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I think after being cured by serum , then there would be a follow-up vaccination.
oh chit: "the patient would need to take doses indefinitely. "
12/15/14: Plantibodies Could Pave the Road to Wellness
http://www.newsweek.com/plantibodies-could-pave-road-wellness-291950
One day, women everywhere may dissolve a postage-stamp sized piece of translucent film in their vaginas. It might look like a Listerine strip. It might be coated with compounds capable of making sperm wriggle in place, keeping them from inseminating a woman’s egg. It might also halt the HIV and herpes viruses found in semen in their tracks. Oh, and those compounds might be grown in a lab inside tobacco plants.
This isn’t a playful exercise in techno-futurism. This is a description of a product, about to enter clinical research phases, that is part of an emerging group of drugs that are radically changing how we treat infectious disease.
In a dark room in the basement of the biomedical research building at Boston Medical Center, Jai Marathe leans over a laser scanning microscope, adjusting a plate that held a disk of human tissue the size of a poker chip. The flap of flesh was made from human cervical cells by a company that sells them as vaginal models to researchers. Earlier, Marathe coated it in an antibody capable of attacking the sperm cells by making them stick together, preventing them from swimming. Then she coated the tissue in semen donated by a Boston University student. The dose of antibody had been grown inside a tobacco plant at a bioprocessing lab in Kentucky. The “plantibody,” as this and other antibodies grown in plants have been dubbed by the handful of companies that develop them, is the product of decades of sky-high hopes and experimentation.
When I called Richard Cone in August, he was audibly moved. Cone is a molecular biophysicist at Johns Hopkins University and was one of the earliest researchers to take an interest in plantibodies in the 1980s. A few days earlier, ZMapp, an experimental Ebola drug made from antibodies grown in tobacco plants, had been rushed to two American health workers infected with the virus. The drug, never tested on humans, appeared to save their lives. Kevin Whaley and Larry Zeitlin, the scientists behind the tiny company that developed the drug, had been postdoctoral researchers in Cone’s lab in the 1990s before they went on to form Mapp Biopharmaceuticals.
Like Cone, Whaley and Zeitlin always had as a main goal the creation of a novel form of contraceptive that would also protect against disease. But, Cone says, it was hard for Mapp Biopharmaceuticals to find funding for that. “We knew that plantibodies would work. We were just following nature. But that doesn’t mean that anybody will believe you,” he says.
Eventually, Whaley and Zeitlin found a supporter in the U.S. Department of Defense’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) arm. DARPA saw plantibodies as a potential way to make stockpiles of drugs against possible bioterror agents like Ebola, and put money toward research for a new drug to fight the disease. Then, with the current outbreak, ZMapp was suddenly thrust into the spotlight and briefly became a household name. “The story today really is a big step forward for plantibodies. This has taken so long, 30 years, to get to here,” Cone says. The advent of plantibodies, he added, may be upon us. “I’m 78. I was thinking it wouldn’t happen in my lifetime. But now I’m thinking it may be possible before I die.”
Cone is a co-investigator on the contraceptive project, along with Mapp Biopharmaceuticals and Marathe’s lab in Boston, and believes deeply in the potential for plantibodies to change the way medicine approaches the prevention and treatment of almost every physical disease.
“Why we have been so confident the idea will work is that we are doing just what nature has shown to do,” Cone says. “It’s the way mammalian mothers protect their infants.” Over her lifetime, a mother is exposed to thousands of pathogens and acquires the ability to make thousands of antibodies against them. “The infant is delivered into that environment and is protected against all the same things. Breast milk is loaded with those antibodies. The first milk is basically a paste of antibodies,” he says.
Passive Immunization
Today, many diseases are prevented with the use of vaccines. Vaccines work through “active immunization,” by jostling the immune system into action to make its antibodies to fight off infection. Producing antibodies in a lab, and giving them to a patient as an injection or in a form that can be absorbed through the skin, is called “passive immunization.” The immune system remains passive while the newly introduced antibodies ward off the pathogen on their own.
The process for making plantibodies is relatively straightforward. First, researchers settle on a human antibody capable of targeting the desired pathogen. (In the case of the plantibody contraceptive, Japanese researchers discovered the antibody in infertile women in the 1980s. In that case, the antibody attacked a coating on sperm.) Next, the researchers identify the antibody’s gene, synthesize that gene and insert it into a plant virus. The virus must be capable of spreading throughout an eight- to 10-week-old plant without killing it too rapidly, and researchers have found their ideal candidate: the tobacco mosaic virus, well known due to years of tobacco industry research, because it infects the tobacco plant and kills it in two weeks.
But before that happens, as the plant grows, the virus proliferates, multiplying the antibody along with it. When the tobacco plants reach a certain level of maturity, they are harvested, and the antibody is distilled out of the plant matter. “We get a leaf that’s jam-packed with monoclonal antibodies and then grind that up and use normal pharmaceutical processes to purify it,” explains Charles Arntzen, a plant biologist at Arizona State University who teamed up with Mapp Biopharmaceuticals’s Zeitlin to work on plantibodies in the early 2000s.
Mapp Biopharmaceuticals is one of a handful of companies experimenting with plantibodies and their myriad applications. Mapp is targeting certain types of cancer and inflammation, in addition to its work on an Ebola drug and the vaginal contraceptive. Whaley estimates there are already around 30 antibody-derived products on the market from other companies, and at least 100 more going through the research pipeline. “The thing that we like about antibodies is that they are incredibly specific,” he says. They can be made to bind to something as precise as a particular part of a specific molecule on a single virus—so unlike antibiotics, which often wipe out beneficial bacteria along with the bacteria making the patient sick, antibodies tend to attack only their targets. They are also easy to make—producing more of the product simply means infecting and growing more tobacco plants.
“From a biodefense standpoint, you may not need to use the product [most of the time], but when you do, you might need to make a lot of it,” says Michael Kurilla, the director of the biodefense research program at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). This feature is vital for adapting to a world where global air travel spreads infectious diseases farther faster, and where climate change could make future outbreaks worse. Governments must be equipped to respond to new strains in a flash. That’s where plantibodies could come in.
“If you want to protect a large number of people immediately, you make plantibodies. They work immediately,” Cone says. Most of the immunology industry is focused on making vaccines, but vaccines could take weeks to kick in. In an outbreak situation, that’s time a population can’t afford to lose. With antibodies, the protection is virtually instantaneous.
Plantibodies have one major downside compared with vaccines: The introduced antibodies are flushed through a person’s system relatively quickly, in a matter of hours or days, and the body hasn’t learned to make them itself. Vaccines teach the body to make antibodies, so one or a few doses can protect a person for years. By contrast, if a plantibody is being used to prevent a disease, the patient would need to take doses indefinitely.
Yet even if a person is vaccinated, that protection becomes useless if the pathogen mutates. In the case of certain pathogens, like HIV, that makes designing a reliable vaccine brutally difficult. “The fact is, you wouldn’t [use plantibodies] if you could make a vaccine,” Cone says. “But you know it has taken all this time to get a rather poor HIV vaccine, because of the way that virus works. It keeps evolving very rapidly inside that person. So you look at that and you think, How do you make a vaccine? But we’re sure we could make monoclonal antibodies against it.”
Drug resistance is also a worry; in an era of antibiotics overuse, virulent strains of germs are emerging that are resistant to drugs. Plantibodies fine-tuned to obliterate specific drug-resistant strains might be one answer to these superbugs. “We’re looking at a lot of other applications of monoclonal antibodies for infectious diseases, both in terms of trying to address the drug resistance problem and in cases where drugs alone may not be sufficient,” Kurilla says.
Whaley’s lab is scrambling to produce more of the ZMapp Ebola drug while the epidemic in West Africa rages on. He says that if all goes well, the next batch of ZMapp should be ready to go into trial phases as early as January. ZMapp, Whaley says, will provide lessons on “how high of a scale we can go and how inexpensive we can go” for future products, like the plantibody contraceptive. The goal is to make them cost as little as condoms. “We figured it would take 50 or 60 acres [of tobacco] to make enough [contraceptives] for all the women in the world,” Cone says.
Those Little Green Stars
Outside, Boston was reveling in a sky-blue gem of an October day. Inside, Marathe wore a black fleece jacket to keep from shivering in the cooled basement where she is counting how many cells in the semen plasma had managed to crawl their way into the bit of cervical cell flesh.
The white blood cells in the semen, known to be transmitters for HIV, were dyed fluorescent green. Marathe let me peer into her microscope’s eyepiece to look at a piece of tissue that had been treated with the plantibody, and my whole field of vision was overtaken by tiny green points of light on a dark background, like stars in the dome room of a planetarium. The top layer of the tissue was littered with them. On a monitor next to me, Marathe checked a three-dimensional graphic compiled from several images of the starry cell array. “This is good!” she says. “I have to image many more. But this is good.”
On a previous, untreated sample, Marathe counted 77 green-tinted cells that had crawled their way past the flaky dead cell layer. But on the sample coated with the anti-sperm plantibody, all the cells had stayed on the surface. Not a single white blood cell—which would be carrying HIV if it had come from an HIV-positive man—had made it into the test “vagina.”
Marathe’s tests bode well for the future of the product, which the NIH sees as a potentially groundbreaking Multipurpose Prevention Technology, or “MPT”—a term used to describe solutions that pack sexually transmitted infection prevention into contraceptives. Right now, the only products on the market that do that are condoms. But that could soon change.
Bethany Young Holt, the executive director of CAMI Health, a research organization that works for more funding for MPT development, says there is a stigma about HIV prevention, but much less so for contraceptives. Women who don’t have control over their male partner’s condom will one day be able to use MPTs as if they are a standard contraceptive, while also enjoying the benefit of protecting themselves from disease.
Marathe also predicts there will be little to no systemic side effects from using the plantibody contraception—a stark contrast with birth control pills, which can have full-body side effects like changes in weight or mood. Though researchers are still trying to figure out how long the effects of each dissolvable slip of film will last, they speculate it could be anywhere from six hours to one day. If all goes well, the range of coverage—from HIV, herpes and, of course, unplanned pregnancy—will be unprecedented.
Marathe is carefully judicious about overselling the research. But her optimism peeks through for a moment. “The project can be scrapped at any step. But if this works, there will be nothing like it.”
