Recent News

By Category: Public Health

Pandemic Flu Risk Raised by Lax Hog-Farm Surveillance

(Wired.com) The great lesson of the 2009 influenza pandemic was that new, deadly flu strains wouldn’t necessarily emerge from the pathogenic hotbox of an Asian animal market. They could start in the western world’s own backyard, percolating from the incubators of modern farms. Yet despite the fact that pig farms hosted, and arguably fueled, the Read More »

June 27, 2012
| Filed under Asia/Pacific, North America, South America, Agriculture, Policy & Initiatives, and Public Health
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Pharma companies share $400m US biosecurity contract

(InPharm) GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis and Emergent BioSolutions will share a $400 million contract from the US government to provide vaccine manufacturing capacity that can be called upon in the event of a pandemic or bioterrorism. The three companies will help provide infrastructure – either new or retrofitted facilities – that can be used to provide a Read More »

June 27, 2012
| Filed under North America, Bioterrorism, Countermeasures, and Public Health
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Swine Flu Deaths In 2009 Topped Quarter Million, Study

(Medical News Today) Deaths worldwide from the 2009 influenza H1N1 “swine flu” pandemic are likely to be nearer 280,000, some 15 times more than the 18,500 reported from confirmed lab tests, suggests a new study published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases this week. For the study, led by the US Centers for Disease Control and Read More »

June 27, 2012
| Filed under Europe, North America, Public Health, and Research
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Biodefense board takes on situational awareness, SNS tasks

(CIDRAP News) The National Biodefense Science Board (NBSB) during its meeting today took on two new tasks: to help guide federal efforts to improve situational awareness for potential public health emergencies and to help work out a strategy for improving and modernizing the management of the government’s Strategic National Stockpile (SNS). The requests came from Read More »

June 26, 2012
| Filed under North America, Countermeasures, Policy & Initiatives, Public Health, and Research
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U.S. Eyes Bioterrorism Threat

(The Diplomat) I wrote last month about the importance the U.S. government should place on the threat of biological, and how domestic politics risked hampering progress on one of the United States most pressing security issues. Congress has previously acknowledged the seriousness of the threat, with the Weapons of Mass Destruction Committee reporting to Congress Read More »