Recent News

By Region: Africa

Plugging Holes Over Bioweapons

This December, the picturesque city of Geneva will host the Seventh Review Conference of the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC). The BWC, which 163 countries are state parties to, prohibits the use, development, production and stockpiling of biological and toxin weapons. In advance of the Review Conference, international delegates to the Convention met from April 13 Read More »

April 22, 2011
| Filed under Africa, Asia/Pacific, Europe, Middle East, North America, South America, South Asia, Biological Weapons, and International
Share

WHO group finalizes landmark pandemic virus-sharing agreement

(CIDRAP News) – A World Health Organization (WHO) working group on influenza virus sharing capped off a week of negotiations with a final agreement that establishes a framework for sharing vaccine strains alongside a system for improving the flow of pandemic vaccine and medications to developing countries. The WHO said yesterday that the group, which Read More »

April 19, 2011
| Filed under Africa, Asia/Pacific, Europe, Middle East, North America, South America, South Asia, Countermeasures, and International
Share

African Pathogens Must Be Secured, Lugar Says

A senior U.S. senator highlighted the need to protect deadly pathogen samples housed in African laboratories from hostile actors who might seek to deploy them in a biological attack, Chemical & Engineering News reported on Monday (see GSN, Nov., 23, 2010). During the Cold War, the former Soviet Union conducted research into the biowarfare uses Read More »

April 14, 2011
| Filed under Africa, North America, Biological Weapons, and International
Share

BWC Review Conference Chairman Aims to Bolster Treaty Regime

WASHINGTON — The Biological Weapons Convention review conference this year should look at ways to strengthen the international prohibition against the offensive use of disease materials, according to the chairman of the upcoming meeting

April 13, 2011
| Filed under Africa, Asia/Pacific, Europe, Middle East, North America, South America, South Asia, International, and Policy & Initiatives
Share

World Health Day 2011

7 April 2011 — Combat drug resistance: no action today means no cure tomorrow. “On this World Health Day, WHO is issuing a policy package to get everyone, especially governments and their drug regulatory systems, on the right track, with the right measures, quickly… Drug resistance costs vast amounts of money, and affects vast numbers Read More »