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Time Magazine Person of the Year: the Ebola fighters

Wed, 2014-12-10 17:05 — mike kraft

TIME MAGAZINE by Nancy Gibbs Dec. 10, 2014

They risked and persisted, sacrificed and saved. Editor Nancy Gibbs explains why the Ebola Fighters are TIME's choice for Person of the Year 2014

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http://time.com/time-person-of-the-year-ebola-fighters-choice/

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U.S. agency offers legal immunity to Ebola vaccine makers

Tue, 2014-12-09 22:48 — mike kraft

REUTERS Dec. 9, 2014

CHICAGO -- The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on Tuesday offered liability protections to drugmakers rushing to develop Ebola vaccines and urged other countries to follow suit.

Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Sylvia Burwell made the announcement as part of the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness (PREP) Act in a move aimed at encouraging the development and availability of experimental Ebola vaccines.

The declaration provides immunity under U.S. law against legal claims related to the manufacturing, testing, development, distribution, and administration of three vaccines for the Ebola virus. However, it does not provide immunity for a claim brought in a court outside the United States...

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http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/12/09/us-health-ebola-vaccine-idUSKBN0JN1S920141209

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Evaluating Ebola Therapies — The Case for RCTs

Thu, 2014-12-04 00:18 — mike kraft

THE NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF MEDICINE Dec. 3, 2014
By Edward Cox, M.D., M.P.H., Luciana Borio, M.D., and Robert Temple, M.D.

...Studying investigational therapies for EVD presents scientific, practical, and ethical challenges. Not surprisingly, there has been substantial debate about the best and most appropriate study approaches.2,3 It is generally agreed that a trial with a concurrent control group, in which patients are randomly assigned to receive the test drug plus the best available supportive care (BASC) or to BASC alone, would be the most efficient and reliable way to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of candidate products.

Some people in the health care community, however, have argued against such trials, urging instead use of a historical control — that is, making investigational drugs as widely available as their supply allows and then comparing mortality rates among treated patients with rates that would have been expected absent the drugs, on the basis of past experience with EVD.

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World Bank announces $160m for Ebola-hit Sierra Leone

Wed, 2014-12-03 21:12 — mike kraft

AFP Dec. 3, 2014

FREETOWN --World Bank chief Jim Yong Kim announced a $160 million two-year economic recovery plan on Wednesday to help impoverished Sierra Leone battle the worst Ebola outbreak on record.

Kim said after a closed-door meeting with President Ernest Bai Koroma in Freetown the cash would go towards regional operations centres and emergency response teams in the hard-hit west and north of the country.

The aid would also focus on the country's floundering farming sector and rural job creation, he told reporters...

Kim flew to Conakry later on Wednesday, where he was expected to meet government officials and health experts.
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http://www.straitstimes.com/news/world/more-world-stories/story/world-bank-announces-200-million-ebola-hit-sierra-leone-20141204

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UN security council criticises discrimination against those from Ebola-hit regions

Sat, 2014-11-22 04:24 — mike kraft

THE GUARDIAN Nov. 21, 2014
THE UNITED NATIONS --The UN security council has criticized travel bans against nationals from Ebola-hit countries.

Last month the Australian immigration minster, Scott Morrison, announced Australia would stop granting temporary visas to visitors from west Africa. The security council statement criticised such blanket bans and urged countries to maintain links with affected countries.

“The security council expresses its continued concern about the detrimental effect of the isolation of the affected countries as a result of trade and travel restrictions imposed on and to the affected countries as well as acts of discrimination against the nationals of Guinea, Liberia, Mali and Sierra Leone,” said Julia Bishop, the Australian foreign mniister who was presiding over the session Thursday.

The council statement also described the Ebola outbreeak in Africa as "a threat to international peace and security..."

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WHO plans to speed development of Ebola rapid test

Wed, 2014-11-19 19:50 — mike kraft

CENTER FOR INFECTIOUS DISEASE RESEARCH AND POLICY
By Lisa Schnirring Nov.18, 2014

Quicker and simpler diagnostic tests for Ebola could go a long way in helping break chains of disease transmission in West Africa's outbreak region, the World Health Organization (WHO) said today, as it unveiled two new initiatives to expedite their development.

The WHO said it hopes new efforts—similar to those under way to test and deliver an Ebola vaccine—can compress the development of a rapid test in months instead of years.

A Navy worker extracts RNA from a patient sample at a Naval mobile lab in Liberia. US Army Africa

Standard reverse-transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) tests used in mobile and other labs in the outbreak are very accurate when conducted by trained staff, but they require a full tube of blood, take 2 to 6 hours to get a result, and costs around $100 per test, the WHO said today in a statement....

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Queen Fears Ebola Push at Expense of Other Killer Diseases

Wed, 2014-11-19 17:56 — mike kraft

ABC NEWS Nov. 19, 2014

By LAMA HASAN

LONDON --Britain's Queen Elizabeth rarely voices her opinion on social issues, but she has publicly worried that all the attention being given to Ebola was at the expense of other killer diseases, like malaria.

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Bats’ Link to Ebola Finally Solved

Thu, 2014-11-13 21:12 — mike kraft

THE DAILY BEAST Nov. 11, 2014
By Carfrie Arnold

A new paper outlines five steps required for a virus to ‘spill over’ from bats to humans. But don’t just blame the bats—deforestation and hunting are to blame, too.

These nocturnal fliers might do some good, but their association with night, rabies, and All Things Creepy means that, at best, we tolerate them. Adding to their negative aura is recent research showing that bats can be the source of infectious diseases like SARS and Ebola, as well as lesser-known pathogens like Hendra and Nipah virus.

It’s all too easy to blame bats for causing these human pandemics, including the most recent (and deadliest) Ebola outbreak. After all, these viruses hang out in bats in between outbreaks—trace any outbreak of these viruses back far enough and you will find a bat.

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Are we asking the wrong questions about Ebola?

Thu, 2014-11-13 14:46 — mike kraft

BBC NEWS MAGAZINE NOV. 11, 2014

By Ben Carter

The Ebola virus has killed about 5,000 people since March - but one scientist who is studying the statistics says this is not the best figure to consider if we really want to understand the current state of the outbreak and how to beat it.

A total of 4,960 people have died from Ebola this year according to statistics released by the World Health Organisation on 4 November. More than half of those cases - 2,766 - were in Liberia.

But this cumulative figure, which is widely reported, can only go one way - up. It gives no meaningful insight into how the outbreak has developed says Hans Rosling, professor of global health at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden....

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http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-30011521

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Ebola: Online briefing now available to the public

Thu, 2014-11-13 02:26 — mike kraft

DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS Nov. 12, 2014

The international medical organisation Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) or Doctors Without Borders has posted an online briefing on Ebola for aid workers involved in the battle against the haemorrhagic fever. This briefing package is now available to anyone wishing to gain a basic understanding of the virus and how it can be contained.

http://www.msf.org/article/ebola-online-briefing-now-available-public

View the briefing at

http://ecampus.msf.org/moodlemsf/mod/page/view.php?id=22246

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