Situation Report

Why Some Ebola Strains Are More Dangerous Than Others

Wed, 2015-06-17 14:31 — mike kraft

CHEMISTRY WORLD by Christopher Barnard June 17, 215
The virulence of Ebola virus strains appears to be innately linked to the degree of disorder in proteins that form their nucleocapsids. Computational analysis has revealed that strains responsible for the most lethal outbreaks of Ebola show significantly higher levels of intrinsic protein disorder than less virulent strains, in a discovery that could constitute a major breakthrough in understanding the pathogen’s behaviour.

With over 27,000 confirmed, probable and suspected cases and more than 11,000 fatalities worldwide, the ongoing Ebola outbreak has resulted in considerably more casualties since late 2013 than all other outbreaks combined. There are no effective treatments or vaccines against the haemorrhagic fever that evinces Ebola infection; however, strains of the virus with drastically different virulence have emerged since the first outbreak in 1976, with fatality rates ranging from 25 to 90%.

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Death Toll from Cigarettes Much Higher than Previously Estimated

Wed, 2015-06-17 10:08 — Kathy Gilbeaux

Marlboro cigarettes appear on display at a store in Little Rock, Ark. (AP Photo/Danny Johnston)

CLICK HERE - STUDY - Deaths Due to Cigarette Smoking for 12 Smoking-Related Cancers in the United States

washingtonpost.com - by Ariana Eunjung Cha - June 16, 2015

Smoking cigarettes may lead to a whole lot more than just lung cancer, according to a new study that linked the habit to cancers of the esophagus, colon, bladder and eight other regions of the body.

The research, published in the JAMA Internal Medicine Monday, estimates that nearly half of U.S. deaths to cancer of people 35 and older in 2011 -- 167,805 out of 345,962 -- were associated with smoking.

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Ebola vaccines in limbo expose need for more speed in trials

Wed, 2015-06-17 09:56 — mike kraft

REUTERS by Kate Keller and Ben Hirschler June 17, 2015

LONDON --Drugmakers' plans to conduct vast clinical trials to test and hopefully validate the first Ebola vaccines have been thwarted by success in beating back the deadly epidemic in West Africa.

GlaxoSmithKline, Merck and Johnson & Johnson are struggling to recruit volunteers with enough exposure to the disease to prove whether their vaccines are doing the job and preventing infection.

The story might have been very different with just another three or four months of disease spread, underscoring the need to act more quickly to develop vaccines for emerging diseases....

Guinea, where Ebola is still infecting new victims, as "the only hope" for showing efficacy, according to Kieny and to Adrian Hill, director of the Jenner Institute at Britain's Oxford University.

The WHO is overseeing the so-called ring vaccination study in Guinea in which close contacts and family around each new case of Ebola are vaccinated -- either immediately or after a three-week delay -- to see if the shot offers protection.

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Coal Crash: How Pension Funds Face Huge Risk From Climate Change

Wed, 2015-06-17 09:03 — Kathy Gilbeaux

Coal is moved on a conveyor belt at the PT Bukit Asam open pit coal mine in Tanjung Enim, South Sumatra province, Indonesia. Photograph: Dadang Tri/Getty Images

Special report: The plummeting coal sector and a growing green divestment movement is leaving firms who still invest in fossil fuels and connected pension holders heavily exposed

theguardian.com - by Damian Carrington and Caelainn Barr - June 15, 2015

The pension funds of millions of people across the world, including teachers, public sector workers, health staff and academics in the UK and US, are heavily exposed to the plummeting coal sector, a Guardian analysis has revealed.

It has also found that just a dozen people, including the owner of Chelsea FC, Roman Abramovich, own coal reserves equivalent to the annual carbon emissions of China, the world’s biggest polluter. The UN, which advocates a shift to clean energy, has more than $100m (£65m) invested in coal through its own pension fund.

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Seeking the Source of Ebola

Tue, 2015-06-16 13:19 — mike kraft

The latest Ebola crisis may yield clues about where it hides between outbreaks.

GLOBAL LITERACY PROJECT                                       June 15, 2015
abstract of article in
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC by David Quammen
(Scroll down for full article.)

   Picture of a masked bush meat hunter. Peter Muller.

