After more than two decades of research, the world finally has an approved Ebola vaccine.

The European Commission granted marketing authorization to Merck’s vaccine, known as Ervebo, on Monday, less than a month after the European Medicines Agency recommended it be licensed. It is currently being used in the Democratic Republic of the Congo under a “compassionate use” or research protocol similar to a clinical trial.

“The European Commission’s marketing authorization of Ervebo is the result of an unprecedented collaboration for which the entire world should be proud,” Ken Frazier, Merck’s chairman and chief executive officer, said in a statement.

WHO declares Ebola outbreak over | Science | AAAS

The World Health Organization (WHO) today declared Liberia free of Ebola, marking the end of the outbreak in West Africa. “Today is a good day,” Rick Brennan, director of emergency risk management and humanitarian action at WHO, said at a press conference in Geneva, Switzerland. But he also urged continued vigilance, warning that there was a significant risk of flare-ups. “While this is an important milestone and an important step forward, we have to say that the job is still not done. That’s because there is still ongoing risk of re-emergence of the disease because of persistence of the virus in a proportion of survivors,” Brennan said.

The announcement came 42 days after the last confirmed Ebola patient in Liberia twice tested negative for the virus. It is the first time that all known chains of transmission in the three Ebola-ravaged countries have been stopped. Sierra Leone was declared free of Ebola on 7 November 2015, and Guinea followed at the end of December 2015. All three countries are now in a 90-day period of heightened surveillance. (...)

looks like this may be a good thing

Trial in Africa shows Merck Ebola vaccine 100% effective

In America, public discussion of Ebola died with the midterm elections. In West Africa, the viral outbreak scarcely skipped a beat. In just the past two months, the death toll to Ebola has increased by more than 3,000.

The toddler in Guinea who is thought to have been the first case in the current outbreak of Ebola in West Africa may have caught the virus from bats in a hollow tree near his village, scientists said Tuesday.

Sierra Leone's leading doctor dies of Ebola

 

 

 haresfur wrote: 
:slowclap:

 kurtster wrote: 
Good to finally get some sort of confirmation.  Someone needs to use spell-check over there.

 haresfur wrote: 
Ok, that makes a lot of sense to me.

FWIW, the State Department has acknowledged the document is real and it was signed by a Nancy Powell, head of the State Department's Ebola Coordination Unit.  State Department Spokeswoman Jen Psaki emphatically denied that there are any plans to do what was mentioned in the memo.

 kurtster wrote: 
I'm completely in favour of this in many cases.  If someone is an immigrant to the US and working for a US organisation they should be treated the same as a US citizen. If someone from a foreign country is not an immigrant already and is working for a US organisation it is more of a gray area but, as I have said before, they are effin' heroes and I think they should be allowed treatment in the US (or Australia for that matter). But note the memo you referenced says, 'otherwise eligible for entry' and notes that if they don't already have a visa but have ebola they might not be eligible.  Time to start thinking of this as a group of allies fighting the same war and working together in a coordinated fashion.

Lysol attempts viral marketing, buys top “Ebola” search on Google
Google campaign quietly vanishes after Vice report, but other ads remain.

While no more than four confirmed cases of Ebola have been diagnosed within the United States since September, that hasn't stopped the marketing team at Lysol from getting ahead of the disease. The company's October Ebola-related ad campaign peaked on Tuesday with the revelation that the company bought ad space on Google for any search of the term "Ebola."

Tuesday's Vice Motherboard report confirmed the targeted advertising via a screencap, propped above Google's default result from the CDC. The link, labeled "ad," asked Googlers to "learn the facts about Ebola from Lysol." Clicking on the link took users to the company's October 14 post about the disease. That post opens with a direct link back to the CDC and then recommends that Lysol be used "for surface disinfection in hospital settings to help prevent the spread of the Ebola virus." (The post also clarifies that Lysol's products have "not {been} specifically tested to kill the Ebola virus.")

However, if Lysol visitors don't click through to the CDC's official page on the virus, they won't see some of the most obvious safety recommendations and clarifications, including the rare, specific ways an average, non-hospital worker might contract Ebola—namely, through contact with contaminated fecal and mucus matter. It also doesn't recommend common safeguards like washing hands (even though Lysol happens to sell plenty of hand soap).

Vice's report, which also linked to a National Journal story titled "How the Ebola outbreak is exploited for financial gain," may have turned the company's marketing tide. Attempts to reproduce the Google ad on Wednesday were fruitless; we tried the same search on Bing and Yahoo but came up short on those as well. Even so, as of press time, Lysol's home page still loads with an image of an Ebola virus under a microscope as the default header. (...)

 Steely_D wrote: 
Yes you did.  You were the one who injected Republicans into this.

Defending Republicans is a capital offense.  Off with his head ...

Here's the knife, or try this hatchet ... you get the honors ... 

 kurtster wrote: 
I wouldn't.

 Coaxial wrote: 
As I mentioned before, the bill for cleaning the apartment was $65k as stated by a spokesman for the company that cleaned the apartment.  When prodded as to the final costs he stated that the disposal of all the materials involved would likely cost the same.  The DOT immediately came out against transporting the waste material until all the proper permits and compliance to the regulations for its movement were completed.  You just can't throw this stuff in the back of your pickup truck and haul it to a dump and bury it in a land fill.  It must be incinerated at extremely high temperatures and places capable of performing this service are sometimes very far away, not to mention few.

