Guinea

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submitted by George Hurlburt

Sleeplessness, along with abdominal and joint pain are common even months after recovery from the dreaded virus

scientificamerican.com - by Dina Fine Maron - September 9, 2015

The first snapshot of health complications facing Ebola survivors in Sierra Leone presents a dismal picture of their road to recovery. A new study has found that up to four months after blood tests indicated that they were Ebola-free, more than half of survivors continue to suffer from joint pain, headaches or muscle pain. And more than 40 percent of survivors complain of sleeplessness and visual problems. Perhaps most worryingly, almost all the survivors—96 percent—reported being rejected by their communities after they were released from the hospital. The majority said they were still too scared to return home.

massgeneral.org - August 27, 2015

While most primary care physicians responding to a survey taken in late 2014 and early 2015 expressed confidence in their ability to identify potential cases of Ebola and communicate Ebola risks to their patients, only 50 to 70 percent of them gave answers that fit with CDC guidelines when asked how they would care for hypothetical patients who might have been exposed to Ebola. In addition, those who were least likely to encounter an Ebola patient – based on their location and characteristics of their patients – were most likely to choose overly intense management of patients actually at low risk.  The results of the survey, conducted by a team of Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) investigators, have been published online in the Journal of General Internal Medicine.

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CLICK HERE - RESEARCH - Ebola Risk and Preparedness: A National Survey of Internists 

thenewdawnliberia.com - by Ben P. Wesee - Editing by Jonathan Browne -September 1, 2015

The four Mano River Union or MRU countries – Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea and Ivory Coast have issued a joint communiqué in Monrovia, calling for information sharing, experiences and good practices during and after health emergencies in order to collaborate and network with local and international partners in the sub-region.

In a just ended conference here on the Ebola Virus Disease or EVD, the MRU countries also advanced several recommendations. Delegates from the four countries recommended in the communiqué a need to develop a harmonized framework for adherence to ethical standards during health disasters with appropriate and approved mechanisms for vaccines, therapeutic agents and testing methods.

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CLICK HERE - RESEARCH - Identification of agents effective against multiple toxins and viruses by host-oriented cell targeting

prweb.com - by Cynthia Lujan - September 1, 2015

A new host-based therapy for Ebola, anthrax and other deadly infectious diseases has been discovered by researchers at the Keck Graduate Institute and its collaborators. The discovery has the potential to speed to market treatments for previously untreatable diseases.

The findings were published online on August 27 by Scientific Reports, an open access research journal from the publishers of Nature.

The lead authors of the story were Leoor Zilberminitz and William Leonardi, doctoral students in KGI laboratory of assistant professor Mikhail Martchenko. The researchers screened a library of 1,581 drugs previously approved by the FDA for in vitro protection of mammalian cells against Bacillus anthracis lethal toxin and diphtheria toxin, which normally kill 50-70% of unprotected cells. They then investigated the 1% most promising compounds that both provided the best protection against the two toxins and were not toxic to uninfected cells.