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WHO says Ebola vaccine plans accelerating as trials advance

WHO ANNOUNCES  EBOLA VACCINE TRIALS WILL BE SPEEDED UP TO DECEMBER.
THREE RELATED STORIES.   (Scroll down)

REUTERS                                       OCT. 24

By Stephanie Nebehay and Kate Kelland

GENEVA/LONDON, Oct 24 (Reuters) - Trials of Ebola vaccines could begin in West Africa in December, a month earlier than expected, and hundreds of thousands of doses should be available for use by the middle of next year, the World Health Organization said on Friday.

Vaccines are being developed and made ready in record time by drugmakers working with regulators, the U.N. health agency said, but questions remain about their safety and efficacy which can only be settled by full clinical trials.

"Vaccine is not a magic bullet, but when ready they may be a good part of the effort to turn the tide against the epidemic," senior WHO official Marie-Paule Kieny told a news briefing after a meeting in Geneva of industry executives, global health experts, drug regulators and funders.

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Dallas Nurse Nina Pham, Now 'Ebola Free,' Discharged By NIH

NPR                                                                         Oct. 24   12:04 PM

by                             

BETHESDA, MARYLAND-- Dallas Nurse Nina Pham, who became the first person to contract Ebola on U.S. soil while treating patient Thomas Eric Duncan, is now free of the virus and has been discharged from a special facility at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md.

Nina Pham, 26, who became the first person to contract Ebola within the United States, is set to be released after testing free of the virus.--AP

Speaking at a news conference, Pham said ...

"Although I no longer have Ebola, I know it may be awhile before I get my strength back," Pham said, asking for the media to respect her privacy.

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Report: New York City physician tests positive for Ebola

UPDATES:  Officials Tracing New York Ebola Patient’s Movements, While Reassuring a Wary City-- Two stories

                 

The Gutter, the bowling alley in Brooklyn that Dr. Spencer visited with friends on Wednesday night. According to Dr. Mary T. Bassett, New York City's health commissioner, Dr. Spencer was not symptomatic at the time. Credit Robert Stolarik for The New York Times

NEW YORK TIMES                                                                                     Oct. 24, 2014               

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Ebola outbreak prompts food scarcity and threat of social conflict

FURTHER DETAILS ON THE IMPACT OF EBOLA ON LIBERIA

THE GUARDIAN                                        Oct. 23, 2014

By Clar Ni Chonghaile

 

A market in Kolahun, Liberia, where Mercy Corps says the economic impact of the Ebola outbreak is causing great hardship. Photograph: Mercy Corps

Farmers in Liberia are too frightened to work together in their fields, fertilisers and seeds are stuck on the other side of closed borders, markets are almost empty, people have less money because jobs that involve physical contact with others are disappearing, and prices for everything from cassava to palm oil are rising.

It’s a devastating chain reaction sparked by an unprecedented outbreak of disease in one of the world’s poorest countries. Beyond the high mortality rate and human suffering, aid agencies fear the fabric of a society that endured a brutal civil conflict may be ruined.

Ten months after the Ebola outbreak started in Guinea, evidence is mounting that the crisis may be reversing more than a decade of fitful progress in west Africa.

Read full story

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UK pledges £80m more aid to tackle Ebola epidemic in Sierra Leone

 

UPDATE:   EUROPEAN UNION ANNOUNCES ADDITIONAL FUNDING, NAMES AN EBOLA COORDINATOR 

NEW YORK TIMES   

By James Kanter and Andrew Higgins                                                                      OCT. 24, 2014

BRUSSELS--

...  Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, announced tody that Christos Stylianides, the coming European commissioner for humanitarian aid and crisis management, would be named Ebola coordinator.

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Ebola crisis: Mali confirms first infection case

UPDATE: THE GUINEAN GIRL DIED IN MALI. WHO IS SENDING MORE STAFF TO HELP STOP FUTHER EXPOSURES.

TIME MAGAZINE                                                             Oct. 24, 2014

A two-year-old Guinean girl who recently traveled to Mali and was later confirmed to have Ebola has died, officials said on Friday, one day after her positive diagnosis meant the virus had reached its sixth nation in West Africa.

