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Community => Recreation Commons => Our researchers have made a breakthrough! => Topic started by: Buster's Uncle on October 14, 2014, 10:06:10 pm

Title: Ebola news 10/14
Post by: Buster's Uncle on October 14, 2014, 10:06:10 pm

WHO may declare Nigeria and Senegal Ebola-free within days
Reuters
2 hours ago



GENEVA (Reuters) - Nigeria and Senegal could be declared Ebola-free within days after completing a 42-day period with no new cases, the World Health Organization said on Tuesday.

"If the active surveillance for new cases that is currently in place continues, and no new cases are detected, WHO will declare the end of the outbreak of Ebola virus disease in Senegal on Friday 17 October," the WHO said in a statement.

For Nigeria, the date is next Monday, Oct 20.

Senegal had one patient who was confirmed to have Ebola but he recovered and appears not to have infected anyone else.

In Nigeria, one traveler from Liberia triggered an outbreak in which eight people died, most of them health workers, before it could be contained.

But in the three worst affected countries, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, "new cases continue to explode in areas that looked like they were coming under control," WHO said.

"An unusual characteristic of this epidemic is a persistent cyclical pattern of gradual dips in the number of new cases, followed by sudden flare-ups."

WHO says that waiting for 42 days from the time when the last person with high risk exposure tests negative for the virus gives sufficient confidence to declare an outbreak over.

The 42-day period is twice the generally accepted maximum incubation period of the virus. However, some incubation periods are longer - that WHO said that in 95 percent of cases the incubation period was between one and 21 days. In 98 percent it was no longer than 42 days.

The health agency has said that the virus can survive even longer, remaining for as much as 90 days in the semen of an infected man.

Outside West Africa, the spread of the disease has been confirmed in Spain and the United States. Possible cases have been investigated in several other countries, but none has yet turned out to be Ebola.

The WHO said it was concerned by media reports that some countries facing a possible first Ebola case had declared the cases to be negative within hours.

"Such rapid determination of infection status is impossible, casting grave doubts on some of the official information that is being communicated to the public and the media," it said.

Countries without recognized laboratories specializing in viral hemorrhagic fever testing should send their first 50 negative specimens to a WHO collaborating center, it said. All countries should have their first 25 positive tests double-checked.

(Reporting by Tom Miles; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)


http://news.yahoo.com/may-declare-nigeria-senegal-ebola-free-within-days-175007927.html (http://news.yahoo.com/may-declare-nigeria-senegal-ebola-free-within-days-175007927.html)

Title: Ebola Update: Health Officials Taking Steps to Improve Hospital Safety
Post by: Buster's Uncle on October 14, 2014, 10:08:23 pm

Ebola Update: Health Officials Taking Steps to Improve Hospital Safety
LiveScience.com
By Rachael Rettner  27 minutes ago



Health officials are making enhancements to improve safety at U.S. hospitals that treat Ebola patients after a nurse became infected with the virus while treating a patient with the disease.

Among the steps being taken is to enhance the training of health care workers at the hospital in Dallas where the infection occurred, Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said in a news conference today. Two nurses from Emory University, the facility that treated two other American patients with Ebola, will be assisting in the training, Frieden said.

Health officials will also appoint a site manager to oversee all aspects of infection control at the Dallas hospital, including ensuring that workers put on and take off protective equipment correctly, Frieden said.

"A single infection in a health care worker is unacceptable," so health officials are looking at everything they can do to minimize the risk to health care workers, Frieden said.

The nurse, Nina Pham of Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, became infected with Ebola after treating Thomas Eric Duncan, the first person to be diagnosed with Ebola in the United States.

Health officials are now also actively monitoring 76 health care workers who may have been exposed to Duncan while he was being treated at the hospital, said Dr. David Lakey, commissioner of the Texas Department of State Health Services. So far, no other workers besides Pham are showing symptoms of Ebola, Lakey said.

Health officials do not know how Pham became infected — she was wearing protective gear when she cared for Duncan.

Pham is the first person to contract Ebola in the United States (Duncan became infected in Liberia, before leaving that county). Pham came down with a fever last Friday, and tested positive for Ebola on Sunday, officials said. Only one person had contact with Pham while she may have been contagious, and this person so far shows no symptoms of Ebola, Lakey said.

Health officials are also monitoring 48 other people who had contact wtih Duncan before he was isolated. None of these people have symptoms of Ebola, and it is increasingly unlikely that any of them will develop the disease, Frieden said.

"While it wouldn't be impossible that some of them would develop the disease, they've now passed through the highest risk period," which is eight to 10 days after exposure, Frieden said. It has been more than 14 days since the original 48 contacts were exposed to Duncan, but it can take up to 21 days before people exposed to Ebola show symptoms of the disease.

The CDC is also ramping up eduction about Ebola for health care workers across the country, through webinars, conference calls and other means, Frieden said. In addition, the CDC has established an Ebola response team that could be on the ground within hours of a new Ebola case at a U.S. hospital, he said.

Ebola is spread through direct contact with the bodily fluids, such as blood or secretions, of an infected individual, or by contact with contaminated objects, such as needles and syringes, according to the CDC. People with Ebola are only contagious after they start showing symptoms.

As of Oct. 8, at least 8,400 people have become ill and more than 4,000 have died of Ebola in the ongoing Ebola outbreak in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, according to the CDC.


http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-health-officials-taking-steps-improve-hospital-safety-203526788.html (http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-health-officials-taking-steps-improve-hospital-safety-203526788.html)

Title: China military-linked firm eyes quick approval of drug to cure Ebola
Post by: Buster's Uncle on October 15, 2014, 12:26:14 am

China military-linked firm eyes quick approval of drug to cure Ebola
Reuters
By Adam Jourdan  7 hours ago


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Health inspection and quarantine researchers work in their laboratory at an airport in Qingdao, Shandong province August 11, 2014. REUTERS/China Daily



SHANGHAI (Reuters) - A Chinese drugmaker with close military ties is seeking fast-track approval for a drug that it says can cure Ebola, as China joins the race to help treat a deadly outbreak of a disease that has spread from Africa to the United States and Europe.

Sihuan Pharmaceutical Holdings Group Ltd has signed a tie-up with Chinese research Academy of Military Medical Sciences (AMMS) last week to help push the drug called JK-05 through the approval process in China and bring it to market. The drug, developed by the academy, is currently approved for emergency military use only.

"We believe that we can file to the Chinese Food and Drug Administration (CFDA) before the end of the year," Sihuan's chairman Che Fengsheng said during an investor call last week.

"They are looking at this very seriously... and we could get on the 'green light' track," he added.

Sihuan's drug is only one contender amongst a number of experimental cures worldwide to treat Ebola, although if successful it would be a huge boon for China's developing pharmaceutical sector and the country's soft power in Africa, an increasingly important partner for the world's No.2 economy.

The current outbreak, the worst on record of the disease, has killed more than 4,000 people, mostly in West Africa.

Che said one of Sihuan's strengths was its close military ties. The firm, which claims to be China's third largest prescription drugmaker, was originally a military scientific unit, which was spun off into its current form in 2001.

"We have a myriad of connections with the military medical science units and have developed lots of products in cooperation with the AMMS," Che said. AMMS is a research unit of the People's Liberation Army, China's armed forces.

Che pointed out that a Chinese vaccine against a SARS outbreak a decade ago, also developed by the military, was approved by the drug regulator rapidly after its application, signally that JK-05 could receive similar treatment.

"At that time the whole approval process, clinical components and the period after was cut right down," he said.

Officials at Sihuan, which is part-owned by Morgan Stanley, were not available for further comment on Tuesday.


TESTED ON MICE

China's Ebola cure bid still lags some way behind U.S.-developed ZMapp and TKM-Ebola, but Sihuan management said the drug has proven effective during animal testing on mice.

The drug, which AMMS has been studying and developing already for five years, is similar to Japanese flu drug favipiravir, developed by Fujifilm Holdings Corp, which has been used effectively to treat patients with Ebola.

ZMapp and TKM-Ebola have been tested on monkeys, which give a closer immune response to that of humans, and have been used to treat human patients with the disease.

JK-05 has not yet undergone clinical trials, but Sihuan management said the firm was actively working towards clinical tests of the drug, which could be shorter than normally required. The drug has also shown promise against diseases such as influenza and yellow fever.

Chinese military doctor Wang Hongquan, credited with inventing the drug, said on the investors call that JK-05 would first be used to treat Chinese nationals working in Africa with the disease, but treating non-Chinese would require further international approvals.

There are millions of Chinese nationals living in Africa, with around 10,000 in the worst affected countries - Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia.

JK-05 could also be used if Ebola spreads to China.

"We can't rule out the possibility that it will spread to Asia. Particularly in China now we have lots of connections with different international cities and many people coming and going across our borders," he said on the call.

Company management and analysts said an Ebola outbreak in China would further speed up the approval process and development of the drug.

"It is highly likely the Ebola indication could be approved very quickly if Ebola was to spread to China," said Deutsche Bank analyst Jack Hu in an analyst note on Sunday.

(Additional reporting by SHANGHAI newsroom; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)


http://news.yahoo.com/china-military-linked-firm-eyes-quick-approval-drug-074305342--finance.html (http://news.yahoo.com/china-military-linked-firm-eyes-quick-approval-drug-074305342--finance.html)

Title: Britain begins Ebola screening at London's Heathrow airport
Post by: Buster's Uncle on October 15, 2014, 12:49:36 am

Britain begins Ebola screening at London's Heathrow airport
Reuters
11 hours ago



LONDON (Reuters) - Britain began screening passengers arriving at London's busiest airport from West Africa for signs of the deadly Ebola virus on Tuesday.

Health Minister Jeremy Hunt said on Monday Britain could expect to see "a handful" of Ebola cases over the next three months, partly due to its status as a popular travel destination.

The Ebola outbreak, the worst on record, has killed more than 4,000 people, mostly in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.

The screening process at London Heathrow will involve passengers who have traveled to the affected area filling out questionnaires to discover any possible exposure to the virus and undertaking temperature checks if necessary.