December 15, 2014: A previous version of this article incorrectly quoted Kevin Whaley as stating there are about 30 plantibody-derived products on the market. He had said there are about 30 antibody-derived products on the market.
12/15/14: Obama confirms he is signing spending bill:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/12/15/us-usa-congress-budget-obama-idUSKBN0JT2AT20141215?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews
Obama says he'll sign government spending bill passed by Congress
FORT DIX, N.J. Mon Dec 15, 2014 3:25pm EST
(Reuters) - President Barack Obama said on Monday he planned to sign a $1.1 trillion spending bill that was passed over the weekend by Congress to lift the threat of a government shutdown.
Obama, speaking at a military base in New Jersey, said it was critical that lawmakers from both parties supported the bill, which included payouts for the military.
"That's why it was so important that folks in Congress, Democrats and Republicans, came together and passed legislation that I'm going to sign to keep our government open and funded for the coming year, and that includes military operations," he said.
(Reporting by Steve Holland; Writing by Jeff Mason; Editing by Peter Cooney)
From 12/12/14: White House Schedule
http://www.whitehouse.gov/schedule/complete/2014-12-12
We are getting closer. I am hanging in there.
1:45 PM The President meets with his national security and public health teams to receive an update on the Ebola response; the Vice President also attends
Roosevelt Room
Closed Press
12/15/14: Obama expected to sign spending bill today. The bill was approved by Congress over the weekend.
It contains $5.4 Billion to help fight Ebola.
Thousands Left Orphaned From The Ebola Epidemic
The Life Of An Ebola Orphan
It seems the fear surrounding Ebola has died down, at least by those not directly affected. Though Ebola may no longer be dominating the headlines, many are still facing the harsh reality of such a brutal virus. The persons who have been most affected by the Ebola outbreak often go unnoticed, and are trivialized in day-to-day conversations. These persons are children, Ebola orphans, those left behind after their families have been taken. Recently, though, the voices of these Ebola orphans have begun to be heard.
The New York Times reported about a young girl — age unconfirmed but believed to be about 4-years-old — who tended to her Ebola infected mother until her death. The young child stayed at the Ebola clinic with her mother, unprotected, up until her death, after which she was moved to a children’s home. The name of this child is “Sweetie Sweetie,” and like other Ebola orphans, she is forced to take refuge in a group home because of the stigma attached to the families of Ebola victims.
“If there’s an earthquake or a war, and you lose a mother or a father, an aunt will take care of you…But this is different. These children aren’t being taken in by extended family. This isn’t like the AIDS orphans,” said Roeland Monasch, Head of UNICEF Office in Sierra Leone.
In the Ebola hubs of Africa, persons are reluctant to take in Ebola orphans because they believe them to be high risk and just do not want to take the chance of accepting these children into their homes, regardless of if the children are exhibiting Ebola symptoms or not.
“People in hard-hit Ebola areas see children as mini time bombs. They do not wash their hands very often, they constantly touch people, they break all the Ebola rules. Something as simple as changing a diaper becomes a serious risk because the virus is spread through bodily fluids,” the New York Times reports.
As pointed out by the Seattle Times, what may be even sadder is that Ebola not only threatens the livelihoods or Ebola orphans because of fear, but also, orphans who had already been in the process of being adopted have had their adoptions put on hold due to the crisis.
“Thousands of children are living through the deaths of their mother, father or family members from Ebola…These children urgently need special attention and support; yet many of them feel unwanted and even abandoned. Orphans are usually taken in by a member of the extended family, but in some communities, the fear surrounding Ebola is becoming stronger than family ties,” explained Manuel Fontaine, UNICEF Regional Director for West and Central Africa.
According to UNICEF, at least 3,700 Ebola orphans have been created in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone since the beginning of the Ebola epidemic. Earlier this month, UNICEF declared 2014 one of the worst years on record for children, owing to all the cases of violence, terrorism, and disease.
Dreylan Johnson
?
Read more at http://www.inquisitr.com/1679925/thousands-left-orphaned-from-the-ebola-epidemic/#EIrQv4b6Qwq4UGws.99
12/13/14: iBio developments on CFB03
http://sclerodermanews.com/2014/12/13/ibio-presents-latest-developments-on-ibio-cfb03-for-systemic-sclerosis/
iBio Presents Latest Developments on IBIO-CFB03 for Systemic Sclerosis
iBioiBio, Inc. has released the latest information on the development of IBIO-CFB03, a therapy designed to address significant unmet medical needs for the treatment of fibrotic diseases, including systemic sclerosis (SSc) and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF). The company, which creates plant-derived pharmaceutical products, presented the news to their shareholders and other attendees at the company’s Annual Meeting.
iBio has been working throughout this year in collaboration with the inventor of IBIO-CFB03, Feghali-Bostwick at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC), to conduct clinical trials to assess the drug. Bostwick was able to demonstrate that specific endostatin-derived peptides’ inhibition properties reversed fibrosis during preclinical studies in mouse models of fibrosis and in human skin.
Preclinical studies conducted by iBio to date revealed the lack of significant toxicity caused by the drug, and corroborated the company’s decision to make IBIO-CFB03 a high priority. Therefore, iBio is now planning to conduct a phase 1 clinical trial designed to assess the safety of the therapeutic in healthy participants, as well as look for evidence of its preliminary efficacy in patient volunteers. iBio and its clinical advisory board believe that the strategy may be able to accelerate overall clinical development of IBIO-CFB03, as well as lead to the start of two new parallel clinical indications for the medication.
The clinical program will be supervised by a clinical advisory board created by iBio this year, which includes epidemiology specialist Thomas A. Medsger, Jr., who has worked on clinical and laboratory research for systemic sclerosis and localized forms of scleroderma, Raynaud disease and polymyositis/dermatomyositis. In addition, Richard M. Silver, M.D., a systemic sclerosis investigator; IPF specialist Timothy Blackwell, M.D.; and IPF clinical researcher J. Terrill Huggins were also selected for the advisory board.
In addition, the company has been granted an exclusive, worldwide license for the patents and pending patents for Dr. Feghali-Bostwick’s discoveries, and has begun a series of projects to manufacture the active pharmaceutical ingredient, as well as other potentially valuable derivatives. The company aims to produce them in plants through the use of their iBioLaunch technology. The company is currently working to file an investigational new drug application (IND) with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), a process that is expected to be completed by the middle of next year.
iBio Presents Updates on IBIO-CFB03 Fibrosis Drug Candidate At 2014 Annual Shareholders Meeting
http://pulmonaryfibrosisnews.com/2014/12/13/ibio-presents-updates-on-ibio-cfb03-fibrosis-drug-candidate-at-2014-annual-shareholders-meeting/
Posted by: Isaura Santos December 13, 2014
Biotechnology company iBio Inc. recently provided updates at its Annual Meeting for shareholders and attendees on the development progress of IBIO-CFB03 and its potential to address unmet medical needs for the treatment of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) and other fibrotic diseases.
The creator of IBIO-CFB03, Dr. Feghali-Bostwick from the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC), and iBio collaborated in developing the drug, which will be tested in future clinical trials. In the past, Dr. Feghali-Bostwick published research data revealing that some very specific endostatin-derived peptides such as IBIO-CFB03 reverse and inhibit fibrosis in mice models and in human skin.
iBio currently holds the worldwide license for all patents regarding these scientific discoveries, including pending patents. iBio is advancing the discoveries through its iBioLaunch™ technology, wherein active pharmaceutical ingredients and valuable derivatives are developed in plants. Now, a new drug application (IND) is being filed with the FDA, which iBio expects will be completed by the middle of next year.
The preclinical results for IBIO-CFB03 showed that efficacy and lack of significant toxicity justify high priority advancement of the product into clinical trials. Furthermore, given the major unmet medical needs related to fibrotic conditions that this treatment can potentially address, the company is preparing to invest in Phase 1 clinical trials. These trials will evaluate safety in healthy volunteers and look for evidence of its respective efficacy in participants with fibrosis. iBio believes that this strategy will accelerate IBIO-CFB03's development and eventually lead to two more clinical indications.
The development program will be guided by an advisory board established by iBio in 2014; according to a company press release: “The board includes Dr. Thomas A. Medsger, Jr., an internationally recognized expert on the epidemiology, clinical and laboratory features and natural history of systemic sclerosis and localized forms of scleroderma, Raynaud’s disease and polymyositis/dermatomyositis. Richard M. Silver, M.D., one of the world’s leaders in clinical care and investigation of systemic sclerosis, Timothy Blackwell, M.D., an internationally recognized expert in IPF and other lung diseases, and Dr. J. Terrill Huggins, a leading clinical investigator in the field of IPF.”
Seems like a catch 22 of bullish and bearish
EBOLA VACCINE TRIAL HALTED....
http://www.trust.org/item/20141211135112-u358o
I see why Ebola stocks dropped mid-day yesterday the bill didn't actually 'pass' yet. We got till EOB for them to pass it, hoping they do.
12/10/14: Dem backlash throws spending bill in doubt
http://www.cnn.com/2014/12/10/politics/dem-backlash-spending-bill/
By Deirdre Walsh and Ted Barrett, CNN
updated 5:45 PM EST, Wed December 10, 2014
Washington (CNN) -- A backlash from Democrats over add-ons to a massive government spending bill is throwing passage of the measure into doubt and once again raising concerns about a government shutdown.
The House is slated to vote on the legislation Thursday, just hours before agencies run out of money. The $1.1 trillion spending bill authorizes funding for virtually all agencies through September, but some Democrats on Capitol Hill are vowing to oppose the legislation, arguing that the addition of some key policy changes amount to a giveaway for big special interests. Congress must pass some type of legislation by Thursday at midnight to avert a shutdown.
The top concerns from Democrats center on a proposal to ease banking regulations in the Dodd-Frank law and a measure that would allow wealthy donors to give considerably more money to the political parties. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said the provisions were "destructive to middle class families and to the practice to our democracy" and demanded they be stripped out of the bill. Pelosi's position is critical because House Republicans need Democratic support for the measure to pass.
Though Republicans hold a significant majority in the House, Speaker John Boehner is expected to lose anywhere from 40 to 60 conservatives in his party who oppose the bill because it doesn't block the President's immigration executive action. Democrats will need to provide votes to offset those losses, setting up the sort of political brinksmanship that has become typical in Washington.
