Recent News

By Category: International

Researchers take virus-tracking software worldwide

(R & D Magazine) A biomedical informatics researcher who tracks dangerous viruses as they spread around the globe has restructured his innovative tracking software to promote even wider use of the program around the world.

May 24, 2012
| Filed under Asia/Pacific, Europe, North America, Countermeasures, International, Public Health, and Research
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Indifferent reporting of notifiable diseases

(Canadian Medical Association Journal) As a signatory to the International Health Regulations, Canada has an obligation to report cases if yellow fever, plague, cholera and all other diseases that might be considered to potentially cause a “public health emergency of international concern.” It is a truism that Canadian physicians and other health workers are legally Read More »

May 23, 2012
| Filed under North America, Agents & Toxins, International, 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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Designer Flu: How scientists made a killer virus airborne — and who should know

(Science News) Last summer, scientists performed an experiment that could have been ripped from the script of a Hollywood thriller. Sealed off in high-tech laboratories in the Netherlands and Wisconsin, researchers transformed one of the world’s most deadly viruses, transmissible by direct contact, into versions capable of spreading through the air.

May 21, 2012
| Filed under Europe, North America, International, Policy & Initiatives, Public Health, and Research
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With NATO in town, hospitals brace for bioterrorism

(Crain’s Chicago Business) While many downtown office workers worry about commuting headaches during the NATO summit, two Chicago hospital systems are prepared for far worse possibilities. The University of Chicago Medical Center and the Cook County Health and Hospitals System will both have decontamination areas set up outside their buildings to treat victims of potential Read More »