Of The Persistence Of Communicable Diseases: Three New Ebola Cases, In Guinea Last Week

The good news tonight is that Sierra Leone is approaching the 42 day marker again -- on being Ebola free. However, Guinea has seen new cases -- one of them a cabbie, in an urban area -- so we might expect several more cases, unless all his contacts are found, and vaccinated in an immediate ring fashion. And that is exactly what the Guinea health authorities are now undertaking. [The last re-emergence in Guinea was June 2015, as we had previously reported.]

Again, it is the single course (as opposed to a "prime plus booster" approach -- needed in the GSK candidate), and rVSV-ZEBOV's extremely robust near-term efficacy, that have handed the Merck/NewLink vaccine the wheel, in Africa. Here's the operative bit -- from the online CIRAP center, on the campus of the University of Minnesota:

. . . .With three new cases, Guinea was the only country in West Africa's outbreak region to report Ebola infections last week, and responders are on high alert because all of the confirmed case-patients, one of them a taxi driver, pose a high risk of transmission.

The World Health Organization (WHO) said in its weekly snapshot of the outbreak that Sierra Leone has gone two weeks without a new case and that the outbreak region's weekly total has remained at three for four weeks in a row. . . .

Now, sleep well, all you young buckaroos. . . and do say your prayers -- that this latest Ebola ring-outbreak is snuffed out soon. G'night!