Clipmarks | Pandemics Clips

Epidemic and Pandemic Alert and Response (EPR)

Sat, 23 Aug 2008 16:25:00 GMT

clipped by: zalisan
clipper's remarks: What you should know. The Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network focuses technical and operational resources from scientific institutions in Member States, medical and surveillance initiatives, regional technical networks, networks of laboratories, United Nations organizations (e.g. UNICEF, UNHCR), the Red Cross (International Committee of the Red Cross, International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and national societies) and international humanitarian nongovernmental organizations (e.g. Médecins sans Frontières, International Rescue Committee, Merlin and Epicentre). Participation is open to technical institutions, networks and organizations that have the capacity to contribute to international outbreak alert and response.

Clip Source: www.who.int

Epidemic and Pandemic Alert and Response (EPR)

1. Pandemic influenza is different from avian influenza.

2. Influenza pandemics are recurring events.

3. The world may be on the brink of another pandemic.

4. All countries will be affected.

5. Widespread illness will occur.

6. Medical supplies will be inadequate.

7. Large numbers of deaths will occur.

8. Economic and social disruption will be great.

9. Every country must be prepared.

10. WHO will alert the world when the pandemic threat increases.

Clip Source: www.who.int

The Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network (GOARN) is a technical collaboration of existing institutions and networks who pool human and technical resources for the rapid identification, confirmation and response to outbreaks of international importance. The Network provides an operational framework to link this expertise and skill to keep the international community constantly alert to the threat of outbreaks and ready to respond.

Clip Source: www.who.int

United States of America

Tags: pandemic, flu, health, vaccines, illness, who, cdc, red cross, hospitals

Five Ways Reality Went Sci-Fi So Far This Century

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 11:18:34 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: io9.com

We love a good science fiction story, but sometimes reality is just as strange. While we may have seen 2001 come and go without an actual space odyssey, the last eight years have been full of events that - had they not actually happened - could easily pass for science fiction. Here are five real life events that still seem like they've come straight from the set-up of a big budget summer blockbuster.

Estonian Cyberwar: It may not have been the biggest cyber attack ever, but it's probably the strangest. Last year, Russian hackers got so ticked off when the tiny nation of Estonia digs up the remains of Soviet war heroes that they shut down Estonian newspapers, banks, and practically the entire government by using denial of service attacks on a huge scale.

CERN: You need only look at pictures from inside the Large Hadron Collider to realize the incredible, science fictional scale of the apparatus.

Space Tourism:

SARS, bird flu, and the other near-pandemics:

9/11:

Tags: reality, sci-fi

The coming famine

Sun, 06 Jul 2008 01:27:23 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: "In light of all these hurdles, as I see it, the challenge is to double world food output by 2050 using less land, far less water and fewer nutrients – all in the teeth of increasing rates of drought. And we need to do it sustainably."

"I believe we are quite capable of solving these issues through good science and good policy. In the first instance, we need to massively increase global public investment in agricultural research and development. Then we need to make sure the fruits of that research reach farmers everywhere. I also think that commercial wild harvests, such as fishing and forestry, should be phased out in favour of sustainable farming that dovetails with the local environment."

Clip Source: www.cosmosmagazine.com

What's even scarier than global warming?

feeding the global appetite in an overpopulated, affluent and resource-scarce world could be the scientific challenge of the era

BARRING NUCLEAR WARS, pandemics and cosmic accidents, there will be about 9.1 billion people living in the world in 2050

Yet they will eat as much food as 13 billion people at today's nutritional levels.

The problem is that humanity is consuming more food, year-on-year, than it produces, especially as demand for high-protein food increases in high population developing countries like China and India.

cities are now taking up to half of the water that was once used to grow food

We're also losing land; we are building on it, eroding and degrading it

we lose

n estimated 1.1 billion tonnes of nutrients – through soil erosion and leaching

And if you thought those figures weren't alarming enough, then there's the issue thrown up by climate change

Tags: food crisis, sustainable resources

ScienceDebate 2008: Let The Answers Flow

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 18:43:53 GMT

clipped by: BartendingBear
clipper's remarks: Excellent chance for positive campaigning among presidential candidates. Will they take it?

