Ebola news 11/5

[Buster's Uncle]

Is Ebola Outbreak Entering New Phase?
LiveScience.com
By Bahar Gholipour  2 hours ago



The reports of declining rates of new Ebola cases in Liberia, announced by the World Health Organization on Oct. 29, fueled hopes that the outbreak response is working, but experts are cautioning that it is too soon to believe the epidemic has entered a new phase, with slower growth.

Liberia has been one of the hardest-hit countries in the current Ebola outbreak, with more than 6,500 cases and 2,413 deaths reported in that country alone as of Oct. 31.

In addition to the perhaps positive news that the rate of new cases in Liberia is not growing, WHO officials said the total number of new cases in all three affected countries —  Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea — also may be leveling off. Some WHO officials told BBC News that they now expect the rate of new cases to be steady, at about 1,000 weekly cases in all three countries. That's a marked shift from the increasing pace seen in weeks past, when the number of new cases was growing exponentially.

As with outbreaks of many infectious diseases, after the response is implemented, people expect the spread of the disease to begin to slow. Control measures as simple as educating people to avoid touching other people and stopping traditional burial practices, can limit the spread of the virus.

But it is too soon to tell if that's the case with this Ebola outbreak, said Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious-disease specialist at Vanderbilt Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee.

"I'm not so sure we are in that second phase just yet," Schaffner said. "I hope it's true, but until we have a more sustained period where the curve is flat, I think we're going to be hopeful but cautious."

In early September, scientists had estimated that if the outbreak were to keep growing at its current rate, by the beginning of November, there would be nearly 9,900 cases in Liberia and more than 20,000 total cases in all three countries. Another report predicted an estimated 21,000 cases just in Liberia and Sierra Leone by Sept. 30.

The actual numbers are much better than those projections, with about 13,500 cases in all three countries combined. But the numbers are still too high, WHO officials warned, and the shift in the speed of the outbreak's spread could be temporary. It's possible that cases of the disease could increase in areas that are now experiencing steady numbers of cases, WHO officials said.

It's possible that two more weeks of data could determine whether the outbreak has moved into its next phase, meaning that cases are not spreading as rapidly as anticipated, Schaffner told Live Science.

Another concerning factor is that the geography of the disease appears to have changed, with more Ebola cases turning up in rural areas close to the major cities. Researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently reported that during the period from Aug. 31 through Sept. 23, the number of cases was highest in regions where the three countries meet. But then, from Sept. 28 through Oct. 18, the numbers were highest in rural areas around Liberia's capital city of Monrovia and the country's Bong district, around Sierra Leone's capital of Freetown and the country's northwestern districts, and Guinea's Macenta district.

Another report by the Africa Governance Initiative said that every day in late October, on average, 12 new cases were reported in the rural areas surrounding Freetown, compared with 1.3 cases reported daily there in early September. This suggests the outbreak is rapidly advancing in the rural parts of Sierra Leone compared with several weeks ago.

"If you look at the map, one of the concerning things is how much Ebola has penetrated into more rural areas of all of these countries," Schaffner said. In rural areas, populations are smaller, and people's homes are more scattered than in urban settings, but these places are also remote, far from the reach of public health officials. "There may even be cases occurring in small villages now that we don't know about," Schaffner said.

Part of the reason for the positive trend in Liberia is that people there are practicing safe burial of patients who die of Ebola, WHO Assistant Director-General Dr. Bruce Aylward said last week. The bodies of Ebola victims remain highly contagious after death, and have been a significant route of infection during this outbreak.

Other key factors include the Liberian government’s public education campaign and an increase in the capacity of treatment centers, he said.


http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-outbreak-entering-phase-144913533.html

[Buster's Uncle]

How to Fight Viral Epidemics in the Future
LiveScience.com
By Rachael Rettner  3 hours ago



Emerging viral diseases are at the center of health news right now. The most significant of them, in terms of human cases and death toll, is the re-emergence of Ebola virus, which is causing the biggest outbreak of the disease in history. But there is also chikungunya fever, which appeared in the United States for the first time in July, and enterovirus D68, a previously rare disease causing an outbreak of respiratory illness among U.S. children.

Humans have come a long way in preventing viral diseases over the last century. Today, children in the U.S. routinely receive vaccinations against nine viral diseases, including many that used to cause life-threatening complications, such as polio.

But still, there are fewer treatments for viral diseases than for those caused by bacteria, and when infectious disease pandemics emerge, the pathogens that are the most lethal are the viruses, experts say.

How will humans protect themselves against viruses in the future? Experts are working on ways to find new drug treatments, as well as to prevent epidemics from emerging in the first place.


Viral treatments lag behind

Treatments for viral diseases have generally lagged behind treatments for bacterial diseases, experts say. One reason for that is simply because scientists have been working on antibacterial treatments for longer, said Paul Roepe, co-director of Georgetown University's Center for Infectious Disease.

"We knew about a lot more bacterial diseases before we knew about viral disease," Roepe said.

Viruses are also much smaller than bacteria — about 100th the size — and they have fewer genes or proteins to target with treatments.

"Viruses are inherently difficult targets," for modern medicine, said Derek Gatherer, a bioinformatics researcher at Lancaster University in the United Kingdom. "They have, in general, smaller genomes than bacteria," so there are fewer places to look for ways to combat them, he said.

Viruses also mutate much more quickly than bacteria, so any therapy that is developed may no longer work after a short time, Gatherer said.

In addition, bacteria are living cells that divide on their own, and a lot of drug treatments against bacteria work by knocking out essential functions of those cells, such as the ability to replicate, Roepe said.

