The boreal region stretches across the Northern Hemisphere through Alaska, Canada, Scandinavia and Russia. Boreal forests are increasingly affected by fire and climate change.

Sources: Natural Resources Canada; Alberta Agriculture and Forestry; U.S. Geological Survey; University of Maryland - By The New York Times

Scientists say the near-destruction of Fort McMurray last week by a wildfire is the latest indication that the vital boreal forest is at risk from climate change.

nytimes.com - by JUSTIN GILLIS and HENRY FOUNTAIN - May 10, 2016

Scientists have been warning for decades that climate change is a threat to the immense tracts of forest that ring the Northern Hemisphere, with rising temperatures, drying trees and earlier melting of snow contributing to a growing number of wildfires.

The near-destruction of a Canadian city last week by a fire that sent almost 90,000 people fleeing for their lives is grim proof that the threat to these vast stands of spruce and other resinous trees, collectively known as the boreal forest, is real. And scientists say a large-scale loss of the forest could have profound consequences for efforts to limit the damage from climate change.

FILE - Laboratory technicians develop a technology to mass produce Ebola vaccine, Aug. 14, 2014.

voanews.com - by William Eagle - May 7, 2016

The United States remains by far the most important source of funds for medical research and development for scores of diseases well-known to the developing world.

According to the latest available data from the independent research group Policy Cures, global donors contributed over $2 billion in public funding for research into what the medical community calls neglected diseases. The U.S. government accounted for over 70 percent of the amount.

But a new report from the Global Health Technologies Coalition, a group of nonprofits that promotes creation of vaccines and other tools to improve global health, says that over the past five years, funding has largely been flat. This is in contrast to the first decade of the 21st century, which saw a doubling of financial support. . . .

. . . The GHTC report asks the U.S. government to encourage private sector involvement in R&D with prizes, small-business innovation awards, tax credits and other incentives. It also recommends improved cooperation among the seven U.S. agencies involved in global health.

Washington - Pregnant women who’ve traveled to Latin America and the Caribbean are advised to be tested for the Zika virus afterward. But medical researchers have discovered there’s a problem with that advice: Some diagnostic tests will return positive results even when a person hasn’t contracted Zika.

That ambiguity can force pregnant women who fear giving birth to babies with severe brain damage to make life-changing decisions based on incomplete information.

The discovery by Zika researchers that current antibody tests don’t distinguish between Zika and dengue, another mosquito-borne virus, is the latest twist in the scientific world’s confrontation with a virus long thought relatively harmless but now thought able to cause serious birth defects as well as life-threatening complications in adults.

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FREETOWN, Sierra Leone, Monday 2 May, 2016// -- President Dr Ernest Bai Koroma has launched the National Employment Policy and Strategy and Implementation Plan for 2015-2018 at the Miatta Conference Hall, Brookfields in Freetown. The National Employment Policy is a policy response towards addressing and improving labor relations and conditions of service of workers in Sierra Leone.

During a grand ceremony to commemorate International Labour Day, the president said the launch of the new employment policy has clearly shown his government’s commitment and effectiveness in addressing labour issues in the country. He stated that government is part of labour congress and that is why programmes and policies under his administration are always directed towards the protection of the ordinary man, adding that government has come reasonably far to formalizing the informal sector. 

Sara MacKinnon of Westville took this picture as she fled Fort McMurray.

cnn.com - by Ralph Ellis, Steve Almasy and Ray Sanchez - May 8, 2016

The massive wildfire that forced almost 90,000 people to evacuate in Alberta is growing and approaching the neighboring province of Saskatchewan, Canadian officials said Saturday.

Dry and extremely windy conditions are fueling the blaze, which has already scorched more than 1,560 square kilometers (602 square miles) and ravaged the city of Fort McMurray, Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale said Saturday.

"The situation remains unpredictable and dangerous," he told reporters.

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(CLICK HERE - PHOTO REFERENCE)

By Dr. Kolleh A Bangura

To assist Sierra Leone protected areas in building their resilience to climate change, the PARCC (Protected Areas Resilience to Climate Change) project has assessed future climate impacts of land use change on ecosystem services in Sierra Leone. This includes applying five spatially detailed regional climate model projections developed for the project and scenarios of future land use change.

This article summarizes the main features of projected climate impacts on ecosystem services and their implications for focus project areas in Sierra Leone and future national planning. Findings from the latest annual assessment report (AR5) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are referred to in order to provide guidance on the way to interpret these results.

Climate Projections

The projections for mean annual temperature in Sierra Leone for the end of the 21st century are for significant increases (with very high confidence):

Image: It needs a bit of work. (Reuters/Chance Chan)

qz.com - May 4th 2016 - Matt Phillips

Few have watched the development of the Chinese economy as closely as Arthur Kroeber.

His new book, published last month, is a wide-ranging and authoritative primer on the history and development of China’s unique blend of decentralized economic authoritarianism.

