Ebola Virus Disease Democratic Republic of the Congo - External Situation Report 10 ( WHO) The outbreak of Ebola virus disease in the Democratic Republic of the Congo remains active. One month into the response, there is cautious optimism about the situation in Bikoro and Wangata (especially Mbandaka) health zones where the last confirmed EVD case was reported on 16 May 2018. The primary focus of the response has moved from the urban areas of Equateur Province to the most remote and hard-to-reach places in Itipo and the greater Iboko Health Zone. Go to article

Health Authorities Respond to Lassa Fever Outbreak ( Daily Observer) The National Public Health Institute of Liberia (NPHIL) in collaboration with the Ministry of Health (MoH) has responded to the Lassa fever outbreak in the country. According to a release issued in Monrovia, cases of Lassa fever are on the increase in the Lassa belt (Bong, Nimba, and Grand Bassa Counties). Go to article

German Prosecutors Arrest Man Over Alleged Ricin Attack Plot ( The Guardian) German prosecutors say they have thwarted an alleged plot to launch an attack with the deadly toxin ricin. A 29-year-old Tunisian man, identified only as Sief Allah H, who was arrested on Wednesday, is accused of procuring material online including seeds needed for the creation of ricin, federal prosecutors said on Thursday. Go to article

US Disaster-Response Force Stretched Thin as Hurricane Season Starts ( Reuters) As Hurricane Irma bore down on Florida last September, the top US disaster-response official ordered all hands on deck. With 4,500 Federal Emergency Management Agency staffers already helping survivors of Hurricane Harvey in Texas, FEMA chief Brock Long told managers in an internal memo to ready every member of the agency's on-call reservist workforce for deployment. Go to article

The Next Plague Is Coming. Is America Ready? ( The Atlantic) Unlike airborne viruses such as influenza, Ebola spreads only through contact with infected bodily fluids. Even so, it is capable of incredible devastation, as West Africa learned in 2014, when, in the largest outbreak to date, more than 28,000 people were infected and upwards of 11,000 died. Despite the relative difficulty of transmission, Ebola still shut down health systems, crushed economies, and fomented fear. Go to article

Red Cross Medical Team Joins Fight Against Ebola Outbreak ( ReliefWeb) A Red Cross emergency medical team is now working as part of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) response to the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The team - made up of doctors, nurses, and water and sanitation experts from six National Red Cross Societies - will support five health facilities in the city of Mbandaka to prevent the spread of the disease, and to support people who have been infected. Go to article

Progress and Remaining Gaps in Estimating the Global Disease Burden of Influenza ( Emerging Infectious Diseases) Influenza has long been a global public health priority because of the threat of another global pandemic. Although data are available for the annual burden of seasonal influenza in many developed countries, fewer disease burden data are available for low-income and tropical countries. In recent years, however, the surveillance systems created as part of national pandemic preparedness efforts have produced substantial data on the epidemiology and impact of influenza in countries where data were sparse. Go to article

Ghana Eliminates Trachoma, Freeing Millions from Suffering and Blindness ( WHO) The WHO today congratulated Ghana for having eliminated trachoma as a public health problem, two decades after the World Health Assembly resolved to tackle the leading infectious cause of blindness. The announcement comes the day after a commitment from Pfizer, the manufacturer of Zithromax (azithromycin) to extend their donation programme for the antibiotic until 2025, if required, to finish the task of global trachoma elimination. Go to article

Procalcitonin-Guided Use of Antibiotics for Lower Respiratory Tract Infection ( The New England Journal of Medicine) The overuse of antibiotic agents is a public health problem associated with increased health care costs and antibiotic resistance. Overuse of antibiotics is common in infections of the lower respiratory tract, where bacterial and viral infections manifest similarly. Go to article

Effect of Dengue Serostatus on Dengue Vaccine Safety and Efficacy ( The New England Journal of Medicine) The first dengue vaccine -- the recombinant, live, attenuated, tetravalent dengue vaccine (CYD-TDV) -- was licensed on the basis of three efficacy trials in the Asia-Pacific region and Latin America. After an excess of hospitalizations for dengue among children who had been vaccinated at 2 to 5 years of age was observed in the third year of the phase 3 trial in Asia (the CYD14 trial), the potential effects of baseline dengue serostatus and age on vaccine safety and efficacy required reconsideration. Go to article

