Download or read book Ebola s Curse written by Michael B.A. Oldstone and published by Academic Press. This book was released on 2017-07-18 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ebola‘s Curse: 2013-2016 Outbreak in West Africa is about hemorrhagic fever viruses, especially Ebola, its initial origin in central Africa 1976, its unprecedented appearance in West Africa in 2013. The book records in sequence and detective style how the initial outbreak of Ebola from the index case in rural Guinea traveled to Sierra Leone, the work and fate of those working in the Kenema Government Hospital (KGH) isolation ward in Sierra Leone. The book provides vignettes of the three main players involved with Ebola at KGH, Sheik Khan, Pardis Sabeti, and Robert Garry. Khan was the head of the unit, declared a national hero by his Sierra Leone government. He died fighting Ebola and was/is recognized in the USA by American societies by awards created for his historic work and death. Pardis Sabeti, a geneticist from Harvard and Broad MIT Institute, who was honored as a "Scientist of the Year" by Time Magazine and the Smithsonian Institute. Robert Garry, head of the operation to fight hemorrhagic fevers and Ebola, shuttled between Tulane University, KGH, and The White House to make aware through the press and others the dilemma and tragedy that was unfolding, and the need to obtain additional medical and health care support and supplies. Sabeti and Garry currently work with Oldstone on Ebola at KGH and thus personal communication and knowledge was/is available to the author for the book. Includes perspectives from the 2013-2016 outbreak in West Africa Provides a detailed overview of the origins of Ebola virus through present day discoveries Written with an integrative approach, incorporating scientific research with insights from the field on Public Health and Medical History

Download or read book Ebola written by Dr. William Close and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 1995-06-27 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Eloquent, gripping, harrowing.”—Richard Preston, author of The Hot Zone When a mysterious virus first exploded in Zaire in 1976, American physician William T. Close worked desperately to contain the outbreak. Haunted by this wrenching crisis, Dr. Close felt compelled to honor the memory of the courageous people he knew and lost. This is their story: a terrifying, completely authentic novel that begins with an invisible killer. It strikes without warning—a lethal disease with no name . . . and no cure. At a Catholic mission in Yambuku, a remote village sixty miles south of the Ebola River, local teacher Mabalo Lokela visits the clinic with a raging fever. Sister Lucie, a Flemish nun and nurse, gives him a shot of an antimalarial drug, wipes off the syringe, and awaits her next patient. Within days, Mabalo is dead. Soon, others are falling ill. Less than three weeks later, the virus claims Sister Lucie’s life as well. Panic erupts, but as the villagers attempt to flee, all roads leading out of Yambuku are closed off, the dying forced back. And as the single radio connecting the mission to the outside world brings only bad news, the valiant nuns and medical personnel left behind have no choice but to pray, and wonder: Will they survive long enough for help to arrive?

Download or read book The Ebola Epidemic in West Africa written by National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2016-12-30 with total page 137 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The most recent Ebola epidemic that began in late 2013 alerted the entire world to the gaps in infectious disease emergency preparedness and response. The regional outbreak that progressed to a significant public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) in a matter of months killed 11,310 and infected more than 28,616. While this outbreak bears some unique distinctions to past outbreaks, many characteristics remain the same and contributed to tragic loss of human life and unnecessary expenditure of capital: insufficient knowledge of the disease, its reservoirs, and its transmission; delayed prevention efforts and treatment; poor control of the disease in hospital settings; and inadequate community and international responses. Recognizing the opportunity to learn from the countless lessons of this epidemic, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine convened a workshop in March 2015 to discuss the challenges to successful outbreak responses at the scientific, clinical, and global health levels. Workshop participants explored the epidemic from multiple perspectives, identified important questions about Ebola that remained unanswered, and sought to apply this understanding to the broad challenges posed by Ebola and other emerging pathogens, to prevent the international community from being taken by surprise once again in the face of these threats. This publication summarizes the presentations and discussions from the workshop.

