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WIRED                 BY Katie M. Palmer                                                    Nov. 24, 214

The FDA announced Friday that it would start developing a stockpile of blood plasma from Ebola survivors, treated with a pathogen inactivation system that’s never been used before in the United States.

So far, the US has had some amazing success in curing Ebola, possibly thanks to experimental plasma treatments. Drawn from survivors, the stuff comes enriched in antibodies that could help to fight off the disease—but it also has the potential to carry other diseases, like malaria, that are common in west Africa where Ebola is raging. The new system will kill off any extra contaminants that may be lurking in this potentially live-saving serum.

It’s the same one, Cerus Corporation’s Intercept system, that will be used in a Gates Foundation-funded study of Ebola treatments in West Africa. The pathogen-killing molecule at the heart of the system is amotosalen, part of a class of three-ringed molecules called psoralens....

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USA TODAY                       By Greg Zoraya                                                                                 Nov. 23, 2014

MONROVIA, Liberia — A snapshot of the Ebola epidemic raging across West Africa shows a wildfire of infections only slightly contained.

While cases have been on the decline in Liberia, the outbreak is worsening in neighboring countries, where basic Ebola-fighting tools are impractical.

Identifying the infected and those they've touched, and isolating them to break the transmission chain are all but impossible in Sierra Leone's capital of Freetown as well as the jungles of Guinea, says Jordan Tappero, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's second-in-command for the regional response...

New research suggests that Ebola's deadly inflammatory effects may be caused by the result of protein shedding by infected cells. (Victor Volchkov / PLOS Pathogens)

CLICK HERE - RESEARCH - PLOS Pathogens - Shed GP of Ebola Virus Triggers Immune Activation and Increased Vascular Permeability

latimes.com - by Monte Morin - November 20, 2014

New research suggests that the massive and destructive inflammation that characterizes Ebola virus disease may be caused by the release of foreign proteins from infected cells.

Although Ebola is infamous for causing bleeding in some of its victims, doctors say the vast majority of deaths are the result of organ failure and shock brought on by the uncontrolled release of cytokines, compounds that cells use to communicate with one another and control immune response. . .

. . . In a paper published Thursday in Plos Pathogens, researchers at the Claude Bernard University of Lyon, in France, argued that glycoprotein shedding by infected cells may explain the immune system's damaging response.

REUTERS                                                                                                                        Nov. 22, 2014

BAMAKO -- Mali has recorded a new case of Ebola in the capital Bamako after the friend of a nurse who died of the hemorrhagic fever earlier this month tested positive for the disease, health and medical officials said on Saturday.

The nurse contracted the disease after treating an imam from neighboring Guinea, who died after being incorrectly diagnosed with kidney problems. This allowed Ebola to spread to five other people in the West African nation's second outbreak.

"Of two suspected cases tested, one was negative and the other positive. The latter was placed in an isolation center for intensive treatment," a statement from the health ministry said, adding that another 310 contact cases were being monitored.

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http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/22/us-health-ebola-mali-idUSKCN0J60EI20141122