Guinea

Health care workers deemed at high risk for infection didn't get sick after treatment with anti-flu regimen

CLICK HERE - The Lancet - Post-exposure prophylaxis against Ebola virus disease with experimental antiviral agents: a case-series of health-care workers

nlm.nih.gov - by Robert Preidt - August 25, 2015

Antiviral drugs may help protect people from developing Ebola after exposure to the deadly virus, a new case study suggests.

"We are excited to publish the first report of an antiviral-based post-exposure treatment against Ebola-virus infection in humans. We believe this work justifies further study of this postexposure treatment to protect health care workers accidentally exposed to Ebola virus in the field," lead author Dr. Michael Jacobs, of the Royal Free NHS Foundation Trust, London, said in a news release from The Lancet Infectious Diseases.

"What is more, a similar approach to treat household contacts of Ebola cases may work to prevent a major route of spread during an epidemic," he added.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

Mattia Panciroli / Flickr cc

CLICK HERE - WHO - First meeting of the Review Committee on the role of International Health Regulations in the Ebola response and WHO’s work in emergencies

cidrap.umn.edu - by Lisa Schnirring - August 25, 2015

A World Health Organization (WHO) committee tasked with reviewing how well the International Health Regulations (IHRs) worked during the Ebola outbreak wrapped up their first meeting today, with plans to dig into three main topics in the months ahead.

The group's newly elected chairman, Didier Houssin, MD, addressed reporters today during a telebriefing at the end of the 2-day meeting in Geneva. He is a surgeon who now heads the Evaluation Agency for Research and Higher Education in Paris. Houssin has served on WHO advisory groups before and has led some of its pandemic preparedness and IHR review groups in recent years.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

EUREKEALERT                                                                                                               Aug. 25, 2015
PITTSBURGH--The historic outbreak of Ebola virus disease in West Africa that began in March 2014 and has killed more than 11,000 people since, has raised new questions about the resilience of the virus and tested scientists' understanding of how to contain it. The latest discovery by a group of microbial risk-assessment and virology researchers suggests that the procedures for disposal of Ebola-contaminated liquid waste might underestimate the virus' ability to survive in wastewater.

Current epidemic response procedures from both the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advise that after a period of days, Ebola-contaminated liquid can be disposed of directly into a sewage system without additional treatment.

However, new data recently published by researchers from the University of Pittsburgh, Drexel University, and the National Institutes of Health indicate that Ebola can survive in detectable concentrations in wastewater for at least a week or longer.

Read complete story.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-08/uop-pda082515.php

THE LANCET by Kate Zinszer and others.                   Aug. 24,2015

In a speed outpacing control efforts, the Ebola virus disease (EVD) epidemic in parts of west Africa spread across Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone infecting an estimated 26 800 individuals and claiming more than 11 000 lives as of May 15, 2015.¹ Mobile populations coupled with porous borders^{1, 2} and commercial air travel patterns³ affected the frequency and breadth of Ebola virus transmission.