News & Perspective

(CIDRAP News) – Health officials in Pakistan and Nigeria recently announced that they would step up security to protect polio vaccination workers in the wake of recent fatal attacks by terrorists in both countries.

(CIDRAP News) – A year-long voluntary moratorium on research involving transmissible H5N1 avian flu viruses ended today with a letter from a group of scientists that supports resuming the work in countries that have addressed the biosafety issues involved.

(CIDRAP News) – Federal health officials are in the midst of crafting a framework for funding H5N1 avian influenza gain-of-function studies, and today at a workshop they heard varied feedback from researchers, biosecurity experts, and others.

(CIDRAP News) – An annual report released yesterday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) profiles a wide range of CDC influenza-related projects around the world, from flu surveillance in Indonesia to vaccine effectiveness studies in El Salvador and epidemiology training in Ghana.

(CIDRAP News) – The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control has deleted the name of a German seed importer from a risk assessment report on the recent cluster of Escherichia coli cases in France, out of concern about potential unnecessary harm to the company, CIDRAP News learned today.

(CIDRAP News) – While donor countries and organizations have responded well to the need for pandemic flu vaccine for developing countries, the level of giving for other pandemic response efforts in needy countries so far has fallen short, the World Health Organization (WHO) said in a recent report.

(CIDRAP News) – An international avian and pandemic flu meeting in Hanoi concluded yesterday, with health ministers and top officials from more than 70 countries agreeing on a set of strategies for responding to future disease threats.