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Beautiful New Images of Ebola Virus and Other Pathogens

When I told her that I wanted to major in microbiology, my best friend from childhood responded, “Are you sure you want to look in a microscope all day?”

But, as it turned out, a lot of microbiologists don’t use microscopes very often. I was one of them. The reason is because a substantial proportion of modern microbiology research uses the tools of molecular biology, for which microscopes are not needed.

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World Health Assembly Boosts Rapid Emergency Response

The World Health Assembly has approved reforms that will increase the U.N. health agency's ability to respond rapidly and more effectively to health emergencies. In Geneva, a panel of experts discussed how new measures will help countries tackle emergencies, such as Ebola, Zika, and yellow fever.

Material to prevent Zika infection by mosquitoes are displayed at the 69th World Health Assembly at the United Nations European headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, May 23, 2016

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African Monkeys Caught Eating Bats For the First Time

Researchers working in Africa are the first to observe monkeys preying on bats. The unusual behavior, which may have something to do with loss of habitat, could explain how dangerous diseases such as Ebola spread among species—and eventually to humans.

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Resilient Health Systems Can Prevent and Contain Pandemics

Resilience is one of those buzzwords that every so often captures the hearts and minds of development practitioners. The importance of this particular term, though, becomes all too clear as the world faces an increasing number of humanitarian crises, including outbreaks that can turn into pandemics.

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World Health Organisation’s Dr Margaret Chan warns ‘world is not prepared to cope’ with surge in pandemics

WHO Director-General Dr Margaret Chan last night addressed the World Health Assembly, a gathering of the world’s leading health practitioners and policy makers.

Her message was blunt.

“Let me give you a stern warning. What we are seeing now looks more and more like a dramatic resurgence of the threat from emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases. The world is not prepared to cope.

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Inside the World Bank's Pandemic Emergency Facility

On Saturday, the World Bank Group officially launched its much anticipated Pandemic Emergency Financing Facility — a financing mechanism designed to quickly mobilize funds to tackle global disease outbreaks and create a new insurance market for pandemic risk. Questions linger about how effective the new mechanism will be, how much money it can leverage, and whether it can stand the test of time against pandemics that are growing more frequent and more costly.

The international community struggled to effectively mobilize funds to bring an end to the Ebola virus outbreak that ravaged West Africa in 2014, killing thousands. The latest global health emergency to grip the world’s attention — the Zika virus — is highlighting again just how ill-prepared the international community is to fund cross-border outbreak response. Three months after the U.S. White House requested $1.9 billion for Zika, the U.S. Congress is still arguing over the sum.

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New Global Education In Emergencies Fund To Be Launched At World Humanitarian Summit

The world's leading countries, companies and philanthropists will join forces to create a 'major breakthrough' to provide education for millions of children displaced by conflicts and natural disasters.The new 'Education Cannot Wait' fund will be launched next week at the World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul.


A historic, global-first hailed a 'game changer,' the fund targets the needs of 75 million children and youth impacted by crisis, disaster and conflict.

 

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Beyond Contact Tracing: Community-Based Early Detection for Ebola Response

Introduction: The 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa raised many questions about the control of infectious disease in an increasingly connected global society. Limited availability of contact information made contact tracing diffcult or impractical in combating the outbreak. 

Methods: We consider the development of multi-scale public health strategies that act on individual and community levels. We simulate policies for community-level response aimed at early screening all members of a community, as well as travel restrictions to prevent inter-community transmission. 

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Casual healthcare contact with Ebola survivors poses low risk

Non-invasive contact with Ebola survivors 6 weeks after the virus has been cleared poses little risk for healthcare workers, though contact with semen, ocular humor, and cerebrospinal fluid requires Ebola-appropriate precautions, according to a study yesterday in The Lancet Infectious Diseases.

A cross-sectional cohort study evaluated 555 specimens from 112 Ebola survivors without fever seeking follow-up care at a clinic in Freetown, Sierra Leone, from Apr 2 to Jun 16, 2015. Almost one third of survivors (34, or 30%) were under the age of 16, and 50 (40%) were male.

Samples were obtained from the armpit (103 specimens), blood (93), conjunctiva (92), forehead (54), mouth (105), rectum (17), semen (1), urine (69), and vagina (21). The median time from Ebola treatment unit discharge to specimen collection was 142 days.

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WHO calls emergency meeting on yellow fever outbreak

GENEVA - The World Health Organization will hold an emergency meeting Thursday on the yellow fever outbreak that has hit hardest in Angola but risks spreading further if vaccinations are not ramped up.

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