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(CIDRAP News) – A mysterious illness that sickened more than half of the residents of a nursing home in British Columbia and raised concern about a possible return of SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) is nearly over, according to Dr. Perry Kendall, provincial health officer of British Columbia.

(CIDRAP News) – Supporters of irradiation as a tool for preventing foodborne disease are dismayed by a generally negative evaluation of irradiated meat in the August issue of Consumer Reports.

(CIDRAP News) – Initial tests of the new cell-culture–grown smallpox vaccine now being stockpiled by the US government indicate that it may be slightly safer than the vaccine used in the current immunization program, according to a report by the vaccine's manufacturer.

(CIDRAP News) – Dr. D. A. Henderson, who led the global smallpox eradication campaign in the 1960s and 1970s, says researchers who recently reported on the duration of immunity conferred by smallpox vaccination were wrong in suggesting that immunity can last for decades or even for life.

Editor's note: See Aug 21 CIDRAP News story for a critique by Dr. D. A. Henderson of the report described below.

(CIDRAP News) – A study of more than 300 people who received smallpox shots suggests that the resulting immunity to smallpox may last up to 75 years, according to a report published online yesterday by Nature Medicine.

(CIDRAP News) – As the number of West Nile virus cases continues to climb, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) announced that its scientists have created a promising new vaccine against the virus. The vaccine involves a distantly related virus, dengue type 4, in which some proteins have been replaced by corresponding proteins from the West Nile virus.

(CIDRAP News) – The vector in the SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) outbreak at the Amoy Gardens housing complex in Hong Kong last spring may have been roof rats, hypothesizes Stephen K. C. Ng of Columbia University School of Public Health in an article published in the Aug 16 issue of The Lancet. How the infection spread from the index case to more than 300 residents of the complex very rapidly has remained a mystery.

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 (CIDRAP News) – Two more deaths from SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) occurred this week in Toronto, one of them in a heathcare worker. That brings the total number of deaths in Canada to 44. Eight people remain hospitalized with the illness in Toronto.

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) – 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) – 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) – 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.