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<p>The World Health Organization Friday revised its figures showing more people killed by the deadly Ebola virus, but the number of cases of the disease was slightly lower.</p> <p>The WHO said that 4,951 people had died across eight countries from Ebola and there was a total of 13,567 reported cases, up to and including October 29.</p>

Canada has joined Australia in suspending entry visas for people from Ebola-stricken countries in West Africa in an attempt to keep out the disease. […] Australia’s similar move was slammed Thursday by Dr. Margaret Chan, director general of the World Health Organization, who said closing borders will not stop spread of the Ebola virus. …

Genetics will determine whether a person infected with Ebola dies, scientists claimed today. A new study has found DNA could be the key to tracking the deadly effects of the virus which has ravaged West Africa. The World Health Organisation revealed nearly 5,000 people have died from the disease, which has devastated Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. A team of scientists at Washington University believe their study has identified genetic factors behind the mild-to-deadly range of reactions to the virus.

After months of near-futile battle with Ebola, a World Health Organization official said a glimmer of hope is beginning to emerge in the worst-affected country, Liberia. The West African country has recorded 6,535 cases, almost half of the 13,703 total reported in the current outbreak. But Dr. Bruce Aylward, WHO’s assistant director-general, on Wednesday said the infection rate appears to be falling "and there may indeed be a slowing of the epidemic there." Aylward said Liberia's caseload may be dropping by as much as 25 percent a week. However, he added, "This is no time to let up." The outbreak's...

The World Health Organization says the number of reported Ebola cases has surpassed 13,700, a jump of more than 30 percent since the last numbers were released four days ago. Dr. Bruce Aylward, assistant director-general of the WHO, said the big jump in cases is likely due to previous under-reporting. As of Wednesday, there have been 13,703 reported cases of Ebola, the organization tweeted, with 13,676 of those in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, the three most affected countries in this outbreak. The fatality rate in those countries has remained consistently around 70 percent, Aylward said. Speaking to reporters in...

The World Health Organization (WHO) set out plans on Friday for speeding up development and deployment of experimental Ebola vaccines, saying hundreds of thousands of doses should be ready for use in West Africa by the middle of 2015. The Geneva-based United Nations health agency confirmed that two leading vaccine candidates are already in human clinical trials, and said another five experimental vaccines were also being developed and would begin clinical trials next year.

LONDON: One million doses of an Ebola vaccine will be produced by the end of 2015, the World Health Organization has announced. Vaccines, "several hundred thousand" of which will be produced in the first half of the year would be initially made available to front line health workers in West Africa as early as by December 2014. Dr Marie Paule Kieny, WHO assistant director-general, said: "While we hope that the massive response, which has been put in place will have an impact on the epidemic, it is still prudent to prepare to have as much vaccine available if they are...

Billionaire Paul Allen says he'll contribute at least $100 million to the fight against Ebola. The Microsoft co-founder said Thursday that among the initiatives he's supporting is the development of two medevac containment units that the U.S. State Department can use to safely evacuate health workers who become infected. Allen, who is worth more than $15billion, said he's working with the World Health Organization to increase its capacity for handling the logistics of transporting international aid workers, and he's establishing a fund to help cover the costs of emergency transportation of the workers.

The empirical evidence of an airborne Ebola Strain is overwhelming Hat Tip GWP - Patrick Sawyer was the American businessman, who contracted Ebola while working in Liberia, then collapsed after he got off a plane to Nigeria and died July 25. He was the first patient in Nigeria with the Ebola virus. The Nigerian authorities have refused to release the names of other passengers on the plane with Mr. Sawyer, or notify the media of their status.

U.S. Army warns of potential 'airborne' Ebola Virus could be transmitted by means other than contact NEW YORK – While Centers for Disease Control and World Health Organization officials continue to insist Ebola cannot be transmitted by air from one person to another, an Army manual clearly warns the virus could be an airborne threat in certain circumstances. The handbook published by the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, USAMRID, titled “USAMRID’s Medical Management of Biological Casualties Handbook,” is now in its seventh edition. The most recent edition was published in 2011, with more than 100,000 copies distributed...

