Category: Pandora Report

Pandora Report 3.8.15

by juliadhomstad, posted in Pandora Report

This whole “spring forward” thing is the worst, right? We won’t get that hour of sleep back until November! No matter, we must press on. This week we’ve stories about engineering TB-resistant Cows, McDonald’s chicken, Ebola vaccine strategy, and loads of other stories you may have missed.

Have a great week, enjoy the warm weather, and we’ll see you back here next weekend!

Tuberculosis-Resistant Cows Engineered in China

We often talk of tuberculosis as a problem for humans, but the bacterial disease also affects animals—from circus elephants, to badgers, and cows. This week, scientists in China announced production of a heard of genetically modified cattle capable of resisting bovine tuberculosis. This was done through the insertion of a TB resistant mouse gene, into the cow’s genetic makeup. Though the work is still in the early stages, a genetically modified cow could have massive benefits for farmers who could minimize the overuse of antibiotics within their herds.

Popular Science—“Many countries have tried unsuccessfully to get rid of the disease, often slaughtering thousands of cattle per year to try to stem the disease’s spread. The United Kingdom in particular is waging a war against the disease. In 2013, the government announced that it would wipe the disease out of the country in 25 years. But even a timeline of a quarter century a tricky proposition, as cattle aren’t the only host for the disease. Bovine TB can also thrive in wildlife like badgers, elk, and even deer, which can pass the disease to cattle and vice versa.”

Your McNuggets: Soon Without a Side of Antibiotics

First Chipotle, then Chick fil-A, now McDonalds. The fast food giant announced this week that within two years the company will stop buying chicken raised with certain antibiotics for its U.S. stores. This move doesn’t stop the overuse of antibiotics on farms, however, McDonald’s is the largest food-service buyer of chicken in America, so the decision could affect other restaurants and the production of other meats.

Wired—“The reason this announcement is so important is that, for decades, researchers have been linking the use of antibiotics in livestock-raising (and to a lesser extent in fish farming and fruit production) to the rise of antibiotic-resistant infections in humans. Multiple pieces of research show that low-dose antibiotic use on farms — use that doesn’t cure animal illness, but promotes growth and prevents infections — creates resistant bacteria that move off farm properties in water, dust and the meat that animals become. Those bacteria infect humans directly — via meat or because the bacteria contaminate a home or restaurant cooking surface — and they pass their resistance DNA to other bacteria as well.”

Guinea Ebola Vaccine Trial Uses Smallpox Strategy

Two different vaccines are being tested in the three West African countries affected by the recent Ebola outbreak. As the last Ebola patient in Liberia heads home, and the Vice President of Sierra Leone has put himself in voluntary quarantine after the death of one of his security personnel, Guinea looks to the successful eradication of smallpox as their model for their Ebola vaccination plan, which began on March 7. This, of course, was the use of “ring vaccination” in the 1970s.

NBC News—“Ring vaccination involves finding all the direct contacts of new Ebola cases and vaccinating them, creating a “ring” of immunity around patients.

“An effective vaccine to control current flare-ups could be the game-changer to finally end this epidemic and an insurance policy for any future ones,” said WHO assistant Director-General Marie-Paule Kieny.”

Stories You May Have Missed

Image Credit: Christopher Michel

Pandora Report 3.1.15

by juliadhomstad, posted in Pandora Report

My apologies for no update last week, I had to make an unexpected, emergency, work-related trip to Dulles Airport, my old stomping grounds. But everything is under control and we’re back at it, covering stories from the past two weeks. Fittingly, we start off with airport screening, and also cover the Black Death, chemical weapons in Libya, Ebola, and other stories you may have missed.

Have a great week and stay safe in the weather out there!

Airport Screening for Viruses Misses Half of Infected Travelers

A team led by UCLA researchers has found that airport screening—for viruses like H1N1 and Ebola—misses at least half of infected travelers. The team found that no more than 25% of passengers answered honestly about their exposure to influenza in 2009 and that some may have been able to hide symptoms by taking over-the-counter drugs like acetaminophen. Timing of the screening may impact detection ability, too.

