Category Archives: pandemic

How the Ebola Outbreak in Africa Could Become a Threat to Europe – SPIEGEL ONLINE

Joanne Lui is convinced that the best way to protect Germany and Europe from Ebola is to halt the disease in its current location. She’s also trying to convince other countries around the world of the same. “To put out this fire, we must run into the burning building.”

via How the Ebola Outbreak in Africa Could Become a Threat to Europe – SPIEGEL ONLINE.

China poultry back on sale as HK grapples with latest food scare – Channel NewsAsia

{Hard to fight centuries of custom and way of doing things. Hong Kong jumped to head of the line in preventing new bird, porcine, and human influenzas by closing live (wet) markets last January. Now with much pressure, the live markets are back and bird flu and new influenzas will not be far behind. Let’s hope that by time Lunar New Year celebrations come, they recover sense and shut the breeding grounds for a new worldwide pandemic.

Like climate change deniers who just don’t want to believe the world has changed – those who have always bought/sold live pigs and poultry at market don’t want to believe that worldwide surge in these markets over last 20 years makes development of a world killer flu even more likely than is the past}

Live poultry from China is back in the wet markets of Hong Kong just in time for the Mid-Autumn Festival celebrations after having been banned over a bird flu scare in January.

via China poultry back on sale as HK grapples with latest food scare – Channel NewsAsia.

Ebola Is Surging in Places It Had Been Beaten Back – ABC News

“The epidemic is now so vast and so extensive that one should consider that in the three (hardest-hit) countries, everybody is now at risk and it won’t be over until the last case has survived and six weeks have passed,” said Piot, who runs London’s School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

via Ebola Is Surging in Places It Had Been Beaten Back – ABC News.

Israeli company says it can produce experimental Ebola drug | The Times of Israel

No one knows if ZMapp drug is actually effective but everyone is in publicity high gear and profits dancing in their eyes wants to cash in on current attention to ebola – and news folks looking for same is happy to play along with them so they can seem to be up to date too. 

In the end it just fuels distrust of everything – think twice, three times before adding to cynicism…

With ZMapp vaccine depleted, a Carmiel-based biopharmaceutical firm says it can extract medication from tobacco plants quickly and effectively

via Israeli company says it can produce experimental Ebola drug | The Times of Israel.

Avian Flu Diary: WHO Statement: Consultation On Potential Use of Ebola Therapies & Vaccines

There was consensus that the use of whole blood therapies and convalescent blood serums needs to be considered as a matter of priority. {From people who have survived ebola, since antibodies that help to fight off the virus are present in the blood and serum}

via Avian Flu Diary: WHO Statement: Consultation On Potential Use of Ebola Therapies & Vaccines.

Imperial researcher to lead Ebola vaccine trial in the Gambia

{The university ought to think about changing its name but beyond that – this confirms pretty well that pharmaceutical firms are not really interested in helping humanity, just in making a profit – even though nearly all of them get funds from governments/taxes, as well as foundations and investors}

The incentive for pharmaceutical companies to develop a product are therefore very low, as product development, testing and in particular the licensure procedures are expensive and the profit will be small, if any at all.

via Imperial researcher to lead Ebola vaccine trial in the Gambia.

Cynical? Me? Yep. The latest American doctor infected with Ebola is heading to Nebraska for treatment – The Washington Post

{The reason for transferring him from Massachusetts to Nebraska? So University of Nebraska Medical Center could get some publicity – aka: create public “currency” for same or more funding from governments (tax payers) and foundations. If just to give “better” care, why have a press conference}

The Nebraska hospital expects Sacra to arrive Friday morning. The Biocontainment Patient Care Unit is one of four of its kind in the United States, according to the hospital, and is the country’s largest. “We have been preparing for this type of event for a long time,” Jeffrey Gold, chancellor of the University of Nebraska Medical Center, said during a Thursday news conference. “It is not a surprise we are being called to serve in this way.”

Phil Smith, head of the special isolation unit at the Nebraska Medical Center, said that Sacra is in “reasonably stable shape, and able to get on the plane under his own power.”

Sacra, the medical director of the organization’s ELWA Hospital in Monrovia, decided to return to Liberia after another missionary doctor and another volunteer became ill with Ebola, Johnson said. Sacra had been working in the hospital for about a month, most recently caring for pregnant women.

via The latest American doctor infected with Ebola is heading to Nebraska for treatment – The Washington Post.

Stock price promo – Johnson & Johnson to Quicken Development of Ebola Virus Vaccine – WSJ

Will do nothing for this outbreak but they are hoping it will up their stock prices – profiting from a virus that most in advanced economies had ignored since 1970’s with first outbreak.

“Johnson & Johnson said the vaccine program is being accelerated to allow for clinical trials in humans in early 2015, after promising results in preclinical studies. The company previously had planned to conduct human trials nearly a year later in 2016. The company said the collaboration between Crucell and Bavarian Nordic would enable faster production of the doses necessary to start larger clinical trials.”

via Johnson & Johnson to Quicken Development of Ebola Virus Vaccine – WSJ.

IRIN Africa | Mistrust of government spurs Ebola spread | DRC | Liberia | Nigeria | Sierra Leone | Senegal | Aid Policy | Conflict | Governance | Health & Nutrition | Human Rights

(Government needs to connect with the informal communications network rather than go over it or around it)

Susan Shepler, an associate professor at American University and a specialist on education and conflict in Sierra Leone and Liberia, said it is easy to understand why many Liberians tend to doubt government information.

“People are not acting out of ignorance, they’re acting out of experience,” she told IRIN. “In Liberia people have historically used community information and rumours as a way of getting information at times when they weren’t sure whether to trust the government,” she said.

“Information was vital during Liberia’s conflict but official sources were often so unreliable that people relied on informal networks instead,” Shepler added. “At times the media and authorities reported one thing and the rumour network said something else, and it turned out that the rumours were right.”

As the Ebola crisis escalates throughout West Africa, the Sirleaf administration is now faced with plugging an information gap that grew from such a legacy.

Establishing stronger channels of communication is vital, say observers. But Russell Geekie, chief of public information for the UN Mission to Liberia (UNMIL), said the nature of Ebola has made many communication methods difficult.

via IRIN Africa | Mistrust of government spurs Ebola spread | DRC | Liberia | Nigeria | Sierra Leone | Senegal | Aid Policy | Conflict | Governance | Health & Nutrition | Human Rights.

MSF: World is ′losing the battle′ to contain Ebola | News | DW.DE | 02.09.2014

Six months into the worst Ebola epidemic in history, the world is losing the battle to contain it. Leaders are failing to come to grips with this transnational threat,” said Joanne Liu, MSF’s international president.

“Ebola treatment centers are reduced to places where people go to die alone, where little more than palliative care is offered,” she said, calling on international community to fund more beds for a regional network of field hospitals. She also urged countries with biological disaster response capacity to dispatch trained medical personnel to the hardest-hit areas.

via MSF: World is ′losing the battle′ to contain Ebola | News | DW.DE | 02.09.2014.