Alpha Centauri 2

Community => Recreation Commons => Our researchers have made a breakthrough! => Topic started by: Buster's Uncle on October 03, 2014, 06:23:17 pm

Title: Ebola news 10/3
Post by: Buster's Uncle on October 03, 2014, 06:23:17 pm

Prescription for avoiding Ebola airport screening: ibuprofen
Reuters
By Sharon Begley  11 hours ago


(http://l1.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/BWvvuK0vhsQwusNLQgLLoQ--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9ZmlsbDtoPTQxNDtweG9mZj01MDtweW9mZj0wO3E9Njk7dz03MzY-/http://media.zenfs.com/en-US/video/video.cbsboston.com/3d4333a3ff97e2c4884b96423e0999c8)
Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan is being treated in Dallas



NEW YORK (Reuters) - People who contract Ebola in West Africa can get through airport screenings and onto a plane with a lie and a lot of ibuprofen, according to healthcare experts who believe more must be done to identify infected travelers.

At the very least, they said, travelers arriving from Ebola-stricken countries should be screened for fever, which is currently done on departure from Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone. But such safeguards are not foolproof.

"The fever-screening instruments run low and aren't that accurate," said infection control specialist Sean Kaufman, president of Behavioral-Based Improvement Solutions, a biosafety company based in Atlanta.

"And people can take ibuprofen to reduce their fever enough to pass screening, and why wouldn't they? If it will get them on a plane so they can come to the United States and get effective treatment after they're exposed to Ebola, wouldn't you do that to save your life?"

On Thursday, Liberia said the first Ebola patient to be diagnosed in the United States had lied on a questionnaire at the Monrovia airport about his exposure to an Ebola patient. He flew to Brussels and then Dulles airport outside Washington, D.C., before landing in Dallas on Sept. 20.

The traveler, Thomas Eric Duncan, had no symptoms when he left Liberia, and fever scans there had shown a normal body temperature of 97.3 degrees Fahrenheit, U.S. health officials said. He therefore could not have been identified through examination as carrying the Ebola virus.

His arrival and hospitalization in Dallas have underscored how much U.S. authorities are relying on their counterparts in West African countries to screen passengers and contain the worst Ebola outbreak on record.

Part of the screening burden rests on connecting airports.


(http://l.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/GqyKR1ndVcunyUC66cUXPg--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9ZmlsbDtoPTI3ODtweW9mZj0wO3E9Njk7dz00NTA-/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/Reuters/2014-10-03T051746Z_1_LYNXNPEA9204A_RTROPTP_2_HEALTH-EBOLA-ASIA.JPG)
Passengers are screened as they arrive at Yangon International Airport in Yangon August 20, 2014. REUTERS/Soe Zeya Tun


For example, Kaufman flew from Monrovia to Casablanca to London to Atlanta. He was fever-screened in Monrovia and Casablanca, but not London's Heathrow, he said, and not when he arrived in Atlanta.

"At Heathrow, there were no questions about where I had come from," he said. "I offered the information to the official in Atlanta, and he said, 'Thank you. Be safe.'"

In August, experts from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) began teaching airport workers in Monrovia and other cities in the Ebola zone to conduct screenings, CDC medical worker Tai Chen said in an interview.

Ebola cases and deaths have been reported in Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria and Senegal. The World Health Organization has put the death toll at 3,338 out of 7,178 cases since March.

The CDC also worked with Liberian authorities to develop the questionnaire that was completed by Duncan: before travelers enter Roberts International Airport in Monrovia they are asked if they have had contact with anyone showing symptoms of Ebola.

There are at least two other screening points before a passenger is allowed to board a plane, with trained airport personnel asking about exposure to Ebola in the previous 21 days and any symptoms including fever, severe headache, bleeding, vomiting, diarrhea, and abdominal pain.

This process relies on an honor system, Chen said.

Officials at the CDC and the Department of Homeland Security would not say if they are considering using hand-held fever detectors on passengers arriving at U.S. airports. But Homeland Security spokeswoman Marsha Catron said the agency "will not hesitate to execute additional safety measures should it become necessary."

CDC Director Dr. Thomas Frieden cautioned on Thursday that a more restrictive approach to travel could make the Ebola outbreak harder to contain.

"The approach of isolating a country is going to make it harder to get help into that country," he said.


FEVER DETECTION

Virologist Heinz Feldmann of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases has studied Ebola for years and helped develop an experimental Ebola vaccine. He told Science magazine in September that airport screeners in Monrovia, where he spent three weeks, "Don't really know how to use the devices."

He said he saw screeners record temperatures of 32 degrees C (90 F), which is so low it "is impossible for a living person."

Feldmann said in an email that according to his colleagues who have returned from Liberia in the last few days procedures for taking temperatures and doing clinical checks have improved.

Since August, major U.S. airports that receive international flights have displayed signs alerting passengers to the presence of Ebola in West Africa and telling them to be on the look out for symptoms, said Customs and Border Protection (CBP) spokeswoman Jennifer Evanitsky.

On Wednesday, customs personnel began distributing information prepared by the CDC describing Ebola symptoms and noting, "You were given this card because you arrived to the United States from a country with Ebola." It tells travelers that if they were exposed to Ebola overseas, "call your doctor even if you do not have symptoms."

(Reporting by Sharon Begley; Editing by Michele Gershberg, Toni Reinhold)


http://news.yahoo.com/prescription-avoiding-ebola-airport-screening-ibuprofen-051746791.html (http://news.yahoo.com/prescription-avoiding-ebola-airport-screening-ibuprofen-051746791.html)

Title: Texas Ebola Patient Now Too Weak to Talk on Phone
Post by: Buster's Uncle on October 03, 2014, 07:42:02 pm

Texas Ebola Patient Now Too Weak to Talk on Phone
Good Morning America
By SABINA GHEBREMEDHIN  4 hours ago


The Ebola patient in a Texas isolation unit has become so weak that he can no longer talk to his family on the phone, his nephew told ABC News.

Thomas Eric Duncan, who is from Liberia, has been confined to an isolation unit at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas since he arrived in an ambulance on Sunday.

The family had said earlier in the week they spoke with Duncan by phone and prayed with him on the phone, but that is no longer possible, Duncan's nephew Joe Weeks told ABC News.

"At first we were able to talk to him on the phone, but now he is just too sick to speak," Weeks said.

Weeks lives in Kannapolis, N.C., along with Duncan's sister and 87-year-old mother. The mother and sister may travel to Dallas soon, Weeks said.

A cleaning crew is expected to arrive today at the Ivy Apartments in Dallas where Duncan had been staying when he got sick from the Ebola virus. The crew was turned away on Thursday, but are expected to be admitted today.

The cleaning crew is tasked with disinfecting all of the surfaces that Duncan could have touched, Dallas Judge Clay Jenkins said Thursday. The man’s clothes and sheets have been “bagged,” Jenkins said. Additionally, food has been delivered to the apartment for Duncan’s relatives.

Weeks is concerned that the apartment has not yet been sanitized despite having four people confined to the apartment by a judge's order until they determined to not be infected with Ebola, which can take as long as 21 to incubate. Among the people in the apartment are a teenage boy and woman named Louise Troh, who traveled from Liberia with Duncan.

“The house that he lived in has not been cleaned or disinfected. You still have four more people in there, that lived in that house and were allowed to leave and go shopping, go do other things that normal people would do,” Weeks said.

Thomas R. Frieden, the Director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told ABC News today the Ebola diagnosis offers new challenges for authorities.

“It’s the first time we’re having Ebola in this country and the challenges are real in terms of what do you do with the waste, how do you move it, how do you dispose of it and we want to make sure that everything is done correctly,” Frieden said. “I’m confident that will get sorted out today.”

The initial handling of Duncan's case has been the subject of controversy. Duncan first visited the hospital last Thursday, Sept. 25, but was allowed to leave the hospital despite telling a nurse he had come from West Africa. Duncan returned to the hospital by ambulance on Sunday.

The hospital said in a statement Thursday that the physician and the nurses followed protocol, but his travel history didn't automatically appear in the physician's standard workflow.

Weeks also had concerns that the hospital wasn't aware that Duncan may have been infected with Ebola. Weeks said that he called the hospital to report his concerns about Duncan’s condition – and when he didn’t get the reaction he wanted, he called officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Health, at which point Duncan was put in isolation.

“They had him in the ER, like any other patient, and I didn’t think that was the right procedure,” Weeks said.

“I don’t know how long it was going to take, but I wasn’t trying to wait to see how long it was going to take, so I pre-empted and called CDC and reported that there might be a possible Ebola case in Texas. But the hospital was not doing what it needed to do at that time,” he said.

Dallas and federal health officials are tracking all the people who may have come into contact with Duncan and so far that figure is about 100 people.

Duncan, who worked as a driver in Liberia, flew to Brussels on Sept. 19. He continued to Washington’s Dulles Airport, before flying to the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport on a United Airlines flight, arriving on Sept. 20.

Although American Ebola patients have been treated in the United States prior to this diagnosis, they all contracted Ebola in West Africa. Ebola has killed more than 3,300 people, with nearly 7,200 cases reported since the outbreak began in March.


https://gma.yahoo.com/texas-ebola-patient-now-too-weak-talk-phone-130346380--abc-news-topstories.html

Title: Liberia imposes media restrictions on 'invasive' Ebola coverage
Post by: Buster's Uncle on October 03, 2014, 07:58:06 pm

Liberia imposes media restrictions on 'invasive' Ebola coverage
Reuters
By Bate Felix  5 hours ago


(http://l2.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/tKcaruexjlFp52oxtz4O8A--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9ZmlsbDtoPTI3MDtweW9mZj0wO3E9Njk7dz00NTA-/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/Reuters/2014-10-03T133629Z_1_LYNXNPEA920JO_RTROPTP_2_HEALTH-EBOLA-USA.JPG)
An ambulance carrying American missionary Nancy Writebol, 59, who is infected with Ebola in West Africa arrives past crowds of people taking pictures at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia August 5, 2014. REUTERS/Tami Chappell



DAKAR (Reuters) - Journalists will need official permission to cover many aspects of the Ebola outbreak in Liberia, under new rules that the government said aimed at protecting patient privacy.

The move was announced on Thursday, the day an American cameraman working for NBC News in Liberia became the first foreign journalist to test positive for Ebola. There was no indication that the new rules were related to that case.

Growing international media interest in the outbreak that has killed nearly 2,000 people and infected 3,696 in Liberia has highlighted the challenges to the West African country's healthcare system.

Journalists could be arrested and prosecuted if they fail to get written permission from the health ministry before contacting Ebola patients, conducting interviews or filming or photographing healthcare facilities, officials said.

"We have noted with great concern that photographs have been taken in treatment centers while patients are going in to be attended by doctors. That is invasion of the dignity, privacy and respect of patients," Tolbert Nyenswah, assistant minister of health and head of Liberia's Ebola Incident Management System, said.

"Ebola patients are no different from any other patients. We should do that (report) under permission so that we don't just take pictures or send out stories of naked people (in a way) that does not respect their privacy," he said.


CUBAN MEDICS ARRIVE

The outbreak of the disease which causes fever, bleeding, vomiting and diarrhea has overwhelmed health systems in the three most affected countries, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea where it originated. It has also spread to Senegal, Nigeria and the United States.

The first person to be diagnosed with the disease in the United States could face prosecution in Liberia for making a false declaration on an airport questionnaire if he returns to the country, Liberian officials said on Thursday.

Thomas Eric Duncan, a Liberian, had helped a pregnant woman in Liberia who later died of Ebola, just days before he flew to Texas via Brussels and Washington two weeks ago. On an airport questionnaire meant to help control the spread of the disease he wrote that he had not had contact with an Ebola sufferer.

U.S. authorities said Duncan was in a serious condition and four of up to 100 people he had direct or indirect contact with, have been quarantined.

The World Health Organization has declared the epidemic an international public health emergency, and governments from the United States to China, Cuba and Britain have sent troops and medics in an attempt to contain the disease.

A first batch of 165 medical staff - 62 doctors and 103 nurses - from Cuba arrived in Sierra Leone on Thursday to join the fight against the disease after more than two weeks of training with international experts at a Havana hospital specializing in tropical diseases.

Another 296 Cuban doctors and nurses will go to Liberia and Guinea after their training.

"We have 165 medical officers, qualified health professionals that are here to help us in the fight against Ebola," said Sierra Leone's deputy Health Minister Madina Rahman. "As we know we need as much healthcare and professionals as possible. This will make a dent in the fight, we need more if we can get more," Rahman said.

