Global Health

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REUTERS by Kate Kelland                                                           June 5, 2015
LONDON -- Global health leaders will ask G7 leaders this weekend to back the creation of a specialist rapid response unit to tackle outbreaks of infectious killer diseases.

The corpse of a patient who passed away is given back to the family for funerals after being decontaminated by the MSF teams. It was washed with chlorine solution and put it in a hermetic bag also disinfected to leave the high risk area.

The move reflects how the World Health Organization in particular was caught unprepared last year by Ebola, which spread through three West African countries, has killed 11,000 people, and will not be stamped out before the end of this year.

Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust global health charity, said the unit should come under the WHO, but be free of bureaucracy and able to act independently "in days" when a potentially fatal epidemic begins...

REUTERS by Maria Caspani                                                                                                June 4, 2015                     

NEW YORK -- The global health system is unable to handle another mass epidemic like the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, Médecins Sans Frontières said, urging wealthy nations to develop coordinated response plans and drugs to fight neglected diseases.

Late and slow international response, the absence of solid leadership as well as the lack of treatments and vaccines are a recurrent scenario in many of today's health emergencies and are not unique to the Ebola epidemic, the medical charity said.

"If a global pandemic were to strike tomorrow, there is still no well-resourced, coordinated international response in place to kick in," Joanne Liu, the international president of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), said in a statement on Wednesday.

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http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/04/us-global-health-ebola-idUSKBN0OK0MS20150604

Researchers have identified two FDA-approved drugs that may be effective against the Ebola virus. This could shorten the time for developing new treatments.

HEALTHLINE NEWS  by  Shawn Radcliffe                                                         June 3, 2015

With a fast-moving epidemic like Ebola, doctors need to make use of every tool at their disposal. This includes giving a second life to already-approved drugs....

One research team is hoping to ease the epidemic by shortening the lengthy drug development process.

Their approach? Sifting through hundreds of existing drugs and other compounds for ones that might work against the Ebola virus....

Additional screening narrowed the list down to two potential drug candidates: Bepridil, a calcium channel blocker used to treat heart disease, and sertraline, an antidepressant more commonly known as Zoloft.

Both drugs are already approved by the FDA, although not for use against the Ebola virus.

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http://www.healthline.com/health-news/zoloft-could-be-a-treatment-for-ebola-virus-060315#1

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GETTING AROUND  The chikungunya virus spreads via mosquitoes in tropical regions. Now it has found a way to hijack a second mosquito, posing a threat to people in Europe, North America and China.

sciencenews.org - by Nathan Seppa - June 2, 2015

A crippling virus has slipped its bonds in Africa and Asia and is invading whole new continents faster than people canlearn to pronounce its name. In one decade, chikungunya (chihk-uhn-GUHN-yuh) fever has gone from an obscure tropical ailment to an international threat, causing more than 3 million infections worldwide. The virus has established itself in Latin America and may now have the wherewithal to inflict its particular brand of misery in cooler climates.

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