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Community => Recreation Commons => Our researchers have made a breakthrough! => Topic started by: Buster's Uncle on October 23, 2014, 09:12:56 pm

Title: Ebola news 10/23
Post by: Buster's Uncle on October 23, 2014, 09:12:56 pm

Fixing 'Ebolanomics' in pursuit of vaccines and drugs
Reuters
By Kate Kelland and Ben Hirschler  5 hours ago


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Scientists at the National Microbiology Lab in Winnipeg, Manitoba, prepare an experimental Ebola vaccine for shipment to the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva in this undated handout picture released October 18, 2014. REUTERS/Public Health Agency of Canada/Handout



LONDON (Reuters) - As researchers from Africa to China to America race to develop vaccines and treatments to fight Ebola, health experts are grappling with the economics of a disease that until this year had been off the drug industry's radar.

Whether or not effective drugs come in time to turn around the world's worst epidemic of the virus ravaging three West African countries, the world will want stockpiles to protect against inevitable future outbreaks, experts say.

So a new structure, which some call "Ebolanomics", is needed to revise the business model for a previously neglected disease.

GAVI, the global vaccines alliance, is already working to figure out how to procure a future Ebola vaccine at an affordable price, and drugmakers are considering how much to invest in a disease that, until this outbreak, had infected barely 2,400 people in total in four decades.

Even now Ebola is unlikely to become a big money-spinner for Western pharmaceutical companies, since it afflicts the poor in Africa and the need for medical stockpiles in developed countries will be modest.

Vaccine makers, governments, experts and health agencies are meeting at the World Health Organization's (WHO) headquarters in Geneva on Thursday to come up with some answers.

"What GAVI is going to do is look at all the potential options and ask whether we should create an artificial market," GAVI's chief executive Seth Berkley told Reuters.

That could include making advance commitments to buy so many million doses of a vaccine, with an added incentive of offering a much higher price for the first tranche of any purchase.

“There are no economics now because we do not need a vaccine in the United States or Spain or the UK, though that's not to say people wouldn't buy it right now because people are panicking. The problem is the countries that need it are very, very poor,” Berkley said.

Past Ebola outbreaks have killed few people and there have been no recorded Ebola deaths in 22 out of the 38 years since the virus was first identified, helping to explain the limited vaccine effort to date, even though Ebola is a simpler target than notoriously tricky ones like HIV and malaria.

This time, however, according to an analysis by the catastrophe risk management firm RMS, the Ebola epidemic in West Africa has the potential to be the most deadly infectious disease event since the 1918 flu pandemic.

It has already killed nearly 5,000 people, nearly all of them in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. The WHO believes it can turn the tide if 70 percent of Ebola patients get treatment or a safe burial, but hitting that tipping point is a challenge.


BETTER PREPARED

Brian Greenwood, a professor of clinical tropical medicine at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said the only sensible response to the worldwide alarm caused by such an epidemic is to be far more ready for the next one.

"We have to be better prepared, the way we are for big flu epidemics or big meningitis outbreaks," he said. "We have to have a stockpile. That's what we do with yellow fever and that's what happens with meningitis, so there is a precedent there."

If they are ready in time and in sufficient doses, there's little doubt effective Ebola vaccines and medicines could make a significant dent in the current deadly epidemic.

Researchers are already testing two candidate vaccines from GlaxoSmithKline and NewLink Genetics, with a third from Johnson & Johnson set to enter human trials in January. Thousands of frontline healthcare workers should start receiving them from the start of next year.

Scaling up to the millions needed for mass immunization is a project for later in 2015 and will require financial backing from governments and donor organizations, as well as likely indemnity for firms against losses or claims.

Drugmakers and health experts alike never imagined they'd be in this position, so the prospect of an epidemic lasting into 2016 and of demand for drugs for future stockpiles is forcing a major realignment.

"This situation requires new ways of working and thinking," GlaxoSmithKline's chief executive Andrew Witty said this week as he declared his firm will happily work with rivals in what he described as "phenomenal collaboration" in the Ebola fight.


INVESTOR ATTENTION

Investors are taking note, with the shares of small biotech companies most exposed the success or failure of a single product liable to jump and dip on scraps of news suggesting either success or failure.

"In the wake of this catastrophe, there will be drugs, diagnostics and vaccines that are licensed and available," said Rajeev Venkaya, now head of vaccines at Takeda Pharmaceutical and formerly with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

He expects companies will find a business model that works, helped by development-stage support from governments and donors.

"You can take those costs out of the future cost of goods of commercially produced products, which will of course reduce the price and make it a more sustainable business," he said.

Yet despite fears of greater international spread of the disease, the basics of Ebolanomics remain uncertain.

Realistically, Ebola is unlikely ever to be a big Western market, not even for a traveler vaccine, since visitors to West Africa are even now at very low risk of becoming infected unless they are in frequent close contact with Ebola cases.

This is not like pandemic flu, which spreads like wildfire, prompting governments in the West to stockpile large amounts of vaccines and drugs, leading to windfall profits for drugmakers during the H1N1 pandemic of 2009 and 2010.