(Additional reporting by Josephus Olu-Mammah in Freetown; Editing by Daniel Flynn and Peter Graff)


http://news.yahoo.com/liberia-imposes-media-restrictions-invasive-ebola-coverage-133629299--business.html (http://news.yahoo.com/liberia-imposes-media-restrictions-invasive-ebola-coverage-133629299--business.html)

Title: Patient with Ebola symptoms enters Washington hospital
Post by: Buster's Uncle on October 03, 2014, 08:06:15 pm

Patient with Ebola symptoms enters Washington hospital
AFP
1 hour ago


(http://l2.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/Xb6sQhOsE4riYliiUpCIUQ--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9ZmlsbDtoPTY0MDtweW9mZj0wO3E9Njk7dz05NjA-/http://l.yimg.com/os/publish-images/news/2014-10-03/cf191c40-4b25-11e4-9267-cdeb7a70d2d7_42-62779296.jpg)
Howard University Hospital, where a patient with Ebola-like symptoms is being treated. The hospital reported the unidentified patient, who had traveled to Nigeria recently, has been admitted in stable condition, and is under isolation. The medical team is working with the CDC to determine whether the patient has the deadly Ebola virus. Oct. 3, 2014 - Washington, DC, U.S. (© Jay Mallin/ZUMA Wire via Corbis)



Washington (AFP) - A patient with symptoms that could be associated with the deadly Ebola virus and a recent travel history to Nigeria was admitted Friday to a Washington-area hospital, a spokeswoman told AFP.

"We can confirm that a patient ​has been admitted to Howard University Hospital in stable condition, following travel to Nigeria and presenting with symptoms that could be associated with Ebola," said Howard University spokeswoman Kerry-Ann Hamilton.

"In an abundance of caution, we have activated the appropriate infection control protocols, including isolating the patient."

No further details were released about the patient.

Symptoms of Ebola can include fever, aches and pains, vomiting and diarrhea.

The virus is spread through close contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person.

The first diagnosed case of Ebola in the United States was announced on Tuesday, after a man from Liberia who had traveled to Texas fell ill days after he arrived.

Nigeria is one of five West African nations that have battled Ebola this year, but has had fewer than two dozen cases and as many as eight deaths linked to the arrival of a sick airline passenger from Liberia, far less than the thousands of infections in neighboring countries.

Nigeria's president declared the nation Ebola-free at a UN meeting late last month.

US and global health authorities have said Nigeria was near to being able to announce an end to the outbreak there, which can only be established once 42 days have passed since the last infection.

More than 3,300 people have died across Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea, Nigeria and Senegal already this year, in the world's largest outbreak of Ebola in history.


http://news.yahoo.com/patient-ebola-symptoms-enters-washington-hospital-170221779.html (http://news.yahoo.com/patient-ebola-symptoms-enters-washington-hospital-170221779.html)

Title: Ebola strikes fourth American in Liberia
Post by: Buster's Uncle on October 03, 2014, 08:11:59 pm

Ebola strikes fourth American in Liberia
AFP
By Zoom Dosso  31 minutes ago


(http://l1.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/tncEWMwyxlO5yhO28UQi_A--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9ZmlsbDtoPTQxNDtweG9mZj01MDtweW9mZj0wO3E9Njk7dz03MzY-/http://media.zenfs.com/en-US/video/video.cnbc2.com/6d830fee1197c54fed49481e0eb82d50)
An American freelance cameraman working for NBC News in Liberia has tested positive for Ebola



Monrovia (AFP) - A US television network prepared Friday to evacuate a cameraman who contracted Ebola in Liberia, as the UN’s pointman flew to Sierra Leone, calling the epidemic the world’s "highest priority".

Ashoka Mukpo, 33, who was working as a freelancer for NBC news, discovered he was running a fever on Wednesday, his network said, and is in quarantine in a Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) treatment centre.

Hired by NBC only three days ago, he is the fourth American to contract Ebola in Liberia.

"The doctors are optimistic about his prognosis," Mukpo's father Mitchell Levy said in a message to family and friends quoted by NBC, adding that his son had worked on humanitarian projects in Liberia for several years.

By far the most deadly epidemic of Ebola on record has spread into five west African countries since the start of the year, infecting more than 7,000 people and killing about half of them.

The virus, spread through infected bodily fluids, can only be transmitted when a patient is experiencing the symptoms -- severe fever, vomiting, diarrhoea and, in some cases, massive internal haemorrhaging and external bleeding.


(http://l.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/CNKeFBOR5NQ4m0toavA2YQ--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9ZmlsbDtoPTY0MjtweW9mZj0wO3E9Njk7dz05NjA-/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/afp.com/Part-PAR-Par7991887-1-1-0.jpg)
Liberian Red Cross staff search for people who have died from Ebola, in Monrovia on October 3, 2014 (AFP Photo/Pascal Guyot)


Anthony Banbury, head of the UN Mission on Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER), travelled to Sierra Leone on Friday for the second leg of a tour of the three hardest-hit nations.

"The only way we will end this crisis is if we end every single last case of Ebola so there is no more risk of transmission to anyone, and when that's accomplished, UNMEER will go home," he told journalists on Thursday in the Liberian capital Freetown.

The UN envoy said he was intent on contributing to "the highest priority for the international community -- for the whole world, not just the United Nations".

The World Health Organization said in its latest situation update there was still a "significant shortfall" in capacity in west Africa, with 1,500 more beds needed in Liberia and 450 in Sierra Leone.

Around 160 health professionals pledged by Cuba to Sierra Leone arrived Thursday, reported an AFP correspondent at the airport near Freetown. Britain has pledged £120 million ($190 million, 150 million euros) to help build an estimated 700 treatment beds, fund new community treatment centres, support existing public health services and support aid agencies in Sierra Leone.


-'Unpardonable' traveler -

US health officials meanwhile were monitoring 100 people in Texas who had potential contact with Thomas Eric Duncan, a Liberian diagnosed with Ebola. Four family members were also ordered to stay home.

The man -- the first person to be confirmed with the deadly disease on US soil -- flew from Liberia and arrived in Texas on September 20 to visit family.

He was in contact with a known Ebola patient in Liberia, according to US media reports.

Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf said Friday he had behaved irresponsibly by travelling despite knowing he was potentially infected.


(http://l.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/De5CKjV8OqMHrudwECXibw--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9ZmlsbDtoPTYzODtweW9mZj0wO3E9Njk7dz05NjA-/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/afp.com/Part-PAR-Par7991889-1-1-0.jpg)
Hospital staff build new units to treat Ebola on October 1, 2014 in Monrovia (AFP Photo/Pascal Guyot)


"The fact that he knew and he left the country is unpardonable," Sirleaf told Canada's public broadcaster CBC.

Meanwhile NBC News president Deborah Turness said the crew working with Mupko in Liberia were being closely monitored but were showing no symptoms.

"However, in an abundance of caution, we will fly them back on a private charter flight and then they will place themselves under quarantine in the United States for 21 days -- which is at the most conservative end of the spectrum of medical guidance," she added.

The camerman is thought to be the first Western journalist to contract Ebola covering the west African outbreak, although several have died in Sierra Leone and Liberia.

Germany said on Friday a Ugandan doctor who had contracted Ebola in Sierra Leone while working for an Italian non-governmental organisation had been hospitalised in Frankfurt, the second Ebola patient to be treated in the country.


- 'Five infected every hour' -

Save the Children warned that five people are being infected with Ebola every hour in Sierra Leone and demand for treatment beds is far outstripping supply.

If the current "terrifying" rate of infection continues, 10 people will be infected every hour with the virus in Sierra Leone by the end of October, the London-based charity warned.

The extent of fear which the epidemic is engendering in the country was underlined on Friday when it emerged a middle-aged man in the quarantined city of Makeni had died after setting himself alight, fearing his family had infected him with Ebola.

Neighbours said the man became depressed after his wife and daughter were taken for Ebola tests at a holding centre.

"The man was heard saying he'd rather die than hear any news of his family being suspected of Ebola," one told AFP.

"He doused himself with petrol and then struck a match to be engulfed in fire."

By the time firefighters arrived he had been incinerated, hospital sources said.


http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-strikes-fourth-american-un-ramps-response-105325838.html (http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-strikes-fourth-american-un-ramps-response-105325838.html)

Title: Re: Ebola news 10/3
Post by: Unorthodox on October 03, 2014, 08:19:36 pm

http://www.kutv.com/news/features/top-stories/stories/Primary-Children-evaluating-patient-for-possible-Ebola-virus-45128.shtml#.VC710_lr7kt (http://www.kutv.com/news/features/top-stories/stories/Primary-Children-evaluating-patient-for-possible-Ebola-virus-45128.shtml#.VC710_lr7kt)

Quote

(KUTV) Primary Children’s Hospital is treating a patient for a "possible" but "unlikely" case of Ebola, doctors announced on Thursday.

The hospital sent a sample for testing to the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta. Meanwhile, hospital staff is using an emergency plan to care for the patient who is in isolation. However, doctors are taking such drastic measures not because they believe the disease is in Utah, but to ensure medical staff are prepared if the virus does enter the state.

"We don’t think that this is a case of Ebola. This is extremely low risk," said Primary Children’s Hospital epidemiologist Dr. Andrew Pavia. "However, we chose to proceed as if it were a more high-risk situation so that we could fully exercise and test our system for responding for a patient with possible Ebola exposure."

The hospital was successful in quickly implementing the emergency measures and sending the specimen to the CDC to be received on Friday, Pavia said.

The deadly disease has killed thousands in West Africa, and the first case in the United States was confirmed in Dallas on Tuesday.

The combination of recent travel and Ebola-like symptoms of the unidentified Primary Children’s patient, admitted to the hospital on Wednesday, raised doctors’ suspicions.

"A patient was admitted to Primary Children's who had traveled to a country in Africa that does not currently have Ebola transmission," Pavia said. "However, the patient had symptoms that raised concerns for Ebola, and it was at an interval after the travel that could have been consistent."

Ebola symptoms are fever associated with one or more of the following, Pavia said: headache, vomiting, diarrhea and severe muscle weakness. Patients transmit the virus through contact with bodily fluids usually by way of mucus membranes and broken skin, he said. Caring for Ebola patients, using close-contact burial practices and transporting people who are vomiting or have diarrhea have resulted in transmission, he said. Ebola is not contagious before a patient shows symptoms.

Good hygiene – including proper hand-washing and using sterile needles – along with advanced care and containment in the U.S., eliminate the threat of the virus spreading across Utah or any other state, Pavia said.

"I don't think people should be worried about Ebola in the United States," Pavia said. "They should worry about the thousands of people in Africa who are suffering."

(Copyright 2014 Sinclair Broadcast Group.)

yay, right in Utah

Title: U.S. nurses say they are unprepared to handle Ebola patients
Post by: Buster's Uncle on October 03, 2014, 08:27:37 pm

U.S. nurses say they are unprepared to handle Ebola patients
Reuters
By Julie Steenhuysen  5 hours ago


(http://l1.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/ygVMQor7FI5pkw_JWPaVpg--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9ZmlsbDtoPTYwNjtweW9mZj0wO3E9Njk7dz05NjA-/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/ap_webfeeds/20a2403074ac2f26610f6a706700d0f8.jpg)
A man walks up the stairway leading to the Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas, Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2014. A patient in the hospital is showing signs of the Ebola virus and is being kept in strict isolation with test results pending, hospital officials said Monday. (AP Photo/LM Otero)



CHICAGO (Reuters) - Nurses, the frontline care providers in U.S. hospitals, say they are untrained and unprepared to handle patients arriving in their hospital emergency departments infected with Ebola.

Many say they have gone to hospital managers, seeking training on how to best care for patients and protect themselves and their families from contracting the deadly disease, which has so far killed at least 3,338 people in the deadliest outbreak on record.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has repeatedly said that U.S. hospitals are prepared to handle such patients. Many infectious disease experts agree with that assessment.

Dr. Edward Goodman, an infectious disease doctor at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas that is now caring for the first Ebola patient to be diagnosed in this country, believed his hospital was ready.

The hospital had completed Ebola training just before Thomas Eric Duncan arrived in their emergency department on Sept. 26. But despite being told that Duncan had recently traveled from Liberia, hospital staff failed to recognize the Ebola risk and sent him home, where he spent another two days becoming sicker and more infectious.

"The Texas case is a perfect example," said Micker Samios, a triage nurse in the emergency department at Medstar Washington Hospital Center, the largest hospital in the nation's capital.

"In addition to not being prepared, there was a flaw in diagnostics as well as communication," Samios said.

Nurses argue that inadequate preparation could increase the chances of spreading Ebola if hospital staff fail to recognize a patient coming through their doors, or if personnel are not informed about how to properly protect themselves.

At Medstar, the issue of Ebola training came up at the bargaining table during contract negotiations.

"A lot of staff feel they aren't adequately trained," said Samios, whose job is to greet patients in the emergency department and do an initial assessment of their condition.


(http://l2.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/bHSPngwNCGlboCXKXX3uTA--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9ZmlsbDtoPTcwMDtweW9mZj0wO3E9Njk7dz0xMDUw/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/Reuters/2014-10-02T174307Z_1385562729_GM1EAA304H401_RTRMADP_3_HEALTH-EBOLA-MALI.JPG)
A sign is seen at the border with Guinea in Kouremale, October 2, 2014. The worst Ebola outbreak on record was first confirmed in Guinea in March but it has since spread across most of Liberia and Sierra Leone, killing more than 3,300 people, overwhelming weak health systems and crippling fragile economies. The sign reads, "Halt-Border". (REUTERS/Joe Penney)


So Young Pak, a spokeswoman for the hospital, said it has been rolling out training since July "in the Emergency Department and elsewhere, and communicating regularly with physicians, nurses and others throughout the hospital."