A shutdown remains unlikely because lawmakers could agree at the last minute to approve a bill that would keep the government running for a few months -- when Republicans will have full control of Congress.
House GOP aides say they are surprised Pelosi and others are lobbying for changes, since Democrats signed off on the bill before its release.
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, asked by CNN if he was concerned about the bill's prospects, said no, replying with a smile, "do I look worried?"
Key Senate Democrats are also blasting the deal.
Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the second ranking Democrats who is in charge of counting votes, said he didn't know if he would support the compromise or how many Democrats would. He called the Dodd-Frank provisions "awful."
"It is just an invitation for another financial disaster and the Republicans are hell-bent on getting that included," Durbin told reporters in the Capitol.
"Their appetite is whetted by the Nov. 4th election to undo Dodd-Frank. That has been one of their passions, second only to repealing the Affordable Care Act, and it means that the Wall Street interests -- the big banks, you know -- they're back on top as far as the House Republicans are concerned," he said.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the liberal Democrat from Massachusetts who is heavily involved in banking regulations, lashed out at the changes to the banking rules.
"The House is about to vote on a budget deal -- a deal negotiated behind closed doors that slips in a provision that would let derivatives traders on Wall Street gamble with taxpayer money and get bailed out by the government when their risky bets threaten to blow up our financial system," she said in a passionate floor speech. "These are the same banks that nearly broke the economy in 2008 and destroyed millions of jobs."
She urged Democrats to oppose the spending bill until "this risky giveaway is removed from the legislation."
On the campaign finance matter, House Speaker John Boehner said larger individual donations to the parties are needed because Congress had recently eliminated taxpayer funds for political conventions.
"The Congress is very concerned about taxpayer funding of political activities," Boehner said. "This provision was worked out in a bipartisan way to allow those who are organizing conventions the opportunity to raise the money from private sources as opposed to using taxpayer funds."
Republican aides familiar with the negotiations say that both the chairs of the Republican National Committee and Democratic National Committee supported the change on contributions limits to boost their own coffers.
But DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Shultz told CNN it was "absolutely not" true that she knew anything about the change to campaign finance laws being added to the spending bill.
She said there was a joint effort with the RNC to appeal to the Federal Election Commission to raise the cap for donors for conventions, but she did not support putting this provision in the funding bill.
Democratic aides say it's still early to gauge how many members will vote no on Thursday, but acknowledge that the deal was brokered by Democrats and Republicans over several weeks. Democrats who negotiated the deal defended the end result, saying Republicans had pressed for six different changes to Dodd-Frank but Democrats were able to whittle it down to one. Democrats also said they successfully removed more than two dozen environmental items and a handful of gun-related policy provisions sought by Republicans.
Maryland Rep. Chris Van Hollen, a top Pelosi deputy, said he's voting no, and described the opposition as "running deep and getting deeper" as more Democrats review the details.
The number three House Democrat, South Carolina Rep. Jim Clyburn, told reporters he was undecided, but was hearing "lots of concerns" about the banking provision, and said "a lot of civil rights groups have been burning up the airwaves with problems about this."
A similar measure removing this same financial regulation was passed by the House last October, with 70 Democrats voting for it, a point McCarthy noted on Wednesday when pressed about the latest criticism from Democrats
"Do they want to shut down the government?" McCarthy said about those Democrats vowing to oppose the spending measure. Boehner's spokesman said the controversial provisions will remain in the bill. "If Rep. Pelosi doesn't think her negotiators did a good job, she should discuss it with them - but sour grapes doesn't mean she gets to rewrite the deal after the fact," Michael Steel said in a statement to CNN. Still Republicans insist that there won't be a shutdown over this issue, and indicated they would consider a short-term funding bill through early next year -- when they will have full control of Congress -- if this bill fails.
12/10/14: $TKMR - S-3 Registration filed for $150M
http://ih.advfn.com/p.php?pid=nmona&article=64750113
I expect this ticker to receive an algo trading attack beginning tomorrow.
12/10/14: What’s in the spending bill? We skim it so you don’t have to
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2014/12/09/whats-in-the-spending-bill-we-skim-it-so-you-dont-have-to/
Only Ebola related info was extracted from the article. Click on the link above for a full list.
CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL:
The agency would get more than $6.9 billion, an increase of about $42.7 million. The nation's leading disease-fighters also get $30 million to help fight Ebola (see below).
EBOLA:
Roughly $5.4 billion is provided across several agencies to combat the spread of the disease in the United States and around the world. The amount is less than the $6 billion Obama requested.
$LAKE Prelim Q3 - Sales Rose 15%
$LAKE reports after-hours today
Conference Call dial-in Info within this link: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/lakeland-industries-report-fiscal-third-131000993.html</i>
http://www.streetinsider.com/Guidance/Lakeland+Industries+%28LAKE%29+Prelim.+Q3+Sales+Rose+15%25/10015287.html
Lakeland Industries (NASDAQ: LAKE) announced select preliminary results for its fiscal 2015 third quarter ended October 31, 2014. The Company's preliminary sales only in the United States and Canada for the fiscal 2015 third quarter are expected to be between $14.5 million and $14.7 million, or an increase of approximately 15% as compared with sales of $12.5 million for the same regions in the fiscal third quarter of the prior year. The select preliminary sales increase primarily reflects the growth being experienced by Lakeland with its traditional customers.
The sales figures announced today do not include the balance of the Company's international operations, which generally take longer to consolidate for reporting purposes. Further and as previously disclosed, Lakeland has experienced a significant increase in order activity from demand relating to the Ebola crisis. The Company started shipping orders relating to this demand only in October, which is the last month of its fiscal 2015 third quarter reporting period. The main impact from Ebola-related orders will not begin to be realized until the Company's fiscal 2015 fourth quarter ended January 31, 2015. Full third quarter financial results will be announced on December 10, 2014. Details for the fiscal 2015 third quarter financial results conference call will be announced.
NEW EBOLA SONG....BANG BANG:
[yt]0HDdjwpPM3Y[yt]
10:30AM Live Video for Senate Hearing:
http://www.foreign.senate.gov/
10:30AM - Senate Hearing on Ebola
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=108914286
IBIO huge news out for annual shareholder meeting:
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=108926074
Nice find! Good work bud you always have great DD keep it up!
$APT $NVAX $LAKE $NLNK $TKMR $ABIO $AEMD
ABIO EBOLA NEWS OUT: ARCA biopharma Receives FDA Orphan Drug Designation for rNAPc2 as a Potential Treatment for Ebola
12/10/14: The Ebola Fighters - TIME Person of the Year
CNBC is covering this around 8:42AM EST. Ebola coming back into the media, slowly but surely!
http://time.com/time-person-of-the-year-ebola-fighters-choice/
The Choice - They risked and persisted, sacrificed and saved. Editor Nancy Gibbs explains why the Ebola Fighters are TIME's choice for Person of the Year 2014
7:41 AM ET
By Nancy Gibbs
Not the glittering weapon fights the fight, says the proverb, but rather the hero’s heart.
Maybe this is true in any battle; it is surely true of a war that is waged with bleach and a prayer.
For decades, Ebola haunted rural African villages like some mythic monster that every few years rose to demand a human sacrifice and then returned to its cave. It reached the West only in nightmare form, a Hollywood horror that makes eyes bleed and organs dissolve and doctors despair because they have no cure.
But 2014 is the year an outbreak turned into an epidemic, powered by the very progress that has paved roads and raised cities and lifted millions out of poverty. This time it reached crowded slums in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone; it traveled to Nigeria and Mali, to Spain, Germany and the U.S. It struck doctors and nurses in unprecedented numbers, wiping out a public-health infrastructure that was weak in the first place. One August day in Liberia, six pregnant women lost their babies when hospitals couldn’t admit them for complications. Anyone willing to treat Ebola victims ran the risk of becoming one.
Which brings us to the hero’s heart. There was little to stop the disease from spreading further. Governments weren’t equipped to respond; the World Health Organization was in denial and snarled in red tape. First responders were accused of crying wolf, even as the danger grew. But the people in the field, the special forces of Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), the Christian medical-relief workers of Samaritan’s Purse and many others from all over the world fought side by side with local doctors and nurses, ambulance drivers and burial teams.
Ask what drove them and some talk about God; some about country; some about the instinct to run into the fire, not away. “If someone from America comes to help my people, and someone from Uganda,” says Iris Martor, a Liberian nurse, “then why can’t I?” Foday Gallah, an ambulance driver who survived infection, calls his immunity a holy gift. “I want to give my blood so a lot of people can be saved,” he says. “I am going to fight Ebola with all of my might.”
MSF nurse’s assistant Salome Karwah stayed at the bedsides of patients, bathing and feeding them, even after losing both her parents—who ran a medical clinic—in a single week and surviving Ebola herself. “It looked like God gave me a second chance to help others,” she says. Tiny children watched their families die, and no one could so much as hug them, because hugs could kill. “You see people facing death without their loved ones, only with people in space suits,” says MSF president Dr. Joanne Liu. “You should not die alone with space-suit men.”
Those who contracted the disease encountered pain like they had never known. “It hurts like they are busting your head with an ax,” Karwah says. One doctor overheard his funeral being planned. Asked if surviving Ebola changed him, Dr. Kent Brantly turns the question around. “I still have the same flaws that I did before,” he says. “But whenever we go through a devastating experience like what I’ve been through, it is an incredible opportunity for redemption of something. We can say, How can I be better now because of what I’ve been through? To not do that is kind of a shame.”
So that is the next challenge: What will we do with what we’ve learned? This was a test of the world’s ability to respond to potential pandemics, and it did not go well. It exposed corruption in African governments along with complacency in Western capitals and jealousy among competing bureaucrats. It triggered mistrust from Monrovia to Manhattan. Each week brought new puzzles. How do you secure a country, beyond taking passengers’ temperatures at the airport? Who has the power to order citizens to stay home, to post a guard outside their door? What will it take to develop treatments for diseases largely confined to poor nations, even as this Ebola outbreak had taken far more lives by mid-October than all the earlier ones combined?
