The Guinea Ebola ring vaccination trial will be expanded to Sierra Leone and include contacts with the recently reported fatal case there, the World Health Organization (WHO) said yesterday in a news release.
Sierra Leone health officials said yesterday that tests on a 67-year-old woman who died in Kambia district were positive for Ebola, but further testing is under way to confirm the findings, Reuters reported yesterday. The positive test is the country's first since its countdown to Ebola-free status began on Aug 24.
Also, a ring vaccination trial extends to Sierra Leone and a report details postexposure treatment for health workers.
The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) on Aug 21 reported 34,866 new cases of chikungunya in the Caribbean and Americas. The outbreak total, adjusted for ongoing case confirmation, is 1,679,223.
The new total includes 514,534 suspected, 17,118 confirmed locally acquired cases, and 802 imported cases reported in 2015, or 532,454 total for the year.
New cases in West Africa remained at 3 for the 3rd straight week, and the WHO IHR panel will meet next week.
Sierra Leone is down to its last known Ebola transmission chain, a sign of continuing progress in the battle against the disease, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced today. It added that the country has now gone a full epidemiologic week without a new case for the first time since the outbreak began last year.
Lassa virus (LASV) genome sequences have revealed that the although the virus was only discovered in 1969, it originated more than a thousand years ago in present-day Nigeria and continues to undergo significant evolutionary change, according to a National Institutes of Health (NIH)–funded study yesterday in Cell.
Transmission in healthcare settings has medical officials bracing for more cases.
Researchers discussed unique opportunities to learn about the after-effects of Ebola and how to manage them, as well as knowledge gaps, study protocols, and how to build research capacity in outbreak nations.
Animal health officials in Ghana and Ivory Coast yesterday reported more highly pathogenic H5N1 avian flu outbreaks in poultry, signaling a continuation of virus activity that reemerged late last year in Africa.