Ebola stockpiles, by contrast, will be small and strategic.

"The only way really for an Ebola vaccine to make money long-term is likely to be in a scenario where governments stockpile," said Keith Spencer, a ‎business development analyst at the Wellcome Trust, an international health charity.

"But we don't have a vaccine yet that we know works, and until you've got a product, it's hard to know whether or not anyone is gong to want to buy it."

(Editing by Giles Elgood)


http://news.yahoo.com/fixing-ebolanomics-pursuit-vaccines-drugs-144856945--finance.html (http://news.yahoo.com/fixing-ebolanomics-pursuit-vaccines-drugs-144856945--finance.html)

Title: Six in quarantine in Connecticut as U.S. steps up Ebola checks
Post by: Buster's Uncle on October 23, 2014, 09:19:36 pm

Six in quarantine in Connecticut as U.S. steps up Ebola checks
Reuters
By Richard Weizel  1 hour ago


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A U.S. Coast Guard Corpsman working with the Office of Field Operations checks the temperature of a traveler who has recently traveled to either Guinea, Sierra Leone, or Liberia in this handout picture from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection taken at Washington Dulles International Airport October 16, 2014. REUTERS/U.S. Customs and Border Protection/Josh Denmark/Handout via Reuters



WEST HAVEN, Conn. (Reuters) - Connecticut placed six West Africans who recently arrived in the United States under quarantine for possible Ebola exposure, a move that comes as the United States starts new restrictions on those coming from the countries hardest hit by the deadly virus.

The family of six West Africans, who arrived Saturday and were planning to live in the United States, will be watched for 21 days, Connecticut state health authorities said Thursday. Officials have yet to say where the family came from.

Fears about the spread of Ebola, which has killed nearly 4,900 people largely in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, have surmounted in the United States since the first man diagnosed with the disease was hospitalized in Texas late in September. He died on Oct. 8, after 11 days of care.

Numerous local health authorities have launched similar quarantines or watches on those who have been to Ebola-hit countries, though no other infections have been found through these measures. The virus is spread through direct contact with bodily fluids from an infected person and is not airborne.

The crisis is forcing the U.S. healthcare system to consider withholding some medical interventions because they are too dangerous to doctors and nurses and unlikely to help a patient.


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A man put his details on a list while he attends a town hall meeting, sponsored by Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, on Ebola and Enterovirus D68 in the courtroom of Brooklyn Borough Hall in New York, October 22, 2014. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz


Officials from at least three hospital systems interviewed by Reuters said they were considering whether to avoid some procedures or leave it up to individual doctors to determine whether an intervention would be performed.

Two nurses at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital were infected with the virus after treating Liberian national Thomas Eric Duncan, who contracted the disease in West Africa and was the first patient diagnosed with Ebola in the United States.

The cause of their exposure has not been determined but the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has said that intubating the patient and giving him dialysis may have increased the risk of spreading the disease.

The CDC said on Wednesday that 66 people, who are thought to have had contact with Duncan, have cleared the 21-day monitoring period after showing a clear bill of health, while another 108 were still under surveillance.

One of the infected nurses, Nina Pham, is in good condition at a National Institutes of Health hospital in Bethesda, Maryland. The family of the other nurse, Amber Vinson, said in a statement Wednesday that health officials were "no longer able to detect virus in her body."

Ebola fears have also touched one of the world's most reclusive countries, North Korea, which will bar entry to tourists from Friday because of worries over the spread of the deadly virus, tour operators told Reuters.

From Wednesday, travelers to the United States from Liberia, Sierra Leone or Guinea were being funneled through one of five major U.S. airports conducting increased screening for the virus.

Six states account for nearly 70% of all travelers arriving from the affected countries: New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, New Jersey and Georgia. The new monitoring will begin in those states first and will be expanded to other states.


http://news.yahoo.com/six-quarantine-connecticut-u-steps-ebola-checks-153123735--finance.html (http://news.yahoo.com/six-quarantine-connecticut-u-steps-ebola-checks-153123735--finance.html)

Title: Gay community under attack in Liberia over Ebola outbreak
Post by: Buster's Uncle on October 23, 2014, 09:23:55 pm

Gay community under attack in Liberia over Ebola outbreak
Reuters
By Misha Hussain and Maria Caspani  7 hours ago



DAKAR/NEW YORK (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Leroy Ponpon doesn't know whether to lock himself in his flat in Monrovia because of the deadly Ebola virus, or because he is gay. Christian churches' recent linking of the two have made life hell for him and hundreds of other gays.

Ponpon, an LGBT campaigner in the Liberian capital, says gays have been harassed, physically attacked and a few have had their cars smashed by people blaming them for the hemorrhagic fever, after religious leaders in Liberia said Ebola was a punishment from God for homosexuality.

"Since church ministers declared Ebola was a plague sent by God to punish sodomy in Liberia, the violence toward gays has escalated. They're even asking for the death penalty. We're living in fear," Ponpon told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by telephone from Monrovia.

