(CIDRAP News) The president of the Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL) complained to Congress last week that the federal program that monitors the air for dangerous pathogens in major cities is a heavy burden on state and local laboratories.
(CIDRAP News) – In the history of infectious diseases, coincidence plays an extraordinary role. In 1706, Cotton Mather purchased a slave named Onesimus who happened to come from a tribe that practiced variolation, and so smallpox prevention was introduced to North America.
(CIDRAP News) The international coalition of health agencies dedicated to ending polio yesterday declared a "final push" toward the long-delayed goal of eradicating the disease. But its members coupled the announcement with a plea for millions of dollars in donations to fill shortfalls, and with an admission that the 20-year-old campaign continues to face stubborn challenges.
(CIDRAP News) – Five years after the SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) epidemic spread around the globe via air travel, significant barriers still stand in the way of tracking down and notifying airline passengers who may have been exposed to an infectious disease.
(CIDRAP News) An antiviral drug being developed to provide protection against smallpox and related viruses performed well in the first test of its safety and activity in humans, according to a report in the May issue of Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy.
(CIDRAP News) An ongoing trickle of vaccinia virus infections in laboratory workers who handle the virus points up the need for them to be immunized, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said last week.
(CIDRAP News) – Federal health officials recently announced plans to get rid of their last remaining stocks of the decades-old smallpox vaccine Dryvax, as a newer vaccine takes its place in the national stockpile of emergency medical supplies.
(CIDRAP News) The distribution of more than $5 billion in federal funds since 2001 has greatly improved states' preparedness to deal with disease outbreaks, natural disasters, and other public health emergencies, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said today in a first-of-its-kind assessment.
Editor's note: This story was revised Feb 11 to include some additional information provided by the Department of Defense.
(CIDRAP News) – After vaccinating more than a million personnel with the old-fashioned type of smallpox vaccine grown on the skin of calves, the US military is about to switch to a second-generation vaccine that's grown in laboratory cell cultures.
Maryn McKennaContributing Writer
(CIDRAP News) This in-depth article investigates the prospects for development of vaccines to head off the threat of an influenza pandemic posed by the H5N1 avian influenza virus. Its seven parts put advances in vaccine technology in perspective by illuminating the formidable barriers to producing an effective and widely usable vaccine in a short time frame.
