Ebola virus mutates

Scientists at the prestigious Institut Pasteur in Paris believe the ebola virus has mutated during the current outbreak. Now they are trying to find out whether that has made it more contagious.

So far more than 22,000 people have been infected in this epidemic and 8,795 have died in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, making it by far the deadliest in history. The previous worst death toll came in 1976, when 280 people died in Congo and Zaire.

But for the first time since June last year, there were fewer than 100 new cases last week, leading to hopes the epidemic may finally be on the wane.

At present, it seems the virus can be passed only in bodily fluids. The great fear is that it may develop a means of infection through the air, though there is no evidence to suggest this is likely at the moment, and no similar virus has moved to this route of transmission.

Meanwhile, researchers at the Institut Pasteur are developing two vaccines they hope will be in human trials by the end of the year. (See also my blogs of 4 April, 7 June, 8 August, 8, 23 and 30 October, 2014.)

Measles - still a major killer

A global campaign has cut the number of deaths from measles dramatically, but they are still way above target, and every day, there are nearly 400 deaths from the illness.  

Back in 2000, 535,000 died every year.    By 2010, that total had fallen to 139,000 – a reduction of 74%, but the target had been to achieve a 90% drop.   Unicef says every death could have been prevented by vaccination. 

The campaign had been progressing well until 2007 when a vaccination programme stalled in India, with the authorities (perhaps distracted by the effort to eliminate polio) trying to make do with giving children just one injection to protect them when two were needed.   In addition, there were major outbreaks in southern Africa. 

A new combined vaccine against measles and rubella is being launched, with a new target of a further 95% drop in deaths from the 2000 level by 2015.   

*I was interviewed about the Titanic the other day by BBC Somerset.   It's posted here:- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoCfD2kzNm8&list=HL1335275415&feature=mh_lolz

Malaria - a glimmer of hope?

Some hopeful signs from a new anti-malaria vaccine.    Preliminary trials had begun in Burkina Faso to test its safety, but it soon became clear that children who had been given the injection were getting a high degree of protection.

The results are described as ‘most encouraging’, and a bigger trial is about to start in Mali.  About 100 different vaccines have been tried against the disease, and this one, developed by the Pasteur Institute in Paris, is only the second to have shown promise.

The Burkina Faso study involved only 45 children, but the incidence of malaria was three or four time lower among those who were given the vaccine.    Eight hundred children will be enrolled in the new trial in Mali.

Malaria still kills around 1 million people a year, 90 per cent of them in Africa, and most of these are young children.  (See also my blogs of 11 April, 30 May, 24 Sept and 21 Oct, 2009.)