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CDC Develops Ebola Modeling Tool While WHO Trains Health Workers

HOMELAND SECURITY TODAY               Oct. 9, 2014

 By Kylie Bull, Managing Editor

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has developed a dynamic modeling tool called Ebola Response that allows for estimations of projected cases over time in Liberia and Sierra Leone.

 The Ebola Response modeling tool can construct scenarios to illustrate how control and prevention interventions can slow and eventually stop the Ebola epidemic. Importantly, it can help public health and other planners make more informed decisions about emergency response resources to help bring the outbreak under control. The new tool allows input of data reflective of the current situation on the ground in affected countries and communities.

 The Ebola Response modeling tool is intended to help local governments and international responders generate short-term estimates of the Ebola situations in countries, districts and villages. The tool, in the form of a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, is to be made freely available online.

Meanwhile, in Liberia, the World Health Organization (WHO) has established a new training program for health workers on Ebola care.

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In wake of Dallas patient death, health providers across US are reinforcing and testing infection control procedures

Associated Press
New York                              Oc. 9, 2014

... There hasn’t been a single confirmed case of an Ebola infection happening on US soil; the case confirmed in Dallas involves a man who, like several health care workers treated in the US, contracted the virus in Liberia. But health care providers are worried enough to take a wide variety of precautions.

 

    It isn’t yet clear whether these preparations are overkill, or not nearly enough. Photograph: Richard Drew/AP

It isn’t yet clear whether these preparations are overkill, or not nearly enough.

But health care experts say that at the very least, the scare is providing a chance to reinforce and test infection control procedures....

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http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/09/us-expand-ebola-precautions-dallas-patient-death?CMP=twt_gu

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More Ebola screening to begin at five US airports

Associated Press                          October 8, 2014 updated 3:43 PM

By Licia A. Caldwell

WASHINGTON (AP) - The government will begin taking the temperatures of travelers from West Africa arriving at five U.S. airports as part of a stepped-up response to the Ebola epidemic.

President Barack Obama said the new efforts would provide yet another tier of protection at key U.S. points of entry.

However, the focus is still on stopping the epidemic in West Africa, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Thomas Frieden, said in Atlanta.

At the White House, spokesman Josh Earnest said the additional layer of screening would begin at New York's JFK International and the international airports in Newark, Washington Dulles, Chicago and Atlanta. He said the new steps would include taking temperatures and would begin Saturday at JFK.

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http://www.philly.com/philly/news/nation_world/20141008_ap_4142a3851ff8431eacb7c7a0515d6611.html

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'In 1976 I Discovered Ebola - Now I Fear an Unimaginable Tragedy'

Professor Peter Piot, the Director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine: ‘Around June it became clear to me there was something different about this outbreak. I began to get really worried’ Photograph: Leon Neal/AFP

theguardian.com - October 4, 2014
Rafaela von Bredow and Veronika Hackenbroch

. . . "it should be clear to all of us: This isn't just an epidemic any more. This is a humanitarian catastrophe. We don't just need care personnel, but also logistics experts, trucks, jeeps and foodstuffs. Such an epidemic can destabilise entire regions. I can only hope that we will be able to get it under control. I really never thought that it could get this bad" . . .

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Obama: U.S. Will Beef Up Airport Screenings for Ebola

UPDATED  With additional information  (Scroll below).

TIME

By Zeke J. Miller                              Oct. 6. 2014                5:24 PM

President Barack Obama said Monday that the U.S. is working on additional passenger screenings for airline passengers flying from Ebola-stricken West Africa, two weeks after a Liberian man infected with the disease entered the country.

Officials are “going to be working on protocols to do additional passenger screenings both at the source and here in the United States,” Obama said, addressing reporters following a briefing on his administration’s response to the epidemic in Africa and efforts to keep the disease from spreading to the U.S. “All of these things make me confident that here in the United States at least the chances of an outbreak, of an epidemic here are extraordinarily low.”

The president did not give specifics on the new screening measures, and Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) declined to elaborate further in an interview with CNN after the meeting.

 

 

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Medical Research: Ebola Therapy Protects Severely Ill Monkeys

nature.com

Thomas W. Geisbert

Nature 514, 41–43 (02 October 2014) doi:10.1038/nature13746 - Published online 29 August 2014

A blend of three monoclonal antibodies has completely protected monkeys against a lethal dose of Ebola virus. Unlike other post-infection therapies, the treatment works even at advanced stages of the disease. See Article p.47

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v514/n7520/full/nature13746.html

Reversion of advanced Ebola virus disease in nonhuman primates with ZMapp

Nature 514, 47–53 (02 October 2014) doi:10.1038/nature13777
Received 05 August 2014 - Accepted 21 August 2014 - Published online 29 August 2014

Abstract

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Are Hospitals Prepared for Ebola?

cnn.com - October 1, 2014

CNN's Jake Tapper speaks to Gavin Macgregor-Skinner and Jeffery Stern. With the first Ebola diagnosis in the U.S., is the country prepared to handle a potential outbreak?

http://thelead.blogs.cnn.com/2014/10/01/only-four-u-s-hospitals-prepared-for-outbreak/

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Texas Ebola Watch Eyes 50 People, 10 at 'High Risk'

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Class from International Baccalaureate School in Houston Seeks Ebola Education from Global Resilience System

Pictured here are the students in
Ms. Appel’s class in Houston, gathering information on the Ebola virus
from a Global Resilience System volunteer, Kathy Gilbeaux, with their website shown in the background. 
Photo Credit: Emma Goerges

On Thursday, a fifth grade class from an International Baccalaureate school in Houston sought answers to their questions regarding the Ebola virus. After a short period of investigating its symptoms, spread, and severity, the students were left with several unanswered questions. Specifically, the students continued to inquire about the origin of Ebola, details of its spread to Texas, in what ways the United States is helping, and Ebola treatment options.

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USG expected to announce within days procedures for handling Ebola patents' medical waste

                                                    October 2, 2014

Reuters reports that the U.S.Government expects to settle within days the critical question of how hospitals should handle and dispose of medical waste from Ebola patients.

Experts have warned that conflicting U.S. regulations over how such waste should be transported could make it very difficult for U.S. hospitals to safely care for patients with Ebola, a messy disease that causes diarrhea, vomiting and in some cases, bleeding from the eyes and ears.

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http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/02/us-health-ebola-waste-idUSKCN0HR07T20141002

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