See also: Trolleyology and the Dengue Vaccine Dilemma ( The New England Journal of Medicine) "Trolleyology" refers to a series of moral dilemmas that reveal the tensions between utilitarianism -- the idea that a behavior is moral if its consequences maximize public good -- and our individual intuitions about right and wrong. Go to article

Perceptions of Zika Virus Risk During 2016 Outbreak, Miami-Dade County, Florida, USA ( Emerging Infectious Diseases) Misconceptions about arboviruses transmitted by Aedes spp. mosquitoes, such as Zika virus, can lead to misplaced reactions and affect local public health officials' abilities to contain outbreaks. Despite media campaigns on Zika virus, misperceptions persisted during the 2016 outbreak among some subgroups in Miami, Florida, USA. More than 4 in 10 Americans mistakenly thought that Zika virus infection was fatal and that symptoms were noticeable. Go to article

Mother-to-Child Transmission of Chikungunya Virus: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis ( PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases) Chikungunya virus (CHIKV) is an emerging arboviral infection with a global distribution and can cause infections of the fetus and/or newborn after maternal CHIKV-infections during gestation. In this systematic review, we evaluated the risk for mother-to-child transmission (MTCT), antepartum fetal deaths (APFD) and symptomatic neonatal disease from maternal CHIKV-infections during gestation. Go to article

A Machine Learning Application Based in Random Forest for Integrating Mass Spectrometry-Based Metabolomic Data: A Simple Screening Method for Patients with Zika Virus ( Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology) This study presents a powerful combination of high-resolution mass spectrometry and a machine-learning prediction model for data analysis to assess the existence of ZIKV infection across a series of patients that bear similar symptomatic conditions, but not necessarily are infected with the disease. By using mass spectrometric data that are inputted with the developed decision-making algorithm, we were able to provide a set of features that work as a "fingerprint" for this specific pathophysiological condition, even after the acute phase of infection. Go to article

The University of California will Finally Be Granted a Key CRISPR Patent ( STAT) In the never-ending saga of CRISPR patents, the University of California has finally put some points on the board, with the US Patent and Trademark Office granting it two genome-editing patents. Go to article

The Little-Known Nonprofit Behind the CRISPR Boom ( The Atlantic) Zhang published a paper on the gene-editing tool CRISPR, which again became a game-changing idea -- this time not just in neuroscience, but in all of biology. CRISPR involves taking proteins from bacteria -- like ones that cause strep infections -- and repurposing them to edit DNA. Go to article

Precise, Automated Control of Conditions for High-Throughput Growth of Yeast and Bacteria with eVOLVER ( Nature Biotechnology) We report the design and validation of eVOLVER, a scalable do-it-yourself (DIY) framework, which can be configured to carry out high-throughput growth experiments in molecular evolution, systems biology, and microbiology. High-throughput evolution of yeast populations grown at different densities reveals that eVOLVER can be applied to characterize adaptive niches. Go to article

Humoral and Cellular Immune Responses to Yersinia Pestis Pla Antigen in Humans Immunized with Live Plague Vaccine ( PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases) Plague is known as a primary natural zoonosis but is an extremely deadly infection for humans. The disease is caused by Yersinia pestis, a gram-negative bacterium, which upon entry in the body of mammalian host is capable of establishing three major forms of plague: bubonic, septicemic, and pneumonic. Go to article

Scientific Highlights of ASM Microbe 2018 ( American Society for Microbiology) We've compared ASM Microbe to Las Vegas and a multistage concert, in part because there are so many amazing scientific sessions occurring simultaneously that attendees must prioritize the sessions in their schedule. We've aggregated some of the best social media summaries of scientific presentations from the 2018 Microbe sessions. A live presentation of the highlights will be held online in the June 18th Microbial Minutes YouTube session. Go to article

Note by the Technical Secretariat - Report of the OPCW Fact-Finding Mission in Syria Regarding Alleged Incidents in Ltamenah, the Syrian Arab Republic 24 and 25 March 2017 ( OPCW) After the FFM became aware of allegations of use of a toxic chemical as a weapon in Ltamenah, in the Hama Governorate, the team assessed the credibility of the allegations based on information collected from open sources and information received from several non-governmental organisations (NGOs). Go to article