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Doctors and Nurses Risk Everything to Fight Ebola in West Africa

Mon, 2014-09-01 15:00 — Kathy Gilbeaux

Craig Kenzie, Junko Otaki, and Luca Zaliani are among the 57 international health care workers assisting with Ebola treatment at a Médecins Sans Frontières facility in Kailahun, Sierra Leone. Photographs by Samuel Aranda

Foreign and local caregivers are essential to stopping the virus’s deadly spread.

nationalgeographic.com - by Karen Weintraub - August 29, 2014

In two Land Rovers, one fitted out as an ambulance, a small team of humanitarian workers last week headed deep into Sierra Leone's jungle. After hours on deeply rutted paths that could barely be called roads, they stopped at a village that had seen ten reported cases of Ebola.

With the consent of the village chief, the team fanned out across the community, asking at each hut if anyone was feeling ill or had made contact with the earlier patients.

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US to Test Ebola Vaccine in Humans Amid Growing Outbreak in West Africa

Sun, 2014-08-31 23:39 — Kathy Gilbeaux

An undated photo from National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and GlaxoSmithKline shows a vaccine candidate that will be used in the upcoming human trials. NIAID/GSK/AP Photo

abcnews.go.com - by Katie Moisse - August 28, 2014

U.S. scientists will begin testing an Ebola vaccine in humans next week, health officials announced today. But it could take 11 months to learn whether the vaccine is safe as the virus’ toll in West Africa continues to rise. . .

. . . The experimental vaccine, co-developed by the National Institutes of Health and GlaxoSmithKline, “performed extremely well in protecting nonhuman primates from Ebola infection,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the NIH’s infectious disease branch, said.

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Ebola Virus Mutating Rapidly as it Spreads

Fri, 2014-08-29 23:33 — Kathy Gilbeaux

Outbreak likely originated with a single animal-to-human transmission.

nature.com - Erika Check Hayden - August 28, 2014

Augustine Goba and his colleagues have now decoded the genetic sequences of 99 Ebola viruses collected from 78 patients during the first 24 days of the epidemic in Sierra Leone. The work, published online in Science, could help to inform the design of diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines, says structural biologist Erica Ollmann Saphire of The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California. “This paper is terrific,” she adds.

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UN Delivers Its Strongest Warnings About the Deadly Ebola Outbreak in West Africa

Fri, 2014-08-29 21:40 — Kathy Gilbeaux

Doctors work in a laboratory on collected samples of the Ebola virus at the Centre for Disease Control

Australian Broadcasting Corporation - Sarah Sedghi- 29 Aug 2014

. . . An Australian doctor working in Nigeria says the community is on edge and authorities are doing what they can to ensure the outbreak doesn't escalate further. . .

. . . SARAH SEDGHI: Dr Gavin MacGregor-Skinner has just travelled to Nigeria from his base in the United States to help authorities prepare in case the outbreak worsens.

GAVIN MACGREGOR-SKINNER: A lot of people are saying within their communities that if you put me in the hospital, you put me there to die.

He says the community is afraid.

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First case of Ebola confirmed in Senegal - health minister

Fri, 2014-08-29 12:10 — Elhadj Drame

DAKAR Aug 29 (Reuters) - The first case of Ebola has been confirmed in Senegal, a major hub for the business and aid community in West Africa, Health Minister Awa Marie Coll Seck told a news conference on Friday.

The minister said the case was a Guinean national who had arrived from the neighbouring West African country, where the deadly virus was first detected in March.

Reporting by Diadie Ba; Writing by Daniel Flynn; Editing by Emma Farge.

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Ebola spreads to Nigeria oil hub Port Harcourt

Thu, 2014-08-28 20:50 — Elhadj Drame

28 August 2014

Source: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-28966258

Nigeria has confirmed its first Ebola death outside Lagos – a doctor in the oil hub of Port Harcourt.

His wife has been put under quarantine, while a further 70 people in the city are under surveillance.

Latest figures show more than 1,550 people have died of Ebola, with at least 3,000 confirmed cases - mostly in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that the total number of cases could potentially exceed 20,000.

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Cell-Phone Data Might Help Predict Ebola’s Spread

Thu, 2014-08-28 15:22 — Elhadj Drame

On the move: This model of West African regional transportation patterns was built using, among other sources, mobile-phone data for Senegal, released by the mobile carrier Orange.

Mobility data from an African mobile-phone carrier could help researchers recommend where to focus health-care efforts.

By David Talbot on August 22, 2014

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Ebola outbreak 'could top 20,000'

Thu, 2014-08-28 13:49 — Elhadj Drame

Published on Aug. 28, 2014

An outbreak of the Ebola virus in West Africa could amount to 20,000 cases, the World Health organisation says (Centres for Disease Control and Prevention/PA)

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Ebola Causing Huge Damage to West Africa Economies: Development Bank

Wed, 2014-08-27 23:40 — Kathy Gilbeaux

Health workers wearing protective clothing prepare to carry an abandoned dead body presenting with Ebola symptoms at Duwala market in Monrovia August 17, 2014. Credit: Reuters/2Tango

reuters.com - By Josephus Olu-Mammah and Umaru Fofana - August 27, 2014

(Reuters) - The worst ever Ebola outbreak is causing enormous damage to West African economies as foreign businessmen quit the region, the African Development Bank said, while a leading medical charity branded the international response "entirely inadequate."

As transport companies suspend services, cutting off the region, governments and economists have warned that the epidemic could crush the fragile economic gains made in Sierra Leone and Liberia following a decade of civil war in the 1990s. . .

. . . Air France, the French network of Air France-KLM said on Wednesday it had suspended flights to Sierra Leone after advice from the French government.

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Researchers Unlock Clues to How Ebola Disarms Immune System

Wed, 2014-08-27 22:00 — Kathy Gilbeaux

cell.com - medicinenet.com - nlm.nih.gov - theramatch.com

WEDNESDAY, Aug. 13, 2014 (HealthDay News) -- Researchers say they've discovered how the deadly Ebola virus disables the immune system. They hope the findings will prove valuable in efforts to find treatments for the disease taking hundreds of lives in Africa. . .

. . . American researchers found that the Ebola protein VP24 disrupts a cell's natural immune response. They said this action is an important first step on Ebola's path to causing fatal disease, according to the study published Aug. 13 in the journal Cell Host & Microbe.

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CLICK HERE - STUDY - Ebola Virus VP24 Targets a Unique NLS Binding Site on Karyopherin Alpha 5 to Selectively Compete with Nuclear Import of Phosphorylated STAT1

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