Science 2.0—“‘We found that for diseases with a long incubation period, such as Marburg and Ebola, taking passenger’s temperature to test for fever is particularly ineffective at the start of the epidemic but does pick up more cases as the epidemic stabilizes,” said Katelyn Gostic, a lead author of the study and a UCLA doctoral student in the laboratory of Professor James Lloyd-Smith. “With diseases such as swine flu, which take a shorter time to incubate, fever screening is the most effective method throughout an epidemic.’”

Plague Pandemic May Have Been Driven by Climate, Not Rats

Rats may have been incorrectly receiving centuries of blame for European plague, or Black Death. According to Nils Stenseth, of the University of Oslo, the introduction, and re-introduction, of the disease to Europe may have been caused by Asian climate events. Additionally, black rats where rare in Northern Europe, so the likely rodent culprit may have actually been gerbils. Moreover, the plague is not naturally found in Europe, but it is endemic in Asia in the rodents that live there. However, when the climate becomes warmer and wetter, rodent numbers drop and the fleas seek out alternative hosts, like domestic animals and humans.

Smithsonian—“The scientists will need more data to prove that Asian climate was responsible for all the reintroductions of plague to Europe. For instance, analysis of plague DNA from European victims who died at different time periods could strengthen the link between climate and outbreaks. “If our theory of climate-driven successive reintroductions is correct, we would expect to find great genetic bacterial variation between plague victims across time,” Stenseth explains. If the bacteria had instead come from a single introduction, there would be less genetic variation in the pathogen’s DNA, even when taken from victims from different times and locations.”

ISIS Chemical Weapons Libya: Military Warns Islamic State Might Have Mustard Gas, Sarin

Islamic State fighters in Libya have allegedly seized large amounts of chemical weapons including mustard gas and Sarin that reportedly belonged to the regime of Moammar Gadhafi. Last year, though, Libyan officials said they destroyed the last known stockpile from Gadhafi’s regime.

International Business Times—“The weapons are likely 10 years old and in a degraded state, but remain dangerous, former British Army officer Hamish de Bretton-Gordon told The Daily Mail Sunday. “While we don’t know how much IS has acquired, and though the Libyan Sarin dates back to the Gadhafi era, it would still have a toxicity and pose a danger,” he said. “Libya is virtually Europe and so the fear factor from a European perspective is huge. I should think the security forces will be watching this situation very closely.’”

This Week in Ebola

It’s been awhile since an Ebola update, but there was some good news worthy of coverage as schools re-opened in Liberia on February 16, as a sign that life is starting to return to normal. Countries are still keeping an eye out for the virus, including, inexplicably, North Korea, who has banned foreign runners from their April marathon (yes, that is actually a thing!) A piece appeared in the Journal of the American Society of Microbiology that indicated it is “very likely that at least some degree of Ebola virus transmission currently occurs via infectious aerosols generated from the gastrointestinal tract, the respiratory tract, or medical procedures.” However, there is some good news including a new product, similar to hand sanitizer, that can kill bacteria and viruses within 15 second of application and can work for up to six hours and a rapid diagnostic test for both Ebola and Dengue. Lastly, it wouldn’t be an Ebola update without a questionable article—this one is about a Baltimore wedding gown designer who went to New York Fashion with an Ebola suit. Sigh.

Stories You May Have Missed

 

Image Credit: Micah Sittig

Pandora Report 2.15.15

by juliadhomstad, posted in Pandora Report

It’s the last holiday weekend before the summer and its too cold to go outside! Don’t worry, we’ve got some good reading while you’re staying warm inside: antibiotic resistance, U.S. Troops leaving West Africa, a new vaccine for polio and LOTS of stories you may have missed.

Enjoy your Monday holiday and have a safe and healthy week!

Rivers Can Be a Source of Antibiotic Resistance

As the U.S. Government increases its funding to fight growing antibiotic resistance, a study coming out of the University of Warwick’s School for Life Sciences and the University of Exeter Medical School points to rivers and streams as a major source of antibiotic resistance in the environment. The study of the Thames River found that greater numbers of resistant bacteria existed close to some wastewater treatment plants and that these plants are likely “to be responsible for at least half of the increase observed.”

