Ebola, forgotten but not gone

The recent WHO decision to declare the novel coronavirus outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC), while both appropriate and hardly surprising, offers the opportunity to reflect on the previous PHEIC which was declared, namely the Ebola epidemic in Kivu region, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). And you should really say the ongoing Ebola epidemic, as during the time since the declaration in July 2019 through to the present day (March 2020), a total of 3,453 cases have been reported [1]. The nCoV-2019 outbreak is still ballooning; as of today, over 400,000 confirmed cases worldwide with no signs of slowing down [2]. To date, there have been 19,786 fatalities, a mortality rate which is notably higher than the rate observed in the 2018-9 influenza pandemic (>2.5%) and significantly higher than AH1N1 (~0.05%) [3,4]. As you might have hoped, the response has been incredibly rapid, faster than ever seen before with a new human pathogen. Within weeks of identifying an outbreak of respiratory illness, the virus has been identified, sequenced and cultured; rapid tests are available for diagnosis (albeit with continuing broadening and narrowing); at least two randomized controlled trials (RCTs) are being performed to analyze the effect of antiviral medications, one with a new drug; and the largest infection control effort in history is underway, including the quarantine of more than 50 million inhabitants in Hubei province, China [5]. Internationall...
Source: GIDEON blog - Category: Databases & Libraries Authors: Tags: Ebooks Epidemiology Outbreaks Source Type: blogs