The plan will speed up the hunt for the source when ground beef is tainted with E coli O157:H7.
Officials reported more than 62,000 new chikungunya cases in the Caribbean and surrounding areas last week—almost all in the Dominican Republic—expanding the outbreak to 576,000 cases, according to an Aug 8 update from the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO).
An enhanced system of surveillance for MERS-CoV in England turned up 2 cases of the disease among 77 potential candidates meeting case definitions in its first year of operation, according to a dispatch yesteday in Emerging Infectious Diseases. The numbers are small, say the authors, but in the context of emerging pathogens, reporting data like theirs can help optimize case detection and surveillance systems.
A World Health Organization (WHO) emergency committee has extended a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) over the global polio situation and the temporary recommendations that came with it, the WHO said in a statement yesterday. The group met by teleconference on Jul 31, its first meeting since it first declared the PHEIC on May 5.
The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has turned down a long-pending petition to declare antibiotic-resistant (ABR) Salmonella an adulterant in raw ground meat and poultry, saying there's not enough evidence to support the change.
The agency also establishes new steps to control Salmonella and Campylobacter in poultry.
New York's Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled yesterday that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is not required to hold public hearings on the safety of feeding antibiotics at subtherapeutic levels to food animals, a decision that advocates called a blow to public health, Food Safety News (FSN) reported today.
Past Cyclospora outbreaks involved imported produce, but so far no common source has been found.
The California Department of Public Health (CDPH) yesterday released a final report on a 2013 Escherichia coli outbreak traced to pre-packaged salads sold at Trader Joe's stores that sickened 33 people in four states, Food Safety News (FSN) reported today.
The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) said this week that the safety of gain-of-function (GOF) studies like a recent one involving the generation of a 1918-like influenza virus merits more public discussion, given the obligation of researchers to "first do no harm."
