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Genetically Modified Mosquitoes Join the Fight to Stop Zika Virus
The rapid spread of the Zika virus has raised interest in a British company that has developed a genetically modified mosquito. Oxitec has produced a genetically engineered line of the Aedes aegypti mosquito, the mosquito that carries dengue fever and chikungunya. Those tropical diseases have become common in Latin America and are now showing up in Florida.
- Categories
- Health Care
- Region
- Latin America
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U.S. Launches ‘Full-court Press’ for a Zika Vaccine
The United States is pushing to develop a vaccine for the Zika virus, a top health official said Thursday, as doctors warn that the mosquito-borne disease, which causes birth defects in infants and is typically found abroad, has become a growing threat in the U.S.
- Categories
- Health Care
- Region
- Latin America
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Dozens of Drug Makers Agree on Effort to Combat Antibiotic Resistance
In an unprecedented bid to address antibiotic resistance, more than 80 drug and device makers have issued adeclaration urging governments to “support investment” in developing medicines and diagnostic tools to combat drug-resistant infections.
- Categories
- Health Care
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Vaccines Alliance Signs $5 Million Advance Deal for Merck’s Ebola Shot
The Gavi global alliance for vaccines and immunization group signed a $5 million advance purchase commitment on Wednesday to buy a vaccine being developed by Merck to protect against future outbreaks of the deadly Ebola virus.
- Categories
- Health Care
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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This Is a Global Threat as Big as Climate Change
This morning, I delivered keynote remarks at the release event for the Global Health Risk Framework Commission report on “The Neglected Dimension of Global Security: A Framework to Counter Infectious Disease Crises." The commission, sponsored by the National Academy of Medicine and chaired by Peter Sands, has delivered a very important report on what I think is the issue with the highest ratio of seriousness to policy preparation in the global system. Indeed, for reasons I sketched in my remarks, I believe the threat to global well-being from pandemics over the next century is comparable to the threat from global climate change.
- Categories
- Health Care
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Global Health Forecast For 2016: Which Diseases Will Rise … Or Fall?
No one predicted the Ebola epidemic before it burst forth in 2014 and continued to claim lives throughout 2015. And so, as 2016 begins, readers might well wonder what biological culprits — parasites, bacteria and viruses — are lurking out there, ready to unleash another outbreak of something terrible on an unsuspecting world.
- Categories
- Health Care
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Shkreli’s Latest Plan to Sharply Raise Drug Price Prompts Outcry
Martin Shkreli is once again provoking alarm with a plan to sharply increase the price of a decades-old drug for a serious infectious disease. This time the drug treats Chagas disease, a parasitic infection that can cause potentially lethal heart problems.
- Categories
- Health Care
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Harvard Leadership Programme Helps Baby-Boomer Bosses to Save the World
About a year and a half ago, Ken Kelley, the founder of Paxvax, a vaccine company which focuses on the travel industry, became afflicted with what he calls an “intellectual itch”. He wondered why certain diseases, such as Ebola and dengue fever, lack vaccine protection.
- Categories
- Environment, Health Care
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