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By Category: Countermeasures

Health units run anthrax scenario

(Dickinson Press) The Southwest District Health Unit and volunteers conducted full-scale exercises across western North Dakota to test an anthrax breakout scenario. Though the likelihood of an outbreak is low, there is still a chance, officials say. …

October 3, 2011
| Filed under North America, Countermeasures, Policy & Initiatives, and Public Health
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U.S. orders anthrax vaccine – UPI.com

U.S. orders anthrax vaccineUPI.comROCKVILLE, Md., Oct. 3 (UPI) — The US government has ordered 44.75 million doses of a vaccine from a Maryland company to protect against anthrax. Emergent BioSolutions Inc., with headquarters in Rockville, Md., said that under the $1.25 billion award …Rockville firm lands contract for government anthrax vaccinesBaltimore SunEmergent gets up to Read More »

October 3, 2011
| Filed under Countermeasures
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Community Storage of Anthrax-Preventing Antibiotics

(National Academies) As part of preparations for a possible large-scale anthrax attack, public health officials at the state and local levels should determine where and how anthrax-preventing antibiotics should be stored in their communities, says a new report from the Institute of Medicine. The report provides guidance to state, local, and tribal health officials to Read More »

October 3, 2011
| Filed under North America, Countermeasures, Policy & Initiatives, and Public Health
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What Contagion Missed

(Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists) It’s not often that Hollywood ventures into the realm of epidemics and public health, and when it does, the outcome is usually laughably out of touch with reality — like Outbreak, the 1995 movie about a deadly Ebola-like virus that infected a city. To prevent the virus from spreading, the Read More »

September 30, 2011
| Filed under North America, Agents & Toxins, Countermeasures, Policy & Initiatives, and Public Health
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Strides in biodefense follow 2001 anthrax scare

(USA Today) "We are certainly better prepared now, than we were ten years ago," says physician Eric Toner of the Center for Biosecurity of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. "But there is still a lot of work to be done." Toner says that a good, …