The European Medicines Agency, or EMA, has announced its conditional marketing authorization of a vaccine used to prevent the spread of the Ebola virus. University of Florida researchers played an integral role in the design and analysis of trials testing the effectiveness of the vaccine, manufactured by Merck. Conditional authorization…
Researchers at the University of Florida and several peer institutions have developed a model mapping the spread of Zika virus in the Americas and predicting that the virus arrived in Brazil in late 2013 or early 2014 before spreading throughout the region. The model also projects the number of microcephaly…
One year ago Sunday, a mosquito put South Florida in the international spotlight. The first case of the mosquito-borne Zika virus in the mainland U.S. was confirmed in Miami-Dade County by public health officials on Jan. 15, 2016. The patient had been infected in another country and then traveled here.
Prior to hurricane season, researchers were unsure of whether hurricanes would increase or decrease the spread of the mosquito-borne Zika virus. After Hurricane Matthew rolled up the East Coast and caused billions of dollars in damage, University of Florida researchers were able to make a determination: No, hurricanes haven’t helped…
Dr. Natalie Exner Dean, a postdoctoral associate in the department of biostatistics at the University of Florida College of Public Health and Health Professions and the College of Medicine, and Dr. Ira Longini, a professor in the department and co-director of UF’s Center for Statistics and Quantitative Infectious Diseases, collaborated…
The Summer Institute in Statistics and Modeling in Infectious Diseases (SISMID) is designed to introduce infectious disease researchers to modern methods of statistical analysis and mathematical modeling and to introduce statisticians and mathematical modelers to the statistical and dynamic problems posed by modern infectious disease data. The conference will take…
Vibrio cholerae bacteria. On November 2014, some members of the CSQUID team published a study on cholera transmission in Bangladesh in the PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases journal. Participating researchers included Jonathan Sugimoto, Eben Kenah, Elizabeth Halloran, Yang Yang, and Ira Longini. The study quantified…
The waning number of Ebola cases is good news for West Africa, but for those developing a vaccine for the disease, it means time is running short. As the current outbreak wanes, scientists have to make the most of every opportunity to determine if an Ebola vaccine…
In a perspective published today in the journal Science, researchers from Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and other institutions drew on lessons learned in the ongoing Ebola epidemic in West Africa to suggest guidelines for conducting vaccine clinical trials during an infectious disease emergency. “Limited infrastructure, unpredictable variation in incidence…
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Implementing a vaccine trial during an epidemic can be difficult, particularly in countries with poor transportation, limited vaccine supplies and difficulty predicting how widespread a disease may become — conditions such as those in West Africa during the recent Ebola outbreak. Now, a University of Florida Health…
