Contagion

Why saving the environment can help prevent it

TIME MAGAZINE     by Alexandra Sifferlin                                                                         Dec. 16, 2014

The global community cannot withstand another Ebola outbreak: The World Bank estimates the two-year financial burden price tag of the current epidemic at $32.6 billion. Unfortunately, the virus has revealed gaping holes in our preparedness for major infectious disease epidemics. Because of these, plus the urbanization of rural communities and globalization of travel and trade, more of these epidemics are expected.

In a new report from the EcoHealth Alliance published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), experts estimate that the world will see about five new emerging infectious diseases each year and that we need new prevention strategies to cut economic losses.

NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO  by Michaeleen Doucleff                                                               Dec. 16, 2014

Speed. That's key to ending the Ebola epidemic, says the director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Dr. Thomas Frieden is visiting West Africa this week to figure out how to reduce the time it takes to find new Ebola cases and isolate them.

Otherwise, Ebola could become a permanent disease in West Africa.

"That's exactly the risk we face now. That Ebola will simmer along, become endemic and be a problem for Africa and the world, for years to come," Frieden tells NPR. "That is what I fear most."

Survivors of the Ebola virus pose for a picture outside a clinic near Tubmanburg, October 15, 2014.
REUTERS/James Giahyue

CLICK HERE - RESEARCH - To hasten Ebola containment, mobilize survivors

uk.reuters.com - by Magdalena Mis - December 10, 2014

LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Thousands of Ebola survivors with little to no risk of re-infection are critical to controlling the epidemic and training them has the potential to save thousands of lives and decrease the spread of the virus, experts said on Wednesday.

Survivors have developed immunity and are effectively the only people in the world protected from the virus, which could allow them to care for the sick without risking their lives, said experts in the International Journal of Epidemiology.

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REUTERS                                                                                                                       Dec. 15, 2014

GENEVA –  The failure of Sierra Leone's strategy for fighting Ebola may be down to a missing ingredient: a big shock that could change people's behavior and finally prevent further infection.

Bruce Aylward, the head of Ebola response at the World Health Organization, said Sierra Leone was well placed to contain the disease -- its worst outbreak on record -- with infrastructure, organization and aid.

Health workers spray themselves with chlorine disinfectants after removing the body a woman who died of Ebola virus in the Aberdeen district of Freetown, Sierra Leone. (REUTERS/Josephus Olu-Mammah)

The problem is that its people have yet to be shocked out of behavior that is helping the disease to spread, still keeping infected loved ones close and touching the bodies of the dead.

"Every new place that gets infected goes through that same terrible learning curve where a lot of people have to die ... before those behaviors start to change," Aylward told Reuters.