The child died  in the western town of Kayes, a health official told Reuters. On Thursday, Health Minister Ousmane Kone told state television that she had traveled from neighboring Guinea,accompanied by her grandmother. The girl was admitted to a hospital on Wednesday night, where she tested positive for Ebola.

Health officials said the girl had begun bleeding from the nose before she left Guinea,, “meaning that the child was symptomatic during their travels through Mali” and that “multiple opportunities for exposure occurred when the child was visibly symptomatic.” The initial investigation identified 43 close and unprotected contacts, including 10 health workers.

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New York tests healthcare worker who was in West Africa for Ebola

REUTERS                                                          Oct 23, 2014

 (Reuters) - A New York City hospital is running Ebola tests on a healthcare worker with Doctors Without Borders who returned to the United States from West Africa and developed a fever and gastrointestinal symptoms, the city health department said on Thursday.

Preliminary test results were expected in the next 12 hours, the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene said in a statement....

The patient, who returned to the United States within the past 21 days, is being treated at Bellevue Hospital, the city's health department said. Twenty-one days is the maximum incubation period for Ebola.

A Facebook page of a man identified as the patient by several news outlets includes a photo of him clad in protective gear. It shows he went to Guinea around Sept. 18 and then to Brussels on October 16.

News of the latest potential Ebola case in the United States caused stocks to pare gains late in the trading session. "It threw a little scare into the market," said Michael James, managing director of equity trading at Wedbush Securities in Los Angeles.

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World Health Summit - Aid Agencies Criticise Slow Ebola Response

CLICK HERE - VIDEO - World Health Summit
Aid Agencies Criticise Slow Ebola Response

Aid agencies fighting Ebola say the international community has been 'woefully underprepared' in tackling the crisis.

CLICK HERE - M 8 Alliance - Berlin Declaration on Ebola
World Health Summit 2014, Berlin October 19 to 22, 2014

(1 page .PDF document)

submitted by George Hurlburt

Special Symposium at the WHS 2014
Ebola: A Wake-Up Call for Global Health

With respect to the Ebola crisis, the World Health Summit has organized a special symposium "Ebola: A Wake-Up Call for Global Health" in association with the German Federal Ministry of Health and the German Federal Foreign Office, held on October 20 from 08:30 to 10:00 (Program >>>).

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WHO voices confidence no wider spread of Ebola in Africa

REUTERS                                                                                                      Oct. 23, 2014

GENEVA/LONDON --The World Health Organization said on Thursday it was still trying to slow the rate of new infections but had "reasonable confidence" that the Ebola virus plaguing three West African countries had not spread into neighboring states.

Volunteers who will be sent to Africa in the forthcoming days are taught how to work with patients infected with the Ebola virus during a training session at AP-HP hospital Henri Mondor in Creteil, a suburb of Paris October 22, 2014.

Asked whether countries such as Guinea Bissau, Mali and Ivory Coast might have cases of the disease crossing their borders without knowing about or reporting them, WHO assistant director general Keiji Fukuda said he considered that unlikely.

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WHO statement on the third meeting of the International Health Regulations Emergency Committee regarding the 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa

 

WHO    GENEVA                                                                         Oct. 23, 2014

 The WHO Ebola Emergency Committee statement issued today, following its meetings this week, said exit screening in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone remains critical for reducing the exportation of Ebola cases.

The statement said "States should maintain and reinforce high-quality exit screening of all persons at international airports, seaport, and major land crossings, for unexplained febrile illness consistent with potential Ebola infection. The exit screening should consist of, at a minimum, a questionnaire, a temperature measurement and, if fever is discovered, an assessment of the risk that the fever is caused by Ebola Virus Disease (EVD). States should collect data from their exit screening processes, monitor their results, and share these with WHO on a regular basis and in a timely fashion. This will increase public confidence and provide important information to other States."

The report also encouraged States that have recently introduced entry screening measures to should share their experiences and lessons learned.

...The Committee reiterated its recommendation that there should be no general ban on international travel or trade.

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