That would explain the virulence of the current virus, yeah.
Related: Ending the Month ZMapping Ebola in Africa
Well, it is in the United States now and at the very least it is looking like the $ame $ort of $windle we saw five years ago with $wine flu. As predictable as clockwork, with the added benefit of African test subjects. A "constant crop" needs to be maintained, and in pharmaceuticals we tru$t.
Of course, it could never come here.
"WHO set to expedite new Ebola treatments" by Maria Cheng and Clarence Roy-Macaulay | Associated Press September 06, 2014
LONDON — Desperate to restore hope amid the Ebola crisis, the World Health Organization said Friday it will accelerate the use of experimental treatments and vaccines to contain the expanding epidemic in West Africa.
At least someone is going to be made healthy out of all this.
After convening a two-day meeting of more than 200 specialists to figure out which experimental treatments should be used first, the WHO said survivors’ blood could be used immediately, tapping into the thousands of people who have survived the virus, which has about a 50 percent death rate and no licensed treatments.
‘‘We have to change the sense that there is no hope,’’ Dr. Marie-Paule Kieny, a WHO assistant director-general, said during a press conference in Geneva on Friday. The evidence for whether blood from survivors can help Ebola patients is mixed.
Kieny said the expert panel also identified two promising Ebola vaccines and that early results from safety tests — which have started in the United States — will be available in November.
If promising, Kieny said production could then be ramped up and health workers in West Africa could be given the vaccine to test its effectiveness.
‘‘This is absolutely unprecedented,’’ Kieny said of the willingness of specialists, manufacturers, and regulatory bodies to clear safety and bureaucratic hurdles so quickly.
She said there was not enough evidence on the drug ZMapp to know if it works but that there are ‘‘encouraging signs.’’ ZMapp has so far been used in seven people, of whom two died. Kieny said the drug would be tested when more supplies are available; its manufacturer said its supplies are exhausted.
Though Ebola clinics in West Africa are understaffed and often lack basic supplies, some said it is theoretically possible to offer the blood of survivors now.
Specialists believe the antibodies in the blood of people who have survived Ebola might help other patients stave off the virus long enough for their own immune systems to respond.
‘‘Blood transfusions are done in many African countries so this should really not be a problem,’’ said Oyewale Tomori, a professor of virology at Redeemer’s University in Nigeria, who participated in the meeting. He noted that survivors’ blood was first used to treat Ebola patients in a 1995 outbreak in rural conditions.
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"Study finds Ebola vaccine works but needs booster" by Lauran Neergaard | Associated Press September 08, 2014
WASHINGTON — New research shows that one shot of an experimental Ebola vaccine can trigger fast protection in monkeys, but the effect waned unless the animals got a booster shot made a different way.
Yeah, you gotta get two not one.
Some healthy people are rolling up their sleeves at the National Institutes of Health for the first human safety study of this vaccine in hopes it eventually might be used in the current Ebola outbreak in West Africa.
I'm sure there are lines around the corner.
The NIH on Sunday published some of the key animal research behind those injections. One reason the vaccine was deemed promising was that a single dose protected all four vaccinated monkeys when they were exposed to high levels of Ebola virus just five weeks later, researchers reported in the journal Nature Medicine.
Five weeks is in line with other vaccines routinely used today, and it did not take multiple doses to trigger that much protection, said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, whose employees led the work.
By the bottom of this post you will understand why I don't listen to him.
The bigger challenge is that the protection wanes over time.
Researchers exposed monkeys to Ebola 10 months after vaccination, and this time only half were protected. Partial protection is better than none, Fauci said. But the goal is long-lasting protection, so booster shots were recommended.
The vaccine is made with a chimpanzee cold virus, used as a delivery system for pieces of an Ebola gene. The researchers tried simply giving another dose as a booster two months later. That didn’t work well enough.
