A teenage girl in Minnesota died after undergoing a routine dental surgery in 2015, and now the family is suing the dentist seeking $50,000 in damages. Sydney Galleger was having a wisdom tooth removed and was put under general anesthesia. The 17-year-old girl went into cardiac arrest in the dentist’s chair.

The dentist started CPR and called an ambulance, which transported her to University of Minnesota Masonic Children’s Hospital. Her condition stabilized at the hospital, but she continued to suffer from a series of seizures. She died a few hours later due to swelling of the brain.

Gallerger’s parents originally blamed a possible undiagnosed heart condition for their daughter’s fatal reaction to the dental procedure, but they now allege the dentist did not administer general anesthesia properly, and that he also failed to monitor her properly. Dr. Paul Tompach has been placed under restrictions barring him from using anethesia, but he is still allowed to treat patients. His license was suspended for a short time before he was reinstated for practice while an investigation continues.

A Spate Of Dental Deaths

Sydney Galleger is among a small number of young patients to die in recent years during dental surgery while under anesthesia, or from complications arising after the procedure. A 24-year-old southern California man died while having wisdom teeth extracted in 2013, and a 17-year-old girl in Maryland died under the same circumstances in 2011.

Others have died from different complications resulting from wisdom teeth extraction. In 2016 Benjamin LaMontagne fell seriously ill days after having a wisdom tooth removed. The 18-year-old from Maine was diagnosed with an infection of streptococcus bacteria, a potent superbug that attacks skin, muscle and fat in the human body leading to toxic shock and death.

Risks Are Still Small

Despite these tragic deaths, dentists point out that thousands of wisdom tooth extractions are handled successfully every day across the U.S. and throughout the world. The risk of death is extremely small. There is often no choice but to remove a wisdom tooth that has become impacted and infected. That means surgery, involving anesthesia, is usually the only way the procedure can be done.

Dr. Joel Weaver, director of anesthesiology at Ohio State University’s College of Dentistry, reports that one out of every 350,000 patients sedated for dentistry die each year. But patients undergoing general anesthesia in a hospital operating room die at a rate of 1 in 100,000, making general anesthesia three times deadlier in hospital ORs than dentist chairs.

Special Problems With Wisdom Teeth

Wisdom teeth are located in the deep rear of the mouth making them difficult to clean, which in turn leads to infection. Another common problem is that wisdom teeth are prone to emerge or grow incorrectly.

Typical side effects associated with post-wisdom teeth surgery are pain, a condition called dry socket, and bacterial infection. Such complications are rare, however, with less than 6 percent of all cases requiring any follow-up medical treatment.

Removing Wisdom Teeth Before They Go Bad

Many people opt to have their still healthy wisdom teeth removed at a young age as a preemptive measure. This decision for elective wisdom teeth extraction is somewhat controversial even among dental professionals. Not all dentists advise early removal, and some are quite passionate against it.

The American Dental Association’s official policy is that wisdom teeth should only be removed,

when there is pain, infection, cysts, tumors, damage to adjacent teeth, gum disease or tooth decay.

This suggests the ADA does not recommend the elective removal of viable wisdom teeth, since it’s a potentially complicated procedure, unless there’s an actual need for it. If you’re thinking of getting your own wisdom teeth removed just in case, maybe ask for a second professional opinion before you decide.

 

Photo by Ricky Romeo, available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic license.

A group of doctors are now urging public health officials around the world to replace the word “overweight” with “overfat.” These doctors claim that the focus on using body mass index (BMI), which measures the ratio between a person’s weight and height, is misleading at best. If these doctors have their way, we could all be using tape measurers far more often than standing on bathroom scales in the future.

Where the Overfat Term Comes From

The main scientists behind advocating the “overfat” term come from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. In their recent case, which was published in Frontiers in Public Health, the authors claim that “over/underfat” are better terms than “over/underweight” because they “describe the phenomena associated with inappropriate body compositions more accurately.” Overfat, in their definition of the term, simply refers to people who have an excess body fat that could impair good health.

