Ebola. Latest developments thread.

[whitewind]

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-08-14/researchers-hunting-ebola-cure-scrapped-under-budget-cuts/5669842

CSIRO Staff Association secretary Sam Popovski said the decision to cut funding to the laboratory was short-sighted.

"This is terrible news for hardworking researchers who are dedicated to keeping Australians, indeed the world's population safe from illness." he said.

The high-containment facility also conducts research into Avian Influenza, SARS and Hendra virus.

ustralian research into a vaccine for the deadly Ebola virus will suffer as a result of federal budget cuts, CSIRO staff say.

The Federal Government has cut more than $110 million from the research organisation's budget and as a result up to eight researchers will lose their jobs at the Australian Animal Health Laboratory (AAHL) in Geelong, Victoria.

Scientists at the facility are trying to find a vaccine for Ebola, that has killed hundreds of people in West Africa since an outbreak began in February.

The researchers at the AAHL had recently acquired a live strain of the virus that had swept through the region.

CSIRO Staff Association secretary Sam Popovski said the decision to cut funding to the laboratory was short-sighted.

"This is terrible news for hardworking researchers who are dedicated to keeping Australians, indeed the world's population safe from illness." he said.

The high-containment facility also conducts research into Avian Influenza, SARS and Hendra virus.

"The Australian Animal Health Laboratory is particularly funded to be Australia's national facility in this area," Mr Popovski said.

"It's recognised as the national facility for this work and therefore is at the frontline of protecting Australia from these viruses."

Topics: diseases-and-disorders, medical-research, geelong-3220

First posted Thu at 8:33am

[whitewind]

http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/aug/15/ebola-outbreak-vastly-underestimated-world-health-organisation

Ebola outbreak vastly underestimated, WHO says
Agencies call for global response as WHO admits extraordinary measures are needed to contain disease amid rampant fear

Monica Mark in Freetown and Sam Jones
The Guardian, Saturday 16 August 2014 03.21 AEST

The WHO has been criticised for a slow reaction to the epidemic.

The magnitude of the Ebola outbreak in west Africa, which has killed more than 1,000 people, has been vastly underestimated and will require “extraordinary measures, on a massive scale” if it is to be contained, the World Health Organisation has warned.

The admission came as Médecins sans Frontières (MSF), the medical charity, said the disease was spreading “faster than we can respond to”, and accused the WHO of being too slow to react.

The outbreak, which is the worst to date, has killed 1,069 people, with 1,975 cases recorded in Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria. However, the WHO fears the figures are unreliable.

“Staff at the outbreak sites see evidence that the numbers of reported cases and deaths vastly underestimate the magnitude of the outbreak,” it said.

“WHO is coordinating a massive scaling up of the international response, marshalling support from individual countries, disease control agencies, agencies within the UN system, and others.”

It was using “practical, on-the-ground” intelligence to map the outbreak, pinpoint the areas of ongoing transmission, and decide where health workers and new isolation facilities were most needed.

The WHO said the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention were equipping the hardest-hit countries with technology to enable real-time reporting of cases and analysis of trends.

Efforts are under way to help those trapped in quarantined areas, with the World Food Programme seeking to deliver food to more than 1 million people trapped on the borders of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Such steps, said the WHO, had been taken in “recognition of the extraordinary measures needed, on a massive scale, to contain the outbreak in settings characterised by extreme poverty, dysfunctional health systems, a severe shortage of doctors and rampant fear”.

Ernest Bai Koroma, Sierra Leone’s president, painted a stark picture of the outbreak in the country with the highest death toll, admitting that the government’s initial response had been too slow but saying more help could have come from countries with greater resources and expertise.

After observing a minute’s silence in memory of those who died, a sombre-looking president said:“I wasn’t happy with the response because we have all been slow, and this is a crisis that requires quick action in terms of response. What we can do as a government, I believe we have done. We look forward to the international community to increase their response.”

“This is a call we’re now making to the world because we need treatment centres. And in the treatment centres, we need clinicians that require specialised training. We don’t have that. And if people are dying the response should be an extraordinary response. We must limit bureaucracy.”