Download or read book Ebola An Evolving Story written by James Lyons-weiler and published by World Scientific. This book was released on 2015-05-27 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Selected as CHOICE magazine's Outstanding Academic Title, January 2017.The book is a narrative of the unfolding of the Ebola virus disease outbreak from a scientific view point. The author provides an analysis of the scientific basis of public health policies that have influenced the public's, and the medical community's, abilities to understand the virus and the disease. This is done in the context of providing insights into the biology of the virus, and exploring open questions, including its likely modes of transmission. The author has included citations from the scientific literature and the press, as well as quotes from expert interviews. The book will help sort out the fact from fiction, given the confusion that arose after the virus arrived in the US. The author used his objective research skills and knowledge of evolutionary genetics and molecular biology to find out what was known, and what questions remained unanswered, and even what questions remained unasked.Written in an accessible style, it is intended for the educated general public, scientists, policy makers, health care workers, and politicians. It delves into the problems of trying to derive a logic-based understanding of a highly lethal emerging disease in 2014, when research funding cuts have gutted research institutions, and when public health institutions really were woefully unprepared. It is a highly distinct narrative analysis that is sure to stimulate new research and thinking in public policy. It will inform thousands of people of the nature of the virus, how it works, in terms they are likely to be able to understand. It will allow others to rapidly catch up with the story of Ebola.

Download or read book Framing Animals as Epidemic Villains written by Christos Lynteris and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2019-10-11 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book takes a historical and anthropological approach to understanding how non-human hosts and vectors of diseases are understood, at a time when emerging infectious diseases are one of the central concerns of global health. The volume critically examines the ways in which animals have come to be framed as ‘epidemic villains’ since the turn of the nineteenth century. Providing epistemological and social histories of non-human epidemic blame, as well as ethnographic perspectives on its recent manifestations, the essays explore this cornerstone of modern epidemiology and public health alongside its continuing importance in today’s world. Covering diverse regions, the book argues that framing animals as spreaders and reservoirs of infectious diseases – from plague to rabies to Ebola – is an integral aspect not only to scientific breakthroughs but also to the ideological and biopolitical apparatus of modern medicine. As the first book to consider the impact of the image of non-human disease hosts and vectors on medicine and public health, it offers a major contribution to our understanding of human-animal interaction under the shadow of global epidemic threat.

Download or read book Ebola written by Paul Richards and published by Zed Books Ltd.. This book was released on 2016-09-15 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shortlisted for the Fage and Oliver Prize 2018 From December 2013, the largest Ebola outbreak in history swept across West Africa, claiming thousands of lives in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. By the middle of 2014, the international community was gripped by hysteria. Experts grimly predicted that millions would be infected within months, and a huge international control effort was mounted to contain the virus. Yet paradoxically, by this point the disease was already going into decline in Africa itself. So why did outside observers get it so wrong? Paul Richards draws on his extensive first-hand experience in Sierra Leone to argue that the international community’s panicky response failed to take account of local expertise and common sense. Crucially, Richards shows that the humanitarian response to the disease was most effective in those areas where it supported these initiatives and that it hampered recovery when it ignored or disregarded local knowledge.

Download or read book Fevers Feuds and Diamonds written by Paul Farmer and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2020-11-17 with total page 429 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Paul Farmer brings his considerable intellect, empathy, and expertise to bear in this powerful and deeply researched account of the Ebola outbreak that struck West Africa in 2014. It is hard to imagine a more timely or important book.” —Bill and Melinda Gates "[The] history is as powerfully conveyed as it is tragic . . . Illuminating . . . Invaluable." —Steven Johnson, The New York Times Book Review In 2014, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea suffered the worst epidemic of Ebola in history. The brutal virus spread rapidly through a clinical desert where basic health-care facilities were few and far between. Causing severe loss of life and economic disruption, the Ebola crisis was a major tragedy of modern medicine. But why did it happen, and what can we learn from it? Paul Farmer, the internationally renowned doctor and anthropologist, experienced the Ebola outbreak firsthand—Partners in Health, the organization he founded, was among the international responders. In Fevers, Feuds, and Diamonds, he offers the first substantive account of this frightening, fast-moving episode and its implications. In vibrant prose, Farmer tells the harrowing stories of Ebola victims while showing why the medical response was slow and insufficient. Rebutting misleading claims about the origins of Ebola and why it spread so rapidly, he traces West Africa’s chronic health failures back to centuries of exploitation and injustice. Under formal colonial rule, disease containment was a priority but care was not – and the region’s health care woes worsened, with devastating consequences that Farmer traces up to the present. This thorough and hopeful narrative is a definitive work of reportage, history, and advocacy, and a crucial intervention in public-health discussions around the world.