Ebola has infected almost 10,000 people in West Africa since March, killing around half its victims. Liberia is the worst hit country where poverty, corruption and civil war have left a weak health system unable to cope with the exponential spread of the disease.

Some religious leaders have their own interpretation of the causes of Ebola.

Earlier this year, the Liberian Council of Churches said in a statement that God was angry with Liberians "over corruption and immoral acts" such as homosexuality, and that Ebola was a punishment.

In May, Archbishop Lewis Zeigler of the Catholic Church of Liberia said that "one of the major transgressions against God for which He may be punishing Liberia is the act of homosexuality," local media reported.

Francois Patuel, Amnesty International's representative in West Africa, said there had been reports of threats and violence against the LGBTI community in Monrovia since the incendiary remarks made by the local Christian leaders.

"Amnesty has received pictures of cars that reportedly belong to gays with their windows smashed as well as reports that gays have been forced from their homes and had to go into hiding," Patuel told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Neither the Catholic Church nor the Liberian Council of Churches could be reached in Monrovia. Representatives of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Episcopal Church did not immediately respond to a request for comment.


COVER OF DARKNESS

Ponpon prefers to move at night. He is scared to be identified in daylight after the local press splashed his picture and phone number across the front pages. But the Ebola curfew, running from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m., has complicated things.

"In the day, we move around wearing sunglasses and disguises. The problem with moving at night is that it is not safe in Monrovia in the dark, and also, if you violate the Ebola curfew, it is punishable by imprisonment," he said.

The curfew has affected the LGBT community in another way. When activists contact the police for protection, they reply that because of the Ebola emergency and the curfew put in place to combat the disease, they cannot help, Ponpon said.

Violence against the LGBT community was already common in West Africa before the Ebola outbreak, and same-sex relationships are still largely taboo in many African countries. A recent Gallup poll showed Africa as the worst continent for gay people.

National laws in West Africa are in line with public sentiment. In Liberia, 'voluntary sodomy' is a first-degree misdemeanor with a penalty of up to one year in jail, according to the International Lesbian Gay Bisexual Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA).

Patuel said Amnesty had received no reports of similar incidents in other Ebola-stricken countries in the region, and urged African states to stand up for minorities.

"In August this year the African Union passed a resolution for the protection of LGBTi rights. The authorities must adopt this into their national law and take action against homophobic statements to protect its citizens," Patuel said.

In Liberia, Ponpon's demands are simple: "Right now, all we want is protection. We want the government to come forward and say that this is a minority group and they deserve the same rights as anyone else and then people will stop attacking us."

(Reporting By Misha Hussain in Dakar and Maria Caspani in New York, editing by Tim Pearce)


http://news.yahoo.com/gay-community-under-attack-liberia-over-ebola-outbreak-124000895.html (http://news.yahoo.com/gay-community-under-attack-liberia-over-ebola-outbreak-124000895.html)

Title: Nurse Amber Vinson free of Ebola virus, family says
Post by: Buster's Uncle on October 23, 2014, 09:27:32 pm

Nurse Amber Vinson free of Ebola virus, family says
More than 100 Texans still being monitored for symptoms
Yahoo News
By Jason Sickles, 20 hours ago


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Amber Vinson is helped on to an air ambulance in Dallas last week. (Reuters/KXAS-TV)



DALLAS — Barely a week after being diagnosed with Ebola, Texas nurse Amber Vinson is free of the deadly virus, her family said on Wednesday night.

“We are overjoyed to announce that, as of [Tuesday] evening, officials at Emory University Hospital and the Centers for Disease Control are no longer able to detect virus in her body,” read a statement from a family spokesperson.


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Nurse Amber Vinson sitting up in her bed at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta on Tuesday. (AP/Amber Vinson)


Debra Berry, the nurse's mother, is in Dallas under a self-imposed quarantine, because she had recently spent time with Vinson. But Berry spoke with her daughter by phone on Wednesday night, according to the statement.

“Amber and our family are ecstatic to receive this latest report on her condition,” Berry said in the statement. “We all know that further treatment will be necessary as Amber continues to regain strength, but these latest developments have truly answered prayers and bring our family one step closer to reuniting with her at home.”

Jason McDonald, a CDC spokesperson, told Yahoo News late Wednesday that he was not aware of Vinson's recovery.

“Healthcare provider will determine by diagnostic whether a patient is free of Ebola virus,” McDonald said in an email. “We have criteria we ask medical staff to meet but the determination is made by medical care provider.”

Vinson, one of two Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital nurses to contract Ebola while treating Thomas Eric Duncan, was diagnosed on Oct. 14. A day later, the 29-year-old was flown by air ambulance to Atlanta for treatment at Emory, which has a specialized unit trained in treating Ebola.

“Amber is steadily regaining her strength and her spirits are high,” read the family statement. “She has also been approved for transfer from isolation. Amber remains under treatment within Emory's Serious Communicable Diseases Unit. We appreciate everyone for keeping Amber in your thoughts and prayers.”

