Situation Report

NEJM - Ebola Virus Disease in the Democratic Republic of Congo

Sun, 2014-10-19 21:40 — Kathy Gilbeaux

nejm.org - October 15, 2014 - DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa1411099

Results

The outbreak began in Inkanamongo village in the vicinity of Boende town in Équateur province and has been confined to that province. A total of 69 suspected, probable, or confirmed cases were reported between July 26 and October 7, 2014, including 8 cases among health care workers, with 49 deaths. As of October 7, there have been approximately six generations of cases of EVD since the outbreak began. The reported weekly case incidence peaked in the weeks of August 17 and 24 and has since fallen sharply. Genome sequencing revealed Ebola virus (EBOV, Zaire species) as the cause of this outbreak. A coding-complete genome sequence of EBOV that was isolated during this outbreak showed 99.2% identity with the most closely related variant from the 1995 outbreak in Kikwit in the DRC and 96.8% identity to EBOV variants that are currently circulating in West Africa. . . .

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Dozens Declared Free of Ebola Risk in Texas

Sun, 2014-10-19 21:25 — mike kraft

UPDATE Ebola fear ends for dozens on U.S. watch lists

REUTERS Oct. 20, 2014

By Anna Driver

DALLAS--Weeks of worry about Ebola infection ended on Monday for several dozen people who came off watch lists in the United States, but more than 260 others were still being monitored for symptoms as the U.S. government ramped up its response to the virus.

In Texas, 43 people who had contact with Liberian Thomas Eric Duncan, the first person diagnosed with the disease in the United States, were cleared of twice-daily monitoring after showing no symptoms during a 21-day incubation period. The Texas health department said they included four people who shared an apartment with Duncan and had been in quarantine. It said 120 people in Texas were still being monitored.

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Long Quest for Ebola Vaccine Slowed by Science, Ethics, Politics

Sun, 2014-10-19 16:04 — Maeryn Obley

An experimental Ebola vaccine has been developed by the U.S. National Institutes of Health and pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline. Photograph by Steve Parsons, AP

Image: An experimental Ebola vaccine has been developed by the U.S. National Institutes of Health and pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline. Photograph by Steve Parsons, AP

news.nationalgeographic.com - October 14th, 2014 - Karen Weintraub

Ebola vaccines are so effective in monkeys that macaques can be protected or rescued even if they're injected with a hundred times the lethal dose of the Ebola virus after vaccination. But no one knows for certain whether the vaccines will work in humans; the vaccines haven't yet been rigorously tested in people.

Just developing the vaccines to test in monkeys was a grueling, decades-long process that has killed scores of macaques since the 1990s.

(VIEW COMPLETE ARTICLE)

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NEJM - Ebola Virus Disease in West Africa — The First 9 Months of the Epidemic and Forward Projections

Sun, 2014-10-19 14:44 — Kathy Gilbeaux

nejm.org - WHO Ebola Response Team

N Engl J Med 2014; 371:1481-1495 - October 16, 2014 - DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa1411100

Conclusions

These data indicate that without drastic improvements in control measures, the numbers of cases of and deaths from EVD are expected to continue increasing from hundreds to thousands per week in the coming months.

(SEE COMPLETE NEJM ARTICLE HERE)

NEJM - Ebola Virus Disease in West Africa — The First 9 Months of the Epidemic and Forward Projections (15 page .PDF file)

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Dallas hospital tried to repair reputation after a series of mishaps.

Sun, 2014-10-19 12:44 — mike kraft

Dallas Health Presbyterian Hospital: Two stories on the aftermath of the treatment of Thomas Eric Duncan the first person to die in the U.S. of Ebola and the infection of two nurses.

Dallas hospital tried to repair reputation after a series of mishaps.

