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.
It sucks being right.
As an example, a story from yesterday projected 12 MILLION units of vaccine being available from an Iowa company by March 31, 2015. See:
http://news.sciencemag.org/health/2014/10/ebola-vaccine-underdog
Also see this month-old article about vaccine production of 50 million doses in four months after a 4-12 week ramp-up period:
http://www.xconomy.com/raleigh-durham/2014/09/30/zmapp-ebola-drug-production-set-for-texas-possibly-north-carolina/
I have read some concerns on-line about facile reliance upon vaccines saving the day, but those all assume reliance on a single vaccine. I repeat, I know of five under development or already in production using at least three quite different methods. I expect at least one of those will be effective in protecting people from contracting Ebola.
A single .32 pistol round probably won't stop a small bear or large cougar, but a dozen .33 shotgun pellets in a single 12-gauge shotgun round very likely will. "Quantity has a quality all its own."
...and likely 28,000 by this coming Christmas.
There will be at least 1 million dead black West Africans even if one of the four vaccines being tested now actually works.
If George W. Bush did this sort of performance with regard Ebola, the MSM would be accusing him of Genocidal neglect...and they would be right.
Pres. Obama’s failure with Ebola will be what he is truly remembered for in future histories.
I paused before I posted the approx 7,000 deaths but a quick mental check, said yup, 7k is the consistent 2:1 ratio we’ve been seeing for awhile.
Wonder how quickly that number becomes public..
WHO’s Chu and CDC’s Frieden must be soiling their trousers and asking for a re-count.
I’ve been periodically sending myself emails of projections. They’ve been getting steadily lower, based on the additional data reported by the WHO and other entities.
On 9/22 I sent myself an email projecting that there would be 15,723 cases and 7,402 deaths as of 10/22.
On 9/26 I sent myself an email projecting that there would be 13,645 cases and 6,384 deaths as of 10/21 (one day earlier).
On 10/3 I sent myself an email projecting that there would be 12,338 cases and 5,671 deaths as of 10/22.
On 10/8 I sent myself an email projecting that there would be 12,992 cases and 6,225 deaths as of 10/26.
On 10/23 I sent myself an email projecting that there would be 11,392 cases and 6,780 deaths as of 10/31.
So I’m in the ballpark.
Currently it’s projecting 25,345 cases and 15,548 deaths as of 11/30.
My current projections are for 1,152,017 cases and 707,203 deaths by May 31, 2015.
I'll try to post my next full round of projections shortly after October's final numbers are reported.
“Ask me for anything but time.”
Vaccines in March 2015 won't bring in the West African harvest now or distribute the imported relief food for which there is no transportation or infrastructure. Assuming they work, which most/all won't. Please see similar efforts with AIDS, for which there is still no vaccine decades later.
And even if you get both transportation and vaccine refrigeration, people unwilling to get in a ETU will be even more unwilling to have a foreign soldier stick them with a vaccine.
The tyranny of logistics — refrigeration for vaccines — and West African societal collapse means the outbreak won't stop until a vaccinated Nigerian Army chases down the last Ebola exposed West African.
Mali may be salvageable with vaccines.
Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia are done.
The elites from those three countries are starting their running now...and they will get out, infected, thanks to the suicidal “open borders” ideology in the Western Left for the next three months.
There are a lot of places that Ebola chain of transmission spread can reach in that time which will diffuse/distract whatever vaccines that do work. Not to mention focused Western public demand for the vaccines, thanks to things like credibility collapse for Western Public Health authorities.
Corruption and ideological stupidity screw ups got us to where we are now. The forces that got us here are still very much in play for there prospective vaccines and their distribution.
Jim, when you were engaged in the “Winter” scenarios, what was the time lapse between threat identification and finally taking the correct albeit late response? That is if you are not bound by an NDA.
How does that compare to current events?
I’m interested in the vaccines under development in Russia, Japan and China.
Got links? So far all I’ve seen is drug development to treat the disease with small molecule/pills.
ZMapp isn’t a vaccine.
The waterfall effect of determined runners will also increase exponentially. How many more Duncans are already on the way?
Doesn't anyone in the White house realize what one of those health care workers coming down with Ebola means in terms of Administration credibility if they pop an infection before election day?
Not to mention the possibility of “Acting President Biden” if Obama goes into quarentine?