Samios said she and other members of the emergency department staff were trained just last week on procedures to care for and recognize an Ebola patient, but not everyone was present for the training, and none of the other nursing or support staff were trained.

"When an Ebola patient is admitted or goes to the intensive care unit, those nurses, those tech service associates are not trained," she said. "The X-ray tech who comes into the room to do the portable chest X-ray is not trained. The transporter who pushes the stretcher is not trained."

If an Ebola patient becomes sick while being transported, "How do you clean the elevator?"

Nurses at hospitals across the country are asking similar questions.

A survey by National Nurses United of some 400 nurses in more than 200 hospitals in 25 states found that more than half (60 percent) said their hospital is not prepared to handle patients with Ebola, and more than 80 percent said their hospital has not communicated to them any policy regarding potential admission of patients infected by Ebola.

Another 30 percent said their hospital has insufficient supplies of eye protection and fluid-resistant gowns.

"If there are protocols in place, the nurses are not hearing them and the nurses are the ones who are exposed," said RoseAnn DeMoro, executive director of National Nurses United, which serves as both a union and a professional association for U.S. nurses.

Unlike influenza or the common cold, which can be spread by coughing and sneezing, Ebola is only spread by contact with bodily fluids from someone who is actively sick. That means the risk to the average person is low, but for healthcare workers, the risk is much higher.

As of Aug. 25, more than 240 healthcare workers have developed the disease in Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone, and more than 120 have died, according to the World Health Organization.

Many of these infections occurred when healthcare workers were removing the personal protective gear - masks, gowns, gloves or full hazmat suits used to care for the patients, said biosafety experts.

Sean Kaufman, ‎president of Behavioral-Based Improvement Solutions, an Atlanta-based biosafety firm, helped coach nurses at Emory University through the process of putting on and taking off personal protective equipment (PPE) while they were caring for two U.S. aid workers flown to Atlanta after becoming infected with Ebola in West Africa.

Kaufman became known as "Papa Smurf" to the Emory nurses because of the blue hazmat suits he and others wore that resembled the cartoon character.

"Our healthcare workforce goes through so many pairs of gloves that they really don't focus on how they remove gloves. The putting on and the taking off doesn't occur with enough attention to protect themselves," he said.

Nurses say hospitals have not thought through the logistics of caring for Ebola patients.

"People say they are ready, but then when you ask them what do you actually have in place, nobody is really answering that," said Karen Higgins, a registered nurse at Boston Medical Center.

Higgins, an intensive care unit (ICU) nurse, said hospital officials have been teaching nurses on one of the regular floors how to care for an Ebola patient.

"I said, well, that's great, but if the patient requires an ICU, what is your plan," she said. "They looked at me blankly."

(Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)


http://news.yahoo.com/u-nurses-unprepared-handle-ebola-patients-140327416.html (http://news.yahoo.com/u-nurses-unprepared-handle-ebola-patients-140327416.html)

Title: One Horrifying Sentence Explains Why Ebola Has Spread So Quickly
Post by: Buster's Uncle on October 03, 2014, 08:44:30 pm

One Horrifying Sentence Explains Why Ebola Has Spread So Quickly
Business Insider
By Pamela Engel  October 1, 2014 5:39 PM


(http://l1.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/XoJFVfWzA8BZ9mMo28IXcw--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7cT04NQ--/http://globalfinance.zenfs.com/en_us/Finance/US_AFTP_SILICONALLEY_H_LIVE/One_Horrifying_Sentence_Explains_Why-087f96797f9e565c8eb22945c1ab6dee)
Medical staff take a blood sample from a suspected Ebola patient at the government hospital in Kenema, Sierra Leone, July 10, 2014. REUTERS/Tommy Trenchard



A vivid and terrifying story in The New York Times helps explain why the Ebola virus has spread so quickly across West Africa.

The hospitals in the region simply aren't equipped to deal with the disease at the rate that it's spreading. They don't have the right tools or resources to care for existing patients, let alone stem the spread of the disease.

One sentence from the Times story illustrates this well. Adam Nossiter writes from Sierra Leone that at one hospital isolation ward in Makeni, "Nurses, some not wearing gloves and others in street clothes, clustered by the door as pools of the patients’ bodily fluids spread to the threshold."

Ebola is spread via bodily fluids, putting healthcare workers who are not properly protected at extraordinary risk.

From the Times story:

Quote

A worker kicked another man on the floor to see if he was still alive. The man’s foot moved and the team kept going. It was 1:30 in the afternoon.

In the next ward, a 4-year-old girl lay on the floor in urine, motionless, bleeding from her mouth, her eyes open. A corpse lay in the corner — a young woman, legs akimbo, who had died overnight. A small child stood in a cot watching as the team took the body away, stepping around a little boy lying immobile next to black buckets of vomit. They sprayed the body, and the little girl on the floor, with chlorine as they left.

The nurses at these hospitals are "lightly trained and minimally protected" and Ebola patients are dying "surrounded by pools of infectious waste," Nossiter reports.

Daniel Bausch, a doctor and associate professor in the department of tropical medicine at Tulane, went to Sierra Leone in July and saw many of the same conditions.

He told Business Insider in August that in some hospitals, there is no running water, soap, or clean needles, which are all crucial to controlling the outbreak and preventing further spread of disease.

"The scale of this outbreak has just outstripped the resources," Bausch said.

Ebola begins with flu-like symptoms and in many cases escalates to internal and external bleeding and organ failure. The disease has a high fatality rate, especially in countries that are ill-equipped to care for infected patients.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced this week that  the  first case of Ebola had been diagnosed in the US, but we're much more well-positioned to prevent the spread of the disease.

The US has the resources to properly contain the virus, which spreads through bodily fluids, not the air.

West Africa is a different story. Ebola has killed 3,338 and infected at least 7,178 people in the region so far, and those numbers continue to climb.

" There are few signs yet that the [Ebola] epidemic in West Africa is being brought under  control," the World Health Organization noted in its latest report (http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/135600/1/roadmapsitrep_1Oct2014_eng.pdf).


http://news.yahoo.com/one-horrifying-sentence-explains-why-213957727.html (http://news.yahoo.com/one-horrifying-sentence-explains-why-213957727.html)

Title: Crew arrives to clean quarantined Texas apartment
Post by: Buster's Uncle on October 03, 2014, 08:55:27 pm

Crew arrives to clean quarantined Texas apartment
Associated Press
By DAVID WARREN and JAMIE STENGLE  1 hour ago


(http://l3.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/O2aoMuQC6cDu_vnL7QLaMw--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9ZmlsbDtoPTQxNDtweG9mZj01MDtweW9mZj0wO3E9Njk7dz03MzY-/http://media.zenfs.com/en-US/video/video.associatedpressfree.com/3a8cd6a493bbb4a5faa58a40620f4177)
The family that hosted Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan could be confined for three weeks. Health officials are reaching out to as many as 100 people who may have had contact with Duncan or someone who knows him. (Oct. 3)



DALLAS (AP) — A hazardous-materials crew arrived Friday at a Texas apartment where the U.S. Ebola patient stayed to collect bed sheets and towels used by the infected man before he was hospitalized.

The family living in the apartment has been confined to their home under armed guard while public-health officials monitor them — part of an intense effort to contain the deadly disease before it can get a foothold in the United States.

Louise Troh, who shares the apartment with her 13-year-old son and two nephews, said she is tired of being quarantined and wants authorities to decontaminate her home.

"Who wants to be locked up?" she said Thursday. Private security guards and sheriff's deputies blocked the entrance to the 300-unit apartment complex.

Elsewhere, NBC News reported that an American freelance cameraman working for the network in Liberia has tested positive for the virus and will be flown back to the United States, along with the rest of the news crew.

A cleanup crew hired by the county and state paid an initial visit to the apartment Thursday evening to assess the job. They returned around midday Friday to complete the work, which was expected to take about three hours.


(http://l2.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/xqQ374FjCSVuO4McrvYHuA--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9ZmlsbDtoPTY1NTtweW9mZj0wO3E9Njk7dz05NjA-/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/ap_webfeeds/7885bd11ddae6826610f6a7067002000.jpg)
This 2011 photo provided by Wilmot Chayee shows Thomas Eric Duncan, right, with friend Wilmot Chayee at a wedding in Ghana. Duncan, who became the first patient diagnosed in the U.S with Ebola, has been kept in isolation at a hospital since Sunday, Sept. 28, 2014. He was listed in serious but stable condition. (AP Photo/Wilmot Chayee)


The family living there will be allowed to remain in the apartment during the cleaning. Earlier, officials had said they would have to be moved.

Items from both the apartment and from the hospital where Thomas Duncan is being treated, will be placed in secure containers and removed for disposal.

The first Ebola diagnosis in the nation has raised concerns about whether the disease that has killed 3,400 people in West Africa could spread in the U.S. Federal health officials say they are confident they can keep it in check.

The confinement order, which also bans visitors, was imposed after the family failed to comply with a request to stay home.

Judge Clay Jenkins, Dallas County's top administrative official, said he went to the apartment with two epidemiologists to apologize for the delay in removing soiled items. He said officials are working to make sure the family is comfortable and to improve their accommodations.


(http://l1.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/lJxMYOfJMw8JIjT_NaIgaQ--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9ZmlsbDtoPTY0MDtweW9mZj0wO3E9Njk7dz05NjA-/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/ap_webfeeds/d80bdd55de0b6a26610f6a706700c365.jpg)
This Oct. 2, 2014 photo shows a copy of a passenger health screening form filled out by Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan, which was obtained by the Associated Press from the Liberia Airport Authority. Liberia plans to prosecute Duncan, who brought Ebola into the U.S., alleging that he lied on a health questionnaire about not having any contact with an infected person, authorities said Thursday, Oct. 2, 2014. (AP Photo/Kiichiro Sato)


"I am concerned for this family," he said. "I want to see this family treated the way I would want to see my own family treated."

Also Friday, Texas health officials said they had narrowed the group of people they were monitoring from as many as 100 to about 50 people who had some type of exposure to the Ebola patient in Dallas.

Texas Health Commissioner David Lakey said all 50 are meeting with health workers and having their temperatures taken daily. So far, none show symptoms of the virus. Ten are considered to be at higher risk and are being monitored more closely.

The virus that causes Ebola is not airborne and can only be spread through direct contact with the bodily fluids — blood, sweat, vomit, feces, urine, saliva or semen — of an infected person who is showing symptoms. Those fluids must also have an entry point.

For example, people might get infected by handling soiled clothing or bed sheets and then touching their mouth, or if they are not wearing gloves while doing those tasks and have a cut on their hand.


(http://l1.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/tjdDf.Xk9_ohfkvr6GYUPA--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9ZmlsbDtoPTQxNDtweG9mZj01MDtweW9mZj0wO3E9Njk7dz03MzY-/http://media.zenfs.com/en-US/video/video.associatedpressfree.com/da484829d8e45b5fbf89eec2f678951e)
Health officials in Dallas, Texas, have ordered four people hosting the Ebola patient, Thomas Eric Duncan, to stay in their home. Police officers are posted outside just to make sure. (October 2)


Duncan's neighbors in the Liberian capital believe he become infected when he helped a sick pregnant neighbor a few weeks ago. It was not clear if he had learned of the woman's diagnosis before traveling.

Nonetheless, Liberian authorities announced plans to prosecute Duncan when he returns, accusing him of lying on an airport questionnaire about not having any contact with an infected person.

CDC Director Tom Frieden dismissed suggestions that people traveling from West Africa should not be allowed into the U.S.

"The fact is that if we tried to seal the border, it would not work because people are allowed to travel," he said Friday on ABC's "Good Morning America." Blocking travel, he said, "would backfire because it would make it harder to stop the outbreak."

Duncan arrived in Dallas on Sept. 20 and fell ill a few days later. An emergency room sent Duncan home last week, even though he told a nurse he had been in West Africa.


(http://l2.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/myWCz_dA3JOfHP.qOPcgkA--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9ZmlsbDtoPTEzODE7cHlvZmY9MDtxPTY5O3c9OTYw/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/ap_webfeeds/ceca76c6bdbe6426610f6a7067001274.jpg)
A Red Cross representative arrives at The Ivy Apartments complex, Thursday, Oct. 2, 2014, in Dallas. The Red Cross and North Texas Food Bank delivered food items and supplies to a unit at the complex where a family who had contact with a man diagnosed with the Ebola virus reside. Dallas officials have asked the family to remain in their home. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)


In a statement issued late Thursday, Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital said it followed communicable disease protocols by asking Duncan if he had come into contact with anyone who was ill. He replied that he had not.

A flaw in the electronic health records systems led to separate physician and nursing workflows, meaning the travel history documented by nurses was not passed onto physicians, hospital spokesman Wendell Watson said. He said the system has been corrected.