Sierra Leone, which has no labs capable of testing for the virus, had received less than $2m in direct international funding, Koroma said, although millions more had been channelled through aid organisations.

MSF, which warned almost a month ago that the outbreak was already “out of control”, issued a bleak assessment of the situation on Friday.

“It is deteriorating faster – and moving faster – than we can respond to,” said Joanne Liu, MSF international president. “It is like wartime.”

Speaking at a press conference in Geneva, Liu criticised the WHO for not declaring the outbreak an international public health emergency until 8 August, adding: “I think the wake-up call was too late”.

Now that a common understanding had been reached, she said, the world needed to see concrete action in the field.

“If we don’t stabilise Liberia, we will never stabilise the region,” she told Reuters. “Over the next six months we should get the upper hand on the epidemic; this is my gut feeling.”

Liu’s warning was echoed by Dr Unni Krishnan, Plan International’s head of disaster preparedness and response, who said a decisive moment had been reached in the battle against the disease.

“Time is running out fast and millions of lives are at stake,” he said. “Turning the tide of this deadly disease is now the collective responsibility of the world.”

The best way to deal with the outbreak and prepare for future ones, Krishnan added, was to invest in public health systems and improve the care of infected people.

Although some airlines have suspended flights to parts of west Africa, the WHO has stressed that the danger posed to air travellers remains low.

“Unlike infections such as influenza or tuberculosis, Ebola is not airborne,” said Dr Isabelle Nuttall, WHO’s director of global capacity alert and response. “It can only be transmitted by direct contact with the body fluids of a person who is sick with the disease.”

Nuttall said the risk of Ebola transmission on flights was so low that the WHO did not consider airports to be a particular danger.

[frozenthunderbolt]

"production by the virus of a protein called Ebola Viral Protein 24 (eVP24) stops the interferon-based signals from ramping up immune defenses."

"body's first response disabled, the virus is free to mass produce itself and trigger the too-large immune response that damages organs and often becomes deadly as part of Ebola virus disease"

http://medicalxpress.com/news/2014-08-uncover-ebola-virus-disables-immune.html

Looks like it creates a cytokine storm/cascade. There are some herbs that help with that, I looked it up when researching swine flue and bird flu - i'll see if I can dig out what i found. . .

[Dreamwalker.]

http://medicalxpress.com/news/2014-08-liberia-ebola-patients.html

Edited February 25, 2015 by Dreamwalker.

[Auxin]

I did some questionable shit as a teen, but stealing ebola contaminated bedding has to be some sort of a record in teen stupidity.

[waterboy 2.0]

As of 14th August

Edited August 19, 2014 by waterboy

[whitewind]

World leaders 'failing to help' over Ebola outbreak in Africa

Médecins Sans Frontières chief claims response to catastrophe is 'almost zero', with nations most concerned with self protection

Lisa O'Carroll
The Guardian, Wednesday 20 August 2014 05.36 AEST

The international community has made "almost zero" response to the Ebola outbreak in west Africa, with western leaders more interested in protecting their own countries than helping contain the crisis that has now claimed more than 1,200 lives, a senior international aid worker said on Tuesday.

Brice de la Vigne, the operations director of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), said politicians in industrialised countries urgently needed to take action, or risk the outbreak spreading much further. "Globally, the response of the international community is almost zero," he told the Guardian. "Leaders in the west are talking about their own safety and doing things like closing airlines – and not helping anyone else."

His comments came as the World Health Organisation announced that the death toll in the world's worst Ebola outbreak has now exceeded 1,200. The haemorrhagic disease, which kills up to 90% of those infected, is ravaging Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, and also has a toehold in Nigeria, Africa's biggest economy.

Dr Gabriel Fitzpatrick, who is working at the MSF field hospital in Kailahun, the epicentre of the crisis in Sierra Leone. "The main objective here is not to dramatically increase the person's chance of survival, it's to contain the spread"

At least 810 cases of Ebola have been reported in Sierra Leone, and 348 people have died from the virus in the country, according to World Health Organisation figures. Since June Fitzpatrick has been working in the MSF field hospital, processing patients through three stages with a "suspect tent", a "probably tent" and a "confirmed tent". Once in the final tent, their chances of coming out alive are slim.

