For the third day in a row South Korea reported no new MERS-CoV cases, but its health ministry today reported one more death, involving an 81-year-old woman who had a stoke before she was diagnosed, the Korea Times reported today. The woman was exposed to the virus while at Samsung Medical Center in Seoul.
A US Army facility in Utah that mistakenly shipped live Bacillus anthracis to dozens of other labs over a 10-year period did not properly test its method for killing the bacterium, which causes anthrax, according to a USA Today story based on a government report.
In the wake of several lab missteps involving dangerous pathogens, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has said it will take 3 years to release detailed information on lab incidents throughout the country, USA Today reported yesterday.
Saudi Arabia today reported five more MERS cases, including three in Hofuf, which has been a hot spot lately because of an apparent hospital outbreak.
Two of the three Hofuf patients, Saudi men ages 41 and 29 years, are healthcare workers who had contact with other MERS-CoV (Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus) patients, the Saudi Ministry of Health (MOH) reported. They are in stable condition.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) yesterday released its final Veterinary Feed Directive (VFD), a rule that aims to put all uses of medically important antibiotics in food animals under veterinary supervision by the end of next year.
Sierra Leone is reporting a spate of new Ebola cases in a new hot spot in the Kaffu Bullom part of Port Loko district, located in the western part of the country, according to official and media reports.
An investigation into more than 200 high-containment labs in all 50 states and the District of Columbia by a team of reports for USA Today Network of Gannett newspapers and TV stations revealed hundreds of lab accidents, safety violations, and "near misses," USA Today noted today in a lengthy report.
Scientists at a biodefense lab at the Dugway Proving Ground, an Army installation in Utah, mistakenly shipped live Bacillus anthracis samples—the bacterium that causes anthrax—to labs in nine US states and South Korea, according to media reports today.
The World Health Assembly (WHA) in Geneva set ambitious goals of reducing the global malaria burden 40% by 2020 and at least 90% by 2030, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported today.
The WHA, the annual meeting of the WHO's member countries, also established a goal of eliminating malaria in at least 35 more countries by 2030, the WHO said in a news release.
The lab worker was infected after a needlestick injury, despite receiving the vaccine 10 months prior.