R&D Magazine—“The team also found that several other factors affected the prevalence of antibiotic resistance, such as changes in rainfall and land cover. For example, heavy rainfall at a point surrounded by grassland raised resistance levels; whereas a heavy rainfall at a point surrounded by woodland reduced the levels seen.”

U.S. Bringing Home Almost All Troops Sent to Africa in Ebola Crisis

The U.S. military is bringing home nearly all troops that were sent to West Africa 10 months ago in order to fight the Ebola outbreak. This withdrawal comes at a time where 700 homes in Sierra Leone were put under quarantine after a new case was diagnosed in Freetown. Quarantine seems like a smart move, since researchers have now confirmed that the virus can remain contagious on a dead body for up to a week. Despite troops leaving, testing has begun in Liberia for two potential vaccine candidates.

CNN—“[Pentagon press secretary Rear Adm. John] Kirby said about 100 military service members will remain in West Africa to support the 10,000 civilian responders who remain. These service members will “build on a strong military partnership with the Armed Forces of Liberia to enhance their Ebola response efforts and provide disaster response training to the government of Liberia,” he said.”

Synthetic Vaccine Sought to Finally Eradicate Polio

While, after six months of no new cases, Africa is close to wiping out wild polio, a team of international scientists are working to create a wholly artificial vaccine to combat the disease. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the World Health Organization are providing a $647,000 grant to create an entirely synthetic approach that will address shortcomings in the existing vaccine. This new vaccine would be entirely virus free.

BBC—“…the existing oral vaccine uses a weakened version of the virus as its stimulus to provoke a response and protection in the patient. And in just a few particular individuals, this can set up an infection in the gut that then enables a reactivated virus to pass out of the body and spread to other, unvaccinated people.

But if the virus particle has no genetic machinery this transmission route is closed, and the World Health Organization and the Gates Foundation is to fund the scientists to engineer just such particle for use as a replacement vaccine.”

Stories You May Have Missed

  

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Pandora Report 2.7.15

by juliadhomstad, posted in Pandora Report

Whatta week, right?! Let’s jump right in to the stories. We’ve got the Subway, flu forecasting, American chemical weapons, and stories you may have missed.

Have a great weekend and a safe and healthy week!

A Close Look at the Germs Crawling Around the Subway

Every single day I ride the metro to work, and every single day, the first thing I do when I get to the office is wash my hands. And, really, that’s what everyone should be doing. A research team from the Weill Cornell Medical College spent the summer of 2013 swabbing turnstiles, subway poles, kiosks, benches, and other “human penetrated surfaces” in all 466 NYC subway stations.

Gothamist—“And they found quite a few signs of life—15,152 types of DNA, in fact—nearly half of which they identified as bacteria. Shocking!

[They] did manage to find some scary stuff, with E. coli, Staphylococcus aureus (skin infections, respiratory disease and food poisoning), Bacillus anthracis (anthrax), and even Yersinia pestis, which is associated with the bubonic plague, popping up in some swabs. Nearly all the stations harbored an antibiotic resistant bacteria called Stenotrophomonas maltophilia, one that often causes respiratory infections in hospitals.”

Forecasts May Soon Predict Flu Patterns

What if we could predict the flu like we predict the weather? That is what teams of researchers are looking at; devising and testing methods to predict the start, peak, and end of flu season. How will they do this? By combining data from the present with knowledge of past patterns to project what might happen in the future.

The Boston Globe—“If the CDC had a flu-season preview in hand, the agency could better time messages on use of vaccines and flu-fighting drugs.

Hospitals could plan staffing for patient surges or make sure key personnel are not on vacation when it appears the epidemic will probably peak. Parents could even take flu forecasts into account in scheduling birthday parties and play dates.”

U.S. to Destroy Largest Remaining Chemical Weapons Cache

Syria isn’t the only country working on destruction of its chemical weapons cache. The Pueblo Chemical Depot, in Southern Colorado, will begin neutralization of 2,600 tons of aging mustard agent in March. This action moves towards American compliance with a 1997 treaty that banned all chemical weapons.

