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The Race for the Ebola Vaccine

Wed, 2015-01-07 10:26 — mike kraft

THE DAILY BEAST by Abby Haglage Jan. 7, 2015

...Although a few smaller companies have become involved in the race for a vaccine, three major pharmaceutical makers are taking the lead—each pursuing a different vaccine. The trials are unprecedented for a variety of reasons, including the rapid timeline (trials of this nature generally take three to four years).

Steve Parsons-WPA Pool/Getty Images

Each individual race involves an unusual collaboration between researchers, manufacturers, and public-health entities. Together, the teams are working 24 hours a day for a product that promises much higher risk than it does profit.

Here’s what you need to know about the Ebola vaccine front-runners.

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http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/01/07/the-race-for-the-ebola-vaccine.html

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J&J, Bavarian Nordic start clinical tests in Ebola vaccine race

Tue, 2015-01-06 09:52 — mike kraft

REUTERS by Ben Hirschler Jan. 6, 2015
LONDON --Johnson & Johnson has started clinical trials of its experimental Ebola vaccine, which uses a booster from Denmark's Bavarian Nordic, making it the third such shot to enter human testing.

The initiation of the Phase I study in Britain, which had been expected about now, marks further progress in the race to develop a vaccine against a disease that has killed more than 8,000 people in West Africa since last year.

Two other experimental vaccines, one from GlaxoSmithKline and a rival from NewLink and Merck, are already in clinical development. However, the J&J vaccine offers a different approach, since it involves two separate injections.

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http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/06/us-health-ebola-vaccine-j-j-idUSKBN0KF0HH20150106

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Ebola: as ZMapp stocks run out doctors turn to alternative treatments

Mon, 2015-01-05 15:50 — mike kraft

THE GUARDIAN by Sarah Boseley Jan, 5, 2015
LONDON --Even at the Royal Free hospital in London, the lead UK specialist centre for Ebola, doctors have limited options for treating their patients. In the end, survival may depend more on the strength of an individual’s immune system than anything medical science is currently able to do.

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Travelers from Mali no longer need to go through enhanced Ebola screenings

Mon, 2015-01-05 15:19 — mike kraft

WASHINGTON POST by Marc Berman Jan. 5, 2015

People flying to the United States from Mali will no longer need to go through enhanced Ebola screening at U.S. airports, authorities announced Monday.

An interview with a passenger arriving from a country with known instances of Ebola. (Josh Denmark/U.S. Customs and Border Protection via Reuters)

The change, which goes into effect Tuesday, also means that people flying from Mali no longer have to travel through the five U.S. airports that use the screening methods. Travelers from Mali will continue to be screened before leaving that country, and anyone who flew from Mali to the United States before Tuesday is still supposed to monitor themselves for 21 days and report symptoms.

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Merck-NewLink Ebola vaccine trial resumes at lower dose: Geneva hospital

Mon, 2015-01-05 13:32 — mike kraft

(Two stories. Scroll down.)

REUTERS Jan. 5, 2015

GENEVA --The clinical trial of an Ebola vaccine developed by Merck and NewLink resumed on Monday at a lower dose after a pause to assess complaints of joint pains in some volunteers, the University of Geneva hospital said.

The Geneva hospital announced on Dec. 11 that its vaccine trial had been suspended as a precautionary measure after four patients complained of joint pains. On Monday, the hospital said 10 of 59 volunteers who received the vaccine had felt pains in their joints "similar to rheumatism" after some two weeks, but these symptoms had disappeared rapidly without any treatment.

Swissmedic, the Swiss regulatory agency, and ethics and safety committees have approved the resumption of the trial at a lower dose, the hospital said in a statement.

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Sen. Coons calls for change in U.S. Ebola strategy

Sun, 2015-01-04 14:18 — mike kraft

CBS NEWS Jan. 4, 2015

Sen. Chris Coons, D-Delaware, who recently returned from a trip to Liberia, said Sunday that the Pentagon should avoid prematurely withdrawing U.S. military personnel who are fighting the Ebola epidemic in West Africa.

