Africa

Liberia’s launch of two new vaccines and the planned rally by main opposition Congress for Democratic Change, on Thursday dominate the headlines in the Thursday, April 28 editions of Liberian newspapers.The Congress for Democratic Change of former World Soccer Best player George Weah is Thursday holding a rally to petition its standard bearer, George Weah to contest the 2017 presidential race.

During a meeting the party held with the Liberia National Police, the police advised it (CDC) which has large support in the capital Monrovia to transport its members in vehicles to its headquarters to avoid traffic jams and obstruction of free movement.

Among other things, the police also advised the CDC to assign its party members to assist with crown control.

The New Dawn newspaper published this story as its front page banner headline under the caption: “Will it hold?-Police Order CDC to truck supporters, while the Daily Observer and Inquirer newspapers carried this story on their front pages.

The Daily Observer has the headline: For Today’s March, CDC, Police Prepare, while the Inquirer has the title: “Police, CDC Agree On Traffic.”

Posted Apr. 19, 2016 at 2:01 AM 

Zika is all over the news. Zika is surely dangerous, but it has its limitations and is likely to be well contained. However, its greater significance extends beyond any current spread. Instead, it exemplifies the crucial emerging trend of a novel infectious agent that has swiftly become a global threat.

April 19, 2016

Results of the Wellcome Trust funded trial of the experimental anti-Ebola drug TKM-130803 have been published today (April 19) in PLOS Medicine. Using a novel approach designed to get rapid indications of a drug's effectiveness, the trial showed that at the dose given the drug did not improve survival compared to historic controls.

TKM-130803 interferes with the production of two essential Ebola virus proteins and has been shown to improve survival when given to monkeys experimentally infected with Ebola virus. Scientists from the University of Oxford and Sierra Leone worked with the humanitarian organisation GOAL Global, the World Health Organisation, and collaborators from a number of other institutions to test whether TKM-130803 could improve survival in adults with Ebola infection.

The researchers used a new approach to generate early evidence of effectiveness or ineffectiveness. This method can be used as a tool to screen potential therapies and determine the need for further studies (including randomised controlled trials) during an epidemic. The approach meant that the study was quickly able to reach a pre-defined point to stop the trial.