Today's Headlines: May 17, 2019
Biological Agents & Infectious Diseases
With More Than 1,100 Dead, Congo’s Ebola Outbreak Is Only Getting Worse. Now Doctors Are Forced to Go Undercover. (Washington Post) Some doctors fighting the second-deadliest Ebola outbreak in history are afraid to wear scrubs…They mask their identities to avoid harassment and violence in Congo, where the epidemic is spreading at the fastest rate since it started in August — and where rampant misinformation fuels a distrust of outsiders in medical garb. The World Health Organization has logged 119 attacks this year against health workers. Eighty-five have been wounded or killed. Go to article
Government Affairs & National Security
Human Antibody Reveals Hidden Vulnerability in Influenza Virus (NIH) The ever-changing “head” of an influenza virus protein has an unexpected Achilles heel, report scientists funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), one of the National Institutes of Health. The team discovered and characterized the structure of a naturally occurring human antibody that recognizes and disrupts a portion of the hemagglutinin (HA) protein that the virus uses to enter and infect cells. The investigators determined that the antibody, FluA-20, binds tightly to an area on the globular head of the HA protein that is only very briefly accessible to antibody attack. The site was not expected to be vulnerable to such a strike.  Go to article
USDA Enhances African Swine Fever Surveillance Effort (USDA) The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) is furthering its overall African Swine Fever (ASF) preparedness efforts with the implementation of a surveillance plan. As part of this plan, the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) will work with the swine industry, the states, and veterinary diagnostic laboratories to test for ASF.  Go to article
Emergency Assistance for Zika: USAID Supported Activities Overseas but Could Improve Funds Tracking and Response Planning (GAO) The Zika virus appeared in the Western Hemisphere in May 2015 and spread to many countries in less than a year. Zika can have mild or unnoticed symptoms, but it can also cause severe birth defects…In response, USAID supported a range of activities overseas, including mosquito control, public awareness, and research. However, USAID didn't track Zika funding by country and took longer than desired to get response efforts launched in some countries. Go to article
When science and politics collide: Enhancing the FDA (Science) For the better part of a century, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) preserved public health by rigorously applying the scientific method. The central tenet of the  Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act of 1938 which created the FDA calls for “experts qualified by scientific training and experience to investigate the safety of drugs.” In recent times, however, partisan political interposition has grown increasingly worrisome. Go to article
Global Health Security
DR Congo: We Cannot Scale Down While Ebola Escalates, Says IFRC (IFRC) The international community must urgently increase its investment in Ebola response efforts in the Democratic Republic of the Congo before the outbreak escalates further, warns the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC). Go to article
Global Platform on Disaster Risk Reduction: We Need a Drastic Change of Course (Reliefweb) The impacts of climate change, associated sea level rise and extreme weather are amplifying as a result of record greenhouse gas levels and combining with urbanization, environmental degradation and water stress to produce interlocking crises. There needs to be a drastic change of course, according to the top global forum on disaster risk reduction. Go to article
Soviets Tried So, So Hard to Eliminate the Plague (The Atlantic) The Soviet anti-plague system grew from a network of facilities that began in the czarist era, when the plague was causing many small but not catastrophic outbreaks. (Scientists are still figuring out why the Black Death bacteria were so exceptionally deadly.) Later, the system took on other endemic diseases such as anthrax, and eventually started working on bioweapons. Go to article
Medicine & Public Health
Comparative Analysis of Eleven Healthcare-Associated Outbreaks of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (Mers-Cov) from 2015 to 2017 (Nature: Scientific Reports) Since its emergence in 2012, 2,260 cases and 803 deaths due to Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) have been reported to the World Health Organization. Most cases were due to transmission in healthcare settings, sometimes causing large outbreaks. We analyzed epidemiologic and clinical data of laboratory-confirmed MERS-CoV cases from eleven healthcare-associated outbreaks in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Republic of Korea between 2015–2017. Go to article
Mass Gatherings Medicine: Public Health Issues Arising from Mass Gathering Religious and Sporting Events (The Lancet) A mass gathering is defined by WHO as a planned or spontaneous event that gathers substantial numbers of attendees who might strain the health planning and response capacities of the host community, city, or country.
Notes from the Field: Measles Outbreaks from Imported Cases in Orthodox Jewish Communities — New York and New Jersey, 2018–2019 ( MMWR) On October 1, 2018, the Rockland County (New York) Department of Health (RCDOH) alerted the New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH) of an unvaccinated teenaged traveler with diagnosed measles. During the next 17 days, RCDOH learned of an additional six unvaccinated travelers with measles. On October 24, 2018, the Ocean County (New Jersey) Health Department alerted the New Jersey Department of Health (NJDOH) of a case of measles in an international traveler, with rash onset October 17. The unvaccinated travelers reported recent travel in Israel, where an outbreak of approximately 3,150 cases of measles is ongoing (1). Investigations during October 1, 2018–April 30, 2019, identified 242 laboratory-confirmed and epidemiologically linked measles cases in New York, excluding New York City, and during October 17, 2018–November 30, 2018, identified 33 in New Jersey (Figure). The cases of measles were primarily in members of orthodox Jewish communities. Go to article
Current Vaccination Policies May Not Be Enough to Prevent Measles Resurgence (EurekaAlert!) Current vaccination policies may not be sufficient to achieve and maintain measles elimination and prevent future resurgence in Australia, Ireland, Italy, the UK and the US, according to a study published in the open access journal  BMC Medicine. Go to article
Antibody Responses Vs. Ebola Keep Evolving in Survivors, Months After Recovery (EurekaAlert!) Antiviral antibodies produced by survivors of Ebola infection continue to evolve and improve after recovery, according to a detailed study of the immune responses of four people who received care at Emory University Hospital in 2014. Go to article
Other 21 st Century Threats
Was It an Invisible Attack on U.S. Diplomats, or Something Stranger? (New York Times Magazine) The piercing, high-pitched noises were first heard by a couple of recently arrived United States Embassy officials in Havana in late 2016, soon after Donald Trump was elected president. They heard the noises in their homes, in the city’s leafy western suburbs. If they moved to a different room, or walked outside, the noise stopped. The two officials said they believed that the sound was man-made, a form of harassment. Around the same time, they began to develop a variety of symptoms: headaches, fatigue, dizziness, mental fog, hearing loss, nausea. Go to article
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