"We can't declare mission accomplished and withdraw too early here," Coons said on "Face the Nation" Sunday. "The raging epidemic that threatened the whole country in September is now down to a few embers scattered across this country but we need a new strategy to adapt to conditions on the ground. Our troops should remain, some of them to the rest of the year, to help make sure that Liberians can transition our emergency Ebola treatment units into community health clinics and transition our high tech military mobile testing labs into Liberian-run local labs so that going forward this epidemic is really brought to an end in Liberia."

Coons said about 1,000 or more of the troops could return home because they have finished their primary missions of building the infrastructure to test for Ebola. But the money that the U.S. continues to spend on the epidemic could be spent more wisely with a change in strategy, he said

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Patient possibly exposed to Ebola due at Nebraska hospital for observation

Sun, 2015-01-04 09:44 — mike kraft

REUTERS Jan. 4, 2014
A U.S. health care worker who was possibly exposed to the Ebola virus in Sierra Leone was expected to arrive for observation on Sunday at a Nebraska facility that has treated three Ebola cases, hospital officials said.

The patient, who was not identified, was expected to arrive at the Biocontainment Unit at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha via private air ambulance around 2 p.m. CST for observation and possible treatment, the center said in a statement.

The patient "has been exposed to the virus but is not ill and is not contagious," said Dr. Phil Smith, the unit's medical director, adding "we will be taking all appropriate precautions."

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http://news.yahoo.com/patient-possibly-exposed-ebola-due-nebraska-hospital-observation-055050194.html

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Ebola response shows flaws in US system

Sun, 2015-01-04 09:26 — mike kraft

BOSTON GLOBE by Felice J. Freyer Jan. 3, 2015
The threat of Ebola over the last several months tested the nation’s ability to cope with an unfamiliar disease, raising troubling questions about what will happen when the next dangerous new germ arrives on US shores.

A worker sanitized the apartment where Ebola patient Thomas Duncan lived before being admitted to a Dallas hospital.

After Thomas Eric Duncan was misdiagnosed in a Dallas hospital and later infected two nurses with the deadly virus, government agencies and hospitals around the nation responded quickly to prevent another such incident. But it took that calamity in October to trigger measures that, critics say, a well-prepared system would have had in place....

The United States lacks a central authority and coordination among a constellation of federal, state, and local agencies, said Dr. Irwin Redlener, director of Columbia University’s National Center for Disaster Preparedness. In the United Kingdom and Canada, he said, national health systems permit the federal government to designate Ebola hospitals and to set clear, mandatory protocols.

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FDA allows testing of Aethlon device in Ebola patients

Fri, 2015-01-02 11:34 — mike kraft

REUTERS Jan. 2, 2015

SAN DIEGO- Calif. --Aethlon Medical Inc said the U.S. Food and Drug Administration had approved the testing in Ebola patients of its bio-filtration device, which was used against the deadly virus in a critically ill patient in Germany who later recovered.

The device, being developed as a broad-spectrum countermeasure against pandemic threats, filters viruses and toxins from the blood.

It is currently being tested in India for its ability to accelerate viral load depletion when used in combination with hepatitis C standard-of-care drug therapy.

Patients will be treated for six to eight hours daily with the device, called Aethlon's Hemopurifier, until the Ebola viral load drops below 1,000 copies/ml.

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http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/02/health-ebola-aethlon-med-idUSL3N0UH15720150102

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Opinion: How Next Generation Technology Can Stop Ebola Today And Future Pandemics Tomorrow

Wed, 2014-12-31 10:55 — mike kraft

FORBES by Anita Goel (chairman and CEO of the Nanobiosym Research Institute and Nanobiosym Diagnostics.) Dec. 30, 2014

Today, even the world’s best hospitals rely upon a thermometer, a 400-year old technology, to decide who to quarantine for Ebola. The ambiguity in our current approaches to diagnosing Ebola has resulted in over 1400 Ebola suspects in the U.S. today who still have not received a definitive diagnosis.

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