But viruses are not made of cells, and they are even not exactly alive — they hijack the machinery of their hosts' cells in order to replicate, so researchers can't target virus functions or replication in a traditional way.

"When you're trying to close in or 'kill' a virus, you're really trying to kill host cell machinery," Roepe said.


 'Antibiotics' for viruses?

When the first antibiotics were developed in the 1940s, they were considered a miracle cure for diseases. A few decades later, scientists developed drugs against viruses, known as antivirals.

However, although there are "broad-spectrum" antibiotics, which are single drugs that work against dozens of bacteria, the spectrum for antivirals is much narrower, Roepe said. Most antiviral drugs are specific for one type of virus, although some work against two or three.

Some of the most successful antiviral drugs inhibit a certain viral enzyme called reverse transcriptase, which synthesizes parts of the virus, Roepe said. Several drugs against HIV work in this way.

However, only RNA viruses (such as HIV and Ebola) use reverse transcriptase, so drugs against this enzyme will not work for DNA viruses, Roepe said. In addition, the structure of reverse transcriptase can be very different depending on the virus, which is why an antiviral that works against HIV might not work for Ebola.


Discovering new drugs

The good news is that discovering antiviral drugs is easier today than it used to be, thanks to new technologies.

A few decades ago, researchers had to test potential drugs individually, and it could take three to six months to test 100 potential drugs, Roepe said. But today, the process is automated with robots, so those same 100 drugs would require only a few days to test, he said.

In addition, researchers can now view three-dimensional models of viral components on a computer, and quickly design and "test" compounds with computer programs that simulate the binding of drugs to viral components.

Such "in silico" drug design has improved in recent years, and will play an important role in future drug discoveries, Roepe said.


Preventing pandemics

But because new antiviral drug treatments may be years or decades away, public health organizations are focused on stopping pandemics before they start.

"The future of dealing with viral pandemics is, we're going to be able to prevent them," said Dr. Peter Daszak, a disease ecologist and the president of EcoHealth Alliance, a nonprofit organization that works to prevent emerging diseases.

New viral diseases typically emerge because of human activity that brings people into contact with wildlife, such as road building, hunting and agriculture expansion, Daszak said. About 75 percent of emerging diseases in people come from animals, according to EcoHealth Alliance.

So to reduce the risk of an outbreak, researchers need to figure out ways to reduce the activity that brings us into contact with wildlife, particularly in "hotspots" where diseases tend to emerge, such as tropical areas, Daszak said.

"In West Africa, where Ebola emerged, there's one original case," Daszak said. "If you can identify the activity that allows the first case to happen, and reduce that activity, you reduce the risk of an outbreak."

Although it's not clear how the current Ebola outbreak started, some people have speculated that handling bats — a suspected reservoir of Ebola — may have played a role.

Daszak and colleagues are working on several projects to prevent outbreaks, including a project in Malaysia to move tree logging to lower-risk areas, (such as areas that have already been logged and re-planted) so people don't move into new regions of tropical forest.

"The approaches are not as high tech [as drug discovery], but they're really necessary," to prevent pandemics, Daszak said.


http://news.yahoo.com/fight-viral-epidemics-future-144426498.html

[Buster's Uncle]

WHO veteran elected as head of Africa office amid Ebola criticism
Reuters  4 hours ago



COTONOU (Reuters) - The World Health Organization (WHO) elected a longtime veteran of the U.N. agency as the head of its Africa office on Wednesday, amid criticism of its handling of the Ebola epidemic in West Africa.

A WHO spokesman said that Botswana's Dr. Matshidiso Rebecca Moeti, a former deputy director of the WHO's Africa office (AFRO), had been chosen to lead the organization's regional branch at a meeting in Benin.

Moeti joined the WHO in 1999 as regional adviser for Women’s and Adolescent Health. Before that, she worked in Botswana’s Ministry of Health.

She has also held senior positions within the organization, including a stint as regional adviser on the WHO's HIV/AIDS program and head of its Malawi office.

The Ebola outbreak, the worst on record, has killed 4,951 people out of 13,567 infected in eight countries.

Most of the deaths have been concentrated in three West African countries: Guinea, where the outbreak was detected in March, Sierra Leone and Liberia.

Medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) has strongly criticized the WHO's handling of the early stages of the epidemic, which was coordinated by the AFRO bureau, saying it failed to realize the gravity of the situation.

Diplomats and global healthcare specialists say the WHO's AFRO bureau, based in Brazzaville, is dominated by the influence of regional governments and has poor coordination with WHO headquarters in Geneva.

The choice of the new head was made during a meeting of WHO regional committee for Africa which comprises health ministers from 47 countries in the region.

AFRO's outgoing director, Dr Luis Sambo, has strongly denied his bureau was slow to react to the Ebola crisis, saying he immediately sent an emergency coordinator to Guinea, deployed international experts and disbursed money to help the government.

(Reporting by Samuel Elijah; Writing by Bate Felix; Editing by Daniel Flynn)


http://news.yahoo.com/veteran-elected-head-africa-office-amid-ebola-criticism-132635603--business.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Can You Really get Ebola From Your Dog? (Op-Ed)
LiveScience.com
By Dr. Michael Blackwell, The Humane Society of the United States  20 hours ago



Dr. Michael Blackwell is the senior director of Veterinary Policy for The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS). Blackwell contributed this article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

As the Ebola virus continues to wreak havoc, especially in West Africa, many are concerned about the role animals, especially pets, may have in human infections. At this time, there is no alarming evidence concerning pets transmitting the Ebola virus to humans. However, we must continue to be watchful for any evidence of transmission.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), approximately 75 percent of infectious diseases affecting humans also occur in animals. These are referred to as zoonotic diseases. The means of disease transmission between animals to humans can vary depending on the infection and usually involves a vector such as mosquitoes, or direct contact with a contaminated object, an infected person or with a contagious animal.

