Friday 25th July 2025
Blog Page 1238

Review: Drake – If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late

Giles Norris
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Review: Drake – If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late
★★★★☆

Four stars
 
Drake has become the next major artist to drop an album out of nowhere. Just like Beyonce’s last LP, If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late was unceremoniously uploaded to iTunes, without the high profile marketing blitz that usually accomplishes top tier pop releases. This lack of ostentation carries over to the music found on the record. Drake’s sound is stripped back to the bare bones. The production, handled by Boi-1da and Noah ’40’ Shebib, is minimal and brooding. Tip-toeing piano and swirling ambience is met by the taut bounce of snarling 80s. The sound design is flawless as usual, every sound crisp, tight and perfectly placed. The most interesting textures are to be found in ‘Jungle’, which pairs D’angelo-style soulful instrumentation with the harder percussion of contemporary hip-hop. It never moves far from the melodic trap sound that Drake has inhabited for his last few releases, however, failing to push the sonic envelope and staying firmly within the current popular vernacular.
 
Drake himself is on usual form, dispensing earworm loverman melodies. This romanticism is broken up with a more menacing presence upon the harder-edged pieces, coming through with righteous braggadocio on heavy-hitter ‘6 God’. The balance of aggression and sentimentality is shifted further towards the former. Instead of breathless romance, he is more pre-occupied with ‘enemies’ than lovers, calling out those who are holding him back on the cathartic ‘Energy’. Although competent, the record lacks ambition compared to previous Drake releases.
 
The record never produces any truly outstanding or memorable moments in the way previous albums have. The freshest moment comes not from Drake himself, but when rising star Travi$ Scott interrupts proceedings with his gothic stomp and auto-tuned drawl. This can largely be attributed to the nature of the album’s conception. Drake and his fellow label mates are currently involved in a vitriolic dispute with Cash Money owner Birdman. The secret, unauthorised release of this album fulfils his four album deal, freeing him from his previously binding contract. The hand-scrawled album cover is a pointed taunt, directed at his previous boss, ridiculing his powerlessness to stop one of his biggest assets fleeing his control. This record should therefore be viewed only as a transitional piece; its importance is in allowing Drake free reign to craft his upcoming full release, View from the 6, free from interference. This offering will keep the fans thirsty for some new Drizzy going until he drops his next masterpiece. 
 

Review: Father John Misty – I Love You, Honeybear

Aidan Clark
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Review: Father John Misty – I Love You, Honeybear

★★★★☆

Four stars

Fleet Foxes are a cornerstone of the indie folk scene, and Josh Tillman was integral to their success as drummer and backing vocalist prior to leaving the band in 2012. On I Love You, Honeybear – his second album under the moniker Father John Misty – Tillman’s music, in contrast to the more stripped-back feel of his previous solo efforts, is reminiscent of his former band’s expansive chamber pop sound, with lush string arrangements all over this record.

Tillman differs from the Fleet Foxes sound, however, when it comes to the lyrics. Whilst Robin Pecknold’s lyrics on their records are very much of secondary importance, usually coated in harmonies, Tillman’s words take centre stage in Honeybear. He swings abruptly from caustic wit to heartfelt romantic sincerity, complaining about how his girlfriend misuses the word ‘literally’ in the wonderful ‘The Night J. Tillman Came to Our Apartment’, but remaining totally believable when he tells her, “I can hardly believe I’ve found you and I’m terrified by that”, on the next track.

There’s something of Morrissey in this juxtaposition of sardonic lyrics with exquisite instrumental accompaniment and, though there are a few duds, it comes off extremely well in many of these tracks. This is certainly a more personal take on Fleet Foxes’ style of chamber folk, and some may find it even more appealing.

Review: Peace – Happy People

Ben Wilkinson-Turnbull
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Review: Peace – Happy People

★★★☆☆

Three stars

Despite the calmness of their band name, Peace exploded onto the music scene. Debut album In Love (2013) came with the delicious happiness of ‘Bloodshake’ and the startling beauty of ‘California Daze’. Critical acclaim flooded in, sweeping the band away in a swell of paisley shirts and jangling guitars. Two years later, and the Worcester boys are back with Happy People. But is that the state of mind you are left in after listening to the longawaited return of the indie-rockers? 

