Posted on 08/10/2014 12:46:23 AM PDT by Smokin' Joe
I have spent a little time compiling links to threads about the Ebola outbreak in the interest of having all the links in one thread for future reference.
Please add links to new threads and articles of interest as the situation develops.
Thank You all for you participation.
Looking for possible updates on the condition of anonymous Emory Patient #3, who arrived on Sept 9. Brit Ebola survivor William Pooley was flown in to donate blood on Sept 12 in an effort to save this patient’s life.
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[excerpt from Sept 17 CIDRAP article]
In a related development, William Pooley, a British nurse who recovered from EVD and received the experimental drug ZMapp, recently traveled to Atlanta to give serum to an Ebola patient who was hospitalized in a specialized isolation unit at Emory University Hospital on Sep 9, The Independent, a newspaper based in London, reported today.
Pooley flew to Atlanta on Sep 12, with his trip paid for by the World Health Organization (WHO), according to the report. The patient has not been named but is thought to be an American doctor who got sick while working for the WHO in Sierra Leone. It’s not clear if the patient has received the serum.
UV won’t be the only method used for decontaminating buildings. Normal methods will continue. I also suspect buildings will be reconfigured to minimize hidden surfaces, i.e., removal of handrails.
The head of the World Health Organization, Margaret Chan needs to answer for this.
Her actions here constitute criminal negligence at best.
By Shannon Pettypiece and Makiko Kitamura Sep 25, 2014 12:51 PM ET
The calls started coming in August to the office of GlaxoSmithKline Plc (GSK) Chief Executive Officer Andrew Witty from the head of the World Health Organization, Margaret Chan. The Ebola outbreak was raging out of control and Chan needed the drugmaker’s vaccine as quickly as possible.
The sudden sense of urgency for an Ebola vaccine was an about face from a few months earlier when Glaxo contacted the WHO, asking whether its vaccine could help with the outbreak. At that time, the company was told the focus was on containment and the WHO didn’t have a policy for using vaccines in this type of situation. “We’ll get back to you” was the message, said Ripley Ballou, head of Glaxo’s Ebola vaccine program.
As those months passed and containment efforts failed, the epidemic spun out of control, claiming more lives than all past outbreaks combined. So far, more than 6,200 people have been infected and 2,900 have died, and the virus could sicken more than 1.4 million people by January under the worst-case scenario projected by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
With no approved Ebola medicines, and experimental treatments in short supply, a vaccine is now one of the best hopes for halting the virus’s spread before it becomes entrenched in the region. That puts pressure on the few drugmakers with a vaccine in development as they shift resources, delay other projects, and spend millions in a race to immunize patients. Glaxo and Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) are preparing thousands of doses of their experimental vaccines to test in Africa as early as January.
Traditional Measures
“It may be that without a vaccine we can’t really stop this epidemic,” said Peter Piot, a co-discoverer of the Ebola virus in 1976 who is now the director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, at a news conference in London this week.
When Glaxo contacted the WHO in March, the vaccine was seen as a “diversion of energy” at a time when it was widely believed the outbreak would be controlled with traditional measures such as contact tracing and safe burials that have helped contain every previous outbreak, said Marie-Paule Kieny, the WHO’s assistant director-general for health systems and innovation.
“We were in a situation where GSK had a vaccine which had been tested in animals, and that was it,” Kieny said in a telephone interview. “It was only then when the situation started to be quite worse, and people understood that we’re not going to make it, that the effort came to a higher level.”
Human Testing
After receiving the request from Kieny and Chan last month, Glaxo pulled 20 people off various projects, many from its malaria vaccine program, one of its most highly publicized research initiatives, and assigned them full-time to the Ebola vaccine. The company is aiming to have 10,000 to 15,000 doses by January to start vaccinating health-care workers as part of the next stage of testing, and several hundred thousand doses within six months, Ballou said.
Glaxo is among at least five companies that have announced plans to start human testing of an Ebola vaccine, including Johnson & Johnson, Inovio Pharmaceuticals Inc. (INO), NewLink Genetics Corp. (NLNK), and Profectus Biosciences Inc.
Glaxo started giving doses to healthy volunteers in the U.K. and U.S. this month. Within the next four weeks, as many as six different trials will be under way in the U.S., U.K., Switzerland and Mali. Early results on the safety and efficacy of the Glaxo and NewLink shots, the most advanced in development, should be available by November, Kieny said. The agency plans to meet with the two companies next week to discuss the simultaneous roll out and testing of the vaccines in Africa, which may happen in January, Kieny said.
Okairos Deal
“This is unprecedented, because you are talking about quite a big financial investment into something which has not proven anything for the time being,” she said.