For national security planning, the CDC established three categories of diseases. Five of the six diseases in the highest risk category are zoonotic. Hemorrhagic fevers characteristic of the Ebola virus are included in that category.


How fragile is Ebola outside your body?

Disease-causing microbes have fairly predictable ways of surviving, and the Ebola virus is no exception. The Ebola virus can only be transmitted through direct contact with blood, secretions, organs or other bodily fluids from a sick individual.

Doctors also know that the Ebola virus is somewhat fragile. Like many other viruses, Ebola cannot survive for very long periods outside of the body. It also can be killed by exposure to ultraviolet radiation or by common household chemicals, such as chlorine bleach.

Since the disease's initial discovery nearly 40 years ago, the Ebola virus has been found to symptomatically affect mostly humans and other primates. According to the World Health Organization, fruit bats appear to be the primary natural reservoir for the virus. Other animals prone to infection include the forest antelope, chimpanzees, gorillas, monkeys and porcupines. Contact with these infected animals can lead to transmission and illness.

Test results examining the effect of the Ebola virus on dogs showed a positive correlation between infected dogs and the distances to the Ebola virus-epidemic area. According to a CDC study, during the 2001-2002 outbreak in Gabon, blood testing was done on dogs highly exposed to the virus — they had been eating infected dead animals. Blood serum tests showed approximately a 32-percent infection rate among dogs from villages with infected animal carcasses and people. The dogs tested in villages with human cases and infected carcasses appeared to yield a much higher infection rate compared to dogs from villages with human cases, but no identified infected carcasses. In villages where there were no identified infected carcasses, the infection rate was approximately 15 percent.

Though this study suggests dogs may become infected with the virus, it also appears that dogs are asymptomatic and may not shed the virus where they can transmit the infection to humans or other animals.

Two recent examples where dogs were exposed to humans infected with the Ebola virus were handled in very different ways. In Spain, Ebola patient Teresa Romero Ramos's dog Excalibur was euthanized. In contrast, Bentley, Nina Pham's dog in Dallas, Texas, was placed in quarantine for the obligatory 21 days, which ends on November 1. Bentley has tested negative three times for the virus and is reportedly doing fine. The Dallas officials took the proper course in their handling of Bentley.

While we still have much to learn about the natural course of Ebola virus in animals, let's not forget that its spread is controllable and that dogs living with ill people can be managed without euthanasia. In Texas, officials were sensible in their decision pay attention to the facts gathered on Ebola transmission, and to respond quickly, but not irrationally based unfounded fears. Let's work to help animals not become victims of over-reaction and hysteria.


http://news.yahoo.com/really-ebola-dog-op-ed-223855048.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Australia bows to pressure to step up Ebola fight in Africa
Reuters
By Lincoln Feast  11 hours ago



SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australia will fund an Ebola treatment clinic in Sierra Leone, Prime Minister Tony Abbott said on Wednesday, responding to pressure from the United States and others to do more to tackle the deadly outbreak at its West African source.

Australia last week became the first developed nation to issue a blanket ban on visas from the three most Ebola-affected countries - Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia - sparking widespread criticism.

Australia will provide A$20 million ($17.5 million) to staff a 100-bed treatment centre that will be built by Britain and run by Aspen Medical, a private Australian company.

"We anticipate about 240 staff required to do the job," Abbott told reporters in Sydney. "Most of them will be locally engaged. Some will be international and it's quite possible, even likely, that some will be Australian."

Australia had already committed around A$18 million to fight the outbreak of the virus, but had been called on by U.S. President Barack Obama, opposition lawmakers and medical bodies such as Doctors Without Borders to do more.

"There are many Australians who wish to volunteer to use their skills, committed and capable doctors and nurses who wish to help in the fight against Ebola," opposition leader Bill Shorten.

"However, we believe that the government, whilst this is a welcome, overdue step, has not gone as far as it should to help tackle the scourge at the source."

Oxfam also welcomed the move and urged the government to consider deploying the Australian military to help with logistics and other support.

Abbott's government had raised concerns that any medical staff infected with the disease would not have access to treatment and would face a dangerous 30-hour evacuation flight home. Britain had given assurances that any Australian staff infected with Ebola would be treated as if they were a British citizen, Abbott said.

Ebola can take as long as three weeks before its victims show symptoms, at which point the disease becomes contagious. Ebola, which can cause fever, vomiting and diarrhoea, spreads through contact with bodily fluids such as blood or saliva.

World Bank Group president Jim Yong Kim on Tuesday criticised Asian countries for not contributing enough to the global effort to fight Ebola, despite having a wealth of trained medical personnel.

The World Health Organisation says the outbreak, the most deadly on record, has killed some 5,000 people. No cases have been diagnosed in Australia, although there have been a number of scares.

Abbott said Australia would step up measures at its borders to protect against Ebola entering the country, including requesting 21-day traveller history declarations, additional questioning and temperature checking of "passengers of concern".