Duncan's symptoms included a 100.1 F temperature, abdominal pain, a headache and decreased urination, the hospital said. He said he had no nausea, vomiting or diarrhea. Based on that, the hospital decided to release him.

He returned two days later and has been kept in isolation since Sunday. Duncan was listed Thursday in serious but stable condition.

___

Schmall reported from Fort Worth. Associated Press writers Krista Larson and Jonathan Paye-Layleh in Monrovia, Liberia; Paul J. Weber and David Warren in Dallas; and Lauran Neergaard in Washington contributed to this report.


http://news.yahoo.com/family-hosted-ebola-patient-confined-home-044216438.html (http://news.yahoo.com/family-hosted-ebola-patient-confined-home-044216438.html)

Title: Parents: Cameraman in good spirits despite Ebola
Post by: Buster's Uncle on October 03, 2014, 09:09:13 pm

Parents: Cameraman in good spirits despite Ebola
Associated Press
4 hours ago



NEW YORK (AP) — The parents of an American freelance cameraman diagnosed with Ebola said Friday that their son was in good spirits.

"Obviously he is scared and worried," Dr. Mitchell Levy said of his son, Ashoka Mukpo, who was hired Tuesday to be the second cameraman in Liberia for NBC's chief medical editor and correspondent Dr. Nancy Snyderman.

Mukpo has been "seeing the death and tragedy and now it really hit home for him. But his spirits are better today," added Levy, who appeared on NBC's Today show with his wife, Diana Mukpo.

Their 33-year-old son was being treated in the Liberian capital of Monrovia and was scheduled to return to the United States during the weekend for treatment, his mother said.

"I think the enormous anxiety that I have as a mother or that we share as parents is the delay between now and him leaving on Sunday," she said, adding she hopes his symptoms do not worsen rapidly. The couple lives in Providence, Rhode Island.

Snyderman and her team also were returning to the U.S. and being placed in quarantine for 21 days "in an abundance of caution," NBC News President Deborah Turness said Thursday.


(http://l2.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/bHSPngwNCGlboCXKXX3uTA--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9ZmlsbDtoPTcwMDtweW9mZj0wO3E9Njk7dz0xMDUw/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/Reuters/2014-10-02T174307Z_1385562729_GM1EAA304H401_RTRMADP_3_HEALTH-EBOLA-MALI.JPG)
A sign is seen at the border with Guinea in Kouremale, October 2, 2014. The worst Ebola outbreak on record was first confirmed in Guinea in March but it has since spread across most of Liberia and Sierra Leone, killing more than 3,300 people, overwhelming weak health systems and crippling fragile economies. The sign reads, "Halt-Border". (REUTERS/Joe Penney)


In a phone interview with "Today" on Friday, Snyderman said all the gear she and her crew used was being disinfected because they all shared work space and vehicles.

She believes she and her team were at a low risk because they have been "hyper-vigilant."

Mukpo has been working in Liberia for three years for Vice News and other media outlets.

Before the Ebola outbreak, he had been doing nonprofit development work in Liberia, said Philip Marcelo, a Boston-based Associated Press reporter who met Ashoka Mukpo last year while on assignment in Liberia for The Providence Journal.

Marcelo said Mukpo was a researcher for the Sustainable Development Institute, a Liberia-based nonprofit shining light on concerns of workers in mining camps outside Monrovia.

"He really was into the culture," Marcelo said. "He seemed to have a lot of passion for it."

ABC News said Levy issued a statement saying his son has been involved in human rights works in West Africa for the last several years and was aware of the risks. But he felt compelled to go back to Liberia when the Ebola crisis erupted.

"Doctors are optimistic about his prognosis," Levy said.


http://news.yahoo.com/parents-cameraman-good-spirits-despite-ebola-121053535.html (http://news.yahoo.com/parents-cameraman-good-spirits-despite-ebola-121053535.html)

Title: Cameraman with Ebola has passion for Liberia
Post by: Buster's Uncle on October 03, 2014, 09:15:05 pm

Cameraman with Ebola has passion for Liberia
Associated Press
By MICHELLE R. SMITH  54 minutes ago


(http://l2.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/wdU5YMIPLXTgmj1.khshlA--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9ZmlsbDtoPTQxNDtweG9mZj01MDtweW9mZj0wO3E9Njk7dz03MzY-/http://media.zenfs.com/en-US/video/video.abcnewsplus.com/cef6d39ae03449938c932663b16b00f5)



PROVIDENCE, Rhode Island (AP) — Passion for Liberia and the plight of its people drove Ashoka Mukpo to work there, first to aid relief efforts and then as a TV cameraman to tell the country's story. But Mukpo has an unusual story of his own: As an infant, he was identified as a reincarnated Tibetan lama — a role he chose not to pursue.

Mukpo, 33, was diagnosed Thursday with Ebola and was being cared for at a treatment center in the capital of Monrovia. He was expected to return to the United States this weekend.

Mukpo's mother, Diana, came from an upper-class aristocratic family in Great Britain. At age 16, she left boarding school in Scotland and married Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, a Tibetan Buddhist leader, according to an interview she gave to the magazine Shambhala Sun. She was one of several wives.

They moved to Boulder, Colorado, in the 1970s and set up a Buddhist center, where notables such as Allen Ginsburg, Joni Mitchell and William Burroughs studied, and where Trungpa would advocate the benefits of tantric sex.

After starting a family with Trungpa, Diana connected with another of her husband's followers, Dr. Mitchell Levy.

Levy was a "New York Jew" and Mukpo's biological father, Mukpo said in an interview with the Dorje Shugden Buddhist website.

Trungpa raised and accepted Mukpo as his own son. When Mukpo was just a few months old, he was recognized as the ninth Khamnyon Tulku, or reincarnated lama, a spiritual leader.

After Trungpa's death in 1987, Diana and Levy married and moved to Providence, Rhode Island. Levy is a medical director of the intensive care unit at Rhode Island Hospital and a professor and chief of pulmonary and critical care medicine at Brown University's medical school. Diana Mukpo is a horse trainer who owns a stable outside Boston.

Ashoka attended Moses Brown, a Quaker day school in Providence. He went on to receive degrees from Georgetown University and the London School of Economics, according to online biographies.


(http://l.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/dOtlk8xdyLKCIXo0ySKcpQ--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9ZmlsbDtoPTU0MDtweW9mZj0wO3E9Njk7dz05NjA-/http://media.zenfs.com/en-US/video/video.abcnewsplus.com/71cbc917a9f32d06abdf85ca572a90b7)
Doctors are optimistic about the prognosis for Ashoka Mukpo.


His more traditional life in Rhode Island sometimes caused consternation.

"When you're 15, you can't say, 'Dude, I'm a reincarnated spiritual master from the hills of Tibet, and my father was this womanizing, drinking, Tibetan-crazy-wisdom genius,' without people thinking you're weird," he said in the Dorje Shugden interview.

In 2002, he traveled to Tibet with his parents to visit the monastery that is his family's spiritual home, according to a foundation co-founded by his mother.

"Someone put a sick baby in front of my face and asked me to blow on it. I did. I'm not going to be the guy who says, 'This whole thing doesn't make sense for me, sorry!'" he said in the interview. "Sometimes I do feel like it wasn't my decision to take this title on, but now I feel like someone put me in the position of abandoning it."

Ashoka ultimately decided that wearing robes and being a teacher was not for him but said in a 2009 documentary made by his brother that he hoped to find other ways to help people.

"That's, I think, what being a Buddhist is about," he said.

He has worked at Human Rights Watch. He also had been doing nonprofit development work in Liberia before the Ebola outbreak, said Philip Marcelo, a Boston-based Associated Press reporter who met Ashoka Mukpo last year while on assignment in Liberia for The Providence Journal.

Mukpo at that time was working as a researcher for the Sustainable Development Institute, a Liberia-based nonprofit shining light on concerns of workers in mining camps outside Monrovia.

"He was out there in the community," Marcelo said. "He had been to different parts of the country, not just the capital. ... He was out in the bush. He spent time in villages where there was nobody who looked like him."

Mukpo seemed comfortable in Liberia, Marcelo said, easily navigating the rugged, muddy roads outside Monrovia.

"He really was into the culture," Marcelo said. "He seemed to have a lot of passion for it."

In addition to NBC, Mukpo has also been working for Vice News and other media outlets. In an opinion piece in Al Jazeera America on Sept. 17, Mukpo wrote that in the last few weeks he had seen young children close to death turned away from treatment centers and heard stories of people waiting days to be picked up by ambulances.

He called the American response to the crisis underwhelming and slow.

"The most critical element of all is time," he wrote. "Every life saved matters."
___

Associated Press writer Denise Lavoie contributed to this report from Boston.


http://news.yahoo.com/cameraman-ebola-passion-liberia-184955615.html (http://news.yahoo.com/cameraman-ebola-passion-liberia-184955615.html)

Title: Factbox: U.S. faces sixth case of Ebola as latest American falls ill
Post by: Buster's Uncle on October 03, 2014, 09:22:14 pm

Factbox: U.S. faces sixth case of Ebola as latest American falls ill
Reuters
By Susan Heavey  42 minutes ago



WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States has seen six cases of the Ebola virus in recent weeks affecting five Americans and a Liberian. Two of the cases surfaced this week, raising concerns about wider spread of the disease, which has killed at least 3,439 people in the current outbreak in West Africa.

All of the Americans contracted the disease while in West Africa and were diagnosed there before returning home for treatment. The Liberian fell ill and tested positive during a visit to Dallas.

Below are details on the six U.S. cases so far:


NBC CAMERAMAN

On Thursday, NBC News said one of its contractors, an American freelance television cameraman working in Liberia, had Ebola and would be flown back to the United States for treatment.

Immediately after beginning to feel ill, the cameraman, identified by NBC as Ashoka Mukpo, 33, quarantined himself. He later went to a Doctors Without Borders treatment center, where he tested positive for Ebola, according to NBC.

The entire NBC crew also will return to the United States on a private charter plane and be quarantined for 21 days, the maximum incubation period for Ebola.


LIBERIAN IN DALLAS

Thomas Eric Duncan, a Liberian citizen, was visiting Dallas when he began feeling ill and sought treatment at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital on Sept. 25.

He was initially discharged with antibiotics, despite telling a nurse he had just come from Liberia. By Sunday, he returned to the same hospital by ambulance after vomiting outside the apartment complex where he was staying.

He remained in serious condition.

Amid questions over its handling of the case, hospital officials blamed a software error that allowed nurses to see Duncan's travel history from Liberia but not doctors, a glitch they said has now been fixed.

Other concerns remain about the handling of the quarantine at the residence where Duncan was staying with the woman he had a child with, one of her other children, and two other relatives.

There also is a dispute over Duncan's travel to the United States as Liberian officials threaten prosecution, saying he failed to disclose that he had contact with someone who was eventually diagnosed with Ebola.


EMORY PATIENT

An unnamed American who contracted Ebola in West Africa is being treated at an isolation unit at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta. There have been few, if any, details made public about the patient, who returned to the United States by air ambulance on Sept. 9.

According to CNN, the American is a male who contracted the virus in Sierra Leone.

About the same time, the World Health Organization said one of its doctors tested positive for Ebola at a treatment center in Sierra Leone but the two cases have not been officially linked and WHO has not identified the physician.


THREE MISSIONARIES

In the summer, three Americans contracted Ebola while working for Christian missionary organizations in Liberia and were flown to the United States for treatment and later released.

Nancy Writebol contracted the virus in July while working for a SIM USA hospital with her husband, David, who did not contract the disease. She was treated at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta and discharged Aug. 19. The couple has not ruled out returning to West Africa to continue their mission work.

Dr. Kent Brantly also was treated in isolation at Emory after contracting Ebola while working for Christian relief group Samaritan's Purse. He was released Aug. 21.

Dr. Rick Sacra, a Boston physician who was working for SIM USA, arrived in the United States on Sept. 5 and was treated for three weeks at Nebraska Medical Center. He has said he may return to Liberia to fight the outbreak.


UNDER OBSERVATION

On Friday, a Washington hospital said it had admitted a patient with possible Ebola symptoms "in an abundance of caution." The patient, who had recently traveled to Nigeria, was in stable condition.

Additionally, an American doctor remains under observation at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland, outside of Washington but has not been confirmed to have the disease. The physician was exposed while volunteering in Sierra Leone, according to the NIH.

An NIH spokeswoman on Friday declined to give any further updates on the case, citing privacy reasons. The patient was admitted on Sunday. If kept for 21 days, the patient would be released around Oct. 19.

Another patient was also isolated in Hawaii.

