You are here

Solutions

How Doctors Without Borders Is Fighting Malaria and Ebola at the Same Time

Treating malaria makes Ebola care easier

TIME MAGAZINE   by                                                                   Jan. 16, 2015
Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is launching its second mass distribution of treatments for malaria in Ebola-stricken Sierra Leone, a move that may have the positive side effect of helping ease the burden of Ebola cases.

Malaria... causes many of the same symptoms as Ebola. It’s common for people to come to Ebola treatment centers believing they have Ebola, when in fact they have malaria—which crowds the clinics and causes enormous stress for patients and their families. Treating malaria and preventing infection are ways MSF can ensure that they reduce the number of patients at Ebola treatment centers in addition to saving lives, since more people fall ill and die from malaria than Ebola.

Read complete story.

http://time.com/3671597/doctors-without-borders-malaria-ebola/

Country / Region Tags: 
General Topic Tags: 
Problem, Solution, SitRep, or ?: 

At Least One Major Oil Company Will Turn Its Back on Fossil Fuels, Says Scientist

Jeremy Leggett: 'One of the oil companies will break ranks and this time it is going to stick.'
Photograph: Linda Nylind for the Guardian

submitted by Margery Schab

Jeremy Leggett, former industry adviser, warns over plunging commodity prices and soaring costs of risky energy projects

The oil price crash coupled with growing concerns about global warming will encourage at least one of the major oil companies to turn its back on fossil fuels in the near future, predicts an award-winning scientist and former industry adviser.

Dr Jeremy Leggett, who has had consultations on climate change with senior oil company executives over 25 years, says it will not be a rerun of the BP story when the company launched its “beyond petroleum” strategy and then did a U-turn.

“One of the oil companies will break ranks and this time it is going to stick,” he said.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

Country / Region Tags: 
General Topic Tags: 
Problem, Solution, SitRep, or ?: 

Ebola treatment centre for pregnant women opens

BBC         by Tulip Mazumdar                                       Jan. 14, 2015

FREETOWN --Sierre Leone-- The medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres has opened its first Ebola treatment centre specialising in care for infected pregnant women.

MSF says the death rate for expectant mothers is extremely high, and health workers treating them, particularly during childbirth or miscarriage, are especially vulnerable to catching the virus.

Building work is still continuing at the maternity section of the latest MSF Ebola clinic on the outskirts of the capital. It is been erected at the site of one of the city's most prestigious secondary schools, Methodist Boys High School, in Kissy.

The classrooms are empty - schools have been closed for months. The playing area is now home to MSF's sixth treatment centre in Sierra Leone. When it is fully operational, it will have 80 beds, and a special focus on treating pregnant women suspected or confirmed to have Ebola.

Read full story.

http://www.bbc.com/news/health-30780176

Country / Region Tags: 
General Topic Tags: 
Problem, Solution, SitRep, or ?: 

Magic Blood? Emory's Ebola Plasma Bank

NBC NEWS   by Maggie Fox                                                                      Jan. 14, 2015
Cup by cup, Emory University is collecting bags of liquid gold from the small club of American Ebola survivors.

They're collecting the plasma as part of an experiment to see if transfusing blood from people who have lived through the horrific infection can save the newly ill. Many of the survivors have been given this so-called convalescent plasma, but no one knows if it's actually helping.

"The protocol allows us to collect and transfuse convalescent plasma from U.S. Ebola survivors," says Dr. Anne Winkler, the Emory pathologist overseeing the study. "This is a completely voluntary process."

Country / Region Tags: 
General Topic Tags: 
Problem, Solution, SitRep, or ?: 

Broad Institute analyzes Ebola genomes

MIT THE TECH  by Jennifer F. Switzer                         Jan. 14, 2015

CAMBRIDGE , MA-- At the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, in a lab run by accomplished computational geneticist Pardis Sabeti ’97, researchers have collaborated with institutions in the U.S. and abroad to sequence and analyze more than 99 Ebola virus genomes collected by fellow scientists in Sierra Leone. They are on the lookout for mutations that could aid in developing new treatment options for Ebola, or that could serve as indications that the virus is evolving to become more deadly.

Contained within the virus’s 19,000 base-pair genome, the team has found more than 300 genetic changes that separate the 2014 Ebola virus from its predecessors. Of interest is one particular cluster of mutations which, having outlasted other genetic variations, could possibly be conferring some sort of genetic advantage to the virus ebola patients for sequencing.