Vinson's diagnosis prompted Ebola worries from Dallas to Cleveland last week, when it was revealed that she had flown commercially in the days before being hospitalized. Her family fended off critics by pointing that health officials had approved her travel plans.

Vinson's colleague, Nina Pham, is being cared for at the NIH Clinical Center in Bethesda, Maryland. Her condition was upgraded from fair to good on Tuesday.

According to Dallas officials, 108 people — most of them hospital staffers who were involved in caring for Duncan, Pham or Vinson — continue to be monitored for Ebola symptoms.

“The number of people at possible risk for contracting Ebola is decreasing each day,” said Dr. Lyle Peterson, a senior CDC official in Dallas. “Although we are not out of the woods yet, it is very encouraging we have not seen any other cases.”

About 50 people who had direct or indirect contact with Duncan, who died on Oct. 8, were cleared from monitoring earlier this week, including his family.

The incubation period — the time interval from infection with the virus to onset of symptoms — is 2 to 21 days, according to the World Health Organization. Humans are not infectious until they develop symptoms.

Provided that no new cases are confirmed, monitoring in the Dallas area will end on Nov. 7.

“Working together we are winning the war on Ebola, and every day we are closer to successfully accomplishing our mission,” Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins said Wednesday in a news release.

(This story was updated at 9:30 p.m. ET.)


http://news.yahoo.com/nurse-amber-vinson-free-of-ebola-virus-family-says-001502702.html (http://news.yahoo.com/nurse-amber-vinson-free-of-ebola-virus-family-says-001502702.html)

Title: Cremation fears leave empty Ebola beds in Liberia
Post by: Buster's Uncle on October 23, 2014, 09:34:31 pm

Cremation fears leave empty Ebola beds in Liberia
Associated Press
By JONATHAN PAYE-LAYLEH  42 minutes ago


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Liberian coffin makers in Monrovia say that the Ebola outbreak is ruining their business after the government ordered that all bodies of people killed by the virus must be cremated. (Oct. 23)



MONROVIA, Liberia (AP) — Even as Liberians fall ill and die of Ebola, more than half the beds in treatment centers in the capital remain empty because of the government's order that the bodies of all suspected Ebola victims in Monrovia be cremated.

Cremation violates Liberians' values and cultural practices and the order has so disturbed people in the west African nation that the sick are often kept at home and, if they die, are secretly buried, increasing the risk of more infections

President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf issued the cremation decree for Monrovia and the surrounding area in August, and the government has brought in a crematorium and hired experts. The order came after people in neighborhoods of the capital resisted burials of hundreds of Ebola victims near their homes.

Since then, a recent analysis of space at Ebola treatment centers shows that of 742 beds available, more than half — 391 — were vacant, said Assistant Health Minister Tolbert Nyenswah, who heads the government's Ebola response.

"For fear of cremation, do not stay home to die," Nyenswah admonished Liberians at a news conference last week.

In her statement declaring the state of emergency and the cremation order, Sirleaf acknowledged the edict runs contrary to national tradition. "Ebola has attacked our way of life," she said.


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In this photo taken Saturday, Oct. 18, 2014, a burial team in protective gear buries a person suspected to have died of Ebola in Monrovia, Liberia. Even as Liberians get sick and die of Ebola, many beds in treatment centers are empty because of the government’s order that the bodies of all suspected Ebola victims be cremated. The edict violates Liberians’ values and cultural practices and has so disturbed people that the sick are often being kept at home and, if they die, are being secretly buried, increasing the risk of more infections. (AP Photo/Abbas Dulleh)


That way of life includes honoring deceased ancestors.

On the second Wednesday of March each year, Liberians flock to cemeteries to honor their deceased loved ones on a public holiday known as National Decoration Day, scrubbing the headstones of relatives, clearing away brush from graves and decorating them with flowers and other mementoes.

In many parts of Liberia, tradition has also called for relatives to handle the bodies of loved ones before burial. Bodies are kept in the home for days or weeks, during which time people honor their loved ones by dancing around the corpse, washing it and cutting and braiding the hair. Before burial, church congregations also pray over the body.

Since the latest outbreak of Ebola, these burial customs have been ordered halted when it comes to victims of the deadly virus because of the dangers they pose. The Ebola virus is spread through the body fluids of an infected person and can endure in corpses, posing a danger to those who handle them.

Guidelines issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States call for the bodies of Ebola victims to be handled only by those trained in handling infected human remains who are wearing the proper protective equipment. Bodies should be wrapped in plastic shrouds, then cremated or promptly buried in hermetically sealed caskets, the CDC says. The first person diagnosed with Ebola in the United States — a visitor from Liberia, Thomas Eric Duncan — died in Dallas this month, and his body was cremated.


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In this photo taken Tuesday, Oct. 7, 2014. Grave diggers dug graves to bury Ebola victims at Bong county outskirt of Monrovia, Liberia. Even as Liberians get sick and die of Ebola, many beds in treatment centers are empty because of the government’s order that the bodies of all suspected Ebola victims be cremated. The edict violates Liberians’ values and cultural practices and has so disturbed people that the sick are often being kept at home and, if they die, are being secretly buried, increasing the risk of more infections. (AP Photo/Abbas Dulleh)


In Liberia, the cremation edict in the capital and the order that Ebola victims elsewhere be buried in body bags in unmarked grave without relatives present has been met with resistance. Many find it hard to accept that they will never see the graves of those lost to the disease.

