Clinicians' Biosecurity News Archive: 2005
             

• 12-29-2005: Lab Diagnosis of Y. pestis Recently, a 72 year old man presented to a hospital complaining of nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, fever and weakness for 2 day.
• 12-22-2005: Oseltamivir resistance, Vietnam De Jong and colleagues from the Hospital for Tropical Diseases in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam report on 8 patients treated with oseltamivir for H5N1 influenza.
• 12-16-2005: Influenza Associated Pediatric Deaths during 2003-2004 Flu Season In an article published yesterday in the NEJM, researchers from the CDC report on pediatric deaths from the 2003-2004 influenza season.
• 12-07-2005: 500,000 Doses of Attenuated Smallpox Vaccine Delivered to U.S. Government The vaccine manufacturing company Acambis was awarded a contract by the NIAID to develop and manufacture a modified Vaccinia Ankara smallpox vaccine.
• 12-01-2005: Predicting the Impact of a Flu Epidemic On Nov. 7, 2005 the CDC released a new version of its FluSurge program, which is a spreadsheet designed to project the impact of a flu epidemic on hospitals.
• 11-22-2005: Pediatric Safety for Tamilflu Last week, press reports suggested that Tamiflu® may be linked to 12 deaths and 32 “neuropsychiatric events” in Japanese children, dating back to 2000.
• 11-14-2005: Flu vaccine restrictions lifted Last year, following a widely reported shortage of flu vaccine, millions of doses were left unused as a result of confusion about priorities and eligibility.
• 11-08-2005: Anthrax Staging System Experience with victims of the anthrax attacks of 2001 suggests that patients present in three, rather than two, distinguishable clinical stages.
• 10-31-2005: Disease Control Measures for Flu Do Public Health and Infection Control Measures Work to Prevent the Spread of Flu? Not much is known about influenza transmission or ways to prevent it.
• 10-18-2005: Isolation of H5N1 Influenza Virus Resistant to Oseltamivir In an article to be published, Mai Le and colleagues report on the isolation of H5N1 influenza virus resistant to oseltamivir from a 14 year old Vietnamese girl
• 10-12-2005: Peramivir: Single Dose Prophylaxis for Flu? Unpublished data suggesting that peramivir may have the potential for use as single dose parenteral treatment or prophylaxis for influenza.
• 10-03-2005: Review of Clinical Avian Influenza A (H5N1) in Humans On September 29, 2005 the NEJM published a review article on avian influenza A (H5N1) infection in humans by The Writing Committee of the WHO Consultation on Human Influenza A/H5.
• 09-29-2005: Statins for Influenza Dr. David Fedson recently suggested that statin therapy might have a role in ameliorating the natural course of severe influenza infection.
• 09-19-2005: Avian Influenza Update Indonesia is on high alert for avian influenza and is preparing 44 hospitals to care for infected patients in the event of a larger epidemic.
• 09-12-2005: Sewage Contamination Last week, one of our subscribers wrote asking for advice about prophylaxis for bacterial contamination for those exposed to sewage.
• 09-07-2005: Katrina Relief Update #1 Hurricane Katrina Relief Update - The NIH has established a Katrina Call Center to provide medical consultation services.
• 08-30-2005: Progression of H5N1 Over the past 3 months, highly pathogenic avian influenza virus H5N1 has spread across central Asia, apparently carried by migrating waterfowl.
• 08-24-2005: Mass Critical Care Estimates of the results of biological attacks or large epidemics indicate that hundreds or thousands of victims would become critically ill.
• 08-16-2005: H5N1 Vaccine Trial Results Initial results from a clinical trial to study the safety and immunogenicity of a vaccine designed to protect against avian influenza were reported last week.
• 08-11-2005: Overview of Oseltamivir and Key Points Overview of Oseltamivir Phosphate and Key Points - Oseltamivir is a neuraminidase inhibitor approved for the treatment and prophylaxis of influenza A and B.
• 08-02-2005: NVAC Priorities The NVAC and the ACIP held a joint meeting to make additional recommendations to the draft DHHS Pandemic Influenza Preparedness and Response Plan.
• 07-26-2005: Oseltamivir A study released last week indicates that standard oseltamivir dosing may not be sufficient for the current strain of H5N1 in Southeast Asia
• 07-18-2005: Ribavirin Not Effective Against SARS Taiwanese researchers report that patients with confirmed SARS who were treated with ribavirin had worse outcomes as compared with infected patients who did not
• 07-13-2005: Anthrax Vaccine Candidate On November 2004, the U.S. DHHS awarded an $877.5 million contract to VaxGen, Inc. to supply 75 million doses of a second generation anthrax vaccine.
• 07-11-2005: Potential Anthrax Therapeutic A study published reports on a Phase I trial of a fully human monoclonal antibody against the Bacillus anthracis protective antigen.
• 07-07-2005: H5N1 in Vietnam: Pandemic Threat Remains Unchanged Last week a team of experts completed a visit to Vietnam. The purpose of their visit was to determine whether the pandemic alert level should be raised.
• 06-20-2005: Avian Influenza--Is a Pandemic Among Birds Under Way? The epidemic of H5N1 avian influenza in Vietnam continues with 7 new human cases in the north and a new poultry outbreak in the south reported in the last few days.
• 06-14-2005: Ebola, Marburg Vaccine Researchers have developed a live-attenuated recombinant vaccine against Ebola and Marburg viruses found to be safe and effective in nonhuman primates.
• 06-06-2005: Disease Reporting Rules; Anthrax Anti-toxin This article focuses on two topics; the WHO issuing new rules on disease reporting, and promising results reported with new anthrax anti-toxin.
• 06-02-2005: SARS, With the Benefit of Hindsight Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) first appeared on November 16, 2002 in the Guangdong Province of southern China.
• 05-31-2005: Ebola; Pandemic Influenza On May 18, the WHO reported that an outbreak of Ebola hemorrhagic fever was confirmed in the Republic of the Congo.
• 05-17-2005: Avian Influenza; Polio Several recent news items raise questions about the adequacy of the current epidemiological intelligence originating in South Asia.
• 05-09-2005: Anthrax Meningitis While known to carry a very high mortality rate, meningitis has long been considered an infrequent manifestation of infection with Bacillus anthracis.
• 05-02-2005: Marburg Virus Originating in the northern province of Uige in October 2004, the outbreak was not diagnosed as MHF until March 2005.
• 05-02-2005: Biothreat Update; Pandemic Vaccine The National Intelligence Council released an unclassified report for policymakers that takes a long-term view of how events may unfold over the next 15 years.
• 04-26-2005: Anthrax Response; New Vaccines If a large scale aerosol attack with anthrax occurs over a large city, what would be the most effective response strategy?
• 04-12-2005: Marburg Situation Worsens While it is known that the number of Marburg cases and deaths continues to rise, at this point the true extent of the outbreak remains unclear
• 04-06-2005: Airborne spread of SARS; Marburg outbreak Two recent studies provide evidence for airborne (small droplet aerosol) transmission of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in the hospital setting.