It’s an idiosyncratic system, developed in defiance of the advice of western-trained economists in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union.

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The first-ever World Humanitarian Summit, set to take place in Istanbul on 23-24 May 2016, is a global call to action by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

Dengue-infected tissue - CDC; Frederick Murphy, Cynthia Goldsmith

CLICK HERE - STUDY - Dengue Virus Antibodies Enhance Zika Virus Infection

Previous flavivirus infection could help explain the severity of symptoms in some people infected during the ongoing Zika outbreak, researchers report.

The Scientist - by Tanya Lewis - April 28, 2016

Scientists at Florida Gulf Coast University and their colleagues have found that human cells were more likely to be infected with Zika virus in vitro if they contained antibodies to dengue virus. Their findings, detailed Monday (April 25) in a bioRxiv preprint, could help explain why Zika infection appears to be more severe in areas where dengue is endemic, and points to a potential unintended effect of dengue vaccination.

Antibodies to dengue can increase the virus’s infectivity for certain types of immune cells through a process called antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE), resulting in the production of more virus and more severe illness.

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An Aedes Aegypti mosquito photographed on human skin. PHOTO: AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES

CLICK HERE - STUDY - Cell Host & Microbe - Wolbachia Blocks Currently Circulating Zika Virus Isolates in Brazilian Aedes aegypti Mosquitoes

Presence of Wolbachia bacterium in the insects seen limiting their ability to transmit the rapidly spreading virus

wsj.com - by REED JOHNSON, ROGERIO JELMAYER, and BETSY MCKAY - May 4, 2016

Introducing a common bacterium into a species of mosquitoes drastically limits the insects’ ability to transmit the dangerous Zika virus that has been spreading rapidly, according to researchers at Brazil’s leading medical-research institute.

In a new study published on Wednesday in the journal Cell Host & Microbe, researchers at the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz), in Rio de Janeiro, said their experiments have shown that injecting Aedes aegypti mosquito eggs with the Wolbachia bacterium makes the eventual adult mosquitoes highly resistant to the Zika virus, thereby limiting their ability to spread it.

Monrovia – Liberia’s and Guinea’s last known Ebola patients in a latest flare-up of the disease that hit both countries have now been discharged. All remaining contacts of confirmed cases that were placed under a 3-week period of medical monitoring have been cleared.

Liberia’s Ministry of Health, WHO and partners involved in the response held a ceremony at the Ebola treatment facility in Monrovia to celebrate the recovery and discharge of a 2-year-old boy, the final patient in the flare-up in Liberia. 

His 5-year-old brother recovered a week earlier. On 29 April, the country also began a 42-day period of increased surveillance – amounting to two 21-day incubation cycles of the virus.

By Finbarr O'Reilly May. 2, 2016

When she went into labor last November, 18-year-old Kema James climbed onto the back of a motorbike taxi in her village in eastern Sierra Leone and rode half an hour to the main government hospital in the nearby city of Kenema.

When her baby was delivered, he was sickly yellow and stricken with sepsis, an ailment caused by bacteria in the blood, and he hung limply in the hands of the hospital staff. He died five days later before he could be named.

published by Liz Szabo

6:47 p.m. EDT May 2, 2016

ATLANTA — The need for drugs to prevent and treat Zika infections grows with every new patient diagnosed. The virus causes devastating birth defects and is strongly linked to a type of paralysis called Guillain-Barre syndrome.

There are currently no approved drugs against Zika; developing a new medication for any disease can take 10 to 20 years.

"The sense of urgency is enormous," said Mauro Martins Teixeira, who heads the immunopharmacology laboratory at the Federal University of Minas Gerais in Brazil. "In an emergency, everyone wants quick answers."

CLICK HERE - Quest Diagnostics - Zika Virus Infection - Important Testing Information and Helpful Resources

nbcnews.com - by Maggie Fox - April 28, 2016

The first commercial U.S. test to diagnose Zika virus won emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration Thursday.

It's a rare piece of good news as states and the federal government struggle to get out ahead of the Zika virus epidemic as it makes its way north to the U.S.

Quest Diagnostics says it should be able to handle any demand for the test, which uses the same method that government labs use to look for Zika virus in a patient's blood.

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Source: World Health Organization - Credit: Michaeleen Doucleff and Alyson Hurt/NPR

CLICK HERE - RESEARCH - Reduced evolutionary rate in reemerged Ebola virus transmission chains

The West African countries at the center of the epidemic have had flareups even after being declared Ebola-free by the World Health Organization.

npr.org - by Michaeleen Doucleff - April 29, 2016

Just when health officials think the Ebola outbreak is over in West Africa, the virus pops up again seemingly out of the blue. It's happened at least five times so far.

Now scientists are starting to figure out why: The virus can lay dormant in a survivor for more than year and then re-emerge to infect others.