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Benjamin Hale, Slate September 20, 2014 As the Ebola epidemic in West Africa has spiraled out of control, affecting thousands of Liberians, Sierra Leonians, and Guineans, and threatening thousands more, the world’s reaction has been glacially, lethally slow. Only in the past few weeks have heads of state begun to take serious notice. To date, the virus has killed more than 2,600 people. This is a comparatively small number when measured against much more established diseases such as malaria,HIV/AIDS, influenza, and so on, but several factors about this outbreak have some of the world’s top health professionals gravely concerned: Its...

Dr. Jane Orient, Executive Director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, reported that the government has been “real tight-lipped” about the mysterious respiratory illness that has struck children in the United States, expressed concern that the illegal immigrant minors from Central America could be the source, and argued that the government should devote more resources to border security to combat the spread of disease on Wednesday’s “Laura Ingraham Show.”

A rare respiratory illness that’s sickened more than a thousand kids in 10 states is likely to spread all across the United States, ABC News reported, citing doctors. More from ABC News: The disease hasn’t been officially identified in every state, but in some states a rare respiratory virus called human enterovirus 68 has been found. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the virus is related to the rhinovirus, which causes the common cold. …At least 10 states — Missouri, Kansas, Illinois, Kentucky, Iowa, Colorado, Ohio, Oklahoma, North Carolina, and Georgia — have reported suspected outbreaks of human...

Reference article about fomites and spread of viruses in offic enclosed environments. Long technical article. Pertains to enteric and Norovirus among others. Short version via MailOnline available here: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2748351/Why-really-need-wash-hands-work-Infections-spread-office-door-handle-half-workforce-just-two-HOURS.html (Snip) Study found between 40 and 60 per cent of office contaminated in two hours Pushing buttons in lifts and touching phones spread infection quickest  Disinfectant wipes and regularly washing hands is best way to kill germs   Infections can spread from an office door handle to half the workforce in just two hours, new research has found.  Using tracer viruses, a study found as much as 60 per cent of...

A respiratory illness that has already sickened more than a thousand children in 10 states is likely to become a nationwide problem, doctors say. The disease hasn't been officially identified but officials suspect a rare respiratory virus called human enterovirus 68. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the virus is related to the rhinovirus, which causes the common cold. According to Mark Pallansch, director of the Division of Viral Diseases at the CDC, similar cases to the ones in Colorado have been cropping up across the U.S. At least 10 states...

(CNN) — A respiratory virus is sending hundreds of children to hospitals in Missouri and possibly throughout the Midwest and beyond, officials say. The unusually high number of hospitalizations reported now could be “just the tip of the iceberg in terms of severe cases,” said Mark Pallansch, a virologist and director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Division of Viral Diseases. “We’re in the middle of looking into this,” he told CNN on Sunday. “We don’t have all the answers yet.”

The virus causes symptoms like a cold, except worse, and is prompting up to 30 children a day to seek care at one Kansas City hospital, where about 15% of the youngsters were placed in intensive care, officials said. In a sign of a possible regional outbreak, Colorado, Illinois and Ohio are reporting cases with symptoms similar to the same virus and are awaiting testing results, according to officials and CNN affiliates in those states. In Kansas City, about 450 children were recently treated at Children’s Mercy Hospital, and at least 60 of them received intensive hospitalization, spokesman Jake Jacobson...

Unusually high levels of respiratory illness have been reported this week in Nationwide Children’s Hospital’s emergency department, and samples are being sent out for testing to see whether a rare virus might be to blame. “Obviously, it’s a concern,” Dr. Mysheika Williams Roberts, medical director and assistant commissioner at Columbus Public Health, said of the volume of respiratory cases. “What we are experiencing is unusual for us this time of year.” Last week, respiratory symptoms were the chief complaint of an average of 52 patients per day in the hospital’s emergency department. From Sunday through Tuesday of this week, respiratory...

By The Week Staff August 30, 2014Think Ebola is alarming? Scientists expect a much deadlier virus to emerge in the not-distant future. How likely is a pandemic? Epidemiologists believe we're statistically overdue for a global viral outbreak, which occurs every generation or so. This year's Ebola crisis is probably just a dress rehearsal: Though the virus has killed at least 1,420 people in Africa in the last five months, Ebola is transmitted only through intimate contact with bodily fluids and doesn't have the global reach of a true pandemic, such as Spanish influenza in 1918. Humanity had no prior exposure...

