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May 6, 2002

INTERNATIONAL IMMUNIZATION NEWS

"An Empire's Epidemic"

Los Angeles Times (www.latimes.com) (05/06/02) P. 14; Maugh II, Thomas H.

Recent scientific developments could lead to a cure for the plague.  About 2,000 people die from plague around the world every year.  What has been particularly worrying for scientists is the fact that a number of naturally occurring strains have become resistant to antibiotics.  Because the disease could be used in a bioterrorist attack, researchers have been studying the plague organism extensively in recent times.  Late last year, a British team from the Sanger Center in Cambridge announced that they had decoded the entire DNA sequence of the plague bacilli, Yersinia pestis.  According to the head of the team. Dr. Julian Parkhill, the genome sequence that his team produced "contains every possible drug or vaccine target for the organism."

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