News & Perspective

(CIDRAP News) – A federal auditor found no major flaws in the National Park Service's (NPS's) handling of the hantavirus outbreak at Yosemite National Park last summer, but the auditor called for closer reviews of plans for visitor lodgings to prevent vector-borne diseases.

(CIDRAP News) – The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has revised its list of potentially dangerous biological agents and toxins and the regulations covering them, and some of the changes have public health laboratories concerned.

(CIDRAP News) – Saying dengue virus infections and deaths have mushroomed in recent years, the World Health Organization (WHO) recently released a strategy report that sets a goal of cutting deaths in half and reducing cases by 25% over the next 8 years.

(CIDRAP News) – Signaling a second front in the US fight against dengue infections, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said evidence of the virus has been found recently in 28 people who live in or visited Key West, Fla., prompting intensive mosquito control efforts and alerts to doctors.

– WASHINGTON, DC (CIDRAP News) – Health authorities must remain alert to new and renascent disease threats, experts warned this week at an international medical meeting.

(CIDRAP News) – Brazil's health ministry said this week that it has asked the military to help combat mosquitoes that spread dengue fever, as the number of sick patients with the disease grew to at least 55,000 so far this year.

Though dengue fever is common in Brazil, officials have said this year's outbreak is the worst in recent memory, averaging 1.4 new cases per minute, according to a report today from CNN.