View Full Version : Haemorrhagic fever / Ebola outbreaks have been reported - accident, natural or bio-weapon?
A Sudan Haemorrhagic fever is being reported.
http://cc.amazingcounters.com/counter.php?i=3190880&c=9572953
The disease causes Ebola-like symptoms, including bleeding, fever, and fatigue - multiple organ failure (especially liver and kidneys), fluid loss and shock (with low blood pressure).
Between late December 2015 and early May 2016, the National IHR Focal of South Sudan notified WHO of an outbreak of haemorrhagic fever syndrome.
As of 9 May [2016], a total of 51 suspected cases, including 10 deaths, had been reported from the counties of Aweil North (45 cases, including 10 deaths) and Aweil West (6 cases). No health care workers had been reported among the cases.
The majority (74.5 percent) of the suspected cases are below 20 years of age. The last recorded death dates back to 28 Feb [2016].
The most frequent symptoms include unexplained bleeding, fever, fatigue, headache and vomiting. The symptoms do not seem to be severe and rapidly resolve following supportive treatment.
Currently, there is no evidence of person-to-person transmission of the disease.
Samples of 33 patients were shipped to WHO collaborating centres in Uganda (Uganda Virus Research Institute), Senegal (Institut Pasteur of Dakar) and South Africa (National Institute for Communicable Diseases). The samples were tested by plaque reduction neutralization test, polymerase chain reaction or enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay.
All samples were negative for Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever, Ebola virus disease, Marburg virus disease, Rift Valley fever, yellow fever, West Nile virus and Zika virus; 5 samples tested positive for onyong-nyong virus; 3 samples were positive for chikungunya; and 1 sample tested positive for dengue virus.
Further laboratory testing is ongoing that may confirm the causative agent. Other causes under investigation include bacterial diseases (e.g., Leptospirosis) and food intoxication (mycotoxins). Ecological risk factors for arboviral disease transmission were identified in the affected areas.
The laboratory results received so far do not explain the symptomatology (unexplained bleeding) of the reported cases nor the high mortality rate.
Since the underlying cause of this public health event remains unknown, close monitoring and further epidemiological investigation is needed.
The area where the outbreak is occurring borders Darfur in Sudan where at least 469 cases of undiagnosed viral haemorrhagic fever, including 120 deaths, were reported between August and November 2015.
Because of frequent population cross-border movement between Sudan and South Sudan, the risk of international spread of the disease cannot be ruled out.
WHO continues to monitor the epidemiological situation and conduct risk assessments based on the latest available information.
ProMed (http://www.promedmail.org/)
(Source (http://www.newser.com/story/225962/new-ebola-like-disease-is-emerging.html))
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(from previous post (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?69697-Haemorrhagic-fever-Ebola-outbreaks-have-been-reported-accident-natural-or-bio-weapon&p=1065052&viewfull=1#post1065052))
Re: Haemorrhagic fever / Ebola outbreaks have been reported - accident, natural or bio-weapon?
Quote Posted by Bob
is it something Natural, or was it an accidental release of a modified strain, or was/is this a test of a bio-weapon?
Bill: I do suspect the third: a test of a bioweapon.
If this was a test (and the test could take various forms, for various purposes) — then there's an implication that there could be a further test soon, or even an operational phase if the test was judged useful or successful.
... maybe this is the test?
Viral drug summary (short list)
BCX4430
Brincidofovir
DZNep
Favipiravir
FGI-103
FGI-104
FGI-106
JK-05
Lamivudine
Triazavirin
ZMapp
Vaccines candidates:
cAd3-ZEBOV
VSV-EBOV
Reportedly, it has been quiet, with a scare now and then..
A current report tho from Deli has just come in, that a man has tested positive, in India for Ebola. More details to follow.
(Source (http://www.ibtimes.co.in/man-tests-positive-ebola-delhi-686396))
A man from Delhi has reportedly tested positive for Ebola virus. The details of whether the man had traveled to any Ebola affected country or not are still unknown.
Ebola is a viral hemorrhagic fever transmitted by the Ebola viruses. The virus spreads by direct contact with body fluids of an infected person or an animal. It has killed over 11,000 people globally since its outbreak in December 2013 and affected over 28,000 people.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) in March had declared that Ebola outbreak is no longer a public health emergency.
WHO Director-General Margaret Chan said she has accepted the advice of the expert committee that the temporary recommendations adopted in response to the Ebola situation in West Africa should now be terminated.
She (WHO director) added, however, that a high level of vigilance and response capacity must be maintained to ensure the ability of countries to prevent Ebola infections and to rapidly detect and respond to flare-ups in the future.
Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone in Western Africa were reportedly the worst affected countries by Ebola virus.
Bob
27th August 2016, 20:29
Just because the epidemic is way way down, that doesn't mean that work has stopped for coming up with highly effective substances which prevent the virus from spreading.
Quinoxaline-based inhibitors are the newest in the search for a solution.
When an infection occurs the virus hijacks the cell's machinery which make proteins, energy, and convert the cell into a VIRUS manufacturing factory.. When the "factory" (infected cell) has produced enough virus duplicate particles, it explodes sending more infective virus particles through out the body.
This current breakthrough has identified the "break-out" mechanism, and prevents the viruses from spreading. Stopping the infective multiplication/growth cycle. And it is non-toxic to human cells.
It is also relatively broad spectrum, able to deal with Ebola, Marburg and Lassa-Fever viruses.
The primary use of the new antiviral compounds is expected to be in treating people already infected, but it could also potentially be used prophylactically, for example in soldiers and healthcare workers.
“We postulate that emergency administration of such an antiviral therapeutics during an outbreak would inhibit virus dissemination and spread in infected individuals, thus slowing disease progression and allowing the immune system more time to mount a robust response to effectively combat and clear the infection,” said lead author Dr. Jay Wrobel, from Fox Chase Chemical Diversity Center, Inc.
The scientists had screened 4.8 million compounds to find one that was shown to prevent VP40-NEDD4 interactions, therefore blocking virus egress. VP40 is the protein which causes the human/primate cell to explode. NEDD4 is the human/primate protein in the cell wall which is attacked.
Source - http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960894X16306643
Abstract from the technical publication:
Abstract We prepared a series of quinoxalin-2-mercapto-acetyl-urea analogs and evaluated them for their ability to inhibit viral egress in our Marburg and Ebola VP40 VLP budding assays in HEK293T cells.
We also evaluated selected compounds in our bimolecular complementation assay (BiMC) to detect and visualize a Marburg mVP40–Nedd4 interaction in live mammalian cells. Antiviral activity was assessed for selected compounds using a live recombinant vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) (M40 virus) that expresses the EBOV VP40 PPxY L-domain.
Finally selected compounds were evaluated in several ADME assays to have an early assessment of their drug properties.
Our compounds had low nM potency in these assays (e.g., compounds 21, 24, 26, 39), and had good human liver microsome stability, as well as little or no inhibition of P450 3A4.
Bob
8th November 2016, 19:15
It was assumed that the Ebola issue had wound down, and rapidly controlled in the areas in Africa..
But this appears today, about a possible exposure in CANADA to a lab worker..
http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/ebola-lab-incident-1.3841733
Ebola virus potential exposure at national lab in Winnipeg, federal officials announce/
Employee at the national animal health lab is in isolation but risk to public is considered low..
http://i.cbc.ca/1.3841860.1478627768!/fileImage/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/16x9_620/national-centre-for-foreign-animal-disease.jpg
An employee at the national animal health lab in Winnipeg was potentially exposed to the Ebola virus yesterday, federal officials say.
The employee was wearing a protective suit and noticed a split as he prepared to move a pig infected with the virus, Dr. John Copps, director of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) told reporters Tuesday.
The employee of the National Centre for Foreign Animal Disease (NCFAD) was evaluated by an infectious disease specialist and has put himself in isolation for 21 days — the maximum time from Ebola infection to the onset of symptoms, according to the World Health Organization.
The risk to the public is considered low because the individual is not showing any symptoms and is not considered infectious, officials said Tuesday.
He was offered an experimental vaccine.
Flash
8th November 2016, 22:31
Yes Bob, heard it on radio on my way back home. The poor chap is in isolation right now, his protection suit had a tear in it.
New Breakthrough for treating Ebola and Dengue - Combining TWO anti-cancer drugs, erlotinib/sunitinib does the trick.. Stanford Medicine.
Einav and her colleagues repurposed a couple of approved cancer drugs and put them to work fighting viral infections.
The investigators’ approach marks a huge departure from the typical virus-fighting paradigm: Rather than attack some component of the virus itself, what if we temporarily disable a feature of our own cells that the virus desperately needs in order to successfully infect us?
News release -
Viruses are cut-rate brigands: They produce nothing on their own, but rather hijack the machinery of our cells.
Hepatitis C, dengue, Ebola and other viruses hop onto molecular ‘transports’ that whisk cargo between cell compartments. These transports shuttle the viruses around inside of cells. The transport mechanisms are regulated by numerous cellular enzymes.
Plenty of different kinds of viruses have to climb aboard these molecular transporters in order to enter cells, assemble themselves inside, and break out into the circulation so they can infect other cells. So, in principle, making it harder to get into those transport mechanism's pathways, even temporarily, could deprive a wide variety of viruses of their modus operandi.
Accessing publicly available databases, Einav’s team discovered that two drugs — erlotinib (Tarceva) and sunitinib (Sutent), both of which were approved by the Food and Drug Administration more than a decade ago for various cancer indications — impede the action of a couple of enzymes our own cells produce that, among other things, by tweaking the transport mechanisms so they bind more strongly to their cargo.
Might simultaneously giving erlotinib and sunitinib to mice for several days — at doses equivalent to those proven to be safe for long-term administration to people with cancer — make the transport mechanisms unreliable for viruses?
Yes.
In experiments with laboratory mice, survival among mice infected with dengue or Ebola viruses — which are quite different from one another but which both travel along the same bus route — was greatly improved if those mice also received the two-drug combo, provided that treatment began before the symptoms cropped up.
Einav is intent on moving the erlotinib/sunitinib duo into clinical trials.
Source Reference - http://scopeblog.stanford.edu/2017/02/27/combination-of-two-approved-cancer-drugs-defeats-dengue-ebola-viruses-in-mice/
Ebola is back
Ebola kills at least one person in Congo, WHO says
Posted on Friday, May 12, 2017 by CNN in Features
An outbreak of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo that began April 22 has resulted in at least one death and possibly two others, according to the World Health Organization.
The Congo Ministry of Health notified the WHO of nine suspected cases of Ebola in the Aketi territory, in the northeastern province of Bas-Uele, WHO spokesman Christian Lindmeier said. Three people with the hemorrhagic fever have died, but only one death has been confirmed as resulting from the Zaire strain of Ebola.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/db/Democratic_Republic_of_the_Congo_%2826_provinces%29_-_Bas-Uele.svg/1200px-Democratic_Republic_of_the_Congo_%2826_provinces%29_-_Bas-Uele.svg.png
Officials suspect that the two other deaths were also caused by the highly infectious virus, which spreads through contact with bodily fluids.
Symptoms such as fever, headache, muscle pain, fatigue, diarrhea, vomiting, abdominal pain and hemorrhaging can begin two to 21 days after exposure.
The Zaire strain of the virus is one of the most lethal. A 2007 outbreak of this strain in Congo had a fatality rate of 74%, claiming 200 lives.
TargeT
13th May 2017, 16:33
A 2007 outbreak of this strain in Congo had a fatality rate of 74%, claiming 200 lives.
Why was Ebola chosen as the boogyman when we have far more scary ones like: More than 1.1 million people were estimated to have died from HIV/AIDS in 2012 (http://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-leading-causes-of-death-in-the-african-continent.html)
A 2007 outbreak of this strain in Congo had a fatality rate of 74%, claiming 200 lives.
Why was Ebola chosen as the boogyman when we have far more scary ones like: More than 1.1 million people were estimated to have died from HIV/AIDS in 2012 (http://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-leading-causes-of-death-in-the-african-continent.html)
Probably because of the infection methods.. A sneeze, getting bodily fluids on oneself from cleaning up the deceased.. Probably because of eating bushmeat practices.
TargeT
13th May 2017, 16:50
A 2007 outbreak of this strain in Congo had a fatality rate of 74%, claiming 200 lives.
Why was Ebola chosen as the boogyman when we have far more scary ones like: More than 1.1 million people were estimated to have died from HIV/AIDS in 2012 (http://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-leading-causes-of-death-in-the-african-continent.html)
Probably because of the infection methods.. A sneeze, getting bodily fluids on oneself from cleaning up the deceased.. Probably because of eating bushmeat practices.
I was thinking the potential for rapid death, that's a pretty big difference; more scare factor there.
interesting point of view on it here:
NVghWiTOogQ
Ebola alert response teams activated in Kenya and other African countries
NAIROBI, Kenya, May 17 – The Kenyan Government has issued an Ebola alert following an outbreak of the viral disease in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
A statement from the Ministry of Health said that holding rooms at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport and other border points have been reactivated to isolate suspected cases.
Director of Medical Services Jackson Kioko stated that the ministry has also re-activated rapid response teams and will follow up cases of travellers with elevated body temperature, and asymptomatic cases.
NIGERIA - ebola temperature checkpoints have been activated in all Nigerian Airports.
DRC - since April 12, nine suspected cases including three deaths have been reported. Six people are currently hospitalized.
ref: https://www.capitalfm.co.ke/news/2017/05/kenya-issues-ebola-alert-dr-congo-outbreak/
W.H.O. update - 16 May 2017
As of 15 May 2017, a total of 19 patients suspected to have Ebola including 3 deaths (death rate of 15.8%) have been reported. The cases reported are from three areas, namely Nambwa (10 cases and 2 deaths), Mouma (3 cases and 1 death) and Ngay (6 cases and no death).
A total of 125 close contacts have been identified and are being followed up on a daily basis.
Likati health zone shares borders with two provinces in DRC and with the Central African Republic. The affected areas are remote and hard-to-reach with limited communication and transport networks.
Ref: http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/255419/1/EbolaDRC-1552017-eng.pdf?ua=1
http://www.digitaljournal.com/img/1/0/4/8/0/9/3/i/3/4/2/p-large/6c9876b0c689505bb8a97078b5ee04f71079f00e.jpg
The amount of suspected cases of Ebola Zaire have risen to 29 in DR Congo.
Cases have occurred in four separate parts of a region called the Likati health zone.
The W.H.O., aid groups and the Congolese government are discussing the possibility of using an experimental Ebola vaccine, made by the American pharmaceutical company Merck, that proved effective in Guinea.
The response would involve a “ring vaccination,” in which contacts of patients, contacts of contacts, and health workers would be vaccinated. There would be no mass public vaccination.
