A new case of MERS-CoV and one death in a previously reported case bring totals since June 2012 to 900 and 383, respectively, in Saudi Arabia, according to a report today from the country's Ministry of Health (MOH).
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).
Confirmation has been received that a healthcare worker in Uganda who became ill Sep11 and died Sep 28 had Marburg virus, a relative of the Ebola virus causing havoc in several West African countries. The last Marburg outbreak in Uganda, affecting 20 people and killing 9 of them, was in 2012, according to a notice from the World Health Organization (WHO) today.
A recent vaccinia infection in a US Air Force trainee was facilitated by shaving and caused serious facial lesions that required a long hospital stay.
In the wake of finding smallpox vials in a storage area earlier this month and a congressional hearing today on federal lab biosecurity (see related story), the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said the earlier discovery also included more than 300 vials of pathogens such as influenza and dengue viruses, as
In addition to recent problems with anthrax and smallpox, high-path avian flu has now entered the mix.
Testing to determine whether the vials contain live virus will take 2 weeks, the CDC said.
The World Health Assembly (WHA) again did not decide on when the last laboratory stocks of variola virus, the pathogen that causes smallpox, should be destroyed, Nature reported today on its news blog.
Scientists with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have detected a new orthopoxvirus—the family of viruses that includes smallpox and cowpox—in three people in the nation of Georgia, including two herdsmen, the CDC reported in a news release yesterday.
Saudi Arabian officials today reported four Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) cases in Riyadh, one of them fatal and the other three severe enough to require intensive care.