Kevin LoriaOctober 6, 2014 The idea that Ebola could go airborne is terrifying. Once you are infected, few diseases are more likely to kill you — and death by hemorrhagic fever, diarrhea and vomiting often accompanied by bleeding and organ failure, sounds particularly awful. At present it's hard to get infected — healthcare workers and family members caring for victims are at highest risk — but that would change if the virus were to mutate so that it could be transmitted through the air while keeping its present lethality. That's a nightmare scenario. But it's more the stuff of bad...

Bloomberg - link and title only.

<p>Muslim burial practices are being blamed for the spread of Ebola.</p> <p>Remains of Secretary General of The Nigeria Supreme General for Islamic Affairs and Seriki of Egbaland, Alhaji Lateeef Adegbite at his burial in 2012.</p> <p>Islam requires family members to personally wash the corpses of loved ones from head to toe. This practise is putting more Africans at risk to catch the disease that is spread by body fluids.</p>

Why is the United States not closing all flights from the affected areas, and why is it still issuing travel visas to citizens from Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea? The Congressional Research Service has been driving the legislative debate since 1914, giving our Congressmen information on various topics. The latest report on October 3, 2014, entitled, “Ebola: Basics about the Disease,” by Sarah Lister, Specialist in Public Health and Epidemiology, provides the following information obtained from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO). Ebola outbreak began in December 2013 in Guinea and spread...

The World Health Organization said Saturday that it wouldn't explain details contained in an internal document obtained by The Associated Press in which the U.N. health agency said it fumbled early attempts to contain the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. In the draft document, which wasn't released publicly, WHO blamed numerous factors for the now explosive Ebola epidemic, including incompetent staff, bureaucracy and a lack of reliable information.

The World Health Organization bungled efforts to halt the spread of Ebola in West Africa, an internal report revealed Friday, as President Barack Obama named a trusted political adviser to take control of America's frenzied response to the epidemic. The stepped-up scrutiny of the international response came as U.S. officials rushed to cut off potential routes of infection from three cases in Texas, reaching a cruise ship in the Caribbean and multiple domestic airline flights. Republican lawmakers and the Obama administration debated the value of restricting travelers from entering the U.S. from countries where the outbreak began, without a resolution....

UN health agency acknowledged ‘nearly everyone involved in the response failed to see some fairly plain writing on the wall’ The World Health Organisation has admitted mishandling the early stages of the Ebola outbreak in west Africa, saying it failed to recognise the risks of the disease in the fragile states of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. “Nearly everyone involved in the outbreak response failed to see some fairly plain writing on the wall,” says a draft internal document obtained by the Associated Press. Experts should have realised that the conventional way of containing an Ebola outbreak would not work...

The World Health Organization has admitted that it botched attempts to stop the now-spiraling Ebola outbreak in West Africa, blaming factors including incompetent staff and a lack of information. "Nearly everyone involved in the outbreak response failed to see some fairly plain writing on the wall," WHO said in a draft internal document obtained by The Associated Press, noting that experts should have realized that traditional containment methods wouldn't work in a region with porous borders and broken health systems. The U.N. health agency acknowledged that, at times, even its own bureaucracy was a problem. It noted that the heads...

Pamela Engel October 16, 2014While the US is panicking about three Ebola cases in one month, parts of West Africa are deteriorating rapidly, with little sign that the region is getting the outbreak under control. Ebola has hit Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone the hardest because these countries don't have healthcare systems that are equipped to handle the disease. Nurses at hospitals in these countries are "lightly trained and minimally protected" and Ebola patients are dying "surrounded by pools of infectious waste," according to a report in The New York Times. Some hospitals don't have access to running water, soap,...

... Recent studies conducted in West Africa have demonstrated that 95% of confirmed cases have an incubation period in the range of 1 to 21 days; 98% have an incubation period that falls within the 1 to 42 day interval. ...