The vaccine has not yet been licensed, and its use would require permission on several fronts. Nonetheless, Dr. Salama said that if permission were granted, the vaccine could be made available in a week or so. Other experimental antiviral drugs may also be considered.
The Ebola virus is considered endemic in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where eight outbreaks, the largest involving about 300 patients, have been recorded since 1976.
"Brienne Prusak, a spokeswoman for Doctors Without Borders said on Wednesday that the group had sent a team of about 20 doctors, nurses and other experts to the Likati zone, and that it was still trying to figure out how to reach the epicenter.
“Transport is extremely difficult in the area, and helicopter flights may be the only way to get there,” she said by email. “We considered motorbikes but are now thinking of helicopters because we need to get so many materials there. We’re expecting to get to the epicenter by the weekend.”
source: assorted news, W.H.O., NY Times
TargeT
19th May 2017, 10:37
Well, this is certainly a good step.
Ebola Survivor’s Antibodies Stop All Strains of the Virus, Study Finds (http://www.newsweek.com/ebola-survivors-antibodies-neutralize-all-strains-virus-study-finds-611657)
Well, this is certainly a good step.
Ebola Survivor’s Antibodies Stop All Strains of the Virus, Study Finds (http://www.newsweek.com/ebola-survivors-antibodies-neutralize-all-strains-virus-study-finds-611657)
Yes I saw that article too. If this is a bioweapon (stlll haven't ruled that out), the mutation of the strain(s) is what is being collected by Centers for Disease Control.. Earlier in the thread there was mention that every person who was sampled had their antibodies/blood sent to the repository for "record keeping use"..
Antibodies is what one of the treatment methods were, to clone antibodies in Tobacco plants.. The virus mutated sufficiently that the "treatment" rapidly failed as the antibodies back then were subsequently useless. For instance I would assume that Ebola Zaire strain has multiple variants, and those are now categorized and checked for virulence..
I just found some research, that selenium deficiency is very prevalent in the area where Ebola Zaire first appeared.. http://orthomolecular.org/library/jom/1995/articles/1995-v10n0304-p131.shtml
Potentially supplementing selenium may then be useful in treating a whole host of viral issues/infections..
These viri seem to deplete selenium.. in a depleted selenium host they take over..
Since Se is an essential antioxidant, critical as a component of glutathione peroxidase in blood cells and liver cells (the very cell types that Ebola and many other viruses prefer to infect), very low Se levels are potentially associated with oxidative stress, lipid peroxidation and cell death. Thus, viral survival might be enhanced by the stimulation of replication under low Se conditions.
At the same time, host/viral competition for a limited amount of Se - particularly in a malnourished host - could significantly contribute to pathogenesis. This could be particularly acute with Ebola virus, due to the unprecedented high Se requirement implicit in the ORF with 16 UGA codons.
On Sunday 21 May, the overall number of cases rose to 37 from 29. A new death was reported having died from complications from the infection.
Health authorities are monitoring 416 people who came into contact with sufferers and have dispatched mobile laboratories to the zone to more quickly test people who display symptoms.
WHO says they are optimistic that they can contain this outbreak.
ref: Reuters - http://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-ebola-congo-idUSKBN18H0YY
22 May 2017 - News - Southern Sudan
The Deputy Governor of Tombura has announced the closure the borders of Tombura and Gbudue States with the Democratic Republic of Congo in fear of the Ebola outbreak that was announced in DRC.
The reason is - "taking precautionary measures"
The Government Gbudue, one of South Sudan’s newly states, has formed a task force to monitor an Ebola disease outbreak.
The state health minister, Hussein Enoka said the task force, which comprises of other health partners, is mandated to monitor the outbreak of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
The taskforce, comprising of 17 members selected from various health institutions, will monitor and report Ebola related cases.
reference: http://reliefweb.int/report/south-sudan/gbudue-state-forms-ebola-monitoring-task-force
Having mentioned in another thread in Health and Wellness sub-forum, about we need to watch closely, the breakthroughs coming out of Scripps Research Institute, they have done it again.. This time a major breakthrough in the understanding and solving of the LASSA FEVER virus present in Africa.
http://jexh1kujdl2rjoqlfrvego6i.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Scripps-Research-La-Jolla.jpg
A research team at The Scripps Research Institute of La Jolla announced Thursday that they succeeded in modeling a critical part of a virus that sickens hundreds of thousands of people in West Africa.
The model could provide a target for a vaccine for the Lassa virus, estimated by U.S. health officials to cause 100,000 to 300,000 illnesses annually in places like Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea and Nigeria. The estimated death toll for Lassa fever includes as many as 5,000 people.
Compared with the far more deadly Ebola virus, Lassa has flown under the radar even though researchers said it has the potential for larger outbreaks.
10 to 16 percent of the people admitted annually to hospitals in some areas of Sierra Leone and Liberia have Lassa fever. Serious cases can lead to Ebola-like hemorrhaging, neurological disorders and loss of hearing.
“Studying Lassa is critically important. Hundreds of thousands of people are infected with the virus every year, and it is the viral hemorrhagic fever that most frequently comes to the United States and Europe,” said Ollmann Saphire.
DR Congo, after the incubation/infection time period has expired, has declared itself now clear of the most recent Ebola strain "Zaire" outbreak.
Democratic Republic of Congo declared its two-month Ebola outbreak officially over on Saturday after 42 days without recording a new case of the disease.
The outbreak in Congo's remote northeastern forests, a record eighth for the country where the disease was first discovered in 1976, killed four out of the eight people infected, Health Minister Oly Ilunga said in a statement.
"I declare on this day, at midnight, the end of the outbreak of the hemorrhagic fever of the Ebola virus in DRC," Ilunga said.
Congolese health authorities approved the use of a new experimental vaccine but ultimately declined to deploy it due to the small scale of the outbreak and logistical challenges.
ref: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-ebola-congo-idUSKBN19M384
Bob
30th December 2017, 05:23
Breakthrough
The key
Switch off enzyme host factor called "PP2A-B56", and the virus' ability to copy itself and produce more infection is never 'switched on'.
The study has been published in the scientific journal Molecular Cell and was conducted by researchers from the University of Copenhagen and Phillips Universität Marburg in Germany.
Inhibiting the PP2A-B56 enzyme and the virus has no ability to replicate.
The structure of Ebola virus is very similar to the other so-called filoviruses, Lloviu virus and Marburg virus. The PP2A-B56 enzyme may stop the others in the FiloVirus family from replicating.
This is a major breakthrough.
ref: https://eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2017-12/uoct-rie122917.php
from Molecular Cell - PP2A-B56 reference, http://www.cell.com/molecular-cell/pdfExtended/S1097-2765(17)30893-6
http://www.cell.com/cms/attachment/2118911660/2086613531/fx1.jpg
Double Edge Sword possibly
PP2A isoforms generally act as tumor suppressors; one would want to activate these enzymes rather than suppress them if one is wanting the body to target tumors.
ref: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214647416300320
Another potential MAJOR virus-proofing protection discovered
Many viruses could be potentially shut down, with an IMMUNITY, guaranteeing 100% protection - here is how it is being attempted:
Now, University of Guelph researchers have shown that an innovative antibody delivery method could offer an effective way to prevent and treat Ebola infection.
"Our goal is to make an antibody-based therapy that can protect against all strains of Ebola, and potentially Marburg virus, as well," says Prof. Sarah Wootton, Department of Pathobiology, who, along with PhD student Laura van Lieshout, found a new way to fight Ebola. "It would be used to stop the spread of the virus in outbreak situations."
Wootton says monoclonal antibody therapies (mAbs) hold promise for the treatment of Ebola virus infections. But mAbs are costly to produce and provide only short-term immunity.
That could change, thanks to a recent discovery by Wootton and van Lieshout. Their findings were published in the Journal of Infectious Diseases.
The approach delivers a monoclonal antibody gene through a viral vector, something that has been done before, most notably with human immunodeficiency virus. The process bypasses the need for the host to generate a natural immune response, which can take several weeks to occur, and often too late for Ebola victims.
The U of G researchers found that using adeno-associated virus (AAV) to deliver antibodies was remarkably effective at keeping Ebola virus infection at bay in mice. Other researchers have used AAV extensively to treat a variety of genetic disorders. The United States Food and Drug Administration has recently approved an AAV gene therapy to treat a rare retinal disorder.
"If you use an AAV gene therapy vector to deliver the DNA blueprint to a cell, that cell will produce a protective antibody against Ebola virus, which is then secreted into the bloodstream and protects mice from infection," says Wootton.
The approach provided 100-per-cent protection against Ebola infection in mice using two different types of mAb, and 83-per-cent protection with a third. A "cocktail" of two antibodies provided sustained protection against Ebola for up to five months.
Once the antibody gene is delivered, antibodies will be continually produced in the bloodstream, Wootton says. Mice in the laboratory expressed the antibody for more than 300 days.
"We are hoping to use this technology in a post-exposure scenario. Let's say someone has been exposed to Ebola. The idea would be to give them this AAV vector to start producing the antibodies that prevent death."
Her Ebola research was sponsored by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and was done in collaboration with rmicrobiologists Xiangguo Qiu and Gary Kobinger at Winnipeg's National Microbiology Lab, Public Health Agency of Canada.
"Developing pan-Ebola or pan-filovirus vaccines and therapeutics has been a goal for all the scientists in the field," said Qiu. "Our preliminary data is really encouraging and we will move forward to develop pan-Ebola/pan-filovirus cocktails."
Wootton is now seeking research funding for human clinical trials from the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, formed after the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.
Story Source: University of Guelph
Bob
28th March 2018, 02:21
And Another solution to Ebola and other filoviri...
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2018-03-high-doses-antiviral-drug-effective.html
Lasa Virus is also treatable by this method and substance
High doses of favipiravir extended survival in non-human primates infected with Ebola virus, according to a new study published this week in PLOS Medicine by Jeremie Guedj of INSERM, France, and colleagues.
Despite repeated outbreaks in recent years, there is no effective treatment validated for patients with Ebola virus disease, which can kill about half of those infected. The antiviral drug favipiravir has been previously tested at lower doses in humans and was well-tolerated but did not show strong antiviral activity. In the current study, researchers infected 26 non-human primates with the 2001 Gabon strain of Ebola virus and followed them for 21 days. Thirteen animals were untreated and 13 were treated, beginning two days before infection, with twice daily doses of favipiravir at 100, 150, or 180 mg/kg.
All animals that were untreated or treated with 100 mg/kg of favipiravir died within 10 days of infection. Two out of 5 (40%) animals treated with 150 mg/kg were still alive at day 21 of the study, and 3 out of 5 animals (60%) treated with 180 mg/kg favipiravir survived to day 21. Moreover, the study showed that the drug inhibited viral replication in a drug concentration-dependent manner. However, applicability to humans is limited by the fact that this model is fully lethal and that treatment initiation in patients is most often initiated several days after infection, when symptoms and high levels of viral replication are already present, rather than before infection.
"These results, together with previous data collected on tolerance and pharmacokinetics in both non-human primates and humans support the evaluation of high doses of favipiravir for future human intervention in particular for contact cases" the authors say.
Bob
28th March 2018, 02:27
Often with viri infections there are bacterial infections due to a damaged immune system. I'd like the readers to note this breakthrough and not loose the reference.. I feel it is important to human health worldwide.
A "game changing" new antibiotic which is capable of killing superbugs has been successfully synthesised and used to treat an infection for the first time—and could lead to the first new class of antibiotic drug in 30 years.
The breakthrough is another major step forward on the journey to develop a commercially viable drug version based on teixobactin—a natural antibiotic discovered by US scientists in soil samples in 2015 which has been heralded as a "gamechanger" in the battle against antibiotic resistant pathogens such as MRSA and VRE.
Scientists from the University of Lincoln, UK, have now successfully created a simplified, synthesised form of teixobactin which has been used to treat a bacterial infection in mice, demonstrating the first proof that such simplified versions of its real form could be used to treat real bacterial infection as the basis of a new drug.
The team at Lincoln developed a library of synthetic versions of teixobactin by replacing key amino acids at specific points in the antibiotic's structure to make it easier to recreate. After these simplified synthetic versions were shown to be highly potent against superbug-causing bacteria in vitro - or test tube—experiments, researchers from the Singapore Eye Research Institute (SERI) then used one of the synthetic versions to successfully treat a bacterial infection in mice.
As well as clearing the infection, the synthesised teixobactin also minimised the infection's severity, which was not the case for the clinically-used antibiotic, moxifloxacin, used as a control study. The findings are published in the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry.
It has been predicted that by 2050 an additional 10 million people will succumb to drug resistant infections each year. The development of new antibiotics which can be used as a last resort when other drugs are ineffective is therefore a crucial area of study for healthcare researchers around the world.
Dr Ishwar Singh, a specialist in novel drug design and development from the University of Lincoln's School of Pharmacy, said: "Translating our success with these simplified synthetic versions from test tubes to real cases is a quantum jump in the development of new antibiotics, and brings us closer to realising the therapeutic potential of simplified teixobactins.
"When teixobactin was discovered it was groundbreaking in itself as a new antibiotic which kills bacteria without detectable resistance including superbugs such as MRSA, but natural teixobactin was not created for human use.
"A significant amount of work remains in the development of teixobactin as a therapeutic antibiotic for human use—we are probably around six to ten years off a drug that doctors can prescribe to patients—but this is a real step in the right direction and now opens the door for improving our in vivo analogues."
Dr Lakshminarayanan Rajamani from SERI added: "We need sophisticated armour to combat antibiotic-resistant pathogens. Drugs that target the fundamental mechanism of bacterial survival, and also reduce the host's inflammatory responses are the need of the hour. Our preliminary studies suggest that the modified peptide decreases the bacterial burden as well as disease severity, thus potentially enhancing the therapeutic utility."
The work builds on the success of the Lincoln team's pioneering research to tackle antimicrobial resistance over the past 22 months to turn teixobactin into a viable drug. The team will now develop a bigger library of simplified synthetic versions which can be used is a diverse number of applications, advancing the goal of a clinical drug.
More information: Anish Parmar et al, Design and Syntheses of Highly Potent Teixobactin Analogues against Staphylococcus aureus, Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), and Vancomycin-Resistant Enterococci (VRE) in Vitro and in Vivo, Journal of Medicinal Chemistry (2018). DOI: 10.1021/acs.jmedchem.7b01634
ref: https://medicalxpress.com/news/2018-03-proof-antibiotic-capable-superbugs.html#nRlv
Bob
30th March 2018, 16:44
A simple chemical inhibits Ebola and other virus replication - breakthru !
Benzoquinoline, showed antiviral activity against Ebola virus and was also active against another deadly filovirus, Marburg virus.
Benzoquinoline was also effective against vesicular stomatitis virus from the rhabdovirus family, which can infect insects, cattle, horses and pigs, and Zika virus, which is spread to humans by mosquitoes.
