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The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is hiring a top official to ensure lab safety after a report released late last week highlighted biosafety weakness in the agency's labs, USA Today reported yesterday.
Sierra Leone reports no cases after having 5 last week, and new funds for drugs and vaccines are announced.
Kuwaiti health officials have notified the World Health Organization (WHO) about a fatal MERS-CoV case, in a 78-year-old man from Kuwait City who owned camels and had frequent contact with them, according to a WHO statement today.
The CDDEP report and maps provide an unprecedented look at the problem and include a range of data, some public for the first time.
H5N8 avian flu has returned to South Korea after a few months of inactivity, officials said, while Nigeria, which has been hit hard by H5N1 avian flu, reported seven more farm outbreaks.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said today that 140 more infections and one more death have been reported in a multistate outbreak linked to cucumbers tainted with strains of Salmonella Poona.
Medical coverage for the Hajj includes enlisting 25,000 extra health workers and 8 earmarked hospitals.
The USDA issued a preparedness and response report and poultry culling guidance as turkey growers followed suit.
Chikungunya outbreak cases in the Caribbean and the Americas continued a modest increase for the third straight week, with only 3,085 new infections reported in an update late last week from the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO).
The most recent weekly updates before last week's included 7,156 and 4,857 new cases. The two updates before that noted much higher levels of 34,866 and 27,867 new cases, respectively.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has stepped down its travel advisory level for Liberia, with the country now more than 2 weeks past achieving Ebola-free status for the second time. The CDC today moved the alert level to the green watch level 1, which recommends practicing the usual precautions, according to a Sep 18 media statement.
The 22 recent Saudi patients noted by the WHO include 8 health workers, and Jordan's outbreak involves 2 girls.
The outbreak has hospitalized 21 people and led to a recall of soft cheeses from a California dairy.
Mapp Biopharmaceuticals announced yesterday that its experimental Ebola treatment ZMapp received fast-track status to gain US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval.
Uptake increased a bit in adults and in health workers but dropped among pregnant women.
The study accompanies 2 new cases in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in the ongoing outbreak there.
The World Health Organization (WHO) announced today that malaria incidence and mortality have decreased by 37% and 60%, respectively, since 2000, thus meeting the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of halting and reversing malaria incidence by 2015.
Guinea hasn't had a case since Sep 1, but Sierra Leone reports 5 cases in 2 regions.
Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Health (MOH) reported two new MERS-CoV cases in Riyadh today that don't appear to be linked to a large hospital outbreak, and it confirmed a death in a previously reported patient.
Stephan Monroe, PhD, who has been the CDC's acting head of lab safety since May, will report directly to the CDC director.
If approved, the Novartis product would be the nation's first boosted flu vaccine.
