A New Application Matches Patient’s Travel and Family History With Medical Symptoms

WALL STREET JOURNAL                         Nov. 3, 2014
By Melina Beck

A month ago, Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston had no way to flag in its electronic medical records if an incoming patient had been to West Africa and had symptoms suggesting Ebola.

Now it does. Five days after the first U.S. case was confirmed in Texas, the hospital deployed a new Ebola application made by QPID Health Inc. that automatically matches a patient’s travel and family history with medical symptoms. If Ebola is suspected, the application flashes a blinking “Q” to alert hospital personnel.

Dr. Garry Choy, who helped design Mass General’s QPID system. Dominick Reuter

WALL STREET JOURNAL                             Nov 3, 2014

By Amy Dockser Marcus

In the search for answers about Ebola, researchers are starting to look at an unexpected group of people: parents of children who have the rare but fatal genetic disease Niemann-Pick Type C.

Blood and tissue samples from Hugh and Chris Hempel of Reno, Nev., whose children have a rare disease, may help in ongoing Ebola research. Hempel family

The intersection between research in Ebola and NPC disease was surprising, and came after two scientific papers were published in 2011 demonstrating that a protein made by the same gene related to NPC disease is essential for Ebola infection.

Ebola uses the so-called NPC1 protein made by the gene to get into the cell and replicate the virus.

Now, research suggests that the gene that causes NPC disease may also offer protection against Ebola.

Read complete story:
http://online.wsj.com/articles/researchers-study-ebola-link-to-gene-in-rare-disease-1414965218

BBC                                                                                  Nov. 1, 2014

By James Gallagher Health editor, BBC News website

LONDON--There is growing - but certainly guarded - talk within the World Health Organization that the overall number of new cases is levelling off.

...Dr Christopher Dye, the director of strategy in the office of the director general at the World Health Organization, has the challenge of predicting the spread of Ebola.

"Things clearly have changed with respect to the trajectory of the epidemic," he told the BBC News website....

Dr Dye added: "When we look at the total epidemic now, with the best information we have got available I would guardedly say that the case incidence per week is not going to get larger than it is at the moment, so around 1,000 cases per week.

"We know there's under-reporting so we have to emphasise caution, but broadly we're out of this big epidemic growth phase seen in August and September."

Read complete report
http://www.bbc.com/news/health-29847058

WASHINGTON POST                                Nov. 3, 2014
By Kevin Sieff

GANTA, LIBERIA  --
The U.S. is erecting a new Ebola treatment center, slated to be ­finished later this month and manned by newly imported doctors. Just the sight of American helicopters flying over Ganta, a city of about 50,000, has lifted hopes here.

...a modern treatment center won’t be enough to eliminate Ebola in a place where the outbreak ­appears to rise and fall every few weeks and where victims sometimes disappear into remote communities with the disease. The question is whether those victims can be persuaded to use the new facility once it is built, preventing the spread of the disease in some of the country’s most vulnerable ­areas.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/africa/can-a-us-military-ebola-treatment-center-slow-ebola-in-one-hard-hit-city/2014/11/01/afb7b058-60fd-11e4-9f3a-7e28799e0549_story.html

Image: An infographic of the toll of the Ebola outbreak.

economist.com - October 31st 2014

The first reported case in the Ebola outbreak ravaging west Africa dates back to December 2013, in Guéckédou, a forested area of Guinea near the border with Liberia and Sierra Leone. Travellers took it across the border: by late March, Liberia had reported eight suspected cases and Sierra Leone six. By the end of June 759 people had been infected and 467 people had died from the disease, making this the worst ever Ebola outbreak.

(VIEW COMPLETE ARTICLE AND FULL SIZE INFOGRAPHIC)

REUTERS                                                                                  NOV. 2, 014

By Ben Hirschler

LONDON - Bats are living up to their frightening reputation in the world's worst Ebola outbreak as prime suspects for spreading the deadly virus to humans, but scientists believe they may also shed valuable light on fighting infection.

Fruit bats are seen for sale at a food market in Brazzavile, Republic of Congo, in this file photograph dated December 15, 2005. REUTERS/Jiro Ose/Files

Bats can carry more than 100 different viruses, including Ebola, rabies and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), without becoming sick themselves.

While that makes them a fearsome reservoir of disease, especially in the forests of Africa where they migrate vast distances, it also opens the intriguing possibility that scientists might learn their trick in keeping killers like Ebola at bay.

Read complete story

Overview of what still needs to be learned about the Ebola virus

Research studies have suggested at least three potential paths through which the Ebola virus can invade tissues. Credit Photograph by the C.D.C. via Getty Images

THE NEW YORKER                                      Nov. 1, 2014

By Jerome Groopman

...there are still serious gaps in what we know about the biology of Ebola, and that ignorance inhibits us from preventing future outbreaks and reducing death rates that still exceed seventy per cent. We don’t know enough about the biology of Ebola to bring the outbreak under full control, or to neutralize the virus once the outbreak is contained. Between on-the-ground efforts and advances in science, we need a balanced approach.

