Global Health Update on Ebola 10/9

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Ebola Vaccine Status
If the 2 top candidate Ebola vaccines already in the development pipeline are proven safe and effective in phase 1 studies, a substantial quantity won’t be available until earliest the first quarter of 2015, Rupa Kanapathipillai and colleagues report in this NEJM "Perspective" article.

The 2 vaccines are cAd3-EBOV (cAd3), from GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), and rVSVΔG-EBOV-GP (rVSV), from NewLink Genetics and the Public Health Agency of Canada. (Several other vaccine candidates are in the pipeline though at preclinical stages.)

“Even if an effective vaccine can be produced, it is not likely to be 100% effective, so to succeed in stemming the current outbreak, a coordinated effort to improve capacity and provide clinical care in affected countries needs to be scaled up urgently,” according to the authors.

Another WHO-arranged meeting is planned for November to reevaluate the next necessary steps once preliminary results from the phase 1 trials are available.
The New England Journal of Medicine (http://jhsph.us3.list-manage.com/track/click?u=0a43ad874dbe00d8f0545cfef&id=e39cee6a39&e=9c1fcebfa3)

Disease Detectives
When an Ebola patient emerged in Dallas, Texas, the CDC’s Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) sent a pair of epidemiologists to run a surveillance operation with local health officials.

As many of us know, every year, the CDC hires 70 to 80 EIS officers to spend 2 years tackling everything from smoking cessation to H1N1 outbreaks. With the Ebola outbreak growing, these “passionate, geeky, problem solvers” are taking on an increasingly important role.

The program’s logo is “a sole of a shoe with a hole worn in it; you’re supposed to be the feet on the ground of our public health infrastructure,” says EIS alum Tracy Creek.
Marketplace (http://jhsph.us3.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=0a43ad874dbe00d8f0545cfef&id=826e59b351&e=9c1fcebfa3)

Help Wanted
AmeriCares is expanding its Ebola response and will launch an Ebola Treatment Unit (ETU) in Liberia with its partner, the International Organization for Migration

For the ETU, it's hiring a team to operate the ETU and to teach others to do the same. AmeriCares is looking for doctors and nurses (preferably with ID experience); water, sanitation and environmental health experts and mental health professionals
AmeriCares (http://jhsph.us3.list-manage.com/track/click?u=0a43ad874dbe00d8f0545cfef&id=762dd805d6&e=9c1fcebfa3)

Related: Ebola patient dies in Texas; five U.S. airports to screen for fever – Reuters (http://jhsph.us3.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=0a43ad874dbe00d8f0545cfef&id=fedf45c74f&e=9c1fcebfa3)

Related: Ebola crisis: global response has ‘failed miserably’, says World Bank chief – The Guardian (http://jhsph.us3.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=0a43ad874dbe00d8f0545cfef&id=10b4292c75&e=9c1fcebfa3)

Related: We Don't Know A Lot About Dogs And Ebola — But We Should – NPR (http://jhsph.us3.list-manage2.com/track/click?u=0a43ad874dbe00d8f0545cfef&id=66c099852c&e=9c1fcebfa3)