ATLANTA--An organic chemical compound shows effective antiviral activity against Ebola virus and several other viruses, according to a study led by Georgia State University.
The researchers found benzoquinoline inhibited the ability of Ebola virus to multiply and reproduce in cell culture. The findings are published in the journal Antiviral Research.
Ebola virus, a member of the filovirus family, is an enveloped, single-stranded RNA virus that causes severe disease in humans. The largest outbreak on record for the filovirus family was caused by Ebola virus in West Africa between 2013 and 2016, resulting in more than 28,000 infections and more than 11,000 deaths.
Only experimental treatments were available, and survivors, including health care workers, are at risk for persistent infections from the virus remaining in sites that can tolerate foreign substances without eliciting an inflammatory immune response, such as the eye and testes. There are no approved drugs to treat Ebola virus or other filovirus infections, so there is a critical need for new therapeutic approaches. A potential antiviral target is the viral machinery and activities involved in carrying out RNA synthesis for Ebola virus.
"This work provides a foundation for the development of novel antiviral agents to combat Ebola virus," said Dr. Christopher Basler, director of the Center for Microbial Pathogenesis and professor in the Institute for Biomedical Sciences at Georgia State and a Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar in Microbial Pathogenesis.
In this study, the researchers screened a library of 200,000 small molecule compounds to identify potential inhibitors of Ebola virus RNA synthesis. They identified 56 hits that inhibited Ebola virus activity by more than 70 percent, while showing less than a 20 percent chance of being toxic to cells. They discovered three chemical structures with potent antiviral activity against Ebola virus in cell culture.
Human lung epithelial cells and human embryonic kidney cells were exposed to several viruses, Ebola virus, Marburg virus, vesicular stomatitis virus and Zika virus, and the antiviral effects of the three chemical structures were observed.
One of these chemical structures, benzoquinoline, showed antiviral activity against Ebola virus and was also active against another deadly filovirus, Marburg virus. Benzoquinoline was also effective against vesicular stomatitis virus from the rhabdovirus family, which can infect insects, cattle, horses and pigs, and Zika virus, which is spread to humans by mosquitoes.
"This study is part of a larger effort to find new therapies to treat highly dangerous Ebola virus infections," said lead author Dr. Priya Luthra of Georgia State.
ref:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/03/180328182455.htm
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016635421730640X?via%3Dihub
Ebola resurfaces in Congo
NW DR Congo, in the area where gold is found, Ebola kills 17.
All the cases were reported from a clinic at Ilkoko Iponge, located about 30 kilometres (20 miles) from Bikoro, where treatment capacities are limited.
The health ministry said on Tuesday, describing the fresh outbreak as a "public health emergency with international impact."
http://chanlo.com/images/ebola-1congo.jpg
"Twenty-one cases of fever with haemorrhagic indications and 17 deaths" have been recorded in Equateur province, it said, citing a notification to the ministry as of May 3.
It is the DRC's ninth known outbreak of Ebola since 1976, when the deady viral disease was first identified in then-Zaire by a Belgian-led team.
In Geneva, the World Health Organization (WHO) said lab tests in the DRC confirmed the presence of Ebola virus in two out of five samples collected from patients.
"WHO is working closely with the government of the DRC to rapidly scale up its operations and mobilize health partners, using the model of a successful response to a similar... outbreak in 2017," it said in a statement.
Nigeria has just re-started it's screening campaign for Ebola symptoms
https://www.thecable.ng/fg-orders-ebola-screening-nigerias-borders
The Federal Executive Council (FEC) has directed the federal ministry of health to step up surveillance at all entry points in the country to prevent the return of Ebola.
Briefing journalists at the end of the council presided over by Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo on Wednesday, Isaac Adewole, minister of health, said FEC ordered that steps to be taken to keep the Ebola outbreak in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) from coming to Nigeria.
Adewole said that part of the new measures to be taken include screening passengers coming into the country, while stating that that the government is determined to keep the country safe.
FEC has now directed the federal ministry of help to step up emergency surveillance activities at all land and airport borders, so that we can actually keep Nigerians safe.
“What we will do is to set up an emergency operation center which will be chaired by Dr. Babasanya, who actually led our efforts in Liberia and Sierra Leone and Guinea during the outbreak in 2014.
Not only that, we will be screening incoming passengers, particularly passengers from DRC and neighbouring countries.
We will also ensure we step up all activities screening people coming in so that we will not be caught unaware
Uganda has now issued "high alert surveillance" levels
Health workers in the western border districts have been put on high alert to monitor and screen all people coming from DRC after the outbreak was reported in the northwest Equateur Province.
There is no news that DR Congo itself has done anything to screen outgoing travelers from its borders.
Ebola has spread to major city in DR Congo - Mbandaka
A single case of Ebola was confirmed in Mbandaka, a densely populated provincial capital on the Congo River, Congo's Health Minister Oly Ilunga said late Wednesday.
The city is about 150 kilometers (93 miles) from Bikoro, the rural area where the outbreak was announced last week.
http://www.pinkballoon.nl/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/all-at-really-foremost-inside-however-survive-other-place-ago-later-reason-kinshasa-africa-map-of-kinshasa-africa-map.jpg
Late Thursday, Congo's Ministry of Health announced 11 new confirmed Ebola cases and two deaths tied to cases in the country's northwest, including one in a suburb of Mbandaka.
A total of 45 cases of Ebola have now been reported in Congo in this outbreak: 14 confirmed, 21 probable and 10 suspected, the ministry said, after results from lab tests returned Thursday.
There has been one new death in Bikoro, where the first death took place. That new death had epidemiological ties to another case. The other death was a suspected case in Wangata, a suburb of Mbandaka on the Congo River, the ministry said. No details were given on the death's links to the newly confirmed case.
Only one of the 25 dead has been confirmed as Ebola, it said, adding that no new health professionals have been contaminated. One nurse had died, and three others were among suspected cases since the outbreak began.
Medical teams have been rushing to track down anyone thought to have had contact with infected people, while WHO is shipping thousands of doses of an experimental vaccine.
Until now, the outbreak was confined to remote rural areas, where Ebola, which is spread by bodily fluids, travels more slowly.
"We're certainly not trying to cause any panic in the national or international community," Salama said. But "urban Ebola can result in an exponential increase in cases in a way that rural Ebola struggles to do."
Mbandaka, a city of almost 1.2 million, is in a busy travel corridor in Congo's northwest Equateur province and is upstream from the capital, Kinshasa, a city of about 10 million. It is an hour's plane ride from Kinshasa or a four- to seven-day trip by river barge.
Salama also noted Mbandaka's proximity to neighboring countries, including Central African Republic and Republic of Congo.
"The scenario has changed, and it has become most serious and worrying, since the disease is now affecting an urban area," said Henry Gray, emergency coordinator in Mbandaka for Doctors Without Borders.
ref: http://www.wacotrib.com/news/ap_nation/headlines/ebola-spreads-to-city-entering-health-zones-in-congo/article_ca244ed0-2465-50fe-8023-1dbeaf251e43.html
Cidersomerset
18th May 2018, 18:13
DR Congo Ebola outbreak 'not global emergency'
2 hours ago...18/5/18
https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/660/cpsprodpb/1685C/production/_101625229_ebola_976hi046759963.jpg
Suspected cases are being treated at isolation hospitals in the Democratic Republic of Congo
An Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo is not yet an international
public health emergency, the World Health Organization has said.
It said there was a "strong reason to believe that the outbreak can be brought under control".
At least 45 people are believed to have been infected in the current outbreak and 25 deaths
are being investigated.Cases emerged in a rural area with one now confirmed in the
north-western city of Mbandaka.The city of about one million people is a transport hub on the
River Congo, prompting fears that the virus could now spread further, threatening the capital
Kinshasa and surrounding countries. Ebola is an infectious illness that causes internal bleeding
and often proves fatal. It can spread rapidly through contact with small amounts of bodily fluid,
and its early flu-like symptoms are not always obvious.
Read More...
https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/624/cpsprodpb/138EF/production/_101611108_ebola_dr_congo_map_v2_640-nc.png
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-44164027
In perspective, At-the-Moment - "WHO directors say the GLOBAL risk is not high" for the spread.
However what is said is this:
Within the Democratic Republic of the Congo, formerly Zaire, the risk to public health is very high and the risk is high regionally, WHO advised.
“Nine neighboring countries, including Congo-Brazzaville and Central African Republic, have been advised that they are at high risk of spread and have been supported with equipment and personnel,” WHO said.
Experimental Vaccine to be Deployed
“We have to start in Mbandaka,” Salama told reporters.
He said 8,000 to 10,000 people will be vaccinated to begin with.
“Of course as the epidemic grows, which it may, the numbers will increase,” he said.
WHO has more than 7,000 doses of vaccine, and more than half has arrived in the capital of Kinshasa.
Health workers will use it in a technique called ring vaccination, in which cases of the disease are tracked down and all the people they have been in direct contact with are vaccinated.
Then the contacts of those vaccinated people are tracked down and vaccinated. This method eradicated smallpox at the end of the 1970s.
The vaccine, was developed in Canada and is made by Merck.
“Our biggest concern is that the virus will spread to Kinshasa,” said Katherine Overcamp of Catholic Relief Services, one of several international aid groups working in the country.
Kinshasa, the nation’s capital, has a population of 11 million.
http://chanlo.com/images/ebola-1congo.jpg
"In a sense, the rivers in northwest DRC are the highways. There are very few paved roads," Salama says. "People use them for transportation so it's quite plausible that the virus could spread down the rivers."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiuCNPJhh_4
The Congo River provides a direct link from Mbandaka to the bustling megacity of Kinshasa, nearly 400 miles downriver, and could also potentially allow the virus to spread throughout central Africa.
"That really would be an extremely difficult scenario for us to be able to cope with," Salama says.
Three new cases in Mbandaka now - Congo’s health minister announced Friday
http://punchng.com/who-ebola-toll-45-cases-with-14-confirmed-25-dead/
17 confirmed, 21 probable cases, 5 suspected, 25 dead
https://apnews.com/eb5fab0764b64301b75635d7d5c95e6a
Restrict physical contact
A teacher in Mbandaka, 53-year-old Jean Mopono, said they were trying to implement preventative measures by teaching students not to greet each other by shaking hands or kissing.
Vanguard - Nigeria - https://www.vanguardngr.com/2018/05/fresh-ebola-outbreak-ncaa-issues-guidelines-airlines-urges-vigilance/
Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, NCAA, yesterday urged airlines, especially those operating international and regional flights into the country, to be vigilant and screen their passengers properly to avoid carrying an effected passenger.
This was contained in a circular with ref no. NCAA/DG/AMS/Vol.1/196, dated 11th May, 2018, dispatched to all operating airlines.
According to Mr Sam Adurogboye, General Manager, Public Relations, NCAA, in the circular, all airlines were informed of the outbreak of Ebola Virus Disease .
Tuesday 22nd May 2018
Two more died from the Ebola infection's tissue and organ damage. Seven new cases confirmed.
At the central market in Mbandaka, where vendors in colorful fabrics hawk smoked monkeys, some residents said they were unmoved by warnings not to consume bush meat since a case of Ebola was discovered in the city.
Consuming 'bushmeat' is considered a way of catching Ebola (and other diseases) from eating the flesh of primates. The primates apparently catch the disease from eating dropped fruit which has been infected by bats. The bats tend to harbour the infection as their immune system protects them from the disease.
The mindset of the people is we are not going to change our ways (come Ebola and/or high water paraphrasing)...
“Despite your Ebola stories, we buy and eat monkey meat,” said one woman named Carine, a mother of eight children. “We have eaten that since forever. That is not going to change today. Ebola, that’s in Bikoro.”
Experts who have studied the Ebola virus since its discovery in 1976 along the Ebola river in Congo, then Zaire, say its suspected origin is forest bats. Links have also been made to the carcasses of freshly slaughtered animals eaten as bush meat.
Seven new confirmed cases were also registered in Bikoro, the ministry said, bringing the total number of confirmed cases to 28.
Angola says, the threat is real enough - our borders are closed to DRC
Angolan authorities have shut the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in Malanje Province to prevent the spread of the Ebola virus, media confirmed.
Malanje Province is located 383km northeast of Luanda and is a major point of interaction between Angolans and the Congolese.
According to VOA Radio, the border points on the Angolan side would have 12 police officers, 12 immigration personnel, four nurses and four firefighters and civil protection services officials to ensure the Ebola virus was not allowed in.
Veterinary officials
Four officers of the Angolan Forests Development Institute and two veterinary officials have also been deployed to monitor the transfer of water and animal products across the border, according to VOA Radio.
DRC health officials on Saturday said they had detected five fresh suspected cases of Ebola following the outbreak in the northwest of the country.
ref: http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/news/africa/Angola-shuts-border-over-Ebola/4552902-4597214-mcmwxcz/index.html
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSnezjTt68To7MEaDwI07rM0CMOBNfeHyLK13z0xhBwSjK07Wlt
A bit odd.. Kiryandongo is a town in the Western Region of Uganda. It was the site of a woman dying from a hemorrhagic fever episode, where blood was vacating from every orifice of the body. It was uncertain - Marburg or Ebola?
A woman in Kiryandongo said to have been attacked by Ebola - she has been buried.
KIRYANDONGO – A disease, suspected to be Ebola or Malburg haemorrhagic fever, has broken out in Kiryandongo district.
On Sunday morning, a woman patient identified as Cungi Odoki, a resident of Bweyale town council, was admitted with signs of the two ailments but died shortly after arrival.
According to the district Secretary for Health Rashid Okecha, health officials tried all they could to give her treatment but in vain.
“The woman was admitted at around 8am on Sunday with a severe fever and blood was flowing out of her body passing through every opening,”Okecha said.
He, however said a blood sample has been taken to the Uganda Virus Research Institute.
“After testing, we shall be able to ascertain what the patient was suffering from. The deceased will however be buried today Monday to avoid any chances of contact being made,”Okecha said.
According to Okecha, burial will be carried out by the medical control team.
Efforts to get additional information from the hospital’s medical superintendent were futile as our calls went unanswered.
source - https://www.google.com/search?q=Kiryandongo&oq=Kiryandongo&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i61l2.641j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
Uganda:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/00/Kiryandongo_District_in_Uganda.svg/800px-Kiryandongo_District_in_Uganda.svg.png
Rift Valley Fever outbreak in Kenya causes an alert to keep an eye out for Ebola-like symptoms
Rift Valley Fever is most usually transmitted to humans through the blood, tissue or organs of livestock that have been infected with the virus through mosquito bites – although mosquitoes can pass the disease to humans directly.
Anyone who is involved in the slaughter of animals, helps to deliver calves or even comes into contact with contaminated blood during the preparation of meat is at risk, officials warned.