Initially, it would seem so. Opener ‘O You’ twangs in a delightfully different manner. It retains the swaying swagger of earlier tracks, but re-edifices their sound just enough to make worthwhile listening. ‘Someday’ is an Oasis-like ballad about a failed romance which is so simple it is endearing. The funk on lead single ‘Money’ meanders through your ears, the hook lingering in your mind, although the lyrics are not particularly innovative. 
 
But this is the album’s main problem. It treads water in seas already much explored and passed through. Instead of sailing to new sounds, Peace have chosen to lay anchor in the areas in which they are most comfortable. True, the album prompts you to dance, but only using steps that are all too familiar and which could become dangerously repetitive. If they don’t find some new moves soon, the once happy people could soon vacate their dance-floor. 
 

Bar Review: Lincoln

The Bar Review Team
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Bar Review: Lincoln

Lincoln is a conveniently central, if rather tiny, college. Its bar is a short trek from a handful of colleges, and one which is actually worth making. The bar, called Deep Hall, ingeniously named in reference to its relative placement to the College’s Hall, was identifiable by the sign on the door disallowing externally bought food and drinks.

Although I perhaps wouldn’t have described the cellar bar as ‘atmospheric’, the chosen adjective on the College website (which I first consulted to check that this cozy college even had a bar), it did immediately seem to be a pleasant environment. The room was modern, uncluttered, unpretentious, warm, and surprisingly full. The furniture and decoration was mostly basic and unconventional, with the exception of a few gaudy blue plush couches by the door, which looked comfortable, if out of place, among the wooden benches.

Upon approaching the counter, I was quickly served by the burly, blokey barman, whose confident competence was a refreshing change from the usual lazy confusion of humanities students trying to fund their Park End addiction. When I asked for the college drink, he just laughed at me, and explained that the nine-pound concoction is designed to get rugby lads drunk in five minutes, and would have me under the table. This choice of target market surprised me, considering the content, subdued, hipstery clientele that filled the bar (shoutout to the notable wavey hero in the neon orange suit) but perhaps the intention was to get them out as well as drunk.

Embarrassed, I settled for a pint of pale ale from the fair selection of beers on tap, which was considerably cheaper than the aforementioned toxic cocktail. With a perfectly balanced mix of friendliness and efficiency, he poured it and moved on to the next group, leaving me grateful I’d thought to bring money, as the card machine opposite the entrance charged an extortionate £1.10 per transaction. Despite the friendly, social crowd, it was easy to hide behind a table in an alcove in the wall for a private catch up with an old friend. There we weren’t bothered, due in part to the good acoustics of the lofty cellar, and there we remained until the bar closed oddly early. At 11 pm (and on a  weekend night, no less), we were politely ushered out of the college and made our way to a proper pub.

Although unspectacular, Deep Hall is a pleasant place to drink and socialise, assuming that you remember to bring cash with you and don’t expect the character, uniqueness, nuance, and tradition that your own college bar may offer.

Rating: ★★★☆☆ (3/5)

What’s really going into your ball?

Tintin Stutter
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What’s really going into your ball?

Often seen as the epitome of Oxford grandeur, the lavish summer balls are an event that every student should experience at least once. But most attendees know little about the work that actually has to go into them from fellow students.

Before matriculation, interviews for our ball committee were advertised. I  eagerly signed up because of my niche set of skills, including obsessive punctuality, and a passion for overloading myself with a to-do list as long as the walk to St Hugh’s. Each role in the committee was given a brief description, and during the ten minute interview we had to have a stab at selling ourselves and our skills to the co-Presidents and Secretary. Admittedly, I didn’t think I’d done a good job of convincing them that my future lay in  marketing and advertising… or that my summer job as a cocktail waitress would greatly enhance my contribution to the planning. However, I made it and within the first meeting we threw ourselves headlong into theme selection. Despite sugar laden sustenance, our creativity often seemed to fail us. After at least two hours, the suggestions had well passed appropriateness and had entered the realm of farce, including a 50 Shades of Grey theme and, my personal favourite, ‘Disco: The Ball’.