So they tried a different approach called ‘‘prime-boost.’’ The first dose, to prime the immune system, was the original chimp virus-based Ebola vaccine. But for the booster two months later, they made vaccine a different way. They encased the same Ebola gene pieces inside a poxvirus that is used to make a vaccine against smallpox. (Neither vaccine type can cause Ebola.)
This time, all four monkeys still were protected 10 months after the initial shot.
With the Ebola crisis rapidly worsening, the World Health Organization said Friday it would try to speed the use of certain experimental products, including two vaccine candidates.
The WHO said that in November, it expects early results from first-stage studies to determine whether the vaccine appears safe and triggers an immune reaction in people. That would help determine whether to test the shots’ effectiveness in health care workers in West Africa.
Small animal and human safety studies cannot guarantee that experimental vaccines work in an outbreak, Fauci said. That is why he emphasizes public health measures such as isolating the sick and, especially for health workers, using personal protection equipment.
The findings on the booster shot illustrate an added complexity to speeding an experimental vaccine into the field. The initial first phase study results would shed light only on that ‘‘priming’’ vaccine made from the chimp cold virus, Fauci said. The poxvirus booster step would be tested later only if scientists decided the initial vaccine was promising enough.
Still, manufacturer Glaxo-SmithKline has said it plans to begin manufacturing up to 10,000 doses of the initial NIH-developed vaccine.
Oh, now I $ee who is getting the contract!
Canadian researchers created a similar Ebola vaccine that works in monkeys. Manufacturer NewLink Genetics of Ames, Iowa, said first-stage safety testing in healthy volunteers is set to begin in a few weeks.
President Obama said Sunday that helping to contain the Ebola outbreak in West Africa is a US national security priority but it is going to be a long and difficult task.
What a mess he is going to leave.
Speaking on NBC’s “Meet the Press,’’ Obama said the American military will be helping set up isolation units and equipment there and providing security for public health workers flocking in from around the world.
I'm sure they are going to love getting those deployment orders.
Obama warned that if the virus spreads it could mutate and conceivably reach the United States and become a serious public health issue, although he said ‘‘it shouldn’t reach our shores.’’
It has in Dallas.
In Nebraska on Sunday, doctors treating the Worcester, Mass., man who became infected with Ebola while working in Liberia said he is making progress.
Dr. Rick Sacra arrived at the Nebraska Medical Center on Friday for treatment in the hospital’s specialized 10-bed isolation unit. Dr. Phil Smith said Sacra remains very tired, but his progress has been encouraging. Sacra, 51, has been helping with his treatment by providing to his doctors tips he discerned while working with Ebola patients in Africa.
‘‘We are encouraged by what we see, but it’s too early to say he has turned a corner,’’ Smith said.
The doctors said Sacra has joked with them about baseball because he is a Boston Red Sox fan and Smith follows the New York Yankees. ‘‘He’s made a few jokes,’’ Smith said. ‘‘In my experience, that’s a good sign.’’
Smith said Sacra is receiving an experimental drug that is different from the one given to the two earlier American Ebola patients.
Sacra was able to visit with family members and friends for about half an hour on Saturday and Sunday via a video conference system at the hospital. Dr. Angela Hewlett said family members read Bible verses to him.
Sacra spent 15 years working at the Liberia hospital where he fell ill. He said he felt compelled to return after hearing that two other missionaries with the North Carolina-based charity SIM with whom he had worked were sick. He delivered babies at the hospital and was not involved in the treatment of Ebola patients.
Also see: Sacra’s Saga
Not interested.
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"Ebola caseload expected to surge; US, Britain plan isolation units" by Jonathan Paye-Layleh | Associated Press September 09, 2014
MONROVIA, Liberia — The World Health Organization warned Monday that many thousands of new infections of Ebola are expected in Liberia in the coming weeks.
The current Ebola outbreak is the largest on record. It has spread from Guinea to Sierra Leone, Liberia, Nigeria, and Senegal and killed more than 2,000 people. An ‘‘exponential increase’’ in new cases is expected in the hardest-hit countries in coming weeks, the United Nations health agency said.