The death of a toddler on Sunday will raise fears that the disease is also spread through the consumption of raw milk..
Most patients who contract Rift Valley Fever experience only mild flu-like symptoms. But in some cases it triggers blindness-causing lesions on the eyes, brain swelling and haemorrhagic fever that manifests itself with the vomiting of blood as well as bleeding from the rectum, gums, skin and nose.
At least three of the victims suffered fever and bleeding before they died, according to Wajir County’s chief medical officer, Abdikhakim Billow.
The disease has been identified in a number of herds, with behavioural changes including spontaneous abortions, death and bleeding noted, Mr Billow added.
“We have effected a ban on meat and milk consumption… and an up-scaling of food quality control as a measure to prevent further spread,” he said.
Past experience suggests that such measures are unlikely to be effective.
Implementing the ban, even though it is only meant to be in force for nine days, will be tricky in an under-resourced, sparsely populated area where some may even be unaware of it.
First reported in Kenya in 1931, Rift Valley Fever has seen more than a dozen outbreaks since then across the continent. In 2000 it even spread to Saudi Arabia and Yemen, raising concern that even Europe or Asia were vulnerable to contagion.
In February, the UN’s World Health Organisation included Rift Valley Fever in a list of eight diseases, or groups of diseases, that risk sparking a major international public health emergency.
With no specific treatment or effective human vaccine for the disease, the WHO said there was “urgent need” to carry our “accelerated research” on how to respond to the threat Rift Valley Fever poses.
Outbreaks of the disease have usually been associated with the flooding of low-lying grasslands following heavy rains like those which have recently fallen on much of East Africa.
spade
19th June 2018, 13:33
I once consulted with a doctor who sat on the board of the CDC, and she told me privately that Ebola WILL NOT HAPPEN in a developed nation, and that it had everything to due with proper sanitation and clean/sanitized medical facilities. These countries reported on have little to no sanitation and badly maintained medical facilities. If they were in place, "Ebola" has "no chance of spreading" she told me.
DR Congo and WHO feels the recent Ebola outbreak originating at Ilkoko Iponge with a small spread to Mbandaka is contained (and/or has burnt itself out).. A few more days remain in the 2 each 21 day cycle periods for no cases..
However, Zambia has quietly scaled UP its screening at border posts.
The article follows:
The Copperbelt Provincial Administration has scaled up screening of people for Ebola at border posts that are entering the country through Kasumbalesa and other border areas on the Copperbelt.
Copperbelt Province Permanent Secretary Bright Nundwe said provincial administration is taking stringent measures to ensure no case of Ebola is recorded in the province.
Mr. Nundwe said health workers have been stationed at border areas and at Simon Mwansa Kapwepwe International airport to screen everyone entering the province from the Democratic Republic of Congo where 66 confirmed Ebola cases have been recorded.
He said the epidemic awareness activities are also on going at all border areas.
Mr. Nundwe said this today during a provincial epidemic preparedness committee meeting held in Ndola.
And Provincial Health Director Alex Makupe informed the committee that the province has stocked enough drugs at health facilities in case of any reported case of Ebola disease.
Drugs stocked up?
In this thread various chemicals and drugs have been located and reported on which appear to have anti-viral activity against Ebola and Marburg-like viruses. It is interesting that Zambia is recognizing that certain chemicals and drugs are useful and that they have stocked up on them. It would be interesting to see which ones they chose as effective..
ref: http://www.znbc.co.zm/cb-scales-up-ebola-screening/ It is interesting that the reporting station is from Government Owned media - see below
The Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation (ZNBC) is a strategic institution in the country operating as a statutory body under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting Services (MIBS).
The National Public Service Broadcaster established pursuant to section 3 of the Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation Act, Chapter 154 of the Laws of Zambia. It is the oldest, widest in coverage and largest radio and television service provider and was transformed from a government department called the Zambia Broadcasting Services under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting Services into a statutory body by the Act of 1987.
This is a bit worrisome - recall we talked about the speed of mutation of the Ebola virus many posts earlier in this thread.
A new variant called the Bombali species has appeared in northern Sierra Leone.
https://www.acaps.org/sites/acaps/files/datacards/maps/levels_of_poverty_by_district.png
The species has been found in bats, which are eaten and a warning has been issued, to stop the eating of bats.
ref: http://www.thesierraleonetelegraph.com/new-strain-of-ebola-virus-found-in-bombali-sierra-leone-says-ministry-of-health/
https://i0.wp.com/www.thesierraleonetelegraph.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Ministry-of-Health-Sierra-Leone-new-strain-of-Ebola-virus-found_Page_1.png?w=2000
Some backpedaling started happening to downplay the potential disease..
Umaru Fofanah reported: “Minister of Health, Dr Alpha Tejan Wurie told me that the virus – which is yet to be named – “does not have all its gene types similar to Ebola” and stressed that it was “not Ebola”. He said even if it had spread to humans, the virus which was discovered in Bombali District would not have the same effect as the Ebola Virus Disease which killed more than 3,000 people in Sierra Leone in 2014/15. He said the discovery which followed months of research, meant that the country was in a state of readiness and was better equipped to deal with any situation. Dr Wurie, who owns one of the best laboratories in the country, warned the public against panic and to refrain from eating bats.”
This is the type of bat (two species have shown the virus so far)https://www.sciencenews.org/sites/default/files/2018/07/main/blogposts/072718_LR_ebola-bat_feat.jpg
Quotes:
RNA analysis of the virus revealed that it is “definitely related to other Ebola viruses,” says Tracey Goldstein, a pathologist at University of California, Davis, who is with the virus-hunting PREDICT project. “But [it] was quite different.”
Goldstein and her colleagues confirmed that the Bombali virus can infect human cells, but they still don’t know whether or not it can cause disease in people. “It has the machinery” to enter a human cell, she says, but that doesn’t mean that it can make people sick.
Some species of Ebola, such as the Reston virus, can cause disease in nonhuman primates but do not sicken humans. Other species of the virus however, like the Zaire virus, have been responsible for widespread epidemics, including a recent outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo that killed 33 people (SN Online: 5/18/18) and an earlier one responsible for more than 11,000 deaths across West Africa (SN: 1/24/15, p.12).
Stay tuned for any updates
Bob
3rd August 2018, 20:45
Ebola Zaire strain strikes EASTERN side of DR Congo, right where the extremist militants are. These are the militants who kidnap children to enlist them in the underground terrorist army.
Congolese officials say four cases of Ebola have been confirmed in the eastern part of the country, near the border with Uganda.
At least 20 people have died and workers are trying to determine whether they died of Ebola.
“Already one health worker has died. We know at least two have been infected,” Salama said.
“This is happening in the middle of a huge humanitarian crisis,” Jose Barahona, country director for Congo for the aid organization Oxfam, told NBC News.
“We have more than 4 million people displaced by conflict,” Barahona added. “In the east of Congo, there are more than 100 different armed groups.”
Aid workers will not only have to travel over a large, heavily forested area looking for cases, but also they’ll have to negotiate with militant groups that may control stretches of roads, small mines or entry into towns and villages.
Barahona said aid groups such as his had already been struggling to get food, water and other assistance to people in the area.
This is the 10th outbreak of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo, but the first in a part of the country that is affected by heavily armed conflict.
There are suspected Ebola cases in at least six distinct areas. In these areas armed gangs often hold up aid convoys to rob them, he said. There is a risk that they may kidnap aid workers or seize supplies to hold for ransom.
This complicates tracing the spread. This may be a bad outbreak..
https://i0.wp.com/media.premiumtimesng.com/wp-content/files/2017/10/DRC-map.png?fit=860%2C607&ssl=1
The majority of cases in the cluster are in the Mangina health area about 30 kilometers outside of the city of Beni located in North Kivu, where there is a large amount of movement between the borders of Congo, Rwanda and Uganda, due to trade activities, according to WHO. North Kivu hosts over 1 million displaced people.
Bob
5th August 2018, 17:31
2 days later, the recent outbreak in NE DR Congo has spread to 33 dead.
An additional 43 suspected cases of Ebola were reported, including 13 confirmed by lab testing, according to WHO.
The outbreak is spreading through five health zones in North Kivu province and one health zone in Ituri province.
North Kivu also hosts over 1 million displaced people and there is fighting between government forces and armed militant groups. Patient tracking is next to impossible.
Bob
7th August 2018, 16:12
Zimbabwe Africa goes on high alert checking for Ebola in travelers (temperature check/background history) at it's borders.
Another person dies in DR Congo. 34 reported died. 63 probable or suspected cases remain, up by 20 from the last few days.
http://www.continentaloutdoor.com/images/Africa/zimbabwe/NEW_JCDecaux_African_Presence_Map_-_Zimbabwe.png
Bob
9th August 2018, 10:08
As of Wednesday 8th August 36 have died in the NE region of DR Congo from the infection of Ebola Zaire strain.
The primary solution to the outbreak is to massively immunize using the rVSV-ZEBOV vaccine (still listed as experimental).
Health workers will be the first to be vaccinated.
The new deaths were reported in the towns of Beni and Mabalako, in the northern part of the Kivu province. North Kivu province is among Congo's most populated provinces, with eight million inhabitants.
Bob
15th August 2018, 04:11
41 now dead and 7 health care workers infected...
A total of 57 cases have been identified, which officials say have grown larger than the previous outbreak.
Voice of America (VOA) is announcing that the consensus is this outbreak could be worse than the others recently..
At the moment 216 health workers and 20 people from the community have been vaccinated against Ebola.
Vaccination seems to be the ONLY solution to being able to quell this outbreak..
Health workers have begun working on case identification and contact tracing, as well as community outreach and educational programs. WHO is working with countries neighboring DRC, and is helping Uganda, Burundi, Rwanda and South Sudan strengthen their surveillance and screening programs to try to prevent the deadly Ebola virus from crossing their borders.
Bob
16th August 2018, 10:56
Another has died bringing the current reported death total to 42; the person formerly from Mandima, DR Congo.
There are 9 new confirmed cases, including 6 in Mandima and 3 in Mabalako.
Overall, that's 39 confirmed and 27 probable cases, and 36 suspected cases are under investigation .
The current Ebola outbreak has spread into a neighboring province, the health ministry said.
Bob
18th August 2018, 04:13
As of Friday evening, there are 78 Ebola Zaire cases, 2 more people have died, making it now 44 deaths, and there are 10 health workers infected.
It's now 51 confirmed cases, and the 27 probably is remaining constant.
This current outbreak in NE DR Congo is now larger than the previous outbreak in Equateur province (DR Congo) that was declared over July 24. During that outbreak, 53 cases were reported, including 29 deaths.
Bob
19th August 2018, 16:04
As of Sunday, there are now 49 deaths reported, 5 more since Friday evening.
There are now 90 cases reported.
Confirmed cases are now up to 63. There are 27 listed as "probably Ebola" and that number appears to be remaining constant. (There is a 21 day wait and see period which accounts for the "probably").
HOWEVER -
Field teams also identified 2,157 "contacts"—people who may have been in contact with the virus—according to the health ministry.
"May have had contact" - most worrisome.. A wildfire like (exponential) outbreak is a potential. Field teams have not said what the odds are for "probable", or "presenting symptoms".
ref: https://medicalxpress.com/news/2018-08-ebola-deaths-dr-congo-contacts.html Medical Express dot com
Bob
21st August 2018, 18:35
As of today, reported are 55 dead, and confirmed cases for the Ebola Zaire infection, 69.
This outbreak is currently 3 weeks in duration.
Bob
24th August 2018, 14:30
3 days later the reports are 103 people are now infected with the Ebola Zaire strain of the virus, in the NE part of DR Congo.
The deaths reported are now at 63, up by 8 from the last few days.
One of the doctors treating people in the town of Oicho in North Kivu, has come down with the virus infection.
There are 14 healthcare workers with confirmed or probable infections, and one death among those healthcare workers.
Bob
24th August 2018, 22:59
Friday evening, two more people showed as infected, NE DR Congo. Total death count up by 4, now at 67.
11 previously infected Ebola Zaire virus strain Patients have now survived, and have been released from care.
There were 2 of the released patients that survived treated with a monoclonal antibody called "mab114" (the MAB series of monoclonal antibody treatments have been discussed earlier in this thread).
Close to 3000 people have been vaccinated (Merck vaccine) since the start of this outbreak Aug 8th, 2018. The experimental vaccine has been shown to be effective.
Bob
27th August 2018, 00:29
Recent Ebola Zaire strain virus map of NE DR Congo:
https://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/inline-images/mapyf.png
Uganda neighboring NE DR Congo is insisting that any people entering the Country step in chlorinated water baths to decontaminate their feet/shoes as well as having their temperature taken.
Currently, 105 confirmed or suspected cases are being reported.
Bob
28th August 2018, 13:23
As of late August 25, a total of 111 cases were reported, of which 83 are confirmed and 28 probable. This includes 72 deaths.
Fourteen health-care workers have been infected, with one dead.
The cases have been reported in five health zones in North Kivu province and one health zone in Ituri.
All the cases have been traced back to the outbreak's epicenter in Mabalako, according to the WHO.
5 different treatments are being tested apparently - The Merck produced vaccine (originally from Canada) appears to be the method of choice. On August 20, 7,160 additional doses of vaccines arrived in Kinshasa and were to be promptly transported to Beni. An additional 2,160 doses of vaccine were expected to be shipped by the end of last week.
Bob
29th August 2018, 16:09
The deaths from the Ebola Zaire virus spread is now up to 75 as reported by the Health Ministry of the DR Congo.
This could be a lull, or the vaccination efforts have served to quell the development of the virus into fully presenting. It is possible education campaigns and social media dialog within people in the affected areas have worked and people are being more cautious. "Communicate", "Educate", take "Precautions" apparently is the mantra.
The World Health Organization (WHO) states that the next seven to 10 days are critical in controlling the spread of the current Ebola virus outbreak in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo.
Bob
7th September 2018, 22:49
After a brief respite the Ebola Zaire strain which had resurfaced in NE DR Congo has spread into Butembo, a city of 1.4 million people in the country's northeast.
Jessica Ilunga, a Ministry of Health communication officer, said Wednesday that Congo's government and the U.N. World Health Organization are taking immediate steps to contain the new Ebola case in the urban area.
Butembo is the largest city in Congo's North Kivu province and health experts worry that the contagious Ebola could spread rapidly among its dense population.
So far, health officials have identified 129 probable and confirmed cases. Eighty-nine people have died.
Four of the 13 new cases from the city of Beni were not previously identified as contacts, meaning officials don't know how they were exposed to Ebola.
At least 4,300 people had come into contact with someone infected with the Ebola virus, and more than half of those people remain under watch in case they develop symptoms.
Valerie Villars
7th September 2018, 23:09
Thanks Bob for the heads up. A percentage of those infected will fly to other places.