The death in Dallas of Thomas Eric Duncan, the first Ebola patient diagnosed on U.S. soil, and the infection of two nurses who treated him, shook our faith in the ability of U.S. hospitals to handle this kind of disease. From there the road to full freak-out was a short one. An Ohio middle school closed because an employee had flown on the same plane as one of Duncan’s nurses. Not the same flight, just the same plane. A Texas college rejected applicants from Nigeria, since that country had some “confirmed Ebola cases.” A Maine schoolteacher had to take a three-week leave because she went to a teachers’ conference in Dallas. Fear, too, was global. When a nurse in Spain contracted Ebola from a priest, Spanish authorities killed her dog as a precaution, while #VamosAMorirTodos (We’re all going to die) trended on Twitter. Guests at a hotel in Macedonia were trapped in their rooms for days after a British guest got sick and died. Turned out to have nothing to do with Ebola.
The problem with irrational responses is that they can cloud the need for rational ones. Just when the world needed more medical volunteers, the price of serving soared. When nurse Kaci Hickox, returning from a stint with MSF in Sierra Leone with no symptoms and a negative blood test, was quarantined in a tent in Newark, N.J., by a combustible governor, it forced a reckoning. “It is crazy we are spending so much time having this debate about how to safely monitor people coming back from Ebola-endemic countries,” says Hickox, “when the one thing we can do to protect the population is to stop the outbreak in West Africa.”
Ebola is a war, and a warning. The global health system is nowhere close to strong enough to keep us safe from infectious disease, and “us” means everyone, not just those in faraway places where this is one threat among many that claim lives every day. The rest of the world can sleep at night because a group of men and women are willing to stand and fight. For tireless acts of courage and mercy, for buying the world time to boost its defenses, for risking, for persisting, for sacrificing and saving, the Ebola fighters are TIME’s 2014 Person of the Year.
Africa: Congress Must Directly Fund Hospitals to Ensure Ebola Doesn't Devastate the US
Congress Must View Ebola Threat as a National Security Issue and Provide full funding to fight Ebola on the home front and in Africa
The Constituency for Africa today called on Congress to ensure that as they take up funding request matters that they look comprehensively at US – Africa policy matters such as trade, and travel when considering funding of the President’s $6.2 billion special funding request. We must ensure that Congress designate funding directly to hospitals in both Africa and the US, as it is hospitals that are the front lines of the fight against Ebola.
“The hospitals across the country and on the continent that have been designated to treat Ebola are in urgent need of emergency assistance in order to effectively be prepared to contain the virus,” wrote Melvin Foote, President of the Constituency for Africa (CFA), and other business, health care and charitable leaders in a letter to U.S. Senate and House Appropriations Committee members.
As the Appropriations Committees consider President Obama’s request for $6.2 billion in special funding to fight Ebola, it is critical that hospitals receive the funding necessary to protect American communities from the deadly virus.
In West Africa, Ebola has stricken more than 13,000 people and has become a global public health crisis. In order to prevent a similar outcome in the United States, hospitals need appropriate financial resources to renovate, purchase costly equipment and conduct extensive staff training.
“We must fight Ebola on two fronts, at the epicenter of the disease in Africa, as well as at hospitals that are serving as the front lines here at home,” continued Foote. “This is a global issue that requires a coordinated effort—anything less will only create greater challenges down the road.”
Existing appropriations are not adequate. The Hospital Preparedness Program (HPP), the primary federal program for hospital emergency preparedness, has been cut to bare bones, and the President’s FY 2015 budget requested no increase for the program.
Yet, the hospitals designated to treat Ebola are being asked to increase their readiness dramatically. The bill for one hospital dealing with Ebola can mount into the hundreds of thousands of dollars per patient, per day – draining crucial resources. For example, at New York’s Bellevue Hospital Center, where Doctors Without Borders physician Craig Spencer was treated for Ebola, the hospital spent $100,000 each day he was admitted on waste treatment and disposal alone. Adequate funding for hospitals is critical in order to provide quality and effective care for impacted patients.
“The bottom line is that we want to ensure that American communities are protected from Ebola,” Foote and the other letter signatories continued. “Public health has to be our No. 1 priority as a nation. Designated investment in our hospitals on the front lines is the key to preventing an Ebola outbreak in the United States. That’s why we urge Congress to provide funding well in excess of what the Administration has requested for hospitals to meet this new challenge.”
12/10/14: Listen Live! - Senate Hearing: The Ebola Epidemic: The Keys To Success for The International Response.
Find the listen link here on the right side: http://www.capitolhearings.org/
Direct link to listen beginning at 10:30AM 12/10/14: http://www.capitolhearings.org/Hearing/SSFR00201412101030/dirksen419.aspx
Check C-Span to see if they will do a video stream:
http://www.c-span.org/
12/9/14: Deal reached on massive $1.1 trillion spending bill
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/massive-spending-bill-hits-snag-in-congress-as-deadline-draws-near/2014/12/09/981a81b4-7fa7-11e4-81fd-8c4814dfa9d7_story.html
By Ed O'Keefe December 9 at 6:48 PM
Congressional leaders have reached an agreement on a massive $1.1 trillion spending measure that will keep most of the federal government funded through next September.
Months of protracted negotiations between Democratic and Republican leaders concluded on Tuesday night, with passage expected in the coming days, according to top aides. Final details of the bill were still being sorted out and leaders were still mulling whether to approve a stopgap bill to give lawmakers a few more days to pass the final bill and avoid a government shutdown.
Extending current funding for just a few days has happened before, but doing so this year would provide an embarrassing finale to one of the most fruitless congressional sessions in history.
With just two days to go before government funding expires, “There’s no reason the government should shut down,” Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said Tuesday. “And we’re ready to pass a year-long spending bill to take care of this.”
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) assured reporters that the bill would pass “before we leave here this week.”
Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) joked that last-minute drama with the spending plan “is a Christmas tradition,” but added: “I don’t see it getting derailed. I think it could get slowed down, but I think it will ultimately get across the finish line.”
Once the bill is released late Tuesday, House Republicans will have to wait until Thursday morning to hold a vote as part of their rule requiring legislation to be considered for at least part of three days before a vote is held. But that would give the Senate just a few hours to earn rare unanimous consent to bypass the normal rules and quickly approve the bill, increasing the likelihood that lawmakers will pass a stopgap bill and work through the weekend, if needed.
In the House, top GOP leaders plan to use Wednesday to build support for the legislation, especially among conservative lawmakers who have bucked House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) in the past. Boehner has vowed to adjourn the House by Thursday and has predicted that the bill will ultimately pass with broad bipartisan support.
Congressional leaders originally hoped to release the spending bill Monday night, but last-minute attempts to add language renewing a government-backed terrorism insurance program delayed the release. By Tuesday afternoon, leaders had dropped plans to include an extension of the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act in the bill, opting instead to move it as separate legislation. The National Football League and the powerful insurance, construction and hospitality industries have been pushing for Congress to renew the program before it expires on Dec. 31.
Many of the spending bill’s biggest details are already set in stone thanks to spending caps agreed to by the White House and lawmakers last year.
The agreement is expected to include most of the money President Obama requested to fight Ebola, but it is expected to slash funding for changes to school lunch programs that are backed by first lady Michelle Obama.
Several congressional Democrats said their support for the legislation was dependent on whether Republicans try tucking any policy “riders” into the bill.
Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, the District of Columbia’s nonvoting Democratic representative, and other Democrats were warning they would vote against the bill if it puts any restrictions on the District’s plans to legalize marijuana possession, which city voters approved last month.
The congressional interference, however, could create a level of chaos in the District, legalizing possession and home cultivation of the plant, but prohibiting the city from spending additional resources to set up a regulatory framework to allow for legal sale and taxation of pot.
Reid told reporters Tuesday that he opposes putting any restrictions on the District’s new marijuana program, but conceded that it may be difficult to remove such language from the final bill.
“The District of Columbia should do what they want to do,” he said.
Aaron Davis contributed to this report.
Remember Thursday is coming house approval of the budget will more than likely send Ebola stocks up due to news outlets reporting on it. Get em while they're cheap for a quick swing play.
House-Senate negotiators near spending deal
http://www.politico.com/story/2014/12/house-senate-spending-deal-113375.html
The goal is to have the massive measure ready by late Monday.
By David Rogers
12/7/14 4:01 PM EST
Updated 12/7/14 8:44 PM EST
House-Senate negotiators neared agreement Sunday on the last pieces of a $1.1 trillion spending bill designed to avert any shutdown this week and put most government agencies on firm footing through next September.
Building on a long weekend of talks, the goal was to file the giant measure by late Monday and then push for quick floor action before the current funding runs out Thursday night.
Details were closely held given the tense political climate. But the formula for the compromise was direct: Freeze domestic appropriations at home and direct the most dollars and punch to counter new threats from overseas.
Almost all the big initiatives begin at the water’s edge: containing Ebola in West Africa, fighting the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in the Mideast, shoring up Europe against Vladimir Putin’s Russia, helping Central America counter the violence and poverty that sent thousands of children across the Rio Grande into Texas last spring.
By comparison, President Barack Obama’s domestic agenda — like Alice’s Red Queen — will have to run hard just to stay in place.
Even the president’s popular TIGER transportation grants are reduced to $500 million, $100 million below 2014 and less than half of what Obama wanted in 2015. The National Institutes of Health will benefit from new Ebola funds for clinical trials, but its core $29.8 billion budget is expected to grow by just $150 million — not enough to keep pace with inflation.
Indeed, from Amtrak to Head Start and low-income fuel assistance, much of the domestic budget is flat.
Modest increases are allowed to hire more immigration judges and make good on promises to beef up child care grants. Funding for Pell Grants is preserved and new steps begun to address the problem of college affordability. But Republicans resisted repeated efforts by retiring Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) to allow some cap adjustment for NIH. And despite support from Obama and Western Republicans, it remained a hard sell to allow emergency, off-budget spending for catastrophic wildfires.
Caught in the middle of this zero-sum game are two favorite Republican targets: the Internal Revenue Service and the Environmental Protection Agency.
The bill provides an estimated $10.9 billion for the IRS and $8.1 billion for the EPA — real cuts from current funding, especially for the IRS. At one level, it can be argued that the bill takes money from Peter to pay Paul for a string of Republican priorities, such as $50 million in drought response funding in the Bureau of Reclamation and a $100 million increase in the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund.
This type of competition was baked into the cake a year ago when Congress and the administration agreed to revised spending caps for fiscal 2014 and 2015.
