Remembering Tandala, 1977: Elucidating Ebola
Forty years ago, in June 1977, a nine-year old girl died of acute hemorrhagic fever at a hospital in Tandala, Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo).[i] Her post-mortem blood sample arrived at...
View ArticleEbola: Fifteen Years of Silence
“The music is not in the notes, but the silence in between.” – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart If one were to describe the history of Ebola outbreaks, one method would be to construct a timeline, with a...
View ArticleThe Outbreak That Wasn’t: Liberia’s “Post-Ebola” Moment
Ever since WHO declared the end of Ebola virus transmission in West Africa in June 2016, the world has wondered when (not if) they would see Ebola again. In May 2017, the virus reemerged from its...
View ArticleMonkey Business: Ebola Research is Benefitted by Recent Discovery
Rhesus monkey (Image source) A new study published this week in Nature Microbiology brings good news for research toward the persistence of Ebola virus in asymptomatic individuals. Ebola virus...
View ArticleFlooding in Freetown: a Post-Ebola Catastrophe
Flooding is turning out to be a major news story this month. At the time of this publication, the catastrophic flooding in Houston has displaced thousands, and at least five are reported dead....
View ArticleChagas Drug Gets FDA Approval: A Victory over Shkreli-esque Pharmaceutical...
Left: Martin Shkreli (photo courtesy of The Source). Right: A “kissing bug” (photo courtesy of Scienceline). On August 29th, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted approval to benznidazole...
View ArticleNew Research Offers Progress Toward Detecting and Treating Ebola
Last week, two scientific discoveries were announced that could lead to better and earlier treatments for persons with Ebola virus disease. First, scientists at University of Texas Medical Center in...
View ArticleEbola Taï Forest: A Unique Emergence, and the Dawn of the Modern Age of Ebola
“These woods are where silence has come to lick its wounds.” – Samantha Hunt In 1994, Ebola, a lethal virus that had been silent for fifteen years, awoke. Two separate outbreaks would shatter this...
View ArticleMeet Marburg, Ebola’s Sister
Micrograph of Marburgvirus (credit: The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston) Last month, the Ugandan Ministry of Health (MOH) declared an outbreak of Marburg Virus Disease (MVD) in...
View ArticleEbola Quarantine in New Jersey, 2014 – Confinement in the Context of Civil...
Kaci Hickox, confined to quarantine in October 2014. (photo credit: Reuters) This article is one of two on the O’Neill Blog this week that focus on confinement, human rights, and public health. In...
View ArticleZombie Deer Disease: Is Your Venison Safe?
Photo credit: outdoor channel.com If you were around in the 1990s-2000s, you might remember Mad Cow Disease – a disease in cows that can spread to humans via consumption of infected meat, and that...
View ArticleThe Ebola Footprint – Broader Than You Think
This post was coauthored by Tom Vincent and Dr. Jean-Paul Gonzalez. Dr. Gonzalez is the Deputy Director of the Center of Excellence in Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases at Kansas State...
View ArticleThe Mysterious “Disease X”
Photo credit: Smithsonian Magazine This week, the World Health Organization released a list of diseases that have the potential to cause public health emergencies, and that have no efficacious drugs or...
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