News & Perspective

(CIDRAP News) – The federal government has moved to allow individuals and groups to continue working with certain hazardous biological agents beyond the Nov 12 deadline for complying with new registration rules while the government completes background checks on those groups.

(CIDRAP News) – Mexico closed its border to livestock from the United States last week because of concern that a herd of US cattle bound for Mexico had foot-and-mouth disease, but the border was quickly reopened when the disease was found to be a relatively harmless look-alike.

(CIDRAP News) – Brucellosis was detected in a Texas cattle herd recently, ending a 13-month stretch with no new Texas cases and postponing the day when the state can be declared free of the once widespread disease, according to the Texas Animal Health Commission (TAHC).

(CIDRAP News) – The last areas of California under quarantine for exotic Newcastle disease (END) were released yesterday, signaling the end of an 11-month, $160 million battle to control the highly infectious disease of poultry and other birds.

(CIDRAP News) – The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) yesterday announced that the quarantine for exotic Newcastle disease (END) has been lifted for Arizona, Nevada, and Texas. In addition, the quarantine zone in Southern California has been reduced by 84%, from 46,000 to 7,300 square miles, according to a press release from the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA). Birds in the areas eliminated have been thoroughly tested, with no cases of END found.

(CIDRAP News) –Exotic Newcastle disease (END) is disappearing from southern California's poultry flocks after a 9-month battle, but quarantines on the affected counties will probably remain for several more months, according to an official with the state's END Task Force.

(CIDRAP News) – As expected, federal and state authorities have lifted poultry and bird quarantines in five counties in western Texas and southern New Mexico after concluding that exotic Newcastle disease (END) has been stamped out in the area.

June 4, 2003 (CIDRAP News) – A quarantine on poultry and pet birds in the El Paso, Tex., area is expected to be lifted in the wake of a recent finding that exotic Newcastle disease (END) did not spread beyond the backyard flock where it turned up in April, according to Texas and New Mexico officials.

The quarantine was imposed on five counties in Texas and neighboring New Mexico Apr 10 after the disease was discovered in a flock in El Paso.

(CIDRAP News) – Exotic Newcastle disease (END) has been found in a backyard chicken flock near El Paso, Tex., prompting a ban on poultry movement in five Texas and New Mexico counties, Texas officials announced yesterday.

(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.