Recent News

By Region: North America

CDC: Smallpox found in NIH storage room is alive

(CNN) At least two of the vials employees at the National Institutes of Health found in an unused storage room earlier this month contain viable samples of the deadly smallpox virus, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday. Employees found six forgotten vials when they were preparing to move a lab from the Read More »

July 12, 2014
| Filed under North America, Agents & Toxins, and Biosafety
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Six vials of smallpox discovered in U.S. lab

(Science) Federal scientists last week discovered a half-dozen forgotten vials of smallpox virus while cleaning out a storage area on the campus of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland. Variola, or smallpox, which killed hundreds of millions before it was declared eradicated in 1980 through a worldwide vaccination campaign, is legally stored Read More »

July 9, 2014
| Filed under North America, Agents & Toxins, and Biosafety
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CDC to create anthrax research database in Atlanta

(Atlanta Business Chronicle) The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention plans to establish a public database in Atlanta of the bacteria Bacullus anthracis, which cause the deadly disease anthrax.The agency has published a request-for-quote to hire a contractor for the project. The move comes just weeks after the CDC made world headlines when 75 workers Read More »

July 9, 2014
| Filed under North America, Agents & Toxins, Countermeasures, Policy & Initiatives, and Research
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Swine Flu Analysis Challenges Views on Disease Spread

(Global Biodefense) The most detailed analysis to date of the spread of the H1N1 2009 pandemic influenza virus, known informally as ‘swine flu’, has found that short-range travel was likely the primary driver for the 2009 pandemic in the United States, in contrast with popularly accepted views on the way diseases spread.

July 7, 2014
| Filed under North America, Agents & Toxins, Public Health, and Research
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CDC says anthrax exposure ‘highly unlikely’

(New York Daily News) The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is advising some employees to stop taking antibiotics to ward off a possible anthrax infection after preliminary tests suggest it is “highly unlikely” they were inadvertently exposed to live anthrax bacteria earlier this month, a spokesman said on Monday. The CDC conducted the Read More »