'Ebola-Proof' Tablet Device Developed

Designed by technology volunteers and Google, it can be used even wearing gloves and in storms and high humidity.

Medecins Sans Frontieres put out a call for an Ebola-proof tablet to help teams’ record vital patient information.

At the height of the current outbreak, medics were shouting patient notes across fences to avoid contamination.

High-risk zones

Ebola is passed on through close contact with infected bodily fluids.

Even a single piece of paper leaving a high-risk zone poses a risk of passing on the infection, the charity says.

And medics caring for these patients have to be encased in full protective suits with goggles and multiple layers of gloves, despite the soaring temperatures.

But dictating notes across a fence at the end of exhausting shifts while wearing masks was a "recipe for error", MSF said.

To overcome these challenges the group of international tech volunteers came together, including Pim de Witte of Whitespell and Daniel Cunningham at Hack4Good. They were later joined by Google.

The tablet has waterproof casing at an "industrial level" according to Ivan Gayton, technology advisor at MSF.

It can be dunked in 0.5% chlorine solution which kills Ebola - if used on unprotected hands this strength of chlorine could cause chemical burns.


Sharp edges of the tablet were removed so that protective clothing would not be pierced.

And it is charged quickly and wirelessly by being placed on a table. The tablet connects wirelessly to a tiny local network server that is roughly the size of a postage stamp.

Health workers use it to track a patient's progress - comparing pulse, temperature and other results over time.

Mr Gayton said: "Although we have just treated the largest cohort of Ebola patients in human history, we still know distressingly little about the progression of the disease.

"In the longer term if we are able to collect more and better information about our patients, we will also learn more about the disease and how best to treat it."

Difficult scenarios
The device has been tested at MSF treatment centres in Sierra Leone.

The charity hopes the technology - which is open-source - will be adapted for use in other difficult scenarios such as outbreaks of cholera.

Dr Eric Perakslis, from Harvard Medical School, works on separate global health innovation projects. He said: "A handful of companies are trying to find a technological solutions for the Ebola crisis.

"But they face a lot of challenges such as unreliable electricity. This one addresses all the challenges at once.

"And it will not just be useful for single patient encounters but for research on the virus too."

Ganesh Shankar, product manager at Google, said: "I think this kind of partnership represents the future of how non-governmental organisations are going to integrate technology into the work they do."


Source: BBC

WHO Approves Breakthrough 15-Minute Ebola Test

GENEVA, Feb 20 (Reuters) - The World Health Organization has approved the first rapid test for Ebola in a potential breakthrough for ending an epidemic that has killed almost 10,000 people in West Africa, it said on Friday.

The test, developed by U.S. firm Corgenix Medical Corp , is less accurate than the standard test but is easy to perform, does not require electricity, and can give results within 15 minutes, WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic said.

"It's a first rapid test. It's definitely a breakthrough," he said.

The standard laboratory test has a turnaround time of 12-24 hours. While the Corgenix test is not failsafe, it could quickly identify patients who need quarantine and make it much easier to verify rapidly any new outbreaks.

Procurement and roll-out of the test kits will not begin immediately because the company is still working out costing and needs a week or two more to finish administrative procedures with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Jasarevic said.

The health charity Medecins Sans Frontieres, which has been at the forefront of the fight against Ebola, had expressed an interest, he said.

The so-called ReEBOV Antigen Rapid Test involves putting a drop of blood on a small paper strip and waiting 15 minutes for a reaction in a test tube. It is able to correctly identify about 92 percent of Ebola infected patients and 85 percent of those not infected with the virus, the WHO said.

Knowing that margin of error is a major help, said Robyn Meurant, from the WHO's department of essential medicines and health products.

"The big fear has been that the market gets flooded with tests of unknown quality, or unknown performance, and with Ebola you need to know what are the limitations. A false negative has enormous implications. So does a false positive," she said.

"So this is not a perfect test but... for a rapid test, (it is) not too bad at all."