After two meetings, we had boiled it down to one idea, which had started to take on a somewhat focused form. The creative team were hard at work on Photoshop designing logos, and marketing were already ‘hot on social media’ and obsessively tracking the most effective techy ‘buzzwords’ to sell the idea of an eerie, yet decadent event amongst some of Oxford’s most divisive architecture.

Our first major tasks were keeping the theme secret and selling the premise to college, tasks which we somehow managed. We accomplished this through a launch party which managed to clash with both what is arguably our college’s biggest social event of the term, the aptly named World’s Biggest Crew Date, and the St Hugh’s ball launch in Bridge. It didn’t seem to matter. Arzoo fuelled our college pride, and the lingering taste of curry was a sickly reminder the next day of this special occasion.

The next hurdle was our first release of tickets to college students, and we were impressively backed by IT skills that I will never understand (Google ‘html’ and ‘coding’ and you’ll soon see why). Over the Christmas break, each team was then tasked with actually getting our collective organisation into gear, making plans, and schmoozing businesses. This included an online battle with a printing firm that shall not be named, which lasted over two days, and included an impressive level of headless-chicken-panic at my inability to format a PDF file.

Now, how many of you have thought about how ball trailers are filmed? Well, it actually takes an awful lot of work, some reasonably professional student directors and some not-so-professional student extras. The efforts behind our trailer included a traumatic trip to Botley for equipment (never going that far past the train station again), a day of freezing in summer ball gowns and a co-
President losing most of his dignity by spending half an hour as a glorified door stop. In a tragic twist of fate, the ball trailer never made it out in time to entice ticket customers. We made it to ticket day in one piece. Expecting to spend my entire session of morning lectures unsubtly replying to queries on my phone, I was pleasantly surprised (read: astounded) when we sold out in nine minutes and 20 seconds. Most likely due to last year’s reputation, and least likely due to my fitting the word ‘hype’ in every Facebook post about the subject.

That allowed us approximately half an hour of ‘pat on the back’ time before returning to the meetings to start actually finalising vaguely important things like entertainment and food. The next weeks of Hilary and the Easter vacation may become a totally confusing blur of caterers, diva DJs and missing marquees, but I can tell that the night will be worth it. 

Bexistentialism HT15 Week 5

Bex Watson
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Bexistentialism HT15 Week 5

On the day of last year’s Halfway Hall, warfare began. In the house I live in now, a fight broke out. At the beginning of this Michaelmas, five third years remained.

Yes. I am intentionally speaking in a dramatic tone. Now, it is time for our own Halfway Hall. The morning starts with E&M-Mate moping into my room. “Someone’s taken my Mature Cheddar.” I enter the kitchen to aid him in his grumpy quest. But it seems E&M-Mate’s cheese is not the only thievery. My mozzarella is missing. Is-He-My-Mate-3rd-Year is missing two wraps. Boxer-M8 is missing two eggs.

Screams echo about the house. Posts in our Facebook group ensue. A scream comes from Ditz. The toilet is yellow-puddled. “WHY WON’T THEY LEARN TO STOP PISSING ON THE TOILET SEAT?” My mouth opens and shuts. Her door slams, and a minute later a Facebook notification pops up on my phone. She has posted. The third years’ heads rear with anticipation for their response. Mock-retorts follow. My phone ding-ding-dings.

“WHY WON’T YOU STOP LEAVING HAIR IN THE SHOWER?” “STOP LEAVING YOUR DOORS OPEN!”

Cyber passive aggression reverberates about my head. Banter or no banter, by the evening I am glad to get out of the house. As wine trickles from bottles, the weight of the day falls. I ignore the knowledge that I have a term and a half left to gaze fondly at the linguist opposite me. I ignore that I am yet to succeed at existing.

As we glide from drinks to Wahoo, all feels harmonious. Even Wahoo itself. A curse on our house? Pish. The night ends as our ears truly begin to hear the attempts at mixing music. But instead we stumble upon a warfront. An open suitcase which lay lonely on the street earlier is now barricading my bedroom door. Clingfilm covers the toilet. Ditz-Friend decides to have a shower to wash off Wahoo vibes.

As the shower stops, I hear the steady stomp of her feet, and she opens my door. “Come see this.” I follow her into the bathroom. On the shower wall is scribed ‘F U’, in hair. I laugh, and tell her to take it down. “But it took me ages to get the hair out of my hairbrush!” “Take it down. We can’t antagonise.”

