hope they have this in check

Man tests positive for Ebola in Delhi, quarantined

The body fluid of a 26-year-old Indian man, who landed in Delhi from Liberia, has tested positive for Ebola virus, even as another man in Rajasthan showed Ebola-like symptoms.

The man in Delhi was admitted to a health facility in the African nation in September and treated for Ebola. He was carrying a disease-free certificate from the Liberian health ministry, claiming he underwent treatment successfully and was cured of the disease.

The infected Indian who reached Delhi on November 10 underwent the mandatory screening at the Delhi airport. His blood tested negative for the virus.

But when his body fluids were checked, his semen tested positive for Ebola in two different government laboratories in the last two days.

The tests were conducted at the National Centre for Disease Control, Delhi, and National Institute of Virology, Pune.

The Health Ministry plans to keep him in isolation for at least three weeks, sources told Deccan Herald.

“Though this person does not have any symptoms of the disease, he would be kept in isolation in the special health facility of Delhi Airport Health Organisation, till such time his body fluids tested negative and he is found medically fit to be discharged,” said a health ministry spokesperson.

On interview, he gave history of febrile illness for which he was admitted to a health facility in Liberia on September 11 and discharged on September 30.

The health officials in Delhi did not want to take chance as the virus may continue to be positive in secretions like urine and semen for a long time.

As such they isolated the person and conducted the tests following the protocols laid down by the World Health Organisation and Centre for Disease Control, Atlanta.

The NCDC results came on Monday whereas NIV communicated its findings to the health ministry on Tuesday. The presence of virus in his semen samples may have the possibility of transmitting the disease through sexual route up to 90 days from time of clinical cure.

“All necessary precautions are being taken at the isolation facility to rule out even the remote possibility of spread of this disease by the sexual route. The situation is under control and there is no need for any alarm,” said the spokesperson. Meanwhile, a 35-year-old man, who showed Ebola-like symptoms, was kept at an isolation ward at Sawai Man Singh Hospital here before he left for Delhi.

“The suspected patient, identified as Mohammed Rehan Khan, was suffering from fever and blisters,” Head of Medicine Department of the hospital Dr C L Naval said.

http://www.deccanher.....delhi.html

Lol

Looks like they are making headway with a vaccine

(CNN) -- The first human trial of an experimental Ebola vaccine has produced promising results, U.S. scientists said, raising hopes that protection from the deadly disease may be on the horizon.

All 20 healthy adults who received the vaccine in a trial run by researchers from the National Institutes of Health in Maryland produced an immune response and developed anti-Ebola antibodies, the NIH said Wednesday.

None suffered serious side effects, although two people developed a brief fever within a day of vaccination.

The vaccine is being developed by the NIH's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and British pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline. The process has been fast-tracked in light of the current catastrophic Ebola outbreak in West Africa, which has claimed more than 5,000 lives.

"Based on these positive results from the first human trial of this candidate vaccine, we are continuing our accelerated plan for larger trials to determine if the vaccine is efficacious in preventing Ebola infection," said Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

In this trial, genetic material from two strains of the Ebola virus, Sudan and Zaire, was delivered using a chimpanzee cold virus that does not harm humans. The vaccine does not contain the Ebola virus and cannot cause a person to be infected with Ebola, the NIH said. The current outbreak involves the Zaire strain.

Blood tested

The adults, volunteers ages 18 to 50, were split into two groups. Half received an intramuscular injection of vaccine at a lower dose and 10 received the same vaccine at a higher dose, the NIH said.

Researchers tested the volunteers' blood at two weeks and four weeks after vaccination to determine if anti-Ebola antibodies had been produced.

All 20 volunteers developed such antibodies within four weeks of receiving the vaccine, with levels higher in those who were given the higher-dose vaccine.

The researchers also looked to see if the vaccine prompted production of immune system cells called T cells, after a previous study on primates using the same vaccine suggested they may also help to protect from the disease.

They found that many of the volunteers did produce T cells, including CD8 T cells, which may play a crucial role in protecting against infection by Ebola viruses.

Four weeks after vaccination, the CD8 T cells were found in two volunteers who received the lower-dose vaccine and in seven who had the higher dose, the NIH said.

The two volunteers who briefly developed a fever had received the higher-dose vaccine.

Unanswered questions

Professor Andrew Easton, a leading virologist at Britain's Warwick University, told CNN that the trial was an "essential first step" toward a vaccine to prevent Ebola and justifies some optimism.

However, there are still some unanswered questions, he said.

"We know from some of the preliminary work that went on in animal studies previously that the antibodies that are generated in response to the vaccine don't last as long as we would like -- there was a clear reduction over a fairly long period of time, about 10 months," he said.

"So it's possible that that might be a problem in humans, but the reality is we won't know until it's actually been tested in humans.

"We can hope that it will provide a longer-term protection. If it doesn't, at least it gives us some level of protection over a window, which could be enormously valuable in protecting people from outbreaks at the time the outbreaks occur."

Other approaches are being looked at too, he said, and will also benefit from the World Health Organization's decision this summer to allow some processes to be fast-tracked.

If further clinical trials result in an effective vaccine, health care workers on the front line of the fight against Ebola are likely to be the first to receive it.

The virus has already taken a heavy toll on those caring for Ebola patients, with 592 health care workers known to have been infected, including 340 who have died, according to WHO.

In total, 5,689 people have died from the Ebola virus, as of November 23, the WHO said in an update Wednesday.

There have been 15,935 cases in eight countries since the outbreak began, but Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone remain by far the worst affected countries. They reported 600 new cases in the week ending Sunday, with 385 of those in Sierra Leone.

"Case incidence is stable in Guinea, stable or declining in Liberia, but may still be increasing in Sierra Leone," the WHO said.

The WHO update also warned that cases and deaths continue to be under-reported in this outbreak.

Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone have between them recorded 15,901 cases and 5,674 deaths attributed to the virus since the beginning of the outbreak.

http://www.cnn.com/2.....-outbreak/

A company is building these motorcycle ambulances, that's pretty ingenious 

The Sierra Leonean manufacturing plant, Fomel Industry & National Industrialization Center, FINIC, has produced the first motorbike pulled ambulance and hospital beds in a bid to boost the technological fight against the Ebola virus in the country.

Operating in the East end of the country’s capital, Freetown, FINIC is a local firm manufacturing agricultural processing equipment like rice millers, cassava processors, juice producing machines, and others.

The Managing Director of FINIC, Foday Melvin Kamara, said the production of a motorbike pulled ambulance and hospital beds stemmed from the fact that ambulances and related items needed to boost the fight against the Ebola disease in the country were not adequately available.

“This machine could be of tremendous help to the health sector in the country,” he said.

Mr. Kamara disclosed that FINIC has also manufactured Self Powered Incinerators that would be helpful in disposing used Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), instead of them being buried, adding that hospital officials have been complaining about not having enough beds to accommodate the number of patients, especially in this crucial Ebola period.

“It would soon be a thing of the past,” he assured.

He also said FINIC presently has the capacity to produce ten complete hospital beds per day.

“With such local alternative technology at our beck and call, I see no reason why there should be worries about accommodating sick people in hospitals,” Mr. Kamara reiterated.

Mr. Kamara further said that FINIC is solely involved in the design and construction of the motorbike pulled ambulance and that the idea was initiated by the Minister of Energy Ambassador Henry Macauley.

“It has been tested and can perform the services of an ambulance,” he said.

He stated that with mass production of the motorbike pulled-ambulance the most remote village in the country would now have an ambulance not just for conveying Ebola patients, but sick people of other illnesses as well.

http://africayoungvo.....e-in-town/