While there are no direct flights into Britain from the region, many passengers travel to London using indirect flights via other transport hubs. Hunt said the screening was expected to reach 89 percent of those arriving from the affected areas.

By the end of next week the program will be extended to London's Gatwick airport and the Eurostar rail link to Europe.

Anyone found to have recent exposure to the virus, or who displays symptoms, will undergo a clinical assessment and be transferred to hospital if necessary, the government said.

Some public health officials have raised doubts about the effectiveness of border screening given that the virus, which causes fever and bleeding, may not display symptoms during an incubation period that can last up to 21 days.

Last week the chairman of Public Health England, the government body that deals with protection against infectious diseases, warned screening could create a false sense of security.

A Spanish nurse last week became the first person outside Africa known to have caught Ebola. On Sunday a U.S. health worker was confirmed as having caught the virus from a Liberian man being treated in Texas.

The United States has begun a similar screening process at New York's JFK airport and four other major U.S. airports will begin screening later this week.

(Reporting by William James; Editing by Janet Lawrence)


http://news.yahoo.com/britain-begins-ebola-screening-londons-heathrow-airport-123132078.html (http://news.yahoo.com/britain-begins-ebola-screening-londons-heathrow-airport-123132078.html)

Title: Sierra Leone residents clash with police over Ebola response
Post by: Buster's Uncle on October 15, 2014, 01:51:13 am

Sierra Leone residents clash with police over Ebola response
Reuters
By Josephus Olu-Mammah and James Harding Giahyue  3 hours ago


(http://l2.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/rKhujivcf7ZLJa7yMtwzMQ--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9ZmlsbDtoPTMwMDtweW9mZj0wO3E9NzU7dz00NTA-/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/Reuters/2014-10-14T194128Z_1_LYNXNPEA9D0Z0_RTROPTP_2_HEALTH-EBOLA.JPG)
Kande-Bure Kamara from WHO speaks with community leaders at the construction site of a Ebola Care Unit in Kamasondo Village, Port Loko District October 8, 2014. REUTERS/Christopher Black/WHO/Handout via Reuters



FREETOWN/MONROVIA (Reuters) - Sierra Leone security forces on Tuesday clashed with angry residents of a densely populated neighborhood in the capital Freetown who were protesting delays in removing the corpse of a suspected Ebola victim, witnesses said.

Security forces fired tear gas and rounds from AK-47 assault rifles to disperse the crowd that had barricaded the street in the Aberdeen neighborhood in protest, residents and video footage from Reuters television showed.

Sierra Leone alongside Liberia and Guinea are the worst-hit countries by the Ebola epidemic that has killed 4,447 people from 8,914 cases since March. It has spread to Nigeria and Senegal. One case has been reported in Spain and another in the United States.

The World Health Organization warned on Tuesday that the viral hemorrhagic fever was still spreading in the three hardest-hit countries and new cases could reach between 5,000 and 10,000 new cases a week by December.

In a visit to Liberia where the country's transport minister put herself into quarantine after her driver died from the disease, Rajir Shah, the head of USAID promised more U.S. funding to countries in the region to tackle the crisis.

"These new resources will enable the more rapid construction of Ebola treatment units, help expand critical training for healthcare workers and further support teams to mobilize on a nationwide basis," Shah said.

Norway's Minister of Foreign Affairs Borge Brende also announced additional funding to fight the disease during the joint press conference with Shah and Liberia President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf.

Healthcare systems in the affected countries have been strained by the worst Ebola outbreak on record. Patients are dying on the street and ambulances, medical staff, hospital beds and basic health kits are in short supply.

Residents in Freetown's Aberdeen said the body of the young woman who was suspected to have died from Ebola had been left unattended in the street for two days. The government of Sierra Leone was not immediately available to comment.

The Reuters video showed the corpse. It also showed another woman, a suspected Ebola patient, sitting some 100 meters (109 yards) from the body.

It was not immediately clear if there were any casualties from the clash.

Jina Saffah Mojeh, a police assistant inspector general, told Reuters television that the residents had blocked the road and threw stones at the police.

"So I ordered my men to clear the road," Mojeh said. "I have ordered my men to look out for those who are sending missiles so we can arrest them. They cannot take the law into their hand."

Aberdeen resident William Sao Lamin said residents were frustrated by the slow response from health authorities to pick up suspected Ebola cases and remove corpses of victims, fearing the disease will continue to spread.

"Because of the late response of the Ministry of Health officials people are now getting contact with their family members who are suspected cases, who are dead cases," Lamin told Reuters.


MINISTER QUARANTINED

Meanwhile, Liberia's Transport Minister Angeline Cassell-Bush put herself into voluntary quarantine on Tuesday after her driver died of Ebola over the weekend, the ministry said in a statement.

The minister is the second senior government official in Liberia to place themselves in voluntary quarantine after the chief medical officer took the same step in September when her assistant died of the deadly virus.

The statement said the deceased driver had made no contact with the minister, but she had decided to go into quarantine as a further measure to fight the disease.

In Sierra Leone, a medic in a peacekeeping training center in the capital also tested positive for the deadly Ebola virus, a spokesman for the West African nation's armed forces said on Tuesday.

Colonel Michael Samoura had earlier told Reuters the infected man belonged to a battalion of some 870 soldiers due to be deployed as peacekeepers with the African Union's peacekeeping mission in Somalia.

However, he later said the medic was not part of the force. The contingent would not be quarantined but could be placed under observation, Samoura added.

"We cannot rule that out but really there is no cause for alarm as far as the peacekeepers are concerned, because the peacekeepers have their own area where they are encamped. They have their billets far from where this individual was operating," he said.

A second senior military official, who earlier had said the contingent would face a 21-day quarantine, declined to comment further when contacted by Reuters.

The battalion was due to relieve Sierra Leone's contingent already participating in the mission in Somalia, known as AMISOM, in July, but their deployment was delayed due to administrative issues, Samoura said.

(Additional reporting by Umaru Fofana in Freetown; Writing by Bate Felix; Editing by Daniel Flynn, Gareth Jones and Lisa Shumaker)


http://news.yahoo.com/police-clash-residents-sierra-leone-over-slow-ebola-194128396--business.html (http://news.yahoo.com/police-clash-residents-sierra-leone-over-slow-ebola-194128396--business.html)

Title: WHO says Ebola epidemic still spreading in West Africa
Post by: Buster's Uncle on October 15, 2014, 01:56:49 am

WHO says Ebola epidemic still spreading in West Africa
Reuters
By Tom Miles and Kate Kelland  10 hours ago


(http://l.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/_XjWm9gyybF7Otxru_d_xg--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9ZmlsbDtoPTI5NztweW9mZj0wO3E9NzU7dz00NTA-/http://media.zenfs.com/en_ZA/News/Reuters/2014-10-14T141129Z_1007970001_LYNXNPEA9D0PF_RTROPTP_2_OZATP-UK-HEALTH-EBOLA-WHO.JPG)
Bruce Aylward, World Health Organization assistant Director General in charge of the operational response on Ebola gestures during a news briefing at the WHO headquarters in Geneva October 14, 2014. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse



GENEVA/LONDON (Reuters) - The Ebola epidemic is still spreading in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia and the number of cases in West Africa will exceed 9,000 this week, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Tuesday.

The death toll so far in the outbreak, first reported in Guinea in March, has reached 4,447 from a total of 8,914 cases, WHO Assistant Director General Bruce Aylward said.

While there are signs that rates of infection are slowing in some of the worst-hit areas, Aylward said the disease has now reached "more districts, counties and prefectures" than it had a month ago, and said case numbers would continue to rise.

He stressed it would be "really, really premature" to read success into the apparent slowing numbers in some areas, noting that by the first week in December, WHO projections suggest there may be between 5,000 and 10,000 new cases a week.

"It could be higher, it could lower but it's going to be in that ball park," he told reporters from WHO's Geneva headquarters.

"In certain areas were seeing disease coming down but that doesn't mean they're going to go to zero," he said.

The WHO has repeatedly said Ebola cases are under-reported in the three hardest-hit countries, and that understanding the scale and pace of the outbreak is crucial to stopping it.

"We adjust for the numbers reported," Aylward said.

The WHO multiplies the numbers from Guinea by 1.5, from Sierra Leone by 2 and from Liberia by 2.5 to get a more accurate picture, he said.

The published data could also be misleading because the number of known deaths is less than half the number of cases, but that gave a false impression, Aylward said.

The actual mortality rate is about 70 percent, a figure that was consistent across the three worst-hit countries, he said.


http://news.yahoo.com/says-ebola-epidemic-still-spreading-west-africa-141129944.html (http://news.yahoo.com/says-ebola-epidemic-still-spreading-west-africa-141129944.html)

Title: WHO says West Africa Ebola outbreak still expanding geographically
Post by: Buster's Uncle on October 15, 2014, 02:21:49 am

WHO says West Africa Ebola outbreak still expanding geographically
Reuters
11 hours ago



GENEVA/LONDON (Reuters) - The number of Ebola cases in West Africa will go over 9,000 this week and the epidemic is still expanding geographically in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday.

The death toll so far in the outbreak, first reported in Guinea in March, has reached 4,447 from a total of 8,914 cases, said WHO Assistant Director General Bruce Aylward.

While there are signs of rates of infection slowing in some of the worst-hit areas, Aylward said the disease has now reached "more districts, counties and prefectures" than it had a month ago, and said case numbers would continue to rise.

He stressed it would be "really, really premature" to read success into the apparent slowing numbers in some areas, adding that by the first week in December, WHO projections suggest there may be between 5,000 and 10,000 new cases a week.

"We anticipate that the number of cases occuring by that time will be 5,000 to 10,000," he told reporters from the WHO's Geneva headquarters. "It could be higher, it could lower but it's going to be in that ball park."

