Ebola news 8/31

[Buster's Uncle]

Health workers death toll mounts in W.Africa as Ebola spreads
AFP
2 hours ago



The front view of the Samstel Clinic and Maternity Centre owned by Dr Ikyke Samuel Enuemo, who died of the Ebola virus, in Port Harcout, August 29, 2014 (AFP Photo/)



Lagos (AFP) - Nigeria on Sunday confirmed a fresh case of Ebola in a doctor whose husband died from the virus, adding to a growing list of healthcare workers in West Africa hit by the epidemic.

The woman's husband was also a doctor and died in the city of Port Harcourt on August 22 after treating a patient who had contact with a Liberian man who brought the virus to Nigeria in late July.

She was in stable condition at an isolation unit in the financial capital, Lagos, said Sampson Parker, the health commissioner of Rivers State, of which Port Harcourt is the capital.

Nigeria's medics have paid a heavy price in the outbreak: of the six people who have died from the disease in Africa's most populous nation, two have been doctors and two others nurses.

Another doctor and a pharmacist were put into isolation at a unit outside Port Harcourt, Parker said.

"They have not been confirmed (as having Ebola) and we are awaiting the result of investigation," he told a news conference.



A woman looks at the obituary notices for medical staff who have died from the Ebola virus at the Kenema government hospital in Sierra Leone, August 16, 2014 (AFP Photo/Carl de Souza)


The World Health Organization has voiced concern about the number of healthcare workers hit by the Ebola outbreak: more than 120 health workers have died and over 240 others infected so far.

The disease has killed a total of 1,552 people and infected 3,062 as of August 26, according to WHO figures.

In Guinea, where 430 people have died in all, nurses told AFP they lacked basic medical equipment to treat patients and had even bought items such as gloves and protective clothing themselves.


- Travel restrictions -

In Senegal, doctors were treating a young Guinean man who became the country's first confirmed case of the disease. He was said to be in a "satisfactory" condition in hospital on Saturday.

The case lends credence to fears that the haemorrhagic fever, for which there is currently no vaccine, is spreading rapidly.

At current infection rates, it could take six to nine months and at least $490 million to bring under control, by which time over 20,000 people could be affected, the WHO has warned.

In Liberia, hardest hit by the outbreak with 694 deaths, the government has denied permission for any crew to disembark from ships docking at any of the country's four ports.

Medical screening of passengers was also causing long delays at Monrovia's international airport but a 21-day quarantine thrown around the city's West Point neighbourhood was lifted on Saturday.

Air travel to West Africa has been badly hit by the disease. Eight of the 11 international airlines serving Monrovia have suspended flights, including British Airways and Air France.



Gloves dry after being disinfected at the Elwa hospital run by French NGO Doctors Without Borders on August 30, 2014 in Monrovia, Liberia (AFP Photo/Dominique Faget)


The WHO and the West African regional bloc ECOWAS have both called for travel bans to be lifted, saying medical screening should identify at-risk passengers instead.


- Football qualifiers -

The Ebola crisis has cast doubt over a number of international football fixtures involving the worst-hit countries, with qualifying beginning next week for the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations.

Sierra Leone, where 422 people have died so far, named a 20-man squad consisting entirely of foreign-based players for its matches against Ivory Coast and the DR Congo.

But Ivory Coast's government has refused to allow the game to be played in Abidjan and not announced an alternative venue. The Ivorians risk forfeiting the match if they fail to show up.

Ebola-linked restrictions have led to sporadic violence in recent weeks. In Guinea, 55 people were injured in N'Zerekore after two days of protests this week over a government-imposed curfew.

The WHO has credited public health campaigns, especially in Guinea and Nigeria, for limiting the transmission of Ebola.

Guinea-Bissau, currently Ebola-free, on Saturday announced a national hygiene drive, with the cleaning and disinfection of public places on the last Saturday of every month.

Nigeria, however, has seen its hopes of containing the virus dashed with the outbreak in its oil-producing hub, 435 kilometres (270 miles) east of Lagos.

The city is home to a number of global oil and gas majors. Anglo-Dutch giant Shell and France's Total said this week that the arrival of Ebola has not affected operations.

