Biosecurity Issues

Maryn McKennaContributing Writer

(CIDRAP News) – This in-depth article investigates the prospects for development of vaccines to head off the threat of an influenza pandemic posed by the H5N1 avian influenza virus. Its seven parts put advances in vaccine technology in perspective by illuminating the formidable barriers to producing an effective and widely usable vaccine in a short time frame.

Editor's note: This is the third in a seven-part series investigating the prospects for development of vaccines to head off the threat of an influenza pandemic posed by the H5N1 avian influenza virus. The series puts promising advances in vaccine technology in perspective by illuminating the formidable barriers to producing large amounts of an effective and widely usable vaccine in a short time frame.

(CIDRAP News) – A US House of Representatives committee today explored problems at the nation's biodefense labs, including a lack of coordinated federal oversight and even a lack of knowledge of how many high-containment labs exist.

These concerns have been highlighted recently by aggressive efforts from the Sunshine Project, a watchdog group that monitors biodefense research safety, and by other media reports.

(CIDRAP News) – Researchers at the University of Wisconsin at Madison (UW-Madison) worked on Ebola virus genetic material in a lab that lacked the required security measures, and federal agencies responsible for monitoring compliance didn't notice the problem, a watchdog group that monitors biodefense research safety reported recently.

(CIDRAP News) – Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) was confirmed on a fifth farm in Surrey in southern England this week, but another feared outbreak near Birmingham in the central part of the country was ruled out.

Sep 13, 2007 (CIDRAP News) – British officials who are investigating the latest outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) said today that initials tests show the virus strain matches the strain found in outbreaks that surfaced in late July at two nearby farms.

(CIDRAP News) – English officials announced today that foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) has been confirmed in cattle on another farm in Surrey, less than a week after announcing that the disease had been eradicated from the area.

The farm is near the town of Egham, about 10 miles from the site of two earlier FMD outbreaks, the London Telegraph reported today.

(CIDRAP News) – Britain's recent outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) were likely caused by faulty wastewater drains at a laboratory facility, which contaminated soil that was then spread by trucks to a nearby cattle farm, British authorities announced today.

(CIDRAP News) – As British veterinary officials continued to investigate outbreaks of food-and-mouth disease (FMD) at two farms this week, worries about possible outbreaks at two other sites in England were dispelled.

Animal handlers at a farm in Kent and a zoo in Surrey reported suspicious lesions in animals, but test results were negative, and the government eased restrictions on livestock movements in those areas.

(CIDRAP News) – A preliminary British government report says the foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) outbreak discovered last week near London was very probably caused by a leak from a local laboratory.