who.int - February 24, 2016

CLICK HERE - WHO - Interim Guidance - Clinical Care for Survivors of Ebola Virus Disease

Overview

Today, there are over 10 000 survivors of Ebola virus disease. A number of medical problems have been reported in survivors, including mental health issues. Ebola virus may persist in some body fluids, including semen. Ebola survivors need comprehensive support for the medical and psychosocial challenges they face and also to minimize the risk of continued Ebola virus transmission.

WHO has developed this document to guide health services on how to provide quality care to survivors of Ebola virus disease. Table of contents include:

Introduction

Planning follow-up of the Ebola survivor

Common sequelae of Ebola virus disease and recommended evaluation and clinical management

Considerations for special populations

Monitoring for persistent Ebola virus infection in survivors: guidelines for testing and counselling

Infection prevention and control considerations in survivors

Image: A mosquito.

sakshipost.com - March 17, 2016

Key factors that can combine to produce a Zika virus outbreak are expected to be present in 50 US cities during peak summer months, a study has warned.

The Aedes aegypti mosquito, which is spreading the virus in much of Latin America and the Caribbean, will likely be increasingly abundant across much of the southern and eastern US as the weather warms, according to the study led by experts at the National Centre for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in US.

Summertime weather conditions are favourable for populations of the mosquito along the East Coast as far north as New York City and across the southern tier of the country as far west as Phoenix and Los Angeles, according to computer simulations conceived and run by researchers at NCAR and the NASA Marshall Space Flight Centre.

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mage: Workers are seen at Shuangyashan Mine, owned by Longmay Group, in Shuangyashan, Heilongjiang province, in this March 15, 2016 file picture. REUTERS/Brenda Goh/Files

reuters.com - March 22, 2016 - David Stanway

China's campaign to slim down its bloated industries could be derailed by more than $1.5 trillion of debt in its steel, coal, cement and non-ferrous metal sectors, which threatens to overwhelm local banks.

Tackling industrial overcapacity has become a priority for Beijing to make its slowing economy more efficient and address a supply glut that has hammered coal and steel prices.

China is providing more than 100 billion yuan ($15 billion) in the next two years to handle layoffs from coal and steel, but that will only be made available once debts have been settled.

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The Obama administration said Tuesday it will allow foreign nationals from Ebola-affected countries in West Africa to stay in the U.S. for another six months, even though global health officials said the outbreak that killed 11,000 people abroad is officially over.

World Health Organisation had just announced ‘milestone’ of no new infections in neighbouring Sierra Leone when latest fatalities came to light

During the Ebola outbreak of 1995 in the Democratic Republic of Congo, eight patients with Ebola were given blood transfusions from people who had recently recovered from Ebola. Seven of them survived.

The blood of people who have recently recovered from an infection contains antibodies that the body develops naturally to fight that infection. The transfusion of these antibodies into infected individuals (as whole blood, plasma, or concentrated antibodies) has a long history and has been proposed as a possible treatment for Ebola virus disease.

see more at: http://www.dddmag.com/news/2016/03/treating-ebola-plasma

nytimes.com - March 7th 2016 - Aaron E. Carroll

A century ago, the top three causes of death were infectious diseases. More than half of all people dying in the United States died because of germs. Today, they account for a few percent of deaths at most.

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Image: Trypanosoma brucei gambiense. Photo: Zephyris. CC BY-SA 3.0

blogs.scientificamerican.com - January 29th 2016 - John R. Platt

Like a lot of people, I make sure to get a flu shot every year. That’s because the viruses that cause influenza mutate all the time, creating new strains that require new treatments.

That’s not the case with the disease known as African sleeping sickness, which kills thousands of people a year.

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submitted by John Carroll

A woman who is six months pregnant shows a photo of her ultrasound at the IMIP hospital in Recife, Pernambuco state, Brazil, on Wednesday. Scientists are trying to figure out how Zika virus may be affecting fetuses.  Felipe Dana/AP

CLICK HERE - NEJM - Zika Virus Infection in Pregnant Women in Rio de Janeiro — Preliminary Report

npr.com - by Rob Stein - March 4, 2016

The Zika virus has sparked international alarm largely because of fears that the pathogen is causing microcephaly, a condition in which babies are born with unusually small heads and damaged brains.

But the preliminary results of a study released Friday suggest Zika can also cause other potentially grave complications for fetuses carried by women who get infected while they are pregnant.

"There seems to be a whole spectrum of conditions that are related to this — not only microcephaly," says Karin Nielsen-Saines, a professor of clinical pediatrics at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA who led the study.

reuters.com - by ALEXANDRA ULMER AND CORINA PONS - March 4, 2016

A fetus whose mother likely had the Zika virus suffered the rare congenital defect known as microcephaly and ultimately died, doctors said on Friday, in the first Venezuelan case linking the infection to damage in babies.

The mosquito-borne virus has been linked to thousands of suspected cases of microcephaly in Brazil, and a recent study has suggested the virus may be associated with stillbirths.

The World Health Organization declared Zika an international health emergency on Feb. 1, citing a "strongly suspected" relationship between Zika infection in pregnancy and microcephaly, a condition in which an infant's head is markedly smaller than those of other babies of similar age and gender.

Public health officials say that link is growing stronger with new evidence, but expect it could take years to prove a connection.

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CLICK HERE - Zika First Trimester Infection Linked To Microcephaly Maturín Venezuela

Image: A village hosting internally displaced people in Mora, Cameroon, where Boko Haram fighters have conducted raids on livestock. The hunt for food appears to be pushing the militants deeper into Cameroon. Credit Tyler Hicks/The New York Times

nytimes.com - March 4th 2016 - Dionne Searcey

At first, the attack had all the hallmarks of a typical Boko Haram assault. Armed fighters stormed a town on the border with Nigeria, shooting every man they saw.

But this time, instead of burning homes and abducting hostages, the fighters gathered cows, goats and any kind of food they could round up, then fled with it all.

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Image: Government forces recently retook a power plant in Aleppo province from Islamic State militants.

BBC.com - March 3rd 2016

Syria has suffered a massive power blackout across the country due to "unknown reasons", state media said.

Officials were cited as saying power had been cut in all provinces and teams were trying to determine the cause.

The electricity ministry said power was being restored and service would resume by midnight (22:00 GMT), TV reported.

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energycommerce.house.gov - March 2, 2016

The House Committee hearing on Zika virus - Examining the U.S. Public Health Response to the Zika Virus

The Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations held a hearing on Wednesday, March 2, 2016, at 10:15 a.m. in 2322 Rayburn House Office Building, entitled “Examining the U.S. Public Health Response to the Zika Virus.” The Subcommittee heard testimony on the spread of the Zika virus across the Americas, the potential link between Zika and other illnesses, including microcephaly and Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS), and the public health plan to respond to the virus both in the United States and internationally.

https://energycommerce.house.gov/hearings-and-votes/hearings/examining-us-public-health-response-zika-virus

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtdWumDEx0U