Until a few months ago, Glaxo’s vaccine got little attention out of the London-based company’s hundreds of experimental compounds, and the drugmaker has been “essentially starting from ground zero,” said Ballou. Glaxo acquired the vaccine last year as part of its $324 million purchase of Okairos AG, which has inoculations in more advanced stages of testing for hepatitis C and malaria.
“It wasn’t really until the first week in August when it was clear that the epidemic was something very different from what we had ever seen before that WHO came to us and said we really need you to accelerate this vaccine,” Ballou said. “Within 24 hours, we had all of our partners on the phone.”
Fast Process
Three weeks later, the first patient received the vaccine to kick off the early-stage human trials. “That’s an amazingly fast process,” he said.
Glaxo’s vaccine is a chimpanzee cold virus that is injected with a small piece of the Ebola virus gene, which tricks the body into making an immune response against Ebola, even though it hasn’t been infected with the disease. The virus is grown in an Okairos facility in Rome in plastic so-called wave bags, which rock back and forth on a platform.
Not far behind Glaxo in the race to get a vaccine to patients is Johnson & Johnson, which plans to start human testing in March. J&J expects to have hundreds of thousands of doses available through the course of 2015 and more than a million in 2016, said Paul Stoffels, the New Brunswick, New Jersey-based company’s chief scientific officer.
Stoffels began ramping up work on the vaccine on his own, without the prodding of the WHO, as he saw the Ebola virus beginning to accelerate and making its way into cities in West Africa.
Stoffels’s Training
He knew first-hand the devastation it could cause: In 1995, a few years after completing his training as an infectious disease doctor at a hospital in Kikwit, in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo, Stoffels got a call from the nuns he’d worked alongside there. They were in desperate need of antibiotics for what they believed was bloody diarrhea. He would soon learn it was much worse: his former colleagues were infected with Ebola and would be among more than 250 who died in that outbreak.
“No one could have ever foreseen that this could happen,” said Stoffels. “Now history is history and we have to start solving the problem.”
J&J’s vaccine has been more than a decade in the making and started in the labs of Netherlands-based Crucell, which J&J bought in 2010. Starting in 2002, researchers at Crucell began work on an Ebola vaccine. After four years, the work was halted when an initial study in humans found it wasn’t potent enough to trigger the body’s immune system to develop the necessary antibodies.
Cold Virus
So the company went back to the drawing board in 2006 and came up with the current version of the vaccine. It uses a disarmed version of a cold virus to get Ebola’s genetic information into cells. It’s then combined with a second booster shot from biotechnology company Bavarian Nordic A/S (BAVA) of Denmark.
“We will have a good chance it will work, but there is no guarantee,” said Stoffels. “We know we have to do our work step by step to get to the solution.”
While Ebola was discovered in the 1970s, few researchers were pursuing a vaccine until after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks when the U.S. began funneling millions to protect against bioterrorism.
The U.S. government passed an act in 2004 to set aside $5.6 billion over 10 years for the stockpiling of drugs and vaccines that could protect against a bioterrorism attack, creating a potential buyer for any company able to prove it had a safe and effective vaccine. It has also set aside millions in research grants from the National Institutes of Health.
Deadly Pathogen
Thomas Geisbert, a professor of microbiology and immunology at the University of Texas, was one of the early pioneers of Ebola vaccine research and has been hunting for a vaccine since the 1990s. At that time, he said, there were few labs with the capabilities to do testing on a pathogen as deadly as Ebola and not enough money to do the necessary experiments.
“All of a sudden there is all this money,” said Geisbert, who has worked on the technology behind the vaccines being developed by NewLink and Profectus. “When you have more money, you can take more risks.”
In recent years, the biggest barrier has been getting past the government bureaucracy to begin human testing — something the urgency around the latest outbreak has helped cut down, Geisbert said.
The next steps won’t be cheap or easy, said Stoffels. J&J must develop manufacturing capabilities for the vaccine, which must be made in a carefully controlled environment, and develop and implement a plan for testing it in volunteers.
“We will have to mobilize significant resources for this and we are doing that as we speak,” said Stoffels. “It is a significant amount of work but the senior leadership is committed to doing it.”
To contact the reporters on this story: Shannon Pettypiece in New York at spettypiece@bloomberg.net; Makiko Kitamura in London at mkitamura1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Phil Serafino at pserafino@bloomberg.net; Reg Gale at rgale5@bloomberg.net Kristen Hallam
Source: Reuters - Thu, 25 Sep 2014 16:46 GMT
By Rod Nickel
http://www.trust.org/item/20140925164702-awkwl/?