(Reporting by Susan Heavey in Washington and Colleen Jenkins in Winston-Salem; Editing by Bill Trott and Jonathan Oatis)


http://news.yahoo.com/factbox-u-faces-sixth-case-ebola-latest-american-192728181.html (http://news.yahoo.com/factbox-u-faces-sixth-case-ebola-latest-american-192728181.html)

Title: Ebola a constant threat in reporting from Liberia
Post by: Buster's Uncle on October 03, 2014, 09:32:47 pm

Ebola a constant threat in reporting from Liberia
Associated Press
By KRISTA LARSON  26 minutes ago


(http://l1.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/TKsljGLn7sHwfTWCxpkmdQ--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9ZmlsbDtoPTY0MDtweW9mZj0wO3E9Njk7dz05NjA-/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/ap_webfeeds/c7353af676123626610f6a706700c123.jpg)
A woman being discharged from the Island Clinic Ebola treatment center in Monrovia, Liberia, is sprayed with disinfectant, Tuesday Sept. 30, 2014. Six months into the world’s worst-ever Ebola outbreak, and the first to happen in an unprepared West Africa, the gap between what has been sent by other countries and private groups and what is desperately needed is huge. Even as countries try to marshal more resources to close the gap, those needs threaten to become much greater, and possibly even insurmountable. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)



MONROVIA, Liberia (AP) — The nurse excitedly grabbed the sheet of paper with 11-year-old Chancey's lab results. "It's negative, it's negative," she shouted above the sound of her boots pounding the gravel as she ran toward the outdoor Ebola ward.

Soon the boy in a neon green T-shirt came running to the hole in the orange plastic fencing to greet her. The barrier separates health workers from those sick with one of the world's deadliest diseases.

"We're so glad he's going to make it. His little brothers will really need him now — their mother just died last night," a nurse told me.

Instantly that moment of rare joy amid Liberia's Ebola epidemic turned to sorrow, and I could no longer make eye contact with the beaming boy. Knowing that he did not yet know his mother was dead — and I did — was just too much.

Here in Liberia, more than 2,000 people have lost their lives to a disease that shows no mercy, and even the stories of survivors are tainted with unspeakable loss. Radio talk shows describe infants trying to breastfeed off dead mothers, orphans whose relatives are so afraid of contagion that they refuse to take in brokenhearted children.

For months I had pored over situation reports from the World Health Organization and listened to experts describe the possibility of a disaster beyond measure as the Ebola epidemic gathered speed. Nothing prepares you, though, for the heartbreak and the fear now ravaging Liberia.


(http://l3.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/82EjtQSefX7YDHS.5y7QBw--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9ZmlsbDtoPTY0MDtweW9mZj0wO3E9Njk7dz05NjA-/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/ap_webfeeds/5969e55576113626610f6a706700d0e8.jpg)
A medical worker sprays people being discharged from the Island Clinic Ebola treatment center in Monrovia, Liberia, Tuesday Sept. 30, 2014. Six months into the world’s worst-ever Ebola outbreak, and the first to happen in an unprepared West Africa, the gap between what has been sent by other countries and private groups and what is desperately needed is huge. Even as countries try to marshal more resources to close the gap, those needs threaten to become much greater, and possibly even insurmountable. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)

___

Krista Larson, an Associated Press correspondent based in Dakar, Senegal, arrived in Monrovia on Sept. 25 to join AP staff covering the Ebola epidemic. Here she describes some of her experiences.

___

Friends and family had begged me not to go. A housekeeper cried as I left for the airport and gave me a crucifix that she told me not to take it off even though I am not a Catholic. Even my assistant at the plastic baggage wrap station in the steamy overcrowded airport at midnight was sure this was all just some horrible mix-up. "Liberia? You mean Nigeria? You know people are dying there!"

The dangers of covering this story were brought home Thursday with word that Ashoka Mukpo, an American freelance cameraman who had just taken a job in Liberia with NBC, was diagnosed with Ebola and is scheduled to return to the U.S. for treatment.


(http://l.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/wbwwc_W4PP6WqUbSwTgiPg--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9ZmlsbDtoPTY0MDtweW9mZj0wO3E9Njk7dz05NjA-/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/ap_webfeeds/1eff3d4076103526610f6a7067007f13.jpg)
Residents of the village of Freeman Reserve, about 30 miles north of Monrovia, Liberia, watch members of District 13 ambulance service pickup six suspected Ebola sufferers that had been quarantined Tuesday Sept. 30, 2014. Six months into the world’s worst-ever Ebola outbreak, and the first to happen in an unprepared West Africa, the gap between what has been sent by other countries and private groups and what is desperately needed is huge. Even as countries try to marshal more resources to close the gap, those needs threaten to become much greater, and possibly even insurmountable. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)


After meeting my colleagues in Morocco, we embarked on a flight full of other journalists and aid workers for Liberia on one of the last commercial airlines still servicing the country.

We arrived in Monrovia at 3 a.m. in a thunderstorm, and after a sleepless flight, we washed our hands in a mixture of bleach and water for the first time and had our temperatures taken before we picked up the soggy luggage that was not lost by our airline. Rainy season in sub-Saharan Africa is always a sweaty endeavor, and it takes every bit of self-discipline to avoid touching your face to wipe the sweat from your brow.

Ebola is spread only through direct contact with the bodily fluids of people showing symptoms of the disease. That said, people have fallen sick after coming into contact with soiled linens. Vigorous hand-washing is the mainstay of Ebola prevention, though at this point it's nearly impossible to know who is sick with Ebola and who might just have malaria or the flu.

The Ebola patients I saw lined up outside the clinic my first day of reporting were not bleeding from the eyes — we're told that actually happens only in a minority of cases. Instead, we found a very weak and tired boy, and I winced at the sight of his mother touching his sweaty face with her bare hands. It might only be a matter of time before she too becomes sick.

It's hard to forget the reason why we are in Monrovia: When you make a call with a local phone number a public service message reminds you "Ebola is real!" before the call goes through. The wailing of ambulance sirens is constant, and men can be seen pushing the sick in wheelbarrows when no such emergency vehicle is available.


(http://l3.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/9s2ypwJyftSdKwAelkCh8w--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9ZmlsbDtoPTY0MDtweW9mZj0wO3E9Njk7dz05NjA-/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/ap_webfeeds/ae1c5c1d760c3526610f6a70670070b6.jpg)
A list showing the names of the day's deceased is taped on the door of the Island Clinic Ebola treatment unit in Monrovia, Liberia, Tuesday Sept. 30, 2014. Six months into the world’s worst-ever Ebola outbreak, and the first to happen in an unprepared West Africa, the gap between what has been sent by other countries and private groups and what is desperately needed is huge. Even as countries try to marshal more resources to close the gap, those needs threaten to become much greater, and possibly even insurmountable. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)


I'm here as part of a team of AP reporters including photographers Jerome Delay and Abbas Dulleh, video producer Andrew Drake, correspondent Jonathan Paye-Layleh and television contributor Wade Williams, who fearlessly interviews Ebola victims with her warm, commanding voice.

"Wear long sleeves and don't touch anyone," she said firmly as I prepared to get out of her car and visit an Ebola clinic for the first time last week. "And leave your bag in the car."

I admit I was initially afraid to come to Liberia. Unlike the wars and coups I have covered, you cannot see or avoid Ebola as you can a fighter. If you are shot, you know to seek medical attention immediately. Ebola's incubation period, by contrast, is up to 21 days. Every sore throat, every achy muscle can set off anxiety.

And yet the world needs to know what is happening here: Ebola is obliterating entire neighborhoods, leaving orphaned children with no one to lean on but a tree.

More and more international journalists are starting to come. Several dozen working for outlets ranging from American newspapers to European radio are now taking Liberia's story to an ever-widening audience.

Aid workers in West Africa say they need more than just gloves and supplies. They need more people willing to come here despite the personal risks. The anguish and pain are too much for Liberia to bear alone.

___

Follow Krista Larson at https://www.twitter.com/klarsonafrica. (https://www.twitter.com/klarsonafrica.)

Krista Larson, an Associated Press correspondent based in Dakar, Senegal, arrived in Monrovia on Sept. 25 to join AP staff covering the Ebola epidemic. Here she describes some of her experiences.


http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-constant-threat-reporting-liberia-193759846.html (http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-constant-threat-reporting-liberia-193759846.html)

Title: Ebola: How it spreads
Post by: Buster's Uncle on October 03, 2014, 09:43:41 pm

Ebola: How it spreads
Associated Press
By The Associated Press  21 minutes ago



Hospitals are being urged to be more vigilant in watching for travelers with Ebola.


WHEN IS EBOLA CONTAGIOUS?

Only when someone is showing symptoms, which can start with vague symptoms including a fever, flu-like body aches and abdominal pain, and then vomiting and diarrhea.

HOW DOES EBOLA SPREAD?

Through close contact with a symptomatic person's bodily fluids, such as blood, sweat, vomit, feces, urine, saliva or semen. Those fluids must have an entry point, like a cut or scrape or someone touching the nose, mouth or eyes with contaminated hands, or being splashed. That's why health care workers wear protective gloves and other equipment.

WHAT ABOUT MORE CASUAL CONTACT?

Ebola isn't airborne. "If you sit next to someone on the bus, you're not exposed," said Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"This is not like flu. It's not like measles, not like the common cold. It's not as spreadable, it's not as infectious as those conditions," he added.

WHO GETS TESTED WHEN EBOLA IS SUSPECTED?

Hospitals with a suspected case call their health department or the CDC to go through a checklist to determine the person's level of risk. Among the questions are whether the person reports a risky contact with a known Ebola patient, how sick they are and whether an alternative diagnosis is more likely. Most initially suspicious cases in the U.S. haven't met the criteria for testing.

HOW IS IT CLEANED UP?

The CDC says bleach and other hospital disinfectants kill Ebola. Dried virus on surfaces survives only for several hours.


http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-spreads-194715697--politics.html (http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-spreads-194715697--politics.html)

Title: Ebola patient arrives in Germany from Sierra Leone
Post by: Buster's Uncle on October 03, 2014, 09:49:13 pm

Ebola patient arrives in Germany from Sierra Leone
Reuters
By Arno Schuetze  8 hours ago


(http://l1.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/H9up9iBHXhc8m66vq1yuIg--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9ZmlsbDtoPTQxNDtweG9mZj01MDtweW9mZj0wO3E9Njk7dz03MzY-/http://media.zenfs.com/en-US/video/video.associatedpressfree.com/feebcca2db3ca84aa03eb163cb7c7453)
An infectious disease specialist treating a Ugandan doctor transferred to Frankfurt for Ebola treatment on Friday said the patient was "severely ill", but there was "justified hope" he would survive. (Oct. 3)



FRANKFURT (Reuters) - A Ugandan doctor infected with Ebola arrived in Frankfurt from Sierra Leone for treatment, local officials said on Friday.

"The patient is a physician from Uganda, who has worked for an Italian NGO and has looked after patients in Sierra Leone," Stefan Gruettner, Health Minister of the state of Hesse said. The patient's name was not disclosed.

The worst ever Ebola outbreak has killed at least 3,300 people in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, overwhelming health systems and crippling fragile economies.

A case in the United States has heightened concerns that Ebola could spread globally and raise further questions about travel restrictions.

The World Health Organization (WHO) asked Germany to help take care of the patient and he was now being treated in an isolation unit in Frankfurt's University Hospital," said Rene Gottschalk, head of Frankfurt's center for highly contagious life-threatening diseases.


(http://l3.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/5435AwGKnHfNuereBHpHAg--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9ZmlsbDtoPTI4MjtweW9mZj0wO3E9Njk7dz00NTA-/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/Reuters/2014-10-03T090653Z_1_LYNXNPEA920AM_RTROPTP_2_HEALTH-EBOLA-GERMANY.JPG)
Medical staff members wearing sealed protective suits work during the arrival of an Ebola patient at the Universitaetsklinikum Frankfurt (University Hospital Frankfurt) in Frankfurt, October 3, 2014. REUTERS/Ralph Orlowski


"Within 30 minutes (of landing) the patient was out of the airplane and put into a special transport vehicle bringing him to the clinic," Gottschalk said.

The patient is being treated at Frankfurt University Hospital which has 1,500 beds and a special unit that can treat up to six Ebola patients simultaneously. It has so far not received requests to take on additional cases.

Curing an Ebola patient can cost up to 250,000 euros ($315,000) and in this case a health insurer is paying the bill, Gottschalk said. The Ugandan patient is being taken care of by eight doctors and 16 nurses.

"The patient is in a very serious condition, but is stable," said Timo Wolf, the physician entrusted with his treatment. The symptoms may worsen over the next couple of days, he added.

In a different case in Germany, a patient, who was brought to a hospital in Hamburg in August, has been cured.


(http://l1.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/V_OmExkTKOnRMB5hHrZ_rA--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9ZmlsbDtoPTM0OTtweW9mZj0wO3E9Njk7dz00NTA-/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/Reuters/2014-10-03T115136Z_1_LYNXNPEA920FA_RTROPTP_2_HEALTH-EBOLA-GERMANY.JPG)
A fire brigade's special ambulance for transporting patients with highly infectious diseases arrives with an Ebola patient at the Universitaetsklinikum Frankfurt (University Hospital Frankfurt) in Frankfurt, October 3, 2014. REUTERS/Ralph Orlowski


Treatment mainly consists of making sure a patient has enough fluid, gets antibiotics against secondary infections and does not suffer extreme pain, Wolf said.

