News & Perspective

(CIDRAP News) – The Ebola hemorrhagic fever outbreak in the Congo increased to a total of 47 cases with 18 deaths last week, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

(CIDRAP News) – The death toll in the Ebola hemorrhagic fever outbreak in the Congo has increased to 18, with a total of 36 cases, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported yesterday.

The outbreak involves two villages in the Mbomo district of the Cuvette Ouest Department. The villages are in the northwestern Congo, about 440 miles northwest of Brazzaville, the capital, according to a Reuters report.

(CIDRAP News) – An outbreak of Ebola hemorrhagic fever in the Congo expanded to 24 cases last week, with 12 deaths, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

The WHO reported Nov 17 that the Congo government had confirmed that the disease was Ebola, with 11 cases, all fatal, at that point. On Nov 21 the WHO reported another 13 cases, including one death.

(CIDRAP News) – The National Institutes of Health (NIH) today announced the start of the first human trial of a vaccine for Ebola virus infection, a currently untreatable disease that kills most of its victims.

(CIDRAP News) – Federal health officials yesterday announced grants to build 11 new biodefense laboratories around the country, including two that will be authorized to study the most dangerous pathogens.

(CIDRAP News) – The US Department of Health and Human Services yesterday announced $350 million in grants for eight regional centers to lead and coordinate research on defenses against bioterrorism and emerging infectious diseases.

(CIDRAP News) – Researchers from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) have determined that a single injection of a fast-acting experimental Ebola vaccine confers protection against the disease in monkeys after just 1 month.

(CIDRAP News) – Six months after President Bush proposed the idea, the US House this week overwhelmingly passed "Project Bioshield," a plan to promote the development of drugs and vaccines needed to defend the nation against attacks with biological and other unconventional weapons.

(CIDRAP News) – The World Health Organization (WHO) today expressed closely guarded optimism that SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) can be contained.

"Experiences in a growing number of countries indicate that the disease can be contained, thus supporting WHO's overall objective: to prevent SARS from becoming widely established as another new disease in humans," the organization said in its online update.

(CIDRAP News) – A Senate committee yesterday unanimously approved the Bush administration's "BioShield" plan to promote vaccines and treatments for biodefense but blocked the administration's proposal for compensating healthcare workers harmed by the smallpox vaccine.