Disaster Response

LEAKED MEMO SAYS STATE DEPARTMENT CONSIDERING TREATING NON-AMERICAN HEALTH WORKERS BUT AN OFFICIAL SAYS DISCUSSIONS WERE SHELVED

THE WASHINGTON TIMES                         Oct. 29, 2014
By Stephen Dinan- The Washington Times - Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Y YETNEWS                                        Oct. 27, 2014
Udi Etsion
An Israel icompany has developed and installed in Guinea special inflatable isolation tents to be used to house and isolate Ebola patients.

Special inflatable tent being used to fight Ebola

The inflatable tents have also been purchased for the treatment of Ebola patients by other countries on the continent, according to the Israeli company SYS Technologies, which specializes in the development of clean-air systems and mobile operating theaters. The company said the units can be constructed and shipped within two weels.

The units use a positive pressure technology to create an absolute clear and isolated environment and maintain the structure. The company has also developed an incubator-like stretcher for the safe transfer of patients to the isolation tents.

Read full article
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4584736,00.html

ASSOCIATED PRESS                                 Oct. 28, 2014
  GENEVA-- The Swiss agency that regulates new drugs said Tuesday it has approved an application for a clinical trial with an experimental Ebola vaccine at the Lausanne University Hospital.

In this picture provided by the World Health Organization, a package of vials of the first shipment of the experimental vaccine VSE-EBOV is opened at the Geneva Cantonal hospital on Wednesday, Oct. 22, 2014. The World Health Organization (WHO) welcomes the donation by the government of Canada of 800 vials of an experimental candidate vaccine, VSV-EBOV, against Ebola virus disease. Clinical safety trials with this experimental Ebola vaccine have already begun in healthy human volunteers in Mali, the United Kingdom and the United States after showing very promising results in animal research. . (AP Photo/WHO/Mathilde Missioneiro) 

Swissmedic said the trial will be conducted among 120 volunteer participants with support from the U.N. World Health Organization. The experimental vaccine is to be initially administered on healthy volunteers who will be sent as medical staff to fight the Ebola epidemic in West Africa.

THE WASHINGTON POST                    0ct, 27, 2014
By Joel Achenbach, Brady Dennis and Lena H. Sun

The Ebola quarantine controversy has become a chaotic brawl involving politics, science and the law. The rules on quarantining health-care workers returning from West Africa are changing almost daily and varying according to geography and political climate.

The Pentagon announced Monday that Army personnel returning to their home base in Italy from Liberia will be held in quarantine for 21 days — even though none have symptoms of Ebola or were exposed to patients infected with the virus.

The military’s policy does not appear to track new guidelines announced Monday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which called for “high-risk” individuals and health-care workers without any symptoms to be directly monitored by state and local health authorities.