections with Viruses (
Science) One piece of good news can make all the difference. In the fight against antibiotic-resistant infections, a decades-old approach based on bacteria-slaying viruses called phages has been sidelined by technical hurdles, dogged by regulatory confusion, and largely ignored by drug developers in the West. But 2 years ago, researchers at the University of California, San Diego, used phages to knock out an infection that nearly killed a colleague.
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Other 21st Century Threats
First Planned Biological Bomb Attack on Germany Confirmed (
Handelsblatt Global) German authorities have now confirmed what many feared: The 29-year-old Tunisian man arrested last week in Cologne was creating a deadly biological weapon he intended to use for a terrorist attack somewhere in the country. Where exactly is still unknown, and is one of several issues still being scrutinized by investigators.
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Why the OPCW Should Attribute Responsibility for Chemical Attacks (
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists) On June 20, the Bulletin published an article by Oliver Meier and Ralf Trapp about a UK initiative to task the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons with attributing responsibility for chemical weapon attacks. I have known both authors personally for many years, and while I have usually found myself in total agreement with what they have written on efforts to control chemical and biological weapons, on this occasion I must, regretfully, disagree profoundly with their argument.
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See also:
25th Person at US Embassy in Cuba Is Mysteriously Sickened (
New York Times) Another diplomat working at the US Embassy in Havana has been sickened by a mysterious attack, bringing to 25 the number of personnel who have fallen ill there, the State Department said on Thursday. The case was the first confirmed in Cuba since August and could suggest that whatever caused the illnesses in late 2016 and the first part of 2017 had started again or was continuing.
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