Pandora Report 12.29.2017

This will be our last Pandora Report of 2017 and we’d like to take a moment and thank our wonderful readers for a great year of biodefense news! We hope you have a marvelous and safe New Years celebration. We’re starting the festivities early with some memories of infectious disease research from 2017.

Agroterrorism – A Threat To America’s Food Supply
Food vulnerability is not something people tend to think about very often and even less in the context of terrorism. There have been many experts noting that food safety is America’s soft underbelly for years, but just how vulnerable are we? “Agroterrorists have access to animal based bio-agents, which are easy to transport and simple to conceal. Just as ramming a speeding truck into a crowd is low-tech, an attack via the food chain has a low barrier to entry and little skill needed to execute. Weaponizing livestock is as simple as tending the flock or feeding the cattle. There is little expertise or special equipment required and given most animal borne pathogens are not communicable to humans, the logistics are easy. It really is farm to table pathogen delivery.” Increasing automation within food processing and rapid delivery from farm to table has the potential to be used as a weakness. Not only are these systems inherently weak against terrorist attacks, but one would severely damage the U.S. economy. A 2013 study found that outbreaks in FMD-free countries/zones could cause losses of more than $1.5 billion a year.

Biological Weapons Threat In The Spotlight – UN News
Check out this great podcast of UN news in which Dr. Tom Inglesby from the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security discusses the BWC Meeting of States Parties and the importance of global cooperation to address biothreats. “He told Daniel Johnson that because most biological research now takes place ‘far outside the control of government’, a key objective should be to ensure that an information-sharing mechanism exists between industry and Member States.

Meeting of the Blue Ribbon Study Panel on Biodefense: SLTT Ability to Respond to Large-Scale Biological Events: Challenges and Solutions
Don’t miss this event on January 17th, 2018 in Miami, Florida! “The Nation continues to confront infectious disease events and the threat of biological terrorism. This meeting of the Study Panel, chaired by former Secretary of Health and Human Services Donna Shalala and former Representative James Greenwood, will provide the Study Panel with a better understanding of the ability of state, local, tribal, and territorial (SLTT) governments to: respond to large-scale biological events, identify and utilize SLTT assets and resources for immediate response (prior to a declaration of a SLTT biological emergency or disaster), operate before federal assistance arrives and after federal resources are exhausted, and shift to population management when a biological event overcomes pre-hospital and hospital response protocols.”

Analyzing the Detection and Response Aspects of Global Health Security
GMU biodefense PhD student Saskia Popescu is taking a trip down the detection and response rabbit hole of health security. Evaluating research on laboratory response networks, public health coordination, frontline epidemiology training, and more, she highlights the vulnerability we all share if even one country has a weak public health and healthcare infrastructure. “Response efforts often point to gaps within our plans, like the need to train staff on enhanced use of personal protective equipment during the Ebola outbreak, or cultural dynamics that challenge public health education efforts. Public health response is an evolving process and with each new challenge, lessons are learned and we hope that we can appropriately apply them in the future. The most important lesson is the global aspect of health security—an outbreak anywhere is an outbreak anywhere. Strengthening national prevention, detection, and response efforts will only serve to protect us all.”

WHO Priority List of Antibiotic-resistant Bacteria and Tuberculosis
The WHO has released a list of priority pathogens to help encourage the development of new antibiotics. “Detailing its findings in The Lancet Infectious Diseases yesterday, the WHO Pathogens Priority List Working Group used a multicriteria decision analysis method to select 20 antimicrobial-resistant bacteria. The experts then applied 10 criteria to assess priority: mortality, healthcare burden, community burden, prevalence of resistance, 10-year resistance trends, transmissibility, preventability in the community, preventability in healthcare settings, treatability, and drug pipeline.” The list of 20 bacterial species highlights three categories (critical, high, and medium priority), which includes “carbapenem-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii andPseudomonas aeruginosa, and carbapenem-resistant and third-generation cephalosporin-resistant Enterobacteriaceae. The highest ranked Gram-positive bacteria (high priority) were vancomycin-resistantEnterococcus faecium and meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. Of the bacteria typically responsible for community-acquired infections, clarithromycin-resistant Helicobacter pylori, and fluoroquinolone-resistantCampylobacter spp, Neisseria gonorrhoeae, and Salmonella typhi were included in the high-priority tier.”

 Drug Discovery, Development and Deployment
Speaking of the importance of drug R&D…the NIH has released their Drug Discovery, Development and Deployment Maps (4DM) to help engage and support this complicated process. There are two maps – one for small molecules and one for biologics, using monoclonal antibodies as the representative therapeutic. “The maps provide a common framework for discussing the therapeutic development process and serve as an education tool for those who are new to it. A common language and collective knowledge base for therapeutic development is essential to enable systemwide improvements that will benefit patients. The 4DM can help facilitate dialogue among those interested or participating in drug development to explore innovative solutions to existing bottlenecks and potential collaborative action to overcome those barriers and accelerate new medicine discovery.”

Bird Flu in South Korea
Avian influenza is wreaking havoc in South Korea. Officials have reported the culling of 201,000 birds in efforts to prevent the spread of H5N6 after it was found in four duck farms. “Last year, South Korea slaughtered more than 30 million birds to contain the worst outbreak of bird flu in the country‘s history.” Such efforts are especially important as the country prepares to host the Winter Olympics, which begin on February 9, 2018.

ASM Supports NIH Decision To Lift Funding Pause on GoF Research
Last week saw a surge of news regarding the official lift on the funding moratorium on GoF research. The news released an onslaught of over-the-top headlines and debates, but nonetheless the existence of GoF research will likely remain one that sparks concerns on both ends of the spectrum. The American Society for Microbiology (ASM) has come out in support of the lift on the funding pause though, noting that they are “in complete support of the National Institutes of Health lifting the funding pause on gain-of-function (GoF) experiments involving influenza, SARS, and MERS viruses. GoF research studies ways nature might make some viruses more virulent or transmissible. This is important in helping identify and develop strategies and effective countermeasures against rapidly evolving pathogens that pose a threat to public health, as well as to prepare for pandemics. ASM also applauds the review framework released by the Department of Health and Human Services. This process will ensure that any proposal that passes scientific peer review and fits the Potential Pandemic Pathogen (PPP) definition will undergo a multidisciplinary review process before funding is received. The review panel will provide oversight and facilitate safe and responsible conduct of this type of research.”

Stories You May Have Missed:

• United States Flu Season Update– This flu season is already shaping up to be rough, so where are we? “Influenza A viruses have been most commonly identified, with influenza A(H3N2) viruses predominating. Several influenza activity indicators were higher than is typically seen for this time of year. The majority of influenza viruses characterized during this period were genetically or antigenically similar to the 2017–18 Northern Hemisphere cell-grown vaccine reference viruses. These data indicate that currently circulating viruses have not undergone significant antigenic drift; however, circulating A(H3N2) viruses are antigenically less similar to egg-grown A(H3N2) viruses used for producing the majority of influenza vaccines in the United States.” Outpatient visits have spiked with patients seeking care for influenza-like illness (ILI) across the U.S. The national average is 2.2% and last week saw 2.7% however, this week is now 3.5%, which points to a growing influenza season.

Thank you for reading the Pandora Report. If you would like to share any biodefense news, events, or stories, please contact our Editor Saskia Popescu (biodefense@gmu.edu) or via Twitter: @PandoraReport