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Ebola vaccine trial suspended for checks after joint pains

THE GUARDIAN   by Lisa O'Carroll                                Dec. 11, 2014
GENEVA --A clinical trial of an Ebola vaccine has been suspended in all 59 volunteers in Geneva a week early “as a measure of precaution” after four patients complained of joint pains in hands and feet, the University of Geneva hospital said.

“They are all fine and being monitored regularly by the medical team leading the study,” it said on Thursday.

The human safety trials of the vaccine being developed by the pharmaceutical firms Merck and NewLink are scheduled to resume on 5 January in up to 15 volunteers after checks to ensure that the joint pain symptoms were “benign and temporary”, the hospital added.

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http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/11/ebola-vaccine-trial-suspended-joint-pains

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Ebola outbreak: Virus still 'running ahead of us', says WHO

BBC    by Tulip Mazumdar                                                                                                    Dec. 10, 2014

The Ebola virus that has killed thousands in West Africa is still "running ahead" of efforts to contain it, the head of the World Health Organization has said.
Director general Margaret Chan said the situation had improved in some parts of the worst-affected countries, but she warned against complacency.

The risk to the world "is always there" while the outbreak continues, she said.

She said the WHO and the international community failed to act quickly enough....

"It is fair to say the whole world, including WHO, failed to see what was unfolding, what was going to happen in front of our eyes," said Dr Chan.

"Of course, with the benefit of hindsight, if you ask me now... we could have mounted a much more robust response."

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http://www.bbc.com/news/health-30400304

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Experts call for faster mobilisation of “overlooked” survivors to contain Ebola epidemic

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS                                                                                  Dec, 10, 2014

In an editorial published online today in the International Journal of Epidemiology, experts from the Departments of Psychiatry and Epidemiology at Columbia University, New York, are calling for survivors of the Ebola epidemic to be mobilised in a bid to hasten containment of the disease.

We already know that the current Ebola outbreak is unique in its magnitude and for its dispersion in dense, mobile populations. Physicians and nurses face high mortality, and foreign aid in the form of medical supplies and staff continues to be unequal to the scope of the problem. With a case recovery rate of around 30% at the present time in West Africa, survivors already number in the thousands.

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Time Magazine Person of the Year: the Ebola fighters

 

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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Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee hearing on Ebola

President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia speaks via video on the international response to the Ebola crisis during a Senate subcommittee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington on Wednesday. (SAUL LOEB, AFP/Getty Images)

Update Liberian president warns that Ebola still threatens her nation

LOS ANGELES TIMES                                                                                                    Dec. 10, 2014

liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf thanked the Obama administration Wednesday for its efforts in stemming the tide of the country’s Ebola outbreak, but warned that the disease was still a threat in her developing nation.

The American response, a combination of funding and military aid, helped galvanize other countries to join the fight against the epidemic in West Africa, she told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee over video link.

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WHO: malaria gains 'at risk' in Ebola-affected countries

MEDICAL NEWS TODAY                                                                                                 Dec. 9, 2014

LONDON --Thanks to increased disease control, global deaths to malaria have fallen dramatically, and the number of new cases is steadily declining, say the World Health Organization in a new report. Also, an increasing number of countries are moving toward eliminating the mosquito-borne disease altogether. But the UN agency warns these gains are fragile, and no more so than in countries worse-affected by the Ebola crisis.

 
A new report from the World Health Organization says the number of lives claimed by malaria worldwide fell by 47% between 2000 and 2013, and by 54% in Africa, where the vast majority of deaths occur.

The 2014 World Health Organization (WHO) report says deaths to malaria worldwide fell by 47% between 2000 and 2013. In the WHO African Region, where 90% of deaths to malaria occur, the reduction is 54%.

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Ebola Airport Screening Finding Few Suspected Cases in US

MEDSCAPE MEDICAL NEWS by Larry Hand                                                                        Dec. 9, 2014

Airport exit screening in West Africa and entry screening in the United States have identified few persons potentially infected with Ebola virus, according to an article published online December 9 in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) publication Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

 

 Number of travelers arriving from Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone who were screened for Ebola at US airports, by state and county of destination (October 11 - November 10, 2014). Source: CDC

Of 80,000 travelers who have departed from West Africa since Ebola-specific screening began, 1993 people have been screened on arrival at one of five US airports. Of those, 86 passengers were referred to the CDC public health officers; only seven have shown symptoms and been referred for evaluation. None eventually wound up with an Ebola diagnosis.

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Fear, hope mark life inside Ebola center in Sierra Leone: Witness

 REUTERS     by Benjamin Black, MD                                                              Dec. 9, 2014

A British doctor's first-hand description of the challenges of working in a MSF clinic in Sierra Leone
Read full account.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/12/09/us-health-ebola-witness-idUSKBN0JN10G20141209

Medecins Sans Frontieres/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) health worker Benjamin Black is seen at an Ebola virus treatment centre in Bo December 9, 2014. credit: Reuters/Stringer

 

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High Risk: 100-Fold Ebola Rate for Health Workers in Sierra Leone

NBC NEWS --  by Maggie Fox                                                                                            Dec. 9, 2014

Health care workers have more than 100 times the risk of catching Ebola in Sierra Leone as the general public there does, according to a new report.

And it's not necessarily down to failed protective measures in hospitals. Health care workers form their own community, and when one gets sick or dies, he or she can infect fellow medics, the report finds.

The World Health Organization has been saying that health care workers such as doctors and nurses are at special risk of Ebola. It says 622 health-care workers have been infected and 346 of them have died in all the affected countries.

Dr. Peter Kilmarx of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who led an investigation into the high infection rate in Sierra Leone...said  "We think of health care worker infections as a failure of personal protective equipment.,"But there are so many different ways that they are exposed there."

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Ebola Infections Fewer Than Predicted by Disease Models

A few months ago the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention predicted that up to 1.4 million people in Liberia and Sierra Leone could become infected with Ebola by mid-January. In a recent address to the Senate, CDC director Tom Frieden said that worst-case scenario would not pan out.

That is partly because health care workers in the Ebola hot zone are engaged in a battle to contain the epidemic. It is also because of assumptions about human and viral behavior that are built into the mathematical models used to predict the spread of infectious diseases. Assumptions are inherent in these models. “You take islands of data from different places and build bridges of assumptions that link up all these islands,” says Martin Meltzer, senior health economist at the CDC. Meltzer’s model, which predicted the 1.4 million infections in Liberia and Sierra Leone, worked on the assumption that things would not improve. “Our forecasts are based on the idea that nothing will change,” he says.

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