Pandemics

Washington Post

by Abby Ohlheiser September 23 at 11:45 AM

London based scientists, working with international aid groups, are planning to start the first clinical trials in West Africa for drugs to treat Eboa. The trials could begin in a matter of months.

Wellcome Trust's $5 million initiative will include drugs from Mapp Biopharmaceutical, Sarepta and Tekmira, according to Reuters. Mapp makes zMapp, the experimental cocktail administered to two Americans who contracted the disease in Liberia. Tekmira recently gained the approval of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to use its TKM-Ebola treatment on confirmed or suspected cases of the disease.

Both drugs are still in the experimental phase; researchers have not yet determined the safety or effectiveness of the treatments.

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hstoday.us - by Anthony Kimery - September 9, 2014

An audit by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Inspector General (IG) of the department’s pandemic preparedness efforts to determine if DHS effectively manages its pandemic preparedness supply of personal protective equipment and antiviral medical countermeasures found that, “DHS did not adequately conduct a needs assessment prior to purchasing pandemic preparedness supplies and then did not effectively manage its stockpile of pandemic personal protective equipment and antiviral medical countermeasures.”

“Specifically,” the IG reported, DHS “did not have clear and documented methodologies to determine the types and quantities of personal protective equipment and antiviral medical countermeasures it purchased for workforce protection.”

by Liz Szabo - USA Today - November 24, 2011

H1N1 strain of the swine flu virus Photograph: Photographer: C. S. Goldsmith an/AP

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has confirmed three cases of a new flu virus, which originated in pigs but apparently spread from person to person, in three Iowa children.

However, there's no reason to fear the beginning of a new pandemic, says Arnold Monto, a flu expert and professor at the University of Michigan School of Public Health.

"I don't think this is anything to worry about for the moment," Monto says. "We have known that swine viruses get into humans occasionally, transmit for a generation or two and then stop. The issue is whether there will be sustained transmission (from person to person)- and that nearly never happens."

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