The next day, as I pick up my razor, I see something jammed in to the blades. Looking closer, I see that it is cling film. I put the razor down slowly, close my eyes, and quietly sigh.

Oxford town crier exposed as fraud

Henry Shalders
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Oxford town crier exposed as fraud

Oxford’s town crier has resigned following revelations that he lied over his military record. It emerged over the weekend that the 62 year old town crier Anthony Church had falsified his past service with the army.

Despite wearing military medals and having claimed to have served as a sergeant major, Church has never worked in the armed forces. Church purported to have fought in the Falklands War with the Coldstream Guards as a regimental sergeant major. In 2010, he told BBC Oxford, “As far as getting into town crying, I’m an ex-regimental sergeant major, so I had the voice anyway.”

With a voice that can reach 118 decibels, it would seem Church is well-suited to the role.

An outfit of veterans known as the ‘Walter Mitty Hunters’ exposed Church. The group is dedicated to hunting down those who lie about their military record. Church bought two war medals online, a General Service Medal, and a South Atlantic Medal, and inherited a British Empire Medal from his father, Jack Church, an RAF pilot who served with distinction in the Berlin airlift.

Following questioning by a Buckingham Palace courtier, Church admitted he had not won his medals himself. Church also claimed to have been awarded an OBE.

The town crier has been a regular feature of Oxford life in his 12 years in the role. In 2012, he was one of three representatives from the Guild of Town Criers selected to accompany athletes to the Olympic opening ceremony.

In response to the revelations, Church has apologised for his “grave error of judgement” and resigned his membership of the Loyal Company of Town Criers. He stated to The Daily Telegraph, “I was told several years ago that as the sole-surviving son I was entitled to wear the BEM and put BEM after my name.

“I also wanted, with the anniversary of the Falklands and World War One, to show my solidarity for those people who had served in these campaigns and found a place I could purchase replica medals and purchased a South Atlantic medal.”

The Cowley-born crier said he removed his medals “immediately” upon realising the public assumed the Empire Medal had been earned by him, not his father. He said that lying about service with the Coldstream Guards was “a moment of madness” adding “people will probably feel, with hindsight, that I have misled them. It was never my intention to cause any distress but it has backfired and cost me everything.”

Church was the town crier not only for Oxford but also for the surrounding towns of Banbury, Thame, Chipping Norton, Daventry, and Wallingford. Over the course of a decade, he has become something of a local celebrity, even starring on local television in 2010. Whilst delivering public announcements, he would routinely sport these service medals.

The Secretary of The Loyal Company of Town Criers, John Theman, wrote on their Facebook page, “We wish to thank The Walter Mitty Hunters Club for outing Anthony Church. His actions are deplorable and beneath contempt.”

The chairman of the Oxfordshire Royal British Legion, Jim Lewendon, commented to The Daily Mail, “Wearing the medals is an insult to the bravery of the troops who served,” but added, “I can’t believe Anthony was a pretender and I hope he can put this behind him.”

Oxford professor to reassess side effects of statins

Claire James
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Oxford professor to reassess side effects of statins

An Oxford professor is to lead an extensive review into the side effects of the cholesterol-lowering drugs statins.

Sir Rory Collins, co-director of the University’s Clinical Trial Service Unit and Epidemiological Studies Unit (CTSU), and his Oxford colleagues will re-examine the medical records of tens of thousands of patients included in previous studies into the widely prescribed drug.

The new review will assess the prevalence of various reported side effects, such as muscular pain, diabetes, and memory loss.

The editor of the British Medical Journal (BMJ) Dr. Fiona Godlee commented, “This is of real concern. We wrongly assumed all the details of possible side effects had been thoroughly assessed before new guidance made tens of thousands of people eligible for this drug. We now know this is not the case and would urge that any re-analysis be done in the most transparent way.”

Last July, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) published new guidelines on statins, with doctors instructed to prescribe statins to patients deemed to be at a ten per cent risk of a heart attack in the next decade, if lifestyle changes are unsuccessful at bringing down the risk.

Prior to the release of the latest guidance, NICE had recommended that statins should only be prescribed to individuals with a 20 per cent risk of heart attack in the next ten years.