($1 = A$1.14)


http://news.yahoo.com/australia-bows-pressure-step-ebola-fight-africa-070419648.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Nurse, Maine settle Ebola quarantine suit
Reuters
By Dave Sherwood and Colleen Jenkins  November 3, 2014 8:16 PM



The state of Maine and a nurse who had treated victims of the Ebola virus in West Africa reached a settlement deal on Monday, allowing her to travel freely in public but requiring her to monitor her health closely and report any symptoms. The settlement, filed in nurse Kaci Hickox's home town of Fort Kent, in Maine's far north, where she returned after being briefly quarantined in New Jersey, keeps in effect through Nov. 10 the terms of an order issued by a Maine judge on Friday. Hickox returned to the United States last month after treating Ebola patients in Sierra Leone and was quarantined in a tent outside a hospital in New Jersey for four days despite showing no symptoms.



BRUNSWICK Maine/WINSTON-SALEM N.C. (Reuters) - Maine has reached a settlement with a nurse who was briefly quarantined in her home after treating victims of Ebola in West Africa, allowing her to travel freely in public but requiring her to monitor her health closely and report any symptoms.

The settlement, filed in nurse Kaci Hickox's home town of Fort Kent, in Maine's far north, keeps in effect through Nov. 10 the terms of an order issued by a Maine judge on Friday.

Hickox returned to the United States last month after treating Ebola patients in Sierra Leone and was quarantined in a tent outside a hospital in New Jersey for four days despite showing no symptoms before being driven to her home in Maine.

She sharply criticized the way both New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and Maine Governor Paul LePage responded to her case. Christie and LePage have defended how they handled it.

A handful of states have imposed mandatory quarantines on health workers returning from three Ebola-ravaged West African countries, Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, while the federal government is wary of discouraging potential medical volunteers.

President Barack Obama will meet with his national security and health advisers on Tuesday for an update on the Ebola response.

The most deadly outbreak of Ebola on record has killed 4,951 people, mainly in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone.



Nurse Kaci Hickox (L) joined by her boyfriend Ted Wilbur speak with the media outside of their home in Fort Kent, Maine October 31, 2014. REUTERS/Joel Page


"The governor was outspoken in his views on the case. He was speaking for people in the state that had real fear about the risks," said Eric Saunders, an attorney for Hickox. "It's hard to deny the fear and the safety concerns. But at the same time, we have to bear in mind what the law and the science says."

The Ebola virus is transmitted in bodily fluids, such as blood or vomit, of people showing symptoms of the disease, according to medical experts. It is not airborne.

Representatives for both LePage and the Maine attorney general declined to comment.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon on Monday warned against "unnecessarily" strict restrictions on healthcare workers, saying their efforts were critical to stopping Ebola's spread in West Africa.

However, nearly 75 percent of Americans surveyed in a Reuters/Ipsos poll believe medics returning to the United States after treating people with Ebola should be quarantined, and 80 percent believe the healthcare workers' movements should be controlled.


NORTH CAROLINA MONITORING

A patient being monitored in North Carolina for Ebola after arriving in the United States last week from Liberia has tested negative for the disease, state health officials said on Monday, adding that the results still need to be confirmed.

The patient, who arrived at New Jersey's Newark Liberty International Airport on Friday and developed a fever on Sunday in North Carolina, will continue to be monitored in isolation at Duke University Hospital in Durham, officials said.

The person, who was not identified, had no symptoms upon arrival in the United States and had no known exposure to Ebola in Liberia, the department said.

U.S. health care providers have been on heightened alert for potential Ebola cases, and officials in North Carolina said they had been working since the summer to prepare for the possibility of the virus being diagnosed in the state.

In Oregon, a Liberian woman hospitalized last week over Ebola fears has tested negative for the virus, a state health officer said Monday. Five other people who recently arrived from West Africa were being monitored, the officer said.

Some states have restricted the movement of people returning to the United States from the stricken West African nations beyond guidelines from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Only one person in the United States is currently being treated for Ebola, a New York doctor, who is in stable condition.

(Additional reporting by Chris Michaud and Laila Kearney in New York and Victoria Cavaliere in Seattle; Writing by Scott Malone; Editing by Susan Heavey, James Dalgleish and Lisa Shumaker)


http://news.yahoo.com/nurse-maine-settle-ebola-quarantine-suit-000047815.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Sierra Leone leader orders arrest of Ebola talk show host
AFP  10 hours ago



A team of funeral agents specialised in the burial of victims of the Ebola virus carry a body at the Fing Tom cemetery in Freetown, on October 10, 2014 (AFP Photo/Florian Plaucheur)



Freetown (AFP) - Sierra Leone said Wednesday it was holding a journalist in a maximum security prison after a guest on his radio show criticised President Ernest Bai Koroma's handling of the Ebola outbreak.

David Tam Baryoh, host of the weekly "Monologue" programme on the private Citizen FM, was arrested on Tuesday and sent to Freetown's notorious Pademba Road jail.

"The detention came from an executive order which was signed by President Ernest Koroma and it was executed by the police," said government spokesman Abdulai Bayratay.

"The president has the power to do this under the public order state of emergency regulations which were approved by parliament in July.... In essence some freedom and civic freedoms have been curtailed."

The arrest followed Baryoh's show being taken off air during a live broadcast on November 1, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), citing local media.

Baryoh had interviewed an opposition party spokesman who criticised Koroma and his government's handling of the Ebola outbreak.

The host and his guest both also criticised Koroma's intention to run for a third term in office, according to local media.

Bayratay didn't specify the charges against Baryoh but said anyone who "obstructs, incites or has the tendency to undermine the efforts of government" to fight the epidemic is liable for arrest.

Pademba Road was built for 324 inmates but currently houses around 1,200. Government health experts have linked deaths among prisoners to acute malnutrition, lack of hygienic conditions, malaria and heart failure.

Baryoh suffers from high blood pressure, according to the Sierra Leone Association of Journalists, which urged the authorities to provide "urgent medical attention".

