Ebola virus

West African leaders agreed on Friday to take stronger measures to try to bring the worst outbreak of Ebola under control and prevent it spreading outside the region, including steps to isolate rural communities ravaged by the disease.  The World Health Organisation and medical charity Medicins Sans Frontieres said on Friday the outbreak, which has killed 729 people in four West African countries, was out of control and more resources were urgently needed to deal with it...

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A Black Book survey of nearly 1,000 hospital executives and clinical leaders probed emergency preparedness and infectious disaster resource capabilities including technology and services. The resulting responses uncovered ten common yet precarious situations that collectively restrict nearly all U.S. hospitals regardless of size or location to efficaciously diagnose, isolate and treat even a single Ebola patient while protecting its workforce and other patients. Read More »

After recent mishandling of potentially deadly pathogens, the White House is urging all federal laboratories to conduct what it is calling a “safety stand-down,” security and science officials announced Thursday.  Agencies that handle infectious agents or toxins have been asked to complete overviews of their programs within 30 days of a memo dated Aug. 18...

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Steve Huffman, the thirty-three-year-old co-founder and C.E.O. of Reddit, which is valued at six hundred million dollars, was nearsighted until November, 2015, when he arranged to have laser eye surgery. He underwent the procedure not for the sake of convenience or appearance but, rather, for a reason he doesn’t usually talk much about: he hopes that it will improve his odds of surviving a disaster, whether natural or man-made. “If the world ends—and not even if the world ends, but if we have trouble—getting contacts or glasses is going to be a huge pain in the ass,” he told me recently...

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The current Ebola outbreak in West Africa has already claimed the lives of over 1000 people. Under-resourced health systems are struggling to cope, and the WHO recently declared the situation an international health emergency. In light of this, the UK Department for International Development (DFID), the Wellcome Trust, and ELRHA have opened a special funding window through the Research for Health in Humanitarian Crises (R2HC) programme. Read More »

The [United Kingdom's] Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond says he will work with infectious disease experts to do 'whatever it takes' to protect the UK from the largest ever outbreak of the Ebola virus, which is currently sweeping West Africa...

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