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The Race for an Ebola Vaccine

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

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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People are treating Africa like a country because of Ebola

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.

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

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

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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A Tale of Two Outbreaks: Why Congo Conquered Ebola

NBC NEWS    By Maggie Fox                                                                              Nov. 24, 2014

Two outbreaks, two entirely different outcomes. The World Health Organization has declared an outbreak of Ebola over in the Democratic Republic of Congo after just 66 cases and 49 deaths. It lasted three months.

Yet the epidemic in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea’s been going for nine months, with more than 15,000 cases, 5,000 deaths and no end in sight.

What’s the difference? Experts say experience matters — it was the seventh outbreak in the former Zaire. But equally important is the fact that the village where it started was extremely remote, and the country has a rudimentary system of healthcare workers who know to look out for Ebola.

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http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/ebola-virus-outbreak/tale-two-outbreaks-why-congo-conquered-ebola-n253911

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The US Is Stockpiling Ebola Survivors’ Plasma to Treat Future Patients

                                                                                                    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 Mappers Track Epidemic in Real Time 
 
 


NBC NEWS       By Nikita Japra                                                                                     Nov. 23, 2014
In a darkened Boston conference room, staring at projections from a laptop, John Brownstein is far from the front lines of the fight against Ebola. But the epidemiologist’s work may help change the course of the epidemic.

The disease forecaster and his team are combing through news reports, tweets and Facebook posts to anticipate the disease’s next move — and help those on the ground head it off before the crisis grows....

Brownstein’s HealthMap scours social media and local news from around the globe to locate potential hot spots and display them in an interactive map. In the past, HealthMap has spotted outbreaks ranging from H1N1 swine flu to Dengue fever. Today, the team is building interactive maps that can guide the response to the worst Ebola outbreak ever recorded.

While official numbers from government agencies can take precious time to confirm, Brownstein’s team looks to more immediate, unconventional sources to help target the right communities at the right time.

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War against Ebola in West Africa remains a tough fight

USA TODAY                       By Greg Zoraya                                                                                 Nov. 23, 2014

MONROVIA, Liberia — A snapshot of the Ebola epidemic raging across West Africa shows a wildfire of infections only slightly contained.

While cases have been on the decline in Liberia, the outbreak is worsening in neighboring countries, where basic Ebola-fighting tools are impractical.

Identifying the infected and those they've touched, and isolating them to break the transmission chain are all but impossible in Sierra Leone's capital of Freetown as well as the jungles of Guinea, says Jordan Tappero, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's second-in-command for the regional response...

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Ebola: Failures of Imagination

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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Probing Ebola's Deadly Inflammatory Effect

      

New research suggests that Ebola's deadly inflammatory effects may be caused by the result of protein shedding by infected cells. (Victor Volchkov / PLOS Pathogens)

CLICK HERE - RESEARCH - PLOS Pathogens - Shed GP of Ebola Virus Triggers Immune Activation and Increased Vascular Permeability

latimes.com - by Monte Morin - November 20, 2014

New research suggests that the massive and destructive inflammation that characterizes Ebola virus disease may be caused by the release of foreign proteins from infected cells.

Although Ebola is infamous for causing bleeding in some of its victims, doctors say the vast majority of deaths are the result of organ failure and shock brought on by the uncontrolled release of cytokines, compounds that cells use to communicate with one another and control immune response. . .

. . . In a paper published Thursday in Plos Pathogens, researchers at the Claude Bernard University of Lyon, in France, argued that glycoprotein shedding by infected cells may explain the immune system's damaging response.

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