The organisation said Baryoh had been examined in custody by a doctor who was recommending that he be placed in hospital "to avoid a crisis".

Sierra Leone is one of the nations worst affected by the largest Ebola outbreak on record, with more than 1,500 deaths.

"Sierra Leone's genuine state of emergency means that critical thinking and public debate are more important than ever. Locking away journalists without charge helps nobody," said Peter Nkanga, the CPJ's west Africa representative.

"We call on President Ernest Bai Koroma to ensure that David Tam Baryoh is released immediately and that journalists are allowed to do their jobs freely."


http://news.yahoo.com/sierra-leone-leader-orders-arrest-ebola-talk-show-112151759.html

[Buster's Uncle]

U.S. Ebola researchers plead for access to virus samples
Reuters
By Julie Steenhuysen  7 hours ago



CHICAGO (Reuters) - Scientists across the United States say they cannot obtain samples of Ebola, complicating efforts to understand how the virus is mutating and develop new drugs, vaccines and diagnostics.

The problems reflect growing caution by regulators and transport companies about handling Ebola as well as the limited resources of West African countries which are struggling to help thousands of infected citizens.

    Ten scientists from eight major research institutions contacted by Reuters reported they were unable to get Ebola samples in recent months.

    Tulane University, one of the institutions, received samples this week, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said it has reached an agreement to get live specimens, but it is not clear if new supplies will satisfy demand, and transport remains challenging.

    Ebola mutates as it spreads, and while few expect it to acquire the ability to transmit through air, for instance, scientists require a constant supply of fresh samples to track these changes. The samples hold up is not likely to delay the development of experimental treatments. But if the virus undergoes significant changes that go undetected, the drugs and tests might not work, researchers said.

    Microbiologist and infectious disease expert Dr. Charles Chiu of the University of California, San Francisco, needs samples from Ebola patients to develop a new genetic test that could detect the disease in infected individuals before symptoms appear.

    "No one really knows right now what has the virus mutated to or if it has mutated," he said. Without that research, “we're not going to be able to determine in advance whether or not it has changed to a form where it might evade diagnostic assays or might render current vaccines or drugs ineffective."

    Scientists say Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone have been slow to release samples as they fight to contain the worst Ebola outbreak on record which has killed about 5,000 people.

    Laurie Garrett, the senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, said the issue is largely, and appropriately, about safe transport, especially in the wake of the recent mishandling of pathogens such as anthrax at U.S. government laboratories.

    "All the companies working on vaccines, diagnostics and treatments are complaining about lack of access to viral samples," of Ebola, she said.


    KEY RESEARCH

    Erica Ollmann Saphire of the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, directs scientists working on Ebola treatments, such as the three-antibody cocktail ZMapp, made by privately-held Mapp Biopharmaceutical. She said in an e-mail she needs special cells from Ebola survivors but has not been able to get any.

    Dr. James Crowe, director of the Vaccine Center at Vanderbilt University, is collaborating with Mapp on ZMapp, and has had problems as well. Crowe said he may soon get some samples from U.S. Ebola survivors through Emory University, after going to great lengths to get them.

    Crowe said a mutation in a key area of the virus “could compromise the utility of the drug,” adding that there is no evidence that such changes have occurred. Mapp did not respond to a request for comment.

    Importing Ebola virus into the United States has always been tricky, said Dr. John Schieffelin of Tulane, who has treated Ebola patients in Sierra Leone.

It has become even more difficult since the case of Thomas Duncan, the first person diagnosed with Ebola in the United States, stoked fears that the country could see its own outbreak. Duncan died in a Dallas hospital on Oct. 8.

    "You can divide the outbreak into pre-Dallas and post-Dallas," Schieffelin said. "Everybody has safety as a very, very high priority, which is great. But sometimes the fear and hysteria trumps science."


    A RARE SUCCESS

    This week, Tulane received a shipment of as many as 900 blood samples from Ebola patients in Sierra Leone, capping several weeks of effort. Tulane microbiologist Robert Garry believes the university’s decade-long relationship with the Sierra Leone Ministry of Health and Sanitation was key to getting that access.

    Even so, exporting the samples from Sierra Leone required approval from an ethics committee, the minister of health and the president. On the U.S. side, importing samples of Ebola required a permit from the CDC and passage through U.S. customs.

The researchers switched shipping companies after one refused to carry Ebola, missed a flight which did not have room for cargo, and had to bring dry ice to Africa to pack the samples, which were killed with a double shot of an inactivating agent, plus a shot of ethanol for good measure.

    Tulane researchers will extract RNA from the samples and ship them to collaborators at Harvard University and the Broad Institute, which plan to sequence the genetic code of the virus and track the mutations taking place.

    Earlier this year, Garry and several dozen colleagues from Harvard and Sierra Leone found that Ebola was mutating twice as fast in humans as in fruit bats which carried the virus. Their last sample was from June, and it is not clear what changes have occurred in the virus since then.

    "You need to know how much of an adaptation the virus is making in people," if you want to treat and diagnose it, Garry said.

    CDC spokesman Tom Skinner said that the agency has struck agreements with the three affected countries in West Africa and hopes to acquire live specimens in a matter of weeks. It then would try to share samples with other institutions.

    "How much sharing will go on will depend on how many specimens we receive and finalizing details around getting permission to share from the affected countries," he said.


    THE SCRAMBLE

    The lack of access to African samples has also caused a scramble for blood samples from the handful of U.S. patients who have survived, including Dallas nurse Nina Pham who treated Duncan, said Thomas Geisbert, a microbiologist at the University of Texas Medical Branch.

