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Today's Headlines: August 19, 2016
 
Zika Virus

Study Suggests Zika May Damage Adult Brains (Wall Street Journal: Subscription Required) It's known that Zika can cause brain damage in the fetuses of infected pregnant women. Now a new study suggests the virus also may be able to harm the brains of some adults. Go to article

See Also: Zika Virus Infects Neural Progenitors in the Adult Mouse Brain and Alters Proliferation (Cell Stem Cell) Recent world attention has been drawn to a global Zika virus outbreak and its link with devastating cases of microcephaly and Guillain-Barre syndrome. ZIKV infection is spreading rapidly within the Americas after originating from an outbreak in Brazil. Mounting evidence suggests that ZIKV infection in pregnant women can cause congenital abnormalities as well as fetal demise. Initial case descriptions of microcephaly and spontaneous abortions have been supported by evidence of viral RNA and antigen in the brains of congenitally infected fetuses and newborns. Go to article

CDC Webcast: Clinical Evaluation & Management of Infants with Congenital Zika Infection (Avian Flu Diary) Of interest to primarily to public health officials and clinicians, yesterday the CDC published more than 4 hours of webcast recordings from July's 2-day workshop Clinical Evaluation & Management of Infants with Congenital Zika Infection. Go to article

Zika Reportedly Now Spreading in Miami Beach (CIDRAP) Amid media reports of a new Zika transmission area--Miami Beach--Florida health officials today announced two new locally acquired infections in Miami-Dade County without confirming that the disease is spreading outside of an already-known small area of the Wynwood neighborhood. Go to article

Timeline: Zika's Origin and Global Spread (Reuters) The timeline charts the origin and spread of the Zika virus from its discovery nearly 70 years ago. Go to article

Worried Florida Republicans Push Ryan for Zika Action (Politico) When Republicans left town this summer, they abandoned a billion-dollar Zika rescue package that had become mired in partisan infighting. But now some rank-and-file Florida Republicans--who represent scared constituents clamoring for Washington to do something--are pressuring their leaders to get a deal done, no matter what it takes. Go to article

Diagnostics for Zika Virus on the Horizon (Science) Of concern, recent ZIKV outbreaks are linked to severe neuro-developmental complications in the children of women infected while pregnant, as well as Guillain-Barre syndrome in adults. Management of this epidemic has been complicated by extensive serological cross-reactivity among flaviviruses and the cocirculation of ZIKV and DENV in regions experiencing the greatest disease burden. Current serological diagnostics have a limited capacity to distinguish between DENV and ZIKV. Go to article


Domestic Preparedness & Response

FEMA: Unclear What Housing Options Will be Used, but Don't Expect Katrina-era FEMA Trailers (Emergency Management) Federal Emergency Management Agency teams in the coming weeks will start the arduous task of developing a plan for where the thousands of people across south Louisiana who have lost their homes to flooding will live. Go to article


Global Health Security

MSF Withdraws from Six Hospitals in Northern Yemen (H5N1) Following the 15 August aerial bombing of Abs hospital in Hajjah governorate, which killed 19 people and injured 24, MSF has decided to evacuate its staff from the hospitals it supports in Saada and Hajjah governorates in northern Yemen: Haydan, Razeh, Al Gamouri, and Yasnim hospitals in Saada, and Abs and Al Gamouri hospitals in Hajjah. Go to article

Debate Continues Over UN Role in Bringing Cholera to Haiti (NPR: Goats and Soda) For the first time the UN is signaling it may be on the verge of admitting that its peacekeepers introduced cholera into Haiti in 2010. Over the last 6 years that outbreak has claimed sickened nearly a million Haitians and claimed more than 9,000 lives. Go to article


Medicine & Public Health

Next Steps for Ebola Vaccination: Deployment in Non-Epidemic, High-risk Settings (PLOS: Neglected Tropical Diseases) The catastrophic West Africa Ebola epidemic that resulted in approximately 28,200 cases and 11,300 deaths over 22 months has been reduced to intermittent and, thus far, rapidly controlled flare ups in Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone. During the period of most widespread and intense transmission, extraordinary efforts to develop, produce, and field-test an Ebola vaccine in the outbreak setting generated promising results. Go to article