USA Today—“‘The start of Pueblo is an enormous step forward to a world free of chemical weapons,” said Paul Walker, who has tracked chemical warfare for more than 20 years, first as a U.S. House of Representatives staffer and currently with Green Cross International, which advocates on issues of security, poverty and the environment.”

Stories You May Have Missed

 

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Pandora Report 2.1.15

by juliadhomstad, posted in Pandora Report

No themed coverage this week, sadly. However, we’ve got stories covering the Federal fight against antibiotic resistance, ISIS airstrikes, and super mosquitoes in Florida. All this in addition to stories you may have missed.

Have a fun Super Bowl Sunday (go team!) and a safe and healthy week!

Obama Asking Congress to Nearly Double Funding to Fight Antibiotic Resistance to $1.2 Billion

One of The White House’s goals for 2015 was to combat growing antibiotic resistance through research into new antibiotics and efforts to prevent the over prescription of these vital drugs. President Obama is requesting that Congress add additional funding to this fight, bringing the total to $1.2 billion. The funding will be a start, but there are many other things that can happen in order to fight this extremely important problem.

U.S. News & World Report—“The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says more than 23,000 Americans die every year from infections that can withstand some of the best antibiotics. The World Health Organization said last year that bacteria resistant to antibiotics have spread to every part of the world and might lead to a future where minor infections could kill.”

Air Strike Kills IS ‘Chemical Weapons Expert’

News came Saturday morning that U.S. airstrikes in Iraq last week killed a mid-level Islamic State militant who specialized in chemical weapons. Killed on January 24, Abu Malik had worked at Saddam Hussein’s Muthana chemical weapons production facility before joining Al-Qaeda in Iraq in 2005.

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty—“Officials say his death could “temporarily degrade” the group’s ability to produce and use chemical weapons. Coalition air strikes have pounded the Mosul area over the past week [and] The U.S.-led coalition has carried out more than 2,000 air raids against IS militants in Syria and Iraq since August 8.”

Millions of Genetically Modified Mosquitoes Could Fight Disease in Florida

On January 11, we had a small note about the possibility of genetically modified mosquitos controlling diseases like chikungunya and dengue, but this week coverage on this issue absolutely exploded! British biotech firm Oxitec plans to release millions of genetically modified mosquitos in Florida to control the existing population and help control the spread of these diseases. The A. Aegypti species of mosquito is extremely prevalent in Florida and recently has become resistant to most chemical pesticides. Residents, of course, are up in arms over the potential release of this “mutant mosquito”.

The Weather Channel—“Technology similar to this is already in use in Florida and other states, Entomology Today points out. Sterile Insect Technique (SIT) employs a similar technique, sterilizing insects so that when they mate, no offspring are produced. “Florida spends roughly $6 million a year using SIT to prevent Mediterranean fruit fly infestations, while California spends about $17 million a year,” Entomology Today wrote.”

Stories You May Have Missed

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Pandora Report 1.25.15

by juliadhomstad, posted in Pandora Report

This week, we’re going to focus on stories revolving around disease eradication—or the lack thereof. We look at Measles in California, Polio in Pakistan, and TB in Britain. We’ve also got an Ebola update and (lots) of stories you may have missed.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend and have a safe and healthy week!

Melinda Gates Shames Anti-Vaxxers “Who Have Forgotten What Measles Death Looks Like”

At least 85 measles cases in seven states have been linked to an outbreak that started at Disneyland in Southern California. Reportedly, at least 28 affected people never received the measles vaccine. Melinda Gates, of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, has long worked to help people in developing countries receive basic healthcare treatment, including vaccines, and she fired back at parents in the U.S. who have declined to take advantage of vaccines.

Mother Jones—“‘We take vaccines so for granted in the United States,” Gates explained during an appearance on HuffPost Live Thursday. “Women in the developing world know the power of [vaccines]. They will walk 10 kilometers in the heat with their child and line up to get a vaccine because they have seen death.” In detailing the struggle parents in the developing world endure to have their children vaccinated, Gates said Americans have simply “forgotten what measles death looks like.’”