That pact allowed Obama to recover in 2014 from deep cuts made by sequestration in 2013. But the second increase for nondefense spending in 2015 was so small that it was immediately overcome by prior commitments to veterans’ medical care and a drop in federal receipts that had previously helped offset the cost of housing programs.
Nonetheless, at this stage in Obama’s presidency, the emphasis on security-related programs over investments at home is still striking. And all signs indicate the pattern will repeat itself in 2016.
Friday’s strong jobs report testified to how far the nation has come since the Great Recession, which greeted Obama when he first moved into the White House in 2009. But despite the improved economy, Obama will leave office with fewer real dollars for domestic appropriations than President George W. Bush had before him.
Veterans’ medical care — which has ballooned with two wars and the aging Vietnam veteran population — is the big exception. But the clear message for Obama is one of retrenchment as he seeks to prep the battlefield before Republicans take full control of Congress next month.
In fact, well over $600 billion or better than half the spending in the bill would come under either the Defense or State departments.
In the Pentagon’s case, its core budget will be $490.2 billion, supplemented by about $64 billion in Overseas Contingency Operations funds counted outside the budget caps. This is more than Obama first anticipated last spring and reflects the stepped-up U.S. military operations in Iraq and Syria as well as $175 million to aid Ukraine and Baltic states like Latvia in the face of Putin’s aggressive posture.
Another $49.2 billion is designated for the State Department and foreign aid accounts, including almost $9 billion in OCO funds. The extra OCO funds will help preserve what’s become a greatly expanded refugee assistance program of just over $3 billion annually. Almost $1.9 billion is provided in disaster assistance — again heavily dependent on OCO support.
Closer to home, the bill provides about $260 million for a basket of programs to help Central America address some of the economic and social ills that drove the spike in child migrants this past year. But after all the tough talk of standing up to Egypt on human rights, the agreement backs away from cutting Cairo’s $1.3 billion in military aid and instead makes a small but surprising cut in economic assistance.
The funding to address Ebola — adjusted upward Sunday to $5.4 billion — will be treated as emergency appropriations, separate from OCO. The total could yet change again before filing Monday, but on balance Obama is assured of most of the $6.2 billion he requested — and without substantial contingencies.
Pentagon researchers would receive about $112 million, but the bulk is distributed through the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Department of Health and Human Services. USAID’s portion is expected to be about $2.5 billion. HHS is likely to get closer to $2.7 billion, money that will go largely to NIH and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But some portion is expected to also compensate medical centers in Georgia and Nebraska that treated some of early cases of Americans infected by the deadly virus.
The final mop-up negotiations over the weekend had less to do with dollars than policy riders challenging Obama’s regulatory powers.
Republicans are furious with the president for having used his executive authority to pre-empt them on immigration reform. And in a bit of tit-for-tat, the GOP is eager to flex its new muscle over the power of the purse.
Despite angry protests from the Transportation Department, Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and the trucking industry were expected to win changes related to new rules governing the rest required for drivers. Child nutrition standards backed by first lady Michelle Obama were in play, though the House agreed to back away from some of its earlier demands.
And despite a pivotal 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling Friday, the business lobby was still pursuing changes Sunday related to how the Labor Department calculates what “prevailing wage” should apply for low-income guest workers under the H-2B visa program.
Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) and Rep. Hal Rogers (R-Ky.), the respective chairs of the Senate and House Appropriations Committees, made significant progress in face-to-face talks Friday. But several outlying issues remained Sunday that could require sign-offs from top party leaders in both chambers.
To appease the right, the Department of Homeland Security will be kept on a short leash so Republicans can revisit the issue of Obama’s executive order on immigration. But all other Cabinet departments stand to greatly benefit from the chance to update accounts. And as the bill gains momentum, efforts are underway to use it as the engine to pull other year-end legislation, such as an extension of the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act, a priority for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
If successful, the package would very much be a personal triumph for Mikulski and Rogers after the two lawmakers passed a similar omnibus measure a year ago.
But the level of secrecy they imposed for this round has been exceptional and could yet hurt the Appropriations Committee leadership as it tries to reestablish itself.
Backroom bargaining is nothing new for Appropriations, but there has also been a long tradition of tempering this secrecy by offering informal guidance as the decisions are made. This has been more absent now, with veteran clerks fearful of talking about even noncontroversial parts of their bills.
The leadership would argue that the secrecy is justified given the political tensions in Congress. But the picture is of a committee so scared of outside disruptions that it’s forgotten the pride it once took as a public panel making public decisions about public money.
$LAKE earnings 12/10/14 after hours
Even if you are not invested in LAKE, good earnings from LAKE may lift up other ebola tickers.
12/7/14: Man tests negative for Ebola in Seattle
http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2025186980_ebolatestxml.html
12/6/14: As Ebola Rages, Poor Planning Thwarts Efforts
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/07/world/africa/as-ebola-rages-in-sierra-leone-poor-planning-thwarts-efforts.html?_r=0
KERRY TOWN, Sierra Leone — On a freshly cleared hillside outside the capital, where the trees have been chopped down and replaced with acres of smooth gravel, the new Ebola treatment center seems to have everything. There are racks of clean pink scrubs and white latex boots, bathrooms that smell like Ajax, solar-powered lights, a pharmacy tent, even a thatch-roofed hut to relax in.
But one piece is missing: staff. The facility opened recently with a skeleton crew. Now, in an especially hard-hit area where people are dying every day because they cannot get into an Ebola clinic, 60 of the 80 beds at the Kerry Town Ebola clinic are not being used.
It is like this with a lot here: good intentions, bad planning. Aid officials in Sierra Leone say poor coordination among aid groups, government mismanagement and some glaring inefficiencies are costing countless lives.
Ambulances, for example, are being used to ferry blood samples, sometimes just one test tube at a time, while many patients die at home after waiting days for an ambulance to come.
Half of the patients in some front-line Ebola clinics do not even have Ebola, but their test results take so long that they end up lingering for days, taking beds from people whose lives hang in the balance and greatly increasing their own chances of catching the virus in such close quarters.
Even after patients recover, many treatment centers delay releasing them for more than a week until there are enough other survivors, sometimes dozens, to hold one huge goodbye ceremony for everyone — again, keeping desperately needed beds occupied. “I just wanted to get home and see my wife,” said Suliman Wafta, a recent Ebola survivor treated nearby. “But I had to wait eight extra days.”
The latest Ebola numbers are ominous. This past week, Sierra Leone reported almost 100 new cases in a single day, nearly double the number just 10 days before — and those are only the confirmed cases, which health experts say may be a third of the total. At this rate, the swelling roster of the gravely ill will far outstrip even the most optimistic projections for new hospital beds.
The recriminations are beginning to fly, especially against Britain, which, in a colonial-style carve-up of Ebola-afflicted countries, is the international power taking the lead here.
“Why are the British here? To end Ebola, or party?” read a headline in a local newspaper. It added, “While their American counterparts are working hard to end Ebola in Liberia, our so-called colonial masters are busy living the life of Riley.”
British officials say that is not true, and that the 800 or so soldiers deployed here, who are building new treatment centers and training medics, are not allowed even a beer. “We’re working from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., seven days a week,” said Maj. Simon Reeves, a spokesman.
A big question people here are beginning to ask is whether the American military, which has sent 2,400 troops to Liberia, has any appetite to come to Sierra Leone. Many aid officials say the Pentagon’s role in building treatment centers, establishing mobile blood labs and ferrying Ebola supplies around Liberia has helped slow the epidemic there.
An Obama administration official in Washington said that no decision had been made to shift American troops from Liberia to Sierra Leone or send in large numbers of reinforcements, but that “nothing is off the table.”
Like others, the official kept citing the “Brits’ primacy” in Sierra Leone — a reference to how, several months ago, Western powers divided Ebola responsibilities in West Africa along historical lines, with the United States helping Liberia, a nation founded by freed American slaves in 1822; France helping a former colony, Guinea; and Britain helping its own former colony, Sierra Leone.
According to several other American officials, the Pentagon was not enthusiastic about getting involved in Liberia in the first place and is resistant to going deeper into the region.
“They basically said, ‘We know conflict, but we don’t know Ebola,' ” said one American official in West Africa. The military is also tired from fighting two long wars, the official said.
The Pentagon press secretary, Rear Adm. John F. Kirby, said the Defense Department was continuing to “monitor the spread of Ebola,” and was “mindful that it doesn’t just exist in Liberia.” In the next month, it will send two mobile blood labs to Sierra Leone to help reduce the bottlenecks caused by delays in testing.
Many aid officials in Sierra Leone said they crave a more effective command structure. The government runs a national emergency center, but aid officials said that with scores of foreign experts, government delegations and private charities flocking here, coordination was still messy, with many gaps and overlaps. It is extremely difficult, they said, to get even the most basic information, including how many treatment centers exist.
There are also growing questions about corruption, with the government announcing recently that it had found 6,000 “ghost medical workers” on its payroll, even as real Ebola burial teams and front-line health officers say they have not been paid in weeks.
Over and over, doctors have been confounded by the divergent paths of Ebola patients whose cases appeared similar at first.
Nothing, though, has raised more eyebrows than the new Kerry Town Ebola clinic, about a half-hour’s drive from the capital, Freetown. The clinic is an impressive campus of blue and white buildings lined up in perfectly straight rows, with all the orderliness of a military camp. It remains quiet, though, without enough trained nurses or hygienists to operate safely at anywhere close to capacity.
Several aid officials said that the Sierra Leonean government had been in a rush to open the clinic, but that the aid group tasked with running it, Save the Children International, had never run a critical-care field hospital. The rows of empty beds have led to some nasty finger-pointing.
Save the Children officials said the government had “begged” them to run the clinic. The government said Britain had made the decision. And the Britons said they had had no choice because no one else wanted the task.
The Save the Children officials said Saturday that they had asked for eight more Ebola patients per day but were receiving only one.
“That place is like a boat without a captain,” a senior international aid official said. “Everybody’s rowing in different directions, and the boat doesn’t move.”
The British military said that it was close to completing several other clinics, but that it would take time, just as it did in Liberia, to turn the crisis around here.
Usually, in big emergencies where many people are in desperate need, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs plays a huge role, dividing services into clusters and then coordinating the work of private aid groups within each cluster. Ensuring “a coherent response to emergencies” is its raison d'être.
