ICT  INFECTION CONTROL TODAY                                                                  April 14, 2015
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Research from the University of Manchester using cutting-edge computer analysis reveals that despite mutating, Ebola hasn’t evolved to become deadlier since the first outbreak 40 years ago. The surprising results demonstrate that while a high number of genetic changes have been recorded in the virus, it hasn’t changed at a functional level to become more or less virulent.

The findings, published in the journal Virology, demonstrate that the much higher death toll during the current outbreak, with the figure at nearly 10,500, isn’t due to mutations/evolution making the virus more deadly or more virulent.

As professor Simon Lovell from the Faculty of Life Sciences explains.... What we found was that whilst Ebola is mutating, it isn’t evolving to the point of adapting to become more or less virulent. The function of the virus has remained the same over the past four decades which really surprised us. Unfortunately this does mean the Ebola virus that has now emerged on several occasions since the 1970s will very probably do so again.”

Doctors says the kit, if approved by health authorities, could transform the admissions process with its capacity to deliver results within 20 minutes

THE GUARDIAN    by Lisa O'Carroll                              March 29, 2015

A rapid Ebola diagnostic kit similar to a pregnancy kit has been developed by British military scientists and NHS medics in Sierra Leone.

Health care workers prepare to entering a high risk zone at an Ebola virus clinic in Sierra Leone, where the diagnostic kit has been undergoing tests. Photograph: Michael Duff/AP

It can be administered at the bedside and return its first results within 20 minutes, slashing dramatically the normal 24-hour turnaround for lab results.

BBC  by  Smitha Mundasad                                                                           March 27, 2015

A UK female military medic who has been discharged from hospital after being declared free of Ebola said it was thanks to medics that she is alive.

Anna Cross was the first person in the world to be given the experimental Ebola drug MIL 77, her doctors said.

Corporal Cross, aged 25 from Cambridge, caught the virus while working as a volunteer nurse in Sierra Leone.

Doctors at the hospital...described the drug she was given as a close relative of the medicine ZMapp and that MIL 77 was made in China...

It is too soon to know what role the drug played in Cpl Cross' recovery, they added.

Read complete story.
http://www.bbc.com/news/health-32088310

THE TELEGRAPH    by Ben Farmer                                                                           March 15, 2015

British commanders were warned last year it was impossible to halt Ebola in Sierra Leone and they were about to lose control of the deadly outbreak in its capital, it has been disclosed.

ASSOCIATED PRESS  by Clarence Roy-Macaulay                                                      March 12, 2015
 FREETOWN --   Sierra Leone has seen a worrying spike in confirmed Ebola cases over the past week in four districts, the head of the national Ebola response center said Thursday.

New measures must now be put into place to contain the surges, said the head of the National Ebola Response Centre, Alfred Palo Conteh.

Fifteen cases were recorded Wednesday, along with 16 on Monday and Tuesday respectively, according to Sierra Leone's Ministry of Health and Sanitation.

"We are now on a bumpy road to zero number of cases to get to President Ernest Bai Koroma's target of March 31," said Palo Conteh. "It is frustrating."

Read complete story.
http://news.yahoo.com/sierra-leone-sees-worrying-spike-ebola-cases-over-141214859.html;_ylt=AwrBEiTD7gJVy2QANdbQtDMD

NEW YORK TIMES  by Sheri Fink and Allan Cowell                                                         March 12, 2015

A worker from Partners In Health, the prominent American medical aid organization, and an emergency worker from the British military have been infected with the deadly virus in Sierra Leone, health officials said Thursday.

The Partners In Health worker was the first in that group to be infected since it made an ambitious commitment last fall to help combat Ebola in West Africa, and was the first American health worker in months to get the disease while working in the region. ...

THE TELEGRAPH  by  Victoria Ward and Ben Farmer   March 12, 2015  

The woman is the third British health care worker confirmed to have caught the deadly virus...

Justine Greening, the Development Secretary, said the checks on the four other workers were "purely precautionary" after they had close contact with the female patient.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/ebola/11466376/British-Army-medic-with-Ebola-being-flown-back-to-UK.html

THE SCOTSMAN                                                                                                March 6, 2015

PAULINE Cafferkey, the Scottish nurse who contracted Ebola while working in Sierra Leone, is free to continue working while under investigation, a medical council has ruled.

 Pauline Cafferkey flew back to the UK via Casablanca and London Heathrow before landing at Glasgow Airport late on December 28.

She was admitted to hospital in Glasgow early the next morning after feeling feverish, before being diagnosed with the disease.

Last month, Public Health England said it had passed information to the General Medical Council and Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) on three nurses and two doctors after assessing the screening of healthcare workers returning to the UK.

An NMC spokeswoman said:

“The panel decided not to impose an interim order. Pauline Cafferkey is free to practise without restriction.”  The full case is likely to be held later this year.

Read complete story.

BBC                                                                      Feb.23, 2015

Five UK Ebola nurses and doctors are under investigation by regulators, Public Health England says.

They are looking into the screening of medics who flew back to England on 28 December after treating patients in Sierra Leone.

