News & Perspective

(CIDRAP News) – The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) takes a hit of about $270 million in the Obama administration's proposed fiscal year 2014 budget, including significant cuts to biodefense and emergency preparedness programs, officials revealed today.

(CIDRAP News) – In a new study, Chinese hospital staffers who wore N95 respirators all the time enjoyed significantly lower rates of clinical respiratory illnesses (CRIs) than workers who wore surgical masks or used N95s only for high-risk procedures.

(CIDRAP News) – The influenza vaccine that was developed to fight the 2009 pandemic saved roughly 300 lives and prevented about 1 million illnesses and 6,000 hospitalizations, or under 3% of the estimated total burden in each category, according to new estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

(CIDRAP News) – A new report from the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) offers a few predictions on when certain new countermeasures against biological threats will become available, including a forecast for two novel influenza drugs and possibly a next-generation anthrax vaccine within the next 5 years.