| Welcome to Natural Hazards Forum. We hope you enjoy your visit. You're currently viewing our forum as a guest. This means you are limited to certain areas of the board and there are some features you can't use. If you join our community, you'll be able to access member-only sections, and use many member-only features such as customizing your profile, sending personal messages, and voting in polls. Registration is simple, fast, and completely free. Join our community! If you're already a member please log in to your account to access all of our features: |
| Ebola Crisis | |
|---|---|
| Tweet Topic Started: 23 Mar 2014, 12:52 AM (2,805 Views) | |
| skibboy | 23 Mar 2014, 12:52 AM Post #1 |
|
22 March 2014 Guinea deaths: Ebola blamed for deadly fever outbreak ![]() Ebola was first identified in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1976 The Ebola virus has been identified as the cause of an outbreak of haemorrhagic fever now believed to have killed nearly 60 people in southern Guinea, government officials say. Scores of cases have been recorded since the outbreak began early last month. There is no known cure or vaccine for the highly contagious Ebola virus. It is spread by close personal contact with people who are infected and kills between 25% and 90% of victims. Symptoms include internal and external bleeding, diarrhoea and vomiting. Outbreaks of Ebola occur primarily in remote villages in Central and West Africa, near tropical rainforests, the World Health Organization says. Analysts suggest it has never been recorded in Guinea before. Recent years have seen outbreaks in Uganda and Democratic Republic of Congo. 'Overwhelmed' "We got the first results from Lyon yesterday (Friday) which informed us of the presence of the Ebola virus as the cause of this outbreak," Guinean health ministry official Sakoba Keita told AFP. "The Ebola fever epidemic raging in southern Guinea since 9 February has left at least 59 dead out of 80 cases identified by our services on the ground." "We are overwhelmed in the field, we are fighting against this epidemic with all the means we have at our disposal with the help of our partners but it is difficult." Medical aid charity Medecins sans Frontieres said on Saturday it would strengthen its team in Guinea and fly some 33 tonnes of drugs and isolation equipment in from Belgium and France. Dr Armand Sprecher, an emergency physician and epidemiologist working with MSF in Guinea, told the BBC that doctors had to identify all patients with the disease and monitor anyone they had been in contact with during their illness. The latest outbreak could be brought under control if people acted quickly, he said. "Based on our history with these sorts of outbreaks it will happen. Ideally, sooner rather than later," said Dr Sprecher. "The more quickly we can contain this the fewer cases we'll have, then the smaller the scale of the epidemic. That's the idea of going in as strong as we can early on." Source:
|
![]() |
|
| Replies: | |
|---|---|
| skibboy | 12 Sep 2014, 10:41 PM Post #101 |
|
12 September 2014 Cuba to send doctors to Ebola areas By Smitha Mundasad Health reporter, BBC News ![]() In some affected countries there are very few doctors available to tackle the disease Cuba is sending 165 health workers to help tackle the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, officials say. Doctors, nurses and infection control specialists will travel to Sierra Leone in October and stay for six months. The announcement comes as the World Health Organization says new cases in West Africa are increasing faster than the capacity to manage them. More than 2,400 people have died from the virus in recent months and some 4,700 people have been infected. The death toll remains highest in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. World Health Organization (WHO) officials say the number of people affected is likely to be much greater than current estimates suggest. In Liberia WHO experts say there is not a single bed left to treat patients with Ebola. But the world football association, Fifa, says it is joining forces with the United Nations to turn the country's national stadium into a large-scale Ebola treatment unit. Dr Margaret Chan, director of the WHO, said: "If we are going to go to war with Ebola we need the resources to fight. "I am extremely grateful for the generosity of the Cuban government and these health professionals for doing their part to help us contain the worst Ebola outbreak ever known." 'Health diplomacy' She added: "Cuba is world-famous for its ability to train outstanding doctors and nurses and for its generosity in helping fellow countries on the route to progress." Through a global medical programme, doctors have been deployed to a range of countries, from Algeria to South Africa. And many consider this medical help to be a central part of Cuba's international relations. One of Cuba's most extensive efforts is an eye surgery programme in Venezuela where thousands of cataract operations have been performed. Hundreds of Cuban medical workers were sent to Haiti during the earthquake in 2010. The country also trains thousands of overseas medical students, many of whom return to their home nations to work. Source:
|
![]() |
|
| skibboy | 12 Sep 2014, 11:34 PM Post #102 |
|
West African health centers can't keep up with Ebola outbreak, WHO says By Ed Payne, CNN September 12, 2014 ![]() A child stops to look at a man who is suspected of suffering from the Ebola virus on a main street in Monrovia, Liberia, on Friday, September 12. (CNN) -- The number of new Ebola cases is growing faster than the ability of health officials to handle them, the head of the World Health Organization said Friday. "In the three hardest hit countries, Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, the number of new cases is moving far faster than the capacity to manage them in the Ebola-specific treatment centers," said Margaret Chan, the WHO director-general. "Today, there is not one single bed available for the treatment of an Ebola patient in the entire country of Liberia." This week, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced it will donate $50 million to help fight the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. At least 2,400 people have died in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, where the outbreak has been concentrated, Chan said. Cases have also been reported in nearby Nigeria and Senegal. The foundation says the money will be used to enable international aid organizations and national governments "to purchase badly needed supplies and scale up emergency operations in affected countries." This is considered the deadliest Ebola outbreak in history. The World Health Organization said Monday the rapid spread of the virus in Liberia shows no sign of slowing. "The number of new cases is increasing exponentially," the WHO said, calling the situation a "dire emergency with ... unprecedented dimensions of human suffering." Taxis packed with families who fear they've contracted the deadly virus crisscross the Liberian capital, searching for a place where they can be treated, the WHO said. "As soon as a new Ebola treatment facility is opened, it immediately fills to overflowing with patients," the U.N. group said. To help ease some of the burden on West Africa's already overtaxed medical system, the United States announced Tuesday it will send $10 million in additional funds. That's in addition to the $100 million Washington has already sent to help fight the outbreak. USAID also announced it will make $75 million in extra funds available. The new funds will pay for transportation and support to send 100 more health care workers to help fight the epidemic. The WHO and several nonprofit agencies on the ground have repeatedly called for the international community to send additional trained help. USAID funding has already provided 130,000 sets of personal protective equipment, 50,000 hygiene kits and 1,000 new beds. USAID has created a website where trained nurses, physician assistants and doctors who want to help can sign up. On Sunday, President Barack Obama said the Ebola outbreak needs to be a "national security priority." He told NBC's "Meet the Press" that the U.S. military could help set up isolation units and provide security for public health workers. "If we don't make that effort now, and this spreads not just through Africa but other parts of the world, there's the prospect then that the virus mutates. It becomes more easily transmittable. And then it could be a serious danger to the United States," he said. CNN's Radina Gigova contributed to this report. Source:
|
![]() |
|
| skibboy | 14 Sep 2014, 12:36 AM Post #103 |
|
French minister ‘first from Europe’ to visit Africa’s Ebola-hit region![]() © Bertrand Guay, AFP | French junior minister Annick Girardin on August 27, 2014 Text by FRANCE 24 2014-09-13 French development secretary Annick Girardin will be “the first” European minister to visit the west African region worst hit by the deadly Ebola virus when she touches down in Guinea on Saturday. During her visit to the Guinean capital Conakry, the junior minister is scheduled to visit Ebola units and meet with healthcare workers to discuss France's contribution in the battle to halt the epidemic which has so far claimed almost 2,400 lives in the three nations worst hit by the fast-spreading virus: Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. “I’m the first European minister to set foot” in the region since the start of the epidemic, Girardin told FRANCE 24’s sister station RFI in an interview ahead of the trip. “France can be proud,” she exclaimed. Girardin's visit follows a call from the World Health Organization (WHO), urging the international community to respond more quickly to stop the epidemic from spiraling out of control. "I'm going to Guinea first to say that France is with them. And that's not an insignificant message," she told a news conference in Senegal's capital, Dakar, on Friday. "It's also an important message to say that there are behaviours to adopt, that there are health systems that are resilient and that can take on this Ebola virus," Girardin said. "This is the case here in Senegal, it is the case in Ivory Coast and, unfortunately, not the case in Guinea, where health systems have proved less resilient to this virus, this epidemic," she said, adding that Guinea desperately needs an overhaul of its health infrastructure, but noted "for that we need resources". The French government announced the minister’s visit last week to "show France's support in the fight" against Ebola. The announcement came after international medical agency Doctors without Borders (MSF) warned that the world was "losing the battle" to contain Ebola. "We have heard the call from MSF," Girardin said. Girardin will be accompanied by UN Ebola coordinator David Nabarro and the pair are due to discuss the crisis at a European Union meeting in Brussels on Monday. Source: (FRANCE 24 with AFP)
|
![]() |
|
| skibboy | 15 Sep 2014, 01:58 AM Post #104 |
|
14 September 2014 Fourth Sierra Leonean doctor dies from Ebola AFP ![]() An medical worker checks their protective clothing in a mirror at a facility in Kailahun, Sierra Leone, on August 15, 2014 A fourth Sierra Leonean doctor, a woman, died Sunday after contracting the dreaded Ebola virus, the country's chief medical officer told AFP. Doctor Olive Buck, who was in charge of Lumley Government Hospital in the capital's west end, tested positive for Ebola on Tuesday and was admitted to the Connaught Hospital in central Freetown. "It's another sad loss for the profession," Sierra Leone's chief medical officer Brima Kargbo told AFP by telephone. "The ministry of health is in deep grief to miss another devoted Ebola fighter." Medical sources said arrangements had been at an advanced stage to fly the ailing doctor, who was in her early sixties, out of the country for further treatment. Patients of the late doctor described her as "very friendly and jovial". "This is a big blow. She was much loved for her caring spirit. I cannot believe that she had died," said 35-year-old Joko Sutton, one of her patients. Buck is the first female doctor to die from Ebola in Sierra Leone. Three male doctors have succumbed to the tropical virus since July. Some 50 nurses in the country have also died from the disease. The Ebola outbreak ravaging west Africa has killed more than 2,400 people since it erupted earlier this year, according to the World Health Organization. Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia are the hardest-hit countries. Source:
