Uganda's experience in Ebola virus disease outbreak preparedness, 2018-2019.

BACKGROUND: Since the declaration of the 10th Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) outbreak in DRC on 1st Aug 2018, several neighboring countries have been developing and implementing preparedness efforts to prevent EVD cross-border transmission to enable timely detection, investigation, and response in the event of a confirmed EVD outbreak in the country. We describe Uganda's experience in EVD preparedness. RESULTS: On 4 August 2018, the Uganda Ministry of Health (MoH) activated the Public Health Emergency Operations Centre (PHEOC) and the National Task Force (NTF) for public health emergencies to plan, guide, and coordinate EVD preparedness in the country. The NTF selected an Incident Management Team (IMT), constituting a National Rapid Response Team (NRRT) that supported activation of the District Task Forces (DTFs) and District Rapid Response Teams (DRRTs) that jointly assessed levels of preparedness in 30 designated high-risk districts representing category 1 (20 districts) and category 2 (10 districts). The MoH, with technical guidance from the World Health Organisation (WHO), led EVD preparedness activities and worked together with other ministries and partner organisations to enhance community-based surveillance systems, develop and disseminate risk communication messages, engage communities, reinforce EVD screening and infection prevention measures at Points of Entry (PoEs) and in high-risk health facilities, construct and equip EVD isolation and treatment units, and establish coordination and procurement mechanisms. CONCLUSION: As of 31 May 2019, there was no confirmed case of EVD as Uganda has continued to make significant and verifiable progress in EVD preparedness. There is a need to sustain these efforts, not only in EVD preparedness but also across the entire spectrum of a multi-hazard framework. These efforts strengthen country capacity and compel the country to avail resources for preparedness and management of incidents at the source while effectively cutting costs of using a "fire-fighting" approach during public health emergencies

) Maceil, C. E.; In The Encyclopedia of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance

Evanescent-wave cavity ring-down spectroscopy has been applied to a planar fused-silica surface covered with crystal violet (CV + ) cations to characterize the silanol groups indirectly. A radiation-polarization dependence of the adsorption isotherm of CV + at the CH 3 CN/silica interface is measured and fit to a two-site Langmuir equation to determine the relative populations of two different types of isolated silanol groups. CV + binding at type I sites yields a free energy of adsorption of -29.9 ( 0.2 kJ/mol and a saturation surface density of (7.4 ( 0.5) × 10 12 cm -2 , whereas the values of -17.9 ( 0.4 kJ/mol and (3.1 ( 0.4) × 10 13 cm -2 are obtained for the type II sites. The CV + cations, each with a planar area of ∼120 Å 2 , seem to be aligned randomly while lying over the SiOtype I sites, thereby suggesting that this type of site may be surrounded by a large empty surface area (>480 Å 2 ). In contrast, the CV + cations on a type II sites are restricted with an average angle of ∼40°tilted off the surface normal, suggesting that the CV + cations on these sites are grouped closely together. The average tilt angle increases with increasing concentration of crystal violet so that CV + cations may be separated from each other to minimize the repulsion of nearby CV + and SiOH sites. Adsorption behavior of organic molecules on silica surfaces has been the major theme of interface studies for improving the efficiency of chromatographic separations. When cationic molecules are involved, the strong electrostatic interaction with the negatively charged silanol (SiOH) groups on the surface of the stationary-phase silica may cause unwanted peak broadening and tailing, mainly from a slow kinetic response of the electrostatic adsorption. [1][2][3][4][5][6] The surface charge density is one of the primary factors influencing the strength of electrostatics. Accordingly, insight into how the cationic molecules interact with the local silanol groups of the silica surface should aid in the improvement of the design of surface modifications. Silanol groups play the main role in influencing the interfacial adsorption behavior, possessing an average surface density of ∼4.9 × 10 14 cm -2 on the silica surface 7-9 or an average surface area of 20.4 Å 2 per silanol group. As compared to silica sol particles, which have higher surface areas of (0.1-5) × 10 22 Å 2 /g, 7-9 only a few studies focus on characterization of silanol groups on a planar silica surface. 10-12 Ong et al. 10 first reported that isolated and vicinal silanol groups both exist at the water/silica interface possessing different pK a values of 4.9 and 8.5, with corresponding surface populations of 19 and 81%, respectively. These results were confirmed by means of cross-polarization magic angle spinning NMR 13 and fluorescence microscopy. 14 The isolated silanol groups with pK a ) 4.9 are anticipated to be separated far from each other (>5.5 Å), permitting proton dissociation. The vicinal silanol groups are located so closely as to form hydrogen bonds directly with their neighbors (<3.3 Å), which share 46% of the surface population, or through a water-molecule bridge (3.5-5.5 Å), which covers ∼35% of the surface population. 12,[15][16][17] By using second harmonic generation (SHG) with a cationic crystal violet (CV + ) molecular probe to investigate the local density distribution of the isolated silanols (pK a ) 4.9) on the planar fusedsilica surface, Xu and co-workers 12 classified them into two types. The first type of silanol group is anticipated to be surrounded by a large empty surface area (g120 Å 2 ) with a surface density o

Avipoxviruses: infection biology and their use as vaccine vectors

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Avipoxviruses (APVs) belong to the <it>Chordopoxvirinae </it>subfamily of the <it>Poxviridae </it>family. APVs are distributed worldwide and cause disease in domestic, pet and wild birds of many species. APVs are transmitted by aerosols and biting insects, particularly mosquitoes and arthropods and are usually named after the bird species from which they were originally isolated. The virus species Fowlpox virus (FWPV) causes disease in poultry and associated mortality is usually low, but in flocks under stress (other diseases, high production) mortality can reach up to 50%. APVs are also major players in viral vaccine vector development for diseases in human and veterinary medicine. Abortive infection in mammalian cells (no production of progeny viruses) and their ability to accommodate multiple gene inserts are some of the characteristics that make APVs promising vaccine vectors. Although abortive infection in mammalian cells conceivably represents a major vaccine bio-safety advantage, molecular mechanisms restricting APVs to certain hosts are not yet fully understood. This review summarizes the current knowledge relating to APVs, including classification, morphogenesis, host-virus interactions, diagnostics and disease, and also highlights the use of APVs as recombinant vaccine vectors.</p