Clip Source: www.sciencedebate2008.com

In November, 2007, a small group of citizens began working to restore science and innovation to America’s political dialogue. They called themselves Science Debate 2008, and they called for a presidential debate on science. The call tapped a wellspring of concern over the state of American science.

On behalf of the American science and innovation community (see who here), we have submitted these questions to the candidates for President and asked them to do two simple things: A) provide a written response, which we will publish here, and B) discuss these questions in a nationally televised forum.

1. Innovation.

2. Climate Change.

3. Energy.

4. Education.

5. National Security.

6. Pandemics and Biosecurity.

7. Genetics research.

8. Stem cells.

9. Ocean Health.

10. Water.

11. Space.

12. Scientific Integrity.

13. Research.

14. Health.

Clip Source: www.sciencedebate2008.com

Voters are more likely to vote for a candidate that supports scientific research

Voters are more likely to vote for a candidate that will tackle climate change

battling bacteria with a viral protein

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 07:09:27 GMT

clipped by: sarin
clipper's remarks: maybe some time later I would like to apply to the position in their labs in rockefeller univerisity.
laboratory of bacteria pathogenesis and immunology

Clip Source: www.sciam.com

McCullers and Vincent Fischetti, co-heads of the Laboratory of Bacterial Pathogenesis and Immunology at the Rockefeller University, provide evidence that the enzyme lysin can be tailored to kill specific secondary pathogens before they pounce on compromised immune systems. Fischetti notes that this technology could potentially be used to prevent pandemics during an avian or other flu outbreak by destroying secondary germs that might attack when the immune system is compromised. "If we can go in and, during a pandemic, treat individuals that are either susceptible to flu—the elderly or young children—or basically everybody during that period of time and decolonize them," he says, "we have a better chance of saving a lot of lives."

Battling Bacteria with a Viral Protein

The coming famine

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 02:32:27 GMT

clipped by: invictus

Clip Source: www.cosmosmagazine.com

BARRING NUCLEAR WARS, pandemics and cosmic accidents, there will be about 9.1 billion people living in the world in 2050. Yet they will eat as much food as 13 billion people at today's nutritional levels. So how will we feed them all? The answer to this question could be the greatest scientific challenge of the 21st century – greater even than finding a solution to climate change.

The problem is that humanity is consuming more food, year-on-year, than it produces, especially as demand for high-protein food increases in high population developing countries like China and India.

The world is also moving towards a water crisis: cities are now taking up to half of the water that was once used to grow food, while groundwater levels are declining in every country where it is used for food production.

Tags: food, water, resources, population, economy, production, famine, drought, world

Earth-Born 'Andromeda Strain': Animal-transmitted Microbes Pose Threat of Global Pandemic

Tue, 27 May 2008 11:53:55 GMT

clipped by: tabsey
clipper's remarks: Scarey stuff, but interesting reading. I suppose the bird flu virus is the best modern example. The professor gives a better one.

Clip Source: www.dailygalaxy.com

“Microbes are always going to be one step ahead of us. Their generation time is 24 hours, ours is 30 years. They mutate, they change, they will find a way. They are amazing opportunists.”

Dorothy Crawford -Professor of Medical Microbiology at the University of Edinburgh and author Deadly Companions.

The vigorous international trade in exotic pets such as monkeys, crocodiles and rats must be stopped if human beings are to be protected from global pandemics, according to Dorothy Crawford, Professor of Medical Microbiology and a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences. In an interview with the TimesOnline of London, she said that "the risk to people from zoonoses – animal-borne microbes – had never been greater, and that there was a need to reexamine our relationship with wild and domestic animals."

Tags: pandemic

Living In Defiance

Thu, 08 May 2008 04:24:39 GMT

clipped by: drummond1999

Clip Source: fabiusmaximus.wordpress.com

Of course bad things could happen. Civilization, indeed human life itself, depends on Fate. Super-bug pandemics, larger asteroid or comet impact, massive climate changes, eruption of a super-volcanoes, or supernova within 50 light years … the number of high impact - low probability scenarios is legion. But we live our lives in defiance of these things, not in fear of them.

