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Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Ebola Update from Global Health


EBOLA

Stark Warning from WHO
Ebola is the “most severe acute health emergency in modern times,” WHO warned governments.

WHO Director-General Margaret Chan said that the epidemic proved “the world is ill-prepared to respond to any severe, sustained, and threatening public health emergency,” and added that she has …never seen an infectious disease contribute so strongly to potential state failure,” in a statement to a regional health conference in Manila.
** Telegraph UK (http://jhsph.us3.list-manage.com/track/click?u=0a43ad874dbe00d8f0545cfef&id=35d248edbf&e=9c1fcebfa3)

Tune in Today
Join more than a dozen experts today for an Ebola symposium at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health that will be ** webcast live from 9 a.m. – 1.30 p.m (http://jhsph.us3.list-manage.com/track/click?u=0a43ad874dbe00d8f0545cfef&id=dfe264e920&e=9c1fcebfa3)
.

Talks will focus on the impact of the West Africa epidemic, current and future response, the status of vaccines and possible pharmacologic therapies, recommendations to prevent spread of the disease outside of West Africa, and other issues.

Speakers at today’s event include:
* Michael Osterholm, the McKnight Presidential Endowed Chair in Public Health and Director, Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP), University of Minnesota
* Peter Jahrling, PhD, chief scientist, NIAID Integrated Research Facility
* Lenny Bernstein, health correspondent, Washington Post
* David Peters, chair, International Health, JHSPH

If you’re in Baltimore, you can see the event live (it’s first come, first served so line up now): Sommer Hall, 615 N. Wolfe Street, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

If you want to watch the event in primetime, it will be ** shown on C-SPAN (http://jhsph.us3.list-manage2.com/track/click?u=0a43ad874dbe00d8f0545cfef&id=249885674c&e=9c1fcebfa3)
.

More info: ** Dean’s Symposium on Ebola: Crisis, Context and Response (http://jhsph.us3.list-manage.com/track/click?u=0a43ad874dbe00d8f0545cfef&id=6f78a688d3&e=9c1fcebfa3)

Ebola and Maternal Mortality
Peter Piot reminds us how quick the world is to forget when a crisis like Ebola subsides, and the media (and donors) withdraw, allowing viruses to incubate unabated, in silence.

He compares that silence to the world’s treatment of persistent killers like maternal mortality. Indeed, maternal deaths in Sierra Leone were roughly twice as high as Ebola fatalities since May, but will not even be recorded, says Piot, director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

“Why the apparent indifference? Perhaps because maternal mortality is not contagious, or is not regarded as gruesome … Perhaps because, too often, we focus on the illnesses we currently find most horrific, not those that cause most suffering,” he writes.
** Campaign on Accelerated Reduction of Maternal, Newborn and Child Mortality in Africa (CARMMA) (http://jhsph.us3.list-manage.com/track/click?u=0a43ad874dbe00d8f0545cfef&id=c74d72c0e5&e=9c1fcebfa3)


Osterholm: Ebola is a Black Swan Event
Ebola, with its capacity to dismantle regional stability and expose the world’s flawed response to global heath threats, is a 'Black Swan,' transformational event that will likely change the way the world manages future global health crises, writes Michael Osterholm, director of the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP), in a ** commentary in JAMA Internal Medicine (http://jhsph.us3.list-manage2.com/track/click?u=0a43ad874dbe00d8f0545cfef&id=e532ca5005&e=9c1fcebfa3)
he co-authored with Kristine Moore, MD, CIDRAP’s medical director, and Lawrence Gostin, of the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law in Washington, DC.

Osterholm is one of the speakers at today’s Ebola symposium at JHSPH (see above).
** MinnPost (http://jhsph.us3.list-manage.com/track/click?u=0a43ad874dbe00d8f0545cfef&id=2448540eaa&e=9c1fcebfa3)

Related: UN Medical worker infected with Ebola dies, German hospital says – ** Los Angeles Times (http://jhsph.us3.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=0a43ad874dbe00d8f0545cfef&id=0207299845&e=9c1fcebfa3)

Related: Doctor gives blood for Ebola-infected Dallas nurse – ** Associated Press (http://jhsph.us3.list-manage.com/track/click?u=0a43ad874dbe00d8f0545cfef&id=8fa4ff10c1&e=9c1fcebfa3)

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