The total case numbers so far in the outbreak, "will go over 9,000 cases this week," he said, adding: "In certain areas were seeing disease coming down but that doesn't mean they're going to go to zero."


http://news.yahoo.com/says-west-africa-ebola-outbreak-still-expanding-geographically-133148328.html (http://news.yahoo.com/says-west-africa-ebola-outbreak-still-expanding-geographically-133148328.html)

Title: California Ebola researcher seeks more money through crowdfunding
Post by: Buster's Uncle on October 15, 2014, 02:24:41 am

California Ebola researcher seeks more money through crowdfunding
Reuters
By Steve Gorman  October 13, 2014 7:43 PM


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Health workers in protective suits stand near a window at an isolation ward on the sixth floor of Madrid's Carlos III Hospital October 12, 2014. REUTERS/Paul Hanna



LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A California-based immunologist in charge of an international consortium developing new anti-Ebola drugs has turned to Internet "crowdfunding" for extra money needed to speed up the research, she said on Monday.

The group led by Erica Ollman Saphire, a professor at the Scripps Research Institute in San Diego, helped formulate the experimental ZMapp serum that was used to treat two American aid workers who contracted Ebola in Liberia and recovered.

Saphire has posted an appeal on the website www.crowdrise.com/CureEbola (http://www.crowdrise.com/CureEbola) seeking at least $100,000 in contributions for purchasing equipment that will allow researchers to more quickly analyze blood samples of antibodies from survivors of the hemorrhagic fever.

As of Monday, nearly $13,000 had been raised since the crowdfunding appeal was posted on Friday.

The current Ebola epidemic, the worst on record, has killed more than 4,000 people this year, mostly in the West African nations of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.

The Scripps-led consortium was established with a $28 million grant from the National Institutes of Health, but the rapidly growing scope of its work has placed additional demands on limited resources.

Specimens are being sent to Saphire's lab from around the world, "but the number of samples outpaces the ability of her current equipment to process them," the website said in a message.

"With the Ebola virus, we're in a race," Saphire was quoted as saying in the Los Angeles Times. She told Reuters that 25 laboratories in seven countries were providing antibody samples. An institute spokesman said researchers are seeking to improve on ZMapp and to develop alternative treatments.

ZMapp is a mix of three antibodies designed to bind to proteins of the Ebola virus, preventing it from replicating and triggering the immune response of infected cells.

The compound was tested in monkeys, but there were no human trials of the serum before it was rushed to Atlanta to treat U.S. aid workers Dr. Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol at Emory University Hospital after they became infected in Liberia in July. The two were ultimately cured, but doctors are unsure whether the ZMapp actually helped them.

The virus has been known in the past to kill as many as 90 percent of its victims. But nearly 40 percent of patients from the current outbreak have survived without pharmaceutical treatment, according to Dr. Thomas Geisbert, an infectious disease specialist at the University of Texas in Galveston.

ZMapp was co-developed by San Diego-based Mapp Biopharmaceutical Inc.

(Editing by Eric Walsh)


http://news.yahoo.com/california-ebola-researcher-seeks-more-money-crowdfunding-211032599.html (http://news.yahoo.com/california-ebola-researcher-seeks-more-money-crowdfunding-211032599.html)

Title: Polish doctors test man for Ebola virus
Post by: Buster's Uncle on October 15, 2014, 02:27:41 am

Polish doctors test man for Ebola virus
Reuters
October 13, 2014 5:04 PM


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An ambulance is parked near the entrance of Bieganski hospital, where a man pending blood tests on whether he has the Ebola virus is hospitalized at, in Lodz October 13, 2014. REUTERS/Malgorzata Kujawka/Agencja Gazeta



WARSAW (Reuters) - A man has been hospitalized in Poland pending blood tests on whether he has the Ebola virus, but he had not traveled to Africa and the tests were being conducted as a precaution only, a health official said.

The 31-year-old man called for an ambulance on Monday, saying he was feeling unwell, and was taken to the Bieganski hospital in Lodz, about 130 km (80 miles) west of the Polish capital, according to Zbigniew Solarz, a spokesman for the local epidemiological service.

The symptoms he was showing could also be caused by a number of other diseases, for example malaria, Solarz said.


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Police officers stand guard in front of Bieganski hospital, where a man pending blood tests on whether he has the Ebola virus is hospitalized at, in Lodz October 13, 2014. REUTERS/Malgorzata Kujawka/Agencja Gazeta


The man told medical staff that he had been in Germany where he had come into contact with people from Guinea, in West Africa, said Jan Bondar, a spokesman for Poland's sanitary inspectorate. Guinea, along with neighboring Sierra Leone and Liberia has seen the worst outbreaks of the Ebola virus.

But Bondar also said it was unlikely the man could have been infected that way. He said he had not heard of any Ebola cases in Germany, and the man had not traveled to Africa himself.

"The man's blood is being tested. I think the result should be known tomorrow in the afternoon. I think this was an excess of caution."

More than 4,000 people have died of the viral hemorrhagic fever in West Africa, mostly in Liberia, neighboring Sierra Leone and Guinea. It has also reached Nigeria, Senegal, Spain and the United States but outbreaks have been contained so far.

(Reporting by Anna Koper and Adrian Krajewski; Writing by Christian Lowe; Editing by Mark Heinrich)


http://news.yahoo.com/polish-doctors-test-man-ebola-virus-181941869.html (http://news.yahoo.com/polish-doctors-test-man-ebola-virus-181941869.html)

Title: Spanish nurse with Ebola slightly better, doctors say
Post by: Buster's Uncle on October 15, 2014, 02:29:59 am

Spanish nurse with Ebola slightly better, doctors say
Reuters
10 hours ago


(http://l2.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/lbYjOLwuAeD5SrUuXXJ.kQ--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9ZmlsbDtoPTY2NTtweW9mZj0wO3E9NzU7dz05NjA-/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/Reuters/2014-10-14T110817Z_28025274_GM1EAAE1H0Y01_RTRMADP_3_HEALTH-EBOLA-SPAIN.JPG)
Nurses blow toy horns as they gather to support comrade Teresa Romero, the Spanish nurse who contracted Ebola, outside Madrid's Carlos III Hospital where she is hospitalized at, October 14, 2014. Spain will ramp up training for health workers and emergency services dealing with Ebola cases, authorities said on Monday, as a nurse who caught the virus in Madrid after caring for infected patients remained seriously ill. REUTERS/Sergio Perez



MADRID (Reuters) - The Spanish nurse with Ebola, the first person to contract the disease outside West Africa, is slightly better, doctors said on Tuesday, and she remains the only known case in the country.

Teresa Romero's contracting of the disease in Spain sparked an outcry over how that happened in a high-security ward while the 44-year-old was treating two Ebola-infected priests who had been repatriated to Spain.

Health workers' unions have also protested about the political response to the infection and say the government has tried to pass blame for the incident onto the nurse.

One of the doctors treating Romero in the Madrid hospital where 15 others are under observation for Ebola symptoms, Mar Lago, said, "Every day that passes is in our favor."

"The only case we have in Spain is Teresa. She is the only one who can infect and that's not possible because she is isolated," she said, noting that Romero's condition remained grave.

The number of Ebola cases in West Africa will exceed 9,000 this week and the epidemic is still spreading in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, the World Health Organization says.

A group of nurses outside the Carlos III hospital on Tuesday, bearing placards saying "Everyone with Teresa", called for better systems in hospitals to prevent infection.

"We are those who have most contact with the sick, we must have an extremely specific and detailed procedure in place," 45-year-old Lola Serrano.

"She is not the one responsible for catching the disease."

Spain's Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy set up a committee on Friday, led by the deputy prime minister, to over see the handling of the crisis.

Cases in Europe and the United States have been limited so far. A U.N. medical officer who caught Ebola while working in Liberia died in the German hospital where he was being treated, the clinic said on Tuesday.

On Sunday, a U.S. health worker was confirmed as having caught the virus from a Liberian man being treated in Texas.

Britain on Tuesday began screening passengers arriving at London's Heathrow airport from West Africa for the disease.

(Reporting by Rodrigo de Miguel and Sonya Dowsett; Editing by Louise Ireland)


http://news.yahoo.com/spanish-nurse-ebola-slightly-better-doctors-145631697.html (http://news.yahoo.com/spanish-nurse-ebola-slightly-better-doctors-145631697.html)

Title: WHO says Ebola epidemic still spreading in West Africa
Post by: Buster's Uncle on October 15, 2014, 02:32:58 am

WHO says Ebola epidemic still spreading in West Africa
Reuters
By Tom Miles and Kate Kelland  3 hours ago


(http://l1.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/6aQkpE4w2yw8_WknvSxTDg--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9ZmlsbDtoPTcwMDtweW9mZj0wO3E9NzU7dz0xMDUz/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/ap_webfeeds/b68d21fd495b6728620f6a7067003fc0.jpg)
Liberian children read a leaflet with guidelines to protect the community from the Ebola virus, in Monrovia, Liberia. Monday, Oct. 13, 2014. Some nurses in Liberia defied calls for a strike on Monday and turned up for work at hospitals amid the worst Ebola outbreak in history. In view of the danger of their work, members of the National Health Workers Association are demanding higher monthly hazard pay. The association has more than 10,000 members, though the health ministry says only about 1,000 of those are employed at sites receiving Ebola patients. (AP Photo/Abbas Dulleh)



GENEVA/LONDON (Reuters) - The Ebola epidemic is still spreading in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia and projections show there could be between 5,000 and 10,000 new cases a week in early December, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday.

The death toll so far in the outbreak, first reported in Guinea in March, has reached 4,447 from a total of 8,914 cases, WHO Assistant Director General Bruce Aylward said. WHO said the number of cases in West Africa will exceed 9,000 this week.

While there are signs that rates of infection are slowing in some of the worst-hit areas, Aylward said the disease has now reached "more districts, counties and prefectures" than it had a month ago, and case numbers would continue to rise.

He stressed it would be "really, really premature" to read success into the apparent slowing numbers in some areas. Aylward told reporters at WHO's Geneva headquarters that the projections for December "could be higher, it could lower but it's going to be in that ball park."