|
![]() |
|
| skibboy | 15 Sep 2014, 11:53 PM Post #105 |
|
15 September 2014 Ebola outbreak: Malaysia sends W Africa medical gloves ![]() Medical gloves play an important role in preventing the spread of Ebola Malaysia plans to donate more than 20 million protective rubber gloves to five African countries affected by the Ebola outbreak, the government says. They will be distributed among medical workers in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo. A shortage of protective equipment has been one factor in the virus spreading. It has killed more than 2,400 people, including many health workers, this year, in the world's worst outbreak. Health workers in Liberia recently went on strike, saying they need more protective equipment. ![]() More than half the deaths from the 2014 Ebola virus outbreak have been in Liberia Malaysia is a leading rubber glove manufacturer, producing 60% of the world's supply. "Malaysia can make a unique and vital contribution to the fight against Ebola because we are one of the biggest manufacturers of rubber gloves," Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said in a statement. "We hope this contribution will prevent the spread of Ebola and save lives," he added. Among the companies supplying the shipment are Sime Darby, Kuala Lumpur Kepong, IOI Corporation Berhad and Top Glove, the prime minister's office said. Malaysia will send 11 containers overall, each holding 1.9 million gloves, the statement from Kuala Lumpur said. The Malaysian government did not say who would pay for the shipment. Source:
|
![]() |
|
| skibboy | 16 Sep 2014, 01:34 AM Post #106 |
|
15 September 2014 World lost 'precious time' in Ebola fight: EU AFP ![]() Health workers put on protective clothing at an Ebola treatment facility in Kailahun, on August 15, 2014 The European Union urged the international community Monday to make up for "precious time" lost in the response to the deadly Ebola outbreak in west Africa, calling for more contributions to fight the crisis. "We are behind the curve and for a reason," EU Humanitarian Aid Commissioner Kristalina Georgieva said at a special meeting in Brussels to devise a Europe-wide response to the outbreak ahead of UN meetings later this month. "When the warning signs were there, it took some time for the international community to pay attention. Precious time was lost." The outbreak that has killed at least 2,400 people in West Africa since it erupted earlier this year. European countries "can present a very strong commitment" at the UN to help the countries hardest-hit, Georgieva said. She urged member states to add to the 150 million euros ($195 million) already pledged by the EU last week. At the Brussels meeting, called by France, a dozen countries offered to boost aid. More than half of the deaths have been recorded in Liberia, where President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has warned the outbreak is destroying the country's social fabric. "We must isolate the disease, but not the country," said Tonio Borg, the EU's Health Commissioner, referring to international airlines that have cut links to the affected countries, which also include Sierra Leone, Guinea, Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo. On Tuesday, US President Barack Obama is expected to ask Congress to approve his request for $88 million to fund Washington's response to the crisis. Malaysia on Monday said it will send more than 20 million medical rubber gloves to African nations stricken by the Ebola virus. Source:
|
![]() |
|
| skibboy | 16 Sep 2014, 01:54 AM Post #107 |
|
15 September 2014 UN Security Council to hold emergency meeting on Ebola AFP The UN Security Council will hold an emergency meeting on the Ebola crisis Thursday to find ways to scale up the global response to the epidemic, the US ambassador announced. "It is crucial that council members discuss the status of the epidemic, confer on a coordinated international response and begin the process of marshalling our collective resources to stop the spread of the disease," US Ambassador Samantha Power said Monday. The worst-ever outbreak of the deadly virus has killed more than 2,400 people in West Africa, with Liberia the region's hardest-hit country. The UN is appealing for $600 million for supplies as part of a massive surge of aid, with countries asked to send doctors, nurses, beds, trucks, equipment and other vehicles to the affected nations. The world body has set a goal of stopping the spread of Ebola within six to nine months but aid agencies are complaining that help is slow in reaching those in need. "Our collective response to date has not been sufficient," said Power, whose country holds the presidency of the 15-member council this month. "The situation on the ground is dire and is growing worse by the day." The US envoy did not specify what action the council was planning, but diplomats said a resolution was being prepared that could call for specific measures. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is planning a "high-level event" on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly that opens next week to draw attention to the crisis and the need for action. Liberian Defense Minister Brownie Samukai told the council last week that the outbreak posed "a serious threat" to his country's existence and that it was "spreading like wildfire, devouring everything in its path." The tropical virus can fell its victims within days, causing severe fever and muscle pain, weakness, vomiting and diarrhea -- in some cases shutting down organs and causing unstoppable bleeding. No widely available vaccine or treatment exists but health experts are looking at fast-tracking two potential vaccines and eight treatments, including the drug ZMapp. Source:
|
![]() |
|
| skibboy | 17 Sep 2014, 01:16 AM Post #108 |
|
Obama: U.S. ready to take the lead in Ebola fight By Jen Christensen and Kevin Liptak, CNN September 16, 201 ![]() Obama: 'The world is looking to us' (CNN) -- After an in-person briefing from the staff at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, President Barack Obama on Tuesday announced a "major increase" in the U.S. response to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. The United States will send troops, material to build field hospitals, additional health care workers, community care kits and badly needed medical supplies. Countless taxis filled with families worried they've become infected with Ebola currently crisscross Monrovia in search of help. They scour the Liberian capital, but not one clinic can take them in for treatment. "Today, there is not one single bed available for the treatment of an Ebola patient in the entire country of Liberia," said Margaret Chan, the World Health Organization's director-general. "As soon as a new Ebola treatment facility is opened, it immediately fills to overflowing with patients," the WHO said. Hospitals and clinics in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone -- the countries hit hardest by the outbreak -- are overwhelmed by what the WHO is calling the deadliest Ebola outbreak in history. The virus has killed at least 2,400 people, and thousands more are infected. And there are now cases in Nigeria and Senegal. "The number of new cases is increasing exponentially," the WHO said, calling the situation a "dire emergency with ... unprecedented dimensions of human suffering." "Men and women and children are just sitting, waiting to die right now," Obama said. "This is a daunting task, but here's what gives us hope. The world knows how to fight this disease. It's not a mystery. We know the science. We know how to prevent it from spreading. We know how to care for those who contract it. We know that if we take the proper steps, we can save lives. But we have to act fast," Obama said. "We can't dawdle on this one. We have to move with force and make sure that we are catching this as best we can, given that it has already broken out in ways that we have not seen before." The CDC already has hundreds of professionals on the ground in what the President described as the "largest international response in the history of the CDC." Maj. Gen. Darryl Williams, commander of the U.S. Army Africa, arrived in Liberia on Tuesday. Liberian leadership asked that the U.S. military step in to help support civilian efforts there. Williams will coordinate the military's efforts to improve logistics, to build additional field hospitals and to create what the President called an "air bridge" to bring in additional supplies and health care workers. The effort will be called Operation United Assistance. The new treatment centers may house up to 1,700 additional beds. American military personnel in the region could increase by 3,000, administration officials said. The U.S. will also create a new training facility to help prepare thousands more health care workers to handle sick patients. U.S. medics will train up to 500 health care workers per week to identify and care for people with Ebola. USAID will give 400,000 treatment kits with sanitizer and other protective items like gloves to families to help them protect their own safety as they care for sick relatives. The President also called on Congress to approve additional funding his administration requested to carry on these critical efforts to stop the virus. Obama added that "faced with this outbreak, the world is looking to" the United States to lead international efforts to combat the virus. He said the United States is ready to take on that leadership role. "Here's the hard truth. In West Africa, Ebola is now an epidemic of the likes that we have not seen before. It's spiraling out of control," Obama said. "If the outbreak is not stopped now, we could be looking at hundreds of thousands of people infected with profound political and economic and security implications for all of us." Washington has already committed more than $100 million to combat Ebola, according to the U.S. Agency for International Development. Last week, USAID said it would spend $75 million to build treatment facilities and supply them with medical equipment. The Pentagon says it's working to shift $500 million of not yet obligated funds toward the Ebola effort. Public health campaigns will be broadcast through existing networks in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. 