A New Polio Case in Pakistan and an Unsolved Epidemic

The Gates Foundation has also worked on eradicating Polio. Despite their efforts, and the tireless efforts of others since 1988, polio remains endemic in three countries—Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Nigeria—with cases in seven others. In some good news, it has been nearly six months since a diagnosed case of polio in Nigeria. But Pakistan, who registered its first case of 2015, remains a concern due to strong, and sometimes violent, opposition to polio vaccination.

Wired—“Among the endemic countries, Pakistan is clearly now the major challenge — more of one than Nigeria was, even though Nigeria in its worst outbreaks had more cases. I say that because the barriers to vaccination in Nigeria depended on internal sectarian politics. The children who were not being vaccinated were always technically reachable by vaccinators, once local communities decided to let them in; and there was never a threat to the lives of the vaccination teams. In Pakistan, though, the conflict is bigger than one party versus another, and the areas where children are not being vaccinated are literal no-go zones.”

Europe’s Tuberculosis Hub in Britain Seeks to Wipe Out the Disease

Often thought of as a disease of the past, tuberculosis has stubbornly persisted in Britain. In fact, London is known as the continent’s “TB capital.” On Monday, health authorities launched a $17.4 million plan in order to tackle Britain’s persistent TB problem, in an effort to wipe out the extremely contagious lung disease all together. The plan involves working with the National Health Service (NHS) to target the most vulnerable, and improve access to screening, testing, treatment, and outreach services.

Fox News—“TB rates in the United Kingdom are nearly five times those in the United States. If current trends continue, England alone will have more TB cases than the whole of the U.S. in two years. “TB should be consigned to the past, and yet it is occurring in England at higher rates than most of Western Europe,” said Paul Cosford, a director at the government’s health agency, Public Health England (PHE). “This situation must be reversed.’”

This Week in Ebola

On Friday, the World Health Organization announced that the number of new cases of Ebola in West Africa have fallen to their lowest number in months. In fact, during the week of January 18, there were only 8 new cases in Liberia—compared to the 300 new cases per week in August and September—which has left the U.S. built treatment centers largely empty. There were many reports this week that Ebola clinical trials will soon begin in Liberia.  In Guinea, the number of cases of Ebola has also fallen off—only 42 cases the first week of January, the lowest total since mid-August—and the government has begun a new campaign: zero Ebola cases in 60 days.

So, maybe this will be the last Ebola update? Probably not. The stories keep coming, but they are now more focused on the long term effects or lessons from the outbreak. For example, Ebola has been more deadly for the great apes than it has for humans. Among gorillas the mortality rate is about 95% and for chimpanzees it is 77%–for humans it has been about 50%. There has also been analysis of the response, including an upcoming lecture by the President of the World Bank Group titled “Lessons from Ebola: A post-2015 Strategy for Pandemic Response” which will stream live online.

Stories You May Have Missed

 

Image Credit: Regional Center of Orange County

Pandora Report 1.18.15

by juliadhomstad, posted in Pandora Report

For those who’ve been reading for awhile, you’ve probably surmised that one of my personal health interests is seasonal and pandemic flu. There were plenty of stories about that this week, so that’s what we’ll focus on. We’ll also look at Ebola and other stories you may have missed. My apologies for posting delays this week, I’m dealing with some rotator cuff and carpal tunnel issues in my right arm, and let me tell you, it is HARD to type with your dominant arm in a sling!

Enjoy your holiday Monday (if you have one) and have a safe and healthy week!

Texas Health Experts Say Universal Flu Vaccine Could be a Reality

The CDC has said that this year’s seasonal flu vaccine was only 23% effective due to unanticipated antigenic drift—meaning the predicted strains in the vaccine didn’t match the dominant strains of the virus that are currently circulating. In order to combat this in the future, scientists at Mount Sinai health system in New York are in the process of testing a universal flu vaccine which will go into clinical trials this year.

KLTV.com—“‘There is work going on to see if, perhaps a different kind of vaccine could be developed maybe against a different part of the flu virus, one that is not so subject to this antigenic drift or to change as readily from one year to the next,” [Dr. Levin of UT Health Northeast] says.”

