Situation Report

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

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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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: 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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