Download or read book The Iceman s Curse written by Gary F. Jones and published by BQB Publishing. This book was released on 2022-10-11 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nature, climate, and stupidity produce a pandemic. Grant Farnsworth, a post-doc student, veterinarian, and virologist at the University of Minnesota is upset when his professor tells him to prepare to work on tissue samples from a 1,200-year-old corpse called the Iceman, that was found in the Swiss Alps. Grant is already working seven days a week and his wife is eight months pregnant with their second child. The situation becomes more complicated when a Swiss professor, to avoid regulations, smuggles the samples into the United States, putting Grant and his professor in legal jeopardy. When a blizzard diverts the professor's flight to Chicago, Customs is hectic, and the professor mistakenly swaps his suitcase with Frank, a drug mule. When Frank discovers the mistake he and a friend follow the professor north on I-94 with the intention to do whatever is necessary to recover the missing drugs. When snow forces the professor to stop at a motel in the hamlet of Kirby, Wisconsin, he has no idea that he's carrying drugs and that his life is in jeopardy. When Switzerland announces that those who handled Iceman samples are ill, and several have died, Grant is sent to Kirby to find the Swiss professor and isolate the samples. At the same time, the CDC learns of the samples in Kirby and dispatches Dr. Sybil Erypet to Fort McCoy, a nearby Army base, to get the samples under control. Between dangerous drug mules and infected tissue samples, many lives in the snow-bound village are in jeopardy.

Download or read book The Cobalt Curse written by Joey O'Connor and published by Your Personal Style. This book was released on 2024-07-28 with total page 539 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What readers are saying about The Cobalt Curse... “The Cobalt Curse is a can’t-put-it-down thriller.” “The Cobalt Curse is like an excellent meal…a combination of well-crafted writing and intelligence.” “I could hardly put The Cobalt Curse down. It was full of action and intrigue. I enjoyed it very much!” Every Scar Tells A Story Professor Kai Baldwin, a world-famous human rights lawyer, has endured loss after loss. Preferring a safe college classroom back in the States, he vows never to return to his childhood home in the Congo. Who could fault him? By all accounts, he should be dead. His father died in a plane crash. His fiancée left him. And his mother is dying. The two-inch scar on his right wrist is a nagging reminder of his vow and unresolved grief. But when his former fiancée mysteriously disappears, Kai jettisons his never-evers and rushes back to the Congo. Launching a desperate search for her, Kai discovers a global conspiracy to control the world’s cobalt resources. He faces the ultimate dilemma: will he risk all to save the one he loves or sacrifice himself for the good of humanity? The Cobalt Curse takes readers into the wild world of conflict minerals, cryptocurrency, and artificial intelligence through the streets of Dubai, Washington, D.C., Brussels, Switzerland, and deep into the Congo jungle.

Download or read book Ebola Myths and Facts For Dummies written by Edward K. Chapnick and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2015-01-07 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Concerned about ebola, but can't seem to separate fact from fiction? Misinformation abounds about the virus, but Chapnick dives into the details to let you know the history, signs and symptoms, testing protocols, modes of transportation, and ways to prevent and treat the Ebola virus.--

Download or read book The Psychosocial Aspects of a Deadly Epidemic written by Judy Kuriansky and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2016-03-21 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Edited by a clinical psychologist who has been on the ground helping to develop psychosocial support for Ebola survivors in one of the hardest-hit regions of West Africa, this book explains the devastating emotional aspects of the epidemic and its impact on survivors and the population in West Africa, families in the diaspora, and people in the United States and other countries. It also describes lessons learned from past epidemics like HIV/AIDS and SARS, and valuable approaches to healing from future epidemics. While the devastating Ebola epidemic has been contained, the effects of this outbreak—referred to by the World Health Organization as "the most severe acute public health emergency seen in modern times"—have wreaked a tremendous emotional toll on the populations of West Africa as well as on families and survivors worldwide. This groundbreaking book covers the psychosocial needs, programs, and policies related to the Ebola epidemic and examines broader lessons of the outbreak, such as changes in the ways in which healing from future epidemics can be handled. Edited by Judy Kuriansky, PhD, a noted clinical psychologist and United Nations NGO representative with extensive experience helping after disasters worldwide, and direct experience gained from being "on the ground" in West Africa in the midst of the epidemic, this book identifies and explains universal psychological factors at play in all such crises. It debunks myths regarding Ebola and describes the resulting psychological and social harm caused by the epidemic. The chapters cover overarching emotional issues and problems as well as the long-term impact on at-risk groups, such as children, women, and health workers; the impact of emotional issues on social and economic life; responses of government officials, media, and various aid organizations; and solutions being offered by groups worldwide, including service and humanitarian organizations, politicians, policymakers, and public health education groups.