'Hundreds turn into thousands' The President's visit to the CDC comes amid escalating criticism from health experts of the global response to the outbreak in West Africa. U.S. officials hope a more coordinated response on the ground, put in place by the United States, will encourage other nations to step up their efforts. "This is a global threat and demands a global response," Obama said. He added that the international community needs to move faster. Next week, the U.S. will chair an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council to maximize the response to the Ebola crisis. The White House will also bring more countries together to talk about future health threats. Tuesday, WHO announced that China dispatched a mobile laboratory team to Sierra Leone to help test for the virus. The team of 59 from the Chinese Center for Disease Control includes epidemiologists, clinicians and nurses. This team will join 115 Chinese medical staff already on the ground in Sierra Leone. Nongovernmental organizations that have been fighting this outbreak since its start reacted positively to Obama's announcement. "The multifaceted response to the Ebola crisis announced today by President Obama is what we have been hoping for and what is needed in Liberia and West Africa," said Bruce Johnson, president of SIM USA. Two of the three American workers who contracted Ebola in Liberia and were evacuated to the United States for treatment work for SIM. SIM and other organizations such as Doctors Without Borders that have been working on the Ebola outbreak since the beginning have been asking for additional international help for months. "Three things are vital right now: More beds and equipment, more trained medical professionals, and more training of Liberians and West Africans," Johnson said. "This current plan addresses these desperate needs." One of the doctors who had been working with SIM's clinic in Liberia when he became infected with the virus testified Tuesday in front of a joint hearing in Congress to look at ways to stop Ebola. Dr. Kent Brantly urged Congress to provide the extra funds to fight the outbreak. Earlier in the day he met with President Obama, who told him about the expanded U.S. efforts. Brantly said he thanked the President, and urged Congress to back this plan up with "immediate action." "As a survivor, it is not only my privilege, but it is my duty to speak out on behalf of the people of West Africa who continue to face unspeakable devastation because of this horrific disease," Brantly said. He told the story about a patient named Francis who he believes may have been saved had the world acted sooner. The patient became infected after carrying a neighbor sick with Ebola to a taxi to get him to a hospital. "If someone had gone alongside Francis and given him a little education and given him the equipment he needed, his family would have a father," Brantly said. Instead his patient died and the world lost "this good Samaritan." Brantly went on to respond to the analogy some have used to describe Ebola as a fire burning out of control. He warned, it is a "fire. It is a fire straight from the pit of hell." "We cannot fool ourselves into thinking that the vast Atlantic Ocean will protect us from the flames of this fire," Brantly said. Move quickly, he urged, as it is "the only way to keep entire nations from being reduced to ashes." Could the virus mutate? There is also a concern about the possibility that the virus could mutate into an even more dangerous form. Ebola currently transmits only though contact with bodily fluids; a mutation that allows the virus to spread through the air would pose a catastrophic threat to people worldwide, health experts say. White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Monday that there was still a "very low" likelihood the Ebola virus could mutate in a way that threatens the United States. "Right now, the risk of an Ebola outbreak in the United States is very low," he said, "but that risk would only increase if there were not a robust response on the part of the United States." The President noted a number of precautionary steps that are being taken in the United States to prevent the disease from spreading here. The government has stepped up screening at West African airports. It has increased education for flight crews to teach them what to watch for with people who may be sick. It has worked with hospitals and health care workers to prepare them in case there is a domestic Ebola problem. Will it be enough? Ebola is more than a health threat to West Africa; it could become a "major humanitarian crisis," according to United Nations Under-Secretary-General Valerie Amos, if it is not stopped soon enough. The United Nations said that many millions more will be needed to fight the outbreak. U.N. leaders estimate they need $1 billion to fight the epidemic, with about half needed for the worst-hit country, Liberia. Political systems and infrastructure are fragile in the countries where the virus is concentrated. Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea are still rebuilding their economies after suffering through years of civil wars. "Now their capacity to deliver the necessities of daily life for their people is on the brink of collapse," Amos said. "The Ebola outbreak poses a serious threat to their post-conflict recovery." More people are believed to have died in these countries from secondary diseases like malaria and tuberculosis and from chronic illnesses and pregnancies with complications than from Ebola because the health care systems are so strained. Heavy rain adds to the risk of waterborne diseases like malaria. Food security has also become a problem. Quarantines keep workers from their jobs and have slowed the delivery of food to certain areas, according to the U.N. "We must act now if we want to avoid greater humanitarian consequences in future," Amos said. CNN's Josh Levs, Greg Botelho and Nana Karikari-apau contributed to this report. Source:
|
![]() |
|
| skibboy | 17 Sep 2014, 11:17 PM Post #109 |
|
17 September 2014 Ebola could wreck W Africa economies, warns World Bank ![]() Residents of the Liberian capital, Monrovia, watch health workers remove the body of an Ebola victim The Ebola outbreak could have a catastrophic impact on the economies of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, the World Bank says. The organisation says the economic impact of the virus could "grow eight-fold" in the "already fragile states". However, it says the cost can be limited if the epidemic - and the accompanying fear - is contained by a fast global response. Ebola has killed 2,461 people in West Africa - the largest ever outbreak. US President Barack Obama has called the latest outbreak "a threat to global security", and announced a larger US role in fighting the virus. The measures announced included ordering 3,000 US troops to the region and building new healthcare facilities. The UN Security Council is to hold an emergency meeting on Thursday to discuss the epidemic. It is expected to pass a resolution demanding a more forceful international response to the crisis, urging member countries to provide medical staff and field hospitals. The resolution will also call for the lifting of travel restrictions that have prevented health workers from offering assistance. UN officials have described the outbreak as a health crisis "unparalleled in modern times". The World Bank's analysis said billions of dollars could be drained from West African countries by the end of next year if the virus continued to spread. Under the worst-case scenario, the global development lender predicted that economic growth next year could be reduced by 2.3 percentage points in Guinea and 8.9 percentage points in Sierra Leone. It predicted Liberia's economy would be hardest-hit, losing 11.7 percentage points off its growth next year. The report emphasised the need to tackle the fear of the disease, as well as the virus itself. It said "aversion behaviour", arising from concerns about contagion, was having a bigger economic impact than the "direct costs" imposed by the epidemic. Productivity has dropped in sectors of the economy such as agriculture and mining as a result of quarantine measures, and because of fears about the spread of the disease. Many people are working less, and earning and spending less as a result, fuelling poverty. "The primary cost of this tragic outbreak is in human lives and suffering, which has already been terribly difficult to bear," World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim said. "But our findings make clear that the sooner we get an adequate containment response and decrease the level of fear and uncertainty, the faster we can blunt Ebola's economic impact." __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Analysis: Andrew Walker, Economics correspondent These are three poor and fragile countries to start with. But they have managed, to varying degrees, decent economic growth in the last few years. The World Bank's figures show the expected reduction in economic growth. On the worst case for the spread of the disease, Liberia's economic activity would decline next year, fairly sharply. Guinea and Sierra Leone would still manage some growth, but it would be quite sluggish. All three countries badly need to maintain their economic momentum to deal with a catalogue of problems and raise desperately low living standards. Moreover, the worst case impacts on Sierra Leone and Liberia would be more severe than a "normal" global recession, though not as large as the most devastating conflicts. Both Sierra Leone and Liberia have had years during civil wars in which their economies contracted by more than 20%. __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ In a statement released on Wednesday, Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf welcomed the US plan to combat Ebola, saying she hoped it would "spur the rest of the international community into action". "This disease is not simply a Liberian or West African problem. The entire community of nations has a stake in ending this crisis," the statement said. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said her country will provide logistical aid to Liberia in the battle against Ebola. Ms Johnson Sirleaf had earlier written to Germany, appealing for help. ![]() Governments and global organisations say more must be done to spread awareness of Ebola The IMF said on Wednesday that its executive board was due to consider a proposal to give Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone an additional $127m (£78m; 98m euros) to combat the economic impact of Ebola. The organisation said its staff had estimated that growth was likely to slow in all three countries because of disruption in key sectors. It estimates that the countries will face a shortage of $300m in the next six to nine months. Also on Wednesday, medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) reported that one of its workers had contracted Ebola in Liberia. The charity said the female employee, a French citizen, would be evacuated to a treatment centre in France. Meanwhile in Guinea, a team of health officials was attacked on Tuesday during a visit to a village where were raising awareness of the illness. People in Wamey, in the south of the country, threw stones at the team, which included WHO and Red Cross representatives. At least 10 officials were hurt, and several who escaped into the bush are still missing. This is not the first such incident. There have been many reports of people in the region saying they do not believe Ebola exists, or not co-operating with health authorities, fearing that a diagnosis means certain death. In Sierra Leone, people are preparing for a three-day lockdown ordered by the government in an attempt to stop the spread of Ebola. The BBC's Umaru Fofana in the capital Freetown says many residents are stocking up on food. A number of aid agencies, including MSF, have criticised the lockdown, saying it would not help contain the virus. __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Cumulative deaths - up to 13 September ![]() Figures are occasionally revised down as suspect or probable cases are found to be unrelated to Ebola Source:
|
![]() |
|
| skibboy | 18 Sep 2014, 11:10 PM Post #110 |
|
18 September 2014 Ebola 'threat to world security'- UN Security Council ![]() Health workers have been struggling to contain the outbreak in West Africa The UN Security Council has declared the outbreak of the Ebola virus in West Africa a "threat to international peace and security". The Council unanimously adopted a resolution calling on states to provide more resources to combat the outbreak. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon warned an emergency meeting of the Council that the number of Ebola infections was doubling every three weeks. More than 2,600 people have now died in the worst Ebola outbreak on record. Mr Ban said the "gravity and scale of the situation now require a level of international action unprecedented for a health emergency". He announced the establishment of an "emergency UN mission" working with the World Heath Organization (WHO) to combat the crisis, saying he would convene a "high-level meeting" next week. The Council heard the international response had to be three times bigger than it was now to contain the crisis. The resolution adopted by the Council also called for travel bans imposed by some states to be lifted, saying the countries needed to have access to aid instead of being isolated. Source:
|
![]() |
|
| skibboy | 18 Sep 2014, 11:15 PM Post #111 |
|