Bob
14th September 2018, 16:11
Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy - CIDRaP EBOLA update DR Congo
The newly reported cases include two from Mabalako, one from Beni, and two from Butembo, lifting the outbreak total to 137, including 106 confirmed and 31 probable cases.
Those who have died have held steady at 92.
Vaccination -
People immunized with VSV-EBOV, Merck's Ebola vaccine, is at 8,738, which includes 544 in Butembo and 220 in Masereka, a health zone not far from Butembo.
Other treatments -
Regarding experimental treatments, 29 patients have received investigational drugs, including 14 who received mAb114, 9 who got the antiviral drug remdesivir, and 6 who received Zmapp.
from: http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2018/09/ebola-infects-5-more-drc-lifting-total-137
Bob
22nd September 2018, 21:29
Today 22 Sept, Ebola has moved to the border of Uganda from DR. Congo - this could be a critical spread
Authorities in Uganda are on high alert after the Democratic Republic of Congo on Friday confirmed a case of Ebola on its border with Uganda.
The new infection is almost 200 km (125 miles) away from the nearest other known case in Congo’s current Ebola outbreak, which is believed to have killed 97 people since July and infected another 46 in North Kivu and Ituri provinces.
Uganda has said it will deploy the same Canadian developed vaccine that is being used in DR Congo.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-ebola/uganda-to-deploy-ebola-vaccine-if-virus-spreads-from-congo-idUSKCN1M02R2
In a statement on Thursday, the WHO said it was assisting Uganda, which has remained clear of Ebola so far this year, to set up the “ring vaccination” strategy being used in Congo.
Under the strategy, every contact of an Ebola case including health workers and family members is traced and vaccinated.
“The opportunity that vaccinating frontline health workers and ring vaccination provides to contain the disease (...) is one that must never be missed. That’s why we are making all these costly but necessary preparations”, WHO’s Uganda Representative Yonas Tegegn Woldermariam said in the statement.
Uganda has identified spaces to store the vaccine and installed equipment to ensure it can be transported nationwide.
Uganda has had five outbreaks since 2000, the latest in 2017. The contagious disease causes hemorrhagic fever, vomiting and diarrhea. Ebola killed 11,300 in West Africa in 2013-2016, though treatment during that outbreak was less advanced.
The experimental vaccine, manufactured by Merck, was first deployed to the Congo this year. It is designed to target the Zaire strain of the virus, which was confirmed to have caused Congo’s current outbreak.
Ituri province’s Vice Governor Keta Upar said in a statement that the latest Ebola case had been reported in Tchomia on the shores of Lake Albert. It is the closest the disease has come to Uganda, Congo’s eastern neighbour.
Uganda’s health ministry said on Thursday it was preparing to deploy vaccinations against the virus should it spread to its territory.
No confirmed case of #EBOLA in #Uganda.There's a confirmed case on the #DRC side of the border across L. Albert. Although there're cross-border movements, Uganda is on high alert & conducting entry screening & active surveillance for suspected Ebola patients.
Bob
25th September 2018, 21:39
25 September 2018
Although there is an apparently temporary 'lull' in the storm, it may not last..
Ebola 'PERFECT STORM' as WHO chiefs predict 'major outbreak within weeks'
EBOLA could see a major outbreak "within weeks" as there is "perfect storm" conditions to allow the disease to run rampant, health chiefs have warned.
The health chief, Dr Peter Salama warned Ebola could spread because of attacks by armed groups, community resistance and the geographic spread of the disease.
One hundred people have now died from an Ebola outbreak in eastern Congo with health authorities struggling to contain the deadly disease in the area near the borders with Uganda and Rwanda.
A total of 149 cases of the deadly haemorrhagic fever have been reported in the region, with 118 confirmed and 31 probable, Congo's health ministry said in a statement on Sunday.
Of those 40 cases were cured and health authorities have vaccinated 11,417 people since August 8.
Bob
26th September 2018, 16:24
26 Sep 2018
The death toll stands at 100 from the Ebola Zaire strain, and there is a new case in Tchomia, the small town near Lake Albert and the Ugandan border.
That patient was identified as the partner of the case-patient first diagnosed in Tchomia last week. (see posts 1056,1057 above)
from - Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRap)
The location is on the Uganda Border. Uganda tho states there "IS NO EBOLA in UGANDA !"
http://images.energy365dino.co.uk/standard/106965_6fa59fec8b8b4552a7da.jpg
Bob
6th October 2018, 20:29
From the Health Ministry in DR Congo - more cases, more deaths
The current epidemic in Congo’s North Kivu and Ituri provinces has seen over 140 confirmed cases since July, 108 of whom have died, according to the ministry’s daily bulletin, which has been reporting an average of one to two new confirmed cases per day in recent weeks.
The ministry said the five new cases were located in the regional hub of Beni, where attacks by rebel groups in the area and local mistrust of the Ebola response campaign have disrupted treatment and vaccination programs.
Bob
12th October 2018, 05:48
The numbers keep going up..
September showed the highest rise in the infection/death curves.
Currently, in DR Congo, the NE side of the country, there are now a total of 177 cases (142 confirmed and 35 probable), including 113 deaths. Eleven suspected cases are under investigation.
Oct 6, the DRC updated its information about exploratory Ebola treatments currently be used in the outbreak. A total of 56 patients have been treated with mAb 114, remdesivir, ZMapp or Regeneron monoclonal antibodies. Of these 56 patients, 27 are cured and have been discharged, 14 have died, and 15 are still hospitalized.
Since Aug 8, 14,869 people have been vaccinated, including 5,072 in Beni, 4,269 in Mabalako, 1,663 in Mandima, 1,352 in Katwa, 1,100 in Butembo, 427 in Bunia, 355 in Tchomia, 270 in Masereka, 240 to Komanda, and 121 to Oicha.
The people resist vaccination, saying they won't be affected by the contagion.. The attitude is if a family member is infected, to hide that member, and not send them to treatment, the result being most likely a death and a spread of the virus to the other family members and kinfolk.
Bob
14th October 2018, 12:40
Ebola Zaire strain
Ebola has flared up in NE DR Congo
11 new Ebola cases confirmed yesterday and today, the Democratic Republic of Congo's Ebola outbreak total climbed to 205 cases, amid new warning from the World Health Organization (WHO) that the security problems are getting worse and threaten to undermine the response, especially in Beni, is now the main hot spot.
Of 39 new confirmed cases reported during the first 11 days of October, 32 (82%) were from the city (Beni), which has recently experienced conflict between rebel and armed groups, with resulting protests, and pockets of community resistance.
Current count for those dead now stands at 125.
Bob
16th October 2018, 16:55
As of the 16th October, 211 confirmed and probable cases of Ebola have been reported since early July, when the latest outbreak of the disease started, the World Health Organization (WHO) has said.
Of those, 138 people have died from the highly deadly hemorrhagic fever.
Earlier this week, the WHO noted that all of the health workers who have caught Ebola in this epidemic - 19 so far - have been infected outside of hospitals or clinics, meaning that the virus is spreading in the community.
Treatment hindered: rebel violence in northeastern DRC has caused response efforts to be briefly suspended, health officials said earlier this week.
Bob
17th October 2018, 05:25
Map showing the locations currently exhibiting Ebola Zaire
http://chanlo.com/images/affected-1.jpg
Historical:
https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/D2AP7ukKJyqQ0_5F1oLfUnc7mus=/600x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/3531356/ebola_deaths_mar2015.0.png
Bob
17th October 2018, 17:58
The country of Zambia, on the south east border of DR Congo has started implementing training and education campaigns to alert the military and civilians about Ebola potentially coming in from DR Congo..
The DRC is one of the poorest countries in the world, and suffers from ongoing internal conflicts that periodically flare into regional wars. The UN estimates that around 800,000 people have fled the violence, of which around 50,000 have escaped to Zambia.
The ZNPHI’s training programme will provide healthcare workers with information on how to communicate risk, how to collect and transport specimens, health surveillance and strategies to prevent infection. According to Ante Mutati, a provincial surveillance officer for Luapula and a training participant, the frontline healthcare workers are meant to educate other team members on how to tackle Ebola outbreaks.
In September, Zambia’s ministry of health trained 216 health workers in the North-Western and Copperbelt provinces. Another 86 were trained in the Northern and Luapula provinces in August, the ministry said.
The training programme focuses on doctors and nurses, but also includes environmental and public health officers, pharmacists and laboratory staff.
Bob
20th October 2018, 19:24
Ebola Zaire - claims 144 fatalities, with 223 infected/confirmed. Update 20 October 2018
Children under age 16 made up nearly 60 percent of Ebola cases reported in the first two weeks of October..
This is reported by medical authorities as being unusual.
Assumption being the children caught such at a clinic being exposed to a patient.
WHO says it is peak Malaria season too in the area.
Bob
31st October 2018, 03:18
And it goes up with no end in sight.. (sigh)
Over the weekend and today, officials recorded 17 more cases of Ebola and 10 more deaths in the ongoing outbreak in the far eastern reaches of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
Eleven of the new cases were in Beni, the outbreak epicenter, and the remaining 6 were recorded in nearby Butembo. The new infections bring the total number of cases to 274.
At least one of the deaths over the weekend was a community death in Butembo, DRC officials said. Community deaths pose a greater threat of virus spread than those that occur in a hospital or Ebola treatment center because of the likelihood of added exposure.
From Oct 22 to Oct 28, DRC officials confirmed 36 new cases (28 in Beni and 8 in Butembo) and 19 more deaths.
The UN (to no avail) is calling for cessation of violence in the areas affected by the Ebola Zaire strain.. It is unlikely that the rebels will pay attention.
Bob
4th November 2018, 05:00
As of 3 November, 2018, the number of cases of Ebola Zaire (infected and probable) reaches 285 people.
Deaths have increased to 180 fatalities.
To date, about 25,000 Congolese people have received Ebola vaccinations. Uganda is to start vaccinations for Ebola Zaire strain. Cross border traffic is high in the area.
Bob
6th November 2018, 05:28
2 days later the Ebola Zaire infection count is up to 300. Deaths are up to 186.
A total of 26,463 people in the DRC have been vaccinated against the virus using the Canadian developed vaccine, and licensed to MERCK. Merck is calling it "their" experimental vaccine. Merck though is with-holding another vaccination to west Africa because they can get more MONEY from China. They are using their "ebola" prevention measure as a PR move, as there has been so much public exposure since 2014.. They would not have focused on the Ebola vaccine if it was not brought to light.
Earlier in the thread there was a discussion about is PROFIT the motive for companies working to help with diseases, coming up with treatments or actual cures. MERCK is a corporation and is a profit mercenary. See MERCK's profit motive drive - https://www.statnews.com/pharmalot/2018/11/01/merck-rotavirus-vaccines-china/
In a controversial move, Merck is rolling back its commitment to provide a life-saving rotavirus vaccine to parts of West Africa at the same time the drug maker is ramping up supplies to China, where the product would reportedly be sold for a much higher price.
The company supplies its RotaTeq vaccine through an arrangement with GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance, a public-private partnership that helps provide medicines and vaccines to low-income countries. However, Merck is reducing shipments by one-third this year and next, according to GAVI. After that, supplies are not expected.
About 4.7 million doses will be delivered this year and 4 million next year.
As a result, more than a half million children in four countries — Burkina Faso, Mali, Ivory Coast, and Sao Tome — may not receive the vaccine for the illness, which inflames stomachs and intestines and is the world’s leading cause of diarrhea. About 213,000 deaths among children were attributed to rotavirus in 2013, according to the World Health Organization.
Profit motive - bucks made instead of lives saved
Merck made plans to begin selling RotaTeq in China, where a dose may cost around $40, compared with $3.50 in West Africa..
Merck's spin-doctor tried to cover up the move:
“We are committed to saving and improving lives around the world with our vaccines, and we are working closely with our customers around the world, including UNICEF and GAVI, to meet the unprecedented increase in global demand for vaccines, including for rotavirus,” she added.
Merck has a contract with UNICEF to supply RotaTeq to West Africa, and GAVI helps to fund the arrangement.
As long as health-care life saving is up for "PROFIT" the world will continue to suffer from the corporate maggots. When competition is stiffed and children and elderly are used as pawns in global take-overs by these vultures society will evermore be damaged, harmed and abused by the "board of directors" and the CEO's setting out "policy". Children and elderly are "useless mouths" unable to pay in these maggots' minds.. They support those who will pay the highest rates.
Why is the world still allowing an outdated corporatism to run the world?
Who owns Merck - Procter and Gamble (https://www.upi.com/Proctor-Gamble-buys-Mercks-consumer-health-care-unit-for-42B/7901524139207/) - see any of your favorite products in the list?
http://www.annualreports.com/HostedData/CompanyHeader/NYSE_PG.png
Founding Logo:
https://www.scripophily.com/webcart/vigs/proctorgamblevig3.jpg
Bob
21st November 2018, 04:32
Ebola Zaire strain in DR Congo NE update
Over the weekend and through today, the DRC recorded 21 more cases of Ebola, for a total of 373 cases, including 216 deaths. Seventy-two cases are suspected and under investigation.
Beni has been the epicenter of the current Ebola outbreak in North Kivu and Ituri provinces, which has been going on for more than 4 months and has become the DRC's largest Ebola outbreak to date.
There have been recent cases in Kalunguta, a health district in one of the DRC's security red zones. Ebola was spread to the area by a confirmed case-patient from Beni who escaped surveillance in that city. The community has been accommodating to health workers, and more than 800 people have been vaccinated.
At least 2 of the 21 new cases recorded this weekend were in Kalunguta.
Bob
25th November 2018, 01:45
Malawi - Government says it has put in place appropriate measures to reduce the chances of Zaire strain of Ebola Virus spreading into the country.
Minister of Health and Population, Atupele Muluzi, was speaking in Parliament on Friday.
"The Ministry of Health is on alert and we are monitoring closely together with World Health Organization (WHO) any development of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
"Our soldiers from Malawi Defence Force who are deployed in DRC are being screened when they are leaving and even when coming back to check if they have contracted the virus," Muluzi said.
He further said government, through his ministry, has set up infection- inspection centres throughout the country to ensure that people entering this country are screened of the disease.
"We have deployed Ebola monitoring equipment at all the international airports and all the border posts so that they can be screening all people who are leaving and entering this country.
"We have monitoring centres in Lilongwe, Blantyre, Karonga and Nsanje with the help from World Bank. The ministry is also monitoring all refugees' camps under United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) to make sure that we do not have the outbreak here," Muluzi said.
http://alexandriacafe.us/wp-content/assets/malawi-africa-map.jpg
Bob
29th November 2018, 15:02
As of the 28th November, deaths resultant from the Ebola Zaire strain in NE DR Congo is now up to 241.
The amount of cases is now 421 confirmed with 47 more probable as infected.
