The Saudi Arabian Ministry of Health (MOH) announced seven new cases of MERS-CoV over the weekend, recorded in reports for epidemiologic weeks 8 and 9. Three of the cases are in Wadi ad-Dawasir, two of which appear to be part of an ongoing hospital outbreak.
The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) yesterday announced that it has awarded a contract worth as much as $19 million to Oxford University and Janssen Vaccines to advance the development and manufacture of a vaccine against MERS-CoV and do preclinical studies of new vaccines against Lassa and Nipah viruses.
One week after the Democratic Republic of the Congo's (DRC's) health ministry declared a new outbreak in the east of the country, an immunization campaign began today, which targeted frontline health workers from the Mangina Reference Health Center, the epicenter of the outbreak, who had been in contact with confirmed cases and their contacts.
A report summing up all the investigation findings in India's Nipah virus outbreak says 17 of 19 patients appear to have contracted the virus from the index patient, a 26-year-old man, Press Trust of India (PTI) reported yesterday, citing findings released by health officials from Kerala state.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevent (CDC) today said it is investigating several Salmonella outbreaks totaling 124 cases in 36 states linked to contact with backyard poultry flocks.
Spending public health money on surveillance rather than on broad, expensive genomic surveys of animal diseases is a sounder investment and better way to prepare for the next pandemic or other global health emergency, three infectious disease experts wrote today in Nature.
The Democratic Republic of Congo's health ministry yesterday and today ruled out some suspected cases based on lab tests and confirmed 2 more in the remote Iboko outbreak location, dropping the outbreak total to 50 cases, including 37 confirmed and 13 probable, with no suspected cases. No new deaths were reported, keeping that total at 25.
A new index that evaluates 60 global food companies on health, environmental, and social issues has found that more than three-quarters of those companies rank as "high risk" on antibiotic stewardship.
Tests on two earlier reported suspected Nipah virus cases from India's Karnataka state were negative for the virus, as another, previously unaffected state—Telangana—identified two possible cases and sent samples for testing, according to the latest media reports from India.
Local officials say the outbreak total has reached 36 cases, 14 confirmed and 22 suspected.
