Problem

america.aljazeera.com - February 16, 2016

Dr. Gavin MacGregor-Skinner, the director of disaster response at Harvard Medical School Teaching Hospital, weighs in on Zika and other mosquito-borne diseases.

http://america.aljazeera.com/watch/shows/morning-news/2016/2/hawaii-on-high-alert-of-dangerous-mosquitoes.html

abcnews.go.com - by Lauran Neergaard - February 10, 2016

CLICK HERE - NEJM - STUDY - Zika Virus Associated with Microcephaly

CLICK HERE - NEJM - EDITORIAL - Zika Virus and Microcephaly

New details about the possible effects of the Zika virus on the fetal brain emerged Wednesday as U.S. health officials say mosquito eradication here and abroad is key to protect pregnant women until they can develop a vaccine.

European researchers uncovered an extremely abnormal brain — not only a fraction of the proper size but lacking the usual crinkly neural folds — in a fetus whose mother suffered Zika symptoms at the end of the first trimester while she was living in Brazil. . . .

. . . Whether the mosquito-borne virus really causes microcephaly isn't yet proven, but Wednesday's report in The New England Journal of Medicine offers additional biologic clues.

"This fetus was really devastated," said Dr. Michael Greene of Massachusetts General Hospital who with colleagues from Harvard reviewed the findings in an accompanying editorial.

Ubisoft’s role-playing shooter The Division wouldn’t be as much fun if players followed Nafeez Ahmed’s advice and stayed rural.  Photograph: Ubisoft

Whether it’s a natural disaster, bioterrorist attack or pandemic, experts reckon society as we know it will collapse within 13 days of a catastrophic event. So what do you do next?

theguardian.com - by Keith Stuart - February 10, 2016

On 22 June, 2001, Tara O’Toole and Thomas Inglesby of the Johns Hopkins Center for Civilian Biodefense Strategies, organised a war game like no other. The two researchers, working with an array of bodies such as the ANSER Institute for Homeland Security, set out to simulate the effects of a biological attack on the US. The project was called Operation Dark Winter.

What they discovered was that the country was ill prepared to cope.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

Fierce fighting in Aleppo forces thousands to flee

Innocent civilians 'running for their lives' - A sense of panic among those fleeing

cnn.com by - Nick Paton Walsh and Don Melvin - February 5, 2016

(CNN) The battle for the devastated city of Aleppo -- once Syria's commercial heart -- is intensifying, and video has surfaced appearing to show thousands of civilians streaming out of the city. . . .

. . . But the latest video appears to show a sense of panic among the thousands of people streaming out of the city, fleeing for their lives -- bound, most probably, for the Turkish border, 60 miles (97 kilometers) to the north.

. . . And from there, they will push onward, perhaps, to Europe, which is experiencing one of the most significant waves of migration in recent decades.

A United Nations official, citing U.N. estimates made for emergency relief planning, told CNN that 321,000 civilians are thought to be in a rebel-held area east of Aleppo.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)