It would be especially useful if a cluster of suspected cases flared up, she said.

"If you had five patients with suspected symptoms and you went ahead and tested them and they were all positive you'd have a high degree of confidence that you've got Ebola."

Because of the margin of error, the Corgenix test would then need to be followed up by the standard laboratory test.

The WHO is still assessing four or five other rapid test candidates, but Meurant said it was not possible to say when the next approval might be.

HEALTH : New Ebola cases rise again

GENEVA - The number of new cases of Ebola has risen in all of West Africa's worst-hit countries for the second week in a row, the World Health Organization (WHO) says.

This is the second weekly increase in confirmed cases in 2015, ending a series of encouraging declines.

The WHO said on Wednesday that Sierra Leone had registered 76 of the 144 new cases, Guinea 65 and Liberia three.

More than 9,000 people have died from Ebola since December 2013.

The WHO said that the increase highlights the "considerable challenges" that must still be overcome to end the outbreak.

"Despite improvements in case finding and management, burial practices, and community engagement, the decline in case incidence has stalled," the UN health agency said in a statement.

In another development, US President Barack Obama has said he will withdraw nearly all US troops helping to combat the disease in Liberia.

Only 100 of the 2,800 troops would remain in West Africa at the end of April, according to the Associated Press news agency,

Mr Obama said on Wednesday that the withdrawal marked a transition in the fight against the disease in Liberia but did not mean that the mission was over.

"Our focus now is getting to zero," he said.

ISIS fighters in Iraq 'have contracted Ebola' : World Health Organisation

According to three media outlets an undisclosed number of militants displaying signs of the disease attended a hospital in the ISIS-held city of Mosul, 250 miles north of Baghdad, the Daily Mail reports.

While the reports, from Kurdish and pro-Iraqi sources, remain unconfirmed, WHO spokesman Christy Feig said the group are trying to reach out to officials in ISIS-held areas to offer help.

Feig said: “We have no official notification from [the Iraqi government] that it is Ebola.”

“UN workers are currently banned from entering ISIS-controlled areas in both Iraq and Syria so it is unlikely an operation in the region could be carried out,” according to the report.

According to a report in Iraq's pro-government newspaper, al Sabaah, the disease was brought to Mosul by 'terrorists' arriving 'from several countries' and Africa.

W.H.O Has Officially Declared Nigeria Ebola Free

The World Health Organisation on Monday declared Nigeria free of the deadly Ebola Virus. Nigeria has not recorded a new case of Ebola for 42 days or two incubation period of 21 days.
The disease gained entry into the country in July when Liberian, Patrick Sawyer, came in on diplomatic assignment.

The diplomat had fallen ill and was admitted at the First Consultants Hospital, Obalende, in Lagos.

Nigeria Declared Ebola-Free After Containing Virus

ABUJA (Reuters) - The World Health Organisation declared Nigeria Ebola free on Monday after a 42 day period with no new cases, in a success story with lessons for countries still struggling to contain the deadly virus.

"Nigeria is now free of Ebola," WHO representative Rui Gama Vaz told a news conference in the capital Abuja, prompting a round of applause from other officials.

"This is a spectacular success story ... It shows that Ebola can be contained but we must be clear that we have only won a battle, the war will only end when West Africa is also declared free of Ebola."

The first case in Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation, was imported from Liberia, when a Liberian-American diplomat called Patrick Sawyer collapsed at the main international airport in Lagos on July 20.





Because the country was ill prepared and had no screening procedures in place, Sawyer was able to infect several people, including several health workers in the hospital where he was taken, which did not have proper protection equipment.

Ebola has killed 4,546 people across Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, the three worst-affected countries.

Nigeria had 20 cases in total, of which eight died.

The announcement that Africa's biggest economy has, for now at least, stamped out the deadly hemorrhagic fever, follows a similar declaration in much smaller Senegal, where one case was imported from Guinea.