Health - US

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Tue, 2012-04-17 17:45 — mdmcdonald

This working group is focused on discussions about health.

The mission of this working group is to focus on discussions about health.

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CDC - MMWR - Ebola Virus Disease in a Humanitarian Aid Worker — New York City, October 2014

Mon, 2015-04-06 17:51 — Kathy Gilbeaux

cdc.gov - April 3, 2015

In late October 2014, Ebola virus disease (Ebola) was diagnosed in a humanitarian aid worker who recently returned from West Africa to New York City (NYC). . . .

. . . In NYC, the public health response to one Ebola case was resource intensive for a local health department, with participation of more than 500 DOHMH staff members and expenditures of more than $4,300,000 in DOHMH funds. These figures include not only the direct costs of the local public health response (e.g., contact tracing, environmental issues, and health care worker monitoring) but also the indirect costs of increasing citywide preparedness after identifying the one case (e.g., enhancing hospital preparedness, active monitoring of returning travelers, and community outreach).

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Rhode Island Hospital Physician Comes Up With New Diagnostic Tool for Ebola Virus

Mon, 2015-04-06 17:30 — Kathy Gilbeaux

news-medical.net - April 6, 2015

Adam C. Levine, M.D., an emergency medicine physician at Rhode Island Hospital and The Miriam Hospital who treated Ebola-infected patients in Liberia last year, used his field experience to create a tool to determine the likelihood that patients presenting with Ebola symptoms will actually carry the virus. His research was published in the Annals of Emergency Medicine today.

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CLICK HERE - RESEARCH - Derivation and Internal Validation of the Ebola Prediction Score for Risk Stratification of Patients With Suspected Ebola Virus Disease

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Merck, NewLink Ebola vaccine appears safe, effective in new studies

Wed, 2015-04-01 22:03 — mike kraft

REUTERS by Sharon Bagley April 1, 2015

Early-stage trials of an experimental Ebola vaccine, two in the United States and four in Africa and Europe, have found that it appears to be safe and triggered robust production of Ebola-fighting antibodies, scientists reported on Wednesday.

Since trials cannot ethically expose volunteers to Ebola, the production of antibodies is a proxy for whether vaccines could prevent or even treat the disease.

The trials all tested a vaccine called VSV-ZEBOV, which was developed at the Public Health Agency of Canada and licensed to NewLink Genetics Corp and then to Merck & Co Inc. It consists of a cattle virus called rVSV that has been engineered to carry Ebola genes, which produce proteins meant to trigger production of anti-Ebola antibodies.

According to separate teams of scientists, that is what happened, two papers in the New England Journal of Medicine reported.

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http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/04/01/us-health-ebola-vaccine-idUSKBN0MS5DN20150401

Read NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF MEDICINE papers

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App enables self-reporting of possible Ebola symptoms in Maryland

Wed, 2015-04-01 18:33 — mike kraft

ASSOCIATED PRESS April 1, 2015

BALTIMORE — A Baltimore company and Maryland public health officials are announcing a smartphone and Web application for self-reporting possible Ebola symptoms.

Emocha Mobile Health Inc. said Wednesday that people returning from affected West African nations can use the app to report their temperature and any symptoms twice daily to the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. The federal government recommends such reporting for 21 days.

The state health agency has operated a call center since October for monitoring people known to have been in affected countries. The app eventually will link to the state's database of such individuals to automate the reporting of data to Maryland and federal authorities.

BioCryst gets HHS contract for Ebola drug development

Wed, 2015-04-01 10:30 — mike kraft

CENTER FOR INFECTIOUS DISEASE RESEARCH AND POLICY by Lisa Schnerring March 31, 2015

The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced today that it has awarded BioCryst Pharmaceuticals a $12 million grant to continue development of BCX4430, a small-molecule drug designed to treat Ebola and other filovirus infections, and to prepare for large-scale manufacturing of the agent.

Studies in nonhuman primates suggest that the drug is effective against Ebola and Marburg viruses and could be useful as a broad-spectrum antiviral, the HHS said in a statement. BCX4430 is currently in phase 1 human trials, and if results show safety, it could be one of the treatments to be tested for efficacy in clinical trials.