The leaders in the Dark Winter scenario were undone by their fear of screwing up. In an epidemic, by the time proof beyond a reasonable doubt for an intervention is available, the next generation of cases are already infected and incubating.
Our present leaders are not driven by fear. They are driven by ideology in general, and by hatred of America specifically.
I don’t think the two situations are comparable.
Mass illegal movement of people to Europe is already happening for reasons unrelated to Ebola. The addition ot Ebola to that mass in the next three months is why Cameron is taking the PR hit removing the Royal Navy from the EU patrols now.
Over 100,000 have crossed from Africa to Europe in the last 12 monthsp>
At those rates, there will be a flow of people on the order of 25,000 in which your "Cascade of Ebola runners" are going to be among in the next 90 days.
See photos at the article link —
Miliband accuses Cameron of lacking ‘basic humanity’ for refusing to help ‘drowning people’ fleeing Africa on ramshackle boats
Sadly I suspect you are right.
You probably aren’t too far off. John Hopkins is using a 2.5x error factor of actual to reported cases.
From the September 30 article (my emphasis):
"In conceiving the response centers, the government emphasized both capacity and speed. Each center must be able to produce at least 50 million doses of pandemic flu vaccine within four months. The government also requires that the centers be able to deliver the first doses for distribution within 12 weeks. The reason for three centers is not for geographic diversity. While there is some overlap among the centers, each center has capabilities that set it apart from the others, Robinson explains.The Novartis Holly Springs site stands apart because of new technology that can produce vaccines in animal cells through a process called cell culture. Flu vaccines have traditionally been produced by growing the virus in chicken eggs, which can take up to six months. Instead, Novartis’s Holly Springs plant makes flu vaccine from animal cells, specifically, a cell line from a dog’s kidney. This cell culture process takes about 30 days.
Novartis broke ground in Holly Springs in 2009. Two years later, the plant was ready for production. In June, the Food and Drug Administration licensed the Novartis facility to produce seasonal flu vaccine made from cell culture. This facility is the first, and so far only, plant in the United States approved by the FDA to manufacture influenza vaccine cultured in animal cells. It will produce about 50 million doses of seasonal flu vaccine annually, but it has the capacity to expand in emergencies. The Novartis site was designed to have the capacity to produce 200 million doses of flu vaccine within six months of the declaration of a flu pandemic.
The ability to quickly manufacture large quantities of medicine would allow the response center to meet government orders for vaccines or drugs during an outbreak of infectious disease, such as flu, or even Ebola.
“That’s what the cell culture [technology] is predominantly about,” says Brent MacGregor, Novartis’s president of U.S. vaccines. “We’re able to scale up more quickly in the event of a pandemic than would otherwise be the case with egg production.”
The Holly Springs plant already has experience responding to a global pandemic threat. When H7N9 influenza emerged in China last year, Novartis scientists in North Carolina received information about the flu strain from health officials in China. Novartis then used its cell culture technology to develop a vaccine. That H7N9 work emerged from research funded by a separate federal grant awarded to Novartis, which supported a collaboration with the J. Craig Venter Institute in San Diego to use synthetic biology to make new influenza vaccines. The H7N9 vaccine produced by Novartis remains stockpiled, for use if needed, in Holly Springs.
In the event of an emerging infectious disease within the United States, the government would take similar steps to respond to the threat. One or more of the response centers could be tasked with making a drug or vaccine for the disease, Robinson says. Those drugs can come from any number of drug companies, including small biotechs such as Mapp Bio. While the Novartis plant in Holly Springs was built for vaccine production, Robinson says its cell culture manufacturing technology makes it capable of manufacturing biological drugs, like ZMapp.
“It’s a biological, a monoclonal antibody,” Robinson says. “So they could make it here.”
Novartis has already used this facility to produce millions of units of H7N9 vaccines. It can similarly produce millions of units of Ebola vaccines, apparently starting 30 days after the order, at the rate of several hundred thousand doses a day and rising to over a million units a day every day for months. With just one existing facility.
Distribution of Ebola vaccine in West Africa, other than Nigeria, is a problem. Distribution in developed countries is not a problem.
And vaccine distribution in West Africa starts no later than December now, perhaps as early as late November. IMO Nigeria can be saved. It might not, but that is a political problem, not a mechanical one.