The published data could also be misleading because the number of known deaths is less than half the number of cases, but that gave a false impression, Aylward said. The actual mortality rate is about 70 percent, a figure that was consistent across the three worst-hit countries, he said.


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Ebola outbreak in west Africa, Nigeria and aboard as of Oct. 10, 2014. (World Health Organization/Yahoo News)


Senior U.N. officials briefed the United Nations Security Council on the Ebola crisis on Tuesday.

Anthony Banbury, head of the U.N. Ebola mission in West Africa, said the WHO had advised that by Dec. 1 at least 70 percent of infected people must be at a care facility and 70 percent of burials done without causing further infection.

"If we reach these targets then we can turn this epidemic around," he told the 15-member council via video link. "I'm grateful for the commitments by member states of civilian and military personnel, of material and of money, but I am deeply, deeply worried that all of this combined is not nearly enough."

Banbury said a projection of some 10,000 cases a week by Dec. 1 meant 7,000 beds would be needed for treatment, but under current planning only 4,300 beds would be available by then and many of those would not have staff to operate them.

"To make up for the gap in beds, we must build about 2,700 beds in community care centers, or about 300 such centers. We will also need staff to manage the facilities," Banbury said. "We need to go from about 50 burial teams to about 500 and we need to equip those teams with about 1,000 vehicles."

The WHO has repeatedly said Ebola cases are under-reported in the three hardest-hit countries, and that understanding the scale and pace of the outbreak is crucial. Aylward said the WHO multiplies numbers from Guinea by 1.5, from Sierra Leone by 2 and from Liberia by 2.5 to get a more accurate picture.

(Additional reporting by Michelle Nichols at the United Nations, Editing by Louise Ireland)


http://news.yahoo.com/says-west-africa-ebola-outbreak-still-expanding-geographically-123659204.html (http://news.yahoo.com/says-west-africa-ebola-outbreak-still-expanding-geographically-123659204.html)

Title: Ebola and food security topic at World Food Prize
Post by: Buster's Uncle on October 15, 2014, 02:34:55 am

Ebola and food security topic at World Food Prize
Associated Press
By DAVID PITT  October 13, 2014 8:04 PM


DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — The West African Ebola epidemic and its impact on food security will be a topic of discussion as international dignitaries gather for the annual World Food Prize award ceremony to discuss the challenges of feeding a growing world population.

Sierra Leone and Liberia are among the nations represented at the World Food Prize Foundation's three-day symposium held each year in conjunction with the awarding of the prize.

While not initially scheduled as a topic, the fact that prominent West African government officials planned to attend meant Ebola would become part of the discussion, said World Food Prize Foundation President Kenneth Quinn.

"What you see is this global connectivity of food supply," he said. "We're fortunate in America to have an abundance of food, but these impacts can hit here as well."

Sierra Leone President Ernest Bai Koroma had been scheduled to travel to Des Moines to deliver a Thursday morning keynote address but is staying home, Quinn said. Plans are being made for him to deliver his speech via satellite from Freetown, the nation's capital city.

More than 2,500 confirmed cases of Ebola and 753 deaths have been reported in Sierra Leone, the World Health Organization said last week. The country's agriculture minister for forestry and food security and a special adviser to Koroma, Monty Jones, the 2004 World Food Prize laureate, plans to attend.

Liberia's Agriculture Minister Florence Chenoweth also plans to travel to Des Moines for a panel discussion. More than 1,000 people in Liberia have died and an additional 1,200 deaths were likely caused by the disease, the WHO said.

Quinn said discussion will include the immediate impact of the Ebola epidemic on food production and distribution in the countries at the center of the outbreak. The gathered experts also will talk about how such events affect the ability to provide enough food for an estimated global population of 9 billion by 2050, Quinn said.

One example of how the health care crisis more than 5,000 miles away could affect food production in the United States is the potential impact on the production and distribution of cocoa beans used in making chocolate.

More than 70 percent of the world's cocoa beans come from more than 2 million rural farmers in West African nations including Ivory Coast, which closed its borders to neighboring Guinea and Liberia this summer.

The World Cocoa Foundation, an international nonprofit trade association of 115 chocolate and cocoa companies, plans to announce Wednesday that it has raised money to donate to the International Red Cross and other organizations helping the region deal with the virus and preventing its spread into major cocoa producing countries.

"The communities they are living in are quite fragile and when an external threat like this hits a fragile community it is even more susceptible to it," said Tim McCoy, a World Cocoa Foundation spokesman.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations said last week that Ebola is already reducing the purchasing power of tens of thousands of vulnerable households in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, "which means less food on their plates and increased nutritional risks for families already on subsistence diets," Bukar Tijani, a regional representative for the FAO in Africa, said in a statement. "Fear and stigmatization also threaten to reduce agricultural activities, thereby placing food security at risk."

The World Food Prize was founded in 1986 by Norman Borlaug, recipient of the 1970 Nobel Prize for boosting agricultural production in what has become known as the Green Revolution.


http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-food-security-topic-world-210955378.html (http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-food-security-topic-world-210955378.html)

Title: 'Biggest Risk' in Ebola Protection Is Gear Removal
Post by: Buster's Uncle on October 15, 2014, 03:04:04 am

'Biggest Risk' in Ebola Protection Is Gear Removal
LiveScience.com
By Tanya Lewis  October 13, 2014 6:56 PM


A "breach in protocol" is what led a nurse in Dallas to become the first person infected with Ebola in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The nurse was involved in treating Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan, and her case has researchers trying to figure out exactly what went wrong with the safety protocols.

Ebola spreads through contact with an infected person's bodily fluids. Guidelines for health care workers recommend using personal protective equipment, including gloves, a fluid-resistant gown, goggles or a face shield and a face mask. They also recommend certain techniques — such as turning gloves inside out when removing them — that allow workers to safely remove the equipment after contact with an Ebola patient.


How contamination can happen

"The greatest risk overall is probably taking off or 'doffing' the equipment," said Dr. Sandro Cinti, an infectious-disease specialist at the University of Michigan Health System/VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System.

In removing the equipment, health care workers should take care not to contaminate themselves or their clothing, Cinti said. Ebola can't get into the body through the skin itself, but having the virus on the skin means it could be transferred to the eyes or other mucous membranes, where it can enter the body, Cinti said. "Even a small breach can lead to an infection," he said.

In some situations, such as when there's a lot of blood or bodily fluids present, additional gear — such as double gloves, disposable shoe covers and leg coverings — may be needed, according to the CDC. Many hospitals are now looking at whether to expand the gear their workers wear to include disposable protective coveralls known as Tyvek suits, Cinti said.

When donning the equipment, "it's important to ensure the hands and wrists are covered completely, and the best way to do that is to have workers watch each other don the equipment," Cinti told Live Science.

Equipment should be discarded after use or, if it's reusable, cleaned and disinfected, according to the CDC. Frequent hand washing is also critical for preventing infection. "This virus is easily killed by soap and the hand washes we use," Cinti said.


How did the Dallas nurse get Ebola?

It's not yet clear exactly how the Dallas nurse — who has been identified as Nina Pham, according to Dallas news station WFAA— acquired the virus. The woman had extensive contact with the infected patient after he was admitted to Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital on Sept. 28, CDC officials said.

She had been monitoring herself for symptoms, and had not been at work for two days before being admitted to the hospital and put into isolation. Officials are now monitoring other health care workers who also treated Duncan, according to the CDC.

The nurse's infection is worrisome, but should not be cause for panic, Cinti said.

People do not need to be concerned about going to a hospital if there's an Ebola patient there, and health care workers can avoid infection if proper precautions are taken, he said.

"Many health care workers have been exposed [to Ebola] in taking care of patients," Cinti said. Although some of them have become infected, it's "quite uncommon," even in Liberia, he said.

A nurse in Spain who recently became infected with Ebola after caring for two Spanish missionaries is showing signs of improvement, NBC News reported today.

The current Ebola outbreak in West Africa is the worst in history, and is responsible for the deaths of more than 4,000 people so far, according to the CDC.


http://news.yahoo.com/biggest-risk-ebola-protection-gear-removal-225621223.html (http://news.yahoo.com/biggest-risk-ebola-protection-gear-removal-225621223.html)

Title: Sierra Leone soldier with Ebola is not peacekeeper
Post by: Buster's Uncle on October 15, 2014, 03:39:14 am

Sierra Leone soldier with Ebola is not peacekeeper
Associated Press
By CLARENCE ROY-MACAULAY and LYNSEY CHUTEL  4 hours ago


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Father Jim Khoi prays the rosary at the Our Lady of Fatima Church where the family of nurse Nina Pham attend, Monday, Oct. 13, 2014, in Fort Worth, Texas. Pham, 26, became the first person to contract Ebola within the United States. (AP Photo/LM Otero)



FREETOWN, Sierra Leone (AP) — A Sierra Leone soldier has tested positive for Ebola but he is not a member of, and had no contact with, a battalion of peacekeepers waiting to deploy to Somalia, a government spokesman said Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Liberia's transport minister said she was voluntarily isolating herself inside her home after her driver died of Ebola.

The two situations underscore the precautions being taken to minimize the spread of the deadly disease, and the risks inherent in the movement of people.

In another example of the disease's relentless march, Doctors Without Borders said Tuesday that 16 of its staff members have been infected with Ebola and that nine have died. The toll highlights the high risk of caring for Ebola patients even at well-equipped and properly staffed treatment centers.

Angela Bush, Liberia's transport minister, said her last contact with her driver, who died over the weekend of the disease, was on Oct. 3. She did not know he was sick with Ebola until after his death, she said. She is not showing any symptoms of the disease, but Liberia's government has asked people to keep themselves isolated for 21 days if they think they have been exposed.

The country's chief medical officer put herself under quarantine about two weeks ago, after her office assistant died of Ebola.

Fear of Ebola's spread has already slowed the deployment of a battalion of Sierra Leone troops, who were supposed to relieve soldiers serving with an African Union mission to protect the Somali government and fight al-Shabab militants. The replacement's deployment was put on hold this summer when the Ebola outbreak in West Africa spiraled out of control.