18 September 2014 Ebola outbreak: Health team 'found dead' in Guinea ![]() Some villagers in Guinea have been scared by the appearance of health workers trying to combat Ebola Officials in Guinea searching for a team of health workers and journalists who went missing while trying to raise awareness of Ebola have found several bodies. A spokesman for Guinea's government said the bodies included those of three journalists in the team. They went missing after being attacked on Tuesday in a village near the southern city of Nzerekore. More than 2,600 people have now died from the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. It is the world's worst outbreak of the deadly disease, with officials warning that more than 20,000 people could ultimately be infected. West African media divided on response to Ebola The three doctors and three journalists disappeared after being pelted with stones by residents when they arrived in the village of Wome - near where the Ebola outbreak was first recorded. One of the journalists managed to escape and told reporters that she could hear the villagers looking for them while she was hiding. A government delegation, led by the health minister, had been dispatched to the region but they were unable to reach the village by road because a main bridge had been blocked. 'Killed in cold blood' On Thursday night, government spokesman Albert Damantang Camara said eight bodies had been found, including those of three journalists. He said they had been recovered from the septic tank of a primary school in the village, adding that the victims had been "killed in cold blood by the villagers". The reason for the killings is unclear, but correspondents say many people in the region distrust health officials and have refused to co-operate with authorities, fearing that a diagnosis means certain death. Last month, riots erupted in the area of Guinea where the health team went missing after rumours that medics who were disinfecting a market were contaminating people. ![]() Speaking on Thursday, President Francois Hollande said France was setting up a military hospital in Guinea as part of his country's efforts to support the West African nations affected by the outbreak. He said the hospital was a sign that France's contribution was not just financial, adding that it would be in "the forests of Guinea, in the heart of the outbreak". The World Health Organisation said on Thursday that more than 700 new cases of Ebola have emerged in West Africa in just a week, showing that the outbreak was accelerating. It said there had been more than 5,300 cases in total and that half of those were recorded in the past three weeks. The epidemic has struck Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Nigeria and Senegal. A three-day lockdown is starting in Sierra Leone at 00:00 GMT in a bid to stop the disease spreading. Source:
|
![]() |
|
| skibboy | 20 Sep 2014, 12:09 AM Post #112 |
|
19 September 2014 Ebola crisis: Sierra Leone begins three-day lockdown A three-day curfew is under way in Sierra Leone to let health workers find and isolate cases of Ebola, in order to halt the spread of the disease. Many people have been reluctant to seek medical treatment for Ebola, fearing that diagnosis might mean death as there is no proven cure. A team of 30,000 people is going house-to-house to find those infected and distribute soap. But critics say the lockdown will damage public trust in doctors. Meanwhile in neighbouring Guinea, the bodies of eight missing health workers and journalists involved in the Ebola campaign have been found. A government spokesman said some of the bodies had been recovered from a septic tank in the village of Wome. The team had been attacked by villagers on Tuesday. Guinea's prime minister said an investigation was under way, and vowed to catch the perpetrators of the "heinous murders". ![]() Normally bustling streets in the capital Freetown were deserted on Friday ![]() Police roadblocks have been set up to enforce the curfew ![]() Volunteers will visit each home to test people for the virus Correspondents say many villagers are suspicious of official attempts to combat the disease and the incident illustrates the difficulties health workers face. Sierra Leone is one of the countries worst hit by West Africa's Ebola outbreak, with more than 550 victims among the 2,600 deaths so far recorded. In the capital, Freetown, normally bustling streets were quiet, with police guarding roadblocks. 'Extraordinary measures' During the curfew, 30,000 volunteers will look for people infected with Ebola, or bodies, which are especially contagious. They will hand out bars of soap and information on preventing infection. Officials say the teams will not enter people's homes but will call emergency services to deal with patients or bodies. Volunteers will mark each house with a sticker after they have visited it, reports say. __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ West Africa Ebola casualties Up to 14 September 2,630 Ebola deaths - probable, confirmed and suspected 1,459 Liberia 601 Guinea 562 Sierra Leone 8 Nigeria Source: WHO __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ On Thursday, President Ernest Bai Koroma said: "Extraordinary times require extraordinary measures." He urged citizens to avoid touching each other, visiting the sick or avoid attending funerals. Freetown resident Christiana Thomas told the BBC: "People are afraid of going to the hospital because everyone who goes there is tested for Ebola." Another resident in Kenema, in the east of the country, told the BBC families were struggling because the price of food had gone up. In the hours leading up to Sierra Leone's lockdown, there was traffic gridlock in Freetown as people stocked up on food and essentials. __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ The BBC's Umaru Fofana in Sierra Leone ![]() Marketplaces outside of the capital were also quiet on Friday Cities and towns across the country were quiet without the usual early morning Muslim call to prayer and the cacophony of vehicles and motorbikes that people wake up to here. Thousands of volunteers and health workers have assembled at designated centres across Sierra Leone and started moving into homes. But they had to wait for hours before their kit - soaps and flyers - could reach them. MP Claude Kamanda, who represents the town of Waterloo near Freetown, told local media that all the health centres there were closed, hours after the health workers and volunteers were meant to assemble for deployment to homes. He complained that the delays were not helping the campaign. __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ The UN Security Council on Thursday declared the outbreak a "threat to international peace" and called on states to provide more resources to combat it. Meanwhile, the US military has started work in the Liberian capital Monrovia to establish an air bridge - a link by air transport - to take health workers and supplies to affected countries. ![]() The Ebola virus is affecting multiple countries, including Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea The UK has pledged to help build new treatment centres and provide 700 new hospital beds in Sierra Leone, although a majority of the beds could take several months to arrive. Aid workers have welcomed the UK aid but say all of the beds are required immediately, the BBC international development correspondent Mark Doyle reports. Medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) has been strongly critical of the lockdown, arguing that ultimately it will help spread the disease as such measures "end up driving people underground and jeopardising the trust between people and health providers". Source:
|
![]() |
|
| skibboy | 20 Sep 2014, 11:14 PM Post #113 |
|
Sierra Leone starts nationwide lockdown to stop spread of Ebola By Faith Karimi and Chelsea J. Carter, CNN September 20, 2014 (CNN) -- Sierra Leone started a three-day nationwide lockdown Friday in an effort to halt an Ebola outbreak that has left thousands dead in the region. Under the plan, no one is allowed to leave their homes for three days, allowing volunteers to go door-to-door educating people on the deadly virus. Muslims should pray at home Friday while Christians do the same on Sunday, officials said. "We believe this is the best way for now to identify those who are sick and remove them from those who are well," said Alhaji Alpha Kanu, the nation's minister of information. But aid agency Médecins Sans Frontières, also known as Doctors Without Borders, said the lockdown is unlikely to stop the spread of the disease. "Forced quarantines and lockdowns are driving people underground and jeopardizing the trust between people and health providers," the charity group said in a statement this month. "This is leading to the concealment of cases and is pushing the sick away from health systems." Dr. David Nabarro, who is leading the United Nations effort to fight Ebola, said the description of the situation as a "lockdown" was missing the point of the strategy. "Unfortunately, it was described as a lockdown, I think, by accident in the first description and that term has stayed there," Nabarro said. "But it's actually not a lockdown. It's a sensitization, house-to-house as they call it, which is used quite often for other issues." He said he talked to the President of Sierra Leone, who explained his strategy to him. "He wants communities throughout the country to have a better understanding of the disease, to understand its causes, and also to understand how it's transmitted so they can start to take ownership and take action themselves to reduce the spread and also to insure when people are infected or suspected of infection that they can be taken to places where they can receive care." It's not the first time a quarantine or lockdown has been enforced. In August, Liberia locked down one of the poorest neighborhoods in the capital of Monrovia in an attempt to stop the spread of the virus. Riots ensued. The deadliest Ebola outbreak in history has killed at least 2,600 people in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone -- the countries most affected by the virus -- since the first case was documented in December. Training volunteers Sierra Leone set the dates for the lockdown earlier this month to give officials time to train volunteers and get needed equipment. During the lockdown, about 30,000 volunteers will talk to people across the nation about how to protect themselves and identify Ebola cases,officials said. The information minister described the volunteers as young people who are trained health workers, medical students and nurses. "Resistance will be less. They will be talking to people they know," he said. He did not say what punishment, if any, people would face if they violate the lockdown. But MSF, which is working with patients in the nation, said this will not be an easy task. "It will be extremely difficult for health workers to accurately identify cases through door-to-door screenings as this requires a certain level of expertise," the group said. "And when cases are identified, there will not be enough Ebola management centers to care for them." Number of cases on the rise As the number of new cases escalates, there's a question of what a lockdown will do to slow the spread of the virus, given that the Ebola incubation period can range between two and 21 days. The virus is spread through contact with bodily fluids, and early symptoms include sudden onset of fever, weakness, muscle pain, headaches and a sore throat. The outbreak has been centered in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, with a handful of cases in Nigeria. The overall fatality rate is 50%, WHO said. The virus is named after the Ebola River in the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire), where one of the first outbreaks occurred in 1976. CNN's Poppy Harlow and Margot Haddad contributed to this report. Source:
|
![]() |
|
| skibboy | 20 Sep 2014, 11:47 PM Post #114 |
|