All across the refugee camps and war zones of Sudan, Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo, to name a few, are legions of young aid workers scrambling around in vests stamped with “OCHA,” as the office is known. But in Sierra Leone right now, there very few are seen. “I have no idea why OCHA isn’t doing this, and I think OCHA has no idea why they’re not doing this,” said Michael von Bertele, the global humanitarian director for Save the Children.
One United Nations official, who was not authorized to speak publicly, said OCHA defined the Ebola crisis as a “systemic medical issue.” “Corporately, this is not a humanitarian emergency,” she said, but conceded that most aid agencies viewed it as one.
The United Nations still seems to be struggling with how to respond to one of the biggest international health crises in decades. After a lackluster start by the World Health Organization, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon established a separate Ebola mission in September to speed up the international response and cut through some of the typical United Nations bureaucracy.
Anthony Banbury, the head of that mission, said the United Nations was helping with crisis management and that OCHA had sent “a number of information officers” to the region. He also said that the Sierra Leonean government was handling coordination “very effectively.”
Many Sierra Leoneans find that laughable, but some said that because the government had declared a state of emergency, they had to speak carefully.
“Everybody knows there are huge gaps,” said Ibrahim Tommy, a human rights campaigner in Freetown. “But nobody can say anything.”
Several journalists and intellectuals have been summoned to Parliament recently to defend their work, and last month a prominent radio host was locked up for 11 days after he asked some questions about the government’s Ebola response. A government spokesman said that the radio host had been jailed for other reasons, without specifying them, and that there was no repression in Sierra Leone.
The journalist, David Tam-Baryoh, called the experience terrifying. “The government is getting very edgy,” he said.
When asked what grade he would give the government for its handling of Ebola, Mr. Tam-Baryoh giggled nervously.
“Well, if I wasn’t in the country,” he started to say. “But I don’t even want to say that. The powers of emergency could be wrongly used, to put it mildly.”
Jaime Yaya Berry contributed reporting from Freetown, Sierra Leone, Eric Schmitt from Kuwait and Helene Cooper from Washington.
12/7/14: MIT Had Cure for Ebola back in 2011, Ignored by Media
http://macedoniaonline.eu/content/view/26572/54/
Sunday, 07 December 2014
A major breakthrough out of MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) shows incredible promise as a cure for virtually every kind of viral infection known to man. This research has been completely ignored by the mainstream media who prefers to sell us vaccines by their major advertisers - Big Pharma.
Scientists from the school's Lincoln Laboratory basically came up with a method of targeting viruses that destroys infected cells while leaving healthy cells unharmed, similar to how antiviral nutrients function. But here's the kicker: The discovery was made in 2011, three years before the current Ebola outbreak, though it hasn't received any media attention whatsoever.
Published in the journal PLOS ONE, a groundbreaking study on this novel therapeutic explains how existing antiviral medications are scarce, and many of them largely ineffective. Viable treatments for the common cold, for example, are practically nonexistent, while newer diseases like SARS are regarded by public health officials as basically untreatable.
"In theory, it should work against all viruses," stated Todd Rider, a senior staff scientist from the Lincoln Laboratory's Chemical, Biological and Nanoscale Technologies Group and inventor of the technology, to MIT News.
DRACOs tell virus-infected cells to kill themselves
So what is this mysterious technological advancement? The paper calls them DRACOs, which is short for Double-stranded RNA Activated Caspase Oligomerizers. In essence, it is a substance that induces apoptosis, or cell death, in cells containing viral dsRNA, the double-stranded RNA produced by viruses for the purpose of replication.
Human cells are naturally pre-programmed to create special proteins that destroy these dsRNA strands, but viruses can mutate to outsmart and bypass this safeguard. This is where DRACOs come in, adding an additional protein into the mix that triggers apoptosis in infected cells. This combined approach is not only effective against virtually all tested viruses, but it also eliminates the possibility of viral resistance.
"Viruses are pretty good at developing resistance to things we try against them," stated Karla Kirkegaard, a professor of microbiology and immunology at Stanford University, to MIT News about the development. "[B]ut in this case, it's hard to think of a simple pathway to drug resistance."
DRACOs don't harm healthy cells
The best part about DRACO technology is that it leaves uninfected cells alone, which can't be said for the array of pharmaceuticals currently on the market, including chemotherapy drugs that kill everything in their path. Tests conducted both in vitro (in a test tube) and in vivo (in living organisms) show that DRACO is capable of killing the H1N1 influenza virus without causing any harm.
"DRACOs should be effective against numerous clinical and NIAID priority viruses, due to the broad-spectrum sensitivity of the dsRNA detection domain, the potent activity of the apoptosis induction domain, and the novel direct linkage between the two which viruses have never encountered," wrote the authors.
"We have demonstrated that DRACOs are effective against viruses with DNA, dsRNA, positive-sense ssRNA, and negative-sense ssRNA genomes; enveloped and non-enveloped viruses; viruses that replicate in the cytoplasm and viruses that replicate in the nucleus; human, bat, and rodent viruses; and viruses that use a variety of cellular receptors."
This clearly represents an extensive array of efficacy that is unmatched by any drugs currently on the market, yet DRACOs have received little media attention since they were first announced. Though they obviously require much more extensive testing to ensure safety, DRACOs appear to have taken a back seat to vaccines, which are the only type of intervention that government health officials seem to care about these days. //J. Benson NN
12/6/14: Seattle Health officials testing man for Ebola
http://www.komonews.com/news/local/Health-officials-testing-man-for-Ebola-at-Harborview-284987091.html?mobile=y
By KOMO Staff Dec 6, 2014
SEATTLE - A man living in King County is being tested for Ebola at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, James Appa with Public Health King County said Saturday.
The man had been traveling from Mali with his son, and developed a low grade fever and sore throat Friday night.
The possibility of the man having Ebola is relatively low, officials said. He is in "good spirits," and is currently isolated as a precaution.
The Mali-born man had been visiting family for three weeks, and has been under routine monitoring by health officials since arriving in Seattle.
Health officials have taken precautions to minimize the risk of the disease spreading to the public by checking all who came in contact with the man.
"The risk to the general public remains extremely low," Dr. Duchin said Saturday.
Harborview Medical Center is also reducing risk of the disease spreading by implementing an Ebola response plan, Appa said.
The results for the test are expected to be ready at least 12 hours after the test arrives at the lab, and will be released by public health officials when they are available.
12/6/14: Doc treated at UK-run Ebola military clinic in Sierra Leone dies
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/06/doctor-treated-british-run-ebola-clinic-sierra-leone-dies
A doctor who was being treated at an Ebola clinic run by British military medical staff in Sierra Leone has died.
The death of Thomas Rogers at the clinic in Kerry Town on Friday brings the number of doctors in Sierra Leone who have been killed by the deadly virus to eight. He had worked at Connaught hospital in Freetown, the capital of the country where Ebola is spreading fastest.
Ebola has now infected more than 17,500 people, mostly in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, and killed about 6,200. He was the 11th doctor in Sierra Leone to have been infected with the virus.
The clinic, which opened in early November, included an 80-bed treatment centre managed by Save the Children and a 12-bed centre staffed by British Army medics specifically for healthcare workers and international staff responding to the Ebola crisis.
The high number of infections in healthworkers deters many from volunteering to work on Ebola wards, particularly local healthworkers. While foreign doctors and nurses who have become infected have been evacuated for treatment at better-equipped foreign hospitals, locals are almost always treated in their own countries. Facilities such as the one at Kerry Town have been set up in an attempt to response to that disparity. Another has been established in Liberia and another is planned for Guinea.
A Cuban doctor being treated for Ebola at Geneva University Hospital has made a full recovery and left Switzerland to be reunited with his family, the hospital said on Saturday.
Felix Baez Sarria, 43, was evacuated from Sierra Leone on 19 November after coming down with a fever. He was believed to have contracted the virus after rushing to help a patient who was falling over. Sarria was one of 256 Cuban doctors and nurses who have travelled to west Africa to help tackle the worst outbreak of the disease.
Ebola is spread through the bodily fluids of people showing symptoms and people who have died of the disease. Because transmission requires close contact with those fluids, health workers are among the most at risk of contracting it and hundreds have become infected in this outbreak.
Meanwhile, a second wave of 25 doctors, nurses and other medical staff from across the UK are due to arrive in Sierra Leone on Saturday to join 30 NHS volunteers who travelled there last month. They had five days of intensive training in Worcestershire before departing and will undergo further training and acclimatisation before starting work at the British-built treatment centres.
Staff nurse Hannah McReynolds, from Leicester, said she felt privileged to be part of the team. “As soon as I heard NHS staff were volunteering I didn’t hesitate to apply. I feel lucky to have been born into a society which has provided me with free education and healthcare. This is a global issue and I am proud of my colleagues who have volunteered and want to encourage others to do so.”
Health secretary Jeremy Hunt paid tribute to the NHS volunteers: “They embody the values at the heart of our health service, and their expertise and dedication is second to none.”
The Cuban doctor in the story above that was treated and recovered was treated with the ZMapp drug.
great progress for vaccine and cure and thank you for the info
maximus
No problem. It's about to get very, very interesting in the reputable Ebola-related stocks.
Thanks for your contributions to the board, TMT.
MG
12/5/14: Legislation to add Ebola to FDA’s Priority Review Voucher Program clears Congress
http://riponadvance.com/news/legislation-add-ebola-fdas-priority-review-voucher-program-clears-congress/9842
Legislation to add Ebola to FDA’s Priority Review Voucher Program clears Congress
By Aaron Martin | December 5, 2014
Legislation that would add Ebola to the FDA’s Priority Review Voucher program cleared both the Senate and the House this week.
The Adding Ebola to the FDA Priority Review Voucher Program Act would provide a voucher for priority FDA review of a future drug to those who successfully develop therapies and vaccines for Ebola.
Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), who introduced the measure in the House, said decreasing the time it takes for a company to bring a drug through the FDA approval process would be a great incentive for the development of Ebola drugs.
“With nearly 15,000 cases and over 5,000 deaths, the 2014 Ebola epidemic is the worst since the discovery of the virus in 1976,” Blackburn, the vice chairwoman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said. “In light of this global outbreak there should be an intensive effort to find and approve a treatment or better yet, a vaccine to prevent Ebola.”