    Geisbert has a $26 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to study experimental Ebola treatments. He works with leading Ebola drug developers Profectus BioSciences and Tekmira Pharmaceuticals Corp and is collaborating with Crowe at Vanderbilt for a next-generation antibody treatment for Mapp.

Tekmira did not respond to a request for comment. Profectus Chief Scientific Officer John Eldridge said the company had not encountered problems, but added that Geisbert should have a better understanding of the difficulties.

Geisbert does not think the delays in obtaining samples have held up the development of specific products. Most of these are based on samples from earlier Ebola outbreaks. But to confirm their effectiveness, it would be helpful to test Tekmira's TKM-Ebola and Mapp's ZMapp against the latest outbreak strains.

"There is no substitute for confirming activity against a live infectious virus," he said.

Geisbert managed to get blood samples gathered in March from Ebola survivors infected in Guinea, where the current outbreak started, but has none from Liberia or Sierra Leone. He has made several appeals to U.S. Ebola survivors and the hospitals that treated them, and enlisted Tekmira, but has not succeeded.

"It's crazy. You ask, and nobody responds," said Geisbert, who asked Reuters how to get in touch with Pham. 


http://news.yahoo.com/u-ebola-researchers-plead-access-virus-samples-135909346--finance.html

[Buster's Uncle]

WHO revises Ebola death toll lower, virus slowing in Liberia
Reuters
By Tom Miles  1 hour ago



GENEVA (Reuters) - The World Health Organization said on Wednesday it continued to see a slowdown in weekly Ebola cases in Liberia, although incidence of the disease was still rising in Sierra Leone and stable in Guinea.

The three countries have reported 1,828 Ebola cases of the disease over the past 21 days, the maximum incubation period of the virus, and 64 percent of those new cases were in Sierra Leone, 22 percent were in Liberia and 14 percent in Guinea.

The slowdown in Liberia, first announced by the WHO a week ago, has surprised many experts who had warned that the disease was set to continue spreading exponentially.

The WHO has said it may be the first evidence that efforts to tackle the disease are working, while warning that the outbreak is still not under control.

All three countries' capitals reported rapid rates of transmission of the disease over the past week, but there were no new confirmed cases in the epicenter of the outbreak, the district of Gueckedou in Guinea.

The WHO revised the cumulative death toll downwards for a second week running, with 440 fewer deaths reported in Sierra Leone than in data published last Friday, but 284 deaths added to Liberia's tally and 23 to Guinea's since then.

It said the revision was caused by a change in the source of the data. Previously it had combined patient databases and country reports from health ministries and WHO offices, but it had switched to relying entirely on the country reports.

It did not explain the reason for the change, but graphs in the WHO's update suggest it is taking a conservative approach, since numbers in patient databases appear to have fallen below those in situation reports in recent weeks.

The WHO has previously said it was working to improve the quality of the data and warned that could lead to upward or downward revisions.

The latest report put the total death toll at 4,818 out of 13,042 cases as of Nov. 2, compared to 4,951 deaths in Friday's Ebola update; but the WHO repeated a warning that the figures continued to be too low because of under-reporting of cases.

The response to the outbreak depends on building up health care and increasing the number of safe burials of Ebola patients, since bodies of those who have died from the disease are highly contagious.

The WHO said it now needed 528 dead body management teams, having given a target of 370 eight-person teams earlier in the week. It so far has only 27 percent of the revised number.

Another key target is tracing contacts of Ebola patients, and although the data showed 95 percent of contacts were being traced, the WHO said it mistrusted that figure, as Sierra Leone officially averaged seven contacts per patient and Guinea four.

(Reporting by Tom Miles; editing by Ralph Boulton)


http://news.yahoo.com/revises-ebola-death-toll-lower-virus-slowing-liberia-193122503--business.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Australia steps up Ebola response
AFP  15 hours ago



Australia stepped up its response to the Ebola crisis Wednesday in announcing Aus$20 million (US$17 million) to help staff a 100-bed British-built treatment centre in Sierra Leone.

It is the first targeted help Canberra has agreed to give to fight the outbreak in West Africa where the deadly disease has killed almost 5,000 people, although it has previously donated cash.

Despite increasing domestic political pressure, Canberra has until now refused to send medical professionals to tackle the epidemic, arguing there was no way to get them home safely.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott said the government would not directly deploy health workers to west Africa but would contract a private medical services firm, Aspen, to staff the centre. Some of those working for Aspen are expected to be Australian.

He said Australia had won assurances that Britain would help if any Australian becomes infected.

"The government has said consistently that it would not deploy Australians to Ebola-affected countries without a credible plan for their treatment or medical evacuation," Abbott said.

"In recent weeks, the government has discussed the evolving situation, including measures to treat health workers, with the United Kingdom, the United States and others.

"Australia has now received credible assurances for in-country treatment and medical evacuation for Australian volunteers who provide health care in West Africa."

Abbott also announced plans to further ramp up Australia's domestic preparedness, including extra screening at airports of people arriving from west Africa.


http://news.yahoo.com/australia-steps-ebola-response-071717847.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Canada, Australia must explain visa block on Ebola nations
AFP  2 hours ago



A team of funeral agents specialised in the burial of victims of the Ebola virus carry a body at the Fing Tom cemetery in Freetown, on October 10, 2014 (AFP Photo/Florian Plaucheur)



Geneva (AFP) - The World Health Organization said Wednesday it had asked Canada and Australia to justify their decisions last week to suspend migration from Ebola-hit west African countries.

"These are measures that go beyond the recommendations of the WHO's emergency committee," Isabelle Nuttall, who heads WHO's alert and response department, told AFP.