‘‘As soon as a new Ebola treatment facility is opened, it immediately fills to overflowing with patients, pointing to a large but previously invisible caseload,’’ the WHO said in a statement about the situation in Liberia.
The United States and Britain have said they will send medical equipment and military personnel to West Africa to help contain the outbreak.
So far, more than 3,500 people have been infected, nearly half of them in Liberia.
The WHO said Monday that one of its doctors working in Sierra Leone has been infected. The doctor was not identified, but the US State Department said he is American. Emory University Hospital in Atlanta said a patient with Ebola will arrive there Tuesday morning.
President Obama said Sunday that the military would help to set up isolation units and provide security for health workers responding to the outbreak. A 25-bed field hospital will be erected in the Liberian capital, said Colonel Steven Warren, a Pentagon spokesman. The clinic will be used to treat health care workers, a high number of whom have become infected. The center will be turned over to the Liberian government. There is no plan to staff it with US personnel.
Liberia welcomed the news. ‘‘This is not Liberia’s particular fight; it is a fight the international community must engage very, very seriously,” said Information Minister Lewis Brown.
Britain will open a 62-bed center in Sierra Leone in coming weeks. It will be operated by military engineers and medical staff with help from the charity Save the Children. The clinic will include a special section for treating health care workers.
Currently, there are about 570 beds in Ebola treatment centers in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia. WHO says nearly 1,000 more are needed.
Many health workers have been reluctant to help, fearing there isn’t enough protective equipment to keep them safe.
In Nebraska, a doctor who contracted Ebola in Liberia appeared to be better tolerating treatment. The family of Dr. Rick Sacra, 51, of Worcester, said he ate breakfast Monday for the first time since arriving Friday at Nebraska Medical Center. WHO said 152 health care workers have been infected in Liberia, and 79 have died.
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"With surge in Liberia, Ebola case toll above 4,200" by SARAH DiLORENZO and MARIA CHENG | Associated Press September 10, 2014
DAKAR, Senegal — A surge in Ebola infections in Liberia is driving a spiraling outbreak in West Africa that is increasingly putting health workers at risk as they struggle to treat an overwhelming number of patients.
A higher proportion of health workers has been infected in this outbreak than in any previous one. The latest infection was of a doctor with the World Health Organization treating patients in Sierra Leone. The organization gave no details, but an American who became infected while working in West Africa landed in the United States Tuesday to get treatment at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta.
This is the second WHO staffer to be infected in Sierra Leone, and the United Nations health agency said Tuesday that after an investigation of the first case, staffers battling Ebola there now have better working conditions, including larger, more private quarters.
The outbreak sweeping West Africa is thought to have killed more than 2,200 people, and public health experts agree that it is out of control. More than 4,200 people are believed to have been sickened in Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, and Senegal.
The disease is spreading particularly quickly in Liberia, where WHO figures published Tuesday showed that more than 500 new cases were recorded in a week. The organization warned Monday that it expects thousands of new cases in the country in the coming weeks.
Health workers in Liberia have also paid a heavy toll; 160 have been sickened in that country, and 80 have died, said Karin Landgren, the UN envoy to the country. Health workers are at particular risk because of their close contact with the sick. Ebola is spread by contact with bodily fluids of those who have symptoms.
A shortage of doctors and nurses to care for these patients is being exacerbated by the sheer number of health workers becoming infected. But that shortage might also be the reason they are getting infected, experts say.
‘‘The fact that people that are highly trained are getting infected is because the number of cases is bigger than the bed capacity,’’ said Jorge Castilla, an epidemiologist with the European Union’s Department for Humanitarian Aid. ‘‘When you have too many patients, you have too much to do, you get tired, and when you’re exhausted, you make mistakes.’’
Staffing shortages have been exacerbated by strikes, and nurses and doctors have also fled their workplaces simply out of fear. Staff at a hospital in the Liberian capital went on strike this week; a local pastor called the place a ‘‘slaughterhouse’’ because it is not equipped to handle treatment for Ebola.