WASHINGTON POST Oct. 18, 2014
By Lena H. Sun

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/dallas-hospital-tries-to-repair-its-reputation/2014/10/17/dfb62dc4-55fa-11e4-809b-8cc0a295c773_story.html

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Ebola lapses persisted for days at Dallas hospital

ASSOCIATED PRESS Oct. 18, 2014

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/ebola-lapses-persisted-for-days-at-dallas-hospital/2014/10/18/8f9bf97a-56dd-11e4-b86d-184ac281388d_story.html

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Castro offers to co-operate with US on Ebola

Sun, 2014-10-19 11:53 — mike kraft

The worst Ebola outbreak on record has killed more than 4,500 people, most of them in West African countries [EPA]

AL JAZEERA Oct, 19, 2014

HAVANA--Fidel Castro, the 88-year-old former Cuban leader, has said his country is ready to work with the US in the battle against Ebola, saying that such co-operation would be in the interest of "the peace of the world".

Cuba has already sent 165 doctors and nurses to help fight Ebola in Sierra Leone and plans to send 296 others soon to Liberia and Guinea.

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Ebola outbreak could be 'definitive humanitarian disaster of our generation', warns Oxfam

Sat, 2014-10-18 14:49 — mike kraft

THE INDEPENDENT OCT. 18, 2014

LONDON ---Ebola is poised to become the “definitive humanitarian disaster of our generation", Oxfam has warned, with more troops, funding and medical aid urgently needed to tackle the outbreak.

In an "extremely rare" move, the charity is calling for military intervention to provide logistical support across West Africa.

It says the world has less than two months to counter the spread of the deadly virus, which means addressing a "crippling shortfall" in military personnel.

Oxfam’s call for more troops comes after UN chief Ban Ki-Moon criticised countries he said were able to provide financial support to the crisis for not doing so.
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Amid Assurances on Ebola, Obama Is Said to Seethe

Sat, 2014-10-18 14:17 — mike kraft

NEW YORK TIMES Oct. 18, 2014

By MICHAEL D. SHEAR and MARK LANDLER

WASHINGTON — Beneath the calming reassurance that President Obama has repeatedly offered during the Ebola crisis, there is a deepening frustration, even anger, with how the government has handled key elements of the response.

Those frustrations spilled over when Mr. Obama convened his top aides in the Cabinet room after canceling his schedule on Wednesday. Medical officials were providing information that later turned out to be wrong. Guidance to local health teams was not adequate. It was unclear which Ebola patients belonged in which threat categories.

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Canada to start shipping experimental Ebola vaccine on Monday

Sat, 2014-10-18 13:53 — mike kraft

CANADIAN PRESS Oct. 18, 2014

OTTAWA—The federal government says Canada will start shipping its experimental Ebola vaccine to the World Health Organization on Monday.

A lab worker at the JC Wilt Infectious Diseases Research centre at Canada's National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg, Manitoba. An experimental Ebola vaccine developed in Canada will be shipped to the World Health Organization in Geneva starting Monday.

The government says in a release the Public Health Agency of Canada is supplying the vaccine to the UN body in Geneva in its role as the international co-ordinating body for the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. It says Canada will ship 800 vials of its experimental vaccine in three separate shipments, as a precautionary measure.

The WHO will consult with its partners, including the health authorities from the affected countries, to determine how best to distribute and use the vaccine. For instance, it must take into account concerns about using an experimental vaccine in people.

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Obama warns against Ebola hysteria as cruise ship heads back to Texas. President rejects calls for west Africa travel ban . Cruise ship returns to Texas after passenger isolated

Sat, 2014-10-18 10:43 — mike kraft

THE GUARDIAN Oct. 18, 2014

WASHINGTON- President Barack Obama on Saturday urged Americans not to succumb to hysteria about Ebola, even as he warned that addressing the deadly virus would require citizens, government leaders and the media to all pitch in.

in his weekly address, Obama also pushed back against calls for the US to institute a travel ban. Lawmakers have called it a commonsense step to prevent more people with Ebola from entering the US, but Obama said such a ban would only hamper aid efforts and screening measures.

“Trying to seal off an entire region of the world – if that were even possible – could actually make the situation worse,” the president said.

Growing US concern about Ebola and the three cases diagnosed so far in Dallas prompted Obama on Friday to tap a former top White House adviser to be his point person on Ebola. Striking a careful balance, Obama said there was no “outbreak” or “epidemic” of Ebola in the US, but said even one case was too many.

“This is a serious disease, but we can’t give in to hysteria or fear – because that only makes it harder to get people the accurate information they need,” Obama said. “We have to be guided by the science.”

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