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By Category: Policy & Initiatives

Canada confines mutant flu to maximum-security facilities

(Nature.com) Canada this month announced that any research on mammalian-transmissible strains of the H5N1 avian flu virus in the country’s labs would need to be done at the strictest level of biocontainment, biosafety level 4 (BSL-4). It’s the first country to …

February 24, 2012
| Filed under North America, Biosafety, and Policy & Initiatives
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Publish lethal flu virus work, says WHO

(New Scientist) BATTLES continue over whether or not to publish research in which H5N1 bird flu transmitted readily among mammals. Last week, a group of flu virologists, public health experts from countries where H5N1 circulates, bioethicists and the World Health Organization advised that the work should be published – even though the top US biosecurity Read More »

February 23, 2012
| Filed under Africa, Asia/Pacific, Europe, Middle East, North America, South America, South Asia, Agents & Toxins, International, Policy & Initiatives, and Research
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Bioterror is not the biggest threat from bird flu

(New Scientist) How should we react? Not by delaying the publication of the research, for fear that it will aid supposed bioterrorists. There is surprisingly little evidence that such a threat exists. But there has long been a great deal of evidence that the threat of pandemic flu exists.

February 23, 2012
| Filed under Europe, North America, Bioterrorism, Countermeasures, Policy & Initiatives, Public Health, and Research
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UK ‘not ready for bioterror attack’

(The Press Association) Mr Murphy suggested that anthrax, smallpox or other deadly agents could be the biggest threat in the 21st century, and the response was untested. The danger was highlighted as Labour launched its own review of the UK’s defence capabilities. Mr Murphy accused David Cameron of being “ambivalent” to defence, and showing less Read More »

February 23, 2012
| Filed under Europe, Countermeasures, and Policy & Initiatives
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Full Details of Avian Flu Research Set for Release

(Global Security Newswire) A panel of experts convened by the World Health Organization last week called for publishing all data from two research studies that resulted in development of more transmissible forms of the avian flu virus, the New York Times reported. Public release of the work by scientists at Erasmus University Medical Center in Read More »