Recent News

By Category: Public Health

UN: ‘More should be done’ to prevent bio-terrorism

(BBC News) A UN official delivered the warning at the BioDesign Forum on synthetic biology being held in the UK. Piers Millet from the UN’s Biological Weapons Convention said there was no global organisation to ensure biotech was not used for “nefarious” purposes. But international bodies did exist to watch out for nuclear and chemical Read More »

September 28, 2012
| Filed under Europe, North America, Agents & Toxins, Bioterrorism, International, and Public Health
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A novel coronavirus

(The Economist) MOST of the time, for most people, respiratory diseases such as influenza and the common cold are little more than a snotty inconvenience. Occasionally, though, the viruses that cause them mutate into something truly nasty. The Spanish flu of 1918 may have killed more people than the first world war. More recently, there Read More »

September 28, 2012
| Filed under Asia/Pacific, North America, Agents & Toxins, Public Health, and Research
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Emergency responders train for worst case scenarios at Togus class

(Kennebec Journal) The exercise at VA Maine Healthcare System-Togus imagined dozens of fatalities and injuries from two explosions, including one from a bomb laced with anthrax. It was designed to hone coordination skills between federal, municipal and private agencies, said Maine VA Medical Center spokesman James Doherty. “You hope something never happens, but you want Read More »

September 27, 2012
| Filed under North America, Agents & Toxins, Countermeasures, and Public Health
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Why Animal Welfare Could be the Key to Wiping Out the World’s Deadliest Disease

(The Huffington Post) According to the World Health Organisation, more than 55,000 people die a terrible death from rabies every year. 40% of them are children. The suffering endured by people who get rabies is horrible – an awful way to die, and for others to see. Our natural and understandable fear of rabies, though, Read More »

September 27, 2012
| Filed under Europe, North America, Agriculture, International, and Public Health
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Bird Flu Outbreaks Reported Around China

(TheEpochTimes) Outbreaks of H5N1 avian influenza, better known as bird flu, have occurred across China this year. Information on bird flu’s spread in China was made public in January in a Hong Kong health report to the World Health Organization (WHO), saying that China was one of the 15 affected countries in the world with Read More »