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Ebola Cases Increase in Cuvette Ouest - serious risk" of disease spreading to nearby districts
Allafrica.com ^ | 11-19-03

Posted on 11/19/2003 9:02:57 PM PST by Neuromancer

Posted to the web November 19, 2003

Nairobi

Eleven people of a total 18 confirmed cases of the Ebola virus had died by Tuesday in the Cuvette Ouest department of northwestern Republic of Congo, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported from the capital, Brazzaville.

The report follows the latest meeting of the national coordination committee for the fight against Ebola.

Meanwhile, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, the United States, reported on Tuesday that the first human trial of a vaccine designed to prevent Ebola infection had begun, following successful trials concluded in August on monkeys.

NIAID said that outbreaks of Ebola in Africa killed up to 90 percent of those infected. No effective treatment exists for this highly infectious disease, which causes extensive internal bleeding and rapid death. NIAID said that vaccination was the best strategy for preventing or containing the deadly infection.

For its part, the Congolese national committee reported that emergency teams that had been dispatched to Mbomo District in Cuvette Ouest, were being met by "increasingly hostile" local populations, despite public education campaigns that have been carried out to inform residents about Ebola and measures necessary to help contain its spread.

It also reported that an isolation centre for treatment of suspected Ebola victims was due to be completed on Wednesday, while an updated crisis contingency plan was due to be presented on Friday at the committee's next meeting.

The committee was also informed by the armed forces that air transport between Brazzaville and the affected area would amount to 18 million francs CFA (US $33,542) for the first month of operations.

On 14, November, the Congolese Ministry of Health, together with WHO confirmed that a new outbreak of acute haemorrhagic fever syndrome in Mbomo District was, in fact, the Ebola virus.

On 7 November, WHO had reported that 12 suspected cases of acute haemorrhagic fever syndrome including nine deaths had been reported in Mbomo.

WHO said the current outbreak originated in the village of Mbanza, some 15 km from Mbomo, when a family consumed a dead wild boar they had found in the forest, with the first death occurring on 16 October. It said that although the epidemic was so far confined to Mbomo, there was a "serious risk" of the disease spreading to the nearby districts of Kelle and Itoumbi.


TOPICS: Extended News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: africa; congo; ebola; sars; virus

1 posted on 11/19/2003 9:03:09 PM PST by Neuromancer
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To: Domestic Church
The first test in humans of an experimental vaccine against the deadly Ebola virus began yesterday, government scientists said.

The vaccine, administered by injection, was designed to try to prevent outbreaks of the lethal hemorrhagic fever where it occurs naturally in Africa. It is also a bid to thwart any efforts to use the highly infectious virus as a bioterrorist agent.

As part of a standard three-stage process, the first phase involves testing the vaccine's safety. Scientists also plan to measure immune responses among volunteers receiving the shots.

No effective treatment exists against the viral infection, which kills up to 90 percent of victims quickly from severe internal bleeding. Ebola was discovered in 1976 in the Republic of Congo, then Zaire. This week, the World Health Organization reported a new outbreak of Ebola in that country, attributing 11 deaths in as many cases to it.

The experimental DNA vaccine is synthesized using modified, inactivated genes from the Ebola virus. Because it does not contain any infectious material from the virus, recipients cannot get the disease, said Dr. Gary Nabel, who directs the institute's Vaccine Research Center.

Researchers plan to test the vaccine on 27 people, ages 18 to 44. They are expected to receive three injections of either the experimental vaccine or a placebo at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in Bethesda, Md., over two months. They will then be monitored for a year.

The first volunteer, Steve Rucker, a 36-year-old research nurse at the institute, said in a phone interview that he felt fine after the vaccine was injected in his left arm yesterday.

Mr. Rucker, of College Park, Md., said he was participating because he believed that the findings from animal tests were "extremely promising."
2 posted on 11/19/2003 9:07:53 PM PST by Neuromancer
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To: Neuromancer
This season's 24 on FOX finds Jack Bauer battling an Ebola type virus unleashed by a drug trafficker in Los Angeles. The carriers of the pandemic are a teen boy and his girlfriend.
3 posted on 11/19/2003 11:39:03 PM PST by goldstategop (In Memory Of A Dearly Beloved Friend Who Lives On In My Heart Forever)
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To: Neuromancer
Witchcraft linked to Ebola

Brazzaville - Congo's
surgeon-general has warned that more people were likely to die of the incurable Ebola virus in the north-west of the country because locals were not co-operating with health workers. He noted that many local people believed the highly contagious disease was caused by witchcraft. At least 11 have died in the past week, with more than another 100 confirmed cases.
4 posted on 11/21/2003 5:55:49 AM PST by Neuromancer
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To: Neuromancer
Scientists have completed work on a "hit list" of suspect animals which might be the natural reservoir of the deadly Ebola virus, just as a new outbreak is flaring up in Congo.

The US researchers drew up the initial list of all suspect species by combining information on outbreaks with ecological data.
The researchers, led by Townsend Peterson at the University of Kansas, are now embarking on an extensive search for more data on these mammals to produce a shortlist. They will then fly out to equatorial Africa and haul in the prime suspects for testing.

The most recent outbreak in the Republic of Congo started on 13 October, and has killed now 11 people. At least seven others have been confirmed to have the disease, and 87 others are thought to be infected.

The World Health Organization (WHO) and agencies such as the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies have sent medical teams to tackle the outbreak in the Mbomo region, 800 kilometres northwest of the capital Brazzaville.

The outbreak began when members of one family in the village of Mbanza fell ill after consuming a dead wild boar discovered in the forests during a major hunting expedition.

However, it is has now emerged that a monkey caught and eaten by the family the day before the main hunt may be to blame. "As we speak, it is a monkey that is a lot more incriminated," André Zamouangana of the Congolese Red Cross in Brazzaville, told New Scientist.

The last outbreak of Ebola was in the same region of Congo, and officially ended in June. The haemorrhagic fever killed 128 of the 142 people infected, a typical death rate. Because the virus has struck in the same place so quickly, this may give clues to its source, says Dick Thompson, a WHO spokesman in Geneva.

"It tells us there's something in the environment - may be it's an opportunity for us to locate the reservoir," he told New Scientist.

However, the monkey is unlikely to represent the primary reservoir of Ebola, where it survives between human outbreaks. This is because it kills primates too quickly.
"In theory Ebola could just about be maintained as a moving nightmare among primates," says Peterson, "but you would have to have unbelievably good transmission".

So to track down the source animal, that could infect the primates, Peterson and two colleagues at the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta are taking a novel approach.

Rather than looking at animals linked to specific outbreaks, they are considering all the creatures that the affected regions have in common. They then narrow the list down, using a number of factors.

  They assume the culprit is most likely to be a mammal. For example, some bats can survive Ebola for a number of weeks. They also assume it would be a small creature, because large mammals are hunted by people, which would be expected to cause far more frequent Ebola outbreaks.

The reservoir animal is unlikely to live closely with humans, e.g. a mouse, says Peterson. "The first person infected is generally a man outside the home," he told New Scientist. The culprit should also have chronic infection with filovirus - the family to which Ebola belongs - but not show symptoms. Finally, the virus should be restricted to the range of the animal.

Using this reasoning, the team has now compiled a list of suspects containing about 100 different species, ranging from shrews to rodents to bats. Of these, only half have ever been tested for filovirus, says Peterson.

The first part of the study is due to be published online in Emerging Infectious Diseases (January
5 posted on 11/21/2003 6:01:03 AM PST by Neuromancer
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