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Also, Saudi officials reported four more cases from Riyadh, and South Korea announced new prevention steps in the wake of its outbreak.
The Guinea Ebola ring vaccination trial will be expanded to Sierra Leone and include contacts with the recently reported fatal case there, the World Health Organization (WHO) said yesterday in a news release.
New reports indicate hospital MERS outbreaks in both Saudi Arabia and Jordan.
Sierra Leone health officials said yesterday that tests on a 67-year-old woman who died in Kambia district were positive for Ebola, but further testing is under way to confirm the findings, Reuters reported yesterday. The positive test is the country's first since its countdown to Ebola-free status began on Aug 24.
Federal regulators have privately threatened to revoke permits to study select agents (potential bioterror pathogens) from at least six labs for safety and security violations, including at Brigham Young University (BYU) in Provo, Utah, the University of Hawaii-Manoa (UHM), and the California Department of Public Health (CDPH), USA Today reported late last week in its continuing probe of US lab biosecurity
Three of the four new cases appear to involve contact with other patients, and the ECDC issues a risk assessment.
A salmonellosis outbreak tied to pork products grew by 18 cases, to 152, as a slaughterhouse in Washington state expanded a prior recall to more than 500,000 pounds of pork products and whole hogs after environmental sampling revealed insufficient sanitary conditions.
The CDC also lauded the increase in states making vaccine exemption levels available on the Web.
In a related development, the WHO provided more details on 13 recent Saudi cases, 12 with hospital-outbreak links.
The World Health Organization (WHO) today announced that all of India's 675 districts have eliminated maternal and neonatal tetanus.
Maternal and neonatal tetanus cases in India have been reduced to less than one case per 1,000 live births ahead of the elimination target date set for December 2015.
Highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza stuck two more commercial farms in Ivory Coast and Nigeria, according to separate reports from the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE).
Also, a ring vaccination trial extends to Sierra Leone and a report details postexposure treatment for health workers.
In addition, a new WHO update details 29 recent cases from Riyadh, 24 of them connected to a large hospital outbreak.
The National Chicken Council (NCC) yesterday released recommendations for preventing the spread of highly pathogenic avian influenza to farms that raise and breed broiler chickens.
The recommendations, which were developed by a working group of veterinarians and avian flu experts, are intended to increase biosecurity on poultry farms before wild birds begin migrating south from Canada in the fall.
The group will present its final report to the World Health Assembly next May.
A side-by-side look at MERS-CoV and SARS infection patterns shows differences and some similarities, according to a study presented this week at the International Conference on Emerging and Infectious Diseases (ICEID) in Atlanta.
Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Health (MOH) today reported eight more lab-confirmed Middle East respiratory coronavirus (MERS-CoV) cases, one of them fatal and all from Riyadh, where a large hospital-linked outbreak is ongoing. The MOH also said five case-patients announced previously have died from their infections.
Officials say 53 of the outbreak cases have links to one hospital and 4 involve Filipino health workers.
The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) on Aug 21 reported 34,866 new cases of chikungunya in the Caribbean and Americas. The outbreak total, adjusted for ongoing case confirmation, is 1,679,223.
The new total includes 514,534 suspected, 17,118 confirmed locally acquired cases, and 802 imported cases reported in 2015, or 532,454 total for the year.
Russia detected highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1 in seven healthy wild birds, according to an Aug 21 report posted by the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE).
The birds were hunted in three towns in Novosibirskaya Oblast, located in southwestern Siberia, as part of Russia's ongoing H5N1 monitoring activities. On Jun 9, laboratory testing confirmed H5N1 in 4 rooks, 1 mallard, 1 crane, and 1 unidentified waterfowl.