74 more people are under observation from having come in contact with known cases of the infection.
The outbreak is centered around the eastern city of Beni in North Kivu of DR Congo. It is in the middle of a war/conflict region.
Bob
6th December 2018, 15:08
Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP) report on NE DR Congo Ebola Zaire strain outbreak
Up more-so again, both in recorded cases and deaths.
As of 6 December 2018 the death total is 263.
458 cases are logged, with a suspicion of an additional 75 probable cases being investigated..
Bob
8th December 2018, 04:02
This outbreak just took a dangerous turn for the worse.
A highly populated city 35 miles away from the main epicenter (Beni) has been showing cases.
The health ministry said the "high density and mobility" of Butembo's population presents new challenges to containment efforts, already complicated by sporadic rebel attacks on remote villages in and around Beni.
Butembo, a bustling city of almost a million people in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, is reporting an increasing number of cases of Ebola virus disease in the country's current epidemic. There has been a "significant increase" in infections there over the past three weeks, with a total of 25 confirmed cases thus far, according to Thursday's bulletin from the country's health ministry.
Butembo is a key trading and transport hub with links to other major cities in the country as well as to neighboring Uganda. It's about two times the size of the city of Beni.
A day later and the deaths are up by 10, now showing 273 dead. 471 people are showing as experiencing hemorrhagic fever symptoms.
https://www.rrh.org.au/public/assets/article_images/article1131_16.gif
Bob
10th December 2018, 16:59
Some pictures of Butembo
https://www.mediacongo.net/cache/butembo_ville_vue_17_004_jpg_640_350_1.jpeg
https://c1.staticflickr.com/4/3300/3521980493_4ed4c0deae_b.jpg
Conflict region - making it difficult for tracking those infected and their "circles"
http://7sur7.cd/new/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/IMG-20180506-WA0015.jpg
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Pd5Mwi-6muQ/maxresdefault.jpg
Many people close together
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kLepyNPBVO0/WAderbt0hdI/AAAAAAABwwk/3bdd4vCniKg28aVB_CpTBhJ8rdOqw8svgCLcB/s400/Snapshot_539.jpeg
And now this
https://s.abcnews.com/images/International/congo-ebola-03-ap-jc-181207_hpMain_4x3_992.jpg
Vaccines are hardly existent at this point
MERCK needs to ramp up
Flash
10th December 2018, 17:07
Once it is in major cities in Africa, I do not see how it can be controlled. Those are poor and uneducated people, they do not have the right information nor the know how to avoid the spread on individual basis, plus adding to the complexity the culture of hiding (war countries always hide for survival).
Yep, for once, I am for some vaccination if at all possible and - or efficient.
Bob
13th December 2018, 21:24
It grows.
Outbreak totals now stand at 505 cases, including 298 deaths. The new cases include two in Katwa and one each in Komanda, Musienene, and Mabalako. At least one of the newly recorded deaths occurred in the community, in Katwa, an event that heightens the risk of virus spread, the DRC said.
How this happens. A sick traveler, not knowing what they are infected with, decides to travel. Along the way, whomever the person contacts (bodily fluids transferred through spit, cough, kissing, etc..) becomes part of the circle of contacts chain.
Officials also issued two health alerts about possible disease spread in Goma, the capital and largest city in North Kivu province. For weeks, officials have warned that Ebola could spread in the city.
https://www.peacewomen.org/assets/image/News/ocivrape-map_full_238.jpg
Bob
19th December 2018, 18:48
Cases now at 542
Deaths now at 319
This remains the DR Congo's 10th epidemic since 1976, and second this year.
avid
19th December 2018, 20:10
Only just hitting main news on TV UK....
Bob
20th December 2018, 18:26
Marburg a similar virus to Ebola is being discovered in BATS in West Africa - normally one would see a Marburg infection from visiting caves in Uganda, or potentially eating an infected Bat (eating dried smoked bats is common in Africa)..
Bats being tested in Sierra Leone have been showing up infected with the virus.
“Five Egyptian rousette fruit bats tested positive for active Marburg virus infection. Scientists caught the bats separately at locations in three health districts: Moyamba, Koinadugu and Kono,” the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which led one of the expeditions that found the infected bats, said in a statement.
“There have been no reported cases of people sick with Marburg in Sierra Leone, but the virus’s presence in bats means people nearby could be at risk for contracting Marburg virus. Marburg virus is a cousin to Ebola virus that causes a similar, often fatal disease in people.”
Fruitbats often partially eat fruit which drops to the ground and ground dwelling critters eat the fruit. If it is contaminated with an ebola or marburg virus that new animal can become a host and if it is eaten by a primate (or a human) can convey the virus to the new target.
The Egyptian fruit bat has been known to carry Marburg. It’s a reservoir, meaning the animals can carry and spread a virus, but it doesn’t make them sick. Bats are reservoirs for many viruses, including Marburg, rabies and middle east respiratory syndrome virus or MERS.
Three people died in an outbreak of Marburg in Uganda a year ago.
In 2005, a big outbreak of Marburg in Angola killed 90 percent of the 252 people infected.
Bats can spread viruses by biting people, but their saliva and guano can also spread the viruses — for instance, when they forage on fruit that people also gather and eat. People can catch viruses when they hunt and eat bats, as well.
Traditional Shamanistic (read "Witch Doctor" style) treatments consisting of some herbs, chants, smudging and wearing amulets to cast off "evil spirits" has been a cause behind the spreading of the viruses; babies, and children could have been saved when effectively vaccinated by the proven safe Canadian developed vaccination - they could have been saved... Superstition, ignorance and fear of "science and doctors" has continued to contribute to viral spreading in NE DR Congo for instance.
Education is what is needed, not promulgating "dark ages" beliefs..
Bob
21st December 2018, 23:14
A day later and now 560 cases of Ebola Zaire strain in DR Congo, the NE part of the country.
Deaths are now at 336 souls.
Complicating treatment, vaccination, and medical assistance - at least 50 armed groups are centered in the area.
WHO, the UN public health agency estimates that more than a million refugees and internally displaced people are traveling through and out of North Kivu and Ituri, and this movement is a potential risk factor for the spread of Ebola. Another complication: a high number of malaria cases in the region.
Bob
25th December 2018, 16:49
25 December 2018
South Sudan has felt it important to scale up its training and preparedness and response teams for the Ebola Virus detection and handling efforts.
A scale-up in preparedness measures, including an increase in volunteer trainings and equipment, are required as the outbreak in DRC continues to worsen and spread, with new clusters of cases emerging. As of 19 December, there have been 560 confirmed and probable cases in DRC.
This coupled with the continued movement of populations between the DRC and South Sudan border, lack of capacity of the health system to respond to EVD cases, as well as on-going instability increases the potential of an outbreak in South Sudan.
The WHO (World Health Organization) risk level of the outbreak spreading to South Sudan has been increased from high to very high both at national and regional levels.
https://www.journalducameroun.com/en/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/14948796645156-780x440.jpg
As can be seen in the map above, Southern Sudan borders the affected area in the upper northeast of the DR Congo where the outbreak continues to grow.
Besides the risk of Ebola Zaire infected public traveling back and forth across the border, there is a situation which continues to grow, armed conflict from the militants who continue to hinder efforts to quell the spread.
Bob
30th December 2018, 03:49
A U.S. physician exposed to Ebola now in US - he was exposed while treating patients in the Democratic Republic of Congo arrived in the United States today and was taken to a secure area at the Nebraska Medical Center. This transport just happened 29 December, 2018.
The 39-year-old physician, who isn't exhibiting symptoms of the deadly virus, was privately transported to the medical center in Omaha, Nebraska, on Saturday afternoon, officials there confirmed.
Ebola, which can spread through direct contact, can incubate for three weeks before an infected person begins showing symptoms.
The doctor will be kept under observation in a secure area for up to two weeks and transferred to a special bio-containment unit if symptoms develop.
The center, which is partnered with the University of Nebraska Medical Center, has previously treated Ebola patients.
"This person may have been exposed to the virus but is not ill and is not contagious," said Ted Cieslak, an infectious diseases specialist at the medical center. "Should any symptoms develop, the Nebraska Medicine/UNMC team is among the most qualified in the world to deal with them."
The physician was working at a missionary hospital in the DRC and treated a severely ill patient who subsequently tested positive for Ebola, according to a government official with knowledge of the case. The physician one day later received the experimental Ebola vaccine as a post-exposure preventive measure and has been under observation for a week.
more: https://www.ketv.com/article/nebraska-med-center-monitoring-patient-potentially-exposed-to-ebola/25707116
https://www.nebraskamed.com/sites/default/files/styles/max_650x650/public/2017-03/nebraska-medical-center.jpg?itok=8rzifef6
Bob
2nd January 2019, 16:57
In the towns of Beni, Oicha, Mabalako, and Komanda, in DR Congo (NE) the deaths have increased upwards. Bringing the current total for this outbreak up to 363, with a case-fatality rate of 61%.
The amount of cases (people infected or potentially afflicted) is showing as 598 as of December 30.
People vaccinated: 53,737. The only vaccine to be used in this outbreak is the rVSV-ZEBOV vaccine, manufactured by the pharmaceutical group Merck (proved and developed in Canada), following approval by the Ethics Committee in its decision of 19 May 2018.
Bob
7th January 2019, 23:40
Ethiopia is continuing its Ebola Screening Campaign.
https://www.journalducameroun.com/en/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/14948796645156-780x440.jpg
Cases are over 600 currently in DR Congo, NE area.
All travelers are being screened at the borders in Ethiopia.
4.5 million travelers have been screened at all ports of entry to Ethiopia, according to Dr Amir Aman, Ethiopia’s Minister of Health.
The number appears to be about 30,000 travelers screened per day.
Bob
10th January 2019, 20:14
China reports an ebola-like infective virus present in fruit bats that have been tested - southwestern China
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/2181500/ebola-virus-found-chinese-bats
“Studying the genetic diversity and geographic distribution of bat-borne filoviruses is very important for risk assessment and outbreak prevention, as this type of infectious disease can affect the general public without warning and with devastating consequences,” Wang said.
At present, the Mengla virus has only been identified in populations of Rousettus bats in China, and further tests will be conducted to assess the risk of the virus spreading to other species.
The team, led by Shi Zhengli from the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Virology in Wuhan and Wang Linfa from the Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore, discovered that the new virus had several important functional similarities with the Ebola and Marburg viruses.
The Mengla virus – discovered in a fruit bat caught in Mengla county, Yunnan province – is closely related to the Ebola and Marburg viruses which are capable of causing severe and often fatal bleeding and organ failure in humans, according to the scientists.
Their study, published in the January edition of the online journal Nature Microbiology, confirmed that the new virus could infect cells from monkeys, hamsters, dogs and humans.
Bob
10th January 2019, 20:21
Bold statement made by research scientists working to protect against many strains of Ebola with ONE dose.
There is a new medication that in one dose successfully protected nonhuman primates against a lethal infection of all strains of the deadly Ebola virus. The findings are now available in Cell Host & Microbe.
Dr. Thomas Geisbert, a world-renowned Ebola researcher at The University of Texas Medical Branch, said that previous therapeutics typically were of the "one bug, one drug" variety. But because of the unpredictable nature and variety of the Ebola virus, scientists have been seeking a way to protect against different strains of the virus.
"Our experimental drug can protect against all forms of Ebola known to harm people, suggesting that it will continue to protect people if the Ebola viruses evolve over time," said Geisbert, who is a professor of microbiology and immunology at UTMB.
The team of scientists demonstrated that a two-antibody cocktail called MBP134 could fully protect nonhuman primates and ferrets against lethal Ebola virus infections of caused by the Bundibugyo and Sudan strain as well as the deadliest Zaire strain that caused the 2013-16 epidemic in West Africa and the current outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
"We were able to protect the nonhuman primates against all the Ebola species plaguing people at a single low dose," said Larry Zeitlin, president of Mapp Biopharmaceutical Inc. "Further studies exploring even lower doses could open the door to treatment via auto-injectors like the kind used for allergic reactions. The ability to quickly and efficiently provide protection against all Ebola viruses in a single dose would reduce the burden on health care workers in the field during outbreaks, especially in regions that have a less-developed infrastructure."
ref: Jan 9th 2019, from Medical Xpress - https://medicalxpress.com/news/2019-01-scientists-universal-ebola-treatment-effective.html
Bob
13th January 2019, 16:57
Update to post 1083 above - Doctor admitted to Omaha quarantine facility declared Ebola-Free.
This individual arrived for monitoring in Omaha on Dec. 29. Federal, state and county public health officials coordinated the monitoring effort at Nebraska Medical Center. The individual was monitored in a secure area not accessible by the public or any patients. 21 days later, no symptoms, no trace of Ebola.
The physician was working at a missionary hospital in the DRC and treated a severely ill patient who subsequently tested positive for Ebola, according to a government official with knowledge of the case. The physician one day later received the experimental Ebola vaccine as a post-exposure preventive measure. It is unknown if the Ebola vaccine contributed to a post exposure effective treatment, or if the Ebola virus was never transferred to the Doctor.
Note - it is assumed that the Doctor was overseas for at least 6 days prior to arrival in the US for monitoring (and/or potential treatment). The Doctor was observed for 16 days in the US.
Bob
17th January 2019, 12:20
During the past 4 days, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) health ministry reported 19 more Ebola cases in five locations, though most were from Katwa in DR Congo within the outbreak region.
As of today to 649 cases of the infection have happened in the area. Ten more people have died from their infections.
Bob
26th January 2019, 14:31
The Eboa virus is showing up in West African bats
https://www.foxnews.com/health/ebola-virus-found-in-bat-in-west-africa-for-the-first-time-scientists-say
The Ebola virus has been found in a bat in Liberia, the country’s government and scientists with Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health announced this week.
The discovery marks the first time the virus has ever been found in a bat in West Africa, though it has previously been found in bats in Central Africa, according to the Tech Times.
Scientists have previously suspected bats could be an animal host for the virus. Specifically, for the greater long-fingered bat, scientists will need to find more than one bat of this species to determine whether or not this type is a natural reservoir, or host, of the Ebola virus, according to The Washington Post.
While scientists noted more research is needed, the Liberian government chose to announce the news in order to “engage local communities about this finding to help reduce the possible risk of exposure and educate people about the positive impacts of bat species on pest control and the environment,” according to the statement.
Don't eat the bats, don't consume the fruit that the bats have munched on, and don't eat the primates (monkeys) that have eaten the fruit that the bats have munched on that has dropped to the ground. Primates frequently take the fruit they find on the ground opportunistically, and if it has been contaminated by an infected bat, will pick up the virus.. Humans in Africa tend to feel bushmeat (monkeys) are great to eat as well as eating bats too.. Not a good practice considering Ebola can easily jump from animal to human that way..
Bob
26th January 2019, 18:06
The Ebola Zaire strain outbreak continues to grow.
