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Mucking about with MERS and maps...

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Yes, some more of that stuff with the Tableau presentation stuff.

This one shows the MERS-CoV cases on a map by the region they were most likely acquired in. So that means it doesn't show all the site to which cases arrived via export, just their likeliest point of origin.

Because we have no individual case details about the 113 "found" Saudi Arabian cases from 3-June, I've taken some liberties using the hints provided by the World Health Organization to put this figure together. It will be a little out on the (29) of the found113 that occurred between 5 May 2013 and 28 February 2014 but its the best I can manage with that big data gap.



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Words of wisdom from a Master....

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Prof Vincent Racaniello (he of the TWiV netcasts and Virology blog) took another step towards being the Yoda of contemporary virology communication using social media.

Earlier this morning (my time), while live Tweeting from the Australian Society for Microbiology's (#2014ASM) annual meeting in Melbourne, Prof Racaniello imparted these words of wisdom. This came out during a Tweet exchange with @NewProf1 about how to find some balance as a scientist engaging in social media communication in addition to having a life, succeeding at work...and personal hygiene.


Interesting how close those words are to Yoda's...
 No.
Try not.
Do. Or do not.
There is no try.
Oh, and if you are at the ASM this year - Tweet something for crying out loud!! 

Get into it. 

Create a Twitter account right now - just use it for work related stuff and follow a few people. Social media is, among other things, a great way to get another view of science. And if you engage with the public a little, just around your field of interest to start off with, you might be amazed at how positive and personally rewarding it can be. Not to mention how widespread your reach can become compared to a standard journal publication paradigm. Think of it as another way to look at impact. You may even pick up some collaborations.

At the very least remember, teaching is a great way to learn.
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MERS-CoV in June/July...

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Looks like MERS-CoV cases, while few in number, remain well distributed across nearly all of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia still.

With such a remarkably widespread distribution one must ask, where are these cases coming from? In the absence of any noted hospital outbreaks, do we assume that they are all from animal>>human acquisition?

And what is it about Ha'il, Jizan and Qasim provinces that are protecting them during this period?

Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus activity in June and July in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The pale orange regions have had cases noted, Only Ha'il, Jizan and Qasim provinces have not yielded any MERS-CoV detections.
Click on map to enlarge.

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Editor's Note #19 VDU takes a pause...[UPDATE]



With so many other great, and sometimes overlapping, graphical sources of MERS-CoV information around right now, this seems like a good time to take a break from blogging for a while. 

In the short-term, I'm going to devote my hobby-time to some other virus-related reading & quite a few career-related tasks as well. Sadly, while I immensely enjoy this new-found science communication and writing gig, it does not contribute anything to my "day job". Not a jot...well 2 papers and a review in the pipeline and a million media interviews (those are not viewed with much value by the job, but I feel they are of use for the much wider community). I'm not talking about financial benefits here, I'm referring to blogging not ticking any boxes that contribute to my role description. Social media is still very much though of as a place for selfies and not sciences in many (?most) circles. We're still quite some way off the day when researchers will be expected to be able to engage their stakeholders or share around their knowledge. Sure, there are words on paper here and there, but reality and recognition? Not on my horizon anyway. Sad but true. Also, the level of additional research that goes into this hobby is pretty hard to sustain.

So, while I'm off having a change and a think about things, please do enjoy the back-catalogue if you need a VDU fix.

Note #1: Its not my intention to stop blogging for those concerned about that!
Note #2:  Thanks to Prof Racaniello's inspirational comment (stop whinging, do more - see here), I'll try and make some more time to keep up with the blogging.
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Ebola virus disease (EVD) 2014 West African outbreak..

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I will update this static page (link won't change so you can bookmark it) with the 2014 West African Ebola virus disease (EVD) numbers after they are released by the World Health Organization (WHO). The date these graphs were last updated is listed at the top of the first panel or "dashboard" of graphs an totals .

The WHO create multi-page Situation Reports [2] and brief Situation Summaries.[3] The SitRep's are currently presented on Wednesday and "additional updated figures" will be posted" a SitSumm when they become available any day of the week" (via eMail to journalists from WHO).

My totals include all countries that have hosted a case in, or sourced from, a West African nation. Countries include Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria (now EVD-free), Senegal (now EVD-free), the United States of America, Spain (now EVD-free), Mali (now EVD-free) and the United Kingdom. 'EVD-free means there are no known cases of EVD in the country. Some countries bring in cases of EVD to treat them; they can be defined as free of Ebola virus transmission, but not technically free of the EVD.






The West African region epidemic (top map below), including countries with imported cases and the totals from past Ebola virus disease outbreaks and the few imported monkey cases (the US & Philippines [hence zero human cases]) plotted by total numbers and country (bottom map).




A note about the proportion of fatal cases (PFC): On these graphs, my PFC calculations for West African countries and the DRC are based on dividing the total number of suspected+probable+confirmed deaths by the number of total suspected+probable+confirmed cases on the same date. This is crude and is an underestimate of the true case fatality ratio (CFR) which has stood at ~70% throughout the epidemic.[2]

Reminders: 

  • The graphs above, as with all made by me VDU, are made for general interest only. It is also freely available for anyone's use, just cite the blog (http://newsmedicalnet.blogspot.com.au/) and me (Dr. Ian M Mackay, PhD) please. It may be that I have misinterpreted the language in the reports (sometimes a little tricky to wade through) or miscalculated some totals based on the way data have been presented. 
  • Sometimes there are very country-specific differences in what gets presented to/via the World WHO DONs/SitReps which make this process less clear than it could be. I recommend you have a read and compare the data from each of the countries for yourself to understand these issues.
  • As I've talked about previously,[1] these numbers are all volatile for a variety of reasons, some Ebola-specific, so regard this chart for its trends only.
  • I am only able to plot what is publicly available. To date, this does not include granular data with dates of onset, or daily data of any kind. The WHO have these data and you will see them become more available through their Situation Reports found here http://www.who.int/csr/disease/ebola/situation-reports/en/ 
  1. References... 
    1. Ebola virus disease and lab testing...
      http://newsmedicalnet.blogspot.com.au/2014/04/ebola-virus-disease-and-lab-testing.html
    2. Ebola virus disease outbreak Situation Reports (SitRep)
      http://apps.who.int/ebola/en/current-situation
    3. Ebola virus disease outbreak Situation Summaries (SitSumm)
      http://apps.who.int/gho/data/view.ebola-sitrep.ebola-summary-latest?lang=en
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Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) West Africa update for 1-July-2014... [UPDATED]

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Some quick visualizations of the Zaire ebolavirus outbreak data based, as previously,[1] on the World Health Organization's publicly available data.

The presentation below is made using Tableau, a new platform for me so please let me know of anything that has failed, numbers that are wrong, something that's translated / formatted badly on your device...whatever. Tableau certainly allows for much faster updating of charts...once you've put a leash on it anyway.

PLEASE NOTE: I now have these same data on a static page (one with a webpage address that does not change with each updated blog).
Please vist the links below for the latest EVD numbers and maps.




References...
  1. Ebola virus disease (EVD) West Africa update for 24-June, WHO-AFRO update...
    http://newsmedicalnet.blogspot.com.au/2014/06/ebola-virus-disease-evd-west-africa_25.html
  2. Ebola virus disease, West Africa � update | Disease outbreak news | 1 July 2014
    http://www.who.int/csr/don/2014_07_01_ebola/en/
  3. Ebola virus disease and lab testing...
    http://newsmedicalnet.blogspot.com.au/2014/04/ebola-virus-disease-and-lab-testing.html
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