Sept 25 (Reuters) - Poor global coordination has bogged down Canada's efforts to deliver its Ebola vaccine to Africa, Canadian International Development Minister Christian Paradis said on Thursday.
The experimental vaccine remains in a government laboratory, six weeks after Canada promised to make it available to fight the deadly outbreak.
Canada is “deeply concerned by the inadequate coordination efforts” on Ebola, Paradis said in a speech to the United Nations in New York City, adding that he was not singling out any country or organization for blame.
Ottawa said on Aug. 12 that it would donate between 800 and 1,000 doses of its VSV-EBOV vaccine to the World Health Organization (WHO) for use in Africa. The vaccine was being held at Canada's National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg as officials puzzled over how to safely transport it.
“When you talk about the vaccine, that shows that once again, you need a coordinated strategy,” Paradis told reporters.
The Canadian government has previously said it was working with WHO to address complex regulatory, logistical and ethical issues surrounding deployment of the vaccine. One challenge is keeping it cool enough to remain potent.
WHO spokespeople could not be immediately reached for comment.
According to WHO, Ebola has killed almost 3,000 people since March in five countries, including Sierra Leone, Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Senegal.
Also on Thursday, U.S. President Barack Obama told a meeting on Ebola on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York that there was a “significant gap between where we are and where we need to be” in the international response to the outbreak in West Africa.
“Stopping Ebola is a priority for the United States,” he said. “More nations need to contribute critical assets and capabilities, whether it's air transport, medical evacuation, healthcare workers, equipment or treatment.”
A WHO panel said last month it was ethical to offer unproven drugs to people in West Africa who are infected by Ebola, or at risk of infection, but it also said using such medicine required informed consent.
Paradis said the formation of a UN emergency response team last week was a step in the right direction to better coordination.
Iowa-based NewLink Genetics Corp holds the commercial license for the Canadian vaccine and said in August that it would be able to produce tens of thousands of vaccine doses within a month or two.
Paradis also said Canada would commit C$30 million (US$27.02 million) more in humanitarian aid to people affected by the outbreak in West Africa through the International Red Cross and other non-governmental organizations.
Canada previously committed about C$5 million to battle the outbreak, which is the deadliest since Ebola was identified in 1976.
(1 US dollar = 1.1102 Canadian dollar)
(Reporting by Rod Nickel in Winnipeg, Manitoba; Editing by Toni Reinhold)
There is one major choke point in the delivery of any vaccine to West Africa and distribution to local vaccination sites. The lack of refrigeration.
IIRC, it was one of your earlier posts re the Ebola virus studies that had a caveat that testing results weren’t to be considered 100% reliable because the samples from Africa weren’t properly refrigerated during transport.
If WHO isn’t already lining up ice cream trucks for the required cold transport and storage of vaccines, they will have screwed yet another pooch.
Of possible interest...
After that, ignoring the Ebola vaccine in _March 2014_ and delaying any public health emergency response until _August 2014_, I am coming to agree with the sentiment.
The cartoon at the Gatewaypundit link is a work of utter derangement.
The public health establishment is doing its best to reassure everyone that there is “nothing to see here, move along, move along . . . “ with this puff piece.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/weaponized-ebola-is-it-really-a-bioterror-threat/
It is not that hard to modify a low temperature humidifier with an Ebola friendly saline/blood plasma fluid mix to spritz this hell bug into the air.
I only saw the article. Cartoon is pretty wacko/creepy.
Add to that list her insane position in opposing flight restriction to and from afflicted countries
Ozone generators...
“We are talking about nothing less than a potential meltdown of this continent,” said Mr. Kim, who announced that the World Bank would commit $400 million to the Ebola response in West Africa.
Not just West Africa, but *ALL AFRICA*.
Trust a banker to understand compound exponential growth tables on disease.
This was followed by informed speculation on just when MSF and the US Military will be required by events to leave West Africa and how that would influence the public in the West.
Short form, the “Powers That Be” are starting to get panicky.
The point about a standing corps of medical hot shots is a case of 20-20 irrelevancy.
And the only person facing reality is the head of the World Bank.
25 SEPTEMBER 2014
http://allafrica.com/stories/201409261349.html?viewall=1
“The world can and must stop Ebola - now,” Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told world leaders gathered at a special meeting held today at the United Nations to speed up the global response to the outbreak that has evolved from a public health crisis into a threat to peace and security.
“We come together today in solidarity with the people of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone as they face the largest and most deadly Ebola outbreak the world has ever seen,” Mr. Ban said at the High-level Event on Ebola Virus Disease Outbreak.
The Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Margaret Chan, said: “Every day, every minute, counts. We need to talk but we also need to act with speed and efficiency and in ways that deal this virus some heavy blows.”
