Alexandra Sifferlin

"Scientists are the only ones who can initiate solving this problem"

Emory University is becoming a one-stop shop for tackling Ebola. The hospital’s infectious disease team has already treated four patients with Ebola, and now a team of biochemists known for their work on HIV wants to take on Ebola.

Scientists at Emory’s Children’s Center for Drug Discovery have extensively studied the development of drugs for HIV that stop the replication of the virus in the body. The center provided breakthroughs for HIV drug development and, more recently, the development of a drug for Hepatitis C. The viruses, though different, have similar replicating mechanisms (viral RNA replication), and now they think they can do it for Ebola.

The team, led by director Baek Kim, is fast-tracking a program to screen a library of over 10,000 chemical compounds that can treat viruses at the molecular level to see if one or more of them may show promise with Ebola. “We need to start screening many, many compounds,” says Kim, anywhere from 500 to 10,000 of them—each of which will be evaluated one by one. Emory chemist Raymond F. Schinazi, who discovered compounds used in multiple very successful anti-HIV drugs, will be working with five to 10 virologists, chemists and biochemists to get the job done.

And if a compound that can treat Ebola is identified and tested on a live virus in a lab, the next step would be to get that compound into a drug of some kind, and then test it in a clinical trial in West Africa.

And while there are ongoing trials in the works for an Ebola vaccine and industry and scientists are racing to find drugs that can treat the virus, Kim’s team and several other research groups nationwide have been eyeing emerging and re-emerging diseases for years. “It’s good to recognize that scientists are the only ones who can initiate solving this problem,” says Kim. “Other pathogens will emerge and re-emerge one day or another, and this is a good exercise in how academics, government and industry can work together toward a single target when we need a fast response.”

Travelers coming to the U.S. from Ebola-affected countries who do not require mandatory quarantines upon arrival will undergo voluntary at-home isolation and could be placed on “do not board” lists, according to new guidelines released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Monday.

The CDC’s new guidelines break down travelers’ risk level into categories: high risk, some risk, low risk and no risk.

People who fall into the high-risk category are those who had direct contact with Ebola patients in West Africa, and who may be at a high risk for infection. For instance, they handled bodily fluids without protection. Those individuals will be asked to isolate themselves in their homes for 21 days. They would be allowed to leave and go out on a jog, for example, but they would not be allowed to take public transportation or go to places with high volumes of people or “congregate gatherings.” They will undergo active monitoring.

People who fall under the “some risk” category would have their temperatures checked twice a day, and their travel and public activities will be assessed on a case-by-case basis. This distinction might apply to a health care worker who did not have direct contact with patients, or who had direct contact but used personal protective equipment fastidiously.

These guidelines are a marked departure from the sweeping quarantine mandate that Florida, Illinois, New Jersey and New York implemented over the last week, stirring up controversy after a recently returned nurse who tested negative for the virus protested her forcible detainment in New Jersey.

When asked why CDC recommendations differ from some states, CDC director Dr. Tom Frieden said, “We find that state health departments generally do follow CDC guidelines.” He added that if states wish to be more stringent, they’re within their rights to do so.

Frieden said fewer than 100 people a day are coming into the U.S. from the Ebola-affected countries. So far there have been 807 people, and of those, 46 are health care workers. The CDC has already instituted daily monitoring for travelers coming in from the Ebola-affected countries. Every traveler is given a kit to take their temperatures and must provide local health care officials with contact information to get in touch with them.

“We base our decisions on science and experience,” said Frieden. “As the science and experience changes, we adapt.” Frieden also acknowledged the active monitoring approach that Doctors Without Borders has urged its physicians to follow. Dr. Craig Spencer is the first Doctors Without Borders worker to be diagnosed with the disease in the U.S., but was immediately quarantined after he reported the first sign of an infection (a lower-grade fever). “This is the kind of approach that they will be effective,” said Frieden.

During the press conference, Frieden cited a 1995 study conducted in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo that looked at the Ebola infection risk of 173 people living within a household of someone with Ebola. The study showed that only 28 (16%) of the 173 contacts of 27 primary Ebola cases developed Ebola, and those who did develop Ebola had direct contact with a known patient. None of the 78 family members who did not have direct contact later became infected, stressing that Ebola needs very direct contact to spread.

“We will only get to zero risk by stopping it at the source,” said Frieden.

On Monday, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie said health care worker Kaci Hickox was released after being put in a mandatory quarantine despite not having any symptoms for the disease.

The Bachelor has long struggled to say "I love you"

Bachelor/former professional soccer player Juan Pablo Galavis and girlfriend Nikki Ferrell may have broken up.

Thanks to some social media sleuthing from People Magazine, there appears to be trouble in paradise. On Sunday, Ferrell unfollowed Galavis on Twitter and Instagram and posted this quote on her Instagram account: “Isn’t it pathetic how we waste so much time on certain people and in the end they prove that they weren’t even worth a second of it.” Galavis is reportedly going back and forth, following and then unfollowing Ferrell.

It wouldn’t be out of character for Galavis to not be able to make up his mind. Bachelor fans were outraged when Galavis didn’t propose at the end of Season 18, but instead said: “I’m not 100 percent sure I want to propose to you. But at the same time I’m 100 percent sure that I don’t want to let you go. I like you a lot. A lot.” He has also refused to say “I love you.” The pair was recently featured on VH1’s Couples Therapy.

[People]

A small group is isolated and being monitored in Vicenza, Italy

American soldiers who returned from Liberia are being isolated in Italy over worries about spreading the Ebola virus, it emerged Monday.

A small group of U.S. soldiers are currently isolated and being monitored in Vicenza, Italy, the Pentagon confirmed. The group reportedly includes Maj. Gen. Darryl Williams, who was commanding the Army in Africa but recently turned over his duties to the 101st Airborne Division. Officials said the troops would be subject to “controlled monitoring” for 21 days, but that it was not a “quarantine.”

The soldiers were apparently met by Italian national police officers in hazmat suits, according to CBS News, which first reported the measures. A 25-bed hospital being built by the U.S. in the capital, Monrovia, is expected to be fully operational in early November.

“The Department of Defense (DoD) continues to address the precise nature of the monitoring that will take place for DoD personnel returning from operation United Assistance,” the Pentagon said in a statement. “Out of an abundance of caution, the Army directed a small number of military personnel (about a dozen) that recently returned to Italy to be monitored in a separate location, at their home station (Vincenza). There has been no decision to implement this force wide and any such decision would be made by the Secretary of Defense.”

The Pentagon says none of the individuals have shown any symptoms of exposure.

The cautionary measures, which could yet extend to the hundreds more troops who are aiding the fight against the virus, come as a number of countries sort out the best practices for monitoring health care workers returning from Guinea, Sierra Leone or Liberia. The three hardest-hit countries of the Ebola outbreak have seen about 10,100 people sickened, including more than 4,900 deaths, according to the World Health Organization.

In recent days, New York and New Jersey have implemented some form of a mandatory 21-day quarantine for returning medical professionals, going back and forth on the severity, following New York City’s first case of Ebola in a health worker who returned from Guinea.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie announced Monday that nurse Kaci Hickox, who was confined to a tent at a New Jersey hospital despite not having symptoms and a negative test for the virus, would be allowed to finish out her isolation at home in Maine. Christie has been heavily criticized for the nurse’s treatment.