A lot has been spat throughout the different media channels of communication, bottom line is that personally I believe contingency plans are failing. Why? I don't want to start a conspiracy theory here, but when having to deal with such ailment governments and health authorities can not plead ignorance; what I saw was the dragging of decision-making procedures and poorly conducted protocols. I saw loads of action in allowing pharma companies to use untested drugs, something so unprecedented that takes me back to what was generated by the avian and swine flues' propaganda some years back. I don't want to say these poor approaches were to serve the intents of Big Pharma, that is just not the case; it is better to assume that health authorities like WHO and governments of well developed countries just didn't really think this would spread so quickly. In a word, leniency. It was in Africa last month so what the hell should we worry about - they thought! I am not convinced of an outbreak per se, numbers prove it, unless you bend the definition of outbreak, but then Influenza should gather a lot more attention. Anyway, there are a lot of loop-holes in all of the things said and done in the media; some by ignorant people and some by very informed/qualified individuals. I will contribute my way with what I read and was written by scientists with proper opinions. Opinions I personally consider of value, for an example of a good conversation access here. Here it is for you, my answer to the question inside all our heads.
Are we all gonna die?
The answer can be found in Part 3
How Ebola disables initial immune responses?
"Researchers report that they have discovered a mechanism unique to the Ebola virus that defeats attempts by interferon to block viral reproduction in infected cells. They say their study [find here] explains for the first time how the production by the virus of a protein called Ebola Viral Protein 24 (eVP24) stops the interferon-based signals from ramping up immune defenses. With the body's first response disabled, the virus is free to mass produce itself and trigger the too large immune response that damages organs and often becomes deadly as part of the Ebola virus disease (EVD)."
Taken from GEN News Highlights
Ebola Outbreak Underestimated
"During a recent press conference, Joanne Liu, international president of Doctors Without Borders, guessed it would take officials around six months to contain the outbreak, Reuters reported.
In an email to ScienceInsider, the WHO said it is considering administering the blood of people who've survived Ebola infection nto those who fall ill to the virus. 'Convalescent serum is high on our list of potential therapies and has been used in other outbreaks', the organisation told Science.
Still, when treating Ebola-infected patients, 'there is not a lot of extra time to experiment with unproven therapies', wrote Armad Sprecher, an epidemiologist and public health specialist at Doctors Without Borders, in New Republic. 'We cannot subject our patients to all of the possible things that might work. We have to chose wisely".
Taken from Pharmaceutical Microbiology
Ebola Researchers to test vaccine on humans, sequence virus'genomes
"The National Institute of Allergy and Infectios Diseases will test a potential Ebola Virus vaccine [find here] on humans starting next week.
"The vaccine, developed by the NIAID and GlaxoSmithKline... 'Today we know the best way to prevent the spread of Ebola infection is through public health measures, including good infection control practices, isolation, contact tracing, quarantine, and provision of personal protective equipment', NIAID Director Anthony S. Fauci said in a press release. 'However, a vaccine will ultimately be an important tool in the prevention effort. "The launch of Phase 1 Ebola vaccine studies is the first step in a long process.
Researchers from the Broad Institute and Harvard University have teamed up to take on the task, in hopes of putting and end to the outbreak. Collecting 99 virus genomes from Sierra Leone patients, the researchers found more than 300 genetic distinctionsthat separate this epidemic from previous outbreaks.
The team used the deep sequencing [find here] technique to inspect each genome at an average of 2,000 times."
Taken from Genome
Image obtained from News Channel 3, [http://wtkr.com/2014/08/11/report-ebola-outbreak-likely-started-by-2-year-old-in-guinea/]
To be continued
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