Scientists Find Brain Protein Aids Influenza Recovery

Scientists at Washington State University in Spokane have found a brain protein that boosts the healing power of sleep and speeds recovery from the flu in mice. Professor James M. Kruger said this discovery could lead to alternative treatments for flu and other infectious diseases by stimulating production of the brain protein called AcPb. This discovery comes at a time where avian influenza is prevalent in Taiwan, Japan, Nigeria, China, Egypt, Canada, the U.S. and Mexico.

Washington State University—“Krueger showed this recovery involves AcPb and an immune system signaling chemical called interleukin-1. AcPb links up with interleukin-1 to help regulate sleep in healthy animals. It also prompts infected animals to spend more time sleeping during an illness.

In the study, mice who lacked the gene for AcPb slept less after being infected with influenza virus. They also became chilled, grew sluggish, lost their normal circadian rhythms and ultimately died in higher numbers than the mice who slept longer.”

This Week in Ebola

As GMU students return to classes, so do students in Ebola affected Guinea. Schools in Guinea will re-open Monday, and schools in Liberia are set to re-open “next month.” No date has been set for schools in Sierra Leone. Despite this, the President of Sierra Leone has declared that there will be zero new confirmed Ebola cases by the end of March the country will be Ebola-free, by WHO standards, by May. These announcements come at a time when Dr. Thomas Frieden, Director of the CDC, has said he was “very confident we can get to zero cases in this epidemic if we continue the way we’re going and nothing unexpected happens” and the outbreak appears to be slowing down. Last week brought record low numbers—for Guinea, the lowest total since mid-August; for Liberia, the lowest total since the first week of June; for Sierra Leone the second week of declines and the lowest level since the end of August. However, there are still “at least 50 micro-outbreaks” underway throughout West Africa.

Pauline Cafferkey, the Scottish nurse infected with Ebola, is “showing signs of improvement” and an American soldier who was found dead in Texas after his deployment in West Africa reportedly showed no signs of Ebola leaving officials to remark that there was “no evidence of a public health threat.”

A seemingly large amount of good news this week left space for new ruminations on Ebola and outbreaks in general. Wired  had an interesting piece on Nanobiophysics and how it could stop future global pandemics while The Chicago Tribune looked at bats and their likely role in Ebola outbreaks and CNBC looked at the price of protection from global pandemics—would you believe $343.7 billion?

Stories You May Have Missed

 

Image Credit: NBC News

Pandora Report 1.11.15

by juliadhomstad, posted in Pandora Report

Dirt is all around, I mean, truly, all around. We wash it off our produce, get it smashed into the soles of our shoes, and vacuum it out of our homes. But is dirt really that bad? The stories this week look at dirt as a source of antibiotics and a disposal method for chemical weapons. We also look at Ebola and other stories you may have missed.

Have a fabulous week!

DARPA Wants to Turn Chemical Weapons Into Dirt

DARPA has a new idea for eliminating chemical weapons—breaking them into safe compounds like oxides and earth metal salts, in other words, soil. Considering the drawbacks for current disposal methods, the agency’s Agnostic Compact Demilitarization of Chemical Weapons program has put out a call for proposals for a weapons-to-dirt plan.

Popular Mechanics—“The defense research agency is looking for a transportable system that can fit in a 40-foot-long shipping container and process at least 55 gallons of chemical weapons and precursor material every hour for a 48-hour period. Processing will be conducted near the chemical weapons storage site, use local materials (such as dirt of plant matter), and produce no hazardous waste.”

New Class of Antibiotic Found in Dirt Could Prove Resistant to Resistance

A study published this week in Nature looks at a new antibiotic, called Teixobactin, which could keep working for “longer than any other” before bacteria could develop resistance. It is still at least four years away from availability and can only treat gram-positive bacteria like staph, strep, and TB. And where was this new antimicrobial found? Dirt from a grassy field in Maine.

The Washington Post—“Most microbiologists only ever work with around 1 percent of microbes—the ones that will grow politely in the lab. But the rest refuse to grow on traditional growth media, like petri dishes. But there are potential antibiotics all over the world being created by plants, fungi, and microorganisms. Lewis and his colleagues sandwiched soil between two semi-permeable membranes, effectively tricking soil microbes into growing in a “natural” environment that was actually a lab culture.

