• Report: DHS underestimates risks of accidental pathogen release at Kansas BioLab

    Manhattan, Kansas, is the proposed location of a new, $450 million BioLab44 DHS research facility; a National Academy of Sciences panel report says that a risk assessment by DHS of the new facility vastly underestimates the risk of an accidental pathogen release from the lab and the associated costs; the NAS report also said last month’s analysis failed to learn from fifteen major accidental releases of the foot and mouth virus around the world

  • U.S. at bottom of health care survey of 11 rich countries

    Americans are the most likely to go without health care because of the cost and to have trouble paying medical bills even when insured, a survey of eleven wealthy countries found; “We spend far more on health care than any of these countries, but this study highlights pervasive gaps in U.S. health insurance that put families’ health and budgets at risk,” said Cathy Schoen, the lead author of the study

  • Bandages changes color to indicate state of a wound

    Medical dressings are effective at protecting the site of an injury, but to examine a wound they must be removed; this can not only be painful for a patient, but it can also allow germs to enter the wound and cause infection; researchers developed dressing materials and plasters that do not need to be removed to check the state of a wound — they indicate pathological changes in the skin by changing from yellow to purple

  • Safety of planned Kansas Biosafety-Level 4 lab questioned

    A new National Research Council report finds “several major shortcomings” in a DHS assessment of risks associated with operating the proposed National Bio- and Agro-Defense Facility (NBAF) in Manhattan, Kansas; one example: the report says there is nearly a 70 percent chance over the 50-year lifetime of the facility that a release of foot-and-mouth disease could result in an infection outside the laboratory, impacting the economy by estimates of $9 billion to $50 billion; roughly 9.5 percent of the U.S. cattle inventory lies within a 200-mile radius of the facility; another concern of the committee was the lack of an early-release detection and response system, clinical isolation facilities, and world-class infectious disease clinicians experienced in diagnosing and treating laboratory staff or communities exposed to dangerous pathogens that affect people

  • Cholera to linger in Haiti for years to come

    Worldwide, poor sanitation that spreads cholera and other gut infections accounts for 2.4 million deaths a year, and 6.6 per cent of all life-years lost to disease and disability; the current cholera crisis in Haiti offers a grim example: cholera deaths are climbing sharply in Haiti, after the infection reached the capital, Port-au-Prince, as feared; epidemiologists who have studied other outbreaks predict that hundreds of thousands of Haitians will be stricken by the infection over the next few years as cholera takes hold in the country

  • U.S. sees East Africa as front line in bioterrorism war

    Africa emerges as the front line in the war against bioterrorism; anthrax killed hundreds of hippopotamuses in Uganda in recent years; in 2008 a Dutch tourist died from Marburg disease after visiting a cave in a national park; in 2007 an Ebola outbreak killed more than twenty people; American officials say that the underlying threat is that lax security at the poorly financed labs that collect and study these and other deadly diseases pose a bioterrorism risk; the rise of Islamist radicals in several countries in East Africa has refocused attention on this region as a frontier in American security interests

  • Detecting use of abnormal organisms as bioterror weapons

    Organisms have the potential to cause disease, but they can be altered to cause an unrecognized diseases or a process a process that doctors have not associated with that organism; this makes altered forms of bacteria like salmonella or E. coli the potential “bombs” in a bio-terrorist attack, but scientists at Purdue University developed a new way to look at those bacteria; now, West Virginia University is testing its potential

  • India to be home to the 7th CDC global disease detection center

    One result of President Obama’s visit to India is the agreement to set up a global disease detection centre in India; the center will be part of the global network of detection facilities supervised by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC); the Indian center — the seventh CDC global facility — will monitor deadly pathogens and viruses, outbreak information, coordinate responses, and support the WHO’s Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network to allow rapid identification, confirmation and response to outbreaks of international importance

  • Cholera treatment centers set up in Haiti's capital

    Port-au-Prince is estimated to be home to between 2.5 million and 3 million people, about half of whom have been living in homeless encampments since the 12 January earthquake ravaged the capital; Port-au-Prince’s pre-earthquake sanitation and drinking water systems were already miserable owing to neglect and indifference by successive Haitian governments, and health experts say that these conditions make the city “ripe for the rapid spread of cholera”

  • App to diagnose sexually transmitted infections

    Small devices similar to pregnancy testing kits are being developed that will allow people to test themselves privately for sexually transmitted diseases; the kit will include a computer chip around the size of a USB chip, that can be plugged into a phone or computer

  • Cholera spreads to Haiti capital

    The cholera epidemic has killed 583 people so far; 9,000 people are being treated for symptoms of the disease; the disease has now reached the capital, and health authorities say the spread in Port-au-Prince likely to be extensive; the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) says it expects tens of thousands more Haitians to catch cholera in the next few years; eradication will take time, as cholera bacteria now has foothold in the river system

  • Cholera threatens to engulf Haiti

    The cholera epidemic continues to spread unabated in Haiti; until this weekend the epidemic was co confined to rural Haiti and to the tent camps, erected after the earthquake earlier this year, which house 1.3 million Haitians; on Sunday it was revealed that the first 30 patients in Port-au-Prince, the capital, were admitted to hospitals for treatment; the situation in the country have gotten worse after Hurricane Tomas brought heavy rains last week; NGOs and international relief organizations have been attempting to get clean drinking water to those areas worst- affected by the storm, which triggered flooding and mudslides; the Haitian government appealed to donors for $19 million to cover urgent humanitarian needs

  • Sniffer rats saving lives in war zones -- and in the lab

    Light, with an acute sense of smell and easily motivated by food rewards, giant African pouched rats have been found to be highly effective in mine detection; in the lab, the rats use their keen noses positively to identify tuberculosis sputum samples; the next frontier would be to use the “hero rats” to sniff out narcotics or to search for survivors of disasters such as earthquakes or collapsed buildings

  • Haiti cholera death rise, disease spreads

    Haitian health officials say there had been a 40 percent jump in the number of new cholera cases; the number of people known to have died from a cholera epidemic in Haiti has increased markedly; health officials say 105 more people have died since Saturday, bringing the total to 442

  • U.S. shifts bio-defense R&D approach to "platform technologies"

    The Obama administration’s new $5.9 billion bio-defense plan features a strategy to fund so-called “platform technologies” that apply to many different infectious disease threats, whether they be bioterrorism (anthrax), pandemics (influenza), or infectious diseases affecting the developing world (malaria); this money could provide an extra incentive to justify corporate R&D investments in vaccine, drug, and diagnostic technologies