The Secretary-General said “there is overwhelming international political momentum for the United Nations to play a leading role in coordinating the global response,” and that within 24 hours of a call for staff to deploy in the first UN mission for a public health emergency, the UN had received 4,000 applications.
More than two dozen world leaders participated in the meeting, held on the margins of the General Assembly's annual high-level debate, including Guinean President Alpha Condé, while others like Presidents Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf of Liberia and Ernest Bai Koroma of Sierra Leone joined by teleconference.
All speakers flagged the need for a greater sense of urgency to respond to the outbreak, which WHO has described as “the most severe acute public health emergency seen in modern times.”
“This is a fight for all of us,” President Koroma said by video-link from the capital, Freetown.
United States President Barack Obama, whose country has offered military leadership and the establishment of a regional command and control centre in Monrovia, encouraged a faster and sustained response, saying: “It's a marathon but we have to run it as a sprint. That's why we all have to chip in.” He said on Friday, the White House will host 44 nations in a global health security summit.
Some, like World Bank President Jim Yong Kim, warned of the consequences of not rising to the challenge of tackling the outbreak in Africa, which the UN Security Council has declared a threat to peace and security.
“We are talking about nothing less than a potential meltdown of this continent,” said Mr. Kim, who announced that the World Bank would commit $400 million to the Ebola response in West Africa.
The German Foreign Minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, announced some 2,000 volunteers to combat Ebola, and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said his country is working on an Ebola vaccine. UN Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson commended Cuba for its swift dispatch of doctors in response to the outbreak in West Africa.
After the formal meeting, British actor Idris Elba - whose family is from Sierra Leone - spoke of his commitment to galvanize support for the response and commended health workers who are daily risking their lives on the ground, but said “We need more, we need more people.”
To date, Ebola has sickened 6,263 and killed 2,917 as of 21 September, according to official statistics reported to WHO by health ministries in Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, Senegal and Sierra Leone with health experts predicting that the number will rise exponentially unless the virus is contained and controlled.
Mr. Ban convened today's meeting to speed up the global response to contain and stop the spread of the virus, treat those who are infected, ensure essential services, preserve stability and prevent outbreaks in other countries.
The meeting follows the Secretary-General's establishment last week of the UN Mission for Ebola Emergency Response, or UNMEER, to support prevention efforts throughout the region.
In today's speech, Mr. Ban said the Ebola crisis has highlighted the need to strengthen early identification systems and early action.
“We should consider whether the world needs a standby corps of medical professionals, backed by the expertise of WHO and the logistical capacity of the United Nations,” he said. “Just as our troops in blue helmets help keep people safe, a corps in white coats could help keep people healthy.”
The World Health Organization is now saying we may have as many as 10,000 doses of a vaccine by January. The WHO has lost all credibility in this crisis, but the possibility of a vaccine deserves some thought.
So... Enough vaccine may be ready by January(?) to inoculate 10,000 people.
FIRST, this needs to be put in context:
A. We could be looking at more than a million victims by January, with the number of victims more than doubling every month. (The steps necessary to prevent this have not been taken, and it may already be too late.)
B. It is probable that a situation like this would cause a complete breakdown of all infrastructure and generate intense pressure for everyone in the affected area to flee.
C. If this happens, people will begin to flee in large numbers long before a million people were infected. Those financially able will attempt to flee by plane, boat, and car. The majority will attempt to flee on foot.
SECOND, we don’t even know if the vaccine will work, or be safe enough to use. To put this in context:
A. Most experimental vaccines do NOT work.
B. There won’t have been enough time to find out if it is safe.
THIRD, by January it will be too late to save the worst hit countries. To put this in context:
A. It takes time after getting a vaccination for the body to create meaningful immunity. It can easily take a couple of weeks, and sometimes more than one shot is needed.
How long until a meaningful number of doses can be manufactured? (Most likely, quite a while.)
B. How will a meaningful vaccination program be implemented, and how long will it take to do so? (It will take a long time, even if a way can be found to do so.)
C. In other words, a vaccine, even IF it works, will be too little, too late, to help in the areas that are already hit.
D. So... If we find a workable vaccine, the best we can hope for is that it will be useful in protecting the rest of the world. Let’s hope and pray it works.
FINAL COMMENT:
In my opinion, it is nearly certain that Ebola will infect enough people in the worst hit countries to cause a breakdown in their basic infrastructure.
People will be forced to attempt to flee. Some of them will be infected. Ebola will spread far and wide unless the rest of the world takes horrific steps to isolate the infected areas.
None of us want to even contemplate such a horrible situation. The media and our leaders are afraid to even broach the subject in public. The incompetence of our leaders has led to this.
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