Ebola – Page 17 – Viral News

Drugmakers Rush to Test New Ebola Vaccine

Written on December 17, 2014. Posted in Breaking News, Business News, Health News, Treatments.

While developing drugs to cure Ebola is crucial to end the current epidemic, a vaccine that prevents the infection altogether is the end-game for viral outbreaks – a way to protect healthcare workers on the front lines and to prevent future outbreaks. It typically takes 10 or 20 years to develop and test a vaccine and get it to market. But in Ebola’s case, this time frame has been compressed into a matter of months, bringing pharmaceutical companies,...

5 Million Kids Out of School Due to Ebola

Written on December 17, 2014. Posted in Breaking News, Government News, Health News.

Children from Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia are still out of school. Here’s what’s being done… Public schools in Guinea have been closed since March. Schools in Sierra Leone and Liberia never opened after the summer holiday. All told, the children’s rights and emergency relief group UNICEF estimates that 5 million children ages 3 to 17 are out of school due to Ebola. “This Ebola crisis has been predominantly seen as a health...

Burials continue despite ‘cancelled’ Christmas in Sierra Leone

Written on December 17, 2014. Posted in Breaking News, Health News, Opinion News.

Ebola Diary: After a week in West Africa, Sarah Boseley concludes that not enough is yet known about the virus, except that it must be eradicated. A large group of men, women and children, all in their best clothes, is gathered in the yard of a house in Wellington, an Ebola-hit western area of Freetown. The dresses and headscarves are bright but the faces are sombre. Alie Kamara, the owner of the house, died this morning and lies inside. He will...

Johns Hopkins team wins award for improved Ebola suit

Written on December 17, 2014. Posted in Breaking News, Business News, Health News, USA News.

Johns Hopkins University Center for Bioengineering Innovation & Design and Jhpiego (Washington Post) For health-care workers taking care of Ebola patients in West Africa, one of the biggest logistical problems has been the “moon suits” they must wear to protect against being infected by the deadly virus. The suits are hot. Taking them off is a meticulous, multistep process that can leave no room for error. Now, a protective ebola suit designed...

Doctor cured of Ebola will return to Liberia

Written on December 16, 2014. Posted in Breaking News, Health News, Science News, Treatments.

(BOSTON) — A Massachusetts doctor cured of Ebola said Tuesday that he’s returning to Liberia, the West African country where he contracted the virus, in January to resume working at a medical mission. Dr. Richard Sacra said that he plans to spend four weeks at ELWA Hospital, a clinic outside Monrovia where he had contracted the deadly virus in August. Sacra spent weeks in treatment at an Omaha, Nebraska, hospital before returning home on Sept....

3 Months After Ebola Infection the Semen of Survivors Remains Infectious

Written on December 16, 2014. Posted in Breaking News, Health News, Science News, World News.

Geneva – The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends men who have survived the Ebola infection should abstain from sex for at least three months or to use condoms. Some studies have shown that seminal fluid could contain the Ebola virus possibly up to three months, the UN agency said on Friday. But there is no need to isolate former Ebola patients, according to the WHO.

Ebola: A Day in the Life of a Chlorine Sprayer

Written on December 16, 2014. Posted in Breaking News, Health News, Treatments.

The phone rings. There is a dead body in the neighborhood and, as with every death in the city of Monrovia at the moment, Ebola is the suspected cause. The body of an Ebola victim is extremely contagious, so it must be collected, and the home and belongings of the victim disinfected. This task falls to B. Sunday Williams, a Liberian chlorine sprayer, and his colleagues in the Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) outreach team...

Britain not seeking U.S. military assistance to fight Ebola

Written on December 16, 2014. Posted in Breaking News, Government News, World News.

(Reuters) – Britain said on Tuesday it would not be seeking U.S. military assistance to fight Ebola in Sierra Leone where it expects to see “enormous change” by the end of January following a surge in response measures. As a U.S. operation of 3,000 troops begins to turn the tide against the deadly virus in neighboring Liberia, calls have grown for it to shift resources towards ally Britain, which is leading the response in Sierra...

Justice Department Warns Against Ebola Discrimination

Written on December 16, 2014. Posted in Breaking News, Government News, Opinion News.

Huffington Post – WASHINGTON — The Justice Department issued guidelines on Monday designed to help government workers avoid illegally discriminating against people because of the Ebola virus. Citing “increased reports of discrimination in the United States against people who are or are perceived to be from an African country or of African descent,” the department’s Civil Rights Division sent out non-discrimination...

CDC disease detective explains why ambulance chasing is crucial to tracking Ebola

Written on December 16, 2014. Posted in Breaking News, Health News, World News.

(CDC) Ambulance chasing is a discouraged practice in the US – but in Liberia it’s exactly what Neil, a CDC disease detective in the Center for Global Health, had to do as part of his efforts to stop the spread of Ebola at its source. “We would follow ambulances that were called to pick up suspected Ebola cases. We would keep our distance and observe how they collected patients, and would make corrections to any lapse in infection control. As soon...