Australia on October 27 became the first Western nation to suspend migration from Ebola-hit west African nations, and Canada followed suit four days later.

The two countries said the moves were needed to ensure that the deadly virus, which has killed around 5,000 people mainly in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone does not surface within their borders.

But Nuttall pointed out that the UN's health agency had recommended only exit screening for people leaving the hardest-hit nations and did not think blocking entry to all their residents was a good way to fight the raging epidemic.

The WHO asks any country putting in place measures that interfere with international travel to justify the move from a scientific and public perspective.

Such requests had been sent to Canada and Australia and a range of other countries that have put in place similar measures, Nuttall said.

Instead of closing borders, Nuttall said the best way to fight the epidemic was on the ground in west Africa.

"We have to make sure the three countries are conducting exit screening, and the rest of the world must remain vigilant so cases can be detected if they show up in other countries," she said.

Nuttall said that blanket visa suspensions could give countries a "false sense of security", warning it could even push "uncontrolled immigration" from the affected areas, "which is much riskier".

She also cautioned that such measures made the response to the outbreak more difficult, since it complicated travel to and from the affected countries for aid workers.

And they put additional pressure on the countries already being ravaged by the outbreak.

"The burden that they have to face is more than enough," she said.


http://news.yahoo.com/canada-australia-must-explain-visa-block-ebola-nations-192607284.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Thousands break Ebola quarantine to find food
Associated Press
By SARAH DiLORENZO  November 4, 2014 2:06 PM



DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — Thousands of people in Sierra Leone are being forced to violate Ebola quarantines to find food because deliveries are not reaching them, aid agencies said.

Large swaths of the West African country have been sealed off to prevent the spread of Ebola, and within those areas many people have been ordered to stay in their homes.

The government, with help from the U.N.'s World Food Program, is tasked with delivering food and other services to those people. But there are many "nooks and crannies" in the country that are being missed, Jeanne Kamara, Christian Aid's Sierra Leone representative, said Tuesday.

The Ebola outbreak in West Africa has killed nearly 5,000 people, and authorities have gone to extreme lengths to bring it under control, including the quarantines in Sierra Leone. Similar restrictions have also been used in Liberia and Guinea, the two other countries hardest hit by the epidemic.

Some efforts have begun to show progress. The situation is Guinea is improving, as is the quality of care for Ebola patients, thanks to international aid, said Aboubakar Sidiki Diakite, an official with the country's Health Ministry, who was visiting Paris on Tuesday.

But more treatment centers and medical teams are still needed, the World Health Organization said at a news conference in Geneva on Tuesday. There are currently 16 treatment centers up and running and 58 more planned. To staff those centers, 500 foreign health care workers and 4,000 national ones are still needed.



There have been 13,042 reported cases of Ebola, with 4,818 reported deaths, up to November 5, 2014. (World Health Organization/Yahoo News)


In an address to political leaders in Sierra Leone, President Ernest Bai Koroma said ordinary people also have to do more. He defended the stringent measures he has imposed and called on all citizens to stop dangerous behavior that has fueled Ebola's spread, such as secret burials where corpses are washed or even people touching the sick.

"We have to take the sick out and take the responsibility with firmness," he said. "We must end Ebola now."

While public health authorities have said heavy restrictions may be necessary to bring under control an Ebola outbreak unlike any other, the Disasters Emergency Committee, an umbrella organization for aid organizations, warned on Monday that they were cutting off food to thousands of people.

"The quarantine of Kenema, the third largest town in Sierra Leone, is having a devastating impact on trade — travel is restricted so trucks carrying food cannot freely drive around," the committee said in a statement. "Food is becoming scarce, which has led to prices increasing beyond the reach of ordinary people."

Because services are not reaching them, people who are being monitored for signs of Ebola — and should be staying at home — are venturing out to markets to look for food, potentially contaminating many others, said Kamara of Christian Aid.



Health workers from the Liberian Red Cross wear protective gear as they shovel sand which will be used to absorb fluids emitted from the bodies of Ebola victims, in Monrovia on October 23, 2014 (AFP Photo/Zoom Dosso)


When houses are put under quarantine, teams are supposed to go to them to identify their needs, she said: How many people are living there? Are there pregnant women or sick people with special needs?

But Kamara said that with the infections still increasing quickly, it was difficult for the government to keep up with the number of people being monitored for the disease. The outbreak in Sierra Leone has been shifting in recent weeks, with the number of new cases ballooning in the country's western and northern districts, far from where the outbreak began, in the country's east.

In October, the World Food Program fed more than 450,000 people in Sierra Leone, including people who are under quarantine or being treated for Ebola, said Alexis Masciarelli, a spokesman for the agency in Dakar, Senegal. The distribution of food has been difficult, he said, since it has required bringing food to remote areas by poor roads.

He acknowledged that getting good information about where people need help is difficult, but he said WFP asks smaller organizations, with deep connections to the communities, to help them keep track of a fast-moving situation.

Also as part of the effort to control the epidemic, Liberia has ordered that the bodies of all Ebola victims in and around the capital be cremated. Ebola is transmitted through the bodily fluids of infected people, and secretions from dead bodies are among the most infectious.

But the neighborhood around the crematorium on the outskirts of Monrovia, called Boys Town, is now demanding that the government move the facility elsewhere. Residents say the ash is polluting the area and the stigma surrounding Ebola is rubbing off on them, with people pointing them out in the market.

