All News

(CIDRAP News) – Emergent BioSolutions Inc. recently announced it had secured two federal grants totaling $4.5 million for development of its botulism and next-generation anthrax vaccine candidates.

Emergent, maker of the nation's only licensed anthrax vaccine, announced the grants from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) in a Jul 24 news release.

(CIDRAP News) – After more than 1,300 cases of Salmonella infection in 43 states over 3 months, investigators have finally found a smoking gun: a contaminated jalapeno pepper from the home of a Colorado resident who was sickened in the outbreak.

(CIDRAP News) – The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently said jalapeno peppers grown in the United States are safe to eat, in view of findings that suggest the contaminated peppers responsible for many illnesses in the nationwide Salmonella outbreak came only from Mexican sources.

(CIDRAP News) – Animal health officials in Nigeria today reported finding the H5N1 avian influenza virus at two live bird markets, as officials in Hong Kong announced they would go ahead with a buyout of poultry farmers and merchants to reduce the risk of H5N1 outbreaks in the city.

(CIDRAP News) – A recent survey of nursing homes in two states found that fewer than half had a plan for coping with pandemic influenza, according to a report in this week's Journal of the American Medical Association.

(CIDRAP News) – New details emerged today about breaks in the Salmonella investigation that led to the identification of the outbreak strain in a jalapeno pepper, as the number of cases in the nationwide outbreak rose to 1,284.

(CIDRAP News) – The president of the Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL) complained to Congress last week that the federal program that monitors the air for dangerous pathogens in major cities is a heavy burden on state and local laboratories.

(CIDRAP News) – Federal health officials today released their official guidance on allocating vaccine during an influenza pandemic, with few changes from a previous draft that put military personnel, critical health and emergency workers, pregnant women, and small children at the head of the line.

(CIDRAP News) – The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) plans to adopt new automated equipment that will be able to detect dangerous airborne pathogens in major US cities in as little as 4 hours, with a goal of starting deployment in the fall of 2010, DHS officials told Congress last week.

(CIDRAP News) – Federal authorities announced today that investigators working at a Texas produce facility found Salmonella that genetically matches the nationwide outbreak strain on a jalapeno pepper.

(CIDRAP News) – In the history of infectious diseases, coincidence plays an extraordinary role. In 1706, Cotton Mather purchased a slave named Onesimus who happened to come from a tribe that practiced variolation, and so smallpox prevention was introduced to North America.

(CIDRAP News) – Texas and North Carolina officials yesterday announced recalls of avocadoes and jalapeno and Serrano peppers after some samples tested positive for Salmonella. But Texas officials said they did not find the Salmonella strain involved in the current nationwide outbreak, while the strain in the North Carolina produce was not yet known.

(CIDRAP News) – A 38-year-old Indonesian man from a town near Jakarta recently died of H5N1 avian influenza, according to an Associated Press (AP) report citing his family and health workers.

(CIDRAP News) – Federal officials today lifted warnings against eating certain tomatoes and said new clues in the ongoing nationwide Salmonella outbreak have led investigators from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to explore a Mexican packinghouse that handles jalapeno and Serrano peppers.

(CIDRAP News) – The Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently released a report examining the results several developed nations and the European Union achieved when they consolidated oversight of food safety in a single agency, a step often advocated in the United State for solving some of the problems linked to contaminated imported and domestic food.

(CIDRAP News) – Recent reports from Indonesian health officials tie the high fatality rate in human H5N1 influenza cases there to the difficulty of diagnosing the disease, late treatment with antiviral drugs, and a shortage of well-equipped hospitals.

Editor's note: The original version of this story listed 44 E coli cases in five states. The story was updated shortly after publication to include new information about another case from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

(CIDRAP News) – The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said today that the number of cases in a nationwide Salmonella outbreak that might be linked to contaminated tomatoes and hot peppers has climbed to 1,167 and that new illnesses are still being reported.

(CIDRAP News) – In a recent medical journal article, Indonesian officials detailed the rationale for their refusal to share H5N1 influenza virus samples with the World Health Organization (WHO), asserting that it was in part a response to violations of the WHO's own guidelines by scientists and laboratories.

(CIDRAP News) – The Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a status report yesterday on progress states have made toward preparing for a flood of people needing medical care in the wake of an event such as a terrorist attack or an influenza pandemic.