Situation Report

submitted by Stephen Morse

elifesciences.org - September 8, 2014 - eLife 2014;3:e04395
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.04395

Ebola virus disease (EVD) is a complex zoonosis that is highly virulent in humans. The largest recorded outbreak of EVD is ongoing in West Africa, outside of its previously reported and predicted niche. We assembled location data on all recorded zoonotic transmission to humans and Ebola virus infection in bats and primates (1976–2014). Using species distribution models, these occurrence data were paired with environmental covariates to predict a zoonotic transmission niche covering 22 countries across Central and West Africa. Vegetation, elevation, temperature, evapotranspiration, and suspected reservoir bat distributions define this relationship. At-risk areas are inhabited by 22 million people; however, the rarity of human outbreaks emphasises the very low probability of transmission to humans. Increasing population sizes and international connectivity by air since the first detection of EVD in 1976 suggest that the dynamics of human-to-human secondary transmission in contemporary outbreaks will be very different to those of the past.

EDITORIAL: NEW YORK TIMES                                       Feb. 17, 2015
President Obama has announced that almost all of the American troops sent to West Africa to help contain the Ebola epidemic will be withdrawn soon. That makes sense because they have largely completed the work they were sent to do. The next phase of the battle will rely on public health measures carried out by local and international health workers and experts.

Despite major gains, about 100 new cases are detected each week. It will take a concerted effort, backed financially by the United States and others, to drive that number down to zero....

The main task now facing public health workers is to find all people infected with Ebola and trace and isolate all their contacts to prevent passing the virus to others. The goal is to eradicate all traces of the virus from the afflicted countries. A well-trained work force will be essential to this task. As Mr. Obama warned last week, “Every case is an ember that if not contained can light a new fire.”

Read complete editorial.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/16/opinion/mission-not-yet-accomplished.html

WIRED  by Maryn McKenna                                                                                           Feb. 16, 2015
Interview with F. Zeela Zaizay, a registered nurse and the Liberian team leader for MAP International, a Christian medical-assistance nonprofit. MAP, which is based in Atlanta and has sent $1.7 million’ worth of supplies such as “no touch” infrared thermometers and protective equipment for health workers, and helped organize Ebola-education efforts in townships and on local radio.

“We are having an average now of less than one case per day,” he told me in a Skype call from Monrovia, Liberia’s capital. “That shows we have made tremendous gains in the fight against Ebola. But the practices that led to the gains we are having are being abandoned just as the cases are declining too, so it brings about fear. If we are not careful we could have more cases again.”

The company producing the new Ebola treatment for an FDA-approved test suddenly pulled out of Liberia, leaving researchers confused.

BUZZFEED                by Hayes Brown                                                                               Feb. 13, 2015

...An FDA-approved trial of the drug brincidofovir, meant to treat rather than prevent Ebola, had already begun in Liberia’s capital of Monrovia when Chimerix, the company that produced the drug, pulled out of the trial at the end of January. The clinical trial partners decided to end the trial on Feb. 3.

Peter Horby, who led the University of Oxford research team conducting the study, called the drug company’s decision “a bit abrupt.”

A woman is injected by a health care worker as she takes part in an Ebola virus vaccine trial in Monrovia Abbas Dulleh / Via AP