Disease

Foot and Mouth Disease in Bunyala

An outbreak of foot and mouth disease has been reported in some parts of the Bunyala subcounty, Kenya. Livestock farmers in Bunyala have expressed fear of losing animals if steps are not taken to prevent the spread of the disease.

Legionnaires' Disease: Hong Kong

Two additional cases have been reported in Hong Kong. Both cases had urine samples that tested positive for Legionella pneumophila.

Ebola Outbreak Will Continue For Some Time to Come

Even though Ebola has been snuffed out of the news cycle these days, the epidemic continues to burn in West Africa. The world is, in fact, still facing the biggest Ebola epidemic ever, mainly concentrated in West Africa. To date, there have been more than 20,000 cases and 8,000 deaths in nine countries; that's four times the combined total of every previous Ebola outbreak in history.

This epidemic has also outlasted every prior outbreak, leaving observers to wonder if and when the human-to-human chain of transmission will end.

Ebola will never, ever be eradicated. That's not only because of the outrageous scale of the current epidemic, but because Ebola is a zoonotic disease meaning it lives in animals (most scientists think fruit bats) and only seldom makes the leap into the human population. This happens when unlucky brushes between species occur. Unless those animals are completely killed off (very unlikely), the virus can't be wiped from the planet. We will always have to deal with Ebola.

But the hope is that we won't always have to deal with Ebola at the current scale. To get a sense of the view from the ground, what challenges remain, and whether the end is in sight, the views of some of the leading Ebola doctors and researchers from around the world were canvassed.

They all emphasized that while we seem to have passed peak-Ebola, this epidemic is nowhere near over and getting near zero cases will require more than pouring dollars and doctors into the region — it'll involve changing beliefs and behaviors in furthest corners of West Africa.