Chevron said it, too, was closely monitoring developments and implementing "precautionary measures" for its workforce.


http://news.yahoo.com/widow-nigerias-sixth-ebola-victim-virus-135345158.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Ebola epidemic decimating health workers in Guinea
AFP
By Mouctar Bah  3 hours ago



Medics put on protective gear at the isolation ward of the Donka hospital, on July 23, 2014 in Conakry, where patients are being treated for Ebola (AFP Photo/Cellou Binani)



Conakry (AFP) - Working at breakneck speed, the nurses rush between departments at Guinea's largest hospital, wearing gloves they have bought at their own expense to protect themselves against the Ebola virus.

The often chronically under-resourced staff of Donka hospital in the capital Conakry -- like health workers across west Africa -- sacrifice everything in the battle against a deadly epidemic, often their own lives.

The World Health Organization said last week that more than 120 health workers across the region had died during the "unprecedented" outbreak which began early this year, and more than 240 had been infected.

"The outbreak of Ebola virus disease in west Africa is unprecedented in many ways, including the high proportion of doctors, nurses, and other healthcare workers who have been infected," the agency said in a statement.

The toll on health workers is all the more the more devastating in the three worst-hit nations -- Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone -- where more than 1,500 people have died and where there are just one or two doctors for every 100,000 people.

Sierra Leone, which had already lost its only virologist and other senior medics, reported the death of a third physician last week.



A medic puts on protective gear at the isolation ward of the Donka hospital in Conakry, where people infected with the Ebola virus are being treated, on June 28, 2014 (AFP Photo/Cellou Binani)


A Senegalese WHO expert was also infected in Sierra Leone and was admitted on Wednesday to a hospital in the German city of Hamburg.


- 'If God lets me live' -

"One day, if God lets me live, when Ebola becomes a distant memory, I will explain to my grandchildren or great-grandchildren that this disease called Ebola shook the world in 2014," says Marie Fikhe, a nurse in charge of a department at Donka hospital.

She is interrupted by ambulance sirens announcing the admission of a new case of Ebola, a fever which has killed more than half the people it has infected in the west African outbreak and is passed on via contact with bodily fluids.

"After every task, you have to change gloves and wash your hands, yet we are only given one pack a week, which is clearly insufficient," says Fikhe.



Medics wear protective gear at the isolation ward of the Donka hospital in Conakry on July 23, 2014, where Ebola patients are being treated (AFP Photo/Cellou Binani)


"Everybody knows that sponsors donate loads of them, so they should be used to treat patients... (yet) very often, after a few days, they can be found being sold on the local market."

She recalls a colleague who died in the hospital's isolation centre because she had unwittingly contracted Ebola while nursing a woman everyone assumed had typhoid.

"It was right at the beginning, before the laboratory in Lyon discovered that the disease raging in the south was Ebola virus disease," Fikhe says.


- Honour and responsibility -

Among the reasons for the heavy price paid by the medical profession, WHO cites the similarity between the early symptoms of Ebola and those of several infectious diseases endemic to the region, such as malaria, typhoid fever and Lassa fever.



The isolation ward at Donka hospital in Conakry where patients are treated for Ebola, is pictured on June 25, 2014 (AFP Photo/Cellou Binani)


The agency also blames a "lack or misuse of personal protective equipment and the small numbers of medical personnel".

In Donka hospital, a nurse who asks to be identified as "Dr Mara" underlines the problem.

"Look at my outfit. I had to buy it at my own expense... Mostly, I'll source decent white fabrics from the market and get them sewn by my tailor."

"Even the gloves on the table there, it was me who bought them," insists the nurse, in between dashes to casualty, the pharmacy, the laboratory and the Ebola isolation unit, claiming to have to work without surgical spirit, soap or even water.

One of her colleagues, Jacqueline Thea, a frail figure in overalls which are too big, says she remains in the job "because I do not want to escape my responsibilities, because I was sworn in, because I want to honour my children".

"Otherwise I would have given up everything to go far away from here, away from Guinea," she says.


http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-epidemic-decimating-health-workers-guinea-155519167.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Celebration in Liberia slum as Ebola quarantine lifted
Reuters
By James Harding Giahyue and Saliou Samb  7 hours ago



MONROVIA/CONAKRY (Reuters) - Crowds sang and danced in the streets of a seaside neighbourhood in Liberia on Saturday as the government lifted quarantine measures designed to contain the spread of the deadly Ebola virus.

