News & Perspective

(CIDRAP News) – A federal advisory committee is recommending that 11 bacterial species and viruses on the current "select agent" list, including anthrax and Ebola virus, be singled out for special safeguards and that another 19 agents be dropped from the list entirely.

(CIDRAP News) – A report from the National Research Council (NRC) calls for some changes in a US Army immunization program for lab researchers who work with dangerous pathogens, saying the vaccines need to be made more accessible to civilian scientists.

(CIDRAP News) – The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recently unveiled its plan for developing and buying medical countermeasures against a range of biological, chemical, and other threats, with new anthrax and smallpox vaccines among the near-term priorities.

(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) – For the seventh year in a row, cases of tularemia are being reported on Martha's Vineyard, where six cases of the rare respiratory form of the disease have occurred so far.

The Massachusetts Department of Public Health (MDPH) in a Jul 27 press release said that the patients, ages 33 to 67, became ill between May 13 and Jul 5. All have been successfully treated and are recovering. Four of the six are employed as landscapers.

(CIDRAP News) – The US government has issued about $60 million in contracts to spur development of a vaccine against tularemia, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced recently.

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), a division of NIH, has issued two 5-year contracts for vaccine work, the agency said earlier this month. The agency also awarded $87 million in grants to build four biosafety level 3 (BSL-3) labs.

(CIDRAP News) – Several air sensors detected traces of the tularemia pathogen on the Capitol Mall in Washington, DC, Sep 24 and 25, but no cases of illness have been reported among people who were in the area at the time, according to health officials.

(CIDRAP News) – Knowledge of the local epidemiology of tularemia can help healthcare providers identify the disease and recommend locally appropriate prevention and control steps, according to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).