Africa

With trials under way, scientists are working out how to give vaccines in affected regions

NATURE   By Ewan Callaway                                                                                                 Dec. 2, 2014

Safety trials of Ebola vaccines are starting to return results: at least one is known to be safe and to summon an immune response against the virus.

The challenge now is to use the results to guide the larger studies that will reveal whether the vaccines work.

“The immune responses are there,” says infectious-disease researcher Adrian Hill, director of the Jenner Institute in Oxford, UK. “The tough call is whether they’re enough to protect humans against Ebola.”

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http://www.nature.com/news/positive-results-spur-race-for-ebola-vaccine-1.16468

ASSOCIATED PRESS                                                                                                        Dec. 2, 2014 

BETHESDA, Maryland  — Declaring the "fight is nowhere close to being over," President Barack Obama on Tuesday heralded strides in the effort to confront Ebola in West Africa and in protecting the U.S. against the spread of the deadly virus. He said squelching the disease remains an urgent priority even if the American public's attention has shifted elsewhere.

"We cannot let down our guard, even for minute," Obama said. "We can't just fight this epidemic, we have to extinguish it."

Obama spoke after touring the National Institutes of Health in Washington's Maryland suburbs where he witnessed advances in Ebola-fighting research. He highlighted the NIH's progress in developing an Ebola vaccine, calling the initial results "exciting" while cautioning that there are "no guarantees" about the vaccine's ultimate success.

NIH researchers last week reported that the first safety study of a vaccine candidate found no serious side effects, and that it triggered signs of immune protection in 20 volunteers. U.S. health officials are planning much larger studies in West Africa to try to determine if the shots really work...

WASHINGTON POST-- By Lena H. Sun                                                                                         Dec. 2, 2014

WASHINGTON --U.S. officials have designated 35 hospitals around the country to care for Ebola patients, part of the Obama administration’s effort in the past two months to improve domestic preparedness to cope with the deadly virus that has ravaged West Africa.

A nurse walks down a hallway alongside a patient care room in a new custom-built bio-containment unit for potential Ebola cases at Mount Sinai Hospital, in New York. (John Minchillo/AP)

 The hospitals were chosen by state health officials and hospital executives and assessed by infection control teams from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to make sure they have adequate staff, equipment, training and resources “to provide the extensive treatment necessary to care for an Ebola patient,” according to a senior administration official.

CNN    BY Laura Smith-Spark                                                                                                   Dec. 2, 2014
Spain is officially clear of Ebola, the World Health Organization declared Tuesday, after no new cases were reported since a nurse's assistant who contracted the virus there tested negative for it.

Spanish nurse Teresa Romero after being discharged from hospital on November 5, 2014 in Madrid, Spain

Since then, 42 days have passed -- double the maximum known incubation period for the virus -- without another case, allowing Spain to be declared free of Ebola.

Spanish authorities had been monitoring 87 people who came into contact with healthcare worker Teresa Romero Ramos, 15 of whom were considered high-risk and were quarantined at a Madrid hospital, WHO said.

Another 145 hospital employees who helped care for Romero during her month-long stay at the Carlos III Hospital were also monitored.