WHO: Ebola deaths hits almost 4,500 as virus spreads

[jchima]

No fewer than 4,493 people have died from the world’s worst Ebola outbreak on record, and the situation in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone is deteriorating, the World Health Organization said on Wednesday.

WHO said a total of 8,997 confirmed, probable and suspected cases of Ebola....
Source: WHO Ebola deaths hits almost 4 500 as virus spreads - eReporter

 

[LAfrique]

I believe Ebola, like AIDS and Swineflu, is the result of scientific experiment. And if enough conspiracy theorists would chime in like (we) did during swineflu scare by @WHO and allies, then I believe ebola too will again disappear.

 

[R.D.]

No worries, no American has died. Obama is da man!

 

[LAfrique]

Hours ago, Liberia reported to be seeking 80,000 body bags for ebola deaths - Liberia needs nearly 80 000 more body bags Ebola advances Breaking News Today s top news stories


CDC is currently reporting about 4,494 deaths from ebola in West Africa; and Liberia said to be demanding 80,000 body bags for ebola deaths. You know, this reminds me of World Trade Towers building7 that was reported collapsed before the building actually collapsed? It appears WHO and its would-be-gods allies have goal of killing about 80,000 Liberians with the ebola virus. So sadistic.

 

[LAfrique]

Ebola has been around for several years and just got re-introduced - Viral hemorrhagic fever - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia All you need to know about Ebola and its various names - DoveMed

 

[LAfrique]

And if Ebola invades US, I hope we remember to either get in touch with Emory University Hospital that has successfully dealt with the virus, or put Little Moe to work (though I do not understand why Texas failed to employ expertise of Little Moe in case of Thomas Eric Duncan) - Ebola-killing robot developed in Texas

 

[LAfrique]

Let me seize this opportunity to thank all the nations that are reaching out to Africa and helping to combat ebola: Special thank you to Cuba for sending its healthcare professionals to Africa - Cuba sends 63 doctors and 102 nurses to West Africa to fight Ebola caribbean-events.com

 

[waltky]

Fast-tracking ebola treatments...

Experimental Ebola Treatments Bypassing Usual Regulatory Hurdles
October 15, 2014 WASHINGTON — Experimental Ebola treatments are moving with lightning speed through a regulatory process that, for most drugs, can take years. The urgency of the lethal epidemic in three West African countries - Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone - means a number of promising treatments are bypassing the usual hurdles toward approval.

Before a new drug gets the green light from U.S. regulators, researchers are required to conduct in-depth clinical trials on people to demonstrate the experimental compound is both safe and effective. Drug trials typically involve thousands of people and can take many years to complete. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s so-called “animal rule,” however, allows researchers to gain expedited approval when faced with a deadly pathogen like Ebola, according to Thomas Geisbert, a microbiologist at the University of Texas medical branch in Galveston. Geisbert helped develop what’s known as the VSV Ebola vaccine, which this week moved to human clinical trials in 20 healthy volunteers at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Maryland.

The animal rule, according to Geisbert, requires only that scientists demonstrate that a compound is effective in an animal model of human disease, in this case monkeys. "And then in conjunction with that, you do a conventional phase one trial," Geisbert said. "That’s just a study where you put a vaccine or treatment into a healthy human volunteer just to make sure that you know in normal, healthy people that your vaccine or drug does not cause any disease or serious adverse event." The United States adopted the animal rule shortly after September 11, 2001, in the event of a bioweapons attack by terrorists. The current Ebola epidemic is the largest, and deadliest, since the virus was identified in the mid-1970s.

Felicity Hartnell, who is a clinical research fellow at Oxford University, holds a vial of an experimental vaccine against Ebola in Oxford, England

An experimental drug, zMapp, went straight from the laboratory to the bedside, even bypassing human safety trials to treat a handful of Ebola patients in the U.S. Besides the VSV trial being carried out by Canadian researchers, another promising vaccine candidate, manufactured by British drug manufacturer GlaxoSmithKline, is undergoing safety trials in Mali. That country borders Guinea, the epicenter of the Ebola epidemic that has now claimed 4,000 lives in West Africa. So far, no cases of Ebola have been reported in Mali.

