Foreign minister Julie Bishop (right) says Australians travelling to West Africa must ensure their employers can evacuate them if they become ill as the government will not.
Alan Porritt/AAP
Well over 5,300 people have been infected and over 2,600 have died in the current Ebola outbreak in West Africa. But these numbers are thought to be gross underestimates as even the most conservative projections…
As viruses replicate, their genome changes.
EPA/Ahmed Jallanzo
The current outbreak of Ebola virus in West Africa is unprecedented in size, with nearly 4,800 confirmed or probable cases and more than 2,400 deaths. People have been infected in Guinea, Liberia, Sierra…
When African nations can effectively curb tax evasion, they may also be able to fight their major health problems.
AAP/EPA/AHMED JALLANZO
Much has been written about the poor public health and clinical capacity to respond to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. Inadequate medical and nursing staff resources, inadequate isolation wards, inadequate…
With each week that passes, the Ebola crisis in West Africa deepens. And amid the horror, the fear and a public health response described by Medicine Sans Frontières as “lethally inadequate”, public health…
Fears surrounding the spraying of disinfectant and quarantine measures have led to protests and riots in Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea.
AHMED JALLANZO/EPA
News that a 25-year-old Gold Coast man is being quarantined in hospital after returning from the Democratic Republic of Congo two days ago is no reason to panic. If anything, the incident highlights the…
The current outbreak of Ebola in West Africa has emerged rapidly and evolved with alarming ease. An unprecedented number of lives have been lost and WHO predictions are that the virus will infect in excess…
Online and mobile can also make a difference.
Legnan Koula/EPA
With a high fatality rate and a terminal phase that causes bleeding and haemorrhagic fever, the Ebola virus has always attracted grisly fascination, yet funding and action against it have never been particularly…
My social media accounts today are cluttered with stories about “mutating” Ebola viruses. The usually excellent ScienceAlert, for example, rather breathlessly informs us “The Ebola virus is mutating faster…
A Liberian nurse disinfects a looted mattress taken from an elementary school that was used as an Ebola isolation unit in West Point, Monrovia, Liberia.
AHMED JALLANZO/EPA
The extent of the current Ebola virus outbreak in West Africa has belatedly focused the attention of non-governmental organisations, local and Western governments, and international media. What we haven’t…
Major pharmaceutical companies have shown little interest in developing effective treatments for illnesses such as Ebola virus disease.
AAP Image/David Crosling
Ebola virus disease typically only occurs in rural and remote areas among resource-poor populations. Until the large, recent outbreak in West Africa, cases of the illness were a rarity. So the fact that…
Zmapp drugs arriving in Liberia.
Ahmed Jallanzo/EPA
The news that at least 20 patients suspected to have Ebola had fled a clinic in Monrovia, Liberia, after a recent protest shows just how volatile trust can be between local populations and medical staff…
Entry screening aims to identify and deal with travellers coming back from Ebola-affected countries with a fever.
EPA/Legnan Koula
The West African Ebola virus outbreak is already the largest of its kind, both in terms of numbers and geography. And with the most distant parts of the world less than a day’s flight away, it isn’t too…
The World Health Organisation has been in a rush to deal with the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. Last week it declared it an international health emergency, and after two infected US doctors were given…
Most agree that if an individual is likely to die and an experimental therapy has a reasonable chance to prevent death, then it should be given.
EPA/Ahmed Jallanzo
The current outbreak of Zaire Ebola virus in Western Africa is the largest ever recorded. More than 1800 people have been infected and nearly 1000 people have died. But while drug therapies are close to…
The current outbreak of Ebola is the worst in history. Almost 2,000 people have been infected and around 1,000 people have died. The outbreak seems to have originated in Guinea and has now spread to Sierra…
The treatment of the two Americans with an experimental drug after catching Ebola in West Africa has raised all sorts of ethical implications that will be addressed by a meeting of experts convened by…
The current epidemic of Ebola, which started in March 2014, has reached Lagos, the most populous city in the most populous country in Africa. This is a huge concern. And while Margaret Chan, director-general…
Hollywood makes films that excite and exhilarate; films that make us laugh, cry, connect with humanity – and above all make box office bucks along the way. While most of us would happily say we were going…
Malaria testing could soon be done in the cloud.
US Army Africa
Remote diagnostics is an emerging field that allows healthcare workers to perform tests on patient samples in the field and to get results interpreted by medical experts remotely. This is a groundbreaking…
The current West African ebolavirus outbreak, which has now reached more than 1,000 cases and resulted in more than 800 deaths, is a reminder of the often unpredictable nature of viruses and the difficulties…
Part-time lecturer at the Global Health & Social Medicine, Harvard University, and Lecturer at the School of Public Health, College of Health Sciences, University of Liberia
Director of the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Health Protection Research Unit in Emerging and Zoonotic Infections, and Professor of Neurology, University of Liverpool