Biosecurity Issues

(CIDRAP News) – The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) yesterday announced that it awarded 17 food and feed safety grants totaling $5.2 million to state and local regulatory agencies.

(CIDRAP News) – A bipartisan commission of former US government officials , in issuing a report card today on the federal government's progress toward preventing terrorist attacks with weapons of mass destruction (WMD), gave the nation a C- for its efforts to reduce the threat of bioterrorism.

(CIDRAP News) – Wildlife officials in Rhode Island recently announced that during routine surveillance they detected the low-pathogenic form of H7N3 avian influenza in wild mute swans.

The virus was detected in 4 of 11 swans collected from the Seekonk River, near the Swan Point Cemetery, about 4 miles northeast of Providence, according to an Aug 21 press release from the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (DEM).

(CIDRAP News) – A leak of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) virus at any of six proposed sites for a large federal laboratory to study foreign animal diseases could cost billions of dollars, according to a recent report by the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

(CIDRAP News) – A livestock official in Pakistan today confirmed that the H5N1 avian influenza virus has struck again in the country's North-West Frontier province, killing thousands of chickens at a commercial farm.

Ibrahim Kahn, a livestock department chief in Swabi district, where the outbreak occurred, said confirmatory tests were performed at a government laboratory in Islamabad, according to a report today from Agence France-Presse (AFP).

(CIDRAP News) – Lax biosecurity measures around poultry in some countries could lead to an increasing number of H5N1 avian influenza outbreaks that could exacerbate the global food crisis, an official from the United Nations Food and AgricultureOrganization (FAO) said at an international infectious disease conference in Malaysia today.

(CIDRAP News) – David Nabarro, influenza coordinator for the United Nations (UN), said during a press conference yesterday that the world is better prepared to respond to an influenza pandemic, but he added that continuing outbreaks in some countries are a reminder that a major threat remains.

(CIDRAP News) – The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) recently announced the release of complete genetic data for 150 avian influenza viruses in an effort to connect genetic information with the biological effects of the viruses and to improve diagnostic tests.

– ATLANTA (CIDRAP News) – More than 10 years after the first appearance of avian influenza H5N1, it is time to acknowledge that the virus has become entrenched in many areas and to begin grappling with its social and economic effects, leading researchers said at a scientific meeting.

(CIDRAP News) – Egypt's health ministry announced recently that an 8-year-old boy has been hospitalized with an H5N1 avian influenza infection, the country's second such illness in a child in less than a week.