The new instructions, based on what NICE described as the “best and most complete review of evidence in this field”, mean that up to 40 per cent of the adult population are eligible to be prescribed statins.

Conservative MP Dr. Sarah Wollaston, chairwoman of the House of Commons’ Health Select Committee, said, “I’m concerned there may be side effects that have not been reported. Drug manufacturers should release all their trial data on statins so they are available for scrutiny.”

Oxford’s Visiting Professor of Public Health Epidemiology Dr. Klim McPherson commented, “We know these drugs have side effects but we do not know if these have been assessed properly by the drug companies who carried out the trials.

“It is outrageous. Why do they not make their data available for scrutiny? Taking these drugs should be a matter of individual patient preference with patients fully aware of their risks, which at the moment is not the case.”

Statins are a group of drugs that lower blood cholesterol levels by limiting the build-up of fatty deposits in the arteries, which can cause cardiovascular conditions.

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the biggest killer in England and Wales, constituting nearly a third of deaths each year and having cost the NHS an estimated £7.88bn in 2010.

NICE has argued that if all eligible patients were offered statins, as many as 28,000 heart attacks and 16,000 strokes could be prevented each year.

Nonetheless, this has been met with fears of the influence of pharmaceutical companies and unnecessary ‘medicalisation’.

Oxford student shortlisted for Mars mission

Marianna Spring
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Oxford student shortlisted for Mars mission

An Oxford University student is one of five Britons to be shortlisted to take part in the Mars One project.

Ryan MacDonald, 21, from Derby, is a Masters student in physics at University College. He is also one of five people from the UK to have reached a shortlist of 100 to take part in this mission to the red planet.

The project plans to send humans on a one way trip to Mars in order to set up a permanent human settlement on the planet by 2024, at an estimated cost of $6bn for the Dutch non-profit organisers.

Ryan Macdonald told the Huffington Post, “I would like to go to Mars for a dream. Humanity’s greatest strength is our ability to dream of a better world, to imagine a future and to inspire a generation to bring it to life.”

The Oxford physicist, who can recall 90 digits of the mathematical entity pi, also commented to The Guardian, “The most important thing to do in life is to leave a legacy. A lot of people do that by having a child, having a family. For me this would be my legacy.

“Hundreds of years down the line, who is going to know who was the President of the United States? Everyone will remember who were the first four people who stepped onto Mars.”

The four other Britons among the final 100 candidates for the mission include Durham University PhD astronomy student Hannah Earnshaw, University of Birmigham astrophysics PhD student Dr Maggie Lieu, Alison Rigby, 35, a science laboratory technician who is from Beckenham, Kent, and Clare Weedon, 27, a systems integration manager for Virgin Media.

These five candidates form part of a total of 50 men and 50 women who have been shortlisted from all over the world; 39 from the Americas, 31 from Europe, 16 from Asia, seven from Africa and seven from Oceania.

They were picked from a pool of 660 candidates who participated in online interviews with the mission’s chief medical officer Norbert Kraft, in which they were tested on their understanding of the risks involved, team spirit, and their motivation behind taking part in the expedition.

Initially, over 200,000 people applied to take part in the controversial privately funded mission, which could be filmed for a reality television series. It’s not over yet for those candidates who were not selected either; they’ll have the chance to re-apply in a new application round opening in 2015.

Other Oxford students were both excited and perplexed by the controversial project and the concept of a one-way trip.

Alex Shickell, a fellow student at Univ, commented, “I think it’s a great idea and that it will help humanity explore the boundaries of our existence. Nonetheless, it’s a very daunting project and you’d have to be one very brave and perhaps slightly unhinged person.”

Worcester fresher Charlotte Dowling also stressed the downsides of participating in Mars One. She said, “I think it’s an interesting idea; expansion into the stars is like something out of a sci-fi film. However, I’d question whether we have the right to settle there. It’s a little bit like colonisation. Just because it is not owned by anybody doesn’t mean we have the right to take it.”

Exeter undergraduate Flora Hudson added, “In my opinion it could be a new imperialism. We don’t own space. What right do we have to settle there? More importantly, it seems to me like a suicide mission. That in itself is a very frightening prospect.”

