All News

(CIDRAP News) – Thirty-six states had "widespread" influenza outbreaks by the end of last week, 12 more states than faced that situation a week earlier, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported today.

All western states except South Dakota and Alaska had widespread flu, meaning outbreaks in at least half their regions, the CDC says in the Dec 19 issue of Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

(CIDRAP News) – The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently approved a new test that clinical laboratories can use to help identify anthrax in cultures of bacteria from people potentially infected with the pathogen.

(CIDRAP News) – A Taiwanese scientist has contracted SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome), probably while studying the SARS coronavirus in a laboratory, the Taiwan Department of Health reported today.

Dec 31, 2002 (CIDRAP News) – Individuals receiving smallpox vaccine should wait 3 weeks before donating blood, according to guidance issued yesterday by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The recommendations are being issued as a precautionary measure to reduce the "very slight risk" of bloodborne exposure to vaccinia virus in certain patient populations, according to the agency.

(CIDRAP News) – An outbreak of avian influenza in South Korea has resulted in the deaths of 24,000 chickens at a farm southeast of Seoul.

The disease killed 19,000 chickens at the farm and prompted authorities to destroy the remaining 5,000 chickens as a containment measure, according to a report by the OIE (Office International des Epizooties), the world organization for animal health.

(CIDRAP News) – The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is buying 375,000 doses of influenza vaccine from British drug maker Chiron to boost the nation's waning vaccine supply, HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson announced today.

In addition, HHS has negotiated a contract for 3 million doses of the intranasal vaccine FluMist that state and local health departments can buy if needed, Thompson announced.

(CIDRAP News) – The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has announced details of how the compensation program for civilians who are injured by the smallpox vaccine will work.

(CIDRAP News) – Despite a flood of new federal aid, the states are only modestly better prepared to cope with major health emergencies now than they were before the terrorist attacks of 2001, according to a report by a nonprofit public health advocacy group.

(CIDRAP News) – New federal rules intended to prevent the use of food as a bioterrorism weapon take effect today, but it will be 8 months before the rules are fully enforced, according to the Food and Drug Admnistration (FDA).

(CIDRAP News) – With influenza spreading rapidly and vaccine supplies running low, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommended today that people at high risk for flu complications should have priority for vaccination.

(CIDRAP News) – The federal government will buy 250,000 doses of influenza vaccine from Aventis Pasteur to augment the nation's dwindling supply, Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Tommy Thompson announced today.

(CIDRAP News) – Health officials in Hong Kong are investigating a case in which a 5-year-old boy was infected with an avian influenza virus called influenza A(H9N2).

The boy was admitted to a hospital Nov 27 with fever, cough, and runny nose, the Hong Kong Department of Health said in a news release yesterday. He was discharged 2 days later and has recovered.

Dec 10, 2004 (CIDRAP News) – The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has put the finishing touches on record-keeping rules designed to help the agency trace the sources and travels of contaminated food, but food businesses have at least a year to comply.

(CIDRAP News) – The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) yesterday reaffirmed its earlier findings that recent hepatitis outbreaks in Tennessee, Georgia, and Pennsylvania were caused by green onions (scallions) from Mexico.

(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 federal government is considering buying influenza vaccine from a British company in an effort to remedy a possible shortage in the United States, the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said today.

(CIDRAP News) – Albany Medical College in Albany, N.Y., has received an $8.3 million federal grant to study pulmonary tularemia, with the main emphasis on developing a vaccine, college officials announced last week.

The grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) will fund tularemia research at the college for 4½ years, the college said in a news release.

(CIDRAP News) – Signs of a shortage of influenza vaccine increased over the weekend with the announcement that the two leading manufacturers had shipped all the doses they had made.

(CIDRAP News) – A 1999 outbreak of Salmonella infections scattered over 13 states was traced to Brazilian mangoes, which may have been contaminated when they were treated to kill Mediterranean fruit flies, according to a new study.

(CIDRAP News) – Signs of an unusually bad influenza season increased this week as federal health officials reported widespread influenza in 13 states and hints of a possible vaccine shortage began to appear.