Public Health - Conakry

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Tue, 2013-09-10 02:11 — mdmcdonald

This working group is focused on discussions about public health.

The mission of this working group is to focus on discussions about public health.

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Aboubacar Conte	Anthony	Elhadj Drame	Hadiatou Balde	Kathy Gilbeaux	mdmcdonald
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NIH Study Finds No Evidence of Accelerated Ebola Virus Evolution in West Africa

Tue, 2015-06-09 22:56 — mike kraft

NIH Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) June 9, 2015

According to a recent report from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the current strain of the Ebola virus that is circulating through West Africa is called the Makona strain and is less aggressive than the original Mayinga strain that, which was isolated in Central Africa in 1976.

When compared to the Mayinga strain, the Makona strain takes approximately two additional days to start terminal disease in an animal subject. This is an important discovery to scientists, as they wonder whether the Ebola strain in West Africa will grow more severe over time.

The test subjects were cynomolgus macaques. Researchers used these animals to model disease and infection in humans. The scientists infected three macaques with the Mayinga strain from 1976 and an additional three with the Makona strain from 2015.

Ebola virus, isolated in November 2014 from patient blood samples obtained in Mali. The virus was isolated on Vero cells in a BSL-4 suite at Rocky Mountain Laboratories.
Credit: NIAID RML

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GSK, Johnson & Johnson behind Ebola vaccine trial in Ghana

Tue, 2015-06-09 15:22 — mike kraft

Controversy over Vaccine trials in Ghana

GHANAWEB.COM June 9, 2015

Leading pharmaceutical companies including Johnson & Johnson, Bavarian Nordic, the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) are the companies behind the impending Ebola vaccine trial in Ghana....

Ghana's Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) on Monday confirmed that vaccines for Ebola would be tested in Ghana, but dismissed reports that the trial will harm persons who will be used as ‘guinea pigs’ for the exercise....

StarrFMonline.com sources revealed that the Hohoe Midwifery Training School has been selected for the project. As part of an enticement package, students who volunteer for the trial will be given Ghc200 and a cell phone as reward.

Several civil society organisations including the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences, Coalition for Ghana’s Independence Now (CGIN) and the Volta regional branch of the ruling NDC have all kicked against the exercise and called on government to stop the trial immediately.
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http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=361643

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G7 states vow to wipe out Ebola but offer little concrete action

Mon, 2015-06-08 20:33 — mike kraft

REUTERS June 8, 2015

KRUEN, Germany - Leaders of the Group of Seven industrial nations pledged on Monday to wipe out Ebola but offered little in terms of concrete action, disappointing non-governmental organisations.

G7 leaders said in a communique at the end of a two-day summit in the Bavarian Alps that they would offer help to at least 60 nations, including in West Africa, over the next five years to help prevent outbreaks from turning into epidemics.

More than 11,000 people have died in the Ebola outbreak in West Africa since the first reported case in March 2014. The G7 said the crisis showed it was necessary to enhance the world's ability to prevent, detect and respond to such emergencies.

The G7 nations said they would work together to combat future epidemics and boost or establish strategies to quickly deploy teams of experts with a variety of skills via a common platform, but their communique was thin on detail.

Florian Westphal, General Director of Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) Germany, said the leaders had done little to ensure epidemics would not spiral out of control in future....

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Transmission Models of Historical Ebola Outbreaks

Mon, 2015-06-08 19:17 — mike kraft

To guide the collection of data under emergent epidemic conditions, we reviewed compartmental models of historical Ebola outbreaks to determine their implications and limitations. We identified future modeling directions and propose that the minimal epidemiologic dataset for Ebola model construction comprises duration of incubation period and symptomatic period, distribution of secondary cases by infection setting, and compliance with intervention recommendations....

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How Mobile Technology Is Bringing Trauma Relief After Ebola

Mon, 2015-06-08 01:59 — mike kraft

SINGULARITY HUB by Nathan and Elie Calhoun June , 2015

....the promise of mobile technology is that we can connect the farthest, most remote corners of the globe to the Internet—where a treasure trove of information and applications can be had nearly for free.

For aid workers, this technology is proving a powerful, even revolutionary tool.

We hope our new community mental health app will demonstrate a new depth of potential impact.

When we started designing our psychosocial services app for Liberian communities recently ravaged by Ebola, we thought we’d first need to justify the very idea of focusing on mental health in a country facing so many pressing concerns.

The health system in Liberia confronts massive challenges. When hospitals are non-existent or seriously under-staffed, when malaria is endemic and young mothers die during childbirth—it can be tempting to ask people suffering from trauma to simply “toughen up.”

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Ebola spreads suspicion and rumours in Guinea

Sun, 2015-06-07 13:42 — mike kraft

AFP June 7, 2015

Conakry, Guinea --The only possible place to encounter Ebola in Conakry is the main treatment unit, yet elsewhere in Guinea the virus is thriving in a febrile atmosphere of deep mistrust and swirling conspiracy theory....