Among the 10,000 organisms and 25 antibiotics they grew in this new type of culturing method is Teixobactin. It successfully obliterated MRSA and drug-resistant TB in cell cultures and in mice, and did so without any signs that the bacteria might become resistant to it.”

This Week in Ebola

Ebola has reached beyond health. Since the outbreak began, in Sierra Leone a combination of curfew, a ban on public gatherings, plummeting GDP, and inflation have fueled economic freefall. And remember when Texas nurse Amber Joy Vinson got on a plane to Ohio to shop for bridesmaid gowns for her own wedding? Well the store, announced it will be going out of business due to flagging sales and stigma of being the “Ebola” bridal store.  The pharmaceutical industry is chugging along in creation of and testing of possible vaccines for the Ebola virus; all of this comes at a time where the number of deaths is over 8,200 and the number of cases stands at over 20,000. The Economist has an amazing series of charts, maps, and graphs that look at the scope of the outbreak.

Meanwhile, the British nurse diagnosed with Ebola is in critical, but stable, condition, and an American health care worker was transported to the Nebraska Medical Center’s specialized biocontainment unit for observation. Travelers from Mali will no longer face enhanced screening when they arrive in the U.S., as the last case in Mali was December 5 and there are no active cases in the country.

Lastly, there were two interesting first-person stories from those who have returned from West Africa. First, an NPR correspondent in Washington DC writes about the terrifying moment when he woke up with a fever within 21 days of his return from Liberia. Then, an Australian MSF nurse wrote about the “sheer brutality” of the Ebola virus he experienced while in Liberia.

Stories You May Have Missed

 

Image Credit: United Nations University

Pandora Report 1.4.15

by juliadhomstad, posted in Pandora Report

Happy 2015! I hope all of you enjoyed a safe, happy, and healthy holiday season. As we get back into things, this week we will look at Seasonal Flu, 1980s Chemical Weapons, and, of course, Ebola. Please also enjoy a wrap up of other stories from the last two weeks in the Stories You May Have Missed section.

Have a fabulous week!

This Season’s Flu Activity Has Reached the Epidemic Threshold, the CDC Says

On the heels of the announcement that this year’s flu vaccine is not as effective as hoped, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has announced that they are seeing elevated activity in all their influenza surveillance systems and that this year’s seasonal flu has reached epidemic levels. The Virginia Department of Health has called the flu “widespread” in our state. The CDC urges it is still too early to determine if this season will be worse than others but preliminary data seems to reflect that it may be.

The Washington Post—“The influenza season reaches an epidemic level when the proportion of deaths attributed to pneumonia and influenza reaches a certain threshold: 6.8 percent. According to the CDC’s latest available information on the flu season, the percentage is currently at the threshold.”

Secret Papers: UK Studied Chemical Weapons Buildup in the 1980s

Newly released, formerly secret, documents show that in the early 1980s former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s government considered rebuilding Britain’s chemical weapons arsenal in the face of a perceived looming threat of the Soviet Union. Thatcher’s defense chiefs were worried that the country would have only nuclear weapons in order to respond to a possible Soviet chemical attack.

ABC News—“In the papers, Thatcher states that it might be considered “negligent” of the government not to develop a credible response to a Soviet chemical attack short of using nuclear weaponry. She also suggests urging the Americans to modernize their chemical arsenal.

The lack of a chemical capacity was called a “major gap” in NATO’s military capacity by Defense Secretary Michael Heseltine in a secret 1984 document. He said the threat of a nuclear response lacked credibility.”

This Week in Ebola

While we were celebrating and enjoying the holidays, Ebola, of course, didn’t take a break. In the spirit of the season the UK’s Queen praised the selflessness of those fighting the ongoing epidemic in West Africa. And while Christmas gatherings were cancelled in Sierra Leone and Guinea, those in Liberia made sure their Christmas spirit was on full display. As 2014 came to an end, there were many looks back at the year in Ebola and the possible source of the start of the outbreak. The first case of Ebola was diagnosed in Britain by a nurse who contracted the disease in West Africa and there were reports of a possible lab error exposure to the virus at the CDC.