He described one family of nine wiped out after a grandmother contracted the disease on August 4. Death is swift – usually within four or five days.

Fear, rumours and conspiracy theories have conspired with poverty and high illiteracy to allow the disease to flourish in two countries whose infrastructure is already weak. "Both Sierra Leone and Liberia were at war 10 years ago and all the infrastructure was destroyed. It's the worst place on earth to have these epidemics," De la Vigne said.

Sierra Leone and Liberia have already declared a state of emergency, but health provision is reaching breaking point.

Sinead Walsh, who is working on the Sierra Leonean presidential Ebola task force, said the crisis was already causing deeper problems. She said more than 1 million people are in quarantine in Kailahun and neighbouring Kenema alone, businesses are closing, farmers are unable to trade and fears are rising about food shortages.

The disease is having a knock-on effect, with sick people afraid to go to hospital for fear of catching Ebola. Health workers fear deaths from malaria and in childbirth could now also escalate.

"We are gone beyond the stage of a health crisis. This is a humanitarian emergency now." said Walsh, Ireland's ambassador to the country and head of Irish Aid in Freetown. "We need to start working on the secondary crisis."

Fitzpatrick said the priority was to contain the disease, using local volunteers to find suspected cases and bring patients to hospitals where they can be isolated: "The second thing is to trace those who we know have been in contact and keep them under observation. We are not doing any contact tracing at the moment," he said. "It's not rocket science to do on a large scale across west Africa. But it needs an organisational structure and good leadership." David Heymann, professor of infections disease epidemiology at the London school of hygiene and tropical medicine, who headed the global response to SARS while working for WHO said that oubtreak took three months to contain.

He also said containing ebola was "not rocket science" identifying "contact tracing" and public communications as the key factors.

One of the differences with SARS is the outbreak happened in industrialised countries where systems for "infection control" were in place, he said.

[_Cursive]

Everyone, relax.

The day I listen/believe mass media is the day I buy a TV.

Edited August 21, 2014 by _Cursive

[whitewind]

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/aug/21/ebola-quarantine-violence-west-point-monrovia-liberia

Violence erupted in an Ebola quarantine zone in Liberia's capital when soldiers opened fire and used teargas on crowds as they evacuated a state official and her family.

Four residents were injured on Wednesday in the clashes in Monrovia's West Point slum, which has been closed off as part of new security measures aimed at containing the deadly virus.

The crackdown in Liberia comes as authorities around the world scramble to stem the worst ever outbreak of Ebola, which has killed more than 1,200 people across west Africa this year.

The Liberian president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, quarantined West Point and Dolo Town, to the east of the capital, and imposed a night-time curfew as part of drastic measures to fight the disease.

Residents of West Point, where club-wielding youths stormed an Ebola medical facility on Saturday, reacted with fury, hurling stones and shouting at the security forces.

"It is inhumane," one resident, Patrick Wesseh, told AFP by telephone. "They can't suddenly lock us up without any warning. How are our children going to eat?"

Liberia, where 466 people out of 834 diagnosed cases have died, has seen the biggest toll among the four west African countries hit by Ebola.

Deaths from the epidemic now stand at 1,229 after the disease claimed 84 victims in three days, according to the World Health Organisation.

Fears that the virus could spread to other continents have seen flights to the region cancelled, and authorities around the world adopting measures to screen travellers arriving from affected nations.

Late on Wednesday, Vietnam said it had released two Nigerian air travellers from isolation after their fevers subsided. In Burma a local man is still undergoing tests after arriving from Guinea with a fever.

[Sallubrious]

I don't know why everyone is so concerned, the US army has developed ZMapp to save everyone.

They use "humanized" mouse monoclonal antibodies grown in Tobacco plants to create the transgenic brew Known as ZMapp.

These sweet little "Franken antibodies" are so cool they modify the recipients DNA and the new genetic profile is even transferred to the offspring of the recipients of the genetic treatment !

It's not a vaccine it's a genetic modification that sticks, it not only modifies somatic cells but they change all the germ cells too, passing it on to the offspring. The trans gene/s recode the function of the host gene/s to produce different proteins etc - forever !