20 September 2014 Sierra Leone faces criticism over Ebola shutdown AFP ![]() Map of Sierra Leone showing details of the Ebola shutdown Sierra Leone began the second day of a 72-hour nationwide shutdown aimed at containing the spread of the deadly Ebola virus on Saturday amid criticism that the action was a poorly planned publicity stunt. Most of Sierra Leone's six million people have been confined to their homes from midnight (0000 GMT) on Friday, with only essential workers such as health professionals and security forces exempt. Almost 30,000 volunteers are going door-to-door to educate locals and hand out soap, in an exercise expected to lead to scores more patients and bodies being discovered in homes. But independent observers have voiced concerns over the quality of advice being given out, deeming the shutdown a "mixed success" in the Western Area, the region that includes the capital Freetown. "While the supervisors were well trained, the visiting teams to families in some parts in the Western Area had poor training and could not deliver the information properly," said Abubakarr Kamara, from the Health for All Coalition, a local charity. "From my observation, many of them were too young to be involved in the exercise and in one or two households where I witnessed their intervention, there were hardly messages given to the families which were beneficial to the households." Ebola fever can fell its victims within days, causing severe muscle pain, vomiting, diarrhoea and -- in some cases -- unstoppable internal and external bleeding. The outbreak has killed more than 2,600 people in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone this year, cutting a swathe through entire villages at the epicentre and prompting warnings over possible economic catastrophe from the World Bank. "Ose to Ose Ebola Tok" -- "House-to-House Ebola Talk" in the widely-spoken Krio language -- will see more than 7,000 volunteer teams of four attempting to reach the country's 1.5 million homes before the end of Sunday. - 'Publicity stunt' - Joe Amon, health and human rights director at New York-based advocacy organisation Human Rights Watch, described the shutdown as "more of a publicity stunt than a health intervention". "Publicity -- or really crisis communication -- is what is urgently needed in this epidemic, but it should focus on spreading information and building trust with the government. The shutdown is the wrong approach," he told AFP. Steven Gaoja, head of the government's emergency Ebola operation centre, admitted the first day was "really very rocky" at the start, but said organisation had improved throughout the day. "On the whole we came out successful. We feel confident that the initial problems we encountered have been slashed," he said. He said the centre had received 886 calls on a variety of Ebola-related issues by 3:00 pm, 102 reporting suspected cases but 238 of which were pranks. "We have a target to reach every household in the country and the goal is to ensure that families have the right information about Ebola," said ministry of health spokesman Sidi Yahya Tunis. "We are certain we will reach the target so people have to be a little patient." Some complaints continued into Saturday, although there was also praise for the campaign. "The campaign teams are not being rapid in their calls. They kept my family of six sitting the whole of yesterday and didn't show up," said Ghanaian fisherman Kwaku Adophy in Goderich, an affluent seaside suburb of 3,000 in the west end of Freetown. "When they came this morning, nobody entered the compound but one member stood at the gate and shouted for us to come out and receive a bar of soap. No other information was given to us. We are very disappointed." Isatu Koroma, a resident of Hill Station some six kilometres (four miles) away, said however that a door-to-door team had spent "a useful 30 minutes giving my family much needed information". A spokesman for the World Health Organization said on Friday a contingent of Cuban doctors and nurses from a 165-strong delegation expected in Sierra Leone would be arriving over the weekend. From the first week of October, the doctors and nurses would remain for six months. Source:
|
![]() |
|
| skibboy | 23 Sep 2014, 12:02 AM Post #115 |
|
22 September 2014 Ebola outbreak: Sierra Leone lockdown declared 'success' ![]() Streets in the capital Freetown have been largely deserted during the three-day lockdown A three-day curfew aimed at containing the Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone has been declared a success by authorities. They say more than a million households were surveyed and 130 new cases discovered. Sierra Leone is one of the countries worst affected by the outbreak, with nearly 600 of the almost 2,800 total deaths recorded so far. Some health groups have criticised the lockdown, saying it would destroy trust between patients and doctors. Nearly all of the deaths in the world's worst Ebola outbreak have been recorded in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. The World Health Organization (WHO) says the situations in Senegal and Nigeria have now been "pretty much contained". According to the UN agency, the number of overall deaths from Ebola has risen to 2,793 and the disease remains "a public health emergency of international concern". The deadly virus is transmitted through sweat, blood and saliva, and there is no proven cure. ![]() A Spanish priest who contracted the virus whilst working in Sierra Leone was flown back to Spain for treatment In other developments: -Liberia, the country that has been worst hit by the outbreak, has announced a four-fold increase in the number of beds for Ebola patients -Schools in Nigeria are reopening on Monday, after the summer break was extended for fear of the spread of Ebola, but teaching unions want the government to provide more safety measures -A Spanish priest who was diagnosed with the virus whilst working in Sierra Leone was flown back to a military airbase in Spain on Monday for treatment in a Spanish hospital -A second deployment of US troops arrived in Liberia on Sunday as part of a mission that will see 3,000 soldiers helping the Liberian health services in their response to the outbreak __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ BBC Ebola broadcast: The BBC World Service is launching a special programme containing the latest news about the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. The first edition will be at 19.50 GMT on Monday 22 September and the programme will continue each weekday. Ebola virus: busting the myths __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ![]() Police roadblocks were set up in Sierra Leone to enforce the curfew In Sierra Leone, head of the Emergency Operations Centre Stephen Gaojia told the BBC that the lockdown was largely successful, and the compliance and receptiveness of Sierra Leoneans was "overwhelming". He said 130 new cases had been confirmed, which would have helped spread the virus if they had remained undetected. Results were still outstanding on 39 suspected cases. About 100 dead bodies believed to be of Ebola victims, which could otherwise have been secretly buried without homes being quarantined, were retrieved and buried, officials say. Bodies of Ebola victims are highly contagious and their swift burial is considered key to containing the disease. Many people have been reluctant to seek treatment for Ebola, on the basis that there is no cure, even though about half of those infected have recovered with the help of rest and rehydration. ![]() Normally bustling streets in the capital Freetown were deserted from Friday onwards ![]() Spanish priest Manuel Garcia Viejo (l) was working at a hospital in Lunsar, Sierra Leone, before becoming infected The BBC's Umaru Fofana in the Sierra Leone capital Freetown says health officials have admitted that the lockdown has exposed the country's inadequate response capability. Ambulances are in short supply, as are the isolation wards to look after patients, with almost all Ebola treatment centres confined to the east of the country, he says. There are also too few teams available to bury the dead, partly because of the social stigma attached to the role. The curfew in Sierra Leone came into force on Friday morning, with the country's six million inhabitants confined to their homes. Around 30,000 medical volunteers travelled to affected neighbourhoods to find patients and distribute soap. __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ West Africa Ebola casualties Up to 14 September 2,630 Ebola deaths - probable, confirmed and suspected 1,459 Liberia 601 Guinea 562 Sierra Leone 8 Nigeria Source: WHO __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ School strike delayed In Nigeria, Africa's most populous country, teachers' union spokesman Emmanuel Hwande Ora told the BBC that the threat of a strike has been suspended. However, the union urged the government to introduce more safety controls in schools to prevent the spread of Ebola. The BBC's Will Ross in Nigeria says people are still on high alert, so students and staff queued up to have their temperatures taken outside the school gates before the new term began. Eight people have died in Nigeria out of 20 who have contracted the disease, but no new cases have been discovered for 10 days. Source:
|
![]() |
|
| skibboy | 23 Sep 2014, 01:01 AM Post #116 |
|
Desperation grows in the Ebola zone By Elizabeth Cohen and Jen Christensen, CNN September 22, 2014 ![]() Desperation grows in heart of Ebola zone (CNN) -- A young boy wanders through the high grass, looking lost after attending church services in Kakata, Liberia. The child, Moses Kallie, wears a black T-shirt that's too big for him. It reads "Trouble is my middle name." Trouble has certainly come into his life. He's lost 13 of his relatives recently -- his parents among them. They were all killed by Ebola. His village is a hotspot for the virus. So far 1,578 people are believed to have died from Ebola in Liberia alone, according to the latest numbers from the World Health Organization. The country has seen a 52% of increases in cases in just the past three weeks. That's in large part because there is little or no outside medical help for residents who get sick there. In Monrovia, the country's crowded capital, doors to hospitals and clinics are shut tight, locked with thick padlocks. Many health care workers in West Africa have lost their lives due to the way the virus spreads -- through contact with bodily fluids from those who are infected. On Monday, the World Health Organization urged the affected countries to give health care workers both the adequate security and safety equipment they need, as well as appropriate education and training on infection control. A new Ebola clinic opened in Monrovia this week, but bodies lay on the ground outside its walls. Ambulances filled with Ebola patients, some that have traveled seven hours to get there, are not unloaded. Without help to get them inside, the patients fall in the dirt, mere feet away from treatment. Without help, family members must care for these Ebola patients. And without the proper safety equipment, they too fall sick and Ebola continues to spread. The virus forces the local dead body management teams to work 12 hours a day, six days a week. All for a paycheck of $300 to $500 a month. Dressed from head to toe in white protective suits and thick goggles, the burial teams try to stay safe, but nothing can shield them from the unspeakable horrors they've seen when they make their regular rounds. On Friday, Kiyee described what he saw when he entered a home: "I took the key and opened the door and went in and saw a 6-month-old child licking on the mother's skin," said Kiyee. The mother was lying on her stomach. She had died from Ebola. The baby was searching for the mother's milk. "Right away I started shedding tears." WHO said on Monday the overall death toll in the Ebola outbreak has risen to 2,803 in the five countries at the heart of the epidemic: Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea, Nigeria and Senegal. When people go out in public, they are encouraged to take whatever precautions they can. In Monrovia, people get their temperatures taken wherever they go -- at the grocery store, the office and at church. A fever is one of the early symptoms of the disease. At the little boy's church in Kakata, the pastor is both practical and philosophical about Ebola. He has spent his career thinking deeply about death and what happens afterward. When his congregation asked the Rev. Victor King if he's afraid of death he said "No," but "I don't want to die from Ebola." At his church, he's called off the part of the service where congregation members shake hands. He tells them not to hug when they see each other, and no one takes communion from the same chalice any more. Many in his congregation were at first displeased when he ended that practice, he said. Communion is the high point of the church service and it is central to their tradition of worship. But he believes the congregation, like many in Liberia, are starting to better understand the disease and how it spreads. After services, the congregation files out the door and stops at a container the pastor has placed right outside. The container looks like it should hold a sports drink. Instead, it contains bleach for them to wash their hands. To a person the congregation stops and takes their time to wash up thoroughly. Anthony Kallah, a teacher, is one of them. "We are all afraid," Kallah said. "This is a threatening disease." CNN's John Bonifield contributed to this report Source:
