Recent News

By Category: Countermeasures

Airlines Urged to Keep Flying in West Africa Amid Ebola Outbreak

(Bloomberg Businessweek) The Ebola outbreak in West Africa has reached crisis proportions but poses no particular risk to air travelers, according to health officials and airlines—and air service should continue to serve affected areas to help combat the disease. That’s the message the International Air Transport Association, a trade group for global airlines, is pressing, bolstered  Read More »

Hundreds of bioterror lab mishaps cloaked in secrecy

(USA Today) More than 1,100 laboratory incidents involving bacteria, viruses and toxins that pose significant or bioterror risks to people and agriculture were reported to federal regulators during 2008 through 2012, government reports obtained by USA TODAY show. More than half these incidents were serious enough that lab workers received medical evaluations or treatment, according  Read More »

Experimental Chikungunya Vaccine Shows Promise

(Global Biodefense) An experimental vaccine to prevent the mosquito-borne viral illness chikungunya elicited neutralizing antibodies in all 25 adult volunteers who participated in a recent early-stage clinical trial conducted by researchers at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health. 

U.S. Completes Destruction of Sarin Precursors from Syria on the Cape Ray

(Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons) All 581 metric tonnes of a precursor chemical for sarin gas that were removed from the Syrian Arab Republic and trans-loaded onto the U.S. Maritime Vessel Cape Ray in early July, have been destroyed with neutralisation technology aboard the ship while sailing in international waters of the Mediterranean Sea.  Read More »

Hospitals in the U.S. Get Ready for Ebola

(New York Times)  Hospitals nationwide are hustling to prepare for the first traveler from West Africa who arrives in the emergency room with symptoms of infection with the Ebola virus.Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has said such a case is inevitable in the United States, and the agency this month  Read More »