"We know cremation is not our culture in our country," Nyenswah said. "But now we have disease, so we have to change the way we used to do business."

At least 4,665 people have been infected with Ebola in Liberia and 2,705 have died, according to the World Health Organization, which says there probably are more cases and deaths.

Nyenswah said many people are remaining home to die instead of reporting for treatment.

"We understand that there are secret burials taking place in the communities," he said. "Let's stop that and report sick people and get them treated."


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In this photo taken Wednesday, Oct. 22, 2014. A carpenter makes new caskets for sale in New Kru in Monrovia, Liberia. Even as Liberians get sick and die of Ebola, many beds in treatment centers are empty because of the government’s order that the bodies of all suspected Ebola victims be cremated. The edict violates Liberians’ values and cultural practices and has so disturbed people that the sick are often being kept at home and, if they die, are being secretly buried, increasing the risk of more infections. (AP Photo/Abbas Dulleh)


Amid the new regulations, mortuaries and casket makers have lost business.

"For the last two months it has been difficult to sell even one casket a day," said Titus Mulbah, a proprietor at the Talented Brothers Casket Center in Monrovia. "And this is all because all bodies now are considered Ebola bodies, as if other diseases are not killing people here."

There have been complaints that people who died of ailments other than Ebola have been cremated or buried anonymously. Television journalist Eddie Harmon said the body of his sister-in-law was hastily added to the bodies of Ebola victims and cremated, even though the family believes she died of hypertension.

"It is still paining us today because it was unjust and unfair," he said.

In neighboring Sierra Leone, families often picnic in cemeteries and clean graves on New Year's Day.


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In this photo taken Wednesday, Oct. 22, 2014. A carpenter makes new caskets for sale in New Kru in Monrovia, Liberia. Even as Liberians get sick and die of Ebola, many beds in treatment centers are empty because of the government’s order that the bodies of all suspected Ebola victims be cremated. The edict violates Liberians’ values and cultural practices and has so disturbed people that the sick are often being kept at home and, if they die, are being secretly buried, increasing the risk of more infections. (AP Photo/Abbas Dulleh)


Sierra Leone has suffered 1,259 Ebola deaths by the latest WHO count. Unlike Liberia, the government has not ordered cremations, and Ebola treatment units in Sierra Leone have often been full.

Still, there is the possibility that loved ones might be buried in unmarked graves and some families observe traditional practices in which mourners wash and lay hands on the body.

Anthony Banbury, head of the U.N. Mission on Ebola Emergency Response, said people must change.

"The world has never seen a serious, grave and complex crisis of this nature where people are dying every day with unsafe burial practices," he said in Freetown, the Sierra Leone capital.

A commentary on a website, Sierra Leone News Hunters, suggested that a memorial site be built to honor the dead who do not receive traditional burial rites, and to provide some comfort to their families.

"The erection of a monument bearing the names of all Ebola victims would not take away the sad memories but it would at least pacify the broken heart somewhat," it said.

__

Associated Press reporter Clarence Roy-Macaulay in Freetown, Sierra Leone, and AP medical writer Mike Stobbe in New York contributed to this report.


http://news.yahoo.com/cremation-fears-leave-empty-ebola-beds-liberia-193925994.html (http://news.yahoo.com/cremation-fears-leave-empty-ebola-beds-liberia-193925994.html)

Title: Potential Ebola patient recently worked in West Africa: Doctors Without Borders
Post by: Buster's Uncle on October 23, 2014, 09:36:34 pm

Potential Ebola patient recently worked in West Africa: Doctors Without Borders
Reuters  8 minutes ago



NEW YORK (Reuters) - A potential Ebola patient being tested in New York City recently worked in West Africa with Doctors Without Borders, the group said in a statement on Thursday.

"A person in New York City, who recently worked with Doctors Without Borders in one of the Ebola-affected countries in West Africa, notified our office this morning to report having developed a fever," Doctors Without Borders said in a statement.

The group said there was no confirmation that the person contracted Ebola, but it followed protocols and immediately notified the New York City Department of Health. 

(Reporting by Barbara Goldberg; Editing by Sandra Maler)


http://news.yahoo.com/potential-ebola-patient-recently-worked-west-africa-doctors-200818002.html (http://news.yahoo.com/potential-ebola-patient-recently-worked-west-africa-doctors-200818002.html)

Title: NYC hospital tests doctor who had been to West Africa for Ebola
Post by: Buster's Uncle on October 23, 2014, 09:39:51 pm

NYC hospital tests doctor who had been to West Africa for Ebola
Yahoo News
By Dylan Stableford  52 minutes ago



A doctor who recently returned to the United States from West Africa was rushed to a hospital in New York City on Thursday and is being tested for Ebola, hospital officials said.

