New Ebola Vaccine Trials Will Be Tested in Guinea by WHO

The World Health Organization (WHO) announced today that it will begin conducting Ebola vaccination trials in Guinea this week, which if found effective, could be the “game-changer to finally end the epidemic” that has affected nearly 24,000 people, mostly in West Africa. “We have worked hard to reach this point,” WHO Director-General, Dr. Margaret Chan, said in Geneva. “There has been massive mobilization on the part of the affected countries...

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Why Is Influenza Worse Than Ebola

Despite the heavy media coverage and widespread concern surrounding the Ebola virus, Americans face a more serious health threat — influenza or as what we like to call it the Flu. “It’s complicated. It’s exotic. It’s something you hear about on the news every day,” said Dr. Edward Waltz, director of the Center for Public Health Preparedness at the University at Albany, of the Ebola virus. “Objectively, the flu...

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North Korea lifts Ebola caused travel ban

North Korea has lifted severe restrictions on foreign travel it imposed last year to keep the Ebola virus from crossing its borders, although North Korea is thousands of miles from the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. The already isolated country virtually closed its borders to foreigners last October, halting all non-essential visas and requiring those few foreigners allowed in to undergo three weeks of quarantine. The rules applied to diplomats,...

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Fujifilm’s Flu Drug Turned Ebola Drug Avigan Proven Effective

Fujifilm Holdings Corp.’s drug Avigan, which has shown signs of efficacy against the Ebola virus, has drawn interest from about 20 countries and the company stands ready for large orders, its chief executive said. “We can provide as much as we are asked for,” said Shigetaka Komori in an interview Friday. The company has enough of the drug’s basic ingredient on hand to manufacture pills for 300,000 people and will ramp up production if necessary,...

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Ebola Virus As ISIS Bio-Weapon?

ISIS may already be thinking of using Ebola as a low-tech weapon of bio-terror, says a national security expert, who notes that the “Islamic State of Iraq and Syria” and terror groups like it would not even have to weaponize the virus to attempt to wreak strategic global infection. Such groups could simply use human carriers to intentionally infect themselves in West Africa, then disseminate the deadly virus via the world’s air transportation system....

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Asian Herb Holds Promise as Treatment for Ebola Virus Disease

New research that focuses on the mechanism by which Ebola virus infects a cell and the discovery of a promising drug therapy candidate is being published February 27, 2015, in the journal Science. Dr. Robert Davey, scientist and Ewing Halsell Scholar in the Department of Immunology and Virology at Texas Biomedical Research Institute announced today that a small molecule called Tetrandrine derived from an Asian herb has shown to be a potent small...

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Ebola Vaccine: Human Antibodies Target Marburg & Ebola Viruses

One step closer to Ebola vaccine: Researchers at Vanderbilt University, the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston and The Scripps Research Institute for the first time have shown how human antibodies can neutralize the Marburg virus, a close cousin to Ebola. Their findings, published this week in two papers in the journal Cell, should speed development of the first effective treatment and vaccine against these often lethal viruses, said...

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Ebola Orphanage Worker Dies in Sierra Leone

A Sierra Leonean who worked with children orphaned by Ebola has died of the disease himself. Augustine Baker had been admitted to an Ebola treatment centre after becoming ill last week. The orphanage where he worked is run by a UK charity in Sierra Leone and was quarantined after Baker was diagnosed with the deadly ebola virus. He was said to be in stable condition when admitted to a local treatment centre after becoming ill last week. A report...

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North Korea Bans Foreign Runners From Marathon

North Korea has banned foreign runners from participating in an international marathon scheduled to be held in the capital in April, citing fears about the spread of the deadly Ebola virus, agencies specializing in North Korea tours said on Monday. North Korea is thousands of miles from the epicenter of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa and has reported no cases of the virus, which has killed more than 9,000 people. North Korea has banned all non-Korean...

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Real-Time Tracking to Monitor Dangerous Bacteria Inside the Body

Combining a PET scanner with a new chemical tracer that selectively tags specific types of bacteria, Johns Hopkins researchers working with mice report they have devised a way to detect and monitor in real time infections with dangerous Gram-negative bacteria. These increasingly drug-resistant bacteria are responsible for a range of diseases, including fatal pneumonias and various bloodstream or solid-organ infections acquired in and outside the...

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