Federal officials noted several biosafety lapses at a Tulane University animal lab after animals were infected with Burkholderia pseudomallei, the bacterium that causes melioidosis, or Whitmore's disease, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced today.
Two experts cite a perceived lack of public and global input, as well as potential conflict of interest.
For the first time this year, all 3 nations see an increase in cases, while the CDC reports on a December lab incident.
This flu season's vaccine has provided "little or no protection" against influenza in Canada because of a mismatch between the H3N2 strain included in the vaccine and the predominant circulating H3N2 strain, say interim findings from the Canadian Sentinel Physician Surveillance Network (SPSN) published in today's issue of Eurosurveillance.
Two laboratory accidents at the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) within the past 16 months may have exposed nine workers to a bacterium and a virus regarded as potential bioweapons, according to a report yesterday in The Frederick (Md.) News-Post.
Mishandling of lab material that may have contained live virus follows other CDC safety lapses earlier in the year.
In the wake of this week's symposium on gain-of-function (GOF) virologic research, the next step is for a federal advisory panel to develop plans for a risk-benefit analysis of such studies, says a spokeswoman for the National Academy of Sciences (NAS).
UK labs that handle the most dangerous pathogens have reported at least 116 accidents or other biosecurity breaches in the past 5 years—about one every 2 weeks—The Guardian reported today.
The new policy, which calls on scientists to flag their own experiments as DURC, was met with mixed reviews.
Health officials reported another big spike in the Caribbean region's chikungunya outbreak, much of it due to updated surveillance information from the Dominican Republic, the hardest-hit country, according to the latest report from the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO). PAHO also reported a tripling of outbreak deaths, to 113.