Faced with the worst Ebola outbreak in history, West African governments have struggled to find an effective response. More than 1,550 people have died from the hemorrhagic fever since it was first detected in the forests of Guinea in March.

Residents of the impoverished seaside district of West Point in Monrovia were forcibly cut off from the rest of the capital in mid-August after a crowd attacked an Ebola centre there, allowing the sick to flee.

The quarantine sparked protests and security forces responded with tear gas and bullets, killing a teenaged boy.

But at dawn on Saturday, the community woke up to find the soldiers and barricades gone.

"I tell God thank you. I tell everyone thank you," said Koffa, a female resident of West Point. Others danced in the streets chanting slogans like "we are free" while others rolled about on the asphalt pavement in celebration.

President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, a U.S.-educated Nobel Peace Prize winner, has sought to quell criticism of the government's response by issuing orders threatening officials with dismissal for failing to report for work or for fleeing the country, and has ordered an investigation into the West Point shooting.

Liberia, where infection rates are highest, plans to build five new Ebola treatment centres each with capacity for 100 beds, government and health officials said on Saturday.

In neighbouring Sierra Leone, President Ernest Bai Koromo dismissed his health minister Miatta Kargbo on Friday over her handling of the epidemic which has killed more than 400 people there.

Her replacement Abubakarr Fofana on Saturday confirmed that a third doctor in the county had died from Ebola, further hampering its ability to respond to the outbreak.

"It is with a deep sense of sadness that we have lost one of our finest physicians in the line of duty at a time like when we need a lot of them to help in out fight against Ebola," he said.

Physician Dr. Sahr Rogers caught the disease while treating outpatients in the same hospital where a doctor died last month and where British nurse William Pooley was also infected.


SPREAD TO SENEGAL

Transmitted through the vomit, blood and sweat of the sick, Ebola has also spread to Nigeria and Senegal, which reported its first confirmed case on Friday - a Guinean student who was lost to authorities in his own country while under surveillance.

"His brother came from Sierra Leone where he was infected and has died. Shortly afterwards, this student left for Senegal," said Dr. Rafi Diallo, spokesman for the Guinean health ministry.

Two other members of his family - his sister and mother - have died from Ebola, Guinean health ministry sources said.

A resident in the suburb of the Senegalese capital Dakar where the student resided said on Saturday that a team of health ministry officials wearing white protective suits and masks came to spray disinfectant at his home and a local grocer's shop.

Many Dakar residents worry that the student could have spread the highly contagious virus in the three weeks since he was last reported in Guinea.

In Nigeria, where an infected traveller collapsed after arriving the Lagos airport, there have so far been 19 suspected, probable and confirmed cases and seven deaths.

"To avoid a situation like Nigeria, they need to be able to follow hundreds of contacts," said epidemiologist Jorge Castilla of the European Commission's Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection Department in Dakar. "Whatever they do, there will probably be a second set of sick people as this guy has been here for some time."

Senegal has since closed its land border with Guinea and halted flights to Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, defying advice from the World Health Organization (WHO) that there is no need for travel restrictions.

A note from the WHO and the International Civil Aviation Organization sent to health ministries on Aug. 29 said: "Lives are being unnecessarily lost because health care workers cannot travel to the affected countries, and delivery of life saving equipment and supplies is being delayed."

The World Food Programme said it needs to raise $70 million to feed 1.3 million people at risk from shortages in the Ebola-quarantined areas in West Africa, with the agency's resources already stretched by several major humanitarian crises.


http://news.yahoo.com/celebration-liberia-slum-ebola-quarantine-lifted-125436665.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Sweden discovers suspected case of Ebola: official
AFP
1 hour ago



Health care workers wearing protective suits work at the Elwa hospital, where Ebola patients are treated, on August 30, 2014 in Monrovia, Liberia (AFP Photo/Dominique Faget)



Stockholm (AFP) - A suspected case of the Ebola virus has been discovered in the Swedish capital Stockholm, a local official told AFP on Sunday.

"So far it's just a suspected case," the official said, without giving more details.

The person fell ill after visiting an area known to be hit by the virus and is now being held in isolation, the newspaper Svenska Dagbladet reported on its website.

