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By Category: Public Health

Newly discovered virus implicated in deadly Chinese outbreaks

GALVESTON, Texas — Five years ago, large numbers of farmers in central China began falling victim to an mysterious disease marked by high fever, gastrointestinal disorder and an appalling mortality rate — as high as 30 percent in initial reports. Investigators from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention hurried to the scene of Read More »

March 22, 2011
| Filed under Asia/Pacific and Public Health
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New Standards for Reducing Pathogens in Poultry

Trying to cut the risk of foodborne illnesses caused by contaminated raw poultry, the U.S. Department of Agriculture on Wednesday announced stricter standards to reduce Salmonella and Campylobacter in young chickens and turkey.The new baseline standards take effect in July.USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FS!S) estimates that two years of enforcing the tougher standards Read More »

March 17, 2011
| Filed under North America, Agriculture, and Public Health
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Stemming the Spread of Disease at Airports

With roughly two million people flying each day and spending hours in confined areas where they will come into close contact with potentially infected people, air travel poses a serious challenge to public health officials seeking to contain major disease outbreaks; last month public health officials scrambled to contain a potential mass outbreak of measles Read More »

March 16, 2011
| Filed under Africa, Asia/Pacific, Europe, Middle East, North America, South America, South Asia, and Public Health
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Research Aims to Reduce E. coli Shed by Cattle

Michigan State University has received a $2.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to find ways to reduce the amount of E. coli released by cattle, and in effect, decrease the number of foodborne illness in humans."More than 70,000 people become ill due to shiga toxin-producing E. coli every year," said Roger Beachy, Read More »

March 15, 2011
| Filed under North America and Public Health
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Committee Sharply Critiques WHO’s Pandemic Response

Eight months after the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the swine flu pandemic officially over, an independent expert group has given the global health agency a decidedly mixed evaluation of how it handled the entire episode, from the outbreak’s…