Science February 16, 2023 According to a team of researchers in the US (Harvard University, New York University) more zoonotic diseases originated in the United States than in any other country during the second half of the 20th century. Of the many agencies that govern food animal production, the US Department of Agriculture is the most important, but even it has no authority to regulate on-farm animal production. Each year, the US consumes an estimated 1 billion pounds of “game” . Yet, most hunter-harvested meat is not inspected, and no sanitary measures are required. The US is the largest importer […]
Tag Archives: Pandemics
Deadly waves: Researchers document evolution of plague over hundreds of years in medieval Denmark
Science Daily February 24, 2023 The historical epidemiology of plague is controversial due to the scarcity and ambiguity of available data. By phylogenetic analysis an international team of researchers (Canada, Denmark, USA – Indiana University, Rutgers, University of South Carolina, Australia) has revealed that the Danish Y. pestis sequences were interspersed with those from other European countries, rather than forming a single cluster, indicative of the generation, spread, and replacement of bacterial variants through communities rather than their long-term local persistence. These results provide an epidemiological link between Y. pestis and the unknown pestilence that afflicted medieval and early modern […]
U.S. unprepared for dangers posed by zoonotic diseases, new analysis concludes
Science Daily February 16, 2023 In October, the Biden administration released its National Biodefense Strategy (NBS-22), the first update since the COVID-19 pandemic began. According to a team of researcher in the US (Harvard University, New York University) although the document notes that one of the lessons of the pandemic is that threats originating anywhere are threats everywhere, it frames threats as largely external to the United States. NBS-22 focuses primarily on bioterrorism and laboratory accidents, neglecting threats posed by routine practices of animal use and production inside the United States. NBS-22 references zoonotic disease but assures readers that no […]
New approach to epidemic modeling could speed up pandemic simulations
Science Daily January 5, 2023 Simulating large-scale epidemics requires substantial computational resources and in many cases is practically infeasible. One way to reduce the computational cost of simulating epidemics on the networks derived from modern datasets is sparsification, where a representative subset of edges is selected based on some measure of their importance. Researchers at Santa Fe Institute used the effective resistance, which takes both local and global connectivity into account. They tested their method in simulations on a U.S.-wide mobility network and fond that it preserved epidemic dynamics with high fidelity. According to the researchers combined with efficient epidemic […]
What will it take? Global coalition outlines how to beat the next Disease X pandemic in 100 days
CEPI News November 25, 2022 CEPI, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, has issued a report detailing how the world could deliver future pandemic-beating vaccines in 100 Days. COVID-19 vaccines were developed in record time: it took just 326 days from release of the virus’ genetic sequence to get to the authorisation of a safe and effective vaccine. The report, published today, outlines the paradigm shift needed to speed up vaccine development even more, highlighting the crucial scientific and technological innovations that will enable us to develop new vaccines against future pandemic threats in a little more than three months. […]
Want to prevent pandemics? Stop spillovers
Nature 605, 419-422 (2022) According to a team of medical professionals and practitioners in the US spillover events, in which a pathogen that originates in animals jumps into people, have probably triggered every viral pandemic that’s occurred since the start of the twentieth century. An August 2021 analysis of disease outbreaks over the past four centuries indicates that the yearly probability of pandemics could increase several-fold in the coming decades, largely because of human-induced environmental changes. Fortunately, for around US$20 billion per year, the likelihood of spillover could be greatly reduced. This is the amount needed to halve global deforestation […]
Women and young academics suffered most during pandemic and may face long-term career consequences
Phys.org December 16, 2021 On March 6, 2020, universities across the U.S. announced systematic laboratory closures, social distancing policies and travel bans to cope with the growing coronavirus epidemic. A multi-university project, called SciOPS, conducted a survey which revealed that the pandemic’s hardships in academia have been widespread and lasting, and female and early career scientists faced more negative impacts than other groups. These differences are likely aggravating already existing disparities and potentially altering career trajectories. The negative outcomes may last well beyond the end of the pandemic. On the research side, 93% of respondents experienced university shutdowns and 88% […]
New device can diagnose Covid-19 from saliva samples
MIT News August 6, 2021 A team of researchers in the US (Harvard University, MIT, Boston Children’s Hospital, Beth Israel Deconus Hospital, Mass General Hospital) has developed a low-cost, self-contained, POC diagnostic called miSHERLOCK (minimally instrumented SHERLOCK) that is capable of concurrent universal detection of SARS-CoV-2 as well as specific detection of the B.1.1.7, B.1.351, or P.1 variants. The miSHERLOCK platform integrates an optimized one-pot SHERLOCK reaction with an RNA paper-capture method compatible with in situ nucleic acid amplification and Cas detection. miSHERLOCK combines instrument-free, built-in sample preparation from saliva, room temperature stable reagents, battery-powered incubation, and simple visual and […]
Toward one drug to treat all coronaviruses
Science Daily July 21, 2021 A strategy to develop broad-spectrum inhibitors is to pharmacologically target binding sites on SARS-CoV-2 proteins that are highly conserved in other known coronaviruses, the assumption being that any selective pressure to keep a site conserved across past viruses will apply to future ones. An international team of researchers (Canada, UK) systematically mapped druggable binding pockets on the experimental structure of 15 SARS-CoV-2 proteins and analyzed their variation across 27 α- and β-coronaviruses and across thousands of SARS-CoV-2 samples from COVID-19 patients. They found that the two most conserved druggable sites are a pocket overlapping the […]
Mapping zoonotic ‘hot spots’ where risk of coronaviruses jumping from bats to humans is highest
Phys.org June 1, 2021 The extent to which humans facilitate zoonotic transmission of infectious diseases is unclear. Human encroachment into wildlife habitats, cropland area and intensive animal farming is hypothesized to favour the emergence of zoonotic diseases. An international team of researchers (Italy, USA – UC Berkeley, New Zealand) analysed comprehensive, high-resolution datasets on forest cover, cropland distribution, livestock density, human population, human settlements, bat species’ distribution and land-use changes in regions populated by Asian horseshoe bats (>28.5 million km2)—the species that most commonly carry severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)-related coronaviruses. They identified areas at risk of SARS-related coronavirus outbreaks, showing that […]