Tags: peak oil

Researchers Make Human Flu Antibodies at Record Speed

Thu, 01 May 2008 04:58:36 GMT

clipped by: arifsali

Clip Source: www.sciam.com

Fast treatment manufactured from flu survivors' antibodies could pave the way to more effectively thwarting pandemics

A new method for swiftly producing proteins to fight infections could mean the difference between life and death during future pandemics. Researchers report in Nature today that they have perfected a way to manufacture monoclonal antibodies capable of destroying diseases such the avian flu, which have the ability to swap genes with human flu varieties and jump from birds to people.

THE HOLY GRAIL: Researchers say they may soon be able make B cells expressing antibodies specific to several illnesses in less than a month.

Their research is a dramatic advance, because it marks the first time that scientists were able to rapidly generate the disease-killing proteins, according to study co-author Patrick Wilson, an immunologist at the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation (OMRF) in Oklahoma City.

Tags: science, antibodies, infection, life, death, pandemics, research, disease

7 Worst Plagues in hx

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 17:49:32 GMT

clipped by: ksweatman

Clip Source: www.oddee.com

7 Worst Killer Plagues in history

Smallpox (430 BC? - 1979):
Killed more than 300 million people worldwide in the 20th century alone, and most of the native inhabitants of the Americas

Smallpox killed an estimated 60 million Europeans

Spanish Flu (1918 - 1919):
Killed 50 to 100 million people worldwide in less than 2 years

Black Death (1340 - 1771):
Killed 75 million people worldwide

Malaria (1600 - today):
Kills about 2 million people per year

AIDS (1981 - today):
Killed 25 million people worldwide

Cholera (1817 - today):
8 pandemics; hundreds of thousands killed worldwide

Typhus (430 BC? - today):
Killed 3 million people between 1918 and 1922 alone, and most of Napoleon's soldiers on Russia

Doctor Brilliant

Fri, 29 Feb 2008 12:08:37 GMT

clipped by: Lifes First Beat

Clip Source: www.guardian.co.uk

He helped beat smallpox and saved 3m people's sight. Now the first techno-philanthropist has an even more ambitious task. Spending $2bn of Google's money

Larry Brilliant has a habit of solving big problems. As a doctor working for the World Health Organisation (WHO) in the late 1970s, he turned his energies towards one of the planet's most destructive diseases: as a result, he is one of those credited with eradicating smallpox.

These days Brilliant might be approaching retirement age, but he's set himself some new challenges, among them lowering the cost of renewable energy, spotting pandemics before they happen and creating jobs in Africa. This time around, however, he's not going it alone. In fact, he's got the backing of one of the most powerful companies in the world.

It is two years since Dr Brilliant

took over Google's philanthropic foundation, Google.org, and two weeks since the announcement of an ambitious slate of projects.

Genetic Breakthrough Creates Immunity to Viruses

Sat, 16 Feb 2008 00:20:41 GMT

clipped by: arifsali

Clip Source: www.redorbit.com

Scientists at Canada’s McGill University have discovered a way to boost an organism’s natural anti-virus defenses, effectively making its cells immune to influenza and other viruses. In effect, this makes the cells immune to flu and other viruses.

The researchers performed their study with mice, and knocked out two key genes that repress production of interferon. Without these repressor genes, the mouse cells produced much higher levels of interferon, which effectively blocked viruses from reproducing. The researchers tested the process on influenza virus, encephalomyocarditis virus, vesicular stomatitis virus and Sindbis virus.

“People have been worried for years about potential new viral pandemics, such as avian influenzas,” Dr. Sonenberg, the study’s lead author, said in a press release issued by McGill University. “If we might now have the means to develop a new therapy to fight flu, the potential is huge.”