The 33-year-old man — who had a fever and was experiencing gastrointestinal symptoms — was transported from his Harlem apartment by emergency workers in hazmat gear to Bellevue Hospital, which this week was designated by health officials to be used "for the isolation, identification and treatment of potential Ebola patients."

Preliminary test results are expected later Thursday.

According to WABC-TV, the health worker had quarantined himself since returning to New York City from Guinea, where there have been 1,540 cases of Ebola and 904 deaths since the outbreak began.

In a statement, the hospital said it is working closely with the city and state health departments "to ensure that all staff caring for the patient do so while following the utmost safety guidelines and protocols."

The hospital said it is also evaluating the patient for other causes of illness, including salmonella, malaria or stomach flu.

Additionally, the city's "team of disease detectives immediately began to actively trace all of the patient’s contacts to identify anyone who may be at potential risk."

If he tests positive, the health care worker would be the fourth person to be diagnosed with Ebola on U.S. soil. The first, Thomas Eric Duncan, a 41-year-old Liberian man, died from the disease earlier this month. Two Dallas nurses who treated at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital became infected with the virus, sparking renewed fears that the outbreak — which has killed thousands in West Africa — could spread to other parts of the country.

On Monday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention debuted new safety standards for New York City health care workers — recommending that everyone treating an Ebola patient be fully covered and wear two pairs of gloves and a special mask.

“All of us are scared,” Arjun Srinivasan, a CDC official, said at the event, which was attended by thousands of the city's health-care workers. “It’s OK to be afraid.”

"The chances of the average New Yorker contracting Ebola are extremely slim," the hospital said. "Ebola is spread by directly touching the bodily fluids of an infected person. You cannot be infected simply by being near someone who has Ebola."


http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-nyc-doctor-harlem-194023867.html (http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-nyc-doctor-harlem-194023867.html)

Title: New York City says hospital testing healthcare worker for Ebola
Post by: Buster's Uncle on October 23, 2014, 09:42:21 pm

New York City says hospital testing healthcare worker for Ebola
Reuters  4 minutes ago



NEW YORK (Reuters) - A New York City hospital is running Ebola tests on a healthcare worker with Doctors Without Borders who returned to the United States from West Africa with a fever and gastrointestinal symptoms, the city's health department said on Thursday.

Preliminary test results were expected in the next 12 hours, the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene said in a statement.

Doctors Without Borders said in a statement that the patient being tested had recently worked in an Ebola-affected country in West Africa with the humanitarian organization.

"A person in New York City, who recently worked with Doctors Without Borders in one of the Ebola-affected countries in West Africa, notified our office this morning to report having developed a fever," Doctors Without Borders said in a statement.

The individual had been undergoing regular monitoring and reported the fever immediately, it said. The organization said it immediately notified the New York City health department.


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Two patients with Ebola-like symptoms were taken to Bellevue Hospital in New York, but it was quickly determined they did not have the virus, officials said Monday.


The patient, who returned to the United States within the past 21 days, is being treated at Bellevue Hospital, the city's health department said.

The department said it was tracing all of the patient's contacts to identify anyone who may be at potential risk. It also said the patient had been transported by a specially trained unit wearing protective gear.

Fears about the spread of Ebola, which has killed nearly 4,900 people largely in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, have mounted in the United States since the first person diagnosed with the disease in the United States, a Liberian man who had flown to Texas, was hospitalized in Dallas last month. He died on Oct. 8 and two nurses who treated him became infected with the virus.

The United States this week began requiring travelers coming from Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea to enter through one of five airports that are conducting increased screening for the virus. It also is directing those travelers to check in with health officials every day and report their temperatures and any Ebola symptoms for 21 days, the period of incubation for the virus.

The U.N. World Health Organization said on Thursday such arrival screening may have "a limited effect" in stopping the virus spreading but whether it adds anything to exit screening from affected countries is a decision for governments.

Connecticut placed six West Africans who recently arrived in the United States under quarantine for possible Ebola exposure.

The family, who arrived on Saturday and was planning to live in the United States, will be watched for 21 days, Connecticut state health authorities said. Officials have yet to say where the family came from.

(Editing By Ellen Wulfhorst and Sandra Maler)


http://news.yahoo.com/york-city-says-hospital-testing-doctor-ebola-symptoms-193930379.html (http://news.yahoo.com/york-city-says-hospital-testing-doctor-ebola-symptoms-193930379.html)

Title: Nigeria pledges 600 volunteers as Africa steps up Ebola fight
Post by: Buster's Uncle on October 23, 2014, 09:44:19 pm

Nigeria pledges 600 volunteers as Africa steps up Ebola fight
Reuters
By Felix Onuah and Umaru Fofana  31 minutes ago



ABUJA/FREETOWN (Reuters) - Nigeria pledged on Thursday to send a contingent of 600 volunteers to help fight the worst ever outbreak of Ebola on record which has killed nearly 5,000 people in West Africa.

With financial pledges flowing in from around the world but trained doctors and nurses scarce in the three worst effected countries -- Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, the African Union appealed last week to member states to urgently fill the gap.

