If you don’t subscribe to the Democratic Republic of Congo Health Ministry updates (probably not, right?) here’s a reason to do so. Dr. Daniel Lucey, who volunteered twice to treat patients during the West Africa crisis suggested this way of keeping track of the current outbreak, so Science Speaks does. Often the news it brings is […]
The training of vaccinators, clinicians and local organizers in South Sudan to begin administration of anti-Ebola vaccines to health workers in areas bordering Democratic Republic of Congo active Ebola transmission zones marks another moment in the current outbreak reflecting both immense challenges and significant progress. More than 2,100 doses of the rVSV-ZEBOV vaccine have been allocated […]
Knowledge gained during West Africa’s outbreak, from persistence of infections to a vaccine’s potential and needs to integrate research are informing responses A little more than a month after the first time Liberia was declared free of the Ebola outbreak that had devastated communities from its most remote reaches to its capital, an oral swab […]
The announcement Wednesday that vaccinations against Ebola have begun for Uganda health workers in districts bordering the Democratic Republic of Congo “even before Uganda detects a single case,” as the World Health Organization put it, can be seen, as the agency’s release said, as evidence that “health authorities are being cautious, having learnt bitter lessons […]
While security concerns stemming from ongoing local armed conflict pose extraordinary challenges, and proximity to neighboring countries raise risks of cross border spread, the current outbreak of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo does not meet the criteria to be declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern — or PHEIC — a committee […]
Estimate exceeds previous estimates by more than $20 billion Deaths from non-Ebola causes contributed to highest West Africa outbreak costs, authors say During the 2013 to 2016 spread of Ebola across Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, as health systems and health workers were overtaken by the impacts of the virus, about a million fewer children […]
More than two million travelers checked at 37 points of entry — airports, river ports, and border crossings — between the Democratic Republic of Congo and neighboring countries. More than six thousand people who had contact with the sick, including health workers, or with others who had contact with them, vaccinated. Three different investigational treatment […]
Health-care worker infections add to Ebola challenge in Congo – The challenges arising when a new Ebola outbreak surfaces in an area where the virus hasn’t been seen before include the exposure of frontline health workers without experience in necessary detection and protection measures. The resulting infections among medical staff who are needed most and […]
With Ebola confirmation in seven health workers, hospital staff of 74 on leave, replaced, WHO leader says With 57 apparent Ebola cases — 30 of which are confirmed — and 41 deaths so far from the outbreak that was recognized in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s North Kivu province two weeks ago, the toll of […]
Sustained US preparedness needed for Ebola and other pan-epidemic threats – Dr. Daniel Lucey of Georgetown University’s O’Neil Institute is familiar both with the on-the-ground obstacles to preventing the spread of disease with pandemic potential, and the on-the-ground consequences of delayed or inadequate responses. Having completed two volunteer stints caring for patients during the 2013-2016 […]
HIV
The science is clear, HIV criminalization is abusive, discriminatory and counterproductive – The destructiveness of HIV-specific laws that fueled stigma and discouraged diagnosis by criminalizing people […]
Tuberculosis
THE HAGUE, Netherlands – New results from the ongoing Nix-TB trial continue to confirm a short-course treatment regimen of bedaquiline – one of the two newest […]
Research & Development
A trial to test the safety of, and immune response prompted by, the latest candidate for a vaccine to protect against Zika virus infection has begun […]
Policy
So many lessons are offered in a recent communication from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about antibiotic-resistant infections among patients returning to the […]