Recent News

By Region: South America

WHO hopes for meeting on dual-use research in late fall

(CIDRAP News) The World Health Organization (WHO) hopes to hold a meeting late this fall to discuss “dual-use” research issues raised in the controversy over publication of two studies involving lab-modified H5N1 viruses with increased transmissibility, a WHO official said today. “We hope to hold a second meeting to discuss the broader concerns related to Read More »

June 1, 2012
| Filed under Africa, Asia/Pacific, Europe, Middle East, North America, South America, South Asia, International, Policy & Initiatives, Public Health, and Research
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Colombia Reports Anthrax Livestock Deaths and Skin Lesions

(BusinessWeek) Colombia reported livestock deaths from anthrax on two farms in the country’s north near the border with Venezuela as well as a person with skin lesions. The disease killed goats, sheep and pigs on two farms in the La Guajira community, the first outbreaks in the country since April last year, and a person Read More »

May 31, 2012
| Filed under South America, Agriculture, International, and Public Health
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New Plan To Increase Global Access To Vaccines Endorsed By World Health Assembly

(Medical News Today) Ministers of Health from 194 countries at the Sixty-fifth World Health Assembly have endorsed a landmark Global Vaccine Action Plan (GVAP), a roadmap to prevent millions of deaths by 2020 through more equitable access to existing vaccines for people in all communities…

May 30, 2012
| Filed under Africa, Asia/Pacific, Europe, Middle East, North America, South America, South Asia, International, Policy & Initiatives, and Public Health
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Biosafety concerns for labs in the developing world

(Nature.com) Biocontainment labs across the Asia-Pacific region all too often fail to live up to the term. An inspection of dozens of labs has found that nearly one-third of the biosafety hoods intended to protect workers from deadly pathogens did not work properly — an offence for which a Western lab could be shut down. Read More »

May 23, 2012
| Filed under Africa, Asia/Pacific, Europe, Middle East, North America, South America, South Asia, Biosafety, International, and Research
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How the World Health Organization is Helping to Prevent a Catastrophic H5N1 …

(World Health Organization HQ, Geneva) H5N1 influenza is what keeps people here up at night. The flu strain is deadly to humans on an order of magnitude greater than any other flu virus in history, including the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918. It kills approximately 60% of the people it infects. Just to put that Read More »