Confirmation has been received that a healthcare worker in Uganda who became ill Sep11 and died Sep 28 had Marburg virus, a relative of the Ebola virus causing havoc in several West African countries. The last Marburg outbreak in Uganda, affecting 20 people and killing 9 of them, was in 2012, according to a notice from the World Health Organization (WHO) today.
A newly released guide developed by the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) and the World Health Organization (WHO) aims to strengthen the capacity worldwide for collaboration and coordination between national public health and national animal health authorities.
The number of chikungunya cases in the Caribbean and surrounding areas continues to grow, with 9,006 new cases bringing the outbreak total to 747,721, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) reported late last week.
Colombia reported the largest increase, with 3,347 new cases (from 1,350 to 4,697), followed by Martinique, with 2,390 new cases; Puerto Rico, with 1,166; and Guadeloupe, 880.
An independent audit of MERS-CoV data in Saudi Arabia yesterday identified 16 more infections with illness onsets before Jun 3 and has reclassified a handful of previously reported cases, the country's Ministry of Health (MOH) announced yesterday.
It said the review is part of an ongoing effort to ensure that MERS-CoV (Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus) data are accurate.
Saudi Arabia today confirmed one new MERS-CoV case, in a 60-year-old foreign health worker whose illness was detected in the city of Jubail, in the northeastern part of the country, according to a statement from the Ministry of Health (MOH).
The man is hospitalized in an intensive care unit, according to the report. He had no pre-existing disease, the MOH said.
The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) said yesterday that it has requested US researchers to conduct a "safety stand-down" to assess stocks of potentially dangerous pathogens and outlined longer-term steps to ensure lab biosecurity.
A US House of Representatives committee that will host a hearing on Jul 16 to question federal officials on recent incidents involving anthrax bacteria and other pathogens at US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) labs today unveiled some findings from its requests for documents and testimony about the agency's biosafety issues.
The IDSA stressed that many infections heal on their own or don't need antibiotics.
Novartis and Pfizer today announced that they have submitted applications to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for marketing approval of their vaccines against Neisseria meningitidis serogroup B infection.
An Austrian pharmaceutical company today reported promising findings from a phase 1 study of its candidate chikungunya vaccine. The vaccine, which uses a standard measles vaccine vector, induced a significant neutralizing immune response and appeared to be safe, according to a press release from the Vienna-based company, Themis Bioscience.
