Recent News

By Region: Europe

No risk from composting infected chickens

(ABC News) Biosecurity officials say there is no risk stemming from composting tens of thousands of chickens culled after a bird flu outbreak in the Hunter Valley. 50,000 hens have been destroyed after the H-7 strain of Avian Influenza was detected in hens on a farm near Maitland last week. The animals will be composted Read More »

November 21, 2012
| Filed under Europe, North America, Agriculture, International, and Research
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$3 million awarded to find biomarkers for potential test of cure for chagas disease

(EurekAlert) Today at the 61st Annual Meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (ASTMH), the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi) announces a new $3 million Strategic Translation Award from the Wellcome Trust to identify new biological markers for the evaluation of treatment efficacy in Chagas disease, a potentially fatal neglected tropical Read More »

November 13, 2012
| Filed under Europe, North America, Agents & Toxins, and Research
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Research on anthrax vaccine on to counteract threat of bioterrorism

(Domain-B) Scientists at Queen’s University Belfast are aiming to help counteract the threat of bioterrorism by undertaking new research to develop a vaccine against anthrax. Dr Rebecca Ingram from the School of Medicine, Dentistry and Biomedical Sciences at Queen’s is working with scientists from Cardiff University, the Republic of Georgia, Turkey and the USA in Read More »

November 12, 2012
| Filed under Europe, North America, Agents & Toxins, Biological Weapons, Bioterrorism, International, and Research
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Heroin user treated for anthrax in 12th confirmed case of disease in Europe since June

(Birmingham Mail) A drug user has been taken to hospital with anthrax infection after injecting a suspected contaminated batch of heroin. The case in Oxford follows the deaths of two people who injected drugs from a confirmed anthrax infection in Blackpool in August and September. The Health Protection Agency (HPA) said it was the 12th Read More »

November 5, 2012
| Filed under Europe, North America, Agents & Toxins, and Public Health
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New tick disease in Switzerland

(EurekAlert) Until now, we knew that ticks primarily transmit two pathogens to humans in Switzerland: the bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi – which causes borreliosis – and the early-summer-meningoencephalitis virus, which can cause cerebral inflammation. Now, microbiologists from the University of Zurich confirm the existence of another tick disease in Switzerland – neoehrlichiosis. The pathogenic bacteria Candidatus Read More »