My concern has rapidly changed from Ebola to the near certainty that something is going to break loose. We were lucky with Avian Flu and SARS. I expect success with Ebola due to long-term foresight by USAMARIID and the US govt. ten years ago. Ebola vaccines will be ready in time to save us and the world, and probably even Nigeria.
But the underlying causes of biological threats are still there, and becoming more and more acute. We won't be lucky forever.
Here is the most recent article I've found about Russian development of Ebola vaccines (plural):
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2014/10/21/357833298/ebola-vaccine-could-start-testing-in-africa-by-january
"And while these two potential vaccines are the farthest along, they aren't alone. Three others are in earlier development stages at U.S. companies, and "some vaccines are also in development in Russia," Kieny told a WHO news conference in Geneva on Tuesday. "So we are in contact with Russians to see when they could be available for testing in Africa, and what type of doses, in terms of quantity, could be available in the months to come."She says it's not clear whether the Russian scientists have already started safety testing in people."
Links to articles about Japanese development of Ebola vaccines:
Russian article - http://en.ria.ru/world/20141021/194378781/Human-Tests-of-Ebola-Vaccine-to-Start-in-2-Weeks-WHO.html
British article - http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/japanese-ebola-vaccine-fujifilms-experimental-drug-avigan-can-be-used-combat-norovirus-1471118
I didn't quickly find references to Chinese development of Ebola vaccines, but they have a good biowar capability and were fully prepared to retaliate against the Soviets' bugs. Hundreds of IL-28 Beagles with red stars on their sides and wings, delivering bugs and nukes, would have flown both ways across the Soviet, Chinese and Mongolian borders had the Soviets and Chinese gotten into it during the 1970's and 19880's.
I am quite certain that the Chinese are working on their own Ebola vaccines. It's the responsible thing to do, and they have the means of doing so on their own as well as copying our vaccines.
The fuji compound is not a vaccine. It’s a small molecule that’s structurally similar to lamivudine and the brincindofovir compound being used in this country on confirmed ebola patients.
China is working on another small molecule as well:
http://us.india.com/news/world/chinas-first-anti-ebola-drug-jk-05-approved-for-production-133694/
China has 1.3B people. A vaccine for the entire population at only $50 a dose (bargain basement for a vaccine that will likely use GMO tech like the ones in testing in the US/Canada, Gardasil is $300+/treatment) would cost $70B+ to vaccinate the Chinese population.
I found this article on Russia’s ‘vaccines’:
http://en.itar-tass.com/world/756252
If you read the actual ARTICLE though, it’s clear that this is NOT a vaccine, but is in fact another small molecule drug treatment:
“Triazavirin has been approved by the Russian Health Ministry, Petrov said. “Studies have confirmed the medicine’s high efficiency against a number of viral infections — influenza, tick-borne encephalitis and exotic viruses that are common in Africa and Asia,” the scientist said. Tests of Triazavirin have shown the vaccine’s high efficiency (70-90%) against various kinds of haemorrhagic fevers, including Marburg fever, which has a close relation to Ebola.”
I’m mystified as to why they’d call this obvious small molecule a ‘vaccine’ unless Russia’s journalists are as scientifically illiterate as ours:
This is the information on the Russian drug, it’s structurally similar to Ribavarin but with fewer side effects:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2863629/figure/f1/
The reason I ask about specific reference to ‘vaccines’ is the dismal state of scientific literacy in our own journalist ‘elite’ that refer to ZMapp and the Tekmira treatment as ‘vaccines’ when they are no such thing. I am suspicious of reference to ‘vaccines’ particularly by ‘NPR’ when the only references I’ve seen are to small molecules by scientifically illiterate ‘journalism majors’ who understand nothing of the technology other than it involves a trip to the doctor...
California issues quarantine policy for Ebola exposure
Obama on Ebola fight: US can't seal itself off
New String Of Ebola In The Democratic Republic Of The Congo; DFAT Advises Against Travel
Ebola Emergencies and Questionable Quarantines
Central Texas nurse quarantined after returning from West Africa
Lewiston Idaho Veterinarian’s Letter to the Editor re: Ebola, Nails it!
Internal memo pushes bringing non-citizens to US for Ebola treatment; State denies plan
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