The special hospital building in which the Ugandan doctor is being treated has its own air supply. All doctors and nurses wear waterproof overalls which are inflated so the extra air pressure acts as a barrier against the virus.

Safety locks at the entrance of the building, guarded by security staff, aim to ensure no contagious material can get out.

"There is absolutely no risk for citizens and the hospital will continue to function as normal," said Kai Zacharowski, medical director of Frankfurt University Hospital.

(Additional reporting by Reuters TV; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)


http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-patient-arrives-germany-sierra-leone-local-officials-090653305--finance.html (http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-patient-arrives-germany-sierra-leone-local-officials-090653305--finance.html)

Title: Health officials work to contain Ebola virus in US
Post by: Buster's Uncle on October 03, 2014, 09:53:28 pm

Health officials work to contain Ebola virus in US
Associated Press
By LAURAN NEERGAARD  2 hours ago


(http://l2.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/nfzmMKkxls2U2cMg.onCbA--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9ZmlsbDtoPTY3MDtweW9mZj0wO3E9Njk7dz05NjA-/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/ap_webfeeds/d15b0400de0a6a26610f6a7067002d6d.jpg)
This 2011 photo provided by Wilmot Chayee shows Thomas Eric Duncan at a wedding in Ghana. Duncan, who became the first patient diagnosed in the U.S with Ebola, has been kept in isolation at a hospital since Sunday, Sept. 28, 2014. He was listed in serious but stable condition. (AP Photo/Wilmot Chayee)



WASHINGTON (AP) — Texas health officials have confined four people to their home, under guard, after they had close contact with an Ebola patient hospitalized in Dallas, as disease detectives work to make sure the deadly virus doesn't spread in the U.S. Five things to know about containing the virus:

1. WHY ORDER PEOPLE TO STAY HOME

Texas officials say those four ordered to stay put and have no visitors weren't complying with requests to voluntarily stay home for 21 days, Ebola's incubation period. Officials had reached out to as many as 100 people to determine if they had any contact with the patient, Thomas Eric Duncan, or someone close to him, deliberately casting a wide net so as not to miss anyone. But Friday, officials said only 50 may really have been exposed in some way and thus need monitoring, and that 10 of them are considered at higher risk. Some who have been asked to stay home during the incubation period have complied voluntarily.

2. HOW ARE PEOPLE MONITORED

Checking for a fever or other symptoms every day for 21 days Texas officials say a public health worker will visit daily. Symptoms can begin anywhere from two to 21 days after exposure, but eight to 10 days is the usual range.

3. WHAT IS SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN WHEN SOMEONE WITH POSSIBLE EBOLA SYMPTOMS ARRIVES AT THE HOSPITAL

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has given hospitals a checklist to make it easy: Do they have a fever of 101.5 degrees? Do they have other Ebola-like symptoms, such as flu-like body aches, vomiting or diarrhea? If so, they're told to ask whether the person traveled to an Ebola-infected country during the past 21 days. Duncan revealed in a Dallas emergency room last week that he was visiting from Liberia, but the hospital has acknowledged it didn't pass that information to doctors who ultimately diagnosed a low-risk infection and released him. Duncan returned by ambulance on Sunday and was isolated; tests confirmed Ebola on Tuesday. The hospital now says it has altered its patient records computer system so that doctors will automatically have access to a patient's travel history and, specifically, to any Ebola-endemic regions of Africa.

4. WHAT ARE HOSPITALS ELSEWHERE DOING

The CDC is repeating its instructions to health workers, and many hospitals say they're spreading the word to staff again after the Dallas case. Regions Hospital in St. Paul, Minnesota, says it got a practice run a few weeks ago when the emergency room asked someone with possible symptoms about recent travel, learned he'd been to Liberia and immediately isolated him until doctors determined he didn't have Ebola. In rural Coldwater, Ohio, a hospital even posted signs at main entrances telling patients to tell staff members if they had traveled to West Africa recently.

5. DOES SCREENING AIR TRAVELERS HELP

The CDC said the Dallas patient had no fever or other symptoms while traveling and so wasn't contagious at that point. But Liberian authorities have alleged he lied on a form about not having any contact with an infected person, although it's not clear if he knew the person had Ebola.

A spokesman for the U.N. secretary-general said Thursday that air travel to the outbreak zone should continue, because further isolating those countries — where much air travel already has ceased — would worsen their political and economic situations and make it even harder to deliver aid.

According to the CDC, between January and July, there were between 750 and 1,750 travelers to the U.S. per week from Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, a number believed to have dwindled as the outbreak worsened. That represents less than one-tenth of 1 percent of the 2 million travelers who come into the U.S. weekly.

While screening travelers before they leave is important, people don't always realize if they've been exposed to Ebola, said CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden.

"We can't make the risk zero until the outbreak is controlled in West Africa," he said.

___

AP Medical Writer Mike Stobbe in New York contributed to this report.


http://news.yahoo.com/health-officials-contain-ebola-virus-us-081129859.html (http://news.yahoo.com/health-officials-contain-ebola-virus-us-081129859.html)

Title: NBC cameraman tests positive for Ebola in Liberia
Post by: Buster's Uncle on October 03, 2014, 09:56:03 pm

NBC cameraman tests positive for Ebola in Liberia
Associated Press
By DAVID BAUDER  8 hours ago



NEW YORK (AP) — An American cameraman helping to cover the Ebola outbreak in Liberia for NBC News has tested positive for the virus and will be flown back to the United States for treatment.

NBC News President Deborah Turness said Thursday the rest of the NBC News crew including medical correspondent Dr. Nancy Snyderman will be flown back to the U.S. and placed in quarantine for 21 days "in an abundance of caution."

NBC identified the freelance cameraman on its website as 33-year-old Ashoka Mukpo. He has been working in Liberia for three years for Vice News and other media outlets, and has been covering the Ebola epidemic, according to the network. He began shooting for NBC on Tuesday.

He began feeling tired and achy Wednesday and discovered he had a slight fever. He went to a treatment center Thursday to be tested, and is being kept there, said Snyderman, who was interviewed Thursday night on "The Rachel Maddow Show" on MSNBC.

Snyderman said she believes Mukpo's exposure to the virus happened sometime before he started working with the NBC crew, since it is usually eight to 10 days before the first symptoms are seen.

"The good news is this young man, our colleague, was admitted to the clinic very, very early," she said. "I spoke with him today. He's in good spirits. He's ready to get home — of course, appropriately concerned. But he will be airlifted out soon."

She said that neither she nor the other three NBC employees has shown any symptoms or warning signs of Ebola infection.

"We observe the custom now, which is to not shake hands, to not embrace people, to wash our hands with diluted bleach water before we enter the hotel," she said. "We dip our feet in bleach solution."

She said she and the rest of her crew present little chance of giving it to anyone, unless they get sick.

"We will be taking our temperatures twice a day, checking in with each other, and if any one of us suddenly spikes a fever or gets symptoms, we will report ourselves to the authorities," she said. "We are taking it seriously."


http://news.yahoo.com/nbc-cameraman-tests-positive-ebola-liberia-011546947.html (http://news.yahoo.com/nbc-cameraman-tests-positive-ebola-liberia-011546947.html)

Title: West African community in Dallas rallies around family of Ebola patient
Post by: Buster's Uncle on October 03, 2014, 10:33:01 pm

West African community in Dallas rallies around family of Ebola patient
The tight-knit community of Liberian immigrants and refugees in the Dallas area has led an effort to aid the family of the Ebola patient. Those from West Africa are also trying to spread calm and create better awareness.
Christian Science Monitor
By Bryan Kay  7 hours ago



For much of the week since the first case of Ebola detected stateside was revealed amid a series of reported hospital and health authority blunders, there has been a steady stream of fear, alarm, and misinformation.

But behind the scenes, away from the frenetic activity created by a throng of TV trucks and the media's voracious appetite for what went wrong, another story of community compassion and brotherhood has been playing out.

The tight-knit community of Liberian immigrants and refugees in the Dallas area has led the effort to aid the family at the center of the furor.

Members flocked to support the victim, Thomas Eric Duncan, a Liberian national; a woman believed to be his partner; and family members after learning of their identity. At the top of mind are the family's health and potential ostracism they may experience, community members said.

Alben Tarty, a spokesman for the Liberian Community Association of Dallas-Fort Worth, said that his group has been in constant contact with the woman to provide help in whatever capacity possible as they continue to be monitored under quarantine for signs of the virus. Four individuals – including at least one child – are confined to the apartment where Mr. Duncan had been staying in northeast Dallas prior to his admission to the nearby Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital.

"We cannot visit them right now, but we are on the phone to see how we can help and support them," Mr. Tarty says. "That is why we let them know they are in our prayers."

The association plans a vigil – an exact date is yet to be determined – outside the hospital as a show of solidarity with their countryman. Liberia tops the four countries in Africa where Ebola has been reported, with 3,700 cases.

With the affected family now quarantined in their apartment for a period of up to 21 days, the North Texas Food Bank has stepped in, at the behest of the American Red Cross, to supply much-needed food, says Jan Pruitt, president and CEO of the food bank. A parcel with enough food to last three days was dropped off for the family Thursday and contained produce, cereal, milk, tuna, pasta, and rice. She and her staff are ready to provide further supplies in the coming days, Ms. Pruitt adds. It is a bit of needed good news after authorities turned away the company that was going to clean the family's apartment for not having the correct permits, CNN reports.

People from neighboring countries affected by Ebola are also stepping up.

Isiaka Sidibay, president of the Madingo Association of Texas, which brings together members of the Madingo tribe in Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone, is planning to hold a fundraiser for victims in West Africa next month. (It was originally scheduled to be held Sunday, but Mr. Sidibay says organizers decided to postpone the event to placate fears over the further spread of Ebola.)

“The Guineans in Dallas are safe, but calls were still made to find out if they were in the area where this case happened and also to educate people,” Sidibay says. “We have families here in Dallas who have lost people to Ebola in Africa. We want to show solidarity and create as much awareness about Ebola as possible. While this thing is bad, it has created awareness and brought out support in the African community. This is our home.”

He says about $1,500 has been raised so far and that he has been working with the president of the Liberian community association to assist its outreach efforts.

Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, and, to a lesser extent, isolated parts of Nigeria are ground zero in the fight against Ebola. More than 7,000 cases have been reported in the region, with more than 3,300 deaths.

In the 5,000-strong Sierra Leone community in the Dallas-Forth Worth area, members there, too, are trying to spread calm. Foday Fofanah, of the charity effort Sankofa, is heading up moves to raise aid and awareness for the Ebola outbreak in his home country, encouraging Americans to get involved. Sierra Leone has the second-highest number of cases, with 2,300.

Former Dallas mayoral candidate Ed Okpa, originally from Nigeria, said he believed a host of mixed messages from authorities had contributed to confusion and chaos, but thinks the problems that beset the Dallas case will prove a salutary lesson for public health going forward.

In light of some of the more alarmist reactions to the case – there were suggestions a travel ban should be imposed on those traveling from West Africa to the United States – he cautioned that people should be more circumspect.

 "We've got to be a little more careful and certain when we throw out some of these things," Mr. Okpa says.

In Dallas, up to 100 people who had direct or indirect contact with the victim are being either interviewed or monitored for symptoms of Ebola. Dave Daigle, spokesman for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said the CDC would separate them into one of three groups: high risk, low risk, and no risk.

Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings has pleaded for calm, seeking to dampen fears by insisting there is “zero chance” of anyone spreading the virus if they are not exhibiting symptoms.

The Dallas area counts tens of thousands of immigrants from West Africa alone, including an estimated 10,000 from Liberia. In the area where Duncan was staying, there are about 2,000 Liberian immigrants, according to community members. Vickery Meadow, also known colloquially as the Ellis Island of Dallas, is a smorgasbord of ethnic cultures, made up largely of immigrants and refugees.

Despite some of the more extreme reactions by members of the public, Tarty of the Liberian community said he does not sense any overt expressions marginalizing or stigmatizing Africans because of Ebola. He says he has been warmed by the positive reaction he has witnessed from the wider Dallas community, believing the more extreme reactions are confined to those who are uneducated about the virus.

“We in the Liberian community hope that stigmatization does not happen,” says Tarty. “I have not experienced that yet. The wider community has been supportive. My company gave me some extra paid time off to help in my community. They said to me, ‘You have not done anything wrong.’ ”


http://news.yahoo.com/west-african-community-dallas-rallies-around-family-ebola-134832039.html (http://news.yahoo.com/west-african-community-dallas-rallies-around-family-ebola-134832039.html)

Title: The worst Ebola outbreak on record
Post by: Buster's Uncle on October 03, 2014, 10:38:50 pm

The worst Ebola outbreak on record
Reuters
2 hours ago



(Reuters) - West Africa is struggling with the worst Ebola outbreak since the disease was identified in 1976, and the first case has been diagnosed in the United States.

Below are some facts regarding the outbreak:

- The outbreak has killed 3,431 people, or 46 percent of the 7,470 probable, confirmed and suspected cases as of Oct. 1, predominantly in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Senegal. The disease - which emerged in a remote forest region of Guinea in March - has also turned up in Nigeria and Senegal, but officials say the disease has been contained in those two countries.