Castilla said doctors face the impossible choice between turning away patients they don’t have room for — knowing that they will continue to spread the disease — and taking those patients in, thus putting their own health at risk.
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"Ebola outpaces global response, WHO says" by Nick Cumming-Bruce | New York Times September 13, 2014
GENEVA — A month after declaring the Ebola outbreak in West Africa a global health emergency, the World Health Organization warned Friday that the disease is still outpacing the international response to contain it.
“The Ebola outbreak that is ravaging parts of West Africa is the largest, most severe, and most complex in the nearly four-decade history of this disease,” Margaret Chan, the health organization’s director general, said at a news conference. “The number of new cases is moving far faster than the capacity to treat them.”
So far, 4,784 Ebola cases have been reported and more than 2,400 people have died in the outbreak, which is concentrated in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, Chan said Friday.
A surge of 400 new cases in Liberia in the past week, double the number of new cases in the preceding week, was “a particular cause for concern,” the health organization said. Sierra Leone reported 200 new cases in the past week and a high rate of transmission in the capital, Freetown, WHO said. Nearly half the total number of infections in West Africa and just more than half the deaths occurred in the past 21 days, it said.
Chan’s comments came at a joint news conference with Cuba’s public health minister, Roberto Morales Ojeda, to announce that Cuba would send 165 doctors and nurses to Sierra Leone, the biggest commitment of personnel to the health crisis so far by any country, Chan said.
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"21,000 Ebola cases due by November if no changes" by Maria Cheng | Associated Press September 23, 2014
LONDON — New estimates from the World Health Organization warn the number of Ebola cases could hit 21,000 in six weeks unless efforts to curb the outbreak are intensified.
Since the first cases were reported six months ago, the tally in West Africa has reached an estimated 5,800 illnesses.
WHO officials say cases are continuing to increase exponentially and Ebola could sicken people for years to come without better control measures.
In recent weeks, health officials worldwide have stepped up efforts to provide aid but the virus is still spreading. There aren’t enough hospital beds, health workers, or even soap and water in the hardest-hit West African countries: Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia.
Last week, the United States revealed it would build more than a dozen medical centers in Liberia and send 3,000 troops to help. Britain and France have also pledged to build treatment centers in Sierra Leone and Guinea, and the World Bank and UNICEF have sent more than $1 million worth of supplies to the region.
Germany’s defense minister is asking for volunteers from the country’s military to staff a clinic it plans to set up in West Africa, where Ebola has claimed about 2,800 lives.
In a memo circulated Monday, Ursula von der Leyen appealed to soldiers and civilian employees to ‘‘voluntarily make yourselves available for this unusual mission.’’
The soldiers the United States is sending to West Africa to help set up its treatment centers and train local physicians are not volunteers; they are being deployed.
‘‘We’re beginning to see some signs in the response that gives us hope this increase in cases won’t happen,’’ said Christopher Dye, WHO’s director of strategy and study coauthor, who acknowledged the predictions come with a lot of uncertainties.
‘‘This is a bit like weather forecasting. We can do it a few days in advance, but looking a few weeks or months ahead is very difficult’’ he said.
The report also calculated the death rate to be about 70 percent among hospitalized patients but noted many Ebola cases were only identified after they died.
Dye said there was no proof that Ebola was more infectious or deadly than in previous outbreaks.
The new analysis was published online Tuesday by the New England Journal of Medicine, six months after the first infections were reported on March 23.
WHO is just one of the groups that have attempted to calculate the epidemic’s future toll.
On Tuesday, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is expected to release its own predictions for only Liberia and Sierra Leone, the two West African countries that have recently shown the steadiest and most alarming spread of cases.
The CDC calculations are based, in part, on assumptions that cases have been dramatically underreported.
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Also see: Ebola cases could reach 1.4 million in 4 months, CDC estimates
It's their “gut feeling.”