And make no mistake about it, these authors don’t take this word change lightly. Indeed, one author, the retired primary-care physician Phil Maffetone, believes using the term “overfat” can help people avoid serious chronic illnesses and take better care of their health.

The reason “overfat” works, at least as far as these doctors are concerned, is because it focuses on looking directly at a person’s adipose tissue and lean muscle. BMIs, unfortunately, are often inaccurate and lead the general population astray. The way the medical establishment currently defines “obesity” is having a BMI reading greater than 29. But this reading becomes problematic when, for instance, a body builder is often considered obese due to his/her increased muscle mass.

Imprecision of BMI Could Be Dangerous

Of course, people in the medical field have been well aware of the imperfections of the BMI system. Despite this knowledge, the BMI is still the standard for measuring “good health” in both the clinic and at home.

It doesn’t help that we’re surrounded by a fitness-crazed media that promotes low BMI results as the golden standard. People fail to recognize that just losing weight is not the key to great health. When looking at a human body, it’s important to take into account not just how much weight is lost, but also the overall composition of muscle, water, and fat.

There are plenty of people in the USA today who have low BMIs, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t “overfat,” Maffetone argues. As Maffeton put it, the BMI “is not diagnostic of the body fatness or health of an individual.” Some researchers believe as many as 76 percent of people in the world could be classified as overfat right now.

American researchers looking at this data were shocked to see the 76 percent figure. One nutrition expert at Columbia University, Marie-Pierre St-Onge, told reporters she believes the American medical establishment really needs to look into this “overfat” issue as the years wear on. However, she also said we need to take cautious first steps in dismantling the “overweight” label. After all, we don’t have an established means of measuring or accessing a person’s “overfatness” just yet.

Change May Come in Replacing Overweight, But It Will Take Time

If “overfat” is really going to be the new “overweight,” there needs to be a huge shift in how public health officials and media outlets inform citizens about healthy body composition. For now, Maffetone says people can adequately get a good sense of their body fat by measuring their abdomen each month with a tape measurer.

The most dangerous form of obesity is called “central obesity,” which refers to an excess of adipose tissue in the abdomen area. And, while we’re all waiting for “overfat” to become the new normal, Maffetone encourages us all to start bringing up the term in daily conversation. Hopefully this will help us all have more intelligent and honest discussions about what truly constitutes “good health.”

 

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Health officials in the state of Washington are alarmed about a significant outbreak of mumps in January. Nearly 300 cases have been confirmed across five counties. That includes 166 cases in King County where Seattle is located. On the opposite side of the state in Spokane, 94 cases have been recorded. Health officials there ordered 300 students to stay home because they were not up to date with their vaccines.

Mumps: A Pain In The Jaw

Mumps is a common condition spread by an airborne virus. It most often affects children but adults are susceptible to the disease as well. The most visible symptom of mumps is a painful swelling of the salivary glands between the jaw and ear. This produces the characteristic puffy cheeks and neck.

The word mumps originally meant “grimace,” or “having a miserable expression,” according to the 16th Century English dictionary.

Along with swelling around the face, the illness produces fever, muscle pain, headache, and extreme exhaustion. In 25% of the cases only one side of the face swells. The swelling peaks in 1 to 3 days.

Vaccination Effective But Not Perfect

Just about all children in the United States are routinely vaccinated for mumps with the MMR vaccine. The first dose is given at age 12 to 15 months; a second round is given at ages 4 to 6 years. The vaccine is not 100% effective, but it does prevent 88% of cases.

Even so, new outbreaks such as those in Washington can still happen, most likely due to an influx of people who have not been vaccinated. These people tend to come from other countries where vaccine programs are not universal, but 12 out of a 100 people still contract mumps even if they are vaccinated.

