Washington, D.C.– The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T), in partnership with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) Jet Propulsion Laboratory, announced today the transition of the final prototype of the Finding Individuals for Disaster and Emergency Response (FINDER) technology to the commercial market. FINDER is a radar technology designed to detect heartbeats of victims trapped in wreckage. Two commercial partners have been licensed to manufacture the device: R4 Inc. of Eatontown, N.J. and SpecOps Group Inc. of Sarasota, Fla.
Earlier today, S&T and NASA demonstrated its newest capabilities at the Virginia Task Force One (VA-TF1) Training Facility in Lorton, Va., finding “survivors” in a simulated disaster. This is thanks to the new locator feature, which can help pinpoint the location of the victim to within about five feet – depending on the type of rubble. This key change saves rescuers time, increasing chances for locating survivors.
Five days after one of history’s most devastating earthquakes hit Nepal, countries near and far are pouring in funds and personnel to address the state of emergency. Leading the pack in terms of medical and rescue personnel on the ground is Israel, with an aid convoy of 260 personnel, including about forty doctors. . . . the Israeli team is using innovative and ingenious technology to rescue more people from the areas of destruction and to provide first-class medical care to those who need it most.
Expert medical and non-medical expert teams are assisting victims of the Nepal Earthquake, which shook the Kathmandu Valley before noon on Saturday 25 April.
msf.org.uk
We currently have approximately 120 staff working in Nepal.
An MSF surgical team provided support for three days at the hospital in Bhaktapur, on the outskirts of Kathmandu, in order to help the staff operate on waiting patients.
In the town of Arughat, in Gorkha district, we are setting up a 20-bed inflatable hospital to initially provide treatment for wounded people.
We are adding mental health workers to our teams to begin providing psychological first aid in villages where people have suffered severe psychological trauma.
We have flown in more than 80 tonnes of supplies.
Update: 5 May 2015
Since 29 April, Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) medical teams in Nepal have started reaching people spread across isolated mountain villages by helicopter and on foot. The districts of Dhading, Gorkha, Rasuwa and Sindhupalchowk were hit hard on 25 April and little or no assistance has reached many villages.
Image: Worth a little pain? Back in 1990, a school boy got a measles shot in the U.K., and it turns out, he got more than protection against the measles. Photofusion/UIG via Getty Images
npr.org - May 7th, 2015 - Michaeleen Doucleff
Back in the 1960s, the U.S. started vaccinating kids for measles. As expected, children stopped getting measles.
But something else happened.
Childhood deaths from all infectious diseases plummeted. Even deaths from diseases like pneumonia and diarrhea were cut by half. (VIEW COMPLETE ARTICLE)
NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO by Jason Beaubein May 9, 2015
MONROVIA -They were the ones who went door to door to stop the spread of Ebola. They were accused of passing on the virus and had water hurled at them. They were the community health workers — the unsung heroes of the Ebola epidemic in Liberia.
Caroline Williams is a community organizer in New Kru Town, a suburb of Monrovia. Here's how she got her message through to Liberians about preventing Ebola: "We talk to them, talk to them, talk to them. At last they started listening to us. All the methods that we been giving them, by God's will, they accepted."Jason Beaubien/NPR
...“I am thrilled by the significant progress made by the people of Liberia,” said Tolbert Nyenswah, a deputy health minister. But, he warned, “we still need to keep up vigilance.”
The weak health systems in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, the three nations hit hardest by the disease, did more than just crumple in the face of Ebola’s onslaught last year. They played a central role in spreading the disease.
Clinics routinely misdiagnosed the disease and discharged Ebola patients with pills for common illnesses. Infected health care workers passed the virus to their colleagues, families and communities.
Local and international health officials are now focusing on extinguishing the waning Ebola epidemic in Guinea and Sierra Leone. But they have a bigger goal as well: shoring up beleaguered health systems that were inadequate long before Ebola struck.
The World Health Organization announces the end of Ebola in Liberia, but the epidemic continues in nearby Sierra Leone and Guinea.
(Scroll down for text of WHO announcement and WHO May 6 situation report.)
A girl in the West Point township in Monrovia, Liberia, where life has begun to return to normal.
NATURE.COM by Declad Butler and Erika Check Hayden <ay 9, 2015
iberia is the first of the three main countries affected by Ebola to be free of the disease, the World Health Organization (WHO) said today (9 May), marking the end of the 15-month-long epidemic in the country. But the epidemic continues in nearby Sierra Leone and Guinea, and the WHO is warning against complacency, highlighting the risk of further flare ups and geographical spread.
This panel discussion will focus on how key local stakeholders are working to build systems capable of addressing long-term global health issues like NCDs while maintaining resilience to outbreaks like Ebola. In light of the need to develop domestic financing mechanisms to pay for long term health solutions, stakeholders are moving beyond public-private partnerships to a model of country stakeholder engagement that includes and leverages the strengths of all actors.
A hexayurt is a shelter designed for people with a small housing budget.
The Hexayurt can be made from about $300 of materials from Home Depot, plus about $100-150 of mail-ordered tape. Depending on the construction technique, it takes 4-8 hours to prepare at home and 1-4 hours of assembly at your destination.
Here are the specifics on the 8 ft. version (aka H12) . . .
Red Cross voluntaries hand out tarpaulins and put up tents in the village of Khalckok in Nepal. Palani Mohan/IFRC
ifrc.org - by Patrick Fuller May 6, 2015
To the casual observer, the busy highway between Kathmandu and the town of Kavere, gives a misleading impression of the extent of the destruction caused by the 25 April earthquake. Life goes on as normal and homes and shops are untouched. It’s not until you turn off the road at the town of Sangha and travel three kilometres up a bumpy dirt track into the surrounding hills, that the true picture of this disaster unfolds.
A team of young Nepal Red Cross Society volunteers is delivering tents and tarpaulins to households in the remote village of Khalchok, perched high on a ridge traversing a series of hill-tops. 115 of the 135 homes in the community are either totally destroyed or uninhabitable. The higher you travel, the worse the damage becomes. When the track ends, the volunteers disembark from the 4-wheeled drive vehicle and start to carry the first of the family tents on a half hour trek up a narrow path to what remains of the home of Subash Lama.
dhs.gov - May 7, 2015
A girl in the West Point township in Monrovia, Liberia, where life has begun to return to normal.
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