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Rapid Ebola test is focus of NIH grant to Rutgers scientist

Mon, 2014-12-08 23:11 — mike kraft

REPORTS Of RESEARCH ON TWO METHODS OF RAPID TESTING FOR EBOLA

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MEDICAL PRESS Dec. 8, 2014

Rutgers researcher David Alland, working with the California biotechnology company Cepheid, has received a grant of nearly $640,000 from the National Institutes of Health to develop a rapid test to diagnose Ebola as well as other viruses that can cause symptoms similar to Ebola.

Researchers will adapt this cartridge, now used worldwide for tuberculosis screenings, to collect and test samples from potential Ebola patients. Credit: John Emerson

Alland, a professor of medicine and associate dean for clinical research at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School and the principal investigator of the project, says health workers would be able to take the test to small villages and other remote locations where the spread of Ebola has been especially rampant and diagnose patients where they live...

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Evaluating Ebola Therapies — The Case for RCTs

Thu, 2014-12-04 01:18 — mike kraft

THE NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF MEDICINE Dec. 3, 2014
By Edward Cox, M.D., M.P.H., Luciana Borio, M.D., and Robert Temple, M.D.

...Studying investigational therapies for EVD presents scientific, practical, and ethical challenges. Not surprisingly, there has been substantial debate about the best and most appropriate study approaches.2,3 It is generally agreed that a trial with a concurrent control group, in which patients are randomly assigned to receive the test drug plus the best available supportive care (BASC) or to BASC alone, would be the most efficient and reliable way to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of candidate products.

Some people in the health care community, however, have argued against such trials, urging instead use of a historical control — that is, making investigational drugs as widely available as their supply allows and then comparing mortality rates among treated patients with rates that would have been expected absent the drugs, on the basis of past experience with EVD.

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Obama to urge Congress to loosen purse strings for Ebola fight

Tue, 2014-12-02 16:46 — mike kraft

REUTERS -- By Roberta Rampton Dec. 2, 2014

WASHINGTON --President Barack Obama on Tuesday will press Congress to approve $6.18 billion in emergency funding to help fight the Ebola outbreak in West Africa and prepare U.S. hospitals to handle future cases.

U.S. President Barack Obama speaks next to Ebola response coordinator Ron Klain (L) as he hosts a meeting with his Ebola response team in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, November 18, 2014. Credit: Reuters/Larry Downing

Most of the request is aimed at the immediate response to the disease at home and abroad. But the package also includes $1.5 billion in contingency funds - money that could become a target if lawmakers decide to trim the bill.

"That is the part of the package that is most at risk," said Sam Worthington, president of InterAction, an alliance of U.S. non-governmental aid groups.

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There Is An Urgent Need For An Improved Infrastructure To Share Health Data, Researchers Say

Sun, 2014-11-30 16:16 — mike kraft

DESIGN & TREND by Randall Mayes Nov. 29, 2014

Over the last decade, we have witnessed the emergence of Superbugs, various strains of bird flu and now Ebola, which do not have geographical borders.

Consequently, there is a pressing need for international cooperation to control these pandemics.

In a new study, researchers have identified obstacles that are currently preventing the world from sharing health data, reports Science Daily.

While performing a literature search for the study, an international group of researchers discovered over 1,400 scientific articles related to sharing public health data. From those articles, they found two broad categories that need to be addressed.

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http://www.designntrend.com/articles/28008/20141129/urgent-need-improved-infrastructure-share-health-data.htm

Link to article in Science Daily
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/11/141125102102.htm

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The Race for an Ebola Vaccine

Wed, 2014-11-26 15:19 — 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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People are treating Africa like a country because of Ebola

Tue, 2014-11-25 13:54 — 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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The US Is Stockpiling Ebola Survivors’ Plasma to Treat Future Patients

Mon, 2014-11-24 16:13 — mike kraft

Getty Images

WIRED BY Katie M. Palmer Nov. 24, 214

The FDA announced Friday that it would start developing a stockpile of blood plasma from Ebola survivors, treated with a pathogen inactivation system that’s never been used before in the United States.

So far, the US has had some amazing success in curing Ebola, possibly thanks to experimental plasma treatments. Drawn from survivors, the stuff comes enriched in antibodies that could help to fight off the disease—but it also has the potential to carry other diseases, like malaria, that are common in west Africa where Ebola is raging. The new system will kill off any extra contaminants that may be lurking in this potentially live-saving serum.

It’s the same one, Cerus Corporation’s Intercept system, that will be used in a Gates Foundation-funded study of Ebola treatments in West Africa. The pathogen-killing molecule at the heart of the system is amotosalen, part of a class of three-ringed molecules called psoralens....

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Ebola: Failures of Imagination

Sun, 2014-11-23 05:44 — Maeryn Obley

psandman.com - October 24th, 2014 - Jody Lanard and Peter M. Sandman

The alleged U.S. over-reaction to the first three domestic Ebola cases in the United States – what Maryn McKenna calls Ebolanoia – is matched only by the world’s true under-reaction to the risks posed by Ebola in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea. We are not referring to the current humanitarian catastrophe there, although the world has long been under-reacting to that.

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Chronology: Worst Ebola outbreak on record tests global response

Sun, 2014-11-23 02:20 — mike kraft

REUTERS

Timeline of Ebola related events through November 20, 2014:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/20/us-health-ebola-chronology-idUSKCN0J42MH20141120

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UN security council criticises discrimination against those from Ebola-hit regions

Sat, 2014-11-22 05:24 — mike kraft

THE GUARDIAN Nov. 21, 2014
THE UNITED NATIONS --The UN security council has criticized travel bans against nationals from Ebola-hit countries.

Last month the Australian immigration minster, Scott Morrison, announced Australia would stop granting temporary visas to visitors from west Africa. The security council statement criticised such blanket bans and urged countries to maintain links with affected countries.

“The security council expresses its continued concern about the detrimental effect of the isolation of the affected countries as a result of trade and travel restrictions imposed on and to the affected countries as well as acts of discrimination against the nationals of Guinea, Liberia, Mali and Sierra Leone,” said Julia Bishop, the Australian foreign mniister who was presiding over the session Thursday.

The council statement also described the Ebola outbreeak in Africa as "a threat to international peace and security..."

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