|
![]() |
|
| skibboy | 23 Sep 2014, 11:57 PM Post #117 |
|
23 September 2014 Ebola death rates 70% - WHO study By Helen Briggs Health editor, BBC News website ![]() New figures suggest 70% of those infected with Ebola in West Africa have died, higher than previously reported, says the World Health Organization. Ebola infections will treble to 20,000 by November if efforts to tackle the outbreak are not stepped up, the UN agency has warned. In the worst case scenario, cases in two nations could reach 1.4 million in January, according to a US estimate. Experts said the US numbers were "somewhat pessimistic''. The world's largest outbreak of Ebola has caused 2,800 deaths so far, mainly in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. Outbreaks in Senegal and Nigeria were "pretty much contained", said the WHO. In other developments: -More than 160 NHS staff have volunteered for UK efforts to help in the outbreak. -Chief medical officer for England, Prof Dame Sally Davies, confirmed that the British nurse who survived Ebola, William Pooley, has volunteered to give blood that could help treat patients. -The Sierra Leone army has closed the country's border with Guinea and Liberia to vehicle traffic in a bid to control the spread of Ebola. -British military and humanitarian staff have arrived in Freetown to oversee the construction of the UK's medical facility and assist with the response to the outbreak. Scientists have warned that swift action is needed to curb the exponential climb in the Ebola outbreak. Two new estimates suggest that cases of Ebola could soar dramatically in the three countries with the majority of cases. Projections published in The New England Journal of Medicine predict that by early November there will have been nearly 20,000 cases. The analysis of confirmed cases also suggests death rates are higher than previously reported at about 70% of all cases, rather than 50%. Dr Christopher Dye, Director of Strategy for WHO, said unless control measures improved quickly "these three countries will soon be reporting thousands of cases and deaths each week, projections that are similar to those of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)". The CDC said that there could be up to 21,000 reported and unreported cases in Liberia and Sierra Leone alone by the end of this month. In predictions released on Tuesday, the US health agency said cases could reach as many as 1.4 million by mid-January, if efforts to control the outbreak are not scaled up. But experts cautioned that the numbers seemed "somewhat pessimistic'' and did not account for infection control efforts already under way. Drug trials Meanwhile, The Wellcome Trust charity has announced that experimental drugs will be tested in West Africa for the first time. They include the drug ZMapp, which has been given to a handful of infected health workers. Dr Peter Horby, of the Centre for Tropical Medicine and Global Health at the University of Oxford, said the first trials could begin in West Africa as early as November. "We want to evaluate these carefully, properly, in affected countries in West Africa," he told the BBC. "For the next one or two weeks we'll be doing site assessments and we'll be working with the WHO on identifying which drugs to prioritise, and then there'll be a number of steps in setting up the systems - getting ethical approval through the countries and getting community participation and agreement to run the trials." Source:
|
![]() |
|
| skibboy | 24 Sep 2014, 01:08 AM Post #118 |
|
CDC: Ebola cases could reach at least 550,000 by January By Laura Smith-Spark, Miriam Falco, and Jen Christensen CNN September 23, 2014 (CNN) -- The number of Ebola cases in Liberia and Sierra Leone could rise to between 550,000 and 1.4 million by January if there are no "additional interventions or changes in community behavior," the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a report Tuesday. The estimate was derived from a new forecasting tool developed by the CDC. The range of estimated cases -- from 550,000 to 1.4 million -- is wide because experts suspect the current count is highly under-reported. The official death toll from Ebola in West Africa has climbed to more than 2,800 in six months, with 5,800 cases confirmed as of Monday, the World Health Organization said. But the CDC estimates that if 70% of people with Ebola are properly cared for in medical facilities, the epidemic could decrease and eventually end. In a press conference Tuesday, CDC Director Tom Frieden cautioned that this model is based on older data from August. The numbers are not projections, but "scenarios." The model does not take into account President Obama's announcement that the U.S. is sending troops and extra medical equipment to the area. Nor does it take into account the additional help from other countries promised. What the model does suggests, he said, is that the current surge of help can "break the back of the epidemic" and is "exactly what's needed" to end it. He said he is now "confident the most dire predictions will not come to pass." The cautionary tale this data does tell, he said is that there would be an "enormous cost" if help is delayed. Gayle Smith, a special assistant to the President and senior director of the National Security Council said the model tells responders how to "bend the curve" and that the epidemic can end with a large international response. "The momentum must at least be maintained to ensure we are way out ahead of this," Smith said. And added that the international help will need to "stay on this as long as it takes." A separate nine-month assessment published by WHO experts in The New England Journal of Medicine on Tuesday says the fatality rate of this outbreak in West Africa is 71% and that the "current epidemiologic outlook is bleak." It also warns that without "drastic improvements" in measures to control its spread, the number of cases and deaths from Ebola is expected to continue climbing from hundreds to thousands per week in the coming months. The cumulative number of cases could exceed 20,000 by November 2, the assessment said. It blamed the spread not on a particularly virulent strain of the virus, rather it said this outbreak was so deadly because of a "combination of dysfunctional health systems, international indifference, high population mobility, local customs, densely populated capitals, and lack of trust in authorities after years of armed conflict." "Perhaps most important, Ebola has reached the point where it could establish itself as an endemic infection because of a highly inadequate and late global response." It warns that the global response must improve to meet the threat posed by this and future epidemics. Another six-month report from WHO -- which assesses the situation in three countries at the outbreak's center, Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone -- is dedicated to those health workers "who, as an expression of our innately shared human compassion, risked their lives, and lost them." In the six months since this outbreak was first formally reported in March, 337 health care workers have been infected, of whom more than 181 have died, the WHO said. Guinea: Porous borders aid spread The WHO's six-month report on Guinea, where the outbreak began in a remote area, details how the virus first gained a grip on a vulnerable, frightened population ill-equipped to deal with the deadly disease. Once Ebola was identified as the killer, a national and international response swung into gear. But each time it looked like the country might be at the point of controlling the virus, new flare-ups occurred. The WHO report concludes Ebola kept getting reintroduced "into Guinea -- with its notoriously porous borders -- from the large outbreaks in neighboring Liberia and Sierra Leone." Controlling the virus then will not be feasible in Guinea until its stopped in neighboring countries. Meanwhile, health workers there have come under attack as they seek to educate the local population. "Today, one of the biggest barriers to control is violence from an impoverished, terrified and shattered population that does not understand what hit it and fights back the only way it can," the report said. Liberia: Misery and hope WHO's six-month report on Liberia summarizes their situation as one of "misery and despair tempered by some good reasons for hope." The number of Liberian cases is increasing exponentially, with 113 new ones reported over a single 24-hour period on one day last week, WHO said -- a record number in any outbreak. At the same time, treatment centers are overflowing. Many patients are turned away. The capacity to deliver other basic health services, such as care for women in childbirth, has been compromised. The report warns malaria-related deaths may soon surpass those from Ebola. Hope can be found in the opening of a new WHO-funded, 120-bed Ebola treatment center, it said. The U.S. government is also setting up a new laboratory to speed up diagnosis. Currently there are four major Ebola treatment units in Liberia. In remarks made on Tuesday, Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf said that her country's health care system is hurting. Of the over 1500 who have died, 85 were health care workers. The President characterized the CDC's model for possible infections as "scary to all of us." She added, though, that she is happy with the U.S. response to the disaster. She believes it will make a "major" difference. She predicts with that increased international effort, Liberia will see better results in a couple of weeks. Sierra Leone: Urgent needs The situation assessment for Sierra Leone explains how traditional burial practices helped the virus spread quickly there following the funeral of a respected local healer. The virus has taken a devastating toll on health workers and researchers. "Sierra Leone's most urgent needs include more treatment beds in much safer facilities, better contact training and follow-up, more personal protective equipment and body bags, and more properly protected teams to collect bodies and bury them safely," WHO said. The deployment of international medical teams in West Africa, including from China and Cuba, may help. Nigeria and Senegal, where the situation is judged "stable -- for the moment," are seen as success stories. Those countries have shown conventional methods such as early detection, contact tracing, isolation and an adequate supply of personal protective equipment can contain the virus, WHO said. "If Nigeria can control an outbreak caused by such a deadly and highly contagious virus, right from the start, any country in the world can do the same," its report said. CNN's Carol Jordan contributed to this report. Source:
|
![]() |
|
| skibboy | 24 Sep 2014, 11:43 PM Post #119 |
|