Download or read book The Lassa Ward written by Dr. Ross Donaldson and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2009-05-12 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ross Donaldson is one of just a few who have ventured into dark territory of a country ravaged by war to study one of the world's most deadly diseases. As an untried medical student studying the intersection of global health and communicable disease, Donaldson soon found himself in dangerous Sierra Leone, on the border of war-struck Liberia, where he struggled to control the spread of Lassa Fever. The words, "you know Lassa can kill you, don't you?" haunted him each day. With the country in complete upheaval and working conditions suffering, he is forced to make life-and-death decisions alone as a never-ending onslaught of contagious patients flood the hospital. Soon however, he is not only fighting for others but himself when he becomes afflicted with a life threatening disease. The Lassa Ward is more than just an adventure story about the making of a physician; it is a portrait of the Sierra Leone people and the human struggle of those risking their daily comforts and lives to aid them.

Download or read book A Day by Day Chronicle of the 2013 2016 Ebola Outbreak written by Stephan Gregory Bullard and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-04-12 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This powerful history describes the daily progression of the Ebola outbreak that swept across West Africa and struck Europe and America from December 2013 to June 2016. A case study on a massive scale, it follows the narratives of numerous patients as well as the journey of physicians and scientists from discovery to action and from tracking to containment. The unfolding story reveals ever-shifting complexities such as the varied paths the infection took from country to country, the multiple responses of community members, and the occurrence of flare-ups when the outbreak was seemingly over. The book’s finely-documented present-tense reporting records key facts, events, and observations, including: Routes of Ebola transmission, incubation, symptoms, short- and long-term effects on survivors Early attempts to understand and contain the virus and curb practices contributing to its spread Medical, governmental, and public responses, from local education programs to global efforts Communication and conflict between healthcare workers and communities Social and economic outcomes of Ebola in the affected nations Ebola remains incurable, although a vaccine is now available. For members of the medical community, public health officials, medical historians, scholarly professionals, and interested laypeople, A Day-by-Day Chronicle of the 2013-2016 Ebola Outbreak makes starkly clear what we can learn from these events not only for future outbreaks of Ebola, but also for the emergence of as-yet unknown diseases.

Download or read book Mutation Z The Ebola Zombies written by Marilyn Peake and published by Marilyn Peake. This book was released on 2018-01-23 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Viruses Plagues and History written by Michael B. A. Oldstone and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2020 with total page 513 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Here, my previous edition of Viruses, Plagues, & History is updated to reflect both progress and disappointment since that publication. This edition describes newcomers to the range of human infections, specifically, plagues that play important roles in this 21st century. The first is Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), an infection related to Sudden Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS). SARS was the first new-found plague of this century. Zika virus, which is similar to yellow fever virus in being transmitted by mosquitos, is another of the recent scourges. Zika appearing for the first time in the Americas is associated with birth defects and a paralytic condition in adults. Lastly, illness due to hepatitis viruses were observed prominently during the second World War initially associated with blood transfusions and vaccine inoculations. Since then, hepatitis virus infections have afflicted millions of individuals, in some leading to an acute fulminating liver disease or more often to a life-long persistent infection. A subset of those infected has developed liver cancer. However, in a triumph of medical treatments for infectious diseases, pharmaceuticals have been developed whose use virtually eliminates such maladies. For example, Hepatitis C virus infection has been eliminated from almost all (>97%) of its victims. This incredible result was the by-product of basic research in virology as well as cell and molecular biology during which intelligent drugs were designed to block events in the hepatitis virus life-cycle"--

