Africa

The Race for an Ebola Vaccine

Wed, 2014-11-26 09:19 — mike kraft

Description of efforts by the big drug companies to develop an Ebloa vaccine
THE NEW YORKER By Vauhine Vara Nov. 25, 2014

"...why this race to create an Ebola vaccine among Merck, GlaxoSmithKline, and Johnson & Johnson—three of the world’s biggest drug manufacturers? For years, pharmaceutical companies didn’t invest much in vaccines, partly because they were so costly and complicated to produce: they’re often made out of live bacteria, which are notoriously difficult to work with. But, over the past several years, companies have realized that the difficulties of making vaccines could be an asset, because they can make it more difficult for generic-drug companies to create copycat versions than for prescription drugs. The vaccine market has also been growing more quickly than the prescription-drug market. The World Health Organization estimates, based on various sources, that global vaccine sales rose from five billion dollars in 2000 to twenty-four billion dollars last year...."

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http://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/race-ebola-vaccine

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Projected Impact of Vaccination Timing and Dose Availability on the Course of the 2014 West African Ebola Epidemic

Wed, 2014-11-26 08:48 — mike kraft

PLOS CURRENT OUTBREAKS Nov. 21, 2014
By David Fisman and Ashleigh Tuite, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto

As removal of population-level susceptibility through vaccination could be a highly impactful control measure for this epidemic, we sought to estimate the number of vaccine doses and timing of vaccine administration required to reduce the epidemic size. Our base model was fit using the IDEA approach, a single equation model that has been successful to date in describing Ebola growth. We projected the future course of the Ebola epidemic using this model. Vaccination was assumed to reduce the effective reproductive number. We evaluated the potential impact of vaccination on epidemic trajectory under different assumptions around timing of vaccine availability.

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Here’s How the Ebola Vaccine Trial Is Doing

Wed, 2014-11-26 07:59 — mike kraft

TIME MAGAZINE By Alexandra Sifferlin Nov. 25, 2014
By Alexandra Sifferlin

Scientists are scurrying to get their Ebola vaccines through the necessary safety trials before they can be used widely. That includes the University of Maryland School of Medicine, which recently kicked off the latest step in their research: figuring out the appropriate dosing for the vaccine that’s both effective and safe.

The University of Maryland is one of a handful of institutions involved in the testing of an experimental but promising vaccine developed by the National Institutes of Health’s Vaccine Research Center (VRC) and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK). The hope is that the vaccine will pass through early trials needed by end of December so that the World Health Organization (WHO) and a panel of outside experts can decide whether to move on to a large efficacy trial, which would mean vaccinating a lot of people in West Africa to see how well it works.

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Ebola In Mali: Eighth Person Tests Positive In Mali, Which Is Monitoring 271 People For Symptoms

Tue, 2014-11-25 12:48 — mike kraft

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS TIMES By Sneha Shankar Nov.25, 2014

Officials in Mali confirmed an eighth case of the Ebola virus and said that it is monitoring 271 people suspected to have been infected by the virus. Mali is the sixth country to be dealing with the deadliest outbreak of the Ebola virus, which has so far killed over 5,400 people.

The government of Mali said that the latest case of Ebola closely follows another case, which was confirmed on Saturday, and both patients have been kept under isolation in an Ebola treatment center in the country, Reuters reported. All of the six previous cases, who tested positive for Ebola in the country, have died.

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U.S. Buys Up Ebola Gear, Leaving Little for Africa

Tue, 2014-11-25 10:41 — mike kraft

Manufacturers Strain to Meet Demand Amid Rising Anxiety

WALL STREET JOURNAL Nov. 25, 2014
By Drew Hinshaw in Accra, Ghana, and Jacob Bunge in Chicago

Protective suits were running low in Sierra Leone this month, when a Christian charity decided to ship some over. The charity turned to American medical-wear suppliers, which came back with bad news: The suits needed to treat Ebola are running low in America, too.

A worker wearing Personal Protective Equipment has his name written on his suit before leaving an Ebola treatment center in Guinea last week. Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

“There’s been some sleepless nights,” said Jennifer Mounsey, director of corporate engagement for World Vision, the Christian humanitarian group based in Monrovia, Calif. “We’re all sweating bullets.”

