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Yellow Fever and Ebola, Trans-boundary Aquifers, Probiotics. Aug 24, 2018, Part 2

Science Friday

Science Friday and WNYC Studios

Science, Life Sciences, Wnyc, Natural Sciences, Friday

4.4 • 6.3K Ratings

🗓️ 24 August 2018

⏱️ 48 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

From 1976 to 2017, the Democratic Republic of the Congo experienced eight outbreaks of the deadly Ebola virus. Then, for 10 weeks earlier this year, the virus reemerged in the country, killing 33 people. Ministry of Health officials finally declared the crisis over on July 24. But just one week later, on August 1, the DRC reported a new outbreak of the Ebola virus in North Kivu province. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the The National Institutes of Health, joins Ira for an update on the latest outbreak of the Ebola virus in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Plus, public health officials may not be able to control when and where a viral outbreak will occur. But, with the right strategy, they can keep it from becoming an epidemic. One of these strategies was used on yellow fever, a virus that emerged in Brazil last year and threatened major population centers like Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. Nuno Faria of the University of Oxford describes how his team used real time genome sequencing of the Yellow Fever virus to track where it came from and which groups might be at risk. In the Southwest, water is at a premium, with every drop in demand from agriculture, industry, and growing populations. The Mexico-Texas border is no exception. Strict rules govern who can take water from the Rio Grande, with each country owing a certain amount of water to the other as the river winds back and forth. But the surface water isn’t the only liquid in play. Far below the surface, hidden aquifers straddle the border—and the water within them is largely unregulated. Rosario Sanchez of the Texas Water Resources Institute and Zoe Schlanger, environment reporter for Quartz discuss the water regulations and border disputes.  Plus, are probiotics good for you? A new study suggests too much "good bacteria" could poison your brain.

Transcript

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0:00.0

This is Science Friday. I'm Ira Flato. The Democratic Republic of the Congo has experienced

0:06.0

10 outbreaks of the deadly Ebola virus since 1976. For 10 weeks earlier this year, the virus reemerged

0:15.2

in the country, killing 33 people. Ministry of Health officials finally declared the crisis over on July 24th. But just one

0:24.4

week later, on August 1st, the DRC reported a new outbreak of the Ebola virus in the northern

0:31.4

part of the country. Here to tell, give us an update on the situation in the DRC is Dr. Anthony Founci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the NIH and recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

0:45.7

Welcome back to Science Friday.

0:47.2

Good to be with you, Ira.

0:48.6

Tell us about this current outbreak.

0:51.0

Give us some of the ABCs of it, please.

0:53.3

Well, it's in a totally different location

0:55.7

than the first outbreak that we had earlier in the year that you mentioned, Ira, which was in

1:00.3

the western part of the country. This is 2,500 kilometers to the east of this, is in the northeast

1:07.8

part of the country, right by the border of Uganda and Rwanda.

1:12.3

It is already considerably larger than the first outbreak earlier in the year.

1:17.5

They have been now, as of last night, 103 total cases with 63 deaths.

1:24.9

The situation there is a bit more problematic than we're used to. Democratic Republic of the Congo,

1:30.7

as you said, has considerable experience over the years. This is their 10th outbreak. The problem is

1:36.7

that the outbreak is occurring right at or near the area of rebel fighting with a number of

1:43.8

different rebel groups, making it a real security

1:47.5

issue of being able to do the kind of identification, contact tracing, and the contacts of the

1:54.1

contacts, which is the way that you put down these kinds of epidemics. So it is still in the

2:00.4

escalating phase. We have to watch it

...

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