Influenza Vaccine for International Mass Gatherings (The Lancet: Infectious Diseases) We agree with Mohammad Alfelali and colleagues that influenza vaccination is highly recommended for Hajj pilgrims. However, the Hajj is not the only mass gathering at which influenza outbreaks have been reported. Similarly, outbreaks were recorded during the World Youth Day in July 2008 in Sydney, Australia, during the H1N1 pandemic in 2009 at the Itzapalapa Passion Play in Mexico, and at 3 major outdoor music festivals in Europe, including the Sziget festival in Hungary, the Rock Werchter festival in Belgium, and the Exit festival in Serbia. In 2002 an influenza outbreak happened at the Winter Olympiad in Salt Lake City, USA. Go to article


Science & Technology

'Radically Rewritten' Bacterial Genome Unveiled (Nature) Synthetic biologists report the most far-reaching rewiring yet of a bacterial genome. The feat, described today in Science, involved repurposing 3.8% of the base pairs of the bacterium Escherichia coli. Go to article

See Also: Design, Synthesis, and Testing Toward a 57-codon Genome (Science) Recoding--the repurposing of genetic codons--is a powerful strategy for enhancing genomes with functions not commonly found in nature. Here, we report computational design, synthesis, and progress toward assembly of a 3.97-megabase, 57-codon Escherichia coli genome in which all 62,214 instances of seven codons were replaced with synonymous alternatives across all protein-coding genes. Go to article

First-In-Human Study of MERS Vaccine Completes Enrollment (Global Defense) A Phase I clinical trial for Middle East Respiratory Syndrome GLS-5300 vaccine, funded and conducted by the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, has completed enrollment of trial subjects. Go to article

Comment on "Mutation Rate and Genotype Variation of Ebola Virus from Mali Case Sequences" (Science) In their Report, Hoenen and colleagues presented an analysis of four Ebola virus genome sequences from Mali in the context of 102 previously published genomes from Guinea and Sierra Leone. Their key assertion was that the evolutionary rate of EBOV during the 2013 to 2016 West African Ebola virus disease epidemic was lower than initially reported by Gire et al. and similar to the long-term rate of evolution estimated over 35 years in a nonhuman reservoir, presumed to be a bat species. Go to article

Drones Transport Microbiological Samples Without Altering Their Content (mBiosphere) Robots help sort patient samples, test clinical specimens, and analyze the results. Now a study shows that robots, in the form of drones, can help move our samples from place to place, with little effect on the analytical outcome. Go to article

See Also: Drone Transport of Microbes in Blood and Sputum Laboratory Specimens (Journal of Clinical Microbiology) Unmanned Aerial Vehicles could potentially be used to transport microbiological specimens. To examine UAV impact on microbiological specimens, blood and sputum culture specimens were seeded with usual pathogens and flown in an UAV for 30+/-2 minutes. Time-to-recovery, colony counts, morphology and MALDI-TOF MS identification of the flown and stationary specimens were similar for all microbes studied. Go to article

Antibodies with 'Original Antigenic Sin' Properties Are Valuable Components of Secondary Immune Responses to Influenza Viruses (PLOS: Pathogens) Humans are continuously exposed to antigenically distinct influenza virus strains. Influenza virus infections early in life elicit immune responses that are subsequently recalled upon exposures with different influenza virus strains. Antibodies elicited against older influenza strains can dominate immune responses elicited against new influenza strains. This process is referred to as 'original antigenic sin' since the recall of antibodies against past influenza strains can occur at the apparent expense of generating antibodies against new viral strains. Go to article


Other 21st Century Threats

Join the Conversation: Cybersecurity Challenges to Health Care (ASPR Blog) Implementing effective strategies and safeguards to address cybersecurity threats is a challenge for any industry, but the size and scope of attacks on health care information systems have grown rapidly in the past two years. Health care data can be used for to commit fraud or identity theft. It can also be used to disrupt of hospital systems. Go to article


Clinicians' Biosecurity News, August 19, 2016
Hutterite Flu Vaccine Trial: More Questions on Optimal Flu Vaccines. In recent months, the landscape of influenza vaccine strategies has changed, with the live-attenuated nasal spray vaccine losing its status as a recommended vaccine against influenza after showing low efficacy rates in the most recent flu season. Newly published data in the Annals of Internal Medicine, however, add to the nuances of influenza vaccine recommendations. Read Now
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