Treatment

Mumps does not respond to antibiotic treatment, because it caused by a virus and not by a bacteria. Doctors recommend rest, over-the-counter pain medications, such as acetaminophen or aspirin, and using ice or heat pads for swollen, painful areas of the neck and jaw.

Drinking a lot of fluids also counters the effects of fever and prevents dehydration. Last, but not least, sucking on ice chips can provide extra relief.

Washington Not the First

Washington is just the latest state in recent years to experience a spike in mumps. The largest outbreaks have occurred in Arkansas, Iowa, Oklahoma, New York and Illinois, all of which saw more than 300 cases. Last year 5,311 cases in 46 states and the District of Columbia were reported to the CDC.

Mumps became extremely rare in the United States after 1967 when a national vaccination program was instituted. Before the program there were more than 186,000 cases in the U.S. every year. After the vaccine program the rate of infection was reduced by 99%.

Another Possible Source?

Although extremely controversial and sure to produce arguments everywhere it is suggested, there is some evidence that new outbreaks of common diseases such as measles and mumps are being driven by people who are opting out of vaccine programs.

A recent review funded by the National Institutes of Health found a connection between vaccine refusal and the rise of measles and whooping cough. Although this study did not mention mumps specifically, the vaccines for these conditions are generally combined into a single shot.

Health officials say our greatest weapon against such common diseases is vaccination. Scientists insist that rigorous, scientific proof ensures that vaccine are safe and cannot produce other harmful long-term conditions.

The vaccine not only prevents the disease in each individual treated, but a;sp prevents it from spreading to others who are not vaccinated. This makes achieving a nearly universal vaccination goal a significant public health issue, in spite of anti-VAX movements arguing otherwise.

 

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Some people think that “fat shaming” obese people is a good way to motivate them to lose weight, but a new study shows that it not only does just the opposite, but may cause serious psychological harm. In fact, blaming and criticizing people because of their weight produced the opposite effect — it causes them to engage in behaviors that resulted in even more weight gain.

Researchers at Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania looked at 159 obese adults. The subjects were enrolled in a larger study that was testing an experimental weight-loss drug. Each person completed a baseline questionnaire which determined how depressed they were about their weight, and how much they had internalized negative self-images based on weight.

The results of the study show that the more depressed they were, and the higher degree to which they had internalized bad thoughts about obesity, the more they tended to engage in increased eating. They also lost motivation to exercise and become more active in general. People who are depressed about their weight and who have “internally accepted” their condition as hopeless tend to sleep more and avoid physical activity.

The Psychology of Internalization

In psychology, internalization is the process of integration of the attitudes, values, standards and the opinions of other people into one’s own identity or sense of self. Note that this can be both positive and negative. For example, when a parent repeatedly praises a child, telling him or her that she is smart, good, and valuable, the child will internalize these qualities because they have heard it frequently from a trusted authority figure.

The Opposite Effect

In fat shaming, the opposite occurs. Fat shaming is often done by a well-meaning loved one, or an authority figure, such as a parent or spouse. If such a person tells another that they are unattractive because of their weight, too lazy to exercise, or have poor discipline with overeating -– the person may internalize these qualities and then struggle even more against them.

Researchers said that even when well-meaning people fat shame a friend or loved one, the effect is to put pressure on that individual which in turn increases their level of stress. Many people with weight problems became fat in the first place because they used food as a way to “comfort” themselves when experiencing stress.

A Biological Connection

But there seems to be an even deeper mechanism at work. Fat shaming may also trigger biological changes in the body of an obese person. The Perelman study showed that people who have internalized the negative weight opinions of others are three times more likely to have metabolic syndrome, and six times more likely to have high triglycerides as compared to those who have not internalized these opinions.

It’s important to note that fat shaming is both biologically and psychologically damaging, researchers said. The situation becomes a vicious circle of weight gain, self blame, and an ever-increasing descent into depression, anxiety, low self esteem, and other factors.