Since the outbreak started in August 2018, most infections have occurred in the country's Katwa health zone in the upper NE part of the Country.
However, "the outbreak has also extended southwards to Kayina health zone, a high security risk area," the WHO said in a Jan. 24 statement cited by Reuters.
Political unrest and frequent fighting in the Congo have hampered healthcare workers' efforts to monitor and educate those at risk of exposure.
Health officials identified five Ebola cases in Kayina, which sits between the main outbreak zone and Goma, a major city near the Rwandan border.
The WHO has already run an Ebola simulation exercise in Rwanda in case the outbreak spreads across the border.
The organization also plans to send a team to vaccinate health workers and boost the country's outbreak preparedness.
As of Jan. 23, Congo's health ministry reported 713 confirmed and probable infections linked to the outbreak, along with 439 deaths.
ThePythonicCow
28th January 2019, 10:11
As Dr. Thomas Levy discusses starting at the 1:03:40 mark in the video Intravenous Vitamin C in the Clinical Practice (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZl1bG6vCfA), Vitamin C in conjunction with glutathione and ozone therapy can readily treat Ebola.
Levy bases his comments on this paper: Rapid resolution of hemorrhagic fever (Ebola) in Sierra Leone with ozone therapy (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/290474717_Rapid_resolution_of_hemorrhagic_fever_Ebola_in_Sierra_Leone_with_ozone_therapy).
Here's the Abstract of that paper:
==============
Background: Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) has ravaged three countries in West Africa. The mortality rate is extremely high, and it is perceived not only as threat to all of Africa but to the entire world. There is no known treatment to date other than administration of convalescent blood or experimental monoclonal antibodies, which both often fail. Ozone therapy (OT) has been in clinical use for decades and has been found to have physiological effects, which should directly inactivate the virus itself, as well as modulate its damaging effects. We present the scientific background and the possibility of ozone therapy as a cure or prevention for EVD in five consecutive patients.
Materials and Methods: Ozone therapy administration by a combination of direct intravenous gas administration, rectal gas administration and ozonized water was administered to three patients with known acute EVD, one with apparent acute infection, and one case of extremely high risk. Treatment was carried out for up to ten days despite fast total remission of symptoms. Vitamin C and glutathione supporting supplements were administered.
Results: Four symptomatic patients, three with test positive EVD confirmation and one (who suffered Ebola contaminated needle stick contamination three days earlier) without lab confirmation all remitted symptoms within 2-4 days and fully recovered. All four ill cases had an immediate recovery course upon initiation of therapy. The single case of non-symptomatic high-risk exposure treated preventively did not develop symptoms.
Conclusion: Ebola virus may have a very narrow window of redox infectivity capacity, which can be easily exploited with OT. OT may be a useful modality in EVD and other viral diseases and should be immediately studied to save lives that might otherwise be lost.
==============
I've been reading and listening to Levy for the last couple of days. I'm finding him quite well informed and honest on matters relating to toxins and infectious diseases in the human body and with their treatment, especially using Vitamin C.
In some other video of Levy's that I was listening to a couple of days ago, Levy speculated that ebola would likely be less catastrophic in the United States, as opposed to some equatorial African countries, because a larger portion of the population in those African countries had seriously compromised nutrition. Populations with unusually low reserves of Vitamin C in their body, due to poor nutrition or to existing serious chronic disease, would likely be more at risk of dying from Ebola.
Bob
28th January 2019, 11:50
It was interesting reading Russian Television's commentary on Ebola Treatments (of the non-accepted types) -
see - https://www.rt.com/news/194200-ebola-virus-treatment-bizarre/
Levy was mentioned in the top of their list -
The article was Published time: 8 Oct, 2014 14:21
Edited time: 9 Oct, 2014 11:35
There was no mention of Ozone therapy in the RT article.
================
In May 2018
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/05/180507174013.htm
Seems that the current mindset is to focus on using mono-clonal anti-bodies, which can be even free-dried, not requiring extremely low temperatures which would require refrigeration methods not easily obtainable in the "out back" of the African countries experiencing the outbreaks.
==============
From 2015
Popular science asks the question about Ebola treatment using Ozone
https://www.popsci.com/could-ozone-therapy-be-solution-to-future-disease-outbreaks
While the patients’ survival rate was higher than the typical rate in the clinic, the sample size was too small to be certain that it wasn’t just due to chance, that ozone therapy did, in fact, make them better. The researchers only tested the therapy on four patients, all of whom were treated at the ideal time: very shortly after symptoms developed.
What they were saying, insufficient amount of patients were in the study, insufficient randomness in the study.. Was it the Ozone or a boosted immune system that went after the Ebola; were a patients own antibodies triggered into hyper activity by the Ozone? Insufficient data, but many questions..
Vaccine studies for instance test on thousands of patients some healthy some infected. How does one get 1000 Ebola infected patients to study on? Researchers turn to smaller lab animals and use them for the testing, often-times sacrificing the animal if it is healthy or dead (necropsy) to see how the animal died, or how organs and tissues were affected by the treatment AND the infection.
Bob
28th January 2019, 16:06
A hospital in Ohio is asking for volunteers to test a new vaccine that claims to boost the immune system to go after certain types of viruses - Ebola is one of them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wfw4wuC8GQ8
ref: http://www.wvxu.org/post/cincinnati-volunteers-testing-vaccine-deadly-ebola-virus#stream/0
Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center is looking to increase the number of people participating in a clinical trial testing a new Ebola vaccine.
It took 2 1/2 years to get approval and develop the vaccine.
The vaccine is being tested on adults and is given in two doses a week apart.
The vaccine - was developed at the National Institutes of Health and sponsored by drug company Janssen - it does not contain the Ebola virus. Instead, the vaccine contains other inactivated viruses.
It took two-and-a-half years before researchers could start testing it on humans.
Another new Ebola vaccine has already been deployed in Africa. Spearman says it's important to have more than one.
avid
28th January 2019, 16:29
Hopefully no queueing up for this ....
bogdan9310
31st January 2019, 16:30
I think they are deliberately infecting the population to drop it down, overpopulation is becoming a problem.
Bob
31st January 2019, 16:56
I think they are deliberately infecting the population to drop it down, overpopulation is becoming a problem.
Ebola Zaire infection is a most evil way to do that. Take a look at the whole thread, it is a very interesting story to date..
Welcome to the Forum :sun:
Bob
6th February 2019, 20:30
University Hospital - at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia - a patient was recently tested for Ebola.
Dr. P.J. Brennan, Penn Medicine's chief medical officer, said in a statement that preliminary testing shows the patient has another condition. (Malaria and Lassa Fever (from rat urine and feces exposure) can manifest similarly as can numerous other types of bleeding type of fevers).
"Proper protocols and precautions will remain in place to ensure the safety of all of our patients and staff," he said.
The Hospital would not release the details about the patient or what the patient has.
Current statistics:
Ebola has infected at least 788 people and killed 486 people as of Feb. 4 since an outbreak of the virus started in the Democratic Republic of Congo in August, according to the World Health Organization.
Bob
7th February 2019, 17:49
To me this is a bit troubling.
Lancet, one of the medical community's most prestigious "trade journals" that lets key authors respected in the community publish their investigations, studies, and thoughts has come out with an article on the 4th February this year which says the current Ebola Zaire outbreak in North East DR Congo could very well lead to a worldwide emergency.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(19)30243-0/fulltext
The reasoning cites this:
People are afraid to come in when symptoms appear.
Rebels fighting in the area are attacking health care workers.
People are being told (rumors) if they enter a clinic for checking out symptoms, that they will be put in body bags, they will be quickly killed and their body parts and organs harvested for sale.
At close to 800 people diagnosed with Ebola Zaire, existing health care facilities are maxing out - running out of doctors, beds, supplies, isolation wards.
--------------
Authors Laurence Gostin, faculty director of Georgetown University’s O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law, and colleagues, in their letter titled, “Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo: Time to sound a global alert?” write that this latest outbreak of Ebola in DRC is the second largest since the 2014 West African epidemic. This makes it the second largest in the history of mankind, they write. The team write about the hurdles that make tackling this outbreak an uphill task including areas riddled with “armed conflict, political instabilities and mass displacement” that make it difficult for help and relief operations to work independently and effectively.
The team writes that the “WHO, the DRC Government, and non-governmental organisation (NGO) partners have shown remarkable leadership but are badly stretched.” They warned that the outbreak is “far from controlled” and there is a substantial risk of it becoming a “long-term epidemic with regional, perhaps global, impacts.”
The team at present is calling for “high-level political, financial, and technical support to address the Ebola outbreak that started last May” in the DRC. There are fresh warnings about the spread of this disease closer to Goma city. The outbreak now has already reached Butemba that houses around a million people. To United Nations is actively sending help to protect Goma city and also to help them deal with the situation. At present 2000 emergency workers are sent to Goma city to handle the influx of patients with Ebola.
Bob
12th February 2019, 16:49
12 February - During Congo’s current outbreak — the country’s 10th and its largest since Ebola was discovered within its borders in 1976 — about 63 percent of those infected have died, or 510 out of the 811 cases reported as of February 9.
Stopping the outbreak, which began August 1, has been difficult due to security risks and armed conflict in the region, as well as public mistrust of the medical response, the World Health Organization says.
https://www.sciencenews.org/sites/default/files/images/020819_ac_ebola_inline_370.jpg
These health zones (mostly outlined in red) in Congo have confirmed and probable cases of Ebola. The first multidrug clinical trial of Ebola therapies got started in the city of Beni in November.
The only non-antibody treatment being studied in the trial is an antiviral drug called remdesivir, or GS-5734, which appears to target a step in the virus’ “owner’s manual” for making copies of itself.
The drug suppressed virus replication, and, in certain doses, helped Ebola-infected macaques survive, researchers reported in Nature in 2016.
All of the therapies under scrutiny are already being used in this outbreak under “compassionate use” protocols set by WHO.
In the Congolese treatment units that will participate in the clinical trial, patients will be randomly assigned to receive one of the drugs, with an equal number of patients in each group.
If the trial doesn’t enroll enough patients to get statistically significant results, it will remain open to patients in future outbreaks.
Meantime, people not yet exposed to Ebola but considered high risk in Congo and surrounding countries are receiving an experimental vaccine called rVSV-ZEBOV (SN Online: 5/21/18) to prevent infection. More than 73,000 people have gotten the preventative shot so far.
Congo has vaccinated health workers, patients’ family members and other contacts. Neighboring regions in Uganda and South Sudan are also vaccinating health workers and others at risk. Rwanda has plans to follow suit.
“The one silver lining in the entire dark cloud” of this outbreak is the availability of the vaccine and the therapeutics, says infectious disease epidemiologist Mosoka Fallah of the National Public Health Institute of Liberia in Monrovia. He thinks the deployment of the vaccine and the treatments have kept the outbreak from becoming far worse than it already is.
Doctors without Borders, an aid organization, suspended operations for Ebola care and treatment in DR Congo.
They did so after two treatment centers were torched, burned, and patients being treated disappeared.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2019/03/01/MSF261148_Medium_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqdtjgXnZ3Xbtg8GLhDrXFE7Xe6Tt2usNa8OxSknCHyZY.jpg?imwidth=1400
But violent attacks in the volatile region, which has been at the centre of conflict fueled by ethnic rivalries and territorial disputes for more than two decades, have made attempts to control the highly contagious disease even more difficult.
Earlier this week, an Ebola treatment centre in the town of Katwa was partially burnt down, destroying medical equipment and patients wards and killing a caretaker, seemingly while he was fleeing the scene.
Then in a second attack on Wednesday night in the nearby city of Butembo, assailants tried to set fire to a health centre with almost 60 patients inside - 15 of whom were confirmed to have Ebola.
Dr Michel Yao, the incident manager for the World Health Organization, told The Telegraph he found bullet holes in the building’s walls the next morning.
7 April 2019 DR Congo north east (Beni and Butembo city areas)
Currently 702 deaths
1117 having been infected with a potential of 295 more people potentially infected.
95,000 residents have received a dose of the rVSV-Zebov vaccine from Merck laboratories.
339 people have recovered (long lasting damage has been present in many of those who have recovered).
The World Health Organization has warned that "the risk of national and regional spread remains very high".
Several armed groups, coupled with resistance of some communities to seeking treatment, has hampered the fight to stem the spread of the disease.
Bob
30th April 2019, 15:51
Ebola case flareup in DR Congo (east) -
DRC, now 1,466 cases and 957 deaths. A total of 239 suspected cases are still under investigation.
In DRC, Katwa and Butembo remain the outbreak hot spots, with Beni, Mandima, Musienene, Biena, Kalunguta, Mutwanga, and Mabalako also noting cases in the past few days.
The cumulative number of confirmed cases or probable among health workers has now reached 92 (6.4% of all confirmed and probable cases), including 33 deaths.
Vaccination attributed to keeping the infection count and death count low - As of today, a ring vaccination campaign with Merck's rVSV-ZEBOV continues in the outbreak region, with 107,565 people vaccinated, including 28,826 in Katwa, 21,107 in Beni, and 13,246 in Butembo.
Difficulty is still present in DR Congo, the NE area - the Ebola cases have topped 1600 and deaths have exceeded 1060 people.
Another clinic was attacked, and protesters burned the triage service of Sainte Famille Mukuna hospital center in Katwa health zone.
ref: http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2019/05/ebola-outbreak-hits-1600-cases-amid-armed-clashes
A new vaccine is probably going to be tried, manufactured by Johnson and Johnson with scheduled reductions of dose strength of the Merck vaccine which has to date shown greater than 95% effectiveness.
Personally I would be concerned with the doctors deciding to change the technique and dosage established by the clinical and field studies.
Insufficient immunity (lack of sufficient antibodies) could allow for the virus to mutate, and become resistant to the monoclonal antibodies which are pretty specific in the Merck vaccine..
More than 1,860 cases of Ebola have now been reported in North Kivu and neighbouring Ituri province, and more than 1,240 deaths.
WHO still refuses to declare an emergency.
Neighbouring countries of Uganda and Rwanda and southern Sudan are concerned that travelers from DR Congo may bring the disease with them - nearly one million people travel each month from DR Congo into Uganda - An estimated 100,000 people cross the border each month into Rwanda.
From AP
It's over 2000 currently..
The Ebola Zaire outbreak in north-eastern Congo has surpassed 2,000 cases and is increasing in the speed of persons infected.
The number of confirmed cases reached the milestone three times as quickly as it took to reach 1,000, experts said Tuesday.
Potential under-reporting -
Because of the mistrust many Ebola cases are not being counted and the number of confirmed cases is likely “an underestimate and not a realistic picture of the number of cases out there,” the IRC said in a separate statement. Many people, frightened, are still dying at home instead of presenting themselves at health centers for treatment. (IRC: International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies).
