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(CIDRAP News) – A cabinet-level working group assigned by President Bush in July to explore import safety issues issued its initial report recently, suggesting a risk-based monitoring strategy and calling on government agencies to use technology to improve collaboration on import-related activities.
(CIDRAP News) – In an analysis of the US government's pandemic influenza preparedness plan, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) yesterday called on federal agencies to clarify their leadership responsibilities and recommended interagency testing and training exercises to improve preparedness.
(CIDRAP News) – Five cases of the deadly Ebola hemorrhagic fever have been confirmed in a 3-month-old disease outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), but another disease may account for some cases in the outbreak, according to news services.
(CIDRAP News) – Two people from Danbury, Conn., were recently diagnosed with cutaneous anthrax infections, probably because of exposure to spores on untanned animal hides brought from Africa.
(CIDRAP News) – A recent outbreak of the debilitating tropical disease known as chikungunya fever in northern Italy apparently marks the mosquito-borne infection's first foothold in Europe, according to European health authorities.
(CIDRAP News) A government official in Bavaria said today there was a chance that some frozen duck meat contaminated with the H5N1 avian influenza virus made its way to consumers' tables, according to a German news agency.
The virus was found in 18 frozen ducks from a batch sample at a poultry company slaughterhouse, Deutsche Presse-Agentur (DPA) reported today.
(CIDRAP News) – Britain's recent outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) were likely caused by faulty wastewater drains at a laboratory facility, which contaminated soil that was then spread by trucks to a nearby cattle farm, British authorities announced today.
(CIDRAP News) Consumers should take precautions to limit their risk of contracting Salmonella infections from raw tomatoes, which may have sickened more than 79,000 people in a dozen outbreaks since 1990, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said today.
(CIDRAP News) Indonesian health ministry officials today reported a fatal H5N1 avian influenza infection in a 33-year-old man from the island of Sumatra.
(CIDRAP News) – The head of Texas A&M University today promised a vigorous effort to correct safety infractions uncovered by federal investigators in the university's biodefense laboratory and voiced a hope that research at the lab can resume by the end of this year.
(CIDRAP News) – The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) yesterday released a lengthy list of safety violations it found in an investigation of a biodefense laboratory at Texas A&M University, where research on dangerous pathogens was suspended 2 months ago after problems came to light.
(CIDRAP News) Russian officials announced today that hundreds of chickens at a farm in southern Russia died of H5N1 avian influenza, as international experts met in Bangkok to discuss how to better monitor the spread of the disease in Asia.
The poultry deaths were discovered in the town of Razdolny in Krasnodar territory on Sep 2, RIA Novosti, Russia's state news agency, reported today. The disease struck about 500 chickens.
(CIDRAP News) – A second-generation smallpox vaccine made by the British biotechnology company Acambis plc and stockpiled by the US government as protection against bioterrorist attacks has been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
(CIDRAP News) The World Health Organization (WHO) today recognized five human H5N1 influenza cases from Vietnam dating back to late May, after publishing formal criteria for accepting positive test results for H5 flu viruses from national laboratories.
The five cases include four fatal ones, which pushes Vietnam's H5N1 toll to 100 cases with 46 deaths. The country has the second highest number of avian flu cases, after Indonesia.
(CIDRAP News) Metz Fresh, a California spinach grower, recalled 8,000 cartons of fresh spinach this week after finding Salmonella in routine testing, prompting a debate on whether voluntary safety rules recently adopted by the California produce industry are working.
(CIDRAP News) – The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has announced the approval of a second automated test to screen donated blood and organs for West Nile virus (WNV).
(CIDRAP News) – The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) today announced a one-time allocation of $75 million in grants to help states, territories, and four metropolitan areas prepare for an influenza pandemic.
(CIDRAP News) The United Nations recently established a small team in Geneva to help implement the Biological Weapons Convention, the first international institution created for that purpose.
(CIDRAP News) Further investigation has strengthened the evidence of a link between recently recalled dog food products and human Salmonella infections, US health officials reported yesterday.
Sixty-six people in 18 states have been infected with the same strain of Salmonella Schwarzengrund, and reports of new cases are continuing, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said in a statement.
(CIDRAP News) Salmonella Schwarzengrund, a relatively rare serotype that has been reported in 64 recent human illness cases, was found recently in two samples of dog food made by a Tennessee company, according to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