Earlier this month, Osman Keh Kamara, Sierra Leone's ambassador to Ethiopia, where the AU has its headquarters, pleaded for the new battalion be allowed to rotate in and relieve their compatriots, saying the troops in Sierra Leone had been held in isolation for four months and screened for Ebola.

In recent days, the African Union agreed to that request, an official with the military mission said Tuesday. He insisted on anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the press.

It was unclear if the announcement of the Ebola case would throw the deployment into doubt again. A Sierra Leone government spokesman stressed that the two are unrelated.

The soldier became ill while working at a military facility in Bengwema, and has been admitted to a military hospital, according to Abdulai Bayraytay, a spokesman with Sierra Leone's Ministry of Information. Meanwhile, the Somali-bound troops were being held in isolation at a separate facility in Hastings. The two towns, both near the capital Freetown, are about 20 kilometers (13 miles) from one another.

"This one case has no contact absolutely with the 850 troops on standby," Bayraytay said.

The Ebola outbreak that was first identified in March has devastated Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. More than 4,400 deaths have been linked to Ebola so far and even that may be an underestimate, according to the World Health Organization.

Health workers have been particularly hard hit, further reducing the number of clinicians in countries that already had too few doctors and nurses to begin with. On Tuesday night, Guinea put out a call on national TV for the country's retired doctors to come back to work to respond to the crisis.

The United States, meanwhile, will give awnother $142 million, on top of the millions already pledged, to the fight against Ebola, Rajiv Shah, the head of the U.S. Agency for International Development, announced Tuesday in Liberia. The money will go toward building treatment centers, training staff to run them and supporting burial teams that do the dangerous work of collecting the bodies of those who have died from the disease.

"Our goal was to learn about what's happening here and try to accelerate the efforts so that fewer people die and more people survive so that we really turn the tide on this epidemic," Shah said of his tour of the region.

But Doctors Without Borders told reporters Tuesday that more help is needed to battle the outbreak.

"Where is WHO Africa? Where is the African Union?" asked Sharon Ekambaram, the head of Doctors Without Borders in South Africa, who worked in Sierra Leone from August to September. "We've all heard their promises in the media but have seen very little on the ground."

Juli Switala, a South African pediatrician with Doctors Without Borders, said her team made the difficult decision not to resuscitate babies who were not newborn out of fear that staff may be infected by bodily fluids. The clinic in the town of Bo in Sierra Leone similarly decided to turn away pregnant women because childbirth poses a greater risk to staff.

___

Chutel reported from Johannesburg. Associated Press journalist Jonathan Paye-Layleh and Wade Williams in Monrovia, Liberia, Boubacar Diallo in Conakry, Guinea, and Abdi Guled in Mogadishu, Somalia, contributed to this report.


http://news.yahoo.com/doctors-without-borders-loses-9-medics-ebola-125822963.html (http://news.yahoo.com/doctors-without-borders-loses-9-medics-ebola-125822963.html)

Title: American doctor's heartbreaking tale of encounter with Ebola in Liberia
Post by: Buster's Uncle on October 15, 2014, 03:43:40 am

American doctor's heartbreaking tale of encounter with Ebola in Liberia
Yahoo News
By Dylan Stableford  7 hours ago


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A doctor outside the JFK Ebola treatment center speaks to journalists on October 13, 2014 in Monrovia, Liberia. (Getty Images/John Moore)



As U.S. health officials face questions over the handling of the first case of Ebola diagnosed in the United States, an American emergency room doctor is recounting the heartbreaking story of Samuel Brisbane, the first Liberian doctor to die in the West African country's Ebola outbreak.

Brisbane, director of the emergency department at Monrovia's John F. Kennedy Memorial Medical Center, was "at once caring and profane, light-hearted one minute, intense the next," Dr. Josh Mugele, assistant professor of clinical emergency medicine at Indiana University's School of Medicine, writes in the New England Journal of Medicine. "A short, bald man with weathered skin and thick glasses, he spoke openly and easily; his laugh was best described as a giggle, and he swore frequently."

According to Mugele, who worked closely with Brisbane on the hospital's disaster-medicine program in 2013, the 74-year-old doctor worried about the hospital's ability to treat a viral hemorrhagic fever like Ebola:

Quote

When we conducted an initial vulnerability analysis for the hospital, we discussed our concerns about severe supply and personnel shortages, regular power outages, and occasional electrical fires. Dr. Brisbane replied that what scared him the most was the potential for an epidemic of some viral hemorrhagic fever. He was right to be scared. We encountered rationing of gloves, a limited supply of hand soap, and an institutional hesitance to practice universal precautions, probably because of the limited resources. The hospital was not prepared for the kind of epidemic it's now facing — nor was the city of about 1.5 million people.

Yet Brisbane, a father of eight biological and six adopted children and the owner of a successful coffee plantation, continued despite knowing the risks.

When Mugele returned to Monrovia in June, a few months into the current Ebola outbreak in West Africa, there "was no clear plan for what to do if a patient suspected of having Ebola showed up at the hospital. How would staff members protect themselves? How would they isolate the patient? How could they move the patient to one of the ministry's isolation centers?"

Brisbane, Mugele writes, "was a wreck. He chattered nervously, his smile disappeared when he thought we weren't watching, and he openly wondered how he could protect himself. He told us bluntly, 'Leave Monrovia.'"

He "checked his temperature religiously, fearing the telltale sudden fever," Mugele continues. "He wore a fedora in the hospital as a protective talisman. And yet he still joked with us, displaying a sort of gallows humor."

After Mugele returned to the United States, Brisbane treated a patient with "suspected Ebola," according to the hospital. Brisbane came down with Ebola symptoms a few days later and died on July 26.

"With apologies to his wife and family, who saw him die horribly and unjustly," Mugele writes, "we believe [Brisbane] died a good death — as did all the nurses and doctors who have sacrificed themselves caring for patients with this awful disease."

According to the World Health Organization, there have been more than 8,900 reported cases of Ebola since the outbreak began in March, and 4,447 deaths as a result of the virus — nearly all of them in West Africa. Liberia has been the hardest-hit, with more than 4,000 reported cases and at least 2,316 deaths from the disease.

The number of doctors, nurses and other health care workers who have become infected with Ebola has been "unprecedented," WHO said. Through Aug. 25, more than 240 health care workers had developed Ebola in West Africa, the organization said, and more than half of them died.

Dr. Bruce Aylward, WHO assistant director general, said Tuesday that if the global response to the Ebola crisis isn't stepped up within 60 days, "a lot more people will die." West Africa, Aylward said, could face up to 10,000 new Ebola cases a week.


http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-dr-samuel-brisbane-first-liberian-doctor-to-die-190740145.html (http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-dr-samuel-brisbane-first-liberian-doctor-to-die-190740145.html)

Title: German hospital: UN worker dies of Ebola
Post by: Buster's Uncle on October 15, 2014, 03:47:44 am

German hospital: UN worker dies of Ebola
Associated Press  16 hours ago



BERLIN (AP) — A United Nations medical worker who was infected with Ebola in Liberia has died despite "intensive medical procedures," a German hospital said Tuesday.

The St. Georg hospital in Leipzig said the 56-year-old man, whose name has not been released, died overnight of the infection. It released no further details and did not answer telephone calls.

The man tested positive for Ebola on Oct. 6, prompting Liberia's UN peacekeeping mission to place 41 staff members who had possibly been in contact with him under "close medical observation."

He arrived in Leipzig for treatment on Oct. 9. The hospital's chief executive, Dr. Iris Minde, said at the time that there was no risk of infection for other patients, relatives, visitors or the public.

The man was kept in a secure isolation ward specially equipped with negative pressure rooms that are hermetically sealed and can only be accessed through a number of airlocks. All air and fluids are filtered and all equipment is decontaminated after use, Minde said.

The Ebola patient was the third to be flown to Germany for treatment.

The first, a Senegalese man infected with Ebola while working for the World Health Organization in Sierra Leone was brought to a Hamburg hospital in late August for treatment. The man was released Oct. 3 after recovering and returned to his home country, the hospital said.

Another patient, a Ugandan man who worked for an Italian aid group in West Africa, is undergoing treatment in a Frankfurt hospital.


http://news.yahoo.com/german-hospital-un-worker-dies-ebola-082155030.html (http://news.yahoo.com/german-hospital-un-worker-dies-ebola-082155030.html)

Title: CDC acknowledges it could have done more on Ebola
Post by: Buster's Uncle on October 15, 2014, 03:52:01 am

CDC acknowledges it could have done more on Ebola
Associated Press
By EMILY SCHMALL and NOMAAN MERCHANT  1 hour ago


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FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) — The nation's top disease-fighting agency acknowledged Tuesday that federal health experts failed to do all they should have done to prevent Ebola from spreading from a Liberian man who died last week in Texas to the nurse who treated him.

The stark admission from the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention came as the World Health Organization projected the pace of infections accelerating in West Africa — to as many as 10,000 new cases a week within two months.

Agency Director Tom Frieden outlined a series of steps designed to stop the spread of the disease in the U.S., including increased training for health care workers and changes at the Texas hospital where the virus was diagnosed to minimize the risk of more infections.

A total of 76 people at the hospital might have had exposure to Thomas Eric Duncan, and all of them are being monitored for fever and other symptoms daily, Frieden said.

That figure confirmed an Associated Press report on Monday that Pham was among about 70 hospital staffers who were involved in Duncan's care after he was hospitalized, based on medical records provided by Duncan's family.

The announcement of the government's stepped-up effort came after top health officials repeatedly assured the public over the last two weeks that they were doing everything possible to control the outbreak by deploying infectious-disease specialists to the hospital where Duncan was diagnosed with Ebola and later died.