All of the shortlisted candidates will now be tested in groups to assess their responses to stressful situations in order to decide who will make the final list of 24 actually selected for the mission. Part of their training will then take place in a simulated Martian environment.

Before the Mars Project can go ahead, the Dutch organisation will have to amass funds to send a robotic lander, as well as a communications satellite, to the planet.

If this goes as planned, they will then have to send an ‘intelligent’ rover in order to scope out a landing spot for habitation modules and life support systems which will be sent up on rockets before the first humans arrive there.

The project has not been without scepticism, as researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology suggested in a report last year that any manned mission to Mars would result in the crew dying after 68 days.

Investigation: Oxford’s role in the fight against Ebola

Tom Carter
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Investigation: Oxford’s role in the fight against Ebola

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has estimated that since the outbreak of the latest Ebola epidemic in 2013, there have been 23,217 suspected cases and 9,353 deaths. Scientists from Oxford University have played an integral part in leading the effort to fight it. This has mainly consisted of setting up clinical trials to test the efficacy and safety of both possible vaccines and possible cures. The investigation this week takes a deeper look at this contribution, and interviews some of the researchers behind it. The articles featured below introduce the investigation. They give an explanation of the key things to know about Ebola, as well as a first hand account of the practical considerations researchers face when working in the field.

Other articles in this investigation:

Fever, headache, muscle pain, diarrhoea: an introduction to Ebola

Chanatjit Cheawsamoot

In October 2014, the World Health Organisation (WHO) concluded that the current Ebola epidemic is larger than all past Ebola outbreaks combined. While most people will have begun to be aware of the Ebola epidemic in the autumn of 2014, the start of the outbreak was actually much earlier – in late 2013. The epidemic began in Guinea during December 2013 and the WHO was officially notified of the rapidly evolving Ebola disease outbreak in March 2014. The three most affected countries in West Africa – Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone – face an immense challenge as they try to control the spread of the Ebola virus and to provide treatment for all those infected. 

Although the current outbreak is exceptionally large, there have been previous outbreaks of Ebola before in West Africa, albeit on smaller geographic scales. The WHO speculates that the larger scale of this epidemic is due to certain characteristics of the affected populations and insufficient control efforts. For example, the populations of Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone are highly interconnected, with relatively easy connections by road between rural towns and villages and between densely populated national capitals, providing a golden opportunity for the Ebola virus to spread among populations. Symptoms of Ebola include fever, severe headache, muscle pain, diarrhoea, and unexplained haemorrhage.

The natural reservoir host (the long term host of a pathogen for an infectious disease) of the Ebola virus remains unknown. However, current evidence suggests that reservoir hosts for the Ebola virus are likely to be bats, suggesting a possibility that humans became infected directly from bats in caves, as well as when they come into contact with tissue from infected apes and other species.

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Transmission of the Ebola virus is through blood and body fluids – including but not limited to urine, saliva, sweat, faeces, vomit, breast milk,and semen of a person who is sick with Ebola. It is not spread by air, water, or food. As Ebola doesnot spread through casual contact, the risk of an outbreak outside of Africa is very low if effective hygiene control measures are implemented.

As for all diseases, epidemiologists strive to calculate the basic reproduction number (R0), which is the key to figuring out how infectious a disease is. It expresses how many people one infected person can pass the disease onto. This value for Ebola varies from population to population but they are all close to two, indicating that each infected person has the potential to pass on the disease to two other people. Compared to other epidemics in the past, the basic reproduction number of Ebola is much smaller. For example, measles had an R0 value of 18 before a vaccine was procured. This shows that even though the fatality rate is high (around 60 per cent), the Ebola virus is not very good at transmitting itself at all.

Thus, one strategy in controlling the epidemic is reducing the basic reproductive value to below one, which means that an infected person will no longer pass the disease on to anybody, effectively preventing the spread of Ebola. This can be done via the isolation of infected patients to prevent the transmission of the virus to uninfected people.

With the prospects for a novel and successful Ebola vaccine, immunising just over half of the affected populations can halt the spread of the Ebola virus. Of course, ensuring that everyone who is at risk is immunised would be desirable but this level is the minimum that is needed to contain the Ebola virus disease.