                  Pauline Cafferkey was diagnosed with Ebola in December after volunteering work in Sierra Leone

On this flight was Scottish nurse Pauline Cafferkey - who developed Ebola - and some of her colleagues.

Questions have arisen over the health assessments and protocols that were followed.

Media reports have suggested Ms Cafferkey may have had signs of Ebola before leaving Sierra Leone but regulators have not commented on this.

http://m.bbc.com/news/health-31586074

DEVEX   by Molly Anders                                                                                         Feb. 19, 2015

...While the Ebola crisis is far from over, officials in government and the international development community have begun to think more the medium and long term. What can they learn from past post-crisis recovery initiatives?

  Health worker Alivin Davis poses next to the a board featuring handprints of Ebola survivors in Liberia. Photo by: Neil Brandvold / USAID / CC BY-NC

Devex asked aid officials and government officials from the region how to avoid some of the most common pitfalls that can plague — haunt, even — recovery and reconstruction efforts. Here are three of them.

1. Quality over quantity.

....By not paying closer attention to the economic effects of foreign aid on the local market, humanitarian groups hurt livelihoods and slowed reconstruction in the country.

2. Prioritize local ownership....

THE PRESS ASSOCIATION                               Feb. 4, 2015
LONDON --A British nurse who contracted Ebola while working in Sierra Leone possibly caught the virus by wearing a visor and not goggles, an investigation has suggested.
Press Association - Save the Children said Pauline Cafferkey, pictured on her return to health, may have contracted Ebola by wearing a visor rather than goggles when treating patients in Sierra Leone

The report by Save the Children said it cannot be completely certain how Pauline Cafferkey contracted Ebola but said both pieces of equipment are "equally safe".

The nurse, from Cambuslang in South Lanarkshire, had volunteered with the charity at the Ebola Treatment Centre (ETC) in Kerry Town before returning to the UK in December....

Save the Children published the findings of an independent review into the possible causes of how the 39-year-old caught the virus. The report said both visors and goggles are safe but there are slight differences in the type of clothing worn with each and in the protocols for putting them on and removing them....

Read complete story.

PRESS ASSOCIATION                                                                                                     Feb. 2, 2015

LONDON --A second UK military healthcare worker has been transported back to England after likely exposure to Ebola via a needle-stick injury while treating someone with the virus in Sierra Leone, Public Health England said.

               Press Association - The healthcare worker has been admitted to the Royal Free Hospital in London

The healthcare worker arrived in the UK today and has been admitted to the Royal Free Hospital in London where they are undergoing an assessment.

They have not been diagnosed with Ebola and do not have symptoms, Public Health England added.

It comes after another British military healthcare worker was flown back to England for monitoring after suffering a needle-stick injury, also in Sierra Leone.

Read complete story.
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/ebola-tests-uk-military-worker-105839068.html#tDyqh5N

REUTERS   by Kate Kell and Ben Herschler                                                                        Feb. 1. 2015
LONDON --As West Africa's devastating Ebola outbreak begins to dwindle, scientists are looking beyond the endgame at the kind of next-generation vaccines needed for a vital stockpile to hit another epidemic hard and fast.

Determined not to lose scientific momentum that could make the world's first effective Ebola interventions a reality, researchers say the shots, as well as being proven to work, must be cheap, easy to handle in Africa and able to hit multiple virus strains.

That may mean shifting focus from the stripped-down, fast-tracked vaccine development ideas that have dominated the past six months, but it mustn't mean the field gets bogged down in complexities.

Read complete story.

THE GUARDIAN   by Lin Jenkins                                     Jan. 23, 2015

LONDON --The British nurse who almost died after contracting Ebola while volunteering in Sierra Leone has been discharged from hospital after making a full recovery.

Doctors had described her condition as “critical” during the three weeks she received treatment for the deadly virus and her family and friends were preparing for the worst. Cafferkey admited that then she had felt like “giving up”, but was now looking forward to returning to “normal life” and had no plans to go back to Africa.

The 39-year-old nurse was diagnosed with Ebola after returning to Glasgow last month and was admitted to the city’s Gartnavel hospital on December 29 before being transferred the next day to the Royal Free. She had been working with Save the Children at the Ebola treatment centre in Kerry Town before returning to the UK...

Save the Children has launched an investigation into how Cafferkey was infected, but admits it may never establish the exact circumstances.

REUTERS by Kate Kelland                                     Jan. 23, 2015

LONDON-- The first batch of GlaxoSmithKline's experimental Ebola vaccine has been shipped to West Africa and is expected to arrive in Liberia later on Friday, the British drugmaker said.

The shipment, of an initial 300 vials of the vaccine, will be the first to arrive in one of the three main Ebola-affected African countries, GSK said in a statement.

It will be used in the first large-scale vaccine trials in coming weeks, in which healthcare workers helping to care for Ebola patients will be among the first to get it...

The vaccine, co-developed by the National Institutes of Health in the United States and Okairos, a biotechnology firm acquired by GSK in 2013, is currently being tested in five small phase I safety trials in Britain, the United States, Switzerland and Mali involving around 200 healthy volunteers in total.

Read compete story.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2015/01/23/uk-health-ebola-gsk-idUKKBN0KW0DU20150123