News & Perspective

Note: This story was updated March 1, 2002, to include additional information about recent federal actions to prevent mad cow disease.

(CIDRAP News) – The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is warning of a possible risk of tularemia transmission from pet prairie dogs because of an outbreak at a Texas company that distributes the animals nationwide and internationally.

(CIDRAP News) – VaxGen Inc., a California biotechnology company, announced plans this week to seek US licensing for an attenuated smallpox vaccine that is considered safer than existing vaccines but was developed too recently to be proved effective against the disease.

(CIDRAP News) – The World Health Organization has issued an alert over outbreaks of severe respiratory illness, including atypical pneumonia, that it has been investigating since mid-February in Vietnam, Hong Kong, and mainland China.

(CIDRAP News) – State and federal officials this week confirmed the presence of low-pathogenic avian influenza (LPAI) at a large poultry farm in eastern Connecticut. Meanwhile, the highly pathogenic form of the disease has led to the killing of 1.4 million birds in the Netherlands in the past 2 weeks.

(CIDRAP News) – A previously unrecognized coronavirus that has been regarded for 3 weeks as the likely cause of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) has been confirmed as the pathogen, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced today.

(CIDRAP News) – Laboratory studies have shown that the SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) coronavirus can survive up to 2 days on plastic surfaces and at least that long in human feces, the World Health Organization (WHO) has announced.

June 26 (CIDRAP News) – The World Health Organization (WHO) yesterday reported the first probable case of SARS in Japan, involving a 33-year-old Taiwanese man who came to Tokyo on June 21 for sightseeing.

(CIDRAP News) – A Taiwanese man who was thought to have the first case of SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) in Japan does not have the disease after all, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced today.

Japanese health officials told the WHO that laboratory testing showed the man has influenza B, according to a WHO statement. The 33-year-old man arrived in Tokyo Jun 21 and experienced a high fever and other symptoms 2 days later.

(CIDRAP News) – A recent US intelligence report envisions three possible scenarios for a return of SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) this winter, ranging from small outbreaks in a few countries to a repeat of the widespread outbreaks that occurred last winter and spring.