Blackburn worked with Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), who co-sponsored the measure in the Senate, on the Adding Ebola to the FDA Priority Review Voucher Program Act.
“The world is in desperate need of a vaccine to prevent Ebola and a drug to treat it,” Alexander, the ranking member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said. “I’m glad the Senate has moved quickly to pass this bill to spur the development of these vaccines and drugs — an important step in the fight against Ebola, which we hope will one day help lead to a cure.”
HR 5729: https://www.congress.gov/113/bills/hr5729/BILLS-113hr5729ih.pdf
Original PR from Congressman Blackburn's site: http://blackburn.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=397636
12/5/14: Ebola survivor speaks of ending suffering in West Africa
http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/dr-kent-brantly-ebola-survivor-speaks-of-ending-suffering-in-west-africa-1.2861586
American doctor was discharged from hospital in August after contracting Ebola in Liberia
The Canadian Press Posted: Dec 05, 2014 9:29 AM ET Last Updated: Dec 05, 2014 1:38 PM ET
An American doctor who survived the Ebola virus says he'd like to eventually return to West Africa, the place where he
got sick.
For now, Dr. Kent Brantly says his experience has given him a platform to raise awareness about the virus.
But he says he would like to return to medical work in Liberia at some point.
"I understand in a new way how people in West Africa are suffering," Brantly said. "I fully acknowledge I cannot fathom, I cannot understand what it's like to be a West African with Ebola because I had opportunity and resources that are not available to every person."
Brantly was in Ottawa on behalf of the aid group Samaritan's Purse to talk about the group's use of recent federal funding.
Brantly, a Texan, was given ZMapp, an experimental drug treatment used on a handful of patients and produced by U.S.-based Mapp Biopharmaceutical.
He was discharged from an Atlanta hospital in August.
"This has affected countries on multiple continents and we've got to work together to bring an end to it," he told a news conference.
Brantly said he's thankful he received ZMapp, but much more data is needed before anyone can say the drug treats most cases of Ebola.
In November, another American Ebola survivor, Nancy Writebol, visited Winnipeg. During her visit to a church, Writebol thanked scientists from the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg who helped develop ZMapp, which she also received.
For now, Brantly encouraged people to focus on intervening in communities to stop transmission of the virus.
Similarly, Brantly said in his opinion, the preventative benefits offered by potential vaccines could offer a greater impact on the outbreak than experimental drugs.
The United Nations Mission for Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER) aimed to isolate and treat all Ebola cases and safely bury all those who died, by Jan. 1.
The Ebola outbreak has made nearly 17,300 people sick, with most in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. Of those, about 6,100 have died, the World Health Organization says.
With files from CBC News and The Associated Press
great post, great news, must read for all
TheMotivatedTrader Member Level Friday, 12/05/14 04:52:03 PM
Re: None
Post # of 12693
12/5/14: Cuba says infected doctor overcomes Ebola
bigstory.ap.org/article/6bf14939744744b0bd11bfec0cda5f44/cuba-says-infected-doctor-overcomes-ebola
Dec. 5, 2014 3:16 PM EST
Associated Press
HAVANA (AP) — Cuba's Health Ministry says a doctor who contracted Ebola during an aid mission in Africa has overcome the disease and will be brought home soon.
The ministry says tests at a hospital in Geneva, Switzerland, confirm that 43-year-old Felix Baez Sarria is now clear of the Ebola virus. The report was carried by Cuban state news media.
Baez is among 165 Cuban medical personnel sent to Sierra Leone to fight the disease. He showed symptoms of the disease on Nov. 16 and was brought to Switzerland for treatment with the experimental drug ZMapp.
12/10/14: Senate Hearing: The Ebola Epidemic: The Keys To Success for The International Response.
http://www.foreign.senate.gov/hearings/the-ebola-epidemic-the-keys-to-success-for-the-international-response
Subcommittee on African Affairs
Date: Wednesday, December 10, 2014
Time: 10:30 AM
(more info through the link above)
12/3/14 Video: Defense Dept Briefing on Ebola Response
http://www.c-span.org/video/?323061-1/department-defense-briefing-ebola-response
General David Rodriquez briefed reporters and responded to questions on the U.S. military response to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.
12/5/14: UN peacekeeper in Liberia tests positive for Ebola
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/7da34a25de9947d0a9b19c3dd5deb5f4/un-peacekeeper-liberia-tests-positive-ebola
Dec. 5, 2014 1:09 PM EST
Associated Press
MONROVIA, Liberia (AP) — A U.N. peacekeeper who contracted Ebola in Liberia will be flown to the Netherlands for treatment, a Dutch Health Ministry spokeswoman said Friday.
The Nigerian soldier is expected to arrive in the Netherlands this weekend and will go into isolation at the University Medical Center Utrecht, according to Inge Freriksen.
This is the third infection for the mission, which comprises about 7,700 troops and police. The previous two died.
Sixteen people who came into contact with the Nigerian soldier have been quarantined, the mission said.
Ebola has sickened more than 17,500 people, mostly in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. About 6,200 have died.
Liberia has recorded the highest number of cases and deaths, but with infection rates stabilizing there, the government decided to go ahead with a Senate election this month and allowed campaign rallies. This week, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf said those events are impeding efforts to contain Ebola and banned all public gatherings until 30 days after results of the Dec. 16 election are announced.
There are concerns that the president may be using Ebola as an excuse after a large crowd rallied in support of former soccer star Geroge Weah, who is running against Sirleaf's son, Robert.
"There is a clear political motive, and that political motive is in the interest of her son," said Tiawan Gongloe, a human rights lawyer who was once a member of Sirleaf's Cabinet.
Meanwhile, in Sierra Leone, where the disease is spreading fastest, 100 Nigerian health workers arrived Friday. Another 25 British doctors and nurses are expected Saturday. Sierra Leone is desperately short of space in Ebola clinics and health workers in hot spots around the capital and in the north.
Ebola has symptoms that are similar to other more common diseases, like malaria, and many people who have shown up at Ebola treatment centers have turned out to be sick with something else. In an effort to keep at least some of those people away from treatment centers, Sierra Leone launched a massive campaign Friday to hand out malaria medication door-to-door to 2.4 million people. Liberia has undertaken a similar campaign.
12/5/14: Sierra Leone seeing 80-100 new Ebola cases daily
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/2b0148868777438ca538ecb338aedc76/sierra-leone-seeing-80-100-new-ebola-cases-daily
Dec. 5, 2014 1:22 PM EST
Associated Press
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Sierra Leone said Friday that between 80 and 100 new cases of Ebola are being reported every day and the country now hardest-hit by the deadly virus desperately needs over 1,000 beds to treat victims.
Sierra Leone's Finance Minister Kaifalah Marah painted a grim picture to the U.N. Economic and Social Council Friday of the challenges facing his West African nation which failed to meet a World Health Organization interim goal of isolating 70 percent of Ebola patients and safely burying 70 percent of victims by Dec. 1.
The two other hard-hit countries, Liberia and Guinea, did meet the deadline, and the U.N.'s Ebola chief Dr. David Nabarro said the number of new cases in Liberia has dropped from 60 per day in September to 10 per day now.
But Nabarro and WHO Director-General Dr. Margaret Chan stressed that Ebola that a much greater effort is needed to reach the elusive goal of zero new cases.
"The Ebola outbreak is the largest, longest, most severe and most complex Ebola epidemic in the nearly 40-year history of this disease," Chan said. "What began as a health crisis has become a crisis with humanitarian, social, economic and security implications."
She said by videoconference from Geneva that "the fear for Ebola is moving faster than the virus."
Marah said as of Thursday there were 6,201 confirmed Ebola cases in Sierra Leone and 1,900 deaths, and the virus is now concentrated in some northern districts and the western area including the capital, Freetown.
Sierra Leone has four functioning treatment centers but it needs 12, and while the number of beds for Ebola sufferers has increased from 212 to 406 it needs 1,500 — which means 1,094 additional beds, he said.
Marah said Sierra Leone also needs 6,000 people to scale-up the tracing of contacts of Ebola victims.
Chan said clinical trials for an Ebola vaccine "look promising," and experimental therapies including some potential cures are also undergoing clinical trials.
"Most experts are convinced that this will not be Africa's last Ebola outbreak," Chan said. "At least 22 African countries ... have the ecological conditions, the wildlife species, and the hunting practices that favor a return of Ebola at some time in the future."
12/5/14: Cuba says infected doctor overcomes Ebola
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/6bf14939744744b0bd11bfec0cda5f44/cuba-says-infected-doctor-overcomes-ebola
Dec. 5, 2014 3:16 PM EST
Associated Press
HAVANA (AP) — Cuba's Health Ministry says a doctor who contracted Ebola during an aid mission in Africa has overcome the disease and will be brought home soon.
The ministry says tests at a hospital in Geneva, Switzerland, confirm that 43-year-old Felix Baez Sarria is now clear of the Ebola virus. The report was carried by Cuban state news media.
Baez is among 165 Cuban medical personnel sent to Sierra Leone to fight the disease. He showed symptoms of the disease on Nov. 16 and was brought to Switzerland for treatment with the experimental drug ZMapp.
One segment of a sentence from...
12/4/14: Obama to Get Most of $6.2B Request to Fight Ebola
12/4/14: Obama to Get Most of $6.2B Request to Fight Ebola
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/obama-62b-request-fight-ebola-27372071
By ANDREW TAYLOR
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON
President Barack Obama will be awarded the bulk of his $6.2 billion request to fight Ebola in Africa, a senior member of the Senate Appropriations Committee said Thursday. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said Thursday that Obama won't get the full $1.5 billion he requested for a contingency fund but he's getting the green light for other portions of the request. Graham is the lead Senate GOP negotiator on the foreign aid budget as lawmakers wrap up talks on a $1 trillion-plus omnibus spending bill in advance of a likely vote next week.
Obama asked for $2 billion for the United States Agency for International Development and $2.4 billion for the Department of Health and Human Services. That money would be used to strengthen the public health system in the U.S., combat the epidemic in West Africa and speed up the development of vaccines and other therapies. The money also would be used to help vulnerable foreign countries detect and respond to the disease.