- There is no vaccine or cure for Ebola, a hemorrhagic fever. In past outbreaks, fatality rates have reached up to 90 percent. Ebola causes fever, flu-like pains, bleeding, vomiting and diarrhea.

- Pharmaceutical companies are working on experimental Ebola vaccines and antiviral drugs, but a significant number of doses will not be available until at least the first quarter of 2015.

- Ebola is not airborne. It is transmitted through blood, vomit, diarrhea and other bodily fluids. Healthcare workers in West Africa have been among the hardest hit by the outbreak.

- Ebola symptoms generally appear between two and 21 days after infection, meaning there is a significant window during which an infected person can escape detection, allowing them to travel. However, they are not considered contagious until they start showing symptoms.

- Recovery from Ebola depends on the patient’s immune response. People who recover from Ebola infection develop antibodies that last for at least 10 years.

- The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has estimated that the number of infections could rise to up to 1.4 million people by early next year without a massive global intervention to contain the virus.

- The United States, Britain, France, China, Cuba and international organizations are pouring funds, supplies and personnel into the affected parts of West Africa.

- Ebola's suspected origin is forest bats. The virus was first identified in 1976 in what is now known as Democratic Republic of the Congo.

SOURCE: World Health Organization and U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

(Compiled by Lisa Shumaker)


http://news.yahoo.com/worst-ebola-outbreak-record-190337033.html (http://news.yahoo.com/worst-ebola-outbreak-record-190337033.html)

Title: About 50 under observation after Ebola diagnosis in Texas
Post by: Buster's Uncle on October 03, 2014, 10:48:36 pm

About 50 under observation after Ebola diagnosis in Texas
Reuters
By Jon Herskovitz  56 minutes ago


(http://l1.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/tjdDf.Xk9_ohfkvr6GYUPA--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9ZmlsbDtoPTQxNDtweG9mZj01MDtweW9mZj0wO3E9Njk7dz03MzY-/http://media.zenfs.com/en-US/video/video.associatedpressfree.com/da484829d8e45b5fbf89eec2f678951e)
Health officials in Dallas, Texas, have ordered four people hosting the Ebola patient, Thomas Eric Duncan, to stay in their home. Police officers are posted outside just to make sure. (October 2)



DALLAS (Reuters) - Health officials in Dallas charged with checking the spread of Ebola have narrowed their focus to about 50 people who had direct or indirect contact with an infected Liberian traveler, including 10 at high risk who are being checked twice daily for symptoms.

A cleanup crew began decontaminating the Dallas apartment where the man, Thomas Eric Duncan, had been staying before he was admitted to the hospital five days ago and where he remained in serious condition on Friday.

Four people close to Duncan who were quarantined in the apartment in a northeastern section of the city "will be moved to another location soon," Dallas County Fire Marshal Robert De Los Santos told reporters. Earlier, the county said it was safe for them to remain there during the cleanup.

The case has put authorities and the public on alert over concerns that the worst epidemic of the deadly virus on record could spread from three impoverished West African countries: Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone. The World Health Organization on Friday updated its death toll to at least 3,439 out of 7,492 suspected, probable and confirmed cases.

The handling of the Dallas case in the early stages of Duncan's illness has raised questions about how prepared local and national health officials were to handle that case and whether people were unnecessarily exposed.


(http://l.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/GhkLDdGL0ATg_KRyl9Icfg--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9ZmlsbDtoPTI4OTtweW9mZj0wO3E9Njk7dz00NTA-/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/Reuters/2014-10-03T133955Z_1_LYNXNPEA920JV_RTROPTP_2_HEALTH-EBOLA-USA.JPG)
A Red Cross worker delivers bedding materials to an apartment unit at The Ivy Apartments, where a man diagnosed with the Ebola virus was staying in Dallas, Texas October 2, 2014. REUTERS/Mike Stone


Dr. David Lakey, commissioner of the Texas Department of State Health Services, said at a news conference that out of 100 people who needed to be reached, "There's now approximately 50 individuals we feel we need to follow on a daily basis."

"Most of those individuals are at low risk. There are about 10 individuals who are at higher risk. We continue to watch those individuals closely."

The observations include fever checks at least twice daily. Ebola, which can cause fever, vomiting and diarrhea, spreads through contact with bodily fluids such as blood or saliva.

Sheets and other items used by the man in the apartment have been sealed in plastic bags, but questions have been raised about the delay in sanitizing it.

Senior Obama administration officials were scheduled to hold a news conference on Ebola on Friday afternoon, while the Pentagon said it could increase the number of military personnel being sent to West Africa to help with the outbreak there.


(http://l2.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/nwsF3u06de_8muxXqf7nrw--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9ZmlsbDtoPTM0OTtweW9mZj0wO3E9Njk7dz00NTA-/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/Reuters/2014-10-03T133955Z_1_LYNXNPEA920JU_RTROPTP_2_HEALTH-EBOLA-USA.JPG)
A Red Cross worker delivers bedding materials to an apartment unit at The Ivy Apartments where a man diagnosed with the Ebola virus was staying in Dallas, Texas October 2, 2014. REUTERS/Mike Stone


A crew from the Cleaning Guys, a hazardous materials cleanup company, arrived at the apartment building around 11:30 a.m. CDT (12.30 p.m. EDT) to start the work, which officials said would take about three hours. Along with the cleanup crew, three fire and rescue vehicles also arrived at the apartment complex.

The cleanup crew, garbed in yellow hazardous material suits and masks, was inside the apartment and packing the soiled sheets, Duncan's luggage and other personal items into blue barrels, the fire marshal said. The mattress was being cut into pieces to fit into the barrels.

Another Dallas County official said the cleaners would take the containers to a secure location.

Duncan was being treated at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital. Officials said a disposal vendor was in place to remove any potentially contaminated materials from the hospital.

U.S. health officials say they are confident that they can prevent the spread of the Ebola virus in the United States.


(http://l1.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/V0_1Ri98YYMEVwBn3SspXQ--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9ZmlsbDtoPTMwOTtweW9mZj0wO3E9Njk7dz00NTA-/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/Reuters/2014-10-03T001536Z_1_LYNXNPEA92004_RTROPTP_2_HEALTH-EBOLA-USA.JPG)
A man passes a bag, delivered by the Red Cross and the North Texas Food Bank, in to the apartment unit at The Ivy Apartments complex where a man diagnosed with the Ebola virus was staying in Dallas, Texas October 2, 2014. REUTERS/Mike Stone


BEING CHECKED FOR EBOLA SYMPTOMS

Since Duncan's diagnosis, people have visited hospitals in a few states and were checked for Ebola symptoms. On Friday, Howard University Hospital in Washington said it admitted and isolated a patient with possible symptoms who had recently traveled from Nigeria "in an abundance of caution." The CDC says outbreaks in Nigeria and Senegal appear to have been contained.

As part of the U.S. effort to help contain the spread of Ebola, the Pentagon on Friday said the number of military personnel that could be deployed to West Africa could reach nearly 4,000, more than earlier estimates of about 3,000.

"It may not go that high," said the Pentagon's chief spokesman, Rear Admiral John Kirby.

In Congress, U.S. House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers, a Republican, and ranking Democrat Nita Lowey set an Oct. 17 deadline for the Obama administration to provide details of its plan to deal with the outbreak, including how each agency is contributing and monthly costs.


(http://l1.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/ZfYWH7cxqoOCDTi0vdKHEg--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9ZmlsbDtoPTMwMjtweW9mZj0wO3E9Njk7dz00NTA-/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/Reuters/2014-10-03T001536Z_1_LYNXNPEA92006_RTROPTP_2_HEALTH-EBOLA-USA.JPG)
A hand can be seen holding a thermometer at The Ivy Apartments where a man diagnosed with the Ebola virus was staying in Dallas, Texas October 2, 2014. REUTERS/Mike Stone


Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, a Republican, became the latest public official to call on the U.S. government to shut down flights from Ebola-stricken countries.

The critical issue of how hospitals in the United States should handle and dispose of medical waste from Ebola patients is being addressed, the government said. The U.S. Department of Transportation said it expected to release new guidelines later on Friday that would allow Texas hospitals to dispose safely of Ebola-infected medical wastes.

Most U.S. hospitals are not equipped with incinerators or large sterilizers called autoclaves that could accommodate the large amounts of soiled linens, contaminated syringes and virus-spattered protective gear generated by the care of an Ebola patient, said Dr. Jeffrey Duchin, chair of the Infectious Diseases Society of America's Public Health Committee.

NBC News said on Thursday that one of its freelance cameramen, Ashoka Mukpo, 33, had contracted Ebola in Liberia, the fifth American to be diagnosed after being infected in West Africa. NBC said he had quarantined himself after feeling ill and discovering he had a fever.

The Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha said in a statement that an Ebola patient was scheduled to arrive for treatment on Monday morning. The statement did not identify the patient, who would be the second to be treated there. The first was Dr. Richard Sacra, who was discharged on Sept. 25. He contracted the disease while treating people in West Africa.

NBC has said the entire reporting crew would return to the United States on a private plane and remain under quarantine for 21 days, the maximum incubation period for Ebola.

(Reporting by Susan Heavey and Bill Trott in Washington, Julie Steenhuysen in Chicago, Colleen Jenkins in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, Lisa Maria Garza and Marice Richter in Dallas; Writing by Jim Loney and Grant McCool; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn and Jonathan Oatis)


http://news.yahoo.com/four-close-u-ebola-patient-quarantined-dallas-apartment-021042041.html (http://news.yahoo.com/four-close-u-ebola-patient-quarantined-dallas-apartment-021042041.html)

Title: Battle against Ebola hampered by gaps in data, hidden cases
Post by: Buster's Uncle on October 03, 2014, 10:55:06 pm

Battle against Ebola hampered by gaps in data, hidden cases
Reuters
By Tom Miles  8 hours ago


(http://l1.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/HFE.3.mzY3iU7JU_QJRNtg--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9ZmlsbDtoPTMwMDtweW9mZj0wO3E9Njk7dz00NTA-/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/Reuters/2014-10-03T133442Z_1_LYNXNPEA920JN_RTROPTP_2_HEALTH-EBOLA.JPG)
A World Health Organization (WHO) health worker teaches trainee health workers how to put on a protective suit in Freetown September 30, 2014. REUTERS/Umaru Fofana



GENEVA (Reuters) - Ebola's rapid spread through West Africa has been quickened by the difficulty of keeping track of the deadly disease, and filling in the huge gaps in knowledge about the epidemic is key to eventually containing it, health experts say.

U.N. and World Health Organization data show the number of cases across the region had reached 7,423 by Sept 29, including 3,355 deaths. That is widely agreed to be an underestimate.

Many patients are not counted because they never get medical help, perhaps hidden by fearful families or turned away by overwhelmed clinics. Some villages have turned into "shadow zones" where villagers' resistance or the remote location makes investigating numerous deaths impossible.

In Liberia, a surge of previously unknown patients who appear whenever a medical facility opens "suggests the existence of an invisible caseload of patients", the WHO said in August.

Last week the U.S. Centers for Disease Control estimated there would be 8,000 cases reported in Liberia and Sierra Leone by Sept. 30, but said the true figure would likely be 21,000 after correcting for under-reporting.

The WHO says its information is the best there is, but admits its figures are under-reported and says "substantial efforts" are going into cleaning up the data.

Recounts can make a huge difference, as shown by a revision of the number of health workers killed by the virus. Two weeks ago the WHO said 31 health care workers had died in Sierra Leone, but after a recount the figure more than doubled to 81.

Questions are now being asked about Sierra Leone's total death toll, which appears far too low, equivalent to 24 percent of the cases the country has suffered. In Liberia and Guinea the equivalent figures are 54 percent and 61 percent, respectively, closer to the traditionally high fatality rates for the disease.

One reason is that Sierra Leone's case numbers are largely laboratory-confirmed cases counted in health care facilities, WHO epidemiologists Eric Nilles and Stephane Hugonnet said in an emailed reply to a Reuters question.


PAPERWORK RISK

By reporting almost exclusively the cases that can be quickly confirmed by lab tests, Sierra Leone is almost entirely ignoring "suspected" cases in the wider community, which account for a huge portion of cases reported by Liberia and Guinea.

Between Aug. 31 and Sept. 28, Sierra Leone's count of "suspected" and "probable" cases rose by 119, compared to a rise of 1,474 in Liberia. Over the same period, Sierra Leone only declared two deaths that were not laboratory-confirmed, suggesting a too narrow view of the real toll.

While a quarter of Sierra Leone's recorded cases are known to have died, it would be wrong to assume the rest had survived, WHO spokeswoman Nyka Alexander told a U.N. briefing on Sept. 30, since about 60 percent had "no confirmed outcome".

At a case fatality rate of around 70 percent, as estimated by experts writing in the New England Journal of Medicine, that would suggest at least 700 more deaths among the recorded cases, taking the country's toll from 575 to over 1,300.

