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CLICK HERE - WHO - First meeting of the Review Committee on the role of International Health Regulations in the Ebola response and WHO’s work in emergencies

cidrap.umn.edu - by Lisa Schnirring - August 25, 2015

A World Health Organization (WHO) committee tasked with reviewing how well the International Health Regulations (IHRs) worked during the Ebola outbreak wrapped up their first meeting today, with plans to dig into three main topics in the months ahead.

The group's newly elected chairman, Didier Houssin, MD, addressed reporters today during a telebriefing at the end of the 2-day meeting in Geneva. He is a surgeon who now heads the Evaluation Agency for Research and Higher Education in Paris. Houssin has served on WHO advisory groups before and has led some of its pandemic preparedness and IHR review groups in recent years.

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EUREKEALERT                                                                                                               Aug. 25, 2015
PITTSBURGH--The historic outbreak of Ebola virus disease in West Africa that began in March 2014 and has killed more than 11,000 people since, has raised new questions about the resilience of the virus and tested scientists' understanding of how to contain it. The latest discovery by a group of microbial risk-assessment and virology researchers suggests that the procedures for disposal of Ebola-contaminated liquid waste might underestimate the virus' ability to survive in wastewater.

Current epidemic response procedures from both the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advise that after a period of days, Ebola-contaminated liquid can be disposed of directly into a sewage system without additional treatment.

However, new data recently published by researchers from the University of Pittsburgh, Drexel University, and the National Institutes of Health indicate that Ebola can survive in detectable concentrations in wastewater for at least a week or longer.

Read complete story.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-08/uop-pda082515.php

THE LANCET by Kate Zinszer and others.                   Aug. 24,2015

In a speed outpacing control efforts, the Ebola virus disease (EVD) epidemic in parts of west Africa spread across Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone infecting an estimated 26 800 individuals and claiming more than 11 000 lives as of May 15, 2015.¹ Mobile populations coupled with porous borders^{1, 2} and commercial air travel patterns³ affected the frequency and breadth of Ebola virus transmission.

MEDGADGET                                                                                   Aug. 20, 2015

BOSTON --At the 250^th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society this week, researchers from MIT, Harvard Med School, and the FDA are showing off a new field test that can quickly screen people for Ebola, yellow fever, and dengue. While the researchers don’t claim their technique to be as accurate as PCR and ELISA, it is nevertheless an excellent tool in poor areas of the world where these diseases tend to thrive.

The test doesn’t require any water or electricity nor any complicated and expensive equipment. It works similar to pregnancy tests, providing a color readout that signals whether a disease is detected that is easily readable by just about anyone.