Society Forces At Work on Fat Shaming

Another significant source of fat shaming is not people, but larger entities like the media, advertising, Internet bullying, movies/TV shows and other public sociological-cultural influences. Advertisers’ emphasis on skinny models and the dominance of “beautiful, slender people” in entertainment venues presents unrealistic images to ordinary people living in the real world.

Conclusion

Scientific research indicates that nagging, criticizing or shaming a person into weight loss is a dead-end approach, but that offering love, support and encouragement will produce positive results. In virtually all cases, the person struggling with extra weight already knows they have a problem, and communicating that to them through fat shaming won’t be helpful at all.

Photo by cristian, available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic license.

According to data from Statistic Brain, about 41 percent of Americans make a New Year’s Resolutions every year. Of those 41 percent, about 32 percent make the resolution to lose weight and exercise more. Unfortunately, as we all settle into the New Year and the “new normal,” we often slacken off and fail to integrate our resolution into our daily lives.

While 72 percent of people who make resolutions keep them for the first week, only 44 percent keep up with their goals six months later. In order to help people trying to get into fitness and wellness, the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) has just released a brand new report on the top fitness trends to expect this year. This report took into account the responses of over 1,800 fitness professionals, and it revealed the top trends to look out for in 2017.

The Top Fitness Trends ACSM Discovered For 2017

One of the main fitness trends ACSM sees continuing into this year is the use of wearable technologies. Just a few of the companies ACSM believes will do very well in 2017 include Garmin, Fitbit, and Apple. Now that more wearable fitness devices are able to track a person’s heart rate, speed, distance, and even provide GPS tracking, the fitness experts involved in ACSM’s report believe wearable devices and fitness apps aren’t just a short-term “fad.”

A few of the top reviewed wearables now on the market include the Apple Watch Nike+, the WiseWear Calder, and the Huawei Fit watch. Despite the popularity of these wearables, ACSM discovered many fitness trends that don’t require equipment at all. In fact, body weight exercises continue to dominate the ACSM report.

Also, high-intensity interval training (HIIT) programs, especially group training programs such as CrossFit and Biogilates, continue to increase in popularity as a means of quickly burning calories.

Some ACSM Respondents Support Lower Intensity Training

Walter Thompson, ACSM’s current president-elect, told reporters that ACSM didn’t consider any “items as trends for this list unless they’re sustained over many years.” The ACSM report has been released annually for 11 years now, and every year they use the same criteria to judge whether something is just a “fad” or a sustained trend.

Of course, while HIIT programs may seem like a great option, Thompson said most respondents still recommend seeking out the counseling of certified fitness professional and going for personal training sessions. Thompson told reporters,

Overall, people who work in the fitness industry are much more accountable and professional than previously.

Not only are there better-qualified fitness instructors out there, there’s also more of them in the USA. The U.S. Department of Labor expects a whopping 8 percent rise in employment for fitness professionals between 2014 and 2024. While HIIT programs may have more flair, ACSM notes that simple strength training and yoga programs are still extremely effective exercise regimens to safely enhance a person’s quality of life.

How Can You Get Started On Your Fitness Journey?

There are numerous cheap and easy ways to get motivated and achieve your fitness goals in 2017. Even if you don’t have the money for the latest wearable device, you can easily download at least one high-quality fitness app to track your progress and get you pumped. For those who don’t need a fitness app or a trainer, ACSM recommends getting out into nature and walking, biking, or hiking.

For those in need of a group setting, yoga, personal training groups, and body weight training programs are perfect for those at various levels of fitness. While HIIT programs are still popular, ACSM recommends them for younger fitness fanatics that can handle the strain of working out for long stretches without breaks.

 

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Imagine using an app to discover that a child as young as a year-old had autism. Alternatively, envision an app that can diagnose dementia years before it can usually be diagnosed, just by analyzing a senior’s speaking voice. Both may soon be reality.

