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A molecule related to plant-derived compounds known as indoline alkaloids appears to block crucial elements of replication in nonsegmented, negative sense (NNS) RNA viruses, an order that includes such unsavory members as Ebola, rabies and measles. The molecule, CMLDBU3402, could become the basis for an effective, broad-spectrum therapy to treat NNS viruses, according to the study, published today in the journal Chemistry & Biology.
The man fell ill after returning from the West African nation of Liberia, Dr. Denise Werker, Saskatchewan Province's deputy chief medical health officer, said Monday. She said tests have been sent to the Public Health Agency of Canada's National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Results are expected Tuesday, but Werker said they may be inconclusive. "All we know at this point is that we have a person who is critically ill who traveled from a country where these diseases occur," Werker said. "There is no risk to the general public at all about this."
In West Africa, health workers are trying to contain an outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus which is believed to have killed at least 59 people in a remote forest region in the south of Guinea. In neighboring Liberia, health officials are investigating five deaths after a group of people crossed the border from Guinea in search of medical treatment. Werker said health workers caring for the man at a hospital in the city of Saskatoon were taking precautions by wearing masks, gowns, gloves and boots. She said hemorrhagic fevers are not easily spread.
Hemorrhagic fevers like Ebola can be transmitted through direct contact with the blood or secretions of an infected person, or objects that have been contaminated with infected secretions. The Ebola virus leads to severe hemorrhagic fever and internal bleeding and has no vaccine or specific treatment.
Werker said the man showed no signs of illness while he was traveling. The incubation period for hemorrhagic fever is up to 21 days, she said. "Viral hemorrhagic fever is a generic name for a number of rather exotic diseases that are found in Africa," Werker said. This class of diseases includes Ebola hemorrhagic fever, Lassa fever, Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever and yellow fever.
http://news.yahoo.com/man-canadian-hospital-ebola-symptoms-063019394.html
Guinea’s Ministry of Health says there have been at least 86 suspected cases of Ebola hemorrhagic fever in the country’s southeastern forest region since Feb. 9. Liberia’s Ministry of Health says five people, who crossed the border from affected areas in Guinea into Lofa County for treatment, are believed to have died from Ebola. Health officials are also investigating suspected cases in Sierra Leone. Plan International is a non-profit that promotes children's development. The group's regional director of disaster risk management is in Conakry to work on containment efforts.
“People are scared. They are rightly scared, but so far, we are not seeing a mass movement of people leaving the area," said Roland Berehoudougou. "The key thing in the area is there is a lack of information. So now we are supporting the government, the minister of health, in providing mass communication - using the TV, local radio and also SMS - to inform people about the situation and also prevention measures they should take to protect themselves against the virus.” Berehoudougou says schools are of particular concern because children come into such close contact with one another. The WHO says Ebola is one of the most contagious viral diseases. It is spread through contact with the bodily fluids, such as sweat, blood and saliva, of an infected person or animal.
There is no vaccine or cure. Symptoms usually start with fever, headache, vomiting and diarrhea. Some people experience bleeding through the eyes, ears, nose or mouth. The most recent outbreaks occurred in Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2012. Fifty-seven people died. In 2007, Ebola killed 187 people during an outbreak in the DRC. The director of the WHO's Disease Prevention and Control Unit in Africa worked on such outbreaks. “What we did, working with the health workers, we instituted strong infection prevention measures, which included the proper disposal of materials that may be soiled with bodily fluids, proper disposal of the corpse or the body of persons that have died from potentially suspected Ebola cases,” said Dr. Francis Kasolo. He said the length of time to contain an outbreak can vary, but the sooner you start, the better.
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If he'd known then what he was to discover - that inside was Ebola, one of the most lethal infectious diseases now known in humans - he would have taken more safety precautions. As it was, Piot and his colleagues wore only latex gloves and white cotton lab coats as they unscrewed the top, took out its contents - vials of infected blood taken from a Flemish nun in Zaire, stored in a blue thermos flask and couriered to Belgium on a passenger plane - and began analyzing them.
“Looking back, that was probably quite irresponsible. But we didn't know then what we were dealing with,” the now 65-year-old said in an interview from his office at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, where he is director. “These are dangerous moments - particularly when you don't know what you've got. Such blood can contain very high levels of virus,” he said.
