(FOR THE LIVE INTERACTIVE HEALTHMAP - CLICK ON THE MAP IMAGE BELOW)

http://healthmap.org/ebola/

ZMapp TM is the result of a collaboration between Mapp Biopharmaceutical Inc. and LeafBio (San Diego, CA), Defyrus Inc. (Toronto, Canada), the U.S. government and the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC).

ZMapp TM is composed of three “humanized” monoclonal antibodies manufactured in plants, specifically Nicotiana.  It is an optimized cocktail combining the best components of MB-­‐003 (Mapp) and ZMAb (Defyrus/PHAC).

ZMapp TM was first identified as a drug candidate in January 2014 and has not yet been evaluated for safety in humans.  As such very little of the drug is currently available.  

Any decision to use an experimental drug in a patient would be a decision made by the treating physician under the regulatory guidelines of the FDA.

Mapp and its partners are cooperating with appropriate government agencies to increase production as quickly as possible.

CLICK HERE - ZMapp - Information Sheet (1 page .PDF file)

http://www.mappbio.com/

webmd.com - by Brenda Goodman - reviewed by Michael W. Smith, MD

Aug. 4, 2014 -- ZMapp, the experimental treatment rushed to two Americans infected with Ebola in Africa, is grown in specially modified leaves of tobacco -- a plant better known for harming health than healing.

“We complied with a request from Emory University and Samaritan’s Purse to provide a very limited amount of ZMapp last week,” says David Howard, a spokesman for Reynolds American Services, the parent company of Kentucky BioProcessing. The small biopharma company in Owensboro, KY, has been contracted to grow the drug.

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Where is the Outbreak?

Source: United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

nytimes.com - by Joe Burgess, Denise Grady, Josh Keller, Heather Murphy and Sergio Peçanha - August 6, 2014

What are the chances of getting Ebola in the United States?

Two American aid workers infected with the Ebola virus while working in West Africa are being treated at a hospital in Atlanta, in a containment unit for patients with dangerous infectious diseases. But the risk that anyone will contract Ebola in the United States is extremely small, experts say.

Doctors across the country are being reminded to ask for the travel history of anybody who comes in with a fever.

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cnn.com - by By Jacque Wilson and Danielle Dellorto - August 5, 2014

(CNN) -- Two American missionary workers infected with the deadly Ebola virus were given an experimental drug that seems to have saved their lives.

Dr. Kent Brantly was given the medication, ZMapp, shortly after telling his doctors he thought he would die, according to a source familiar with his case. Within an hour, doctors say his symptoms -- labored breathing and a widespread rash -- dramatically improved. Nancy Writebol, another missionary working with Samaritan's Purse, received two doses of the medication and has also shown significant improvement, sources say.

As there is no proven treatment and no vaccine for Ebola, this experimental drug is raising lots of questions.

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Nepal is among one of the least developed countries that has been exposed to multiple hazards and with one-third of its population living below the poverty line. Not only socio-economic factors, but also geological, topographical and climatic conditions expose Nepal to multiple hazards, most prominently earthquakes, floods, landslides, fires, thunderbolts, windstorms, hailstorm and avalanches. According to official disaster statistics, out of the total number of affected families, floods/landslides and wind-storms/hailstorms have affected the most damage followed by fires and epidemics.

Three top secret, experimental vials stored at subzero temperatures were flown into Liberia last week in a last-ditch effort to save two American missionary workers who had contracted Ebola, according to a source familiar with details of the treatment.

On July 22, Dr. Kent Brantly woke up feeling feverish. Fearing the worst, Brantly immediately isolated himself. Nancy Writebol's symptoms started three days later. A rapid field blood test confirmed the infection in both of them after they had become ill with fever, vomiting and diarrhea.

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Nigerian authorities on Monday confirmed a second case of Ebola in Africa's most populous country, an alarming setback as officials across the region battle to stop the spread of a disease that has killed more than 700 people.

Also Monday, health authorities in Liberia ordered that all those who die from Ebola be cremated after communities opposed having the bodies buried nearby. Over the weekend, health authorities in the West African country encountered resistance while trying to bury 22 bodies in Johnsonville, outside the capital Monrovia. Military police helped restore order.

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As West African nations try to stop the deadly Ebola virus from spreading, people living in the affected countries are nervous. In Sierra Leone, communities are keeping a close eye on the exact locations where the disease has emerged.

The posters are crudely drawn and graphic. There's one pasted to the wall of the squat, concrete community centre in Kroo Bay, a slum in the centre of the capital Freetown, the kind of place where you can imagine disease spreading fast.

The houses are built of breeze block and have battered, rusting roofs. The spaces between them are piled with garbage, small children with no shoes tote yellow plastic jerry cans of water through the narrow lanes.

As a follow-up to my post titled A New Approach, following below are several examples of how I propose that structural adaptivity should be applied as a guiding principle for future growth and development in the US.  As I explained before, I believe that structural adaptivity is the only logical approach to building our man-made environment for a rapidly changing, uncertain, unpredictable future.

Bus Rapid Transit.  Bus rapid transit (BRT) is a system of individual self-propelled vehicles (often several linked together) that can and do travel on conventional streets and highways, on dedicated lanes on surface streets, and/or on separate intersection-free busways dedicated to buses only.  Likewise, the rapid transit buses can leave their normal routes of travel and enter and leave most all areas of a city or region.  As a modern system providing rapid mass transit, it also normally has features similar to rail rapid transit, e.g., off-board fare collection, platform-level boarding, efficient and rapid scheduling, etc., and it oftentimes has traffic signaling priority at any street intersections.

Image: Petersburg Harbor.

research.noaa.gov - July 29th, 2014

Ocean acidification is driving changes in waters vital to Alaska’s valuable commercial fisheries and subsistence way of life, according to new NOAA-led research that will be published online in Progress in Oceanography.

Many of Alaska’s nutritionally and economically valuable marine fisheries are located in waters that are already experiencing ocean acidification, and will see more in the near future, the study shows. Communities in southeast and southwest Alaska face the highest risk from ocean acidification because they rely heavily on fisheries that are expected to be most affected by ocean acidification, and have underlying factors that make those communities more vulnerable, such as lower incomes and fewer employment opportunities.

Image: People harvest rice

earth-policy.org - July 30th, 2014

Water scarcity may be the most underrated resource issue the world is facing today.

Seventy percent of world fresh water use is for irrigation.

Each day we drink nearly 4 liters of water, but it takes some 2,000 liters of water—500 times as much—to produce the food we consume.

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