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Aug 15 (CIDRAP News) – The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced on Thursday that West Nile cases have tripled in just the last week. As of yesterday, the CDC was reporting 446 cases of West Nile virus and 10 deaths. Colorado accounts for more than half of those cases, with 247 and 6 deaths.

Aug 15, 2003 (CIDRAP News) – The Institute of Medicine (IOM) Committee on Smallpox Vaccination Program Implementation issued a report earlier this week recommending that members of the general public who wish to receive a smallpox vaccination do so only in a clinical trial setting.

(CIDRAP News) – As of June 14, all blood donations in the United States are screened for West Nile virus (WNV) through a program among US blood collection agencies (BCAs) that uses nucleic acid–amplification tests (NATs). The program and its success thus far are described in a report in the Aug 15 issue of Morbidity Mortality Weekly Report, released today.

(CIDRAP News) – Officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) warned on Aug 7 that the number of West Nile cases (153) had tripled during the first week of August and that the disease appeared to be spreading rapidly across the United States. Just since that time, the number of cases has more than doubled again. In the Aug 7 telebriefing, Dr.

Editor's Note: This article, originally published Aug 11, was updated on Aug 12 to include new information from Mexico.

(CIDRAP News) – As of Aug 1, the latest date for which data are available from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 38,062 healthcare workers and first-responders have received smallpox vaccinations through the federal program announced in late 2002. Texas has vaccinated the most, with 4,241, and Florida is next with 3,791. Some states have very few vaccinees, such as Nevada with 17, Rhode Island with 35, and Arizona with 39.

(CIDRAP News) – Researchers from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) have determined that a single injection of a fast-acting experimental Ebola vaccine confers protection against the disease in monkeys after just 1 month.

(CIDRAP News) – New safety and security guidelines for transporters and distributors of meat, poultry, and eggs to keep the products safe from intentional or unintentional contamination have been issued by the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), a division of the US Department of Agriculture. Similar guidelines were issued to food processors in May 2002.

(CIDRAP News) – The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) yesterday announced that the quarantine for exotic Newcastle disease (END) has been lifted for Arizona, Nevada, and Texas. In addition, the quarantine zone in Southern California has been reduced by 84%, from 46,000 to 7,300 square miles, according to a press release from the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA). Birds in the areas eliminated have been thoroughly tested, with no cases of END found.

(CIDRAP News) – A person exposed to a heavy dose of airborne anthrax spores would need to take antibiotics for at least 4 months to avoid illness, twice as long as the regimen used after the anthrax attacks of 2001, according to a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

(CIDRAP News) – Congress's General Accounting Office (GAO) warned yesterday that a major resurgence of SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) could cause overcrowding and shortages of personnel and equipment in hospitals.

(CIDRAP News) – A report by a consulting firm for the US Department of Transportation says a major bioterrorist attack on a US seaport could cost the nation from hundreds of billions to trillions of dollars.

But spending $5 billion to $10 billion a year on biodefense measures such as devices to detect airborne pathogens could limit the damage to a "sustainable" level, according to the report by Abt Associates Inc.

(CIDRAP News) –Wild game meat, especially bear meat, has replaced pork as the leading source of Trichinella infections in humans, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

(CIDRAP News) – Following up on an announcement made last week, the Canadian government yesterday published new regulations designed to keep materials potentially contaminated with the bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) agent out of the food supply.

(CIDRAP News) – In the first regulatory change triggered by Canada's recent case of mad cow disease, the Canadian government announced last week that certain high-risk parts of cattle, including the brain and spinal cord, will have to be removed from carcasses at the time of slaughter.

(CIDRAP News) – The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today cited a new $5 million fund for food security research and a five-fold increase in food import inspections as the latest examples of its efforts to improve the security of the nation's food supply.

The agency made the announcement as it released an 18-page progress report on its food security efforts since Sep 11, 2001.

(CIDRAP News) – Two women in their 50s suffered dilated cardiomyopathy—enlargement of the heart—within 3 months after receiving smallpox shots, but it was unclear whether the shots caused the condition, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported recently.

(CIDRAP News) –Exotic Newcastle disease (END) is disappearing from southern California's poultry flocks after a 9-month battle, but quarantines on the affected counties will probably remain for several more months, according to an official with the state's END Task Force.

(CIDRAP News) – Six months after President Bush proposed the idea, the US House this week overwhelmingly passed "Project Bioshield," a plan to promote the development of drugs and vaccines needed to defend the nation against attacks with biological and other unconventional weapons.

(CIDRAP News) – The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is proposing a new requirement for water systems that it says could prevent up to a million illnesses a year by reducing Cryptosporidium contamination in drinking water.