And as for somebody getting rich doing this, I don't think that is the case.  The company that cleaned the apartment and the others was the only one who stepped up to do it, IIRC.  There is a lot a jack spent on special equipment, vehicles, protective gear and wages of the people doing the work.  

What is the lowest hourly wage you would work for in dealing with this stuff ? 

 Steely_D wrote: 
It really isn't fair to debate someone who may well find his behind on the line someday putting out this or another error in someone's judgement...

 Steely_D wrote: 

If you think that Issa and other science naysayers represent the majority of America then you need to get out more or at least widen your scope of media outlets.Not to mention, I assure you that the bottom half of the bell curve is not the exclusive domain of Republicans and other conservatives.

130k to disinfect?...That is a lot of Clorox...Reminds me of the 300 dollar ashtrays that went unnoticed for years on government planes. Somebody is getting rich on those jobs.

 kurtster wrote: 
We have to be clear what we're talking about. Is it "travel" when it's doctors returning from serving there? I say no. Journalists? There's a tough one. Christian missionaries serving as support? Is it "travel" when it's via medevac?

"Infected Foreign Nationals" still reads like we're talking about Liberian citizens with the means to get on a plane and come here for treatment. Sadly I think they'll probably need to stay put. If we're talking about aid workers who rotate in for several weeks and then back out or who contract the illness while working there; I think we owe it to them to get them back to their home base. As indicated in your link to the document, that might be a doctor whose citizenship might be non-US but whose employer, family and home are all in the US, well they should not be automatically denied entry. Gray areas, man, gray areas.

 Proclivities wrote: 
Thanks.  I am trying to be most careful on what I say in this thread.

The whole context was about the cost more than the issue of importing non US citizens.  Very little is being said about the money part of this.  It needs to be discussed as part of this as well.  The cost of disinfecting the apartment of the Liberian family in Dallas came in at an estimated $130,000 as I mentioned much earlier in this thread.  The burden of this expense is so far being borne by the County government in Dallas.  A large metropolitan area can bear the brunt much easier than a small sparsely populated area.  I brought it up this time in reference to Australia's banning of travel from W African nations with Ebola outbreaks.  The financial impact of an outbreak on a small nation such as Australia could be huge.  Considering this aspect, while cold hearted, is legitimate, imho.

  kurtster wrote:

Ebola rages on but we are approaching a turning point in this epidemic
New urgency on Ebola from the rich world, major investment and vaccine development suggest we may have reached the end of the beginning

(...) The first advance has been a step change in urgency from the rich world, which is finally starting to commit resources and people on the scale required. The first priority in containing Ebola is breaking the chain of infection, by ensuring that people who have or might have it are isolated, while being treated with respect and dignity; and that if they die their bodies are disposed of safely and with cultural sensitivity.

Trust has to be re-established between communities and authorities. The people of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone are making heroic efforts, but need help: clinical facilities to hold and treat confirmed and suspected cases, and trained people to run them. Deployments by the UK, the US, China, Cuba and France are now starting to add capacity, hitherto left to charities such as Médecins Sans Frontières.

Major recent investments, including an EU contribution that has almost doubled to €1bn and large UK and US donations, mean that money should no longer be a barrier. The World Health Organisation, so slow to recognise and respond to Ebola’s threat, is now showing leadership and coordinating these efforts.

There is also good progress in the search for treatments. A therapy that improves survival would not directly reduce transmission, though it would have immense humanitarian value. It could nonetheless play a vital indirect role. A key to controlling Ebola is persuading more people who have had contact with a patient, or who have symptoms, to seek medical care. At the moment, they have few incentives to do so. A better therapy, even trials of one, would make a real difference. Such trials are now close to beginning.

A team supported by the Wellcome Trust has made a successful visit to the affected countries, visiting communities and clinics to discuss trials, and is now almost ready to start work. Another group in Antwerp has been funded to assess a serum made from the blood of Ebola survivors. A sticking point was overcome last week by a WHO ethics meeting, which agreed that trials need not follow the standard placebo-controlled model: this can be unethical and impractical in an epidemic context.

Finally, and potentially most significantly, vaccine development has changed up a gear. While public health remains pivotal to containing Ebola, the outbreak is so advanced that this might not be enough. A safe and effective vaccine could transform the situation. Just a few weeks ago, there was widespread scepticism that one could be produced in time. There is now agreement from industry, governments, philanthropy and regulators that this can and must be done.

Mass production of three vaccine candidates will now proceed in parallel with trials, so that if results are promising, hundreds of thousands of doses could be deployed in the first half of 2015. The costs must be shared even if trials fail, and liability and trial design issues are being resolved. If one or more of these vaccines is viable, west Africa must get it quickly enough to make it count.

This progress does not justify complacency. While the elements of a successful containment strategy are starting to crystallise, huge challenges lie ahead. We should also be advancing with still greater urgency and ambition. The accelerated schedule for vaccine deployment, for instance, rests on conservative projections that could be beaten given sufficient will, and provided we clear logistical and regulatory hurdles now. If science shows a vaccine to be safe and effective, issues such as customs, shipping or refrigeration cannot delay it. (...)