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This Texas Christian University yearbook photo shows Nina Pham, 26, who became the first person to contract the disease within the United States. Records show that Pham and other health care workers wore protective gear, including gowns, gloves, masks and face shields and sometimes full-body suits when caring for Thomas Eric Duncan. (AP Photo/Courtesy of tcu360.com)


"I wish we had put a team like this on the ground the day the patient — the first patient — was diagnosed. That might have prevented this infection. But we will do that from today onward with any case anywhere in the U.S.," Frieden said.

Frieden described the new response team as having some of the world's leading experts in how to care for Ebola and protect health care workers. They planned to review everything from how the isolation room is laid out, to what protective equipment health workers use, to waste management and decontamination.

In Europe, the WHO said the death rate in the outbreak has risen to 70 percent as it has killed nearly 4,500 people, most of them in West Africa. The previous mortality rate was about 50 percent.

President Barack Obama, speaking at the end of a meeting with U.S. and allied military leaders, declared that the "the world is not doing enough" to fight Ebola.

"Everybody's going to have to do more than they are doing right now, he said.


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Protect Environmental workers move disposal barrels to a staging area outside the apartment of a healthcare worker who treated Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan and tested positive for the disease, Monday, Oct. 13, 2014, in Dallas. (AP Photo/Brandon Wade)


Nina Pham became the first person to contract the disease on U.S. soil as she cared for Duncan. Pham released a statement Tuesday through Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital saying she is "doing well," and the hospital listed her in good condition. The hospital CEO said medical staff members remain hopeful about her condition.

The 26-year-old nurse had been in Duncan's room often, from the day he was placed in intensive care until the day before he died last week.

"I'm doing well and want to thank everyone for their kind wishes and prayers," she said.

Pham's parents live in Fort Worth, where they are part of a close-knit, deeply religious community of Vietnamese Catholics. Members of their church held a special Mass for her Monday and sorority sisters at the Texas Christian University held a candlelight vigil for her Tuesday. At the hospital, she received a plasma transfusion from a doctor who beat the virus.

She and other health care workers wore protective gear, including gowns, gloves, masks and face shields — and sometimes full-body suits — when caring for Duncan. Health officials have said there was a breach in protocol that led to the infections, but they don't know where the breakdown occurred.

Among the changes announced Tuesday by Frieden was a plan to limit the number of health care workers who care for Ebola patients so they "can become more familiar and more systematic in how they put on and take off protective equipment, and they can become more comfortable in a healthy way with providing care in the isolation unit."

Frieden said he was fully aware of the fear among health care workers in Texas and around the country about the risks of contracting the virus should it spread further. In response, he said an on-site manager who is an expert in infectious diseases will be in charge of every step of the process, along with new training for health care workers.

"Ebola is unfamiliar. It's scary, and getting it right is really, really important because the stakes are so high," he said, adding that he wishes the CDC had done more from the beginning.

"We did send some expertise in infection control, but I think we could in retrospect, with 20/20 hindsight, we could have sent a more robust hospital infection-control team and been more hands on with the hospital from day one about how exactly this should be managed," Frieden said.

The agency explained that its initial priority in Dallas was public health: tracking down anyone who had contact with Duncan to be sure there was no spread of the virus in the community, CDC spokeswoman Barbara Reynolds said.

___

Associated Press writers Martha Mendoza, Maud Beelman and Alex Sanz in Dallas and Tammy Webber in Chicago also contributed to this report.


http://news.yahoo.com/doctor-gives-blood-ebola-infected-dallas-nurse-050231595.html (http://news.yahoo.com/doctor-gives-blood-ebola-infected-dallas-nurse-050231595.html)

Title: Maine hospital observing patient as possible Ebola case
Post by: Buster's Uncle on October 15, 2014, 04:18:55 am

Maine hospital observing patient as possible Ebola case
Reuters
By Dave Sherwood  11 hours ago



PORTLAND Maine (Reuters) - A patient in Portland, Maine, is being held for observation for a potential case of Ebola at the request of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, health officials said.

No information about the patient, his condition or travels has been released by the hospital, and there is no confirmation of Ebola, according to Dr. August Valenti, an infectious disease specialist at Maine Medical Center. He said in a statement that the decision was a precautionary step.

"Maine Medical Center is using policies developed by the World Health Organization. Those policies exceed the policies of Center for Disease Control and represent the strictest of guidelines," Valenti said.

Hospitals across the United States are on high alert as authorities continue to investigate how a nurse in an isolation ward at a hospital in Texas contracted Ebola, the first instance of a person contracting the disease on U.S. soil.

Numerous other Ebola scares in the past week, including one in which passengers at Boston's Logan Airport were removed from an airplane that had arrived from Dubai, have turned out to be false alarms.

Portland hospital officials said health workers there are using a higher level of protective apparel than that recommended by the CDC.

The Maine hospital's response comes as medical experts, including CDC chief Dr. Thomas Frieden, have acknowledged a need to rethink how highly infectious diseases are handled in the United States.

The current Ebola outbreak, the worst on record, has killed some 4,447 people, mostly in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea in West Africa.

(Editing by Scott Malone and Doina Chiacu)


http://news.yahoo.com/maine-hospital-observing-patient-possible-ebola-case-140129897.html (http://news.yahoo.com/maine-hospital-observing-patient-possible-ebola-case-140129897.html)

Title: Zuckerberg donates $25 million to Ebola fight
Post by: Buster's Uncle on October 15, 2014, 04:20:35 am

Zuckerberg donates $25 million to Ebola fight
AFP
11 hours ago


(http://l.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/Kb7SpDqeFLR6aVBtewyPWA--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9ZmlsbDtoPTYzMztweW9mZj0wO3E9NzU7dz05NjA-/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/afp.com/Part-WAS-Was8872325-1-1-0.jpg)
Facebook Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg speaks during an interview session at the Newseum in Washington, DC, September 18, 2013 (AFP Photo/Jim Watson)



Washington (AFP) - Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg said Tuesday he and his wife were donating $25 million to help US efforts to contain the deadly Ebola epidemic.

"The Ebola epidemic is at a critical turning point. It has infected 8,400 people so far, but it is spreading very quickly and projections suggest it could infect one million people or more over the next several months if not addressed," Zuckerberg said on his Facebook page.

"We need to get Ebola under control in the near term so that it doesn't spread further and become a long term global health crisis that we end up fighting for decades at large scale, like HIV or polio."

He said he and his wife Priscilla were donating the funds to the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Foundation.

"We believe our grant is the quickest way to empower the CDC and the experts in this field to prevent this outcome," Zuckerberg said.

"Grants like this directly help the frontline responders in their heroic work. These people are on the ground setting up care centers, training local staff, identifying Ebola cases and much more."

The Ebola virus has already killed more than 4,000 people, most in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Underfunded health systems in west Africa have been crippled by the disease, which has spiraled out of control and infected 7,400 people since the beginning of the year.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation last month pledged $50 million to help boost the fight against the Ebola outbreak, providing the funds to UN agencies and international organizations involved in the outbreak.


http://news.yahoo.com/zuckerberg-donates-25-million-ebola-fight-154219366.html (http://news.yahoo.com/zuckerberg-donates-25-million-ebola-fight-154219366.html)

Title: Family that lived with Texas Ebola victim showing no symptoms -mayor
Post by: Buster's Uncle on October 15, 2014, 04:24:58 am

Family that lived with Texas Ebola victim showing no symptoms -mayor
Reuters
12 hours ago


(http://l.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/SRwG3qvQUDq8AYVoS3qKTg--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9ZmlsbDtoPTMxMTtweW9mZj0wO3E9NzU7dz00NTA-/http://media.zenfs.com/en_ZA/News/Reuters/2014-10-14T144012Z_1007970001_LYNXNPEA9D0QY_RTROPTP_2_OZATP-US-HEALTH-EBOLA-USA.JPG)
A worker in hazardous material suit is sprayed down by a co-worker after coming out of an apartment unit where a man diagnosed with the Ebola virus was staying in Dallas, Texas, October 5, 2014. REUTERS/Jim Young



WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The family who shared an apartment with a Liberian man who died of Ebola in Texas is showing no signs of illness, while the dog of a nurse who contracted the deadly virus is healthy and being cared for, Dallas's mayor said on Tuesday.

Thomas Eric Duncan's girlfriend, her 13-year-old son and two nephews in their 20s had been living with Duncan before he was admitted to a Dallas hospital on Sept. 28.

"So far no signs of the virus in any of them," Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings said on CNN. "We check them twice a day, and everybody's healthy."

Rawlings said none of the other people being monitored after contact with Duncan, who died Oct. 8, have gotten sick. There is a 21-day incubation period for the virus that has killed at least 4,400 people, predominantly in West Africa.

Federal health officials are working around the clock at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, Rawlings said, as the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tries to determine how 26-year-old nurse Nina Pham became infected while caring for Duncan in an isolation ward where he was treated for 11 days.

Pham's dog, Bentley, a 1-year-old King Charles Spaniel, was taken from her apartment Monday night and is being cared for in isolation, said the mayor, who called the nurse a hero.

"That dog was very important to her. We want to make sure that dog is healthy as can be at this point and being taken care of at this point," Rawlings said. He said Pham was sent a video of her pet, "so hopefully that buoys her up a bit."

Officials have said they do not know how the virus infected Pham, who was wearing protective gear while caring for Duncan. She is the first person known to have contracted Ebola in the United States.

Dr. Brett Giroir, who was appointed by Texas Governor Rick Perry to lead a task force on infectious disease preparedness, said on CNN that every person at the Dallas hospital who had any contact with Duncan was interviewed by the CDC and local health authorities and assessed for risk.

He would not say how many hospital workers were on that list. Those who had real contact with Duncan were being actively monitored by the CDC, he said.

Ebola, which can cause fever, vomiting and diarrhea, spreads through contact with bodily fluids such as blood or saliva.

The infection of the Dallas nurse is the second known to have occurred outside West Africa since the outbreak that began in March. It follows that of a nurse's aide in Spain who helped treat a missionary from Sierra Leone who died of the virus.

Texas Health Presbyterian has been criticized for not admitting Duncan the first time he went to the hospital.

