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(CIDRAP News) The causes of this week's anthrax alarms in the Washington, DC, area remained a mystery today as criticisms about communication and coordination by the Department of Defense (DoD) flew.
(CIDRAP News) The anthrax alert that shut down several government buildings in the Washington, DC, area this week and put hundreds of workers on preventive antibiotic treatment apparently was a false alarm.
Testing of more than 70 samples from a mail facility near the Pentagon in Arlington, Va., and a mailroom at an office complex in nearby Falls Church, Va., showed no trace of anthrax, the Washington Post reported today.
Editor's note: Based on a Food and Drug Administration news release, the original version of this story incorrectly listed Ranchero as one type of soft cheese that may be made from raw milk The FDA later issued a clarification saying that Ranchero is a trademark of the Cacique Co. of Industry, Calif., for a cheese made with pasteurized milk.
(CIDRAP News) Signs of anthrax detected by sensors at two military mail facilities in the Washington, DC, area yesterday prompted authorities to shut down several buildings and recommend antibiotics for hundreds of workers.
(CIDRAP News) – The World Health Organization (WHO) said today it has found 130 suspected cases of plague, 57 of them fatal, in its ongoing investigation of an outbreak in the northeastern Congo.
In its previous update on Mar 9, the agency had reported 114 cases, including 54 deaths.
(CIDRAP News) A second Vietnamese nurse who had cared for an avian influenza patient was reported to have a suspected case of the illness 2 days ago, but a Vietnamese newspaper said today that the nurse is free of the virus.
The nurse, a 41-year-old woman from Thai Binh province, was hospitalized in Hanoi Mar 10 with a high fever, cough, and a lung infection, according to a Mar 12 Associated Press (AP) report.
(CIDRAP News) The recent series of cases of avian influenza in a single province in Vietnam has increased concern about whether the nature of the illness is changing.
(CIDRAP News) – Poor policy communication and a lack of clearly defined goals seriously hindered the smallpox preparedness program that the federal government launched in 2003, according to a report released by the prestigious Institute of Medicine (IOM) last week.
(CIDRAP News) The strain of SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) that erupted from obscurity to kill 774 people worldwide has gone quiet, at least for now. Yet its lessons will keep benefiting people even if it never reappears.
(CIDRAP News) Two relatives of avian influenza patients in northern Vietnam have tested positive for the virus without being sick, according to reports from Vietnam today.
The 61-year-old widow of a man who died of avian flu in late February and the 80-year-old grandfather of two patients currently under treatment in a hospital have tested positive, the Associated Press (AP) and other news services reported. Both are apparently healthy.
(CIDRAP News) A 26-year-old Vietnamese nurse who helped care for a younger man with H5N1 avian influenza has contracted the illness, but it is unclear whether he acquired it from the patient or from poultry, according to news reports from Vietnam today.
(CIDRAP News) A World Health Organization (WHO) team on a medical mission to contain a plague outbreak in the Congo has found more suspected cases, but the scope of the outbreak remains smaller than initially feared.
(CIDRAP News) Vietnam, the country at the center of this year's avian influenza activity, may have two problems with its data on human cases: transparency in reporting and accuracy in testing.
(CIDRAP News) A federal judge in Montana this week delayed a plan to reopen the US border to Canadian cattle for the first time since bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) was found in Canada.
(CIDRAP News) – British regulators have cleared Chiron Corp. to resume making influenza vaccine at its plant in Liverpool, England, which should improve the chances of an adequate vaccine supply in the United States next winter.
(CIDRAP News) More than 12,000 chickens and quail have died in the past 2 months in an outbreak of avian influenza on the Indonesian island of Java, according to an Associated Press (AP) report published today.
The viruses involved are H5N1 and H7N1, said an Indonesian official who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity. Avian flu killed about 1.6 million chickens in the same region in West Java province last year, the official said.
(CIDRAP News) Influenza activity in the United States has been increasing since late December and may not have peaked for the season yet, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said today.
(CIDRAP News) An outbreak of pneumonic plague in a lawless part of the Congo appears to be smaller and more geographically limited than was originally feared, according to recent reports.
(CIDRAP News) – The percentage of tested ground beef samples that federal meat inspectors found to be contaminated with Escherichia coli O157:H7 declined in 2004 for the fourth year in a row.
The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced that 0.17% (14 of 8,010) ground beef samples tested in 2004 contained the potentially deadly pathogen. That compared with 0.30% in 2003, 0.78% in 2004, 0.84% in 2001, and 0.86% in 2000.
(CIDRAP News) An additional human case of H5N1 avian influenza has come to light in Vietnam even as reports indicate fewer outbreaks are occurring among poultry.
