The Ebola News Digest

[Godwit]

Breaking News ‏@BreakingNews 1h1 hour ago
Just 5 cases of Ebola left in Liberia, government says, putting eradication in that country within reach - @AFP
http://yhoo.it/1BVoM9o

[Godwit]

Breaking News UK ‏@BreakingNewsUK 49s50 seconds ago
Scottish nurse Pauline Cafferkey discharged from hospital after making complete recovery from Ebola - @Telegraph
http://bit.ly/1tb7Atc

Doctors last night announced that Pauline Cafferkey is now free of the virus after spending more than three weeks in hospital, where she was at times critically ill.

Here Miss Cafferkey was treated with plasma taken from the blood of a recovered patient and an experimental antiviral drug. Medics who looked after her wore protective suits.

[Godwit]

Liberia Ebola vaccine trial 'challenging' as cases tumble

(Reuters) - A steep fall in Ebola cases in Liberia will make it hard to prove whether experimental vaccines work in a major clinical trial about to start in the country, the head of the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) said on Saturday.

The NIH might have to move some testing to neighboring Sierra Leone, while regulators could end up approving Ebola shots based on efficacy data from animal tests backed by only limited human evidence, Francis Collins told Reuters.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/...0KX0J320150124

[Godwit]

Ebola cases are plummeting in West Africa. Is the end in sight?


There's finally good news on the ongoing struggle to stamp out the world's worst Ebola outbreak: the number of new cases is falling quickly.

Ebola diagnoses are now halving every 10 days in Guinea, every 14 days in Liberia, and every 19 days in Sierra Leone, according to the World Health Organization.

You can see the downward trends in the three worst-affected countries from a January 21 WHO update:




http://www.vox.com/2015/1/23/7878095...-outbreak-end?

[Godwit]

Ian M Mackay, PhD ‏@MackayIM 29m29 minutes ago
On the possibility of subclinical or mild #Ebola infections
http://news.yahoo.com/scientists-ask-ebola-immunizes-well-kills-084418771.html …

"We wonder whether 'herd immunity' is secretly coming up - when you get a critical mass of people who are protected, because if they are asymptomatic they are then immune," Philippe Maughan, senior operations administrator for the humanitarian branch of the European Commission, told Reuters. "The virus may be bumping into people it can't infect any more."

Bellan points to two studies in particular. One, conducted after an Ebola outbreak in Gabon in 1997, found that 71 percent of "seropositive" people - those with traces of the Ebola virus in their blood - did not have the disease. The other, published in April 2002, found 46 percent of asymptomatic close contacts of patients with Ebola were seropositive.

[Godwit]

Ian M Mackay, PhD ‏@MackayIM 14h14 hours ago
Latest #Ebola virus disease graphs & tallies 'Nuff info? Closer inspection at #VirolDU
http://virologydownunder.blogspot.com.au/2014/07/ebola-virus-disease-evd-2014-west.html …

[Godwit]

Ian M Mackay, PhD ‏@MackayIM 31m31 minutes ago
Confirmed #Ebola virus infections tick upwards again in #Guinea but not in #liberia or #SierraLeone

[Godwit]

The Ebola Epidemic Is Finally Slowing

GENEVA (Reuters) - The number of new confirmed Ebola cases totalled 99 in the week to Jan. 25, the first time the weekly total has fallen below 100 since June 2014, the World Health Organization said on Thursday.

"The response to the EVD (Ebola virus disease) epidemic has now moved to a second phase, as the focus shifts from slowing transmission to ending the epidemic," the WHO said.

The 2014 Ebola outbreak killed nearly 9,000 people, mostly in the West African countries of Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone.

http://www.businessinsider.com/r-wee...-begins-2015-1

[cyberiot]

Just got a text alert from a reliable news forum:

UC Davis Medical Ctr SACRAMENTO publicly reports treatment of patient w symptoms consistent w Ebola. Jan 29, 1:19 p.m.

I haven't looked for confirmation yet--just wanted to get this out there.

[Pastor Guest]

From FOX 40 Sacramento

http://fox40.com/2015/01/29/uc-davis...ebola-patient/