Though toddler vaccine levels remain high, recent measles outbreaks have raised concern.
Alfred Almanza, head of the US Department of Agriculture's (USDA's) Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), took issue with a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report this week that was critical of some aspects of an FSIS poultry inspection plan, saying the GAO omitted key details.
The GAO report asserted that the USDA took some shortcuts in assessing the plan, called the HACCP-Based Inspection Models Project (HIMP).
The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is asking for bids on a 24/7 service to provide global data on disease outbreaks and other biologic threats, the agency said in a release this week.
Progress is being made overall in achieving the targets set out by the Healthy People 2020 program for fully immunizing adolescents, but human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine coverage is lagging and healthcare providers should use every opportunity to administer it, says a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report today in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR).
Vaccination rates among US kindergarteners remain at high levels, with coverage near or exceeding the Healthy People 2020 target rate of 95% in most states, and exemption rates are holding steady, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported today.
An analysis of Dallas County's massive West Nile virus (WNV) outbreak in 2012 found that it was preceded by an unusually mild winter and favored previously known hot spots, researchers reported today in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).
The World Health Organization (WHO) today confirmed Saudi Arabia's most recently announced Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) case, raising the global total from the disease to 81 confirmed illnesses.
Scottish researchers report that they found increased levels of cytokines—chemical messengers that typically promote inflammation—in patients with influenza and rhinovirus infections.
The findings appear to support the view that a "cytokine storm" contributes to severe illness in flu patients.
A working group for a vaccine advisory board recommended against a second dose of Tdap vaccine for teens, citing lack of a booster effect.
May 20, 2013