It's nice to know the human genome is being held in such high regard by the trustworthy alliance between big tobacco and the US military.

Edited August 22, 2014 by Sally

[whitewind]

That's some kinky mad tech Sally sounds like sci-fi!

[LokStok]

 

These sweet little "Franken antibodies" are so cool they modify the recipients DNA and the new genetic profile is even transferred to the offspring of the recipients of the genetic treatment !

It's not a vaccine it's a genetic modification that sticks, it not only modifies somatic cells but they change all the germ cells too, passing it on to the offspring. The trans gene/s recode the function of the host gene/s to produce different proteins etc - forever !

thats actually way scarier to me than the ebola virus!

[whitewind]

Oooh is now a good time to mention that ebola is killing over 50 people a day now? Except, yesterdays figures state it was 1,200, today it's 1,350. Estimates, of course. They don't really know what's going on because the foreign medical camps are totally overwhelmed. And, of course, there are over 1 million people quarantined and food isn't getting in or out - and probably information too. Basically, it's totally out of control and there's nothing we can do to contain it - if we were even making the effort.

The disease has affected at least 2,473 people and killed 1,350 in four West African countries. In just two days -- Aug. 17 and Aug. 18 -- there were 221 new suspected Ebola cases and 106 deaths, according to the WHO.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/us-ebola-patients-hospital-outbreak-worsens-west-africa/story?id=25067453

Edited August 22, 2014 by whitewind

[whitewind]

http://www.foxnews.com/health/2014/08/22/who-warns-shadow-zones-hidden-cases-in-ebola-outbreak/

The scale of the world's worst Ebola outbreak has been concealed by families hiding infected loved ones in their homes and the existence of "shadow zones" that medics cannot enter, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday.

The U.N. agency issued a statement detailing why the outbreak in West Africa had been underestimated, following criticism that it had moved too slowly to contain the killer virus, now spreading out of control.

Independent experts raised similar concerns a month ago that the contagion could be worse than reported because suspicious local inhabitants are chasing away health workers and shunning treatment.

More than 1,300 people have died from the disease and many experts do not expect the epidemic to be brought under control this year.

Under-reporting of cases is a problem especially in Liberia and Sierra Leone. The WHO said it was now working with Medecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to produce "more realistic estimates".

The head of MSF, which has urged the WHO to do more, told Reuters in an interview on Thursday that the fight against Ebola was being undermined by a lack of international leadership and emergency management skills.

[Auxin]

I always expected the epidemic to be as much as ten times whats reported. Even in a much more developed country not everyone who gets sick goes to the hospital and is correctly diagnosed.

As with these sorts of things I also expect the fatality rate is overestimated as, generally, in epidemics of rare diseases only serious cases get clinically diagnosed. At the start when they only diagnosed the dieing lethality was "90%" now that theyre more used to seeing it around and can identify it when its only serious lethality is "60%". Will it level out at 20% or 40%? Same happened with some flus, they only clinically diagnosed it in corpses and were like "holy shit, its 100% lethal" but then when they tested living people it was more like "woops, we meant 6%"

Be careful reading fox news, theyre notoriously inaccurate and a well known political propaganda engine for a major US party.

Going to fox news for news is as dubious as going to yahoo answers for anything resembling coherent and rational information

[Dreamwalker.]

http://medicalxpress.com/sort/date/all/

Bolivia patient isolated for Ebola check

Canadian hospital isolates possible Ebola patient

Ivory Coast closes borders with Ebola-hit neighbours

Last Ebola-free region of Liberia falls to virus

How the world is underestimating Ebola: WHO

Edited August 24, 2014 by Dreamwalker.

[Auxin]

Now a highly infectious man in the early stages of ebola is being flown to the center of London as well.

Is it just me or is the global responce to ebola being run by the king of imbiciles? Its very well established that current practices do not prevent medical staff from getting infected and spreading it around, so what moron got the idea 'oh, lets fly these fountains of imminent death to every major city on the planet'?

First of all, what makes a certain racially/politically distinctive nurse so much better than black african men and women that a government would spend millions and risk their entire population just to hypothetically marginally ingrease his chance of survival?

And why in the hell plop the infectious down in cities of millions?