Tags: science, genetics

Google: From ‘Don’t Be Evil’ to How to Do Good

Mon, 21 Jan 2008 11:54:32 GMT

clipped by: cooperation

Clip Source: www.smartmobs.com

Google: From ‘Don’t Be Evil’ to How to Do Good

Google unveiled nearly $30 million in new grants and investments, outlining how it will focus a massive philanthropic endeavor that erases the usual boundaries between the for-profit and nonprofit worlds. The first set of major five- to eight-year initiatives it will pursue includes efforts to create systems to help predict and prevent disease pandemics, to empower the poor with information about public services and to create jobs by investing in small- and mid-size businesses in the developing world.
Source: Kevin J. Delaney, The Wall Street Journal, January 18, 2008

Tags: google, philantropy

Flu: One shot deal

Fri, 04 Jan 2008 11:22:07 GMT

clipped by: kmcolo
clipper's remarks: An attempt to find a flu shot that will protect for a lifetime is having some success. This shot <strike>will</strike> would protect not only against the annual flu but also against the pandemic flu varieties such as bird flu.

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

A single jab that could give lifelong protection against all types of flu has produced promising results in human trials.

The vaccine, made by Acambis, should protect against all strains of influenza A - the cause of pandemics.

Currently, winter flu jabs have to be regularly redesigned because the flu virus keeps changing.

The new vaccine would overcome this and could be stockpiled in advance of a bird flu outbreak, say experts.

Professor Ian Jones, a University of Reading virologist, said the jab could end the scramble to produce a new winter jab each year.

But he said it would still be some years before it was widely available for patients.

Tags: flu, health, h5n1, bird flu

TB? MD's Seem to Have Forgotten Too - At Patient's Risk

Wed, 28 Nov 2007 13:52:29 GMT

clipped by: nedhamson
clipper's remarks: Duh! Cancer patients are more at risk because treatments often lower their immune system's abilities. So you would think managers of a cancer clinic would be more careful about screening for the spread of infectious diseases in their facilities. They are not immune from having short memories or assuming that they are doing everything they should be for their patient's safety, when in fact they need to regularly scan the horizon for new and old threats. Shameful!

Clip Source: www.azstarnet.com

Tucson Region

UMC site may have put 2,400 at TB risk

Ariz. Cancer Center North had an undiagnosed patient

Tags: tb, dumb, pandemics, scourge, tuburculosis, duh!

Clipmarks | Pandemics Clips

Epidemic and Pandemic Alert and Response (EPR)

Epidemic and Pandemic Alert and Response (EPR)

Five Ways Reality Went Sci-Fi So Far This Century

The coming famine

ScienceDebate 2008: Let The Answers Flow

battling bacteria with a viral protein

Battling Bacteria with a Viral Protein

The coming famine

Earth-Born 'Andromeda Strain': Animal-transmitted Microbes Pose Threat of Global Pandemic

Living In Defiance

Researchers Make Human Flu Antibodies at Record Speed

Fast treatment manufactured from flu survivors' antibodies could pave the way to more effectively thwarting pandemics

7 Worst Plagues in hx

Smallpox (430 BC? - 1979): Killed more than 300 million people worldwide in the 20th century alone, and most of the native inhabitants of the Americas

Spanish Flu (1918 - 1919): Killed 50 to 100 million people worldwide in less than 2 years

Black Death (1340 - 1771): Killed 75 million people worldwide

Malaria (1600 - today): Kills about 2 million people per year

AIDS (1981 - today): Killed 25 million people worldwide

Cholera (1817 - today): 8 pandemics; hundreds of thousands killed worldwide

Typhus (430 BC? - today): Killed 3 million people between 1918 and 1922 alone, and most of Napoleon's soldiers on Russia

Doctor Brilliant

Genetic Breakthrough Creates Immunity to Viruses

Google: From ‘Don’t Be Evil’ to How to Do Good

Flu: One shot deal

TB? MD's Seem to Have Forgotten Too - At Patient's Risk

Tucson Region

UMC site may have put 2,400 at TB risk

Smallpox (430 BC? - 1979):
Killed more than 300 million people worldwide in the 20th century alone, and most of the native inhabitants of the Americas

Spanish Flu (1918 - 1919):
Killed 50 to 100 million people worldwide in less than 2 years

Black Death (1340 - 1771):
Killed 75 million people worldwide

Malaria (1600 - today):
Kills about 2 million people per year

AIDS (1981 - today):
Killed 25 million people worldwide

Cholera (1817 - today):
8 pandemics; hundreds of thousands killed worldwide

Typhus (430 BC? - today):
Killed 3 million people between 1918 and 1922 alone, and most of Napoleon's soldiers on Russia