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Today's Headlines: August 17, 2016
 
Zika Virus

Mosquito Guns and Heavy Fines: How Cuba Kept Zika at Bay for So Long (Nature) As soon as the rain stops, mosquitoes flood the guard house of an upscale tourist resort near Cuba's Bay of Pigs. Without hesitation, 1 of the guards reaches under his desk to pull out a device that looks like a very large hair dryer. Go to article

How the Zika Response is Going beyond Reactive Approaches (Devex) "Fighting Ebola: A Grand Challenge for Development" taught the US Agency for International Development a couple of things. It became clear that the grand challenge model worked well as a way to rapidly source and deploy innovations, but also that the midst of an outbreak was not the best time to call for those ideas, said Wendy Taylor, director of the Center for Accelerating Innovation and Impact at USAID. Go to article

What Could Make Americans--and Congress--Care About Zika? (Washington Post) For the 1st time in the agency's 70-year history, the CDC in early August issued a travel advisory for part of the continental US, warning pregnant women to stay away from a neighborhood in Miami. The culprit: the Zika virus. Go to article

Johns Hopkins Runner Helps City's Efforts in Preventing Zika Virus (Baltimore Sun) As a long-distance runner for the Johns Hopkins track and field team, Lara Gaffney has chased down foes before. This summer, the 21-year-old soon-to-be senior helped the Baltimore City Health Department run down a more elusive opponent: mosquitoes carrying the Zika virus. Go to article

'Nobody's Looking': Why US Zika Outbreak Could be Bigger Than We Know (The Guardian) Zika tests are complicated, time-consuming and expensive, leading scientists to believe states at risk for the disease may already have undetected cases. Go to article

Zika Funding Can't Wait for Congress to Come Back from Vacation (CNBC) In Pediatrics, prevention is everything. I spend my days giving vaccines to prevent Measles, urging healthy eating habits to prevent obesity, and counseling about smart contraceptive management to prevent teen pregnancy. So as a pediatrician, it absolutely baffles me that Congress has not passed legislation to fund a federal response for the Zika Virus, a response that can prevent an epidemic. Go to article

Taiwan CDC: Imported Zika Case with Travel History to Miami (Avian Flu Diary) On August 17, 2016, the Central Epidemic Command Center for Zika Virus announced the 6th imported Zika case identified in Taiwan. The case is a 44-year-old female who resides in New Taipei City and visited Miami, Florida, US during July 31 and August 11, 2016 for business. Go to article


Biological Agents & Infectious Diseases

Why it's So Hard to Tell If a Country is really Rid of Polio (Wired) Last week, the WHO confirmed that polio had sprung up in Nigeria and paralyzed 2 children--a setback in the decades-long fight to eradicate the disease. The country was just a year away from being declared polio-free. Go to article

Louisiana Flooding: West Nile, Not Zika, Poses Bigger Threat (NOLA) Recent headlines have focused on mosquito-born Zika virus and the birth defects that could result if pregnant women are infected. But the bigger concern in Louisiana a few weeks after the flood will be West Nile virus, according to experts. Go to article

J. Infection: Aerosolized H5N6 at a Chinese LBM (Live Bird Market) (Avian Flu Diary) While attempts have been made to shut down live bird markets--at least temporarily when human cases are reported--and that has helped to reduce infections, these live markets remain ubiquitous and operational across much of Asia. Go to article


Domestic Preparedness & Response

Monstrous California Wildfire Drives over 80,000 from Homes (Bloomberg) California's newest huge wildfire advanced on thousands of homes Wednesday, feeding on drought-stricken vegetation and destroying an untold number of structures as it expanded to nearly 47 square miles. Go to article

Louisiana Flooding: Volunteers Descend on Stricken State to Assist Relief Efforts (NBC News) The Red Cross dispatched an army of volunteers to flood-ravaged Louisiana on Wednesday to deal with what the relief group is calling "the worst natural disaster to strike the United States since Superstorm Sandy." Go to article

Effectiveness of the Post-Katrina Intelligence Coordination Group Could be Enhanced (GAO) Implementation of the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act of 2006 provisions related to emergency communications planning and federal coordination has enhanced federal support for state and local efforts; however, federal coordination could be improved. PKEMRA created within the DHS the Office of Emergency Communications, which has taken a number of steps aimed at ensuring that state and local agencies have the plans, resources, and training they need to support reliable emergency communications. Go to article


Global Health Security

G20, Global Health, and China (Council on Foreign Relations) New Yorkers who have been used to the annual UNGA sessions (which typically last 2 weeks and attract over 100 heads of state and government) in September will probably have difficulty understanding why the 2-day G20 summit--to be held in Hangzhou early next month--is such a big deal in China, as tight security measures appear to be causing a great deal of inconvenience to local residents. Go to article

Massive Yellow Fever Vaccination Campaign Underway (UN Dispatch) Some 10 million doses are expected to be given in DRC in a campaign that starts this week. "A last-ditch effort to prevent yellow fever spreading through Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and potentially developing into a global epidemic is to be launched using vaccines containing a fifth of the normal dose because the global stockpile is so low." Go to article


Medicine & Public Health

Researchers Develop Tool to Help Overcome Public Health IT Barriers (Health Data Management) As public health departments around the country scramble to respond to the Zika outbreak, they are faced with a stark reality: their health IT systems face challenges that prevent the effective use and sharing of data to combat epidemics. Go to article


Science & Technology

NEJM Editorial Doubles Down on Resistance to Data Sharing (STAT News) When the editors of the New England Journal of Medicine warned in January that some scientists thought that sharing data would lead to "research parasites"--a subspecies of researchers who gained unearned glory off the backs of their hard-working colleagues-- they earned heaps of scorn from the scientific community. Go to article

Anthrax Genome Reveals Secrets about a Soviet Bioweapons Accident (Science) Some call it the "biological Chernobyl." On 2 April 1979, a plume of anthrax spores was accidentally released from a secret bioweapons facility in the Soviet city of Sverdlovsk. Go to article

See also: A Bacillus anthracis Genome Sequence from the Sverdlovsk 1979 Autopsy Specimens (bioRxiv) Anthrax is a zoonotic disease that occurs naturally in wild and domestic animals but has been used by both state-sponsored programs and terrorists as a biological weapon. The 2001 anthrax letter attacks involved less than gram quantities of Bacillus anthracis spores while the earlier Soviet weapons program produced tons. Go to article


21st Century Threats

What Will Americans Do About Their Fear of Terrorism? (The Atlantic) The US has faced threats before and after 9/11. Its test will be the choices it makes about constitutional rights and freedoms. Go to article

It Seems ISIS Used a New Kind of IED in Karrada (War is Boring) On July 3, 2016, Islamic State carried out its deadliest attack ever when it employed a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device--a VBIED--against crowds of people along a busy street in Karrada, Iraq. Go to article
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