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Because the Ebola virus is spread mainly through contact with the bodily fluids of symptomatic patients, transmission can also be prevented by a combination of early diagnosis, contact tracing, patient isolation, and care and safe burial. Contact tracing involves finding everyone who has come into contact with an Ebola patient, after which they are tracked for 21 days for signs of illness. If a contact develops Ebola symptoms, they are immediately isolated and provided with treatment. This process is crucial in stopping the spread of the disease.

As vaccines against the Ebola virus are being tested for safety and effectiveness, other treatments are used to maintain the health of patients, such as providing intravenous fluids, maintaining blood pressure, and treating other infections if they occur. Until then, successful recovery from Ebola depends on the patient’s immune response and the quality of supportive care. As vaccine trials for Ebola are being carried out at The Jenner Institute in Oxford, there is yet hope that a cure will be found.

 

Pierro Olliaro, a professor of Tropical Medicine working on Ebola, discusses the practical elements of his work

Ebola is a deadly disease, but fortunately it cannot be transmitted as easily as can, for instance, flu: it needs direct contact with body fluids, and only a person with symptoms can pass the virus onto another person. The virus circulates in nature, and humans can occasionally catch it from infected wild animals, like bats and monkeys. Then, when the person starts developing symptoms – and only then – they will start infecting other people around them. Particularly dangerous are traditional burials, which can generate many more cases from one single instance.

In the past, epidemics have generally been confined to remote areas and were curbed before they reached highly-populated areas. Unfortunately, this is not what happened this time. In the countries in West Africa where Ebola has spread havoc during this last epidemic, people, governments, and international aid generally underestimated the magnitude of the problem, probably thinking that the epidemic would simply die down on its own. Ignoring the looming disaster, life carried on as usual, unsafe practices continued allowing the number of cases to pile up and the disease to spread further afield – to amount to an appalling 23,000 cases as of today.

When I first visited West Africa in October 2014, several months into the epidemic, it had become only too obvious how real the problem was, and a number of measures had been set in place to hold off the spread of the disease.

Simple measures are very effective: do not touch anyone, touch as few things as possible, possibly avoid public transportation, and wash your hands as often as possible. Tanks of chlorinated water stand outside shops, offices, hotels with which you are required to wash your hands before entering; hand antiseptics are in high demand.

Things change completely when it comes to getting close to a suspected or confirmed case in a screening or treatment centre. Here, the risk of exposure increases with medical acts like visiting a patient or taking a blood sample.

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Doctors and nurses wear personal protective equipment (PPE) clothing that covers them from head to toe. Donning the PPE, including mask, visor or goggles, hood, apron, etc. takes about ten minutes, and doffing it takes even longer – it is the most critical part of all, to prevent infected material possibly present on the outside from getting in touch with the body. In between, one would have spent one hour inside; at this point the scrub that you are wearing underneath would be completely soaked, wellies and surgical gloves (two pairs) filled with sweat that had trickled down. Scrupulous adherence to very strict procedures has proved very effective: of the hundreds of healthcare workers who have been treating thousands of Ebola patients in this epidemic, very few have become infected, mostly because of needle injuries or a breach in protocol.

If being in an Ebola-stricken country is a poignant experience, returning can be quite a journey. Your temperature is checked and you are questioned several times as to what you have been doing at the airports of embarkation, transit, and arrival.

On landing in the UK, Border Control will know where you have been, even if you’d stopped over for a few days elsewhere on your way back. You will be asked kindly to wait for a Public Health England (PHE) official to come and assess you. If you’ve been deployed to work on Ebola (one would hardly think of visiting those countries as a tourist, these days), PHE would be fully aware of your movements and whereabouts, and would provide you with instructions and have a box delivered at your home with various materials, including a tympanic thermometer.

This latter piece of equipment will become your closest pal for the next three weeks. You will have to measure your temperature twice a day and will have to report any fever or symptoms. A form of paranoia kicks in, as in winter, you could catch flu or any other seasonal bug from your kids at home or Joe Bloggs in the street.

But that’s not all. Dealing with people and perceptions back home will be a challenge. Despite scientific evidence that one can only transmit the infection if symptomatic, not all, including some close friends, would be prepared to entertain the same relationship with you as they would have done otherwise, “out of an abundance of caution”, they claim. Such should not be the case, at the level of individuals or a country. Let’s de-mystify beliefs.

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