Yes, unfortunately the Congo is that bad

Last night during the Pantellos sessions jeffwik kept on commenting on how messed up the Congo seemed. And I ahd to admit that I'm pretty sure I wasn't exaggerating much based on my understanding of the region.

To drive this home, I see this in on my google reader this morning

Whole villages are being abandoned as civilians flee attacks by Rwandan Hutu militia and Ugandan rebels in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, just weeks after joint army operations to oust the militias ended.

peaseblossom has a wrap up of last night's session and her very cool playlist.

I'm hoping to get the chance to clean up my session flow-chart and scenes and post them with commentary later today (after the meetings end, okay the meetings never truly end but there are lulls)

Researchers Worldwide Rally to Help Scientist Exposed to Ebola

The accidental exposure of a scientist to the Ebola virus last week has triggered a series of teleconferences by Ebola scientists on two sides of the Atlantic united around a single goal: to help save the life of their colleague, an unnamed virologist at the Bernard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine in Hamburg, Germany, who pricked herself in the finger during an experiment. No approved treatments exist for Ebola, but at the sessions, researchers and physicians discussed the results from a raft of recent studies, some not yet published, into treatments that could prevent or slow the disease, which has a mortality rate of up to 90%.

In the end, the patient and her doctor opted not for an experimental drug but for a new type of living vaccine that has never been tested in humans but has been shown in monkeys to help fight the virus even when given after exposure. An injury from a virus-laden syringe often doesn't lead to infection and disease, because the amount of virus entering the body is small. But the researcher's doctors want to reduce the risk as much as they can.

More here

( Pantellos ramifications )