Plans for the US government's "Generation 3" automated system to test the air for dangerous pathogens in US cities under the BioWatch program have been canceled over concerns about its cost and effectiveness, it was revealed recently.
Guinea's health ministry has reported six more cases in the country's Ebola virus disease (EVD) outbreak, lifting the total to 224, the World Health Organization (WHO) said in an update yesterday.
So far, of 202 patients tested, 121 have been lab confirmed, the agency said. Two more deaths have been reported, pushing that number to 143, an increase of 2 since the WHO's previous update on Apr 25.
Saudi Arabian officials today reported four Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) cases in Riyadh, one of them fatal and the other three severe enough to require intensive care.
Guinea has reported 10 more suspected or confirmed cases of Ebola virus disease (EVD), along with three more deaths. Gregory Hartl, a spokesman for the World Health Organization (WHO), said today in a Twitter post that the developments push the country's overall outbreak total to 137 illnesses, 86 of them fatal.
HHS has spent $440 million to bolster defenses against pandemic flu and other threats.
The federal government will provide up to $90 million to develop a new drug to treat two potential bioterror threats and possibly to combat antibiotic-resistant infections, the US Department of Health and Human Services' (HHS's) Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) announced today.
In its annual snapshot, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) yesterday noted that states in 2012 and 2013 again benefited from the agency's support for public health readiness and response through its Public Health Emergency Preparedness program.
The report, published by the CDC's Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response (OPHPR), highlighted several success stories, including:
Two doses of a combined measles-mumps-rubella-varicella vaccine (MMRV) were more efficacious at preventing moderate to severe varicella infection (chickenpox) than one dose of monovalent varicella vaccine and markedly more effective against varicella of any severity, according to a study today in The Lancet.
The bill provides increases for the CDC, DHS, and FDA and funds for pandemic readiness.
The source of the spores that severly sickened a Florida man in 2011 was never discovered.
