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 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 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 Level 4 Virus Hunters of the CDC written by Joseph McCormick, M.D and published by Graymalkin Media. This book was released on 2020-04-01 with total page 618 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "[McCormick has] been face-to-face with Ebola in Africa.... He... worked for days inside a mud hut that was smeared with Ebola blood, on his knees among people who were crashing and bleeding out." —Richard Preston, The Hot Zone Now with a new foreword by the authors about the novel Coronavirus pandemic. Sublimely equipped to survive, to propagate, to conquer, the virus is neither really alive nor really dead. Its dimensions are measured in molecules. It attacks by dismantling its human targets cell by cell. An ancient adversary, resident on this earth long before our evolutionary ancestors arrived, the virus is without conscience or compassion, without mind. It enjoys the advantages of countless numbers and infinite time. It is a being almost too simple to understand and too basic to outwit. We are locked in a war with the virus. Each battle kills some of us. The battles have many names: Ebola, Lassa fever, Crimean Congo Hemorrhagic Fever, AIDS . . . Dr. Joseph McCormick and Dr. Susan Fischer-Hoch have met them all; and they have fought them all. Level 4: Virus Hunters of the CDC is their story. It is an intense, personal account of more than a quarter of a century on the front lines—in the ultra high-tech "hot zone" lab that McCormick was instrumental in creating at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, as well as in the most primitive places on the planet, where the local climate, terrain, and politics can kill as easily as any disease. In the villages of Zaire and Sudan, the ghettoes and rain forest of Brazil, and the nomadic settlements of northern Pakistan, the cutting edge of science meets the deadly universe of viral disease. The elite corps of virus hunters who dare to penetrate these realms combine the unquenchable curiosity and raw guts of intrepid explorers with the training of top-level scientists, the hunch-playing passion of master sleuths, and the compassion of truly great physicians. Told in intimate detail by two of the world's best-known virologists—colleagues, collaborators, husband and wife— Level 4 is a journey across the world and into many strange new worlds: from the seductive beauty of equatorial Africa—a limitless reservoir of infection—to the confines of the all-but-invisible field of the electron microscope. While other books have offered hot zones, sick monkeys, and grim statistics, Level 4 brings home from the world of the virus the human stories of those who lived, and those who died.

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 The Pandemic Century written by Mark Honigsbaum and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2019-03-09 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Like sharks, epidemic diseases always lurk just beneath the surface. This fast-paced history of their effect on mankind prompts questions about the limits of scientific knowledge, the dangers of medical hubris, and how we should prepare as epidemics become ever more frequent. Ever since the 1918 Spanish influenza pandemic, scientists have dreamed of preventing catastrophic outbreaks of infectious disease. Yet, despite a century of medical progress, viral and bacterial disasters continue to take us by surprise, inciting panic and dominating news cycles. From the Spanish flu and the 1924 outbreak of pneumonic plague in Los Angeles to the 1930 'parrot fever' pandemic and the more recent SARS, Ebola, and Zika epidemics, the last 100 years have been marked by a succession of unanticipated pandemic alarms. Like man-eating sharks, predatory pathogens are always present in nature, waiting to strike; when one is seemingly vanquished, others appear in its place. These pandemics remind us of the limits of scientific knowledge, as well as the role that human behaviour and technologies play in the emergence and spread of microbial diseases.

Download or read book If God Is a Virus written by Seema Yasmin and published by Haymarket Books. This book was released on 2021-04-06 with total page 89 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on original reporting from West Africa and the United States, and the poet 's experiences as a doctor and journalist, If God Is A Virus charts the course of the largest and deadliest Ebola epidemic in history, telling the stories of Ebola survivors, outbreak responders, journalists and the virus itself. Documentary poems explore which human lives are valued, how editorial decisions are weighed, what role the aid industrial complex plays in crises, and how medical myths and rumor can travel faster than microbes. These poems also give voice to the virus. Eight percent of the human genome is inherited from viruses and the human placenta would not exist without a gene descended from a virus. If God Is A Virus reimagines viruses as givers of life and even authors of a viral-human self-help book.