Download or read book The Plague Year written by Lawrence Wright and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2021-06-08 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Looming Tower, and the pandemic novel The End of October: an unprecedented, momentous account of Covid-19—its origins, its wide-ranging repercussions, and the ongoing global fight to contain it "A book of panoramic breadth ... managing to surprise us about even those episodes we … thought we knew well … [With] lively exchanges about spike proteins and nonpharmaceutical interventions and disease waves, Wright’s storytelling dexterity makes all this come alive.” —The New York Times Book Review From the fateful first moments of the outbreak in China to the storming of the U.S. Capitol to the extraordinary vaccine rollout, Lawrence Wright’s The Plague Year tells the story of Covid-19 in authoritative, galvanizing detail and with the full drama of events on both a global and intimate scale, illuminating the medical, economic, political, and social ramifications of the pandemic. Wright takes us inside the CDC, where a first round of faulty test kits lost America precious time . . . inside the halls of the White House, where Deputy National Security Adviser Matthew Pottinger’s early alarm about the virus was met with confounding and drastically costly skepticism . . . into a Covid ward in a Charlottesville hospital, with an idealistic young woman doctor from the town of Little Africa, South Carolina . . . into the precincts of prediction specialists at Goldman Sachs . . . into Broadway’s darkened theaters and Austin’s struggling music venues . . . inside the human body, diving deep into the science of how the virus and vaccines function—with an eye-opening detour into the history of vaccination and of the modern anti-vaccination movement. And in this full accounting, Wright makes clear that the medical professionals around the country who’ve risked their lives to fight the virus reveal and embody an America in all its vulnerability, courage, and potential. In turns steely-eyed, sympathetic, infuriated, unexpectedly comical, and always precise, Lawrence Wright is a formidable guide, slicing through the dense fog of misinformation to give us a 360-degree portrait of the catastrophe we thought we knew.

Download or read book The Curse at the Confluence written by LP Anthony and published by FriesenPress. This book was released on 2016-01-05 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “It is of small consolation to us that the white-man will ultimately be the arbiter of his own eventual ruin. But since there is nothing we can do to stop him, I have designed, and now propose, a curse. Like a disease, my curse has been engineered to do its damage over time. Its purpose is to disrupt and prevent lasting social harmony and prosperity by undermining the stability of their society and the productivity of their industries. It will cause great social unrest and upheaval. It will affect climate, making winters bitter and summers unbearably hot. Biting and stinging insects will feast on their flesh and rodents will infest their dwellings, spreading disease among them...Their children will die in the womb in great numbers, and at birth with great frequency. Their elderly will experience protracted years of agonizing suffering. Foreign species of plants, animals, and fish will invade, choke out, and dominate these waters and lands. In time, they will see their own populations dwindle and will be helpless to stem the tide that will make them the minority...This slow poison will permeate every aspect of their existence, and just as we are now powerless to stop them, they too will be powerless. One day they will learn what we have done to avenge ourselves, but only after the damage is complete. Then, my brothers, they will have no choice but to acknowledge the injustices they have inflicted upon us.” Peter Sursile is stressed. By day he finds himself beset by the troublesome behavior of his petulant young fiancée, Eliza, and by the unrelenting pressure to write his PhD thesis, which is all that stands between him and the future he rightly deserves. But deciding on just the right topic has proven to be easier said than done. By night, a vivid recurring nightmare of a horrific train wreck, and a mortally injured woman in the wreckage who hauntingly repeats the phrase Peter...it's time has plagued his sleep for weeks. Yet even after an unnerving encounter with an ancient, white-maned Shaman, he remains stubbornly convinced that these and other strange happenings are merely stress-related. But something he hears during his run-in with the Shaman compels him to research a certain upstate New York town, and for his effort is seemingly rewarded with what appears to be the thesis topic he's been looking for. However, revelations surrounding the inspiration for his research lead him to Binghamton, NY where sudden unprecedented violence has brought the city to its knees. His journey exposes the true purpose of his nightmare, reveals the identity of the woman in the wreckage, and explains the nature of events which will likely destroy the city if left unchecked. But success is far less certain than the consequences should he fail to reveal a 19th century curse to its 21st century victims. The Curse At the Confluence is proud to be the first novel of its kind to be set primarily in the Binghamton, New York area.