More than 129,000 people have received the new experimental effective Ebola vaccine in its first widespread use.
Reports are the vaccine has resulted in less active infections and deaths - over 95% effectiveness has been reported for the new Canadian developed vaccine based on the VSV vector.
vaccine report on effectiveness: https://www.who.int/csr/resources/publications/ebola/ebola-ring-vaccination-results-12-april-2019.pdf
ThePythonicCow
4th June 2019, 21:35
Dimitri Orlov, in his latest post World’s Biggest Problems Solved (https://cluborlov.blogspot.com/2019/06/worlds-biggest-problems-solved.html), has a different take on the Ebola epidemic:
===============
The Ebola virus has been known since 1976 but gained notoriety in 2014 when 2258 cases of Ebola infection were recorded in Equatorial Guinea. Later it spread to neighboring Liberia and Sierra Leone, but it was at that early moment that Western mass media started ramping up their fearmongering, claiming that an Ebola pandemic is about to engulf the world. The explanation for this running start soon followed and was freely offered by its main beneficiaries: two Western pharmaceutical companies, US transnational Merck and British THK GlaxoSmithKline. Serendipitously, both of these companies both developed and stockpiled mass quantities of their respective Ebola vaccines just in time for the scare campaign. The effectiveness of these vaccines proved to be ineffectual, but they sold a lot of them anyway.
And then, at the height of the epidemic, a large group of specialists arrived, set up field hospitals and conducted a massive operation that ranged over the entire affected region looking for signs of infection. In a short period of time, these specialists developed a new vaccine, Gam-Evac Combi, which turned out to be orders of magnitude more effective than the American or the British ones. The epidemic was quickly ended. It was at that point that the entire episode vanished from Western media. But it would have been very interesting to find out more. For instance, was the epidemic spontaneous, or was its ground zero specifically chosen? There have been reports from the affected region of militants targeting Western medical teams; are they beginning to suspect something? In any case, where did these other, non-Western specialists come from, and who developed the effective Ebola vaccine? Who were they? It was… the Russians, again.
===============
Haemorrhagic fever / Ebola outbreaks have been reported -
accident,
natural or
bio-weapon?
Possibly a 4th question could be asked - like with computer viruses being engineered by anti-virus companies that sprung up, was it engineered not as a bio-weapon but a commercial product sales tool? (vaccines being the sales ... )
¤=[Post Update]=¤
As one can eradicate a virus or perform an inoculation on a computer so to speak, the virus never the less exists, is documented, and there are now treatments. How it came into play was the subject of this thread, where did it start, how did it start, why did it start (and re-occur now and then).. Those are valid questions
the 'effective vaccine' was developed in Canada, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5662448/
The development of an effective Ebola vaccine by Canada’s National Microbiology Laboratory is a great Canadian contribution to global public health. A linked study in CMAJ reports on a phase 1 trial of a recombinant vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) Ebola vaccine developed in Canada.1 This is the story of its development.
Ebola, a hemorrhagic fever filovirus, endemic in parts of Africa, was first recognized in 1976 in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo and first isolated at the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp.2,3 In 1996 Jack Rose described a reverse genetics system for VSV (an animal virus that infects humans but does not cause much in the way of human disease),4 showing that recombinant VSV could act as a gene expression vector and, subsequently, that exogenous proteins could be incorporated into the membrane of the virus particles. In 2001 Rose’s group showed that HIV Env and Gag proteins could be expressed using the recombinant VSV vector with potential to be effective vaccine vectors.
In 1997, Yoshihiro Kawaoka created a new tool for the study of Ebola virus. He developed a replication-incompetent VSV5 vector that had a green fluorescent protein gene in place of the VSV glycoprotein; Ebola virus glycoprotein was supplied to the virus as it formed in cell culture from a separate expression system. Kawaoka’s group successfully used this pseudotyped replication-deficient virus as a research tool to study the structure and function of the Ebola virus glycoprotein (EBOV).
Fifteen years before the 2014–2015 Ebola outbreak in West Africa, in 1999, Heinz Feldman, newly recruited to the National Microbiology Laboratory, set out to study the pathogenic effects of the EBOV, believing the glycoprotein to be key to the severity of Ebola infection. In collaboration with Ute Ströher, the team developed a replicating recombinant VSV vector in which the VSV glycoprotein was functionally replaced with the EBOV.
Early experiments to test its predicted pathogenicity saw mice inoculated with the EBOV using the VSV viral vector and then challenged with the mouse-adapted Ebola virus. The mice did not develop Ebola as expected; they were completely protected, which was essentially a failure, but this turned out to be an important breakthrough in Ebola vaccine research.6
The vaccine was shown to be highly protective even when used postexposure in animal models, and that it was possible to immunize orally and intranasally and protect against a systemic challenge.7
In 2001, the Public Health Agency of Canada’s National Microbiology Laboratory began to work on developing a vaccine. The risk that a virulent agent like Ebola could spread quickly from small community outbreaks to a major global epidemic was well appreciated and Ebola was widely regarded as a bioterrorism threat.
However, many systemic failures slowed progress from early observations of an immune response in mice to a safe, injectable Ebola vaccine for humans. It took several years to convince funding agencies of the value of spending the National Microbiology Laboratory’s limited resources on Ebola vaccine research over other pressing public health issues in Canada.
In 2005, a change in funding body leadership, an increasing body of efficacy data and strong advocacy by scientists resulted in the research team securing half the requested funding for development of the Ebola vaccine. There followed the dogged work of building the vaccine program, putting contracts in place and securing sign-off from Ottawa.
The goal of the vaccine development program was to develop current Good Manufacturing Practice (cGMP) virus stocks that would be suitable for phase 1 and 2 clinical trials, as well as being suitable for emergency use; e.g., in the event of a laboratory exposure. The team partnered with IDT Biologika GmbH in Dessau-Rosslau, Germany, although there were obstacles to placing a vaccine development contract with a German manufacturer.
At the National Microbiology Laboratory, all the reverse genetics system plasmids were recloned and sequenced, and the viruses were rescued again using cell lines with safety provenance, necessary for regulators.
Initial safety and efficacy trials were repeated in animals using the new cGMP vaccine. IDT then began the process of increasing production of the VSV-Ebola vaccine to industrial scale.
By 2015, there was enough human-grade material on hand that Canada could offer 1000 doses of the vaccine to the World Health Organization (WHO) at the height of the 2014–2015 Ebola outbreak. The total time from project approval and partnering with IDT Biologika, awarding of the contract and delivery of the final cGMP vaccine materials was more than six years.
Because the market for an Ebola vaccine was considered to be small, stockpiling by the US, UK and Canadian militaries, and civil protection, comprised the main focus early on. There was little interest in the vaccine from the pharmaceutical industry.
A licence for what was now known as VSV-EBOV was eventually granted to a small American company, with which the team from the National Microbiology Laboratory worked to seek funding and push the development of the cGMP vaccine through safety and efficacy studies.
During the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, Merck purchased the rights to develop VSV-EBOV and brought it into large-scale production for clinical trials.
Given the uncertain intellectual property of the VSV-EBOV, ensuring that the government of Canada had rights to use and develop the vaccine took substantial work.
The National Microbiology Laboratory’s director of business development negotiated a licence for use of the vaccine in the viral hemorrhagic fever field and Canada obtained a licence to develop vaccines for Ebola, Marburg virus and Lassa fever.
The 2014–2015 Ebola outbreak in West Africa garnered unprecedented support for clinical trials.
In addition to donating over 1000 clinical trial vaccine lots to the WHO, Canada provided funding though the Canadian Institutes of Health Research for phase 1 safety trials and more than $100 million over a six-week period to the WHO through the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development (now Global Affairs Canada) and the International Development Research Centre for phase 3 trials and other Ebola countermeasures.
The first reported phase 1 studies showed that the vaccine was well tolerated and immunogenic.8 A group based in Halifax undertook further phase 1 studies, as reported in the linked study.1
The next big step — design and implementation of a randomized controlled trial in Guinea — was led by Norway and the WHO but included important Canadian components and funding. Researchers used a unique study design, called ring vaccination,9 which randomized contacts of Ebola index cases to receive either VSV-EBOV or initial placebo with delayed vaccine. Within the rings that received the vaccine, no secondary cases were observed after the 10-day period required to generate an immune response.9 Indeed, this trial may have contributed to control of the Ebola outbreak in Guinea. The vaccine is now on the pathway to licensure and will likely be used in any future Ebola outbreaks.
Vaccine development moved from cGMP material to a randomized controlled trial in West Africa in a matter of months following the unprecedented Ebola outbreak in West Africa in 2015.
However, this was preceded by 15 years of fundamental research — laboratory and preclinical work — and a huge effort to get cGMP vaccine produced for human use. Canada played a major role in the development of this vaccine by conducting early research, performing phase 1 clinical trials and providing essential funding.
The vaccine may mean the end of Ebola virus infection as a global health threat, and Canada has contributed a model for global responses to new infectious disease threats.
References
1. ElSherif MS, Brown C, MacKinnon-Cameron D, et al. the Canadian Immunization Research Network. Assessing the safety and immunogenicity of recombinant vesicular stomatitis virus Ebola vaccine in healthy adults: a randomized clinical trial. CMAJ 2017;189:E819–27. [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
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6. Jones SM, Feldmann H, Ströher U, et al. Live attenuated recombinant vaccine protects nonhuman primates against Ebola and Marburg viruses. Nat Med 2005;11:786–90. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
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9. Henao-Restrepo AM, Camacho A, Longini IM, et al. Efficacy and effectiveness of an rVSV-vectored vaccine in preventing Ebola virus disease: final results from the Guinea ring vaccination, open-label, cluster-randomised trial (Ebola Ça Suffit!). Lancet 2017;389:505–18. [PMC free article] [PubMed]
Why was the Canadian recombinant vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) designed vaccine for Ebola Zaire immunization not 100% effective?
A few items were pointed out - it takes about 10 days for full immunity to develop in healthy individuals.
Those that proceeded to get Ebola Zaire were immune compromised individuals (AIDS, widely spread in Africa being one of the possibilities), and that exposure to an Ebola infected individual occurred within the 10 day period needed for effective full immunity.
What data is lacking - studies on children under 2, what will the vaccine do there - it has been reported that children are part of the affected ones with the NE DR Congo current outbreak.. There have been no articles that could be found that of those affected (statistically children).. were they (the children infected) vaccinated or not with the Canadian Ebola Zaire vaccine...
from the LANCET report on the Canadian developed Ebola vaccine based on the recombinant vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) development and studies for safety and effectiveness - https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(18)31710-0/fulltext
Demographic of the outbreak in DR Congo -
As of 2 June 2019, a total of 2008 EVD cases, including 1914 confirmed and 94 probable cases, were reported. A total of 1346 deaths were reported (overall case fatality ratio 67%), including 1252 deaths among confirmed cases.
Of the 2008 confirmed and probable cases with known age and sex:
58% (1159) were female, and
29% (585) were children aged less than 18 years, and
13% males (264)
ref: https://reliefweb.int/report/democratic-republic-congo/democratic-republic-congo-ebola-virus-disease-external-situation-59
from BBC:
More than 2,000 cases of Ebola have been recorded in the Democratic Republic of Congo in the last 10 months, officials have said.
Two thirds of the cases have been fatal, the health ministry added.
The outbreak in the east of DR Congo is the second biggest in history, with a significant spike in new cases noted in recent weeks.
But health workers' attempts to contain the outbreak has been hindered by mistrust and violence.
The World Health Organisation has said that the risk of a global spread is low, but it was very likely cases would spread into neighbouring countries.
Most Ebola outbreaks are over quickly and affect small numbers of people.
Only once before has an outbreak been still growing more than eight months after it began - that was the epidemic in West Africa between 2013 and 2016, which killed 11,310 people.
Here is a brief video (1 min 42 seconds) from "Doctors without Borders" who are a front line organization involved with working within the outbreaks
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXzfBu3ujH0
Ebola Zaire strain has spread into Uganda.
from: https://www.africanews.com/2019/06/13/ebola-confirmed-in-uganda/
The World Health Organization announced an emergency committee would meet Friday to determine whether to upgrade its assessment of the situation to “a public health emergency of international concern”.
WHO, in October and again in April, held off declaring the DRC epidemic an emergency of international concern, because the outbreak was contained to one part of DRC.
For the committee to make the emergency call, it must determine that the epidemic “carries implications for public health beyond the affected State’s national border and may require immediate international action”.
With the spread to a neighboring country, WHO is considering now doing the "emergency declaration".
also:
“We can expect and should plan for more cases in DRC and neighbouring countries,” he said, adding: “There are now more deaths than any other Ebola outbreak in history, bar the West Africa Epidemic of 2013-16, and there can be no doubt that the situation could escalate towards those terrible levels.”
The Red Cross said it was scaling up efforts to contain the spread of the virus since it was detected in Uganda.
“This is a worrying development, but we have been preparing for this day for months now,” Robert Kwesiga, Uganda Red Cross Secretary General, said in a statement Wednesday.
Experts noted that Uganda, which has been on high alert for possible spread of Ebola and has already vaccinated many frontline healthworkers, is relatively well prepared and should be able to limit the virus’ spread.
Uganda has suffered regular outbreaks of Ebola and Marburg over the years, both high-fatality viral haemorrhagic fevers. Health facilities to treat the diseases are relatively robust.
Uganda’s worst Ebola outbreak was in 2000 when 425 people were infected. More than half of them died.
Uganda has vaccinated nearly 4,700 health workers, disease monitoring has been intensified, special treatment units set up and health workers have been trained to recognize symptoms of the disease
Is there a danger to Texas?
Customs Border Patrol reported this last week, that over 500 illegal aliens originating from Africa entered through the Mexico Border into the United States.
Statistically the breakdown was this:
Angola – 101
Cameroon – 6
Democratic Republic of Congo – 314 (DR CONGO current Ebola outbreak)
Gabon – 1
Niger – 1
Republic of Congo – 130
Customs and Border Patrol is NOT screening for ANY INFECTIOUS disease and most certainly not screening for Ebola..
What else could be epidemologically getting in?
DR Congo is experiencing 87,000 cases of measles, claiming the lives of 1,500.
Angola and Cameroon are also experiencing measles outbreaks, according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).
source: https://www.conservativereview.com/news/550-african-migrants-just-caught-texas-dhs-head-says-arent-screened-ebola/
Acting DHS Secretary Kevin McAleenan finally admitted publicly at yesterday’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing that CBP is not screening anyone for diseases.
“The public health risk—family units are released into our communities with unknown vaccination status and without a standard medical examination for communicable diseases of public health concern, as well as a public health risk of disease outbreak at processing facilities,” McAleenan said in his written testimony.
Antagenet
19th July 2019, 06:08
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3gTGAsGZec
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