BCX4430 is the first small-molecule Ebola treatment that BARDA has supported. Other Ebola products in development that have received BARDA funding include the monoclonal antibody cocktail ZMapp and three vaccines.
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http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2015/03/biocryst-gets-hhs-contract-ebola-drug-development

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Faulty modeling studies led to overstated predictions of Ebola outbreak

Wed, 2015-04-01 10:12 — mike kraft

MEDICAL EXPRESS MARCH 31, 2015

(scroll down for complete paper.)

Frequently used approaches to understanding and forecasting emerging epidemics—including the West African Ebola outbreak—can lead to big errors that mask their own presence, according to a University of Michigan ecologist and his colleagues.

Last September, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated—based on computer modeling—that Liberia and Sierra Leone could see up to 1.4 million Ebola cases by January 2015 if the viral disease kept spreading without effective methods to contain it. Belatedly, the international community stepped up efforts to control the outbreak, and the explosive growth slowed.

"Those predictions proved to be wrong, and it was not only because of the successful intervention in West Africa," King said. "It's also because the methods people were using to make the forecasts were inappropriate."

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The End of Ebola? Lessons at the Epidemic's One Year Anniversary

Mon, 2015-03-30 20:34 — mike kraft

HUFFINGTON POST Commentary by Robert Klitzman, M.D. Columbia University March 30, 2015

One year ago, the current Ebola epidemic was announced to the world. Since then, we have learned and accomplished an enormous amount....

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Ebola whole virus vaccine shown effective, safe in primates

Fri, 2015-03-27 11:01 — mike kraft

SCIENCE DAILY March 26, 2015

(Scroll down for complete paper.)
An Ebola whole virus vaccine, constructed using a novel experimental platform, has been shown to effectively protect monkeys exposed to the often fatal virus.

The vaccine, described today (March 26, 2015) in the journal Science, was developed by a group led by Yoshihiro Kawaoka, a University of Wisconsin-Madison expert on avian influenza, Ebola and other viruses of medical importance. It differs from other Ebola vaccines because as an inactivated whole virus vaccine, it primes the host immune system with the full complement of Ebola viral proteins and genes, potentially conferring greater protection.

"In terms of efficacy, this affords excellent protection," explains Kawaoka, a professor of pathobiological sciences in the UW-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine and who also holds a faculty appointment at the University of Tokyo. "It is also a very safe vaccine."

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Two experimental Ebola vaccines pass safety test in African trial

Fri, 2015-03-27 10:03 — mike kraft

REUTERS by Sharon Begley March 26, 2015

NEW YORK - Two experimental Ebola vaccines, one from GlaxoSmithKline PLC and the other from biotech start-up NewLink Genetics Corp, "appear to be safe" part way through a clinical trial being conducted in Liberia, the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) said on Thursday.

The two vaccines, each given in a single injection, are being tested for safety and efficacy on more than 600 people in Liberia in a mid-stage clinical trial sponsored by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, a branch of NIH.

The Ebola epidemic that began in West Africa one year ago has killed more than 10,200 people, but a decline in new cases in the most affected countries, Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, has led to hopes that it may be ending.

Based on the encouraging safety results, the study may now advance to the next phase of efficacy testing, in which additional volunteers are injected with the GSK vaccine, the NewLink vaccine, or a dummy shot and assessed to see whether their immune system responds by producing anti-Ebola antibodies.

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Ebola pioneer, stem cell researcher honoured with Canada Gairdner Awards

Thu, 2015-03-26 16:38 — mike kraft

CANADIAN PRESS March 25, 2015
One of the co-discoverers of the Ebola virus and a leading Canadian stem cell researcher are among this year's winners of the prestigious Canada Gairdner Awards.

Dr. Peter Piot is the recipient of the Canada Gairdner Global Health Award, recognizing his work on the discovery of the Ebola virus in 1976 and his leadership in the global response to the HIV-AIDS epidemic.

Dr. Janet Rossant, chief of research at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children, is the recipient of the 2015 Canada Gairdner Wightman Award, which honours a Canadian who has demonstrated outstanding leadership in medicine and medical science.

Five international scientists are also being honoured with Canada Gairdner Awards, two each from the United States and Japan and one from Switzerland....

Dr. Peter Piot won the 2015 Canada Gairdner Global Health Award in recognition of his work on the discovery of the Ebola virus in 1976 and his leadership in the global response to the HIV-AIDS epidemic. (David Azia/Associated Press)

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