Download or read book Sh t My Dad Says written by Justin Halpern and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2010-05-04 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “This book is ridiculously hilarious, and makes my father look like a normal member of society.” —Chelsea Handler “Read this unless you’re allergic to laughing.” —Kristen Bell “If you’re wondering if there is a real man behind the quotes on Twitter, the answer is a definite and laugh-out-loud yes.” —Christian Lander, New York Times bestselling author of Stuff White People Like Tuesdays with Morrie meets F My Life in this hilarious book about a son’s relationship with his foul-mouthed father by the 29-year-old comedy writer who created the massively popular Twitter feed of the same name.

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 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 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.

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 Contagion and Chaos written by Andrew T. Price-Smith and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2008-12-05 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An analysis of infectious disease as a threat to national security that examines the destabilizing effects of the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic, HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa, SARS, and Mad Cow Disease. Historians from Thucydides to William McNeill have pointed to the connections between disease and civil society. Political scientists have investigated the relationship of public health to governance, introducing the concept of health security. In Contagion and Chaos, Andrew Price-Smith offers the most comprehensive examination yet of disease through the lens of national security. Extending the analysis presented in his earlier book The Health of Nations, Price-Smith argues that epidemic disease represents a direct threat to the power of a state, eroding prosperity and destabilizing both its internal politics and its relationships with other states. He contends that the danger of an infectious pathogen to national security depends on lethality, transmissability, fear, and economic damage. Moreover, warfare and ecological change contribute to the spread of disease and act as “disease amplifiers.” Price-Smith presents a series of case studies to illustrate his argument: the Spanish influenza pandemic of 1918-19 (about which he advances the controversial claim that the epidemic contributed to the defeat of Germany and Austria); HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa (he contrasts the worst-case scenario of Zimbabwe with the more stable Botswana); bovine spongiform encephalopathy (also known as mad cow disease); and the SARS contagion of 2002-03. Emerging infectious disease continues to present a threat to national and international security, Price-Smith argues, and globalization and ecological change only accelerate the danger.

Download or read book The Lost City of the Monkey God written by Douglas Preston and published by Grand Central Publishing. This book was released on 2017-01-03 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The #1 New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller, named one of the best books of the year by The Boston Globe and National Geographic: acclaimed journalist Douglas Preston takes readers on a true adventure deep into the Honduran rainforest in this riveting narrative about the discovery of a lost civilization -- culminating in a stunning medical mystery. Since the days of conquistador Hernán Cortés, rumors have circulated about a lost city of immense wealth hidden somewhere in the Honduran interior, called the White City or the Lost City of the Monkey God. Indigenous tribes speak of ancestors who fled there to escape the Spanish invaders, and they warn that anyone who enters this sacred city will fall ill and die. In 1940, swashbuckling journalist Theodore Morde returned from the rainforest with hundreds of artifacts and an electrifying story of having found the Lost City of the Monkey God-but then committed suicide without revealing its location. Three quarters of a century later, bestselling author Doug Preston joined a team of scientists on a groundbreaking new quest. In 2012 he climbed aboard a rickety, single-engine plane carrying the machine that would change everything: lidar, a highly advanced, classified technology that could map the terrain under the densest rainforest canopy. In an unexplored valley ringed by steep mountains, that flight revealed the unmistakable image of a sprawling metropolis, tantalizing evidence of not just an undiscovered city but an enigmatic, lost civilization. Venturing into this raw, treacherous, but breathtakingly beautiful wilderness to confirm the discovery, Preston and the team battled torrential rains, quickmud, disease-carrying insects, jaguars, and deadly snakes. But it wasn't until they returned that tragedy struck: Preston and others found they had contracted in the ruins a horrifying, sometimes lethal-and incurable-disease. Suspenseful and shocking, filled with colorful history, hair-raising adventure, and dramatic twists of fortune, THE LOST CITY OF THE MONKEY GOD is the absolutely true, eyewitness account of one of the great discoveries of the twenty-first century.