"He should have been identified as an Ebola patient and put in isolation," Giroir said. "There will clearly be lessons learned from this incident."


http://news.yahoo.com/family-lived-texas-ebola-victim-showing-no-symptoms-144012156.html (http://news.yahoo.com/family-lived-texas-ebola-victim-showing-no-symptoms-144012156.html)

Title: U.S. sets up rapid-response Ebola team; Dallas nurse improves
Post by: Buster's Uncle on October 15, 2014, 04:30:31 am

U.S. sets up rapid-response Ebola team; Dallas nurse improves
Reuters
By Terry Wade  5 hours ago


(http://l1.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/Eum7bTbf64CZ0.Ghrva8Bg--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9ZmlsbDtoPTMxMDtweW9mZj0wO3E9NzU7dz00NTA-/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/Reuters/2014-10-14T211811Z_1_LYNXNPEA9D11E_RTROPTP_2_HEALTH-EBOLA-USA-TRAINING.JPG)
Registered nurse (RN) Sandy Sheble-Hall removes his goggles as per proper protocol directives given by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) instructors in preparation for the response to the current Ebola outbreak, during a CDC safety training course in Anniston, Alabama, October 6, 2014. REUTERS/Tami Chappell



DALLAS (Reuters) - The United States is establishing a rapid-response team to help hospitals "within hours" whenever there is a case of Ebola, the top doctor leading the fight against the deadly virus said on Tuesday.

Prospects for a quick end to the contagion fell as the World Health Organization (WHO) predicted that three impoverished countries in West Africa - Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea - could produce as many as 10,000 new cases per week by early December.

U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) director Dr. Thomas Frieden, acknowledging the lapses in treatment in Dallas for a Liberian man in late September, told reporters:

"I wish we had put a team like this on the ground the day the first patient was diagnosed ... but we will do that from today onward with any case in the U.S."

"We will be there, hands on, within hours, helping hospitals with the situation if there is another case," he said.

A nurse who contracted Ebola from the Liberian patient, Thomas Eric Duncan, in a Dallas hospital said on Tuesday she was doing well, while Frieden said 76 people were still being monitored in the Dallas area. The nurse, Nina Pham, 26, is "in good condition," Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital said in a statement.

U.S. President Barack Obama, addressing defense chiefs from about 20 countries, said "the world as a whole is not doing enough" to combat the hemorrhagic fever and must stop it at its source. Health authorities say the outbreak in West Africa is the worst on record with at least 4,447 dead. An unrelated outbreak has killed more than 40 people in Democratic Republic of the Congo.


(http://l.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/J6bwLp2Y3nB1CnhRnOdxpw--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9ZmlsbDtoPTMzNztweW9mZj0wO3E9NzU7dz00NTA-/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/Reuters/2014-10-14T184922Z_1_LYNXNPEA9D0XX_RTROPTP_2_US-HEALTH-EBOLA-USA-DOG.JPG)
A man wearing a hazardous material suit prepares to remove a pet dog named Bentley from the home of a nurse infected with Ebola, in this handout picture released by the City of Dallas, Texas, October 13, 2014. REUTERS/City of Dallas/Handout


Ebola, which can cause fever, bleeding, vomiting and diarrhea, spreads through contact with bodily fluids such as blood or saliva. The Dallas nurse, Pham, became the first person infected by Ebola in the United States while caring for Duncan for much of his 11 days in the hospital. He died on Oct. 8.

Pham received a transfusion on Monday containing antibodies to fight the virus, according to a Roman Catholic priest in her congregation. Duncan did not receive one because he did not match the donor's blood type. Christian relief group Samaritan's Purse has said that Dr. Kent Brantly, a physician who survived an Ebola infection, donated plasma to Pham.

“I’m doing well and want to thank everyone for their kind wishes and prayers," Pham said in a statement released by the hospital. "I am blessed by the support of family and friends."

The CDC's Frieden said at a news conference that 48 people who had potential contact with Duncan "have passed through the highest risk period" for developing Ebola symptoms. He said 76 people who may have come into contact with Duncan after he was hospitalized on Sept. 28 now were being monitored. That group includes Pham and other health workers and hospital staff.


WHITE HOUSE DEFENDS CDC'S FRIEDEN

The hospital has been criticized for not admitting Duncan the first time he sought help, days after arriving in the United States from Liberia. He returned days later in an ambulance.

"We did send some expertise in infection control, but I think ... we could have sent a more robust hospital infection control team and been more hands on," Frieden said on Tuesday.


(http://l2.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/4W7VDozYm82dwzyp87Vx0A--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9ZmlsbDtoPTMxMTtweW9mZj0wO3E9NzU7dz00NTA-/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/Reuters/2014-10-14T184922Z_1_LYNXNPEA9D0XY_RTROPTP_2_US-HEALTH-EBOLA-USA-PATIENT.JPG)
A member of the Protect HazMat team carries protective clothing and supplies near the apartment of the health worker who was infected with the Ebola virus at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas, Texas October 13, 2014. REUTERS/Jaime R. Carrero


He said two nurses from Emory University's Serious Communicable Disease Unit are now on the ground working with the Dallas hospital on the proper use of personal protective gear.

Frieden is recommending that the hospital limit the number of staff who care for Pham so that people who treat her can become more familiar and more comfortable with using protective gear. Nurses groups have demanded better training and guidance on how to use equipment that already includes face shields, masks, gowns and gloves.

Frieden has come under pressure over the response and preparedness for Ebola, but White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Obama is confident of Frieden's ability to lead the public health effort. He said White House Homeland Security adviser Lisa Monaco "continues to play the role of coordinating the efforts" of all agencies involved.

WHO Assistant Director-General Bruce Aylward said on Tuesday that by the first week in December, the WHO projections suggest there may be between 5,000 and 10,000 new cases a week in impoverished Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia.

Aylward stressed the difficulty of making accurate predictions. The WHO said the actual mortality rate is about 70 percent in those countries, compared with the roughly 50 percent reported previously.


ONE CONTACT WITH NURSE

One person known to have had close contact with the Dallas nurse Pham has been put under observation in the hospital in case he develops signs of Ebola, the CBS Dallas television station reported on Tuesday.

The man, who has not been identified, is an employee of global eye care company Alcon, a unit of the drug company Novartis. The company was not immediately available to comment.

White House Budget Director Shaun Donovan pressed U.S. lawmakers to speed up funds to fight Ebola, including the remaining $250 million in requested Defense Department money under review.

"The rapid spread of the Ebola virus in West Africa shows that time is of the essence. Given the nature of this crisis, every minute counts," Donovan wrote in an Oct. 10 letter to Appropriations Chairman Harold Rogers and ranking Democrat Nita Lowey.

Meanwhile, the family who shared an apartment with Duncan after he arrived in Texas is showing no signs of illness, Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings said on CNN.

The infection of the Dallas nurse is the second known to have occurred outside West Africa since the outbreak that began in March. It follows the transmission of the virus to a Spanish nurse in Madrid who helped treat a missionary who was repatriated from Sierra Leone and died of Ebola. The nurse was slightly better on Tuesday and remains the only known case in Spain.

(Additional reporting by Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas; Julie Steenhuysen in Chicago; and Roberta Rampton, Doina Chiacu and David Lawder in Washington; Editing by Jim Loney, Jonathan Oatis and Grant McCool)


http://news.yahoo.com/family-lived-texas-ebola-victim-showing-no-symptoms-143123355.html (http://news.yahoo.com/family-lived-texas-ebola-victim-showing-no-symptoms-143123355.html)

Title: UN nuclear agency to help West Africa fight Ebola
Post by: Buster's Uncle on October 15, 2014, 04:44:01 am

UN nuclear agency to help West Africa fight Ebola
Reuters
12 hours ago



VIENNA (Reuters) - The United Nations atomic agency plans to help West African countries fight the Ebola epidemic with nuclear-related technology that can quickly diagnose a disease which has killed more than 4,400 people.

Specialized equipment is expected to be delivered in coming weeks to Sierra Leone and then to Liberia and Guinea, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said in a statement on Tuesday.

IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano said it was a "small but effective contribution" to efforts to combat the outbreak.

The epidemic is still spreading in the three countries and the number of cases in West Africa will exceed 9,000 this week, the World Health Organization (WHO) said in Geneva. The death toll so far in the outbreak, first reported in Guinea in March, has reached 4,447, a senior WHO official said.

The IAEA said a nuclear-derived diagnostic technology known as Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) allows the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) to be detected within a few hours. Other methods, it said, require growing on a cell culture for several days before a diagnosis is determined.

"Early diagnosis of EVD, if combined with appropriate medical care, increases the victims’ chance of survival and helps curtail the spread of the disease by making it possible to isolate and treat the patients earlier," the IAEA said.

While health authorities in Sierra Leone and other affected countries are already using the technology, their diagnostic capability is limited, the Vienna-based agency said.

The IAEA said it will provide Sierra Leone with an RT-PCR machine and other equipment, and that similar support will "eventually" also be transferred to Liberia and Guinea.

(Reporting by Fredrik Dahl; Editing by Mark Heinrich)


http://news.yahoo.com/un-nuclear-agency-help-west-africa-fight-ebola-145803267.html (http://news.yahoo.com/un-nuclear-agency-help-west-africa-fight-ebola-145803267.html)

Title: Majority Say US Gov't Should Do More to Prevent Ebola Epidemic
Post by: Buster's Uncle on October 15, 2014, 04:47:34 am

Majority Say US Gov't Should Do More to Prevent Ebola Epidemic
ABC News
By Gary Langer  12 hours ago


(http://l2.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/P3TlVUiyu9X9a1DqD8nAqA--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7cT04NQ--/http://a.abcnews.com/images/Politics/ap_ebola_hospital_kb_141014_16x9_608.jpg)
Belkys Fortune, left, and Teressa Celia, pose in protective suits in an isolation room during a demonstration of procedures for possible Ebola patients at Bellevue Hospital, New York, Oct. 8, 2014.