Researchers are hopeful that doctors can use their cost-effective apps to diagnose both diseases earlier when treatment is most effective. All those things and more are now available thanks to artificial intelligence.

How Can Artificial Intelligence Test for Autism?

Most people with autism have trouble making eye contact. Therefore, inventors of the RightEye GeoPref Autism Test have developed a test that watches the eye movements in children as young as one.

In this test, children between 12 months and 40 months are shown two videos. One video has human faces while the other shows geometric shapes. Most children will spend more time watching the one with the human faces. That is not true, however, of children who have autism. The test takes just 90 seconds, so completing it is fast.

The Bethesda Maryland based development team found that their artificial intelligence program correctly diagnosed 45 percent of children with autism. The program also referred another 40 percent for further testing.

Doctors believe that when therapy begins at a very early age the brain can be taught to rewire itself around parts of the brain that do not work properly. The therapy focuses on teaching the young child to do things that come naturally to most babies, such as making eye contact.

Children can also be taught social interaction skills allowing them to fit in better with their peers when they get ready for school. Therefore, the sooner these conditions can be diagnosed, the higher the chances of recovery. This is why artificial intelligence has such a huge potential in this area of care.

How Can Computers be Used to Diagnose Dementia?

While doctors have very few drugs to treat Dementia and Alzheimer’s, the ones that are available for this disease require very early intervention. That is why many doctors are very excited about the program being developed by the Canada-based WinterLight team.

The researchers behind it claim that over 80 percent of people who go on to develop Alzheimer’s start out with changes in their speech patterns. They have proven that such changes can be seen in a person because they start using overly simple words, speak more slowly, use less complex sentence structures, and have trouble identifying the main idea in a picture.

The program they developed analyzes snippets of speech that are one to five minutes long . It looks for the syntactic complexity, acoustics, lexical diversity and semantic content of the snippets. The program is designed to give objective data in an area that can only be speculated about right now.

Doctor Rudzicz, assistant professor at the publically funded University of Toronto, says

Our automated approach will provide an opportunity to give people easier, more cost-effective and accurate access to initial dementia screening

He also says that the program will allow doctors to test for changes and see if the medicine is having the desired effects.

As the average age in the world continues to grow older, it will become even more important to screen patients quickly using cost-effective methods. This is the ultimate aim of the research undertaken by the teams of scientists behind these AI-powered scanning programs.

The Take-Away from All This

Researchers are developing applications using artificial intelligence that will allow them to test for diseases sooner, using big data from quantitative results. The program developed by RightEye will allow doctors to diagnose autism as early as the age of 12 months, when intervention is most effective.

On the other end of the spectrum, the program developed by WinterLight is designed to help doctors correctly diagnose dementia earlier, when drugs are most effective.

Image source: here.

Celmatix is a startup designed by women for women. Founded in 2009, Celmatix has quickly made a name for itself as a company dedicated to helping women with fertility issues. Workers at Celmatix are passionate about using the latest and greatest in gene therapy and technology to discover each patient’s susceptibility to various fertility problems.

Using the power of big data, Celmatix has designed technologies that can determine when and how a patient should conceive a child. Industry experts believe this brand of personalized care will most likely define the 21st-century fertility care industry.

The Revolutionary Services Developed By Celmatix

Piraye Yurttas Beim, who holds a Ph.D. in molecular biology, founded Celmatix after facing infertility issues in her private life. When Dr. Beim was only 30 years old, she discovered she had a diminished ovarian reserve. Thankfully, Beim is now a happy mother of two, but from the day of her diagnosis onwards, she decided to focus all her scientific efforts on helping other women with infertility issues.

It took her about eight years of hard study, but finally, Celmatix was born. Celmatix now offers a revolutionary kind of genetic test called the Fertilome. This test takes a deep look at each patient’s DNA and examines every woman’s potential to conceive and give birth to a healthy child.

