The first shipment of Anthim (obiltoxaximab) injection, a novel treatment for the inhalation of Bacillus anthracis, which causes anthrax, has arrived in the US Strategic National Stockpile (SNS) according to a press release yesterday from Elusys Therapeutics, Inc. Elusys manufactures Anthim and has received more than $240 million from the US government to develop the drug over the past 15 years.
Also, the CDC's travel notice said local officials are scaling up flea control and have cancelled mass gatherings.
Syria has confirmed seven new cases involving vaccine-derived poliovirus 2 (cVDPV2) infection and Pakistan has reported four detections of wild poliovirus 1 (WPV1) in environmental samples, the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) said today in its weekly update.
After a lag in reporting last week, the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Health (MOH) updated it information on MERS-CoV cases over the weekend, noting three new cases since the agency last reported on Sep 25.
The World Health Organization (WHO) advisory committee that reviewed the most recent influenza developments and recommended strains for the Southern Hemisphere's 2018 flu season also looked at the newest genetic findings with zoonotic influenza viruses and recommended three new candidate vaccine viruses (CVVs).
An experimental drug that belongs to a new class of antibiotics showed promise in lab tests against multidrug-resistant (MDR) gram-negative bacteria, and was protective against the bacterium that causes plague in mice, according to a study yesterday in mBio.
A review and meta-analysis of studies on bacterial transmission and antibiotic resistance during the annual pilgrimage to Mecca has found rising rates of resistance among certain gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria, researchers report in Travel Medicine and Infectious Disease.
President Donald Trump announced yesterday that Francis Collins, MD, PhD, an Obama administration holdover, will stay on as permanent director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), multiple media sites reported.
In an epidemiologic update on MERS-CoV in Saudi Arabia today, the World Health Organization (WHO) noted that there were more cases in the first 2 months of 2017 than during the same period last year. The WHO also said its scientists are seeing younger women with the coronavirus, but that much of the disease's demographics haven't changed.
Portugal yesterday reported its first highly pathogenic H5N8 avian influenza detection, in a grey heron found dead near the southern city of Faro, according to a notice yesterday from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). In several countries in Europe and other regions that have had H5N8 outbreaks, the virus was first found in wild birds before jumping to poultry.