24 September 2014 Ebola-hit nations may 'face collapse' ![]() People with Ebola are finding it difficult to get adequate treatment The Ebola outbreak threatens to become a political crisis that could unravel years of effort to stabilise West Africa, a think tank has warned. "The worst-hit countries now face widespread chaos and, potentially, collapse," the International Crisis Group (ICG) said. The world's largest outbreak of Ebola has caused 2,811 deaths so far, mainly in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. Meanwhile, a team of health workers in Guinea has been attacked. The International Federation of the Red Cross said they were collecting bodies believed to be infected with Ebola in western Guinea. One Red Cross worker is recovering after being wounded in the neck, it said. Last week, an eight-member team trying to raise awareness about Ebola was killed in the south-east of the country by villagers suspicious of official attempts to combat the disease. Twenty-seven suspects have been arrested over their murders, Guinea's Justice Minister Cheick Sacko said, AFP news agency reports. On Tuesday, the UN World Health Organization (WHO) warned that Ebola infections could treble to 20,000 by November if efforts to tackle the outbreak were not stepped up. However, Francis Dove Edwin, a member of Sierra Leone's presidential task force dealing with Ebola, said much progress had been made in curbing the outbreak. Patients were now being isolated and quarantined and from "quarantine you have eradication", Mr Dove told BBC Focus on Africa. __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Skills shortage: ![]() Liberia with a 4.2m population: 51 doctors; 978 nurses and midwives; 269 pharmacists Sierra Leone with a 6m population: 136 doctors; 1,017 nurses and midwives; 114 pharmacists Source: Afri-Dev.Info __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Both Liberia and Sierra Leone are recovering from brutal civil wars and Guinea has faced coups and ethnic unrest. "Adding social breakdown to the epidemic would create disaster perhaps impossible to manage," the ICG statement said. The international community needs to provide more personnel and resources "not only to the immediate medical response but also to the longer-term problems of strengthening governance and rebuilding health-care systems", it said. The Ebola crisis has exposed citizens' lack of trust in their government in "already fragile societies", the group said. In three worst-hit countries, "past civil conflicts fuelled by local and regional antagonisms could resurface", it said. Mr Edwin dismissed the ICG's assessment, saying Ebola would not cause political instability in Sierra Leone. A meeting is expected to take place on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York to consider the next steps to deal with the outbreak. With warnings of soaring food prices and possible shortages, reopening borders with appropriate surveillance measures must be a top priority for West African governments, the group advised. "Despite rhetoric to the contrary, West African governments have tried to manage these crises unilaterally, ignoring - as demonstrated once again by the rapid spread of Ebola - that their citizenries are deeply linked and interdependent," the ICG statement said. While countries like the US, UK, France and China and Cuba were ramping up their responses by setting up Ebola health facilities and sending personnel, special attention also needed to be paid to Guinea-Bissau and The Gambia, countries near the epicentre which both have inadequate health systems, it said. New figures suggest that 70% of those infected with Ebola in West Africa have died, higher than previously reported. West Africa Ebola casualties Up to 20 September 2,811 Ebola deaths - probable, confirmed and suspected 1,578 Liberia 632 Guinea 593 Sierra Leone 8 Nigeria Source: WHO Source:
|
![]() |
|
| skibboy | 25 Sep 2014, 01:18 AM Post #120 |
|
Guilty of Ebola until proven otherwise By Elizabeth Cohen, Senior Medical Correspondent September 24, 2014 ![]() This team picks up Ebola's dead Monrovia, Liberia (CNN) -- About 10 days ago, Lusa Khanneh took ill, but not with Ebola. Her son, Saymon Kamara, says his mother was having violent convulsions. Those aren't a typical symptom of Ebola; they're a complication of high blood pressure, which Kanneh had suffered from for years. Kamara drove his mother to Redemption Hospital, near their home in the West Point slums of Monrovia. Doctors had given her treatment there before, and he hoped to get it again. But Redemption, like so many hospitals in Liberia, is closed or partially closed out of fear that Ebola patients will infect health care workers. It's a fear based in reality: In Liberia, more than 170 health care workers have contracted the disease and 83 have died of it. Next, Kamara drove to ELWA Hospital, but learned it only takes Ebola patients. Then he drove his mother to JFK Hospital, but it was overwhelmed and accepting only pregnant women, children and Ebola patients. Cooper Hospital was his last chance. Kamara and his mother waited outside. By now she was convulsing every 15 minutes, "as if someone had put a spell on her," he says. Her breathing was rapid and shallow. A doctor came out -- a tall man, Kamara remembers. He pointed to a small blood stain on his mother's shirt. He wanted to know what it was from. Kamara explained that during one of her seizures his mother had bit her tongue and bled a little. But he could tell the doctor was worried she had Ebola, because bleeding is one of the symptoms. He turned Kanneh away. Lusa Khanneh had run out of options. The only place her son could take her was home. Four days later, on September 19, she died. Saymon Kamara is angry. "If the hospitals were open, she wouldn't have died," he says. "This wasn't her time to go." There's no question that countless Liberians are dying because of Ebola even when they don't have it. There are few functioning hospitals or doctors' offices. Health care services, weak before Ebola, barely exist; vaccination rates, for example, have plummeted. "The primary care system here is basically shattered," says Sarah Crowe, a spokeswoman for UNICEF who is working in Liberia. "It's an outrage that children are dying of diseases, like measles, that are preventable and treatable." Even after death, Ebola -- a disease her son says she never had -- haunted Kanneh. Her family heard on the radio that no one should touch a cadaver, no matter what the cause of death. Call in, the announcer on the radio said, and a team from Dead Body Management will come for the body. It's simply impractical to test every cadaver for Ebola and sort out who died of what before burial. It would dangerously delay the burial to do so, and would take up too many resources. So the Kanneh family did as they were instructed. On Saturday, the day after her death, a team of five men in white suits, covered head to toe, sprayed Lusa Khanneh's body with chlorine and buried her. Kanneh didn't receive the burial she would have wanted as a devout Muslim. Her family didn't wash her body. They didn't carry her to the mosque and pray over her. They didn't bury her themselves. "These guys who buried her -- I don't know these guys," Kamara says, referring to the men in the white suits with the chlorine spray. "I expected my family to bury her, but now strangers have buried her." But he says he understands. "I have to accept this because this is the kind of country I live in and the kind of country my mother died in," he says. "I have to accept it with a heavy heart." CNN's John Bonifield, Orlando Ruiz, and Orlind Cooper contributed to this story. Source:
|
![]() |
|
| skibboy | 25 Sep 2014, 01:36 AM Post #121 |
|
24 September 2014 Guinea arrests 27 over Ebola health team murders AFP ![]() A man stands at a stall next to a billboard about the Ebola virus in a street in Conakry guinea on September 8, 2014 Guinea police have arrested 27 suspects over the murders of an eight-member Ebola education team attacked by angry locals in an area at the epicentre of the outbreak, the government said on Wednesday. The victims, said to include local health officials and journalists, went missing after their delegation came under attack during an outreach visit in the southern town of Womey on Tuesday last week. Eight bodies were recovered from the septic tank of a nearby primary school two days later, according to the government. "Most of the main perpetrators of these crimes have been placed under arrest -- a total of 27 people," Justice Minister Cheick Sacko told a news conference in the capital Conakry. He said the suspects were being questioned in the southern city of N'Zerekore by the public prosecutor. "The government will see this to the end. I promise to see that justice is done and to make the guilty pay the price for this inhuman tragedy," he added. The deadliest Ebola epidemic on record has infected almost 6,000 people in west Africa and killed nearly half of them, according to the World Health Organization's latest figures. The virus emerged in Guinea at the start of the year and has infected 1,008 Guineans, killing 632 of them. The spread in Guinea has been accompanied by fear and paranoia by villagers who feel the government and the international community cannot be trusted. Many Guineans believe local and foreign healthcare workers are part of a conspiracy which either deliberately introduced the outbreak, or invented it as a means of luring Africans to clinics to harvest their blood and organs. Police lieutenant Richard Haba told AFP last week the outreach team was attacked by protesters who had come "to kill them because they think Ebola is nothing more than an invention of white people to kill black people". At least 21 people were wounded during violent scenes in which the team was pelted with stones, according to local police. Source:
|
![]() |
|
| skibboy | 25 Sep 2014, 10:35 PM Post #122 |
|
25 September 2014 Sierra Leone widens Ebola quarantine to three more districts Sierra Leone's President Ernest Bai Koroma has widened a quarantine to include another one million people in an attempt to curb the spread of Ebola. The northern districts of Port Loko and Bombali, and Moyamba in the south, will in effect be sealed off immediately. Nearly 600 people have died of the virus in Sierra Leone where two eastern districts are already blockaded. Meanwhile, US President Barack Obama has said the world needs to act faster to halt the West Africa Ebola outbreak. "There is still a significant gap between where we are and where we need to be," Mr Obama told a high-level United Nations meeting on Ebola. In other developments: -New UN World Health Organization figures show that 2,917 people have died in the outbreak, with Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea the worst affected -Spanish missionary Manuel Garcia Viejo, 69, who contracted Ebola in Sierra Leone, has died at a Madrid hospital - the second Spaniard to die of the virus -A third US aid worker, Dr Rick Sacra, has recovered after becoming infected with Ebola in Liberia, and has been released from a US hospital -The World Bank has added $170m (£104m) to the $230m it had already pledged to fight Ebola. Bank chief Jim Yong Kim said "a response unlike anything the world has ever seen" was needed "to prevent the potential meltdown of the continent". Mr Koroma's announcement follows a three-day nationwide lockdown that ended on Sunday night. Two eastern districts have been isolated since the beginning of August and the extension of the indefinite quarantine means more than a third of Sierra Leone's 6.1 million population now finds itself unable to move freely. During Sierra Leone's three-day curfew, more than a million households were surveyed and 130 new cases discovered, the authorities say. President Koroma said the move had been a success but had exposed "areas of greater challenges", which was why other areas were being quarantined. Only people delivering essential services can enter and circulate within areas under quarantine. In a televised address, the president acknowledged that the blockade would "pose great difficulties" for people. "[But] the life of everyone and the survival of our country take precedence over these difficulties," he said. According to WHO, the situation nationally in Sierra Leone continues to deteriorate with a sharp increase in the number of newly reported cases in the capital, Freetown, and its neighbouring districts of Port Loko, Bombali, and Moyamba, which are now under quarantine. CountryExisting bed capacityNewly funded bedsExtra beds still required SOURCE: WHO, 24 SEPTEMBER 2014 Guinea 180 0 40 Liberia 315 440 1,550 Sierra Leone 323 297 532 The BBC's Umaru Fofana in Freetown says Port Loko is where two of the country's major iron ore mining companies operate and the restrictions are likely to hamper business. The WHO said despite efforts to deploy more health workers and open new Ebola treatment centres in the worst-affected countries, there was still a significant lack of beds in Sierra Leone and Liberia, with more than 2,000 needed. The situation in Guinea had appeared to be stabilising, but with up to 100 new confirmed cases reported in each of the past five weeks, it was still of grave concern, it said. Source:
Edited by skibboy, 25 Sep 2014, 11:43 PM.