An international team of team of scientists has sequenced the RNA of 99 Ebola virus samples collected during the early weeks of the outbreak in Sierra Leone. The feat, described Thursday in the journal Science, gives researchers a powerful new tool in their effort to contain the deadly virus. ... Scientists are already scouring that sequence for clues to help them design effective drugs and vaccines. It could take years to find them all, said Sabeti, who studies infectious diseases at Harvard and at the Broad Institute in Cambridge, Mass. For now, evidence embedded in the RNA reveals that the...

Britons are to be the first in the world to test a new vaccine against the deadly ebola virus. Altogether 60 healthy volunteers will be given the vaccine next month in a trial led by Oxford University scientists. If the vaccine performs as well in humans as in monkeys, the trial will be extended to 80 people in The Gambia and in Mali. The entire trial programme is being fast-tracked – subject to ethical approval – with the intention of using the vaccine in people at high risk in West Africa early next year. Latest figures show that more than...

A Sacramento hospital announced Tuesday that one of its patients may have Ebola. Kaiser Permanente South Sacramento Medical Center said in a release the patient is isolated. The hospital's Dr. Stephen Parodi said in the release 'We are working with the Sacramento County Division of Public Health regarding a patient admitted to the Kaiser Permanente South Sacramento Medical Center who may have been exposed to the Ebola virus. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will be testing blood samples to rule out the presence of the virus.

Looking for thoughts about the 'sudden' appearance of a cure for Ebola. I think our government has studied Ebola since it first appeared and is keeping it as a weaponized virus.

Kevin LoriaAugust. 4, 2014 Both of the Ebola-infected U.S. citizens in Liberia received a rare dose of what news reports called a "secret serum" to treat the virus before being transported to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, according to a CNN report. And while some people do fight off the disease on their own, in the case of the two Americans, that experimental serum may have saved their lives. As Dr. Kent Brantly and missionary Nancy Writebol waited in a Liberian hospital, someone from the National Institutes of Health reached out to Samaritan's Purse, one of the two North Carolina-based...

Until this year, the world had recorded 1,640 deaths from Ebola since the virus was discovered in 1976. Then Ebola appeared in West Africa. So far this year, 887 people have died of Ebola in West Africa, the World Health Organization Monday. The graphs include only years in which 50 or more Ebola deaths were reported. To put that into perspective, more than a third of all people known to have died from the virus have died in the current outbreak. And the outbreak is still spreading at a frightening rate. Last week, there were more than 200 new cases...

Worried about the spread of Ebola in the United States? A Boston Globe-owned website has some advice for you: shut the f— up! Unlike here, the tweet embedded in the middle of a Boston.com story about increasing fear of the virus doesn’t use the dashes. And its inclusion is no accident: the flow chart graphic is central to their coverage. It’s just one of several stories underscoring the relatively bizarre approach our media is taking to Ebola’s spread. Number one: anyone worried about it is a paranoid, delusional freak and two, let’s use this as a new way to bash...

A man who was tested for Ebola at New York’s Mount Sinai Hospital on Monday is “unlikely” to have the virus, the city’s health department said. “After consultation with CDC and Mount Sinai, the Health Department has concluded that the patient is unlikely to have Ebola,” the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene said in a statement early Monday evening. “Specimens are being tested for common causes of illness and to definitively exclude Ebola.” The male patient had come to the hospital’s emergency room early Monday morning with a high fever and gastrointestinal problems, according to the...

An experimental serum given to Christian aid workers infected with the deadly Ebola virus was manufactured by a San Diego pharmaceutical firm using plants, the company and U.S. health authorities disclosed Monday. As Dr. Kent Brantly fights for his life in a special containment unit at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, and missionary Nancy Writebol prepares to be evacuated from Liberia on Tuesday, details began to emerge about a mysterious treatment they were given shortly after they became infected. The drug, which was produced by Mapp Biopharmaceutical Inc., is called ZMapp and has not been evaluated for safety in humans,...

If the worst Ebola outbreak in recorded history reaches the United States, federal law permits "the apprehension and examination of any individual reasonably believed to be infected with a communicable disease". These individuals can be "detained for such time and in such manner as may be reasonably necessary". In other words, the federal government already has the authority to round people up against their will, take them to detention facilities and hold them there for as long as they feel it is "reasonably necessary". In addition, as you will read about below, the federal government has the authority "to separate...

The first Ebola victim to be brought to the United States from Africa was safely escorted into a specialized isolation unit Saturday at one of the nation's best hospitals, where doctors said they are confident the deadly virus won't escape. Fear that the outbreak killing more than 700 people in Africa could spread in the U.S. has generated considerable anxiety among some Americans. But infectious disease experts said the public faces zero risk as Emory University Hospital treats a critically ill missionary doctor and a charity worker who were infected in Liberia. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention...