News & Perspective

(CIDRAP News) – Researchers from the University of Maryland School of Medicine have reported laboratory evidence of Plasmodium falciparum cross-resistance between trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole, one of the standard treatments for HIV patients in Africa, and sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine, the first-line antimalarial drug in parts of Africa.

(CIDRAP News) – Donald A. Henderson, MD, public health expert and director of the successful campaign to eradicate smallpox in the 1970s, has been appointed to coordinate the national response to public health emergencies. Tommy G. Thompson, secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), named Henderson last week as director of the newly created Office of Public Health Preparedness.

(CIDRAP News) – Food safety regulators and specialists from around the world will meet in Marrakech, Morocco, Jan 28 through 30 in what the World Health Organization (WHO) calls the first global meeting dealing with methods to ensure food safety.

(CIDRAP News) – A report that paved the way for the World Health Organization's (WHO's) recent recommendation to keep intact the two known collections of smallpox virus cites a wide range of ongoing research on smallpox, including genome sequencing, molecular diagnostic techniques, antiviral drugs, and new vaccines.

(CIDRAP News) – The world's last naturally acquired case of smallpox occurred almost exactly 25 years ago, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) notes in today's issue of Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

The smallpox case occurred in the Merca District of Somalia on Oct 26, 1977, the CDC says. Less than 3 years later, in May 1980, the World Health Organization declared the world free of naturally occurring smallpox.

(CIDRAP News) – The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has finished writing rules that open the door to the irradiation of fruits and vegetables imported into the United States.

(CIDRAP News) – The CIA has good evidence that four nations—Iraq, North Korea, Russia, and France—have secret stores of smallpox virus, according to a Washington Post report based on comments from officials speaking anonymously.

(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 (WHO) warns in a new report that nations should take steps to defend themselves against food contamination by terrorists and the devastating human and economic damage that could result.