|
![]() |
|
| skibboy | 6 Oct 2014, 11:28 PM Post #123 |
|
6 October 2014 Ebola outbreak: Nurse infected in Spain ![]() Manuel Garcia Viejo was transferred to Spain from Sierra Leone but died days later Spanish Health Minister Ana Mato has confirmed that a nurse who treated two victims of Ebola in Madrid has tested positive for the disease. The nurse is said to be the first person in the current outbreak known to have contracted Ebola outside Africa. The woman was part of the team that treated Spanish priests Manuel Garcia Viejo and Miguel Pajares, who both died of the virus, officials say. Some 3,400 people have died in the outbreak - mostly in West Africa. Meanwhile US President Barack Obama has said the White House is considering extra screening at US airports for people arriving from the worst-affected countries in West Africa. He said the chances for an Ebola outbreak in the US were extremely low, but vowed to step up the pressure on larger countries to help with efforts to contain the disease. It comes as the US tries to limit the spread from its first confirmed case, a Liberian in Dallas. High fever The Spanish nurse is in a stable condition, Ms Mato said. She started to feel ill last week when she was on holiday. ![]() Manuel Garcia Viejo, seen in a file photo, was the second Spanish priest to be repatriated from Africa with Ebola The nurse was admitted to hospital in Alcorcon, near Madrid, on Monday morning with a high fever, she said. "Both the health ministry and public health authorities are working together to give the best care to the patient and to guarantee the safety of all citizens," the minister told a news conference. Manuel Garcia Viejo, 69, died in the hospital Carlos III de Madrid on 25 September after catching Ebola in Sierra Leone. Miguel Pajares, 75, died in August after contracting the virus in Liberia. Experimental drug Ebola spreads through contact with the bodily fluids of someone who has the virus and the only way to stop an outbreak is to isolate those who are infected. There have been nearly 7,500 confirmed infections worldwide, with officials saying the figure is likely to be much higher in reality. Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia have been hardest hit. Thomas Duncan, the first person to be diagnosed with Ebola in the US, is being treated at a Dallas hospital in isolation. He caught the virus in his native Liberia. Mr Duncan's condition is critical but stable, doctors said on Monday. He has been given Brincidofovir, a new experimental drug for treating Ebola which was developed in North Carolina. Source:
|
![]() |
|
| skibboy | 7 Oct 2014, 11:49 PM Post #124 |
|
7 October 2014 Spain Ebola nurse: Relatives and hospital staff monitored Doctors in Madrid have been testing three people for Ebola after a Spanish nurse became the first person known to have contracted the deadly virus outside West Africa. Some 52 others are being monitored, health officials say. The nurse, identified in media reports as Teresa Romero, had treated two Spanish missionaries who died of Ebola after being repatriated. Some 3,400 people have died in the current outbreak. Most of the deaths have been in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned of the dire consequences for the economies in the region if the virus continues to spread. Meanwhile the chairman of the World Health Organisation's Ebola science group says he is not surprised that the Spanish nurse contracted the disease. Speaking in Geneva, Prof Peter Piot said he expected more cases among medical staff, even in developed countries, and that the slightest mistake during the care of Ebola patients could be fatal. Cleared Reports said one of three people hospitalised in Madrid after the nurse's diagnosis tested negative for the virus on Tuesday. A female health worker, who also treated one of the Spanish priests, has been cleared in two separate tests, health sources say. The husband of the afflicted nurse and a Spanish man who travelled to Spain from Nigeria remain in quarantine. The European Commission has asked Spain to explain how Ms Romero, a 40-year-old auxiliary nurse, could have become infected. A hospital investigation is under way. She was one of about 30 staff at the Carlos III hospital in Madrid who had been treating priests Manuel Garcia Viejo and Miguel Pajares, officials say. ![]() A woman wears protective mask as she leaves Alcorcon hospital Mr Garcia Viejo, 69, died at the hospital on 25 September after catching Ebola in Sierra Leone. Mr Pajares, 75, died in August after contracting the virus in Liberia. Ms Romero had twice gone into the room where Mr Garcia Viejo had been treated, to be directly involved in his care and to disinfect the room after his death. Madrid healthcare director Antonia Alemany said: "The nurse went into the room wearing the individual protection gear and there's no knowledge of an accidental exposure to risk." Shortly afterwards she went on holiday but fell ill on 30 September and was admitted to Alcorcon hospital in south-west Madrid. It was not clear where she went on holiday. Early on Tuesday Ms Romero was moved under police escort to Carlos III hospital in the capital and is said to be in a stable condition. The Spanish health authorities say she is being treated with a drip using antibodies from previous Ebola patients. Doctors are monitoring 22 people including relatives and staff who had contact with the nurse at Alcorcon hospital, as well as 30 people working at Carlos III hospital. All have been contacted by the health authorities. The Carlos III hospital was reported to have had extreme protective measures in place including two sets of overalls, gloves and goggles. However, health workers told El Pais newspaper that the clothing did not have level-four biological security, which is fully waterproof and with independent breathing apparatus. Instead it was level two, the paper says, as photographs provided by staff indicated that the overalls did not allow for ventilation and the gloves were made of latex and bound with adhesive tape. Health staff in Madrid protested over alleged safety failures on Tuesday. ![]() Staff staged a protest outside La Paz Hospital in Madrid over the government's handling of the Ebola cases __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Containing Ebola: BBC health correspondent Michelle Roberts Patients should be isolated - ideally in a hospital with the highest level of bio-safety. Such a facility would use a specially designed tent with controlled ventilation to house the patient's bed - this allows staff to provide clinical care while containing the infection. Staff treating the patient must wear protective suits, gloves, masks and goggles. This equipment should be completely impermeable since Ebola is spread in bodily fluids such as sweat, urine and blood Any clinical waste such as syringes, paper towels or clothing from the patient should be incinerated. A dedicated laboratory should be used to carry out any necessary tests. __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ IMF official Rupa Duttagupta said on Tuesday that a generally positive outlook for growth in sub-Saharan Africa was overshadowed by what she described as "the heavy economic toll" on countries worst affected by Ebola. In other developments: -British health authorities have said there are no plans to introduce Ebola screening for travellers arriving in the UK -A container of aid materials for the fight against Ebola is at the centre of a political row in Sierra Leone -A Norwegian medic who tested positive for Ebola while working with Medecins Sans Frontieres in Sierra Leone has been flown back to Oslo -Shares in airlines including Easyjet and British Airways owner IAG have fallen sharply following the news of the Ebola case in Madrid Ebola spreads through contact with bodily fluids and the only way to stop an outbreak is to isolate those who are infected. There have been nearly 7,500 confirmed infections worldwide, with officials saying the figure is likely to be much higher in reality. Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia have been hardest hit. Thomas Duncan, the first person to be diagnosed with Ebola in the US, is being treated at a Dallas hospital. He caught the virus in his native Liberia. Doctors say he is in a critical but stable condition. Source: ![]() Edited by skibboy, 7 Oct 2014, 11:55 PM.
|
![]() |
|
| skibboy | 8 Oct 2014, 11:44 PM Post #125 |
|
8 October 2014 US Ebola patient Thomas Duncan dies in hospital ![]() Mr Duncan, shown here at a 2011 wedding in Ghana The first person to be diagnosed with Ebola within the US has died, Texas hospital officials have said. Thomas Eric Duncan, 42, who caught the virus in his native Liberia, was being treated with an experimental drug in isolation in a Dallas hospital. Earlier the US announced new screening measures at entry points to check travellers for symptoms of the virus. It has killed 3,865 people, mostly in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, in the worst Ebola outbreak yet. "It is with profound sadness and heartfelt disappointment that we must inform you of the death of Thomas Eric Duncan this morning at 7:51 am," a spokesman for Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas said in a statement. "Our thoughts today are with his family," said US President Barack Obama, who said his death showed "we don't have a lot of margin for error. If we don't follow protocols and procedures that are put in place, then we're putting folks in our communities at risk". The news came shortly after US Secretary of State John Kerry urged all nations to boost their response to combat the virus. "More countries can and must step up," he said in a joint press conference with his British counterpart Philip Hammond. The US has pledged as many as 4,000 troops to the region, while the UK is sending 750 military personnel to Sierra Leone. Duncan, who worked as a driver for a courier company, tested positive in Dallas on 30 September, 10 days after arriving on a flight from Monrovia via Brussels. He become ill a few days after arriving in the US. Even after going to hospital and telling medical staff he had been in Liberia, he was sent home with antibiotics. __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ How will US airport screening work? -JFK in New York, Newark in New Jersey, Washington Dulles, O'Hare in Chicago and Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson -They account for 90% of international travellers to the US -About 160 people come daily from Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea -A handheld device will take temperatures -Passengers will also have to fill out a questionnaire -Passengers with a fever or who answer "yes" to certain questions will be seen by a representative of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Four days later, he was placed in isolation but his condition continued to worsen and this week he was given an experimental drug. Ten people with whom he came into contact are being monitored for symptoms. Following Duncan's diagnosis, the first case of contagion outside of Africa was confirmed in Spain, where a nurse who treated an Ebola victim in Madrid contracted the virus herself. Teresa Romero is the first person known to have contracted the deadly virus outside West Africa. She had treated two Spanish missionaries who later died from Ebola. In other developments: -The UK is sending 750 troops to Sierra Leone to help build Ebola treatment centre -The World Bank has warned that the economic cost of the virus could exceed $32bn (£20bn) While Duncan was the first person to be diagnosed within the US, three American aid workers and a photojournalist contracted the virus in Liberia. Three have recovered. The new screening measures in Chicago, New York, Washington and Atlanta would not have detected Duncan's infection because he was not displaying symptoms on arrival. Ebola spreads through contact with the bodily fluids of someone who has the virus and the only way to stop an outbreak is to isolate those who are infected. Source:
|
![]() |
|
| 1 user reading this topic (1 Guest and 0 Anonymous) | |
| Go to Next Page | |
| « Previous Topic · Disease · Next Topic » |































from the same chalice any more. 










3:24 PM Jul 11