User login
Language
Anonymous's groups in this site
User is not a member of any group.
Your groups across all your sites
User is not a member of any group.
Recent Content
Recent Comments
- USDA faulted for disclosing scant information about bird flu 11 hours 53 min ago
- United Health advancec over $2 billion to hacking victims 1 month 5 days ago
- Charts show how flu, COVID and RSV have spread in the U.S. 1 month 5 days ago
- Congressional funding resources cutbacks likely 2 months 3 weeks ago
Who's online
There are currently 0 users online.
You are here
VOICE OF AMERICA Nov. 20, 2014
By Joe DeCapua
Knowing where the Ebola hot spots are in a country is crucial to getting an outbreak quickly under control. Many have criticized the initial slow response to the West Africa outbreak, saying it’s a big reason the virus quickly spread. Now, a German research center is developing a project to monitor Ebola and other outbreaks in real time.
Professor Gérard Krause said the new project – called EBOKON – uses real-time monitoring to better manage an outbreak.Krause is head of the Department of Epidemiology at the Helmholtz Center for Infection Research – and EBOKON project leader for the German Center for Infection Research....
He said, “This is an information technology tool that we are developing together with colleagues from Nigeria that will take care of all those management aspects.”
The EBOKON project calls for setting up a command center, so to speak, in the capital of affected countries. Then health workers would use cellphones to relay in real time information on suspected cases around the country.
“From the first entry of a rumor entering the public health service, they would send someone to verify the case. And when this case is verified there would be diagnostic initiated. When the diagnostic is confirmed there will be contact persons followed up for 21 days. If they develop fever, they will then again be treated as suspect people. And so it gets very complicated very fast. We need a management tool that takes care of that,” Krause said.
The health workers would be contacted by cellphone with instructions on how to handle their situation.
http://www.voanews.com/content/ebola-ebokon-20noc14/2527839.html
Comments
New effort to help researchers to sequence Ebola
REUTERS NOV. 19, 2014
By Julie Steenhuysen
CHICAGO --Gene sequencing equipment maker Illumina has teamed up with the U.S. government and academic researchers at the Broad Institute in Boston to train scientists in West Africa to improve tracking of how the Ebola virus is mutating in hopes of fighting it more effectively.
The public-private partnership, announced on Wednesday, is designed to extend research on how the Ebola virus is mutating in real time as it spreads among populations in West Africa. Scientists need the information to develop new diagnostics, drugs and vaccines to fight the outbreak.
Sequencing and patient monitoring facilities will be created first in Liberia, Nigeria, Senegal, and Sierra Leone, and over the longer term in other West African countries, the groups said in a statement. These centers will serve as hubs for the deployment of mobile laboratories to remote districts where large-scale capacity is not available.
Read complete story
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/19/us-health-ebola-sequencing-idUSKCN0J31RL20141119