Read complete article

NEW YORK TIMES                        NOV. 1, 2014
By RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA
When public health leaders and government officials make the case against isolating more people returning from the Ebolahot zones in West Africa, or against imposing more travel restrictions from that region, time and again they cite science and experts. It isn’t working very well.

Many support the efforts of Gov. Paul R. LePage of Maine to isolate a nurse who treated Ebola patients in West Africa. Credit Craig Dilger for The New York Times

WHO                                                                                     Oct. 31, 2014
GENEVA-- The World Health Organization \ WHO has conducted a formal review of personal protective equipment (PPE) guidelines for healthcare workers and is updating its guidelines in context of the current outbreak.

A U.S. doctor in a protective suit in Liberia adjust that of a colleague before entering an Ebola treatment unit in Monrovia in this photo released Sept. 16, 2014.

These updated guidelines aim to clarify and standardize safe and effective PPE options to protect health care workers and patients, as well as provide information for procurement of PPE stock in the current Ebola outbreak. The guidelines are based on a review of evidence of PPE use during care of suspected and confirmed Ebola virus disease patients.

Read complete announcement

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2014/ebola-ppe-guidelines/en/

NEW YORK TIMES                               Nov. 1, 2014

By Denise Grady

...The stark difference in the care available in West Africa and the United States is reflected in the outcomes...., In West Africa, 70 percent of people with Ebola are dying, while seven of the first eight Ebola patients treated in the United States have walked out of the hospital in good health. Only one died: Thomas Eric Duncan, a Liberian, whose treatment was delayed when a Dallas hospital initially misdiagnosed his illness.

Dr. Rick Sacra, a missionary who was infected with Ebola in Liberia and was successfully treated at the Nebraska Medical Center. Credit Brendan Sullivan/Omaha World-Herald, via Associated Press

USA TODAY                                          Oct. 31, 2014
Patricia Kime, Military Times

WASHINGTON — The U.S. military will train more medical personnel to respond to domestic cases of Ebola should they occur, a senior Defense Department official said Thursday.

                                                             (Photo: Senior Airman Kayla Newman / Air Force)

Plans are under way to form more military Ebola medical response teams similar to the 30-member group that completed training this week at San Antonio Military Medical Center, Fort Sam Houston, Texas.

The official said the Pentagon is anticipating a request from the Health and Human Services Department for more medical personnel who would respond on short notice to civilian medical facilities should they need help treating Ebola patients....

REUTERS                                                                                      Oct. 31,2014

OTTAWA - Canada will stop issuing visas to people from the three West African nations where Ebola is widespread--- Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone-- the government said on Friday.

Canada, which has not reported any cases of Ebola, is following in the footsteps of Australia, which on Tuesday became the first rich nation to issue such a ban. The country's official in charge of the response to Ebola said the move was medically unjustified.

Under the new regulations, which come into force immediately, Canada will not process visa applications from foreign nationals who have been in an Ebola-affected country within the previous three months.

The Conservative government's decision drew fire from Canada's opposition New Democratic Party.

"The experts we’re relying on to fight Ebola are saying this is not the right approach," the party's health critic Libby Davies said in a statement.

 Read compete story

 http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/31/us-health-ebola-canada-idUSKBN0IK27T20141031

SCIENCE MAGAZINE                             Oct. 30, 2014

A study to assess the effectiveness of containment strategies, using a stochastic model of Ebola transmission between and within the general community, hospitals, and funerals, calibrated to incidence data from Liberia.

ABSTRACT

The ongoing Ebola outbreak poses an alarming risk to the countries of West Africa and beyond. To assess the effectiveness of containment strategies, we developed a stochastic model of Ebola transmission between and within the general community, hospitals, and funerals, calibrated to incidence data from Liberia. We find that a combined approach of case isolation, contact tracing with quarantine and sanitary funeral practices must be implemented with utmost urgency in order to reverse the growth of the outbreak. Under status quo intervention, our projections indicate that the Ebola outbreak will continue to spread, generating a predicted 224 (95% CI: 134 – 358) cases daily in Liberia alone by December, highlighting the need for swift application of multifaceted control interventions.

TWO ARTICLES ON THE TRANSMISSION OF EBOLA AND THE LONGIVITY OF THE VIRUS ON VARIOUS SURFACES  (Scroll down)

THE HUFFINGTON POST                      OCT. 31, 2014
By Arhur Delaney

WASHINGTON -- The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has quietly removed some Ebola information from its website. The changes follow claims from news outlets and conservative blogs that the agency hasn't been forthcoming about how the virus spreads, but it was not clear on Thursday afternoon whether the removal was related to the reports.

The New York Post reported Tuesday that the agency "admitted" Ebola can be contracted through casual contact with a doorknob, seemingly contrary to the CDC's insistence that Ebola is only transmissible through direct contact with bodily fluids from a person sick with the disease. The Post cited a page on the CDC's website that said Ebola spreads through droplets that can travel short distances when a sick person coughs or sneezes....

REUTERS                                                                                   Oct. 31, 2014
ByJonathan Paye-Layleh

MONROVIA, Liberia —Remembering those who have died in the world's deadliest Ebola outbreak, Liberia's president opened one of the country's largest Ebola treatment centers in Monrovia on Friday amid hopes that the disease is finally on the decline in this West African country.