The Fertilome test specifically looks into 49 variants within 32 genes related to fertility. Just a few issues it could reveal include polycystic ovarian syndrome, endometriosis, and primary ovarian insufficiency. Tests will show what’s the best time to conceive, whether or not it’s best for a woman to freeze her eggs, or whether or not the patient should opt for in vitro fertilization (IVF).

Celmatix is also well known in the fertility industry for its Polaris product. Polaris is now used by many fertility specialists to compare a patient’s genetic profile with thousands of other patients and determine the best fertility scenarios. In addition to these tests and services, Celmatix has been active in the research community.

With two CLIA-certified labs in New Jersey and Brooklyn, the company is well respected in the scientific community, and it has shared its research at over 30 medical conferences.

Beim’s Vision For The Future Of Fertility Care

Beim has big plans not only for the future of her company but also for the future of the American fertility industry. The dream that keeps Beim going day in and day out is to make the Fertilome test a standard part of a women’s health screening. During an interview, Beim told reporters that she believes

“the way we talk about and treat reproductive conditions and infertility will be unrecognizable in 10 years.”

It might shock some Americans to learn that 7 million American women now have issues in conceiving. The fertility industry now makes around $9 billion each year. Beim is hoping her new technologies will bring fertility treatment into the 21st century by offering women big data solutions to their fertility problems.

A few doctors who have used either Celmatix’s Polaris and/or Fertilome have told reporters that the technologies are “game changers.” Dr. Francisco Arredondo, a fertility expert based in Texas, uses Celmatix’s Polaris on a daily basis with his clients and has told reporters that:

“Polaris allows us to be able to counsel patients with evidence based plans tailored to a patient’s specific needs and circumstances.”

With more doctors like Dr. Arredondo singing Celmatix’s praises, Polaris and Fertilome will most likely play a vital role in the next generation of fertility care.

How To Get A Celmatix Test

The company Celmatix is currently headquartered in New York City, but anyone can seek a Fertilome test. Any patient interested in getting a Fertilome test should consult with their primary care doctor. The physician should be able to easily refer a patient to get a Fertilome test done.

Celmatix told reporters they designed the Fertilome test to be “actionable,” which means everyone who gets this test done will learn how to take productive steps towards helping with their fertility issues right away. Just a few of these steps could include getting in contact with a fertility expert, changing negative habits, or even freezing eggs.

All Fertilome tests are designed to highlight exactly what each patient needs to know if she wants the highest success rate in conceiving a child.

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Millions of people embark on international travel each year not to take a vacation but instead seek out medical care. This type of travel, called medical tourism, is growing in popularity because health tourists can obtain relatively high-quality healthcare services at prices that are a fraction of the cost for what they would have to pay at home. However, medical tourism invites risks for both the host country and travelers themselves. These risks could greatly restrict this type of travel in the future.

The Consequences of Health Tourism

While many medical tourists travel to get cheaper healthcare services, some travelers aim to pay absolutely nothing for their care. Instead of the care being given to them at no cost, however, these people leave the clinic or hospital with the bill, often leaving the country without settling their accounts first.

These people’s unpaid bills leave clinics and hospitals in dire straights when it comes to balancing their budgets and making sure they have enough money to go around for people who actually live and pay into the host country’s medical system. Some hospitals like the Blackpool Victoria Hospital in the U.K. are already strapped for cash but forced to absorb these defaulted bills. They have no way to collect on the bills because the tourists leave the country and may not even leave behind legitimate contact information.

While international travelers are asked to have their own forms of health insurance before embarking on their journeys, some visitors are not so mindful to this detail. They know that they can go to a clinic or hospital and receive the care they need without having to pay any money upfront. They then leave and default on the bill, forcing the medical provider to pay for the bill out of dwindling funds provided by the government.

This increasingly common habit of less than scrupulous visitors could lead to hospitals refusing service to visitors from overseas. It also could lead to a decline in services provided to everyone regardless of where they live.