Nearly two-thirds of Americans are concerned about a widespread epidemic of the Ebola virus in the United States, and about as many in a new ABC News/Washington Post poll say the federal government is not doing enough to prevent it.

Indeed, more than four in 10 - 43 percent - are worried that they or an immediate family member might catch the disease. That's similar to the level of concern about other viral outbreaks in some previous ABC/Post polls - but more consequential, given Ebola's high mortality rate.

See PDF with full results, charts and tables here. (http://www.langerresearch.com/uploads/1163a1Ebola.pdf)

Despite these concerns, more than six in 10 are at least somewhat confident in the ability of both the federal government, and their local hospitals and health agencies, to respond effectively to an outbreak. Future views remain to be seen; most interviews in this poll were done before the news Sunday morning that a nurse who treated an Ebola patient in Dallas had herself become infected. (Results of interviews conducted Sunday were essentially the same as on previous nights.)

In terms of preventive actions, the poll, produced for ABC by Langer Research Associates, finds near-unanimous support (91 percent) for stricter screening of incoming passengers from Ebola-affected countries in Africa. Two-thirds support restricting entry of such individuals into the United States.

The Ebola outbreak has killed more than 4,000 people, mainly in the West African countries of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, raising broad concerns about its rapid spread there and the risk globally. Margaret Chan, head of the World Health Organization, on Monday called it "the most severe acute public health emergency in modern times." In five U.S. airports, the federal government is beginning to screen arriving passengers whose travel originated from the three most-affected countries.

Barack Obama, for his part, gets essentially an even split in his handling of the federal response to the Ebola outbreak: Forty-one percent of Americans approve and 43 percent disapprove, with typical partisan and ideological divisions.

WHO'S WORRIED - Worries about catching Ebola are 13 percentage points more prevalent among women than men (49 vs. 36 percent), but the biggest differences are by education, income and race. Among people who have a postgraduate degree, just 20 percent are worried that they or an immediate family member might catch the Ebola virus. That rises to 32 percent of those with an undergraduate degree and to 50 percent among all those who lack a college degree - peaking at 62 percent of those who don't have a high school diploma.

By income, worry ranges from 19 percent of those in the $100,000-plus bracket to 51 percent in less-than-$50,000 households, including 58 percent of those with incomes less than $20,000 a year. And by race, worry about catching Ebola is 21 points higher among nonwhites than whites, 57 vs. 36 percent. Indeed, a third of nonwhites, 32 percent, are "very" worried about becoming infected, compared with fewer than half as many whites, 14 percent.

These gaps may reflect differences in information about Ebola, different levels of confidence in the quality of health care available to each group, or some of both.

VIEWS of GOVERNMENT - There's also a sharp difference by a combination of partisanship and ideology: While 27 percent of liberal Democrats worry about catching the virus, that rises to 44 percent of conservative Republicans. (Each group accounts for about one in seven adults.)

The reason seems clear: Conservative Republicans are vastly less likely than liberal Democrats to express confidence in the federal government's ability to respond effectively to an outbreak, 48 vs. 84 percent.

Conservative Republicans also are far more apt than liberal Democrats to express concern about the possibility of a widespread outbreak, 73 vs. 45 percent, and to say the United States should be doing more to try to prevent further cases, 77 vs. 40 percent. (Differences also are reflected by partisanship alone and ideology alone. The divisions simply peak among the two most disparate political/ideological groups.)

The difference between these groups is much wider in terms of their confidence in the federal government to respond compared with their confidence in their local hospitals and health agencies. There's a 36-point gap between liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans on the former, compared with 15 points on the latter.

There are group differences on specific actions, as well. Restricting entry by people from affected countries wins less support from young adults vs. those age 30 and older (57 vs. 70 percent), and is less popular with liberals and Democrats compared with others.

COMPARISONS - At 43 percent, worries about catching the Ebola virus are lower than worries about catching the swine flu at their peak in October 2009, but higher than worries about catching the SARS virus in late April 2003. Those concerns fluctuated, and at other times were more similar to worry about Ebola now. In one other comparison, concern about catching the bird flu virus was similar in March 2006 to today's level on Ebola.

Confidence in the federal government's ability to handle an outbreak is similar to what it was for bird flu, but lower than it was for swine flu; the same pattern holds for confidence in local hospitals and health agencies.

The difference between those episodes and this one, as noted, is Ebola's very high mortality rate - but also its lower risk of contagion.

Finally, the public's sense that the federal government is "doing all it reasonably can do" to try to prevent an outbreak stands in stark contrast to views on a very different sort of public health crisis in a very different time, the anthrax attacks of fall 2001. At that time, in the midst of a post-9/11 rally in support of the federal government, 61 percent said it was doing all it could. As noted, just 33 percent say so now.

METHODOLOGY - This ABC News/Washington Post poll was conducted by telephone Oct. 9-12, 2014, in English and Spanish, among a random national sample of 1,006 adults, including landline and cell-phone-only respondents. Results have a margin of sampling error of 3.5 points, including design effect. Partisan divisions are 31-24-36 percent, Democrats-Republicans-independents.

The survey was produced for ABC News by Langer Research Associates of New York, N.Y., with sampling, data collection and tabulation by Abt-SRBI of New York, N.Y.


http://news.yahoo.com/majority-us-govt-more-prevent-ebola-epidemic-144905687--abc-news-topstories.html (http://news.yahoo.com/majority-us-govt-more-prevent-ebola-epidemic-144905687--abc-news-topstories.html)

Title: How plasma transfusions, antibodies fight Ebola
Post by: Buster's Uncle on October 15, 2014, 04:51:00 am

How plasma transfusions, antibodies fight Ebola
Associated Press
By MARILYNN MARCHIONE  7 hours ago



A Dallas nurse being treated for Ebola has received a plasma transfusion from a doctor who beat his own infection with the deadly virus after getting a similar treatment. The reason: Antibodies in the blood of a survivor may help a patient fight off the germ.

Dr. Kent Brantly went to Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas on Sunday to donate the plasma to nurse Nina Pham. Brantly got Ebola while caring for patients in Africa, and received plasma from a 14-year-old boy who recovered under his care there.

Brantly also received ZMapp, an experimental drug that contains antibodies against Ebola. Its maker says supplies are now exhausted, leading doctors to look at plasma transfusions as an alternative.

Here is some background about the treatment:

Q. What are antibodies?

A. Antibodies are made by the immune system to fight a germ, and they remain in the blood for some time after an infection resolves. Certain immune system cells replenish them so the person is able to fight off infection if the same germ turns up again. It takes time for an Ebola patient to make enough, so the patient may need someone else's antibodies to fight the disease until they can produce their own.

Q. Why are doctors giving plasma?

A. Plasma, the clear part of the blood, contains antibodies. Plasma can be removed from whole donated blood or a donor's blood can be filtered through a machine to extract just the plasma. A recipient must have a blood type compatible with the donor.

Q. Is there any proof this works?

A. Antibodies have helped many people battle other infectious diseases but their use against Ebola is too new to establish a track record. So many things affect whether an Ebola patient recovers — how quickly the disease was diagnosed, whether intravenous fluids and other supportive care were given — that it's impossible to know whether plasma or an antibody drug made a difference.

Q. How often can someone donate plasma?

A. "It's believed you can replace your antibodies in about two days," so it's not uncommon for people to donate twice a week, said Dr. James Crowe, an immunologist and director of the Vanderbilt Vaccine Center in Nashville.

Q. Who else has received plasma?

A. Brantly also donated plasma for Ashoka Mukpo, a freelance video journalist being treated in Nebraska, and a fellow doctor who served in Africa, Dr. Rick Sacra, who also was hospitalized in Nebraska and recovered. Brantly said in a recent speech that he also offered his blood to Thomas Eric Duncan, a Liberian man who was treated for Ebola in Dallas, but that their blood types didn't match. Duncan died on Wednesday, and Pham, the nurse, had been taking care of him.

Q. Have other survivors in the U.S. offered plasma?

A. That's not known. Brantly was the first Ebola patient brought back to the U.S. and some others treated since then are said to still be recovering and gaining their strength back. Whether any of them is well enough or willing to donate has not been said.


http://news.yahoo.com/plasma-transfusions-antibodies-fight-ebola-144955340.html (http://news.yahoo.com/plasma-transfusions-antibodies-fight-ebola-144955340.html)

Title: Colombia denying entry to recent travelers to Ebola-hit countries
Post by: Buster's Uncle on October 15, 2014, 04:55:35 am

Colombia denying entry to recent travelers to Ebola-hit countries
Reuters
14 minutes ago



BOGOTA (Reuters) - Colombia has begun denying entry to travelers who have recently visited West African countries affected by Ebola, Foreign Ministry sources said on Tuesday, the first Latin American country to do so.

The measure effective Tuesday applies to recent visitors to Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea and Nigeria, and was taken in response to a recommendation by the National Health Institute to prevent the virus spreading, sources at the Foreign Ministry not authorized to speak on the record told Reuters.

Colombian border guards will deny entry to anyone whose passport shows recent travel to the countries, and consulates will turn down visa applications to anyone who visited them in the previous four weeks, a Foreign Ministry document seen by Reuters showed.

The rules also apply to Colombian nationals, it showed.

Health authorities say the outbreak in West Africa is the worst on record with at least 4,447 dead. An unrelated outbreak has killed more than 40 people in Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The Ebola epidemic is still spreading in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia. Projections show there could be between 5,000 and 10,000 new cases a week in early December, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday.

The deadly virus was discovered in 1976 in what is now known as the Democratic Republic of Congo and symptoms include cause fever, bleeding, vomiting and diarrhea. It spreads through contact with bodily fluids such as blood or saliva.

(Reporting by Luis Jaime Acosta; Editing by Ryan Woo)


http://news.yahoo.com/colombia-denying-entry-recent-travelers-ebola-hit-countries-030544267--finance.html (http://news.yahoo.com/colombia-denying-entry-recent-travelers-ebola-hit-countries-030544267--finance.html)