United Kingdom

ICT  INFECTION CONTROL TODAY                                                                  April 14, 2015
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Research from the University of Manchester using cutting-edge computer analysis reveals that despite mutating, Ebola hasn’t evolved to become deadlier since the first outbreak 40 years ago. The surprising results demonstrate that while a high number of genetic changes have been recorded in the virus, it hasn’t changed at a functional level to become more or less virulent.

The findings, published in the journal Virology, demonstrate that the much higher death toll during the current outbreak, with the figure at nearly 10,500, isn’t due to mutations/evolution making the virus more deadly or more virulent.

As professor Simon Lovell from the Faculty of Life Sciences explains.... What we found was that whilst Ebola is mutating, it isn’t evolving to the point of adapting to become more or less virulent. The function of the virus has remained the same over the past four decades which really surprised us. Unfortunately this does mean the Ebola virus that has now emerged on several occasions since the 1970s will very probably do so again.”

BBC  by  Smitha Mundasad                                                                           March 27, 2015

A UK female military medic who has been discharged from hospital after being declared free of Ebola said it was thanks to medics that she is alive.

Anna Cross was the first person in the world to be given the experimental Ebola drug MIL 77, her doctors said.

Corporal Cross, aged 25 from Cambridge, caught the virus while working as a volunteer nurse in Sierra Leone.

Doctors at the hospital...described the drug she was given as a close relative of the medicine ZMapp and that MIL 77 was made in China...

It is too soon to know what role the drug played in Cpl Cross' recovery, they added.

Read complete story.
http://www.bbc.com/news/health-32088310

THE ECONOMIST                                                                                    May 19, 2015

..when the next epidemic breaks out, how do we prevent it from spreading around the world? It is easier said than done.
 
First: Early detection is critical, and it relies on good surveillance. But only 64 of the 194 member states of the World Health Organisation (WHO) have the surveillance procedures, laboratories and data-management capabilities required by the International Health Regulations. Improvements in things like basic public health infrastructure are needed...

Second: A swift response to an outbreak – which might involve getting skilled people, equipment and money to the right places – can potentially save more lives than drugs and vaccines. ... The World Health Organisation and the global community were slow to recognise that there was an international public health emergency.

REUTERS                                                    March 18, 2015

WASHINGTON ==The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said an advisory panel will discuss the development of Ebola vaccines, days after an American health worker was flown back after being tested positive for Ebola in Sierra Leone.

The federal health regulator would discuss the development of vaccines on May 12, it announced on its website on Wednesday.

The resurgence of the virus last year prompted drugmakers from across the world to develop new treatments that are in different stages of studies....

The World Health Organization said it will decide on mass vaccination against the virus in August.

See full story.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/18/us-health-ebola-fda-idUSKBN0ME1D520150318
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See Federal Register notice of meeting.

https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2015/03/17/2015-06116/vaccines-and-related-biological-products-advisory-committee-notice-of-meeting