'Spectacular virus'
That tale dates from Belgium in 1976, when Piot and his team became the co-discoverers of Ebola. The young Belgian scientist then went to Zaire, now Congo, in central Africa to work in the rainforests among dying villagers and missionaries to collect samples and investigate the epidemic. Yet almost four decades on, the disease Piot describes as “a spectacular virus - and one of the most lethal infections you can think of”, has continued to rise up in the region, causing frightening but sporadic outbreaks that kill poor and vulnerable people with gruesome haemorrhagic fevers. In Guinea, health authorities said on Monday that an outbreak there - the first known in a west Africa country - already involves scores of suspected cases.
The Geneva-based World Health Organization said on Tuesday Guinea had reported at least 86 cases reported, including 59 deaths. Six suspected Ebola cases, including five deaths, in neighboring Liberia were also under investigation, it said. Piot says he's saddened and frustrated by this and other outbreaks - partly because they should be easy to prevent, or at least to contain, and partly because the scientific detective work behind the Ebola virus has not yet revealed its main host. “What we're seeing is a pattern that's been repeated in nearly every single Ebola outbreak,” he told Reuters. “It started in people who live in the forest, or in close contact with it, and it's then transmitted around hospitals....and then spreads further either at funerals or in households though close contact.”
No treatment or vaccine
Guinea's health ministry says the four new cases involve people who are believed to have had contact with the body of an earlier victim. Authorities say before the cases were confirmed in the capital, most of the people who tested positive for the deadly Ebola virus had been in the more rural southeastern region.
The World Health Organization (WHO) says at least 66 people have died and more than 100 have been infected in Guinea since start of the hemorrhagic fever outbreak. In a statement Thursday, WHO said neighboring Sierra Leone and Liberia have also reported suspected cases and deaths.
The Ebola virus is highly contagious. It causes symptoms that include high fever, vomiting, diarrhea and bleeding from the eyes, ears, nose and mouth. Health officials are urging caretakers and funeral workers to minimize direct or close contact with those who may have been infected.
Ebola Spreads to Guinea Capital
Health workers appeared to be making progress against the outbreak, but Guinea and Sierra Leone are now reporting fresh cases, some in areas previously unaffected by the disease, said the doctors group, known by its French acronym, MSF. MSF said it has seen more than 20 new cases of Ebola at its treatment centers in Guinea in the past week. MSF said areas like the capital, Conakry, and the towns of Gueckedou and Macenta, near the border with Liberia, have seen a spike in the number of new patients.
But Ebola is also cropping up in previously unaffected towns, such as Telimele, north of the capital, and the coastal town of Boffa. Between May 29 and June 1, at least 21 people died and 37 new cases of suspected Ebola were recorded in Guinea, the World Health Organization said, undermining the government's claims that the disease was coming under control, Reuters reported on Wednesday. The new figures take to 328 the number of cases linked to the disease in the West African country, of which 193 have been confirmed by laboratory tests. In total, 208 deaths have been linked to Ebola, making the outbreak one of the deadliest in recent years, according to WHO, as reported by Reuters.
Spread of disease
Bart Janssens, director of operations for MSF, said the geographical spread of the disease in Guinea is a problem. "It clearly indicates that the epidemic is not at all under control as we might have hoped one or two weeks ago, when we really saw cases continually going down over time,” Janssens said. He said people should seek treatment as soon as they show symptoms or if they believe they have been exposed.
The Ebola virus is spread through direct contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person, and the virus can be transmitted even after that person dies. Health workers said families moving bodies for funerals have been a factor in the spread of the disease. It can take up to three weeks for symptoms, including fever, vomiting, body aches and uncontrollable bleeding, to appear. There is no cure. Health workers try to isolate suspected cases.
Fatality rate
More than 200 people have died from the highly contagious Ebola virus in Guinea, amounting to one of the worst ever outbreaks of the disease, the World Health Organisation said on Wednesday. The UN's health agency said it had so far registered 328 confirmed or suspected cases of Ebola in Guinea, including 208 deaths. Twenty-one deaths were registered between 29 May and 1 June alone.
