Friday 21 November 2014

Devex - Peter Piot's 4 tips to fight Ebola

With the Ebola crisis still far from unresolved, Devex spoke to the scientist who helped to discover the Ebola virus almost four decades ago to learn more about what the global development community needs to do right now to tackle the disease.

Peter Piot, director and professor of global health at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and founding director of UNAIDS, traveled in 1976 to Zaire — now Democratic Republic of the Congo — to help quell an outbreak that was rapidly spreading from village to village. After identifying the virus from a Belgian nurse, Piot’s team put infected people into quarantine and was able to contain the epidemic within three months and after the disease had killed over 300 people.

Here are Piot’s four pieces of advice for the ongoing international effort to contain Ebola in West Africa and beyond...

To read the full article, go to Devex.com.

Tuesday 18 November 2014

Devex - 'New R&D models needed to tackle drug-resistant TB'

"Tuberculosis has killed more people than any other infectious disease in human history, yet before 2013 no new drugs to treat the illness had been developed for more than 40 years.

Access to treatment varies from country to country, depending on the strength of health care systems and ability to buy drugs that can cost thousands of dollars. TB is treatable and curable, but 1.5 million people died from the disease in 2013.

Delegates from all around the world came together last month in Barcelona, Spain for the first international parliamentarian TB summit, where attendees declared a commitment to end TB in a generation..."


Read the full article on Devex.com