Both vaccines proved to be 100 percent effective in protecting monkeys against infection with the Ebola virus, without side effects. Expedited clinical trials also mean researchers may dispense with the usual protocol of giving a group of participants a placebo, or inactive substance, so researchers can study a drug’s effectiveness. The Ebola virus carries a 90 percent mortality rate. Bioethicists say it would be unethical to give a fake drug to people infected with the lethal pathogen. Double-blind placebo controlled trials, as they are called, are considered the gold standard in determining whether a drug works.

In the case of treatments for Ebola, Geisbert said that is yet to be determined, because what works in animals does not necessarily work in humans. “I mean, we don’t know if any of these vaccines is going to work in humans, quite honestly,” said Geisbert. Canadian health officials hope to have initial results of their VSV vaccine trials in Maryland by December and to move to clinical safety trials in Africa shortly after that, most likely in health care workers treating Ebola patients. They are at greatest risk of infection, according to public health officials. Geisbert said the vaccines, in particular the VSV, not only have the potential to prevent Ebola, but can also be used to treat the disease soon after exposure.

Experimental Ebola Treatments Bypassing Usual Regulatory Hurdles

See also:

Global response to Ebola gains steam
Sat, Oct 18, 2014 - FLIGHT SCREENS, QUARANTINES: A former UN secretary-general criticized the world’s response to the spread of the disease, saying wealthy countries have been slow to act

Western nations scrambled to review safety measures at airports and borders amid a mounting wave of fear that west Africa’s Ebola outbreak will spread worldwide. As US legislators grilled officials over how an infected nurse was allowed to board a crowded flight, European officials promised a review of how passengers from Ebola-hit countries are screened. US President Barack Obama authorized the Pentagon to send reservists to take part in a US mission to combat the Ebola epidemic. The WHO vowed to ramp up its efforts to help 15 African countries defend themselves against the virus, which has already killed about 4,500 people.

France and Spain placed several potential victims under observation and in Liberia, the worst-hit country so far, the minister of transport placed herself in quarantine after her driver died. EU Commissioner for Health and Consumer Policy Tonio Borg said the bloc would review exit screening of travelers from Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, in coordination with the WHO. And EU health ministers, meeting in Brussels, agreed to coordinate measures at entry points to the 28-member EU, although any decision on screening for Ebola rests with individual nations. A string of health workers have been evacuated back to Europe from Africa with Ebola, but the only confirmed case of transmission on the European continent so far is a Spanish nurse in Madrid.

Doctors in Spain have identified six more cases of possible infection, including a missionary priest who recently returned from Liberia and has shown signs of fever. In France, a nurse who had earlier helped treat a returning Ebola patient was taken to a military hospital with what an official called a “suspect fever” — though initial tests came back negative. In the US, two nurses who treated a Liberian traveler have now fallen ill, to the embarrassment of health authorities, who faced questioning about how the disease had spread.

Jeff Hulbert of Annapolis, Maryland, holds a sign reading “Stop the Flights” as he demonstrates in favor of a travel ban aimed at stopping the spread of the Ebola virus in front of the White House in Washington

The first of them, Nina Pham, was transferred from Texas to the National Institutes of Health outside of Washington late on Thursday. She wore a white protective suit as she stepped off an airplane en route to a top US medical facility. In a brief video taken earlier while she was in Texas, Pham looked lucid and smiling as she spoke to her doctor. “I love you guys,” Pham says as she wipes away tears. Pham and the second infected US nurse were involved in the care of a Liberian man, Thomas Eric Duncan, who was the first Ebola case diagnosed in the US. He died of the disease on Wednesday last week in Texas

Nursing unions claim the Texas hospital where the caregivers work had been ill-prepared, and US legislators are angry that one of the newly diagnosed patients was allowed to take a domestic flight despite mild fever symptoms. As of Sunday, 4,493 people had died out of a total of 8,997 cases in the outbreak, according to the WHO, which has said that the infection rate could reach 10,000 a week by early December. The vast majority of the cases have been in Liberia and its neighbors Sierra Leone and Guinea, which are also at the center of WHO efforts to contain the disease. Eleven other African countries had also been singled out for special assistance. “We need to make sure it doesn’t spread to other countries,” Isabelle Nuttall, head of the WHO’s alert and response arm, told reporters in Geneva.

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