Recent News

By Category: Agents & Toxins

Texas Biomed seeks vaccine for Ebola

SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS – Scientists in San Antonio and Georgia have been awarded $5.4 million from the federal government to develop a promising experimental vaccine against the deadly Ebola and Marburg hemorrhagic viruses. The vaccine, which uses noninfectious bits of the virus to trigger immunity, has proved both safe and effective in rats. Researchers now Read More »

May 3, 2011
| Filed under North America, Agents & Toxins, and Countermeasures
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Proposed destruction of smallpox virus stirs controversy – CBS News

(Livescience.com) After ravaging humanity for three millennia, the virus behind smallpox is facing its comeuppance. In May, at a meeting of the World Health Organization, nations will decide if it’s finally time to sterilize and incinerate into oblivion the known remaining samples of the virus. Smallpox is sometimes described as the most devastating disease in Read More »

April 26, 2011
| Filed under North America, Agents & Toxins, and Research
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Promising anthrax treatment study results

Researchers find that a multi-agent prophylaxis which is initiated within twenty-four hours after the infection, prevented the development of fatal anthrax respiratory disease; treatment which combines antibiotics with immunization and a protective antigen-based vaccine offered long-term immunity against the disease. According to a study in the April 2011 issue of the journal Antimicrobial Agents and Read More »

April 25, 2011
| Filed under Agents & Toxins and Research
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Why We Still Need Smallpox – New York Times

In a few weeks, member states of the World Health Organization will consider the destruction of the last known samples of smallpox virus, currently held in secure labs by the United States and Russia. Some have sought to publicly frame this issue as a contentious disagreement between our two countries and the rest of the Read More »

April 25, 2011
| Filed under North America, Agents & Toxins, and Research
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S. Korea reports additional case of foot-and-mouth disease

SEOUL, April 20 (Yonhap) — South Korea reported an additional case of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) on Wednesday, a week after the government lowered the alert level for the highly contagious disease by one notch.