New Findings May Help Combat Enterovirus D68

(Global Biodefense) New research findings point toward a class of compounds that could be effective in combating infections caused by enterovirus D68, which has stricken children with serious respiratory infections and might be associated with polio-like symptoms in the United States and elsewhere. The researchers have used a technique called X-ray crystallography to learn the precise structure of the original strain of EV-D68 on its own and when...

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Johnson & Johnson starts Ebola Vaccine trial

The first of 72 healthy volunteers have already received the initial dose of a drug researchers hope could put an end to the worst Ebola outbreak in the history. Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies, owned byJohnson & Johnson (JNJ), is developing the ebola vaccine together with Bavarian Nordic. The company said it could begin large scale trials by May, and make 2 million vaccinations available later this year. The drug does not contain the virus...

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Anesthesiologists Face the Ebola Epidemic—Time to ‘Educate, Train and Prepare’

Because of their responsibility for performing airway intubation and other invasive procedures, anesthesiologists will play an essential role in managing patients with Ebola virus infection. Scientific evidence guiding the anesthetic management of Ebola virus disease (EVD) is presented and analyzed in a special article published byAnesthesia & Analgesia. “Given the current spread of the disease, anesthesia personnel worldwide may be called...

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Where Does Ebola Come From?

The hollow Cola tree growing in a remote area of southeastern Guinea was once home to thousands of bats routinely hunted and killed by the neighborhood children. It was also a popular spot to play. A year ago, one child in particular lived within fifty meters of the tree: a two-year-old boy who died in December 2013 and later was identified as the first person in west Africa known to have developed Ebola. The tree was one of the few that loomed...

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Ebola Outbreak Offers Lessons, Reminders for Critical Care Clinicians

Outbreaks of infectious diseases, such as Ebola in West Africa, offer insight for how healthcare professionals can respond more effectively to current and future challenges, according to editors of the American Journal of Critical Care (AJCC). Editors-in-Chief Cindy Munro, RN, PhD, ANP, and Richard H. Savel, M.D., address “Viral Outbreaks in an Age of Global Citizenship” in their editorial for the January AJCCissue, reviewing recent outbreaks and...

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Healthcare Worker Exposed to the Ebola Virus is Hospitalized at Nebraska Medicine, Omaha

An American healthcare worker exposed to the Ebola virus while working in Sierra Leone arrived in Omaha Sunday afternoon and is now being monitored at Nebraska Medicine. Paramedics wearing full-body protective gear took the patient, who has not been identified, by ambulance from a plane that arrived at Eppley Airfield around 1:45 p.m. to the hospital, which has a specialized biocontainment unit, the WOWT NBC Omaha reports. “I can’t...

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Ebola in Asia? Scientists hunt virus through bats

(NPR) A few years ago, disease ecologist David Hayman made the discovery of a lifetime. He was a graduate student at the University of Cambridge. But he spent a lot of that time hiking through the rain forest of Ghana, catching hundreds of fruit bats. “We would set large nets, up in the tree canopies,” he says. “And then early morning, when the bats are looking for fruit to feed on, we’d captured them.” Hayman didn’t...

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Ebola in the United Kingdom: Nurse Receives Blood Plasma of Survivors

London – Pauline Cafferkey is currently being treated with an experimental drug and blood plasma from survivor Will Pooley. But her case raises questions about disease control and Ebola in the United Kingdom. She wanted to help and is now in the hospital herself. Nevertheless, the British nurse infected with Ebola is doing well under the circumstances. “Ms Cafferkey is not feeling well but it would be fair to say that she is as well...

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Italian Ebola patient released from hospital in Rome

(Reuters) – Italy’s only Ebola patient is fully recovered and was released from hospital on Friday more than a month after being flown to Rome from Sierra Leone where he worked as a doctor treating others stricken by the disease. The 50-year-old Sicilian man has been identified only by his first name, Fabrizio. He contracted the hemorrhagic virus while working for humanitarian group Emergency during the worst Ebola outbreak on record. “For...

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Aethlon Medical announces approval of revolutionary Ebola treatment

SAN DIEGO, PRNewswire/ — Aethlon Medical, Inc. (AEMD), the pioneer in developing targeted therapeutic devices to address infectious diseases and cancer, today announced that the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved a clinical protocol to treat Ebola-infected individuals in the U.S. with the Aethlon Hemopurifier®. In the treatment of viral pathogens, the Hemopurifier® is a first-in-class bio-filtration device designed...

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