The residents are threatening to hold a protest Thursday that would block cremations if the government doesn't move the facility.
___

Associated Press writers Angela Charlton in Paris, Clarence Roy-Macaulay in Freetown, Sierra Leone, and Jonathan Paye-Layleh in Monrovia, Liberia, contributed to this report.


http://news.yahoo.com/thousands-break-ebola-quarantine-food-124818527.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Amid Ebola disaster, WHO picks new Africa chief
Associated Press
By VIRGILE AHISSOU and MARIA CHENG  20 minutes ago



This undated handout photo issued by Save the Children UK on Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2014, shows prospective health care workers in the Kerry Town Ebola Treatment Centre being tested on their personal protection equipment procedure in Sierra Leone. The center in Kerry Town includes an 80-bed facility to be managed by Save The Children and a 12-bed unit, which will expand to 20 beds over the coming months, for health care workers and international staff who become infected by Ebola. (AP Photo, Louis Leeson/Save the Children UK)



COTONOU, Benin (AP) — With nearly 5,000 dead of Ebola in West Africa, the World Health Organization elected a new director Wednesday of its Africa office, which has been accused of bungling the response to the outbreak in its early stages.

The new chief, Matshidiso Moeti, is a doctor from Botswana and a WHO veteran who stepped down as deputy director for Africa in March, the same month the crisis was announced.

The results of the five-candidate election were made public at a meeting of the U.N. agency in Benin and came amid the worst outbreak of the dreaded disease ever seen.

"I hope, with all the control efforts that are now in place, the situation will have improved by the time I take office in February," Moeti told reporters.

Moeti is unlikely to play a major role in ending the disaster, since the United Nations has already taken more direct charge of the control efforts. But she could be key to preventing another such crisis.

She said that the health systems in hard-hit Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea have been devastated and need to be rebuilt and that warning and monitoring capabilities must be improved to deal with any future outbreaks of Ebola.



Botswana doctor Matshidiso Moeti, as she attends a World Health Organization meeting in the city of Cotonou, Benin, Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2014. As Ebola continued to burn its way through three West African countries, the World Health Organization on Wednesday elected its next Africa director, Botswana doctor Matshidiso Moeti, a longtime veteran of the U.N. agency. (AP Photo/Valentin Salako)


In an internal draft document obtained by The Associated Press last month, WHO accused its Africa office of initially botching the response to Ebola, deriding many of its regional staff members as "politically motivated appointments." The report said WHO staff in Africa refused to help get visas for outside experts and compromised the containment effort in other ways.

The outgoing regional director, Dr. Luis Sambo of Angola, is completing his second five-year term and was ineligible to run again. He has declined numerous interview requests.

In a report on lessons learned, released ahead of this week's meeting, the Africa office attributed the explosive spread of the lethal virus to such factors as poor awareness and badly trained health workers.

Aboubakar Sidiki Diakite, inspector general for Guinea's health ministry, welcomed the election as an opportunity for reform.

"A change always brings new impetus," he told the AP in Paris this week. He said the new director would find "weaknesses" in the system that need to be remedied.



This undated handout photo issued by Save the Children UK on Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2014, shows prospective health care workers in the Kerry Town Ebola Treatment Centre being tested on their personal protection equipment procedure in Sierra Leone. The center in Kerry Town includes an 80-bed facility to be managed by Save The Children and a 12-bed unit, which will expand to 20 beds over the coming months, for health care workers and international staff who become infected by Ebola. (AP Photo, Louis Leeson/Save the Children UK)


Representatives of WHO's 47 African member countries voted by secret ballot for the regional director.

In her campaign brochure, Moeti listed one of her priorities as building a responsive, effective WHO. Moeti previously held posts in Botswana's Health Ministry and also led WHO's Malawi office.

The circumstances of her departure as Sambo's deputy back in March were not immediately clear.

In other developments, President Barack Obama asked Congress for $6.2 billion in emergency funds to fight Ebola in West Africa and strengthen U.S. defenses against the disease.

WHO said Wednesday that 4,818 Ebola deaths have been reported and that every district of Sierra Leone and Liberia has been affected.



This undated handout photo issued by Save the Children UK on Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2014, shows the Kerry Town Ebola Treatment Centre in Sierra Leone. The center in Kerry Town includes an 80-bed facility to be managed by Save The Children and a 12-bed unit, which will expand to 20 beds over the coming months, for health care workers and international staff who become infected by Ebola. (AP Photo, Louis Leeson/Save the Children UK)


The situation this past week was particularly dire in Sierra Leone, with 435 new confirmed cases. Treatment centers are urgently needed there, and one built by Britain finally opened outside the capital of Freetown on Wednesday.

The center includes an 80-bed facility to be managed by Save the Children and a 12-bed unit for infected health care workers. This smaller one will be staffed by British army medics.

A U.S.-built facility in Liberia for health care is scheduled to open to patients on Saturday.

WHO said 4,500 health workers are still needed. More than 500 health workers have become infected, reducing their ranks and making it difficult to recruit more.

Foreign medical workers who have been infected have been evacuated for high-quality treatment abroad.

A Ugandan man who became infected while working for an aid group in West Africa has "significantly improved" since arriving in Germany on Oct. 3 for treatment, the University Hospital Frankfurt said.

And a Spanish nursing assistant who recovered from Ebola was released Wednesday from a hospital in Madrid.

___

Cheng reported from London. Associated Press writers David Rising in Berlin; Alan Clendenning and Ciaran Giles in Madrid; Jonathan Paye-Layleh in Monrovia, Liberia; Clarence Roy-Macaulay in Freetown, Sierra Leone; Angela Charlton in Paris; and Sarah DiLorenzo and Krista Larson in Dakar, Senegal, contributed to this report.


http://news.yahoo.com/voting-begins-pick-whos-next-africa-chief-093413052.html