News

Australia will require travelers arriving from Indonesia, where they are experiencing an outbreak of foot and mouth disease (FMD), to walk across sanitation mats at airports to prevent further spread of the disease. This new measure comes as FMD viral fragments were detected in meat goods from Indonesia and China.

In two months, non-endemic countries have reported over 10,000 monkeypox infections, with the most cases in Spain, the United Kingdom, Germany, and the US. The supply of vaccines has not been able to meet the demand.

US biotechnology company Verve Therapeutics has dosed the first patient with its base editing technology in a clinical trial in New Zealand. The base editor introduces a mutation in the PCSK9 gene in the liver to lower the levels of LDL cholesterol.

Two cases of Marburg virus disease are suspected in Ghana, as indicated by preliminary analysis. If confirmed, these cases would be the second recording of the highly infectious viral hemorrhagic fever in West Africa and the first in Ghana.

Construction on Kansas’ National Bio and Agro-Defense facility has ended. The facility is Biosafety Level 4 and will be functional in 2023.

 

The southern green stink bug (SGSB), also known as Nezara viridula L., is a common stink bug in North America. SGSB is responsible for a substantial yield loss in crops, so scientists are using RNAi techniques to identify the white gene (targeted because it is responsible for SGSB mutations).

Since May 2022, monkeypox has turned into a global concern. Now scientists have identified that men who have sex with men are at the greatest risk of infection.

There is a growing number of Acute Flaccid Myelitis (AFM) cases in the US. AFM is a enterovirus in the poliovirus family. While infection rates a rising in many countries, the US doesn’t have a vaccine, whereas China has three (and more on the way).

COVID-19 has been confirmed in a mule deer according to the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources. This discovery occurred as part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service's (APHIS) efforts to test wildlife for COVID-19.

A 50-year-old male resident of Qatar has a confirmed case of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS).