Tuesday 23 December 2014

Ebola vaccine trails (appear) safe for human use

The DailyMail isn't a fountain of good journalism so take with a pinch of salt. Headline reads "First Ebola vaccine is safe for human use...". The organisation referenced is the NIAID the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. They've conducted a number of previous studies (including limited human trails) that appear to show sign of efficacy (although it should be noted that according to the article, trails related to the touted 'vaccine' mentioned in the article were conducted in 2009/2010, four+ years ago, and well before the current outbreak). But the study referred to in the above linked article does not appear to be available on their website at time of writing. The CDC still states there are no effective measures to treat/cure Ebola.

Monday 8 December 2014

Where's Ebola gone?

It seems Ebola is out of fashion and might be said to no longer be an issue, this despite the CDC originally suggesting there would be some "1.4 million cases by January 2015" (the CDC has since backed away from the claim to a more conservative estimate in line with others). That's the three-day news cycles for you, or the easier sell of Ferguson and Police Brutality taking up the charge to the front page.

The question remains though; what happened to all those potential cases on the CDC's Ebola watch list (not available to the public it seems) - about 1000 at its height mid-November. One reasonable idea is that anyone showing symptoms has been whisked away and sequestered as part of the human trails of the soon-to-be-released Ebola Vaccines. There are a few on the market but given the actual rarity of Ebola in North America and Europe, it stands to reason infected individuals are a pretty valuable resource.

Additonal Reading
http://www.who.int/csr/disease/ebola/situation-reports/en/?m=20141126
https://www.internationalsos.com/ebola/index.cfm?content_id=438&language_id=ENG
http://www.nhs.uk/news/2014/11November/Pages/Ebola-vaccine-shows-promise-in-human-trials.aspx