The administration would establish more than 50 Ebola treatment centers throughout the U.S., buy safety suits and more strictly monitor travelers upon their arrival in the country. Obama also wanted $1.5 billion for a contingency fund to deal with any unanticipated developments such as a new flare-up in West Africa or a need to vaccinate U.S. health care workers. Graham said he wanted to make sure that the contingency fund doesn't amount to a "slush fund" but Obama's other requests were "in the ballpark."
A Senate aide, speaking on condition of anonymity because negotiations are being conducted in secret, said Obama will probably win more than $5 billion of the request. The omnibus spending bill would cover the approximately one-third of the budget dedicated to day-to-day operations of Cabinet agencies. Programs such as Social Security, Medicare and the new health care law are separately paid for in the "mandatory" portion of the federal budget.
Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Copyright © 2014 ABC News Internet Ventures
Ebola stocks are gonna start ramping back up again along with Body Cameras.
$LAKE, $APT
12/3/14: Patient at MGH Tests Negative for Ebola
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=108726264
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first discovered in 1976. | Ebola Why am I fighting to live if I'm just living to fight? Why am I trying to see when there ain't nothing in sight? Why am I trying to give when no one gives me a try? Why am I dying to live if I'm just living to die? So I'll keep fighting to live till there's no reason to fight And I'll keep trying to see until the end is in sight You know I'm trying to give so c'mon give me a try You know I'm dying to live until I'm ready to die -- "DYING TO LIVE" - BIGGIE, TUPAC & EMINEM (FT. EDGAR WINTER) |
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Vaccine development is a long, complex process, often lasting 10-15 years and involving a combination of public and private involvement.
The current system for developing, testing, and regulating vaccines developed during the 20th century as the groups involved standardized their procedures and regulations.
*********FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY************ Soldiers have been deployed to the streets of Liberia to prevent panic as fears spread about the deadly virus. Revelation 6:8 |
Ebola viruses cause a severe and often deadly illness known as Ebola virus disease (EVD, also referred to as Ebola hemorrhagic fever). Fatality rates during EVD outbreaks can be as high as 90 percent. Ebola viruses produce hemorrhagic fever, a condition that also can be brought about by other types of viruses but Ebola produces one of the most lethal forms. In addition to the other symptoms of hemorrhagic fever – fever, headache, aches, weakness, vomiting, and diarrhea – the more severe cases can include damage to blood vessels and extensive internal and external bleeding (hemorrhage). Mortality rates for EVD range from 50 percent to 90 percent, with death usually occurring as a result of shock rather than blood loss. The virus is transmitted through direct contact with blood or other body fluids of infected persons or animals, including close contact with deceased Ebola-infected patients.
Ebola viruses belong to a family of viruses termed Filoviridae, which are characterized by a long filamentous structure. There are five subtypes of Ebola viruses: Zaire, Sudan, Bundibugyo, Tai Forest (formerly known as Côte d’Ivoire), and Reston, each named after the location in which it was first identified. The first three subtypes have been associated with large EVD outbreaks in Africa. The Reston subtype is found in the Western Pacific and although it is highly pathogenic in nonhuman primates, it is not known to cause illness in humans.
Ebola was first recognized in 1976 as the cause of twin outbreaks of disease near the Ebola River in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (then known as Zaire) and in a region of Sudan. Some 300 people in each country became infected. The mortality rate was 88 percent in Zaire and 53 percent in Sudan (the Zaire subtype is the most deadly). Although the circumstances of the original human infections are not known, the disease spread through close direct contact and as a result of unsafe and unsanitary hospital practices, such as the use of contaminated needles and the lack of sufficient containment measures. Sporadic and smaller outbreaks have erupted over the succeeding years in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Uganda, and Sudan.
The Reston subtype of Ebola virus was first identified in 1989 in the United States in monkeys housed in a quarantine facility in Reston, Virginia. At least four humans became infected, but none became ill. Additional outbreaks of the Reston subtype occurred between 1989 and 1996 in Texas, Pennsylvania, and Italy. No humans suffered illness in any of these cases. The source of all the Reston subtype outbreaks was traced to a single facility in the Philippines that exported the monkeys. In July of 2009, the discovery of the Reston subtype in domestic pigs in the Philippines was reported. Genetic analysis suggests that the virus has been widely circulating in swine for many years, possibly even before the 1989 outbreak in the United States. The virus has been detected in farmers who have had contact with infected pigs, but they have not shown any signs of illness.
Courtesy: CDC Frederick A. Murphy
Where does the Ebola virus go in between outbreaks? As with other viruses, the survival of Ebola depends upon a host organism(s). Humans are not the host organism - or natural reservoir - of Ebola viruses. Humans become infected when they come into contact with an infected host, although once humans become infected they can transmit Ebola to other people. The identification of the natural reservoir of a virus is of great interest to scientists, because this knowledge gives information as to the geographic range and ecological areas where humans may come in contact with animals or insects that may be the source of the disease; this may allow scientists to more readily contain outbreaks. The natural reservoir of Ebola appears to be the fruit bat. Researchers found evidence that three species of captured fruit bats showed evidence of symptomless infection – that is the bats had Ebola-specific genetic sequences in their bodies or evidence of an immune response to Ebola even though they did not exhibit signs of the disease. Fruit bats live in regions of Africa that include areas where Ebola outbreaks have occurred and are eaten by people in central Africa and may play a key role in transmitting Ebola to great apes and humans. Bats have been implicated as a reservoir of other viruses that cause deadly diseases including SARS and Marburg, a virus related to Ebola that also causes hemorrhagic fever.
In the spring of 2014, a large and rapidly spreading outbreak of EVD erupted for the first time in West Africa. The initial cases in Guinea were reported to the World Health Organization in mid-March and soon thereafter cases were reported in Liberia and then Sierra Leone. Multiple regions in these countries are affected. The virus that is causing this outbreak is very closely related to the Zaire Ebola virus. As of July 2014, there have been approximately 1000 cases reported in these three countries, and over 600 deaths.
Ebola virus is a class A bioterrorism agent, known to cause highly lethal hemorrhagic fever. The mortality rate can be as high as 90 percent. Because the Ebola virus is so hazardous, it is classified as a biosafety level 4 agent - the level assigned to the most dangerous agents known. Research using Ebola viruses requires facilities with the utmost levels of containment, strict controls on access, and highly trained personnel.
There is no cure for Ebola virus disease, no established drug therapy to treat Ebola infection, and no vaccine that can protect humans against Ebola. Scientists lack sufficient diagnostic tools to rapidly identify Ebola infections. Scientists also need a more thorough understanding about how the virus is transmitted and how it causes disease.
Ebola is a threat not only to humans but also to our closest living relatives - the great apes. The western lowland gorilla populations have been decimated by Ebola to such an extent that they are now considered "critically endangered". About a third of the gorillas in protected areas have died from Ebola in the past 15 years. Scientists are concerned that their numbers may not be able to recover and fear that they could become extinct in as soon as a decade.
In addition to being classified as a potential bioterrorism agent, the risk of continued natural outbreaks or the further emergence of Ebola is a serious concern. As the human population grows, human contact with bats or Ebola-infected non-human primates increases. The discovery of the Reston subtype of Ebola virus in pigs introduces the additional possibility of transfer of Ebola virus to humans from pigs. Although the Reston subtype has not caused illness in humans to date, it is possible that the virus could become more dangerous after passage through pigs because they are ideal hosts in which viruses can mix and mutate.
As the emergence of Ebola virus in West Africa in 2014 demonstrates, Ebola continues to be a threat to humans. The latest outbreak of EVD has surpassed previous outbreaks to become the most deadly to date, with over 600 deaths and climbing. As of July 2014, it still has not been contained.
The most recent Ebola outbreak is unprecedented for several reasons. First, it has occurred in a region of Africa in which Ebola has never before been detected. Second, it has spread rapidly and to both rural and urban areas. It has crossed borders to involve multiple regions in three different countries. Because it encompasses a much wider geographic area than in previous outbreaks, containment is vastly more difficult.
It is a great challenge to the medical community in this impoverished area of the world to control the outbreak by identifying, quarantining, and providing medical care to infected individuals. Workers also need to educate a fearful population about the dangers of Ebola and the proper procedures needed to minimize further infections. Indeed, the health care workers themselves are at high risk of infection. The continued spread of Ebola within these countries, and beyond, is a serious concern.
One of the key steps in any virus infection occurs very early in an infection cycle. That is the step where a virus binds to and enters a cell in a susceptible host organism. Because viruses are too small to reproduce on their own, they must invade a host cell in order to multiply and produce more copies of themselves that can then go on to infect other organisms and continue the infection cycle.
Many viruses require a specific protein or other type of molecule on the surface of the host cell - called a receptor - which allows the virus to pass into a cell of a host organism. If an organism or cell type does not possess this particular receptor, the virus is unable to infect that organism or cell type. Knowing what this receptor is for any particular virus is a crucial piece of information for scientists, because it tells them which organisms or cell types are susceptible to infection by a certain virus. Furthermore, this knowledge can be used to design therapies that may be able to prevent a virus from entering into a cell and initiating an infection.
Precisely how the Ebola virus enters cells is unknown at present. It is known that in humans, the Ebola virus appears to infect many different cell types. Ebola is also thought to have a broad host range, since it is capable of infecting diverse mammalian species, including primates, rodents, and bats.
Dr. Richard Sutton, while in the Department of Molecular Virology and Microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine, worked to identify the elusive Ebola virus receptor. Based on evidence from other scientists that suggested that members of a group of proteins named the Tyro3 family might mediate entry of Ebola virus into cells, Dr. Sutton’s group tested what would happen if they reduced the levels of the Tyro3 proteins in cells. They reasoned that if these proteins were necessary for entry into cells, reduction of their levels should diminish infection by Ebola. However, they observed little effect on Ebola virus infection when they reduced levels of expression of all three Tyro3 family genes. They therefore concluded that it is unlikely that this family of proteins is the sought-after entry factor for Ebola virus. They have since switched to a different tactic, known as a negative genetic screen, in an attempt to identify the cellular receptor that Ebola utilizes to gain entry into cells. Through this work, they hope to achieve a better understanding of Ebola virus cell binding and entry, with an eye towards therapeutic intervention.
http://www.who.int/csr/disease/ebola/geographic-ebola.jpg - Map showing the geographic distribution of Ebola virus disease outbreaks in humans and animals worldwide
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