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Ebola outbreak: Sierra Leone workers dump bodies in Kenema

Tue, 2014-11-25 10:17 — mike kraft

BBC Nov. 25, 2014

Burial workers in the Sierra Leonean city of Kenema have dumped bodies in public in protest at non-payment of allowances for handling Ebola victims.

The workers, who went on strike over the issue, left 15 bodies abandoned at the city's main hospital.

Burial workers are especially at risk of becoming infected

One of the bodies was reportedly left by the hospital manager's office and two others by the hospital entrance.

A BBC reporter in Sierra Leone says the striking workers have now been sacked. The hospital has not commented.

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http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-30191938

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People are treating Africa like a country because of Ebola

Tue, 2014-11-25 07:54 — Norea

From Monrovia to Guangdong, Africans can't escape the stigma. (Reuters/Alex Lee) Benno Muchler - November 25, 2014 - qz.com

Ebola was one of the biggest news stories this year. What did we learn from it? Not much. Panic and fear replaced rational thinking. And there was another pernicious behavior we didn’t change.

Ebola would have been a chance to start differentiating Africa. Yet, we’re doing quite the opposite. We continue to look at Africa as one country. We act as if the whole continent is contaminated. And most sadly, outside Africa we stigmatize Africans, no matter which part of the continent they’re from, because of Ebola.

Read the whole article here:

http://qz.com/301707/people-are-treating-africa-like-a-country-because-of-ebola/

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Ebola Is Changing Course In Liberia. Will The U.S. Military Adapt?

Tue, 2014-11-25 07:06 — Norea

A helicopter's eye view of a new ETU, funded by USAID and built by Save the Children. November 25, 2014 - by Kelly McEvers - npr.org

The Ebola outbreak started in rural areas, but by June it had reached Liberia's capital, Monrovia.

By August, the number of people contracting the Ebola virus in the country was doubling every week. The Liberian government and aid workers begged for help.

Enter the U.S. military, who along with other U.S. agencies had a clear plan in mid-September to build more Ebola treatment units, or ETUs. At least one would be built in the major town of each of Liberia's 15 counties. That way, sick patients in those counties wouldn't bring more Ebola to the capital.

But it's taken a long time to build these ETUs; most won't be done until the end of the year. And now the spread of Ebola changing — clusters are popping up in remote rural areas. So building a huge treatment center in each county's main town may no longer make sense.

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U.N. to miss Dec 1 Ebola target due to rising Sierra Leone cases

Mon, 2014-11-24 19:06 — mike kraft

REUTERS By Matthew Mpoke Bigg Nov. 24, 2014

The U.N. Ebola Emergency Response Mission will not fully meet its Dec. 1 target for containing the virus due to escalating numbers of cases in Sierra Leone, Anthony Banbury, the head of UNMEER, said on Monday.

A health worker fixes another health worker's protective suit in the Aberdeen district of Freetown, Sierra Leone, October 14, 2014. Credit: Reuters/Josephus Olu-Mammah

The mission set the goal in September of having 70 percent of Ebola patients under treatment and 70 percent of victims safely buried. That target will be achieved in some areas, Banbury told Reuters, citing progress in Liberia.

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Displaced by disease: 5 displacement patterns emerging from the Ebola epidemic

Mon, 2014-11-24 18:44 — mike kraft

INTERNAL DISPLACEMENT MONITORING CENTRE Nov.19, 2014

When a whole town was displaced in the south of Guinea during the Ebola crisis, the link between disease and displacement began to emerge. With IDMC monitoring the crisis across the three countries most affected since the outbreak took place, we have identified five key displacement trends emerging.

On 14 November 2014 the UN Mission for Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER) reported that the Guinean government had announced the withdrawal of troops from Womey, Nzérékoré prefecture, in the south of the country when a group of people raising awareness about the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) were killed by angry residents.

Since the army’s deployment in September, there have been accusations of human rights violations at the hands of military personnel, resulting in the displacement of the whole town, with some 6,000 residents fleeing to forests in the surrounding area. This is the single largest reported incident of displacement during the Ebola crisis.

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