If nations or the WHO really need super advanced research hospitals to treat their racially preferred plague victims why arent hospitals set up on remote islands?

[Dreamwalker.]

Everyone, relax.

The day I listen/believe mass media is the day I buy a TV.

://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BxUHe8v4Pw

totally agree with you about propaganda tv news....

I only watched the 1st part of your vid.....I agree millions of people die each year from common diseases like flu & extreme weather etc.....but these ppl were generally weak...old...frail etc. We are all going to die! of something..sooner or later...

So the theory is ebola virus may have jumped species via meat consumption from an infected animal....primate...boar?

Humans pick up many virus's from other animals.

...Another good reason to be vegan.

Virus's are bits of info, that co-op cells to reproduce...are they alive or ?

Like all programs some will thrive where others fail...depends on how well it uses the resources of its environment...us.

You can see when a species is introduced to a new land ..like rabbits or mice in Oz...or gorse & possums in NZ, they can be extremely successful...whereas others like moose in Fiordland may not do so well.

Due to the demise of natural habitat, millions of virus are becoming extinct due to the extinction of their host.

Others due to an opportunistic program adapt mutate evolve to exploit a new host.

Its like wild fire....eventually in the interest of the virus & the mutation's in the host an equilibrium will be achieved...after the initial mass die off..............a plague of biblical proportions.....Bubonic plague may have came in successive waves with the silk rd...invading Mongols...stowaway rats from Asia............the same patten...

& there's a perfect storm.........there are many new deadly virus hot spots..many different programs.....a weakening immune system due to environmental degradation, stress & poor nutrition (junk food).

http://medicalxpress.com/news/2014-08-health-agency-staff-ebola-infection.html

"The World Health Organization on Sunday announced the first Ebola infection among its experts, describing the infected person as an epidemiologist who had been deployed to Sierra Leone."

so if top expert got infected?????

Edited August 26, 2014 by Dreamwalker.

[whitewind]

Like, that is seriously exponential in nature. Worried, yet?

Edited August 26, 2014 by whitewind

[Auxin]

Looks like, if that trend continues for a bit, it'll explode out of control just as the north goes into its flu season.

That'll be a fucking mess.

[Dreamwalker.]

WHO medic with Ebola taken to Germany for treatment (Update)

Canada pulling Ebola lab team from Sierra Leone

Ebola zone countries isolated as airlines stop flights (Update)

ebola a deadly disease that exists as five strains, none of which have approved therapies. One of the most lethal strains is the Sudan ebolavirus (SUDV). Although not the strain currently devastating West Africa,

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2014-08-potential-therapy-sudan-strain-ebola.html#jCp

Edited August 28, 2014 by Dreamwalker.

[whitewind]

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/aug/28/ebola-cases-rise-20000-world-health-organisation-west-africa-death-toll

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned the number of Ebola cases could rise to 20,000 as doctors in Liberia say the deadly virus is now spreading so rapidly they can no longer deal with the crisis.

The UN health agency said the outbreak is accelerating in west Africa, where the death toll has now reached 1,552, and it believes the numbers who have been hit by Ebola could be two to four times higher than the current 3,069 cases currently reported.

"[it] is a scale that I think has not ever been anticipated in terms of an Ebola outbreak," said Bruce Aylward, assistant director general of WHO.

etc etc

So it's time we hit the panic button and actually did something about it ffs.

GSK are busy making thousands of untrialled vaccines, ready for next year. And the other pharmas are ramping up too. This could get messy folks.

[DiscoStu]

wasn't the "real" 2012 date sometime around 2016?

[Auxin]

Its always just around the corner for folks who want to see it around the corner

Reminds me of a homeless guy in california, walking around with a "The End Is NEIGH" sign.

He got hit by a truck.

He was right.

[Optimystic]

nah 2016 isn't the end of the world its just the end of Merrika ....

they're not gonna run out of money tho... more like they're gonna run out of ink...

we'll be all plastic by 17 we'll have plenty of plastic cause its made from petroleum dur ... I kid......

something that got my attenton a while back tho.. im more worried about space rox than ebola

 

but since I brought up space rocks... just gotta wonder if a virus can travel to here on a space rock