Month: August 2014

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. health authorities have eased safety restrictions on an experimental drug to treat Ebola, a move that could clear the way for its use in patients infected with the deadly virus.

Ebola's spread to the United States is "inevitable" due to the nature of global airline travel, but any outbreak is not likely to be large, US health authorities said Thursday. Already one man with dual US-Liberian citizenship has died from Ebola, after becoming sick on a plane from Monrovia to Lagos and exposing as many as seven other people in Nigeria. More cases of Ebola moving across borders via air travel are expected, as West Africa faces the largest outbreak of the hemorrhagic virus in history, said Tom Frieden, the head of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The virus spreads by close contact with bodily fluids and has killed 932 people and infected more than 1,700 since March in Sierra Leone, Guinea, Nigeria and Liberia.

US regulators loosened restrictions on a new experimental drug for treating Ebola, which may allow it to be tried on infected patients in West Africa, the company said Thursday. The Canada-based company, Tekmira, said the US Food and Drug Administration changed the classification of its drug TKM-Ebola from full clinical hold to partial hold. "This action enables the potential use of TKM-Ebola in individuals infected with Ebola virus," said a company statement. Tests on monkeys have shown the drug provided 100 percent protection from an otherwise lethal dose of Ebola, the company said.

Tekmira Pharmaceutical Corp said on Thursday that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration had modified its clinical hold status on Tekmira’s experimental Ebola treatment to enable its potential use in humans infected with the virus. The FDA told Burnaby, British Columbia-based Tekmira that it had modified the full clinical hold on the drug to a partial clinical hold, the company said in a statement. “We are pleased that the FDA has considered the risk-reward of TKM-Ebola for infected patients,” said Dr. Mark Murray, Tekmira’s chief executive officer. “We have been closely watching the Ebola virus outbreak and its consequences, and we are willing to assist with any responsible use of TKM-Ebola.” The recent Ebola outbreak has killed nearly 1,000 people in West Africa.

The director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told lawmakers on Thursday he has activated the agency’s emergency operation center at the highest response level to fight the worst Ebola outbreak in history. Dr Thomas Frieden testified at an emergency hearing that the CDC has more than 200 staff members in Atlanta working on the outbreak, and will soon have more than 50 disease experts in West Africa. Frieden said he was “confident there will not be a large Ebola outbreak in the United States.” However, he said it was possible that people who have traveled to West Africa might bring the virus back home with them, and even spread it to some healthcare workers and family members. The two are now being cared for at Emory University in Georgia.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The current Ebola crisis in West Africa is on pace to sicken more people than all other previous outbreaks of the disease combined, the health official leading the U.S. response said Thursday.

By Andrew M. Seaman NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – People with diabetes who live in the poorest areas of California are about twice as likely to end up with their legs or feet amputated than those living in the wealthiest areas, according to a new study. Black people and those who spoke Spanish appeared to be at a considerable disadvantage when it came to the likelihood of diabetes-related amputations, the researchers found. “I think our findings show that the medical safety net has big holes in it and people are often falling through those holes and losing their limbs to diabetes when those complications could have been prevented with better care,” Dr. Carl D. Stevens said. He and his colleagues write in the journal Health Affairs that in past studies, low-income people with diabetes tended to receive worse care for their disease, but no study had looked at overall poverty and amputations of legs and feet.

FORT BELVOIR, Va. (AP) — Tens of thousands of military veterans who have been enduring long waits for medical care should be able to turn to private doctors almost immediately under a law signed Thursday by President Barack Obama.

By Letitia Stein TAMPA Fla. (Reuters) – The largest red tide bloom seen in Florida in nearly a decade has killed thousands of fish in the Gulf of Mexico and may pose a greater health threat if it washes ashore as expected in the next two weeks, researchers said on Thursday. Red tide occurs when naturally occurring algae bloom out of control, producing toxins deadly to fish and other marine life. “It could have large impacts if it were to move inshore,” said Brandon Basino, a spokesman for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC). The phenomenon has existed for centuries, but such a large bloom is being closely monitored in Florida because it could impact beach tourism and commercial fishing.

By Stella Dawson WASHINGTON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – The health care system in Liberia is collapsing, hospitals closing down and medical workers fleeing from the Ebola epidemic, which is poised to worsen, Liberia’s foreign minister said on Thursday. “People are dying from common diseases because the health care system is collapsing,” Minister of Foreign Affairs Augustine Kpehe Ngafuan said in an interview with Thomson Reuters Foundation. “It is going to have a long-term impact, even after this crisis is behind us.” Treatable diseases such as malaria and diarrhea are left untended because frightened Liberians are shunning medical centers, and these deaths could outstrip those from the Ebola virus by three or four fold, he said.