Solutions

CENTER FOR DISEASES CONTROL by Dickmann P, Kitua A, Kaczmarek P, Lutwama J, Masumu J, Karimuribo E, et al             April 8,2015 

Summary of conference on lessons learned from Ebola crisis

"...A major conclusion was that infectious disease management will work only when it is established with and within the community and not directed against it. This lesson requires community engagement in formulating infection control measures, as well as implementation, dissemination, and promotion of these measures. Infection control procedures are generally perceived as intrusive and, as such, often interfere with local social, cultural, and religious practices.... Building on this process of finding the right, appropriate containment measures, communication and health promotion work best when they involve community and religious leaders, traditional healers, and other advocates.

National and cross-border Ebola outbreaks are a new development, and engagement with various communities has presented a particular challenge throughout the current outbreak. A key aspect of this engagement is to devise and elaborate solutions for infection control that are consistent with local realities and practices. International health and aid organizations must strive to work in concert with communities to find adequate infection-control solutions....

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS TIMES by Philip Roth       April 7, 2015

(Two stories. Scroll down)
Health officials’ best bet for discovering a vaccine for Ebola lies with the West African country of Guinea, where the outbreak that has killed an estimated 10,500 over the past year began, and the place that researchers largely ignored when it came time for drug trials. As researchers race to find a vaccine before the window of opportunity closes – essentially, before the epidemic is brought to an end -- scientists with the World Health Organization are beginning to test a vaccine in Guinea manufactured by researchers in the U.S. and Canada.

The race to find a vaccine for Ebola is in its final lap. Pictured, research assistant Georgina Bowyer works on a vaccine for Ebola at the Jenner Institute in Oxford, southern England, Jan. 16, 2015. Reuters

news-medical.net - April 6, 2015

Adam C. Levine, M.D., an emergency medicine physician at Rhode Island Hospital and The Miriam Hospital who treated Ebola-infected patients in Liberia last year, used his field experience to create a tool to determine the likelihood that patients presenting with Ebola symptoms will actually carry the virus. His research was published in the Annals of Emergency Medicine today.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

CLICK HERE - RESEARCH - Derivation and Internal Validation of the Ebola Prediction Score for Risk Stratification of Patients With Suspected Ebola Virus Disease

REUTERS by Sharon Bagley                                                                      April 1, 2015

Early-stage trials of an experimental Ebola vaccine, two in the United States and four in Africa and Europe, have found that it appears to be safe and triggered robust production of Ebola-fighting antibodies, scientists reported on Wednesday.

Since trials cannot ethically expose volunteers to Ebola, the production of antibodies is a proxy for whether vaccines could prevent or even treat the disease.

The trials all tested a vaccine called VSV-ZEBOV, which was developed at the Public Health Agency of Canada and licensed to NewLink Genetics Corp and then to Merck & Co Inc. It consists of a cattle virus called rVSV that has been engineered to carry Ebola genes, which produce proteins meant to trigger production of anti-Ebola antibodies.

According to separate teams of scientists, that is what happened, two papers in the New England Journal of Medicine reported.

Read complete story.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/04/01/us-health-ebola-vaccine-idUSKBN0MS5DN20150401

Read NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF MEDICINE  papers