African nations' response to the crisis has drawn criticism, with officials in Liberia bemoaning a lack of African solidarity. The World Health Organization (WHO) has rebuked some African countries for closing borders to Ebola-hit states, saying this worsened their suffering by cutting off supplies.

Nigeria, the continent's largest economy and top oil producer, gained experience in containing Ebola after an air traveler imported the virus from Liberia in July, infecting 20 people and killing 8.

"Nigeria has 600 health workers who have been trained in the field of Ebola containment who are ready to go to other affected African countries to help them in containment of Ebola spread," acting health minister Khaliru Alhassan told Reuters.

"The first contingent of 250 Nigeria experts will be deployed soon," he said but did not provide a date.

Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, Chairperson of the African Union Commission, told reporters in the Sierra Leone capital Freetown that countries in East Africa had responded with a pledge of 600 health workers.

Democratic Republic of Congo, which has suffered six outbreaks of Ebola since the disease was first detected there in 1976, had also pledged to train 1,000 volunteers, she said.

The WHO originally appealed for 12,000 local staff and 750 foreign experts but has raised those targets to 20,000 and 1,000 respectively. WHO assistant director general Keiji Fukuda said there were now only 600 foreign experts.


AU STILL WAITING FOR RESPONSES

The WHO declared Nigeria Ebola-free on Monday but Alhassan said the outbreak remained a threat to the country until it was completely neutralized.

The international community has ramped up aid including sending some medics and supplies to Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia, where the epidemic has crippled poor and under-equipped health systems.

The United States is deploying a 3,000-strong military mission to build up to 17 Ebola Treatment Units (ETUs) and train local doctors, while Cuba has dispatched hundreds of medical personnel.

Alhassan said the Nigerian Center for Disease Control would also support Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea in training their health workers. "What we are waiting for now is that the request has to come through (West African regional bloc) ECOWAS and has to be coordinated by WHO," he said.

Speaking in Freetown, Dlamini Zuma said the AU had felt obliged to make a direct plea to members in mid-October because it realized that appealing for volunteers to come forward individually was not enough for the scale of the crisis.

"We wrote to all our heads of state asking them to give us health workers who would be deployed here in these three countries... We are still waiting for responses," she said.

"East Africa has responded and they have pledged more than 600 health workers, DRC has also pledged about 1,000 but they will bring them in phases," she said. "They say they will start probably with about 200. So we are waiting for those to come and also pledges to come from other countries."

Congo Health Minister Felix Kabange told Reuters in mid-October the government aimed to train more than 1,000 volunteers to fight Ebola, which he hoped would inspire "African solidarity". He invited other countries to send volunteers to new training centers in the capital Kinshasa.

(Additional reporting by Camillus Eboh in Abuja and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; Writing by Bate Felix and Daniel Flynn; Editing by Mark Heinrich)


http://news.yahoo.com/nigeria-send-600-volunteers-ebola-hit-countries-minister-174438597--business.html (http://news.yahoo.com/nigeria-send-600-volunteers-ebola-hit-countries-minister-174438597--business.html)

Title: Ebola sleuths scour DR Congo jungle for source of outbreak
Post by: Buster's Uncle on October 23, 2014, 09:46:00 pm

Ebola sleuths scour DR Congo jungle for source of outbreak
AFP
By Kathy Katayi  14 hours ago


(http://l3.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/3eE7WGmSUjWb.wOViyDnDg--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9ZmlsbDtoPTYzOTtweW9mZj0wO3E9NzU7dz05NjA-/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/afp.com/0a9a99c76d76a3e46b499594c609b7b11f4123cc.jpg)
Doctors Without Borders (MSF) medical workers treat an Ebola patient in an isolation ward in Kampungu, Democratic Republic of Congo in 2007 (AFP Photo/Christopher Black)



IKANAMONGO (RD Congo) (AFP) - Medical sleuths are deep in the jungle of the DR Congo trying to track down the origins of the latest Ebola outbreak in the country.

It is a different strain than the one that has swept three west African countries this year, killing nearly 4,900, and its toll of 49 so far is extremely modest in comparison.

Their all-terrain vehicles bounce along gutted roads in the northwest of the vast country where the outbreak began in late July and has been contained.

Pinning down its source, and learning more about how it acts and develops, are keys to fighting the virus better.

The epidemic in the Lokolia region of Equateur province some 800 kilometres (500 miles) northeast of the capital Kinshasa is the seventh in the country since the virus was first discovered in 1976.

As a result, the DR Congo is more familiar with the disease than the countries engulfed in the current crisis -- Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone -- but its secrets persist.

The DR Congo outbreak was initially traced to a woman who died shortly after preparing bush meat that that been hunted by her husband, a pastor.

Today experts are almost certain that she was not the "index case".

"She was the first person to have tested positive for the disease in the lab, but not the first person to die of it," Benoit Kebela, an epidemiologist at the DR Congo health ministry, told AFP.

Kebela, who recently spent some time helping out in Guinea, is a veteran of several Ebola epidemics in the DR Congo.

