News & Perspective

(CIDRAP News) – Though the United States observed the fifth anniversary of the 2001 terrorist attacks this fall, the nation's public health emergency preparedness has improved slowly and remains inadequate, according to a report last week from the nonprofit organization Trust for America's Health (TFAH).

(CIDRAP News) – Soon after the terrorist attacks of 2001, Congress approved emergency funds to teach hospital staffs how to recognize and respond to bioterrorism attacks, and today the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released its first report on those efforts.

(CIDRAP News) – The World Health Organization reported last week that 42 people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) died recently of suspected pneumonic plague.

The outbreaks, which include 626 suspected cases, occurred between Jul 31 and Oct 8 in two health zones in the Haut-Uele district, most of them in the Wamba zone of Oriental province in the northern part of the country.

(CIDRAP News) – The medical aid group Medecins sans Frontieres (MSF, or Doctors Without Borders) appealed for help last week in the fight to control the outbreak of pneumonic plague in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

(CIDRAP News) – One hundred people have died in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) of suspected pneumonic plague, the World Health Organization (WHO) said today.

Nineteen of the deaths occurred in Ituri district in the northeastern Oriental province, a plague hotbed, according to the WHO.