There are some reasons for optimism as 2015 begins, including survival rates increasing for cases in Sierra Leone and promising news on the vaccine front. Vaccines tested in Uganda against Ebola and the related filovirus Marburg have proven to be safe and effective in generating an immune response to the deadly viruses  and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has awarded contracts worth $43 million to develop two possible Ebola vaccines more quickly. According to the UN’s Anthony Banbury, 2015 should see the number of Ebola cases brought to zero by the end of the year and Al Jazeera America argues that this year should be focused on immunization and investment in West African health systems.

The last two Ebola updates are entirely unrelated and include the unverified possibility that ISIS militants have contracted Ebola and interesting coverage by NPR of how Ebola has affected love and sex.

Stories You May Have Missed

 

Image Credit: The Washington Post

Pandora Report 12.21.14

by juliadhomstad, posted in Pandora Report

The winter holidays are here and with them comes the final 2014 news roundup. This week we look at superspreaders, dengue fever, and, of course, Ebola.

There will be no roundup next week as I will be spending time with family and friends. I hope all of you have the opportunity to do the same and are surrounded by those you love during this time of year. It has been a privilege and a pleasure serving as the Managing Editor of the Pandora Report since March. I hope you have enjoyed reading it as much as I’ve enjoyed writing it.

I hope to see you right back here again in 2015!

The 20% Who Spread Most Disease

How did Typhoid Mary spread the disease to dozens of people but never get sick herself?

Researchers at Stanford University are looking into the science behind “superspreaders”—the idea that some people spread more disease than others. Recent experiments have suggested that the body’s immune response might play a role in helping to spread pathogens to others, however, it isn’t clear if the immune system of the superspreader or their behavior plays a bigger role in the passage of disease.

The Wall Street Journal—“‘It’s telling us that these superspreaders…are tolerant of high levels of the pathogen and any little disturbance and added inflammation that this antibiotic treatment did to them,” said Dr. Monack. “I wouldn’t say they have stronger immune systems. I would say it’s in a state that protected them from this added disturbance in the gut.’”

Dengue Fever Vaccine on the Cards After Novel Antibody Discovery

Over the past 50 years cases of dengue fever have soared—nearly 100 million per year. Normally the infection causes a fever which lasts about a week, but some develop hemorrhagic fever which kills about 22,000 a year. Gavin Screaton at the Imperial College in London warns “it’s likely that without a vaccine this disease is not going to be controlled.” That’s why a discovery of a new antibody brings hope that vaccine development may be closer than we thought.

The Guardian—“The researchers spotted the new group of antibodies while they were studying blood drawn from patients who picked up dengue infections in south-east Asia.

They found that about a third of the immune reaction launched by each patient came from a new class of antibodies. Instead of latching on to a single protein on the virus surface – as usually happens – the new group of antibodies latches on to a molecular bridge that joins two virus proteins together.”

This Week in Ebola

It’s been a hard year in West Africa with the worst Ebola outbreak in history still ongoing. In Sierra Leone, the country with the most cases, treatment centers are overflowing with patients. The President has announced that Christmas has been cancelled as news came that the most senior doctor—Victor Willoughby—died. Dr. Willoughby was the 11th of Sierra Leone’s 120 doctors to die from the virus. For the lucky ones who survive, they must cope with after effects including blindness and joint pain. And don’t forget the stigma—a heart breaking article in the New York Times describes the plight of Ebola orphans who aren’t taken in for fear that they are ticking disease time bombs. Cuban doctors are some of the most active on the front lines, but news this week came that the U.S. embargo has delayed payment of those doctors. There are glimmers of hope though, as the U.N. Economic Commission for Africa urged debt cancellation for Ebola affected West African countries and experimental serum therapy treatment made from the blood of recovered patients arrived in Liberia.

Stateside, a child flying though O’Hare Airport in Chicago was quarantined when a high fever was discovered after screening. Johns Hopkins University was chosen as one of the winners in a global competition to create an improved protection suit for those fighting Ebola on the front lines. Lastly, an American doctor—Richard Sacra—who was infected with Ebola in Liberia and returned to the U.S. for treatment, has said that he will return to Liberia in January to continue fighting the outbreak.

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