Global Health

SCIENCE NEWS by Ashley Yaeger                               Feb. 14, 2015
SAN JOSE, Calif. — Genetic data are beginning to reveal how the Ebola virus causing the epidemic in Western Africa is evolving.

            LITTLE TWEAKS  A detailed look at genomes of the Ebola virus has pinpointed mutations that may make one type  of experimental therapy less effective. Cynthia Goldsmith/CDC

Scientists have deciphered the entire catalog of genetic data for 96 Ebola viruses taken from patients infected in 2014 during the first four months of the outbreak.

The results show that one particular clade, or type of the virus, is dominant among patients in Sierra Leone, suggesting that two other clades that dominated early on in the outbreak have died out.

This third clade appears to have evolved starting with a single mutation in the genetic catalog, or genome, of the virus, said Stephen Gire of Harvard University and the Broad Institute in Cambridge, Mass. He presented the preliminary findings February 14 at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

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UNITED NATIONS NEWS CENTRE                                      Feb. 13, 2015
The United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) announced Friday that it will huddle with medical teams from outside the Ebola-affected countries next week in Geneva to see how they can help in the last phases of the fight to bring the number of cases down to zero.
UN Development Program (UNDP) Administrator Helen Clark washes her hands on arrival in Ebola-affected Monrovia, Liberia. Photo: UNDP/Dylan Lowthian

Earlier, UN Development Program (UNDP) Administrator Helen Clark... met with a number community groups in Conakry, Guinea, where she stressed the vital importance of community advocacy in stopping the outbreak. Her mission will conclude with a visit to Sierra Leone early next week.

UNDP is working with the national authorities and local, regional and international partners, including the African Development Bank, the European Union and the World Bank, on an Ebola Recovery Assessment, and in support of national strategies, as part of its mandate to the lead the UN system in the Ebola-related recovery efforts.

Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR)

CDC                                                                                                                            Feb. 13, 2015

by Cheri Grigg, DVM1,2, Ndadilnasiya E. Waziri, DVM3, Adebola T. Olayinka, MD3, John F. Vertefeuille, PhD4

On July 20, 2014, the first known case of Ebola virus disease (Ebola) in Nigeria, in a traveler from Liberia  led to an outbreak that was successfully curtailed with infection control, contact tracing, isolation, and quarantine measures coordinated through an incident management system.

During this outbreak, most contacts underwent home monitoring, which included instructions to stay home or to avoid crowded areas if staying home was not possible. However, for five contacts with high-risk exposures, group quarantine in an observation unit was preferred because the five had crowded home environments or occupations that could have resulted in a large number of community exposures if they developed Ebola.

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http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6405a3.htm?s_cid=mm6405a3_x

THE LANCET  by  Anna  Petherick  Volume 385, No. 9968, p591–592, 14 February 2015
The (West Africa) region has presented unforeseen challenges, and the three worst affected countries have put in place different response strategies. Anna Petherick reviews some of the lessons learned so far.

The early history of the ongoing Ebola outbreak in west Africa is a salutary statement about the lack of infectious disease surveillance capacity in one of the world's poorest regions....

Opportunities to contain the virus were lost soon after, largely because of a lack of trust between local communities and the officials and medical professionals trying to nip the epidemic in the bud.

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http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2815%2960075-7/fulltext