Global Health

Crew members of Thai Airways prepare to disinfect the cabin of an aircraft of the national carrier at Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi International Airport, Thailand, June 18, 2015.  Reuters/Chaiwat Subprasom

reuters.com - by Pracha Hariraksapitak and Amy Sawitta Lefevre; Editing by Jeremy Laurence - June 18, 2015

Thailand confirmed its first case of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) on Thursday, becoming the fourth Asian country to register the deadly virus this year.

Public Health Minister Rajata Rajatanavin told a news conference that a 75-year-old businessman from Oman had tested positive for MERS.

"From two lab tests we can confirm that the MERS virus was found," Rajata said, adding the man had traveled to Bangkok for medical treatment for a heart condition.

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THE GUARDIAN   by Ian Sample                                                                             June 18, 2015

Scientists have analysed the genetic code of Ebola viruses from patients across west Africa and pieced together the evolution of the worst ever outbreak of the killer disease.

Experts from Public Health England at Porton Down in Britain, the World Health Organisation (WHO), and other leading labs, used DNA from 179 Ebola samples to reconstruct the spread of the virus from Guinea into surrounding countries last year.

CHEMISTRY WORLD by Christopher Barnard             June 17, 215
The virulence of Ebola virus strains appears to be innately linked to the degree of disorder in proteins that form their nucleocapsids. Computational analysis has revealed that strains responsible for the most lethal outbreaks of Ebola show significantly higher levels of intrinsic protein disorder than less virulent strains, in a discovery that could constitute a major breakthrough in understanding the pathogen’s behaviour.

With over 27,000 confirmed, probable and suspected cases and more than 11,000 fatalities worldwide, the ongoing Ebola outbreak has resulted in considerably more casualties since late 2013 than all other outbreaks combined. There are no effective treatments or vaccines against the haemorrhagic fever that evinces Ebola infection; however, strains of the virus with drastically different virulence have emerged since the first outbreak in 1976, with fatality rates ranging from 25 to 90%.

REUTERS by Kate Keller and Ben Hirschler                                      June 17, 2015

LONDON --Drugmakers' plans to conduct vast clinical trials to test and hopefully validate the first Ebola vaccines have been thwarted by success in beating back the deadly epidemic in West Africa.

GlaxoSmithKline, Merck and Johnson & Johnson are struggling to recruit volunteers with enough exposure to the disease to prove whether their vaccines are doing the job and preventing infection.

The story might have been very different with just another three or four months of disease spread, underscoring the need to act more quickly to develop vaccines for emerging diseases....

Guinea, where Ebola is still infecting new victims, as "the only hope" for showing efficacy, according to Kieny and to Adrian Hill, director of the Jenner Institute at Britain's Oxford University.

The WHO is overseeing the so-called ring vaccination study in Guinea in which close contacts and family around each new case of Ebola are vaccinated -- either immediately or after a three-week delay -- to see if the shot offers protection.

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