I suppose they, if anyone, would know.
"Red Cross team attacked while burying Ebola dead" by Boubacar Diallo and Sarah DiLorenzo | Associated Press September 25, 2014
CONAKRY, Guinea — Ebola is spread by bodily fluids, including sweat, and corpses are particularly infectious.
The handling of dead bodies is deeply personal and rooted in tradition, especially in many parts of West Africa where the washing of bodies is common. It is often the teams trying to prevent those practices that have been targeted, according to Benoit Carpentier, a spokesman for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. Much of the resistance is in remote, insular areas.
‘‘It has gotten better,’’ he said. ‘‘The problem is it has to be 100 percent’’ or the virus will persist.
The conventional methods used to control Ebola — isolating sick people and tracing all their contacts — are buckling under the sheer size of the outbreak. On Wednesday, the World Health Organization offered hope that there may soon be another way to control the disease, saying there may be sufficient quantities of a vaccine by the end of the year to have some impact on the outbreak.
This is $melling more and more like a $windle scare.
That would make this the first Ebola outbreak to be tackled with vaccines or medicines in the nearly 40 years since the disease was discovered.
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"Ebola clinics fill up as Liberia awaits aid" by Krista Larson and Maria Cheng | Associated Press September 28, 2014
MONROVIA, Liberia — Six months after West Africa’s first Ebola outbreak emerged, generous offers of aid are finally pouring in, but beds for the sick are filling up as fast as clinics can be built.
The hundreds of millions of dollars will also be arriving too late for thousands here, as the world’s worst-ever outbreak now has killed more than half its victims.
And even as countries try to marshal more resources to close the gap, those needs threaten to become much greater, and possibly even insurmountable.
Then it is part of the global depopulation plan.
****************
Dr. Joanne Liu, international president of Doctors Without Borders, urged world leaders last week to take ‘‘immediate action.’’
‘‘The promised surge has not yet delivered,’’ she said.
Statistics reviewed by the Associated Press and interviews with experts and those on the scene of one of the worst health disasters in modern history show how great the needs are and how little the world has done in response.
■ The shortage of health workers is great. WHO has estimated that 1,000 to 2,000 international health workers are needed in West Africa and says it is having trouble recruiting enough help.
More than 200 health workers have died as they tried to save lives, complicating recruiting efforts.
Doctors Without Borders, which has more Ebola clinics than anyone, has 248 foreign aid workers in the region. The United States has pledged to train some 500 local health workers a week, but officials acknowledge that goal is unrealistic in the current environment.
The African Union has said it will deploy 100 health workers to assist the West African countries affected by Ebola. The first batch of an AU Ebola taskforce, totaling 30 people, left for Liberia on Sept. 18. Taskforce members are expected to arrive in Sierra Leone on Oct. 5 and in Guinea by the end of October.
Liberia’s chief medical officer placed herself in quarantine for 21 days after her office assistant died of Ebola.
Bernice Dahn, a deputy health minister who has represented Liberia at regional conferences, said Saturday that she did not have any Ebola symptoms but wanted to ensure she was not infected.
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Ends up back here anyway?
"Even as health officials scrambled to find and monitor those people, a group that includes five school-age children, they sought to ease concerns among Dallas residents. Initially, federal authorities announced at a news conference Tuesday that Duncan first sought treatment at the hospital last Friday, Sept. 26, but that account has since been changed.
What the fu.... WE WERE LIED TO AGAIN?!!!!!!!!!!
Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, acknowledged that things could have been handled better, but he said he was confident the measures being taken would prevent any outbreak of the disease. “It is regrettable that there wasn’t the connecting of the dots,” Fauci told CNN on Thursday."
13 years after 9/11 and no connecting of dots still?
Btw, I don't want to hear any complaining or bitching from the record-profits airlines, sorry.
If it is not transmittable by air why would airlines be worried?
UPDATE: Has Ebola Hit Washington D.C?
The flight then went on to Dallas.
That ends this series of posts.