Read complete story.
http://tech.mit.edu/V134/N62/ebola.htm

Problem, Solution, SitRep, or ?: 

Ebola survivors in Sierra Leone key in training health providers

Shunned in their communities, they provide invaluable insight to doctors and nurses

 Canadian Broadcasting Corporation      by Carolyn Dunn                                       Jan, 12, 2015

FREETOWN, Sierra Leone --The role of survivors has proven so valuable to training health care professionals who will be treating Ebola for the first time that the course, run by the Ebola response teams for the International Organization of Migration (IOM) and World Health Organization (WHO) is now in high demand, training up to 60 much-needed health care workers a week in Freetown.

... survivor Fonti Kargbo, who often assumes the role of a patient, is timing each scenario to make sure the trainees aren’t in their hot, protective gear for too long.

  

Read complete story.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/ebola-survivors-in-sierra-leone-key-in-training-health-providers-1.2897509

 

 

 

 

Country / Region Tags: 
General Topic Tags: 
Problem, Solution, SitRep, or ?: 

Ebola Clue Lurks in 10 Million Zambian Bats

BLOOMBERG       by  Matthew Hill                        Jan. 12, 2015                                    

At 4:50 a.m. at the Kasanka National Park in northern Zambia, tourists watch from a platform in a tree as the sound of millions of wings accompanies the sunrise.

Straw-coloured Fruit Bats fly in Kasanka National Park, Zambia. Photographer: Fabian von Poser/Getty Images

Meeting / Event Tags: 
Country / Region Tags: 
General Topic Tags: 
Problem, Solution, SitRep, or ?: 

CDC - Ebola Training in Anniston

            

The CDC’s Karen Williams, right, instructs Kwan Kew Lai to wash her hands before each step in the process before she removes her protective suit at an Ebola-treatment training session in Anniston, Ala.
Steve Gates for The Wall Street Journal

cdc.gov - January 7, 2015

Making the decision to volunteer in an Ebola Treatment Unit (ETU) in West Africa shows a lot of courage and takes support from friends, loved ones, and other healthcare workers. It also requires the knowledge and skills to safely treat very sick patients in a challenging environment. CDC understands that healthcare workers preparing to deploy to West Africa need to know the infection prevention and control principles necessary for working in an ETU. To help meet this need, CDC offers an introductory training course at the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) Center for Domestic Preparedness in Anniston, Alabama.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

(ALSO SEE RELATED ARTICLE HERE - Oct. 8, 2014)

Problem, Solution, SitRep, or ?: 

Medical charity MSF opens Ebola clinic for pregnant women

REUTERS  BY Umaru Fofana                                                                        Jan. 10, 2015

FREETOWN --Medical charity Medicins Sans Frontiers (MSF) has opened the first care center in the current Ebola epidemic for pregnant women, whose survival rate from the virus is virtually zero, the charity said on Saturday....

An Ebola virus treatment center is seen in Bo, Sierra Leone, November 17, 2014. Credit: Reuters/Benjamin Black

There is currently one patient in the clinic, which is perched on a hill in the compound of a disused Methodist boys high school in the Sierra Leone capital.

Women are particularly vulnerable to a disease spread through direct contact with infected people and with the corpses of victims, because women often care for sick family members, said MSF Field Coordinator, Esperanza Santos.

Country / Region Tags: 
Problem, Solution, SitRep, or ?: 

EbolaTracks: an automated SMS system for monitoring persons potentially exposed to Ebola virus disease

EUROSURVEILLANCE                                                              Volume 20, Issue 1, Jan. 8 2015

Australian researchers reported on an automated text-message system used for actively monitoring people potentially exposed to Ebola. The system prompts contacts to submit information on symptoms and temperature twice a day. The Department of Health in Western Australia uses the system, called "EbolaTracks," to track travelers returning from West Africa and (potentially) contacts of any local cases.

Twenty-two people were enrolled in the program as of Jan 5, and 14 have completed active monitoring. The system sent 1,108 text messages and got a 91% response rate. Health officials followed up by phone when they didn't get a reply. Such systems could be valuable tools for larger-scale contact monitoring for Ebola or other infectious diseases, they concluded.

http://www.eurosurveillance.org/ViewArticle.aspx?ArticleId=20999

Country / Region Tags: 
Problem, Solution, SitRep, or ?: 

Pages

Subscribe to Solutions
howdy folks