The Risks of Medical Tourism

Medical tourism is catching on in America as the healthcare costs in the U.S. continue to rise. People who cannot afford insurance or simply want to spare their budgets may find it simpler and cheaper to go overseas to get the care they want or need. Some of the favorite places to where Americans travel include Brazil, Malaysia, and Costa Rica. They may find care in these countries that is not available in the U.S. as well.

Before they embark on their medical journeys, however, Americans are reminded of the risks that could await them once they are checked into the hospital and at their most vulnerable. First, they may find it difficult to communicate with their doctors if their doctors do not speak English. Even if they speak English, the physicians may not speak it well enough to allow for open and effective communication.

Second, patients should think about whether or not the countries to which they travel have the same rigorous standards for screening blood. Blood transfusion infections like HIV may not show up for years. People should research the blood screening standards before undergoing invasive surgery.

Will Health Tourists Be Able to Continue their Practice?

A number of other risks are involved with medical tourism regardless of where patients live and from where they travel. One of the most confounding complications for host countries centers around defaulted bills, however. Health tourists who plan to seek out medical care in other countries are advised to bring along health insurance or cash. Defaulted bills put this practice at risk and compromise the quality of medical services for everyone.

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The Ebola virus has worried the scientific and medical communities for decades. Once thought to be restricted just to Africa, this virus has now made its way across the world and even into countries like the U.S. that once thought it was relatively safe from this sickness. However, as doctors and nurses travel internationally with relief groups like Doctors Without Borders and risk infection, and in light of the influx of African immigrants to America and other countries around the world, Ebola is now considered to be a global threat.

Rethinking the Transmission of Ebola Virus

As the virus made its way across the world, doctors and scientists took minimal comfort in their theory that the Ebola virus could only be transmitted through direct contact with infected body fluids like saliva and blood. As long as people avoided body fluids of Ebola victims or took precautions like wearing gloves and masks, they could not, in theory, catch the illness.

However, recent discoveries about the virus found that it lingers not only in body fluids but also the lining of the lung tissue in victims that were once thought to be successfully and recovered from Ebola. Its presence in the lung tissue means that human-to-human transmission of the disease is possible, making the virus on par with viruses like the flu and the common cold.

Once it gets in the air, it can, in theory, spread like wildfire, infecting millions of people just by the simple act of them breathing it into their own respiratory systems. A worldwide infection would put a strain on global healthcare systems and cause widespread death because of the minimal treatments that are available for this particular disease.

Because of the risk posed to the entire global population, scientists continue to scramble to find a vaccine for it. The vaccine would have to guarantee that the virus would not mutate and efficiently prevent transmission. It also would have to be made affordable for everyone.

The Promise of New Ebola Vaccine Trials

A recent study published in the Lancet medical journal showcased the early success of the first-ever tested Ebola vaccine. The World Health Organization recently tested the vaccine in Guinea, giving it to people who had recent contact with Ebola victims. None of the people who were given the vaccine went on to develop the disease themselves.

This 100 percent success rate, albeit early in the vaccine trials, shows great hope and promise that a vaccine could soon be introduced to the rest of the world so that virtually everyone in every country is immune from this dangerous disease. The vaccine continues to be studied by WHO scientists and is being designed to stop transmission from victims to healthy people.

Thus far, the trials have shown that it takes about 10 days for vaccinated people to build up immunity. This time period is relatively fast considering that it takes up to 14 days for the flu vaccine to build up antibodies in people’s systems. The next challenge that WHO is working on with the vaccine involves manufacturing it in a way that makes it low cost for everyone. The vaccine, if proven to be entirely effective and safe, could be introduced to the global market in the next few years.

Ebola virus has killed millions of people in Africa and beyond. Discovered in 1976, it recently surged through the world at an alarming rate in 2014. It now impacts every country, forcing scientists to work on a vaccine that will protect people. The vaccine has shown promise of being safe and effective and providing 100 percent immunity from the Ebola virus.

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