It is in Guinea — the original epicentre but least-affected country — where the reaction to the fight against Ebola has been the most suspicious, however, manifesting itself in sporadic bloodshed.

Eight members of an outreach team in the southeastern town of Womey were killed by protesters who denied the existence of Ebola and denounced a “white conspiracy” in September last year.

Violence erupted last week in the country’s western provinces, where there are around 20 confirmed cases, with attacks targeting public institutions, ambulances and even health workers.

These examples of the “reluctance” of locals, to employ the official parlance, are igniting new transmission chains and so hampering efforts to stamp out the virus, say the authorities.

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http://gulfnews.com/news/africa/ebola-spreads-suspicion-and-rumours-in-guinea-1.1531265

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Stopping the next pandemic today

Sun, 2015-06-07 13:27 — mike kraft

OP-ED WASHINGTON POST, June 7, 2015

By Ron Klain, the White House Ebola response coordinator from October 2014 to February.

....To the extent there is discussion of improving the international response to epidemics, the focus has been on the need to reform the World Health Organization. Such reforms are badly needed, but even a fully effective WHO will not close the most gaping holes in the world’s epidemic response system. Even if the WHO did a better job of recognizing outbreaks that pose a risk of epidemic and alerting the world that action is needed, it does not have the substantial response function needed to combat such an epidemic. Recent discussions about creating a WHO response function — assuming that the agency could be trusted to manage it — rely largely on overburdened and underfunded nongovernmental organizations to staff a response. Thus, any new WHO response capacity will lack military-style mobile hospitals ready to be deployed; battalions of medical personnel with accompanying security support to isolate and treat the infectious and the ill; or a medical airlift capacity to move patients to places where they can get help...

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Ebola Virus Disease Outbreak in Nigeria: Transmission Dynamics and Rapid Control

Sun, 2015-06-07 03:41 — Kathy Gilbeaux

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov - Epidemics. 2015 Jun;11:80-4. doi: 10.1016/j.epidem.2015.03.001. Epub 2015 Mar 21

Abstract

International air travel has already spread Ebola virus disease (EVD) to major cities as part of the unprecedented epidemic that started in Guinea in December 2013. An infected airline passenger arrived in Nigeria on July 20, 2014 and caused an outbreak in Lagos and then Port Harcourt. After a total of 20 reported cases, including 8 deaths, Nigeria was declared EVD free on October 20, 2014. We quantified the impact of early control measures in preventing further spread of EVD in Nigeria and calculated the risk that a single undetected case will cause a new outbreak. We fitted an EVD transmission model to data from the outbreak in Nigeria and estimated the reproduction number of the index case at 9.0 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 5.2-15.6). We also found that the net reproduction number fell below unity 15 days (95% CI: 11-21 days) after the arrival of the index case. Hence, our study illustrates the time window for successful containment of EVD outbreaks caused by infected air travelers.

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Managing the Risk and Impact of Future Epidemics: Options for Public-Private Cooperation

Sun, 2015-06-07 03:01 — Kathy Gilbeaux

submitted by Denis Gilhooly

World Economic Forum
Prepared in collaboration with the Boston Consulting Group (BCG)

CLICK HERE - Managing the Risk and Impact of Future Epidemics: Options for Public-Private Cooperation

CLICK HERE - REPORT - Managing the Risk and Impact of Future Epidemics: Options for Public-Private Cooperation
(20 page .PDF report)

The Ebola outbreak in West Africa was a public health emergency of new proportions that presented unprecedented challenges for the international community. Aside from the significant social and economic impact it had on many West African countries, the epidemic also triggered a range of innovative, flexible partnership responses from businesses and civil society that complemented the channels of official assistance to affected countries.

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The contribution of Ebola viral load at admission and other patient characteristics to mortality in a Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) Ebola Case Management Centre (CMC), Kailahun, Sierra Leone, June –October, 2014

Sun, 2015-06-07 01:48 — Kathy Gilbeaux

m.jid.oxfordjournals.org - J Infect Dis. (2015) doi: 10.1093/infdis/jiv304 First published online: May 22, 2015

Abstract

This paper describes patient characteristics, including Ebola viral load, associated with mortality in an MSF Ebola case management centre.

Out of 780 admissions between June and October 2014, 525 (67%) were positive for Ebola with a known outcome. The crude mortality rate was 51% (270/525). Ebola viral load (whole blood sample) data was available on 76% (397/525) of patients. Univariate analysis indicated viral load at admission, age, symptom duration prior to admission and distance travelled to the CMC were associated with mortality (p value<0.05). The multivariable model predicted mortality in those with a viral load at admission greater than 10 million copies per millilitre (p value<0.05, Odds Ratio>10), aged 50 years or more (p value=0.08, Odds Ratio=2) and symptom duration prior to admission less than 5 days (p value=0.14). The presence of confusion, diarrhoea and conjunctivitis were significantly higher (p value<0.05) in Ebola patients who died.

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