A new study has shown that in the catastrophic 2014-2015 Ebola epidemic in West Africa, about three percent of the people infected were responsible for infecting 61 percent of all cases. The issue of so-called “superspreaders,” according to researchers who published their findings in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is so significant that it’s important to put a better face on just who these people are and then better reach them with public health measures designed to control the spread of infectious disease during epidemics.
Category: Oregon State University
Globe-trotting pollutants can last longer and travel much farther than previously predicted
A new way of looking at how pollutants ride through the atmosphere has quadrupled the estimate of global lung cancer risk from a pollutant caused by combustion, to a level that is now double the allowable limit recommended by the World Health Organization. The findings, published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Early Edition online, showed that tiny floating particles can grow semi-solid around pollutants, allowing them to last longer and travel much farther than what previous global climate models predicted.