Around 15 kilometres (nine miles) southwest of Lokolia, three doctors get out of the vehicle in Ikanamongo, a village of a few cinder-block houses with roofs fashioned from tree branches.

A few dozen people rush to meet the team, but they keep their distance to avoid any possible contamination.


- 'All the pigs died' -

The pastor, Doudou Bobua, said his late wife came into contact with two other women, "one of whom died before her, showing Ebola symptoms, and the other two days after."

Another Ikanamongo resident, Jean-Paul Iloko, said that "before the epidemic hit the village, all the pigs died as well as some other farmyard animals."

Other accounts gathered in the region confirm that a porcine fever epidemic preceded the Ebola outbreak. "When (the pigs) were dying we were eating them without knowing that we shouldn't," Iloko said.

Kebela said it was the third time, after 2007 and 2012, that widespread pig deaths had preceded Ebola outbreaks in humans in the DR Congo.

And it has been established that the pigs that died in 2012 carried the Ebola virus, he said.

The Paris-based World Animal Health Organisation said its veterinarians in Africa are closely monitoring livestock and pets but that for now the role of the pig in the Ebola epidemic remains uncertain.

There are suspicions, but no one has proved the transmission of pig to human, Kebela said.

As a precaution, the authorities have nevertheless banned consumption of both bush meat and livestock. "We are eating manioc leaves, that's it," one resident complained.

After the Ikanamongo visit, the team planned to work the environmental angle, replicating their work during the 2012 epidemic when they took soil samples from places where people prepared the dead for burial.

"We were able to pin down the start of the virus, and that even confirmed to us some cases that we had not" spotted, Kebela said.

The investigation continues.


http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-sleuths-scour-dr-congo-jungle-source-outbreak-060715032.html (http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-sleuths-scour-dr-congo-jungle-source-outbreak-060715032.html)

Title: EU leaders produce more Ebola funding at summit
Post by: Buster's Uncle on October 23, 2014, 09:49:14 pm

EU leaders produce more Ebola funding at summit
Associated Press
By RAF CASERT  3 hours ago


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British Prime Minister David Cameron, center, speaks with Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte during a round table meeting at an EU summit in Brussels, on Thursday, Oct. 23, 2014. EU leaders will gather Thursday for a two-day summit in which they will discuss Ebola, climate change and the economy. (AP Photo/Yves Logghe)



BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union on Thursday came up with another 24.4 million euros ($31 million) to fight Ebola, as the bloc's leaders pressed to create a 1 billion-euro ($1.26 billion) fund to fight the deadly virus.

British Prime Minister David Cameron set that target last week and prior to Thursday's start of a two-day EU leaders' summit, the bloc's total anti-Ebola commitments were over halfway to that goal. Britain says it has committed 125 million pounds ($200 million) toward fighting Ebola, more than any other EU nation.

"We need other European countries to do more," said Cameron as he entered EU headquarters.

EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said the money promised Thursday would go for medical research on an Ebola vaccine.

"We are in a race against time on Ebola," Barroso said. "We must address both the emergency situation and at the same time have a sustained medium and long-term response."

An international consortium led by the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp, meanwhile, announced it would study whether treating Ebola patients with antibodies from the blood of survivors could help. Researchers got 2.9 million euros ($3.7 million) to test the safety and effectiveness of treating patients with blood and plasma from people who have recovered from Ebola.


(http://l3.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/BHX8DDqETSay25IyfadQKQ--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9ZmlsbDtoPTYyODtweW9mZj0wO3E9NzU7dz05NjA-/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/ap_webfeeds/60197360b1f25829630f6a7067005353.jpg)
From left, Finnish Prime Minister Alexander Stubb, Estonian Prime Minister Taavi Roivas, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt and British Prime Minister David Cameron speak during a round table meeting at an EU summit in Brussels, on Thursday, Oct. 23, 2014. EU leaders will gather Thursday for a two-day summit in which they will discuss Ebola, climate change and the economy. (AP Photo/Yves Logghe)


In Geneva, the World Health Organization said the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, which has killed more than 4,800 people, remains an international health emergency.

WHO experts said international travelers from the three hardest-hit nations — Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia — should still be screened for possible Ebola symptoms to prevent the disease from spreading further. But the experts said there should be no general ban on travel and trade with those countries.

In Spain, five of the 15 people who came into contact with a nursing assistant who survived Ebola were released from the hospital Thursday after spending 21 days under observation and showing no signs of the disease.

The nursing assistant, 44-year-old Teresa Romero, was cleared of the virus on Tuesday.

In Germany, military volunteers practiced climbing into medical protective suits and getting sprayed with bleach in preparation for a mission to support efforts to fight Ebola by the German Red Cross in Liberia.

___

Medical writer Maria Cheng in London and Al Clendenning in Madrid contributed to this story.


http://news.yahoo.com/eu-leaders-seek-more-ebola-funding-summit-124949407.html (http://news.yahoo.com/eu-leaders-seek-more-ebola-funding-summit-124949407.html)