Neighbouring Sierra Leone and Liberia have also increasingly been affected, said the WHO. The organisation has described west Africa's first-ever outbreak of the deadly haemorrhagic fever as one of the most challenging since the virus was first identified in 1976 in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Médecins Sans Frontières health staff at an isolation ward, southern Guinea
Two hundred and eighty people died in that outbreak, which was the deadliest on record. To date, 79 confirmed and suspected cases have surfaced in Sierra Leone, where the death toll from the disease has jumped from one a week ago, to six, the agency said.
The virus, meanwhile, appeared to have resurfaced in Liberia, which earlier this year had had 12 suspected and confirmed cases of Ebola, including nine deaths, but had not seen any new cases over a stretch of nearly two months. A person believed to have been infected in Kailahun, in Sierra Leone, travelled across the border and died in Foya, the WHO said, pointing out that the body was taken back to Kailahun to be buried.
Ebola virus claims lives of more than 200 people in Guinea | World news | The Guardian
The virus has killed more than 200 people since it appeared in southeastern Guinea in February. It is spread through direct contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person, even after that person dies. Dozens of new ebola cases have been reported in Guinea and across the border in Sierra Leone since the end of May. The disease is rebounding in some areas and cropping up for the first time in others.
Health workers teach people about the Ebola virus and how to prevent infection, in Conakry, Guinea.
Liberia has not reported any new cases in a month. Liberia's Assistant Health Minister for Preventive Services, Nyenswa Tolbert, told VOA the country has focused on educating communities on the dangers of some traditional practices. "People want to bury their dead. They want to clean them. They want to do traditional rituals, activity over the body. These are the major critical things that are affecting our people in the rural areas. And so we are informing them. Sometimes, in some cases, we are even negotiating burial," said Tolbert.
Health officials from Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia are meeting in Monrovia to share information and come up with a plan. There is no cure for ebola, and health workers try to isolate suspected cases. This outbreak has had about a 70 percent fatality rate. Ebola symptoms include fever, vomiting, body aches, and uncontrollable bleeding.
Ebola Outbreak Plagues West Africa
But more than a month after Guinea President Alpha Conde told reporters the Ebola outbreak that originated in his country was under control, the death toll continues to climb in his country as well as in Sierra Leone and Liberia. At least 231 people have died since the outbreak of the fearsome disease, which causes bleeding internally and externally and for which there is no known cure. Guinea has recorded just over 200 deaths, along with about a dozen each in Sierra Leone and Liberia.
The head of a non-governmental health organization in Sierra Leone said on local radio on Tuesday that the death toll is double the number officially reported in that country. Charles Mambu, chairman of Health for All Coalition, also called on the government to declare a public health emergency. Asked to comment, Amara Jambai, the director for disease control and prevention in the Ministry of Health, told The Associated Press that "the spread of the disease is serious. Ebola is with us and we must come together as a nation to fight it."
Healthcare workers from the organization, prepare isolation and treatment areas for their Ebola, hemorrhagic fever operations, in Gueckedou, Guinea. One preacher advocated fasting and prayer to spare people from a virus that usually leads to a horrible death. Some people pray that the Ebola virus stays confined to a rural district. Others are unruffled and say the outbreak will blow over.
Experts say the outbreak may have begun as far back as January in southeast Guinea. Ebola typically begins in remote places and it can take several infections before the disease is identified, making a precise start date virtually impossible to pin down. It's one of the worst outbreaks since the disease was first recorded in 1976 in simultaneous outbreaks in Sudan and Congo, said Dr. Armand Sprecher of Doctors Without Borders. It may wind up being the worst outbreak ever.
The West Africa Ebola situation is especially challenging because of the number of "satellite outbreaks" that have cropped up, said Sprecher, who has worked on the emergency responses in Guinea as well as in Uganda in 2000 and in Congo in 2007. There have been at least six satellite outbreaks elsewhere in Guinea - including the sprawling seaside capital of Conakry - and in Sierra Leone and Liberia, Sprecher said.
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Some of the most lethal viruses, including Ebola, may have met their match.
A molecule related to plant-derived compounds known as indoline alkaloids appears to block crucial elements of replication in nonsegmented, negative sense (NNS) RNA viruses, an order that includes such unsavory members as Ebola, rabies and measles. The molecule, CMLDBU3402, could become the basis for an effective, broad-spectrum therapy to treat NNS viruses, according to the study, published today in the journal Chemistry & Biology.
Read more @ Potential Treatment for Ebola, Rabies Discovered : D-brief
It amazes me the things researchers come up with.
