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Investigations yield insights into Ebola outbreak’s early months

With West Africa’s Ebola epidemic passing the 1-year mark, two new reports yielded details about factors that fueled the event, including bats in a hollow tree that may have infected the index patient, a young Guinean child, and a silent chain of transmission that caused the disease to flare again in May after cases had sharply dropped off.

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Hospital patients rarely wash their hands, may spread disease

Although healthcare workers are urged to wash their hands often and hand sanitizer dispensers are everywhere in hospitals, patients are less scrupulous and may be contributing to the spread of hospital-acquired infections, say Canadian researchers. After tracking hundreds of patients in a transplant ward for nearly a year, the study team found that hand washing […]

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