The infectiousness of the disease means the mere handling of the paper record of a patient's history, which has followed them around during their treatment, may itself be a contamination risk, said Alexander.

"In some places somebody will read that information from inside the ward to somebody outside the ward and then that piece of paper is destroyed so you never get contamination. So it can be quite labor intensive to get all the information," she said.

The weak chain of data means even some known cases simply drop out of the records, and trying to recover the lost history of the disease is painstaking work that involves hunting down names and case stories in local communities.

"You have to go back into the communities and ask 'do you remember Amadou Diallo?' and 'Do you remember what happened to him?' and 'Is he still alive?' And how do you know for sure if their answer is right? He may have moved to another village. So it's very hard to go back and clean up," Alexander said.

(Editing by Stephanie Nebehay and Alison Williams)


http://news.yahoo.com/battle-against-ebola-hampered-gaps-data-hidden-cases-133442377.html (http://news.yahoo.com/battle-against-ebola-hampered-gaps-data-hidden-cases-133442377.html)

Title: Four people close to U.S. Ebola patient quarantined in Dallas
Post by: Buster's Uncle on October 03, 2014, 10:58:00 pm

Four people close to U.S. Ebola patient quarantined in Dallas
Reuters
By Lisa Maria Garza  12 hours ago



DALLAS (Reuters) - Four people close to the first person diagnosed with Ebola in the United States were quarantined in a Dallas apartment, where sheets and other items used by the man were sealed in plastic bags, as health officials widened their search for others who had direct or indirect contact with him.

In Liberia, an American freelance television cameraman working for NBC News in Liberia has contracted Ebola, the fifth U.S. citizen known to be infected with the deadly virus that has killed at least 3,300 people in the current outbreak in West Africa.

The 33-year-old man, whose name was not released, will be flown back to the United States for treatment, the network said on Thursday.

Immediately after beginning to feel ill and discovering he was running a slight fever, the cameraman quarantined himself. He then went to a Doctors Without Borders treatment center and 12 hours later learned he tested positive for Ebola.

The entire NBC crew will fly back to the United States on a private charter plane and will place themselves under quarantine for 21 days, the maximum incubation period for Ebola.

U.S. health officials said they were confident they could prevent the spread of Ebola in the United States after the first case was diagnosed this week on U.S. soil.

Up to 100 people had direct or indirect contact with Thomas Eric Duncan, a Liberian citizen, and a handful were being monitored, said Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

None of those thought to have had contact with Duncan were showing symptoms of Ebola, Dallas County officials said at a news conference.

Duncan had helped a pregnant woman who later died of Ebola in Liberia, just days before flying to Texas via Brussels and Washington two weeks ago. Duncan had been staying in an apartment in the northeastern part of the city for about a week before going to a Dallas hospital.

In Liberia, the head of the country's airport authority, Binyah Kesselly, said the government could prosecute Duncan for denying he had contact with someone who was eventually diagnosed with Ebola.

The government said Duncan failed to declare that he helped neighbor Marthalene Williams after she fell critically ill on Sept. 15. Williams died.

Kesselly said Duncan was asked in a questionnaire whether he had come in contact with any Ebola victim or was showing any symptoms. "To all of these questions, Mr. Duncan answered 'no,'" Kesselly said.

Ebola can cause fever, bleeding, vomiting and diarrhea and spreads through contact with bodily fluids such as blood or saliva. Duncan's case put U.S. health authorities and the public on alert over concern for the potential of the virus to spread from Liberia and two other impoverished West African countries, Guinea and Sierra Leone.

Three Americans contracted Ebola in West Africa and were flown to the United States for treatment and later released: Dr. Kent Brantly, Nancy Writebol and Dr. Rick Sacra. A fourth unnamed American who contracted Ebola in West Africa is being treated at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta.

President Barack Obama called Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings on Thursday and "pledged federal agencies will remain in close coordination and reiterated his confidence in America's doctors and national health infrastructure to handle this case safely and effectively," White House spokesman Eric Schultz said.

Officials have said the U.S. healthcare system is well prepared to contain the hemorrhagic fever's spread by careful tracking of those who have had contact with Duncan, and employing appropriate care.

Dallas County officials said the problem was very localized. "When I say local, I don’t mean Dallas. I mean a very specific neighborhood in the northeast part of Dallas," Dallas Mayor Rawlings told reporters.


HOSPITAL SENT PATIENT AWAY

Duncan initially sought treatment at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital on the night of Sept. 25 but was sent back to the apartment, with antibiotics, despite telling a nurse he had just been in Liberia. By Sunday, he needed an ambulance to return to the same hospital after vomiting on the ground outside the apartment complex.

He was in serious condition on Thursday, no change from Wednesday, a hospital spokeswoman said.

Police and armed security guards were keeping people about 100 yards (metres) away from the apartment, with orange cones blocking the entrance and exit. Maintenance workers scrubbed the parking lot with high-pressure water and bleach.

Dr. David Lakey, commissioner of the Texas Department of State Health Services, said the four people under quarantine did not have a fever and were healthy.

Lakey said monitoring included fever checks twice a day. At the apartment, "there is a law enforcement person there in case individuals leave," Lakey told reporters on a conference call.

U.S. officials initially described the number of people potentially exposed as a handful, and on Wednesday said it was up to 18. Then on Thursday, the Texas health department said there were about 100 potential contacts.

CNN reported that a Dallas woman who had a child with Duncan said he had sweated profusely in the bed they shared at her apartment. The woman, whom CNN identified only as "Louisa," is quarantined in the apartment with one of her children, who is 13, and two visiting nephews in their 20s.

They were all in the home when Duncan began showing signs of illness, the report said. The woman said she mentioned twice to hospital staff that he had come from Liberia.

Dr. Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease physician at the University of Pittsburgh, said contact tracing is “bread-and-butter public health" and something health officials do regularly to track tuberculosis, measles and sexually transmitted diseases.

Adalja said the most disturbing part of the U.S. incident is that Duncan was sent home from the hospital with antibiotics.

“This really is something that shouldn’t have happened,” he said. “It just reinforces that taking a travel history has to be an essential part of taking care of patients."


http://news.yahoo.com/four-people-close-u-ebola-patient-quarantined-dallas-085333529.html (http://news.yahoo.com/four-people-close-u-ebola-patient-quarantined-dallas-085333529.html)

Title: Ebola Scare Hits Washington, Latest of About 100 Alerts to CDC
Post by: Buster's Uncle on October 03, 2014, 11:03:54 pm

Ebola Scare Hits Washington, Latest of About 100 Alerts to CDC
ABC News
By GILLIAN MOHNEY  Oct 3, 2014, 4:34 PM ET



Days after a person was diagnosed with Ebola on U.S. soil for the first time, officials are reportedly investigating a possible Ebola infection in Washington, D.C.

At Howard University Hospital, a patient is in stable condition after presenting with symptoms that could be associated with Ebola, according to a statement today from the hospital. The patient had recently traveled to Nigeria, where the Ebola outbreak has killed eight people.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is working with medical providers to monitor the patient's progress, officials said.

Officials are also monitoring an inmate at Cobb County Jail in Georgia. However, the initial blood test was negative for Ebola, according to the Cobb County Sheriff's Office.

Though the scares have put some on edge, the cases are not unique. After issuing an alert to hospitals and medical providers in July, the CDC has looked into approximately 100 Ebola scares in 33 states, as of Oct. 1, the agency said.

Among those, the CDC has tested the blood of 15 possible Ebola patients and found only one patient who tested positive, according to Dr. Beth Bell, director of the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases. That patient is Thomas Eric Duncan, the Liberian man diagnosed in Dallas.

"We're striving for perfection, but what we continue to do is redouble our efforts and ... use this as learning experience," Bell said.


Ebola Hits Home

Diagnosing the deadly virus can be difficult. The early symptoms of the Ebola virus, including fever chills and abdominal pain, are similar to many other diseases and can be difficult to diagnose correctly.

After a hospital or state lab identifies a possible Ebola case based on both travel history and symptoms, they notify the CDC. CDC officials then talk to someone familiar with the patient's history to determine whether blood testing for the virus is necessary, CDC spokeswoman Kristen Nordlund told ABC News in an earlier interview.

CDC officials discuss symptoms and determine whether the patient may have been exposed to the virus. A person can be exposed to the virus if they buried the body of an Ebola patient, lived in the same home as an Ebola patient or was a health care worker.

Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease expert from Vanderbilt University Department of Medicine, said it is not surprising that only a small percentage of the patients investigated had a blood test to check for Ebola.

There are diseases that can appear similar to Ebola, but are far more common in the West African countries of Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone where the Ebola outbreak started, Schaffner noted. Doctors might end up contacting the CDC before finding out a patient actually has fever due to tuberculosis.

"You have to be mindful this could be malaria or typhoid fever. That's your job to sort all those things out," said Schaffner. "Your threshold for getting a blood specimen is dependent on the answers to those questions. You kind of have a decision algorithm in your head."

Schaffner said he would not be surprised if there are a rash of new calls to the CDC from hospitals or state labs in the next few days and weeks in light of the intense media coverage of the first Ebola patient diagnosed in the U.S.

"Having all those inquiries come into the CDC are very, very indicative of the fact that the medical care community are on the alert and thinking about [Ebola]," Schaffner said. "It keeps all of us on our toes."


http://abcnews.go.com/Health/ebola-patient-tested-washington/story?id=25948325 (http://abcnews.go.com/Health/ebola-patient-tested-washington/story?id=25948325)

Title: U.S. health officials say 50 people being observed for Ebola
Post by: Buster's Uncle on October 04, 2014, 12:33:08 am

U.S. health officials say 50 people being observed for Ebola
Reuters
5 hours ago



CHICAGO (Reuters) - U.S. health officials said on Friday that after conversations with 100 people who might have been exposed to the Ebola patient in Texas, about 50 are now being observed daily for symptoms of the deadly virus.

Of the 50, about 10 are considered at high risk, while the rest are considered at low risk, Dr David Lakey, commissioner of the Texas Department of State Health Services, said in a news conference.

Dr. Beth Bell, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, said putting people in observation does not imply the CDC has a "high level of concern" about most of these people.

(Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen; Editing by Diane Craft)


http://news.yahoo.com/u-health-officials-50-people-being-observed-ebola-175644472.html (http://news.yahoo.com/u-health-officials-50-people-being-observed-ebola-175644472.html)

Title: UN mission to send helicopters, vehicles to West Africa in Ebola fight
Post by: Buster's Uncle on October 04, 2014, 02:11:37 am

UN mission to send helicopters, vehicles to West Africa in Ebola fight
Reuters
1 hour ago


(http://l.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/l5MpJc7EPRnS6.qPrI8a4w--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9ZmlsbDtoPTI4MjtweW9mZj0wO3E9Njk7dz00NTA-/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/Reuters/2014-10-03T234243Z_1_LYNXNPEA920WG_RTROPTP_2_HEALTH-EBOLA-WHO.JPG)
Blood samples from patients suspected of having the Ebola virus disease are prepared for transportation to Freetown for testing, at the Port Loko District Hospital September 27, 2014. REUTERS/Christopher Black/WHO/Handout via Reuters



FREETOWN (Reuters) - The United Nations Ebola response mission will bring five helicopters, vehicles and motorcycles to transport patients and reach communities in West Africa in stepped up efforts to combat the epidemic, the head of the mission said on Friday.

The governments of Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia are struggling to contain the worst outbreak on record of the deadly haemorrhagic fever.

The outbreak has crippled already poor healthcare systems in countries where Ebola patients are dying on the street and ambulances, medical staff, hospital beds and basic health kits are in short supply.

The World Health Organization on Friday updated its death toll to at least 3,439 out of 7,492 suspected, probable and confirmed cases. The epidemic has hit hardest in impoverished Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.

"We have to [act] as fast as we can because every day longer that it takes, more people die and that is not acceptable," said Antony Banbury, the 50-year-old American diplomat who heads the United Nations Mission on Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER).

"Nobody should be under the illusion that it will be easy (to stop)," Banbury told journalists in Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone, after meeting with the country's authorities. "Thousands have died and more will die tomorrow."

Banbury said UNMEER will focus on logistics. It will bring five helicopters, vehicles and motorcycles next week to give community mobilization workers better transportation to trace potential Ebola contacts to stop the spread.

The WHO has declared the Ebola epidemic an international public health emergency, and governments from the United States to China, Cuba and Britain have sent troops and medics to help contain the disease.

As part of the U.S. effort to help contain the spread of Ebola, the Pentagon said on Friday the number of military personnel that could be deployed to West Africa could reach nearly 4,000, more than earlier estimates of about 3,000.

British charity, Save the Children, said on Thursday that five people in Sierra Leone were contracting Ebola every hour and warned that could double by November if urgent actions were not taken.

(Reporting by Umaru Fofana; Writing by Bate Felix; Editing by Toni Reinhold)


http://news.yahoo.com/un-mission-send-helicopters-vehicles-west-africa-ebola-234243215--business.html (http://news.yahoo.com/un-mission-send-helicopters-vehicles-west-africa-ebola-234243215--business.html)