A cluster of Ebola cases in Guinea earlier this year has been traced to sexual transmission from a man who had recovered from the disease close to 15 months earlier, marking the longest known period of sexual transmissibility after recovery from the disease.
"Evidence for sexual transmission of the persisting EBOV in February 2016, about 470 days after onset of symptoms in the survivor, is compelling," says the report by an international team of researchers, published yesterday in Clinical Infectious Diseases.
The cluster involved 3 probable and 7 confirmed cases in Guinea, with 8 deaths, in February, March, and April of this year, the report says.
The Ebola virus can hide itself in the testicles of men who’ve survived the disease for far longer than had been previously thought, a new study suggests.
In fact, the research reports on a man who was still emitting fragments of Ebola viruses in his semen 565 days after he became ill — or 18 months. . . .
. . . suggesting it may be due to age-related changes in the immune system.
. . . The work, published Tuesday in the journal Lancet Global Health, was done by scientists from the Liberian Ministry of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the World Health Organization. . . .
Establishing a functional incident management system (IMS) is important in the management of public health emergencies. In response to the 2014–2016 Ebola virus disease (Ebola) epidemic in West Africa, CDC established the Emergency Management Development Team (EMDT) to coordinate technical assistance for developing emergency management capacity in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. EMDT staff, deployed staff, and partners supported each country to develop response goals and objectives, identify gaps in response capabilities, and determine strategies for coordinating response activities. To monitor key programmatic milestones and assess changes in emergency management and response capacities over time, EMDT implemented three data collection methods in country: coordination calls, weekly written situation reports, and an emergency management dashboard tool. On the basis of the information collected, EMDT observed improvements in emergency management capacity over time in all three countries. The collaborations in each country yielded IMS structures that streamlined response and laid the foundation for long-term emergency management programs.
WASHINGTON, June 29, 2016—In Guinea, Sierra Leone and Senegal, more than 33.3 million people will benefit from stronger health systems and more effective disease surveillance systems through US$110 million in International Development Association (IDA) financing, approved yesterday by the World Bank Group’s Board of Executive Directors. This is the first in a series of investments planned under the Regional Disease Surveillance Systems Enhancement Program (REDISSE), which aims to address systemic weaknesses within the human and animal health sectors that hinder effective disease surveillance and response. The REDISSE program was developed with financial support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and technical support from the World Health Organization and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
This 57-page report summarizes a request to capture critical lessons from the Ebola epidemic of 2014-2016 and review the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)'s international and domestic responses. It summarizes an Independent Panel's assessment of HHS's challenges, and, where appropriate, challenges facing the broader U.S. government. It describes notable opportunities for improvement in leadership and organization, communication, management, and logistics, as well as in development and use of vaccines and treatments. It also presents recommendations for addressing future urgent public health threats.
Alaskai Moore Johnson, Observer Health Correspondent
President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf assuring ECOWAS Commission President Marcel Alain De Souza (2nd from right), she and her colleagues’ support to his Commission on Friday, June 17, 2016
President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has disclosed that her Togolese colleague, President Faure Essozimna Gnassingbé, has been given the task of drawing up a post-Ebola plan for the ECOWAS region.
Spatial distribution of simulated LAS spill-over events across its endemic region in western Africa for (a) present day, and (b) projected for 2070 under a medium climate and full land cover change scenario. Values represent the expected number of spill-over events per grid cell per year, and are represented on a linear color scale where green is all simulations and grey zero. Axis labels indicate degrees, in a World Geodetic System 84 projection. Filled black circles represent locations of historic LAS outbreaks. Credit: Redding et al. UCL
A model that predicts outbreaks of zoonotic diseases -- those originating in livestock or wildlife such as Ebola and Zika -- based on changes in climate, population growth and land use has been developed by a team of researchers.
ISE-SHIMA (Japan), (Sputnik) – The recent Ebola outbreak claimed the lives of over 11,000 people, according to WHO estimates.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has warned that Ebola virus flare-ups would happen in 2016 despite the fact that all known chains of Ebola transmission had been stopped in West Africa.
Humans have been “acquiring” infectious diseases from animals (zoonotic diseases) since we first started hunting wild game on the African savannahs. Indeed, nearly 60% of bugs that infect humans originated in animals.
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