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Texas - Catastrophic and Historic Flooding

Mon, 2015-06-15 18:30 — Kathy Gilbeaux

Wimberley, Texas San Marcos, Texas

Austin, Texas Houston, Texas

AN EXPANDING LIST OF FLOOD-RELATED INFORMATION AND ASSISTANCE RESOURCES (CLICK ON THE LINKS BELOW)

CLICK HERE -President Declares Disaster for Texas

CLICK HERE - Federal Aid Programs for State of Texas Declaration

CLICK HERE - Texas Department of Public Safety - Emergency Management - Situation Reports

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'Possibly Catastrophic': Texas Braces for Even More Flooding

Mon, 2015-06-15 18:00 — Kathy Gilbeaux

People canoe through floodwaters in Houston on Saturday, May 30. Torrential rains have given Texas the wettest month on record, according to Texas A&M climatologists. In all, 37.3 trillion gallons of water have fallen over the state in May, the National Weather Service said.

cnn.com - by Kevin Conlon - June 14, 2015

(CNN) For portions of rain-battered Texas, the warnings issued by the National Weather Service on Sunday must have seemed like a cruel joke: a tropical storm that is potentially forming in the Gulf of Mexico is headed straight for them.

"Through Wednesday, widespread rainfall totals could easily average 6 to 8 inches with some amounts exceeding 10 inches," read the ominous forecast issued by the weather service office in Houston. "This will obviously lead to a dangerous flood situation."

Local officials sounded even more alarmed, calling the event "possibly catastrophic."

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Researchers link Ebola news coverage to public panic using Google, Twitter data

Mon, 2015-06-15 17:36 — mike kraft

EUREAKALERT! June 15, 2015
(Scroll down for link to PLOS One article.)

ARISONA STATE UNIVERSITY --

Using Twitter and Google search trend data in the wake of the very limited U.S. Ebola outbreak of October 2014, a team of researchers from Arizona State University, Purdue University and Oregon State University have found that news media is extraordinarily effective in creating public panic.

Because only five people were ultimately infected yet Ebola dominated the U.S. media in the weeks after the first imported case, the researchers set out to determine mass media's impact on people's behavior on social media.

"Social media data have been suggested as a way to track the spread of a disease in a population, but there is a problem that in an emerging outbreak people also use social media to express concern about the situation," explains study team leader Sherry Towers of ASU's Simon A. Levin Mathematical, Computational and Modeling Sciences Center. "It is hard to separate the two effects in a real outbreak situation...."

Towers states that this study will be useful in future outbreak situations because it provides valuable insight into just how strongly news media can manipulate public emotions on a topic.

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HHS selects nine regional Ebola and other special pathogen treatment centers

Mon, 2015-06-15 17:07 — mike kraft

New network expands US ability to respond to outbreaks of severe, highly infectious diseases

DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES June 12, 2015

WASHINGTON -- To further strengthen the nation’s infectious disease response capability, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has selected nine health departments and associated partner hospitals to become special regional treatment centers for patients with Ebola or other severe, highly infectious diseases.

HHS’ Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) has awarded approximately $20 million through its Hospital Preparedness Program (HPP) to enhance the regional treatment centers’ capabilities to care for patients with Ebola or other highly infectious diseases. ASPR will provide an additional $9 million to these recipients in the subsequent four years to sustain their readiness...

The nine awardees and their partner hospitals are:

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As Ebola Crisis Wanes, a Mixed Picture of Economic Recovery for Households in Sierra Leone

Mon, 2015-06-15 13:05 — mike kraft

THE WORLD BANK June 15, 2015

WASHINGTON—Employment in Sierra Leone has returned to pre-crisis levels, though earnings and hours worked still lag behind. This is according to respondents in the latest round of high-frequency mobile-phone surveys, led by Statistics Sierra Leone with support from the World Bank Group, assessing how Ebola is impacting people’s livelihoods.

The survey contacted a sample of 1,715 households during May, 2015, which represents 41 percent of the 4,199 households covered in the baseline, nationally-representative Labor Force Survey conducted in July and August 2014.

“Sierra Leone is working tirelessly to get to zero cases of Ebola,” said Francis Ato Brown, World Bank Group Country Manager for Sierra Leone. “Our job has to be not only to support the country in eradicating Ebola, but also to look toward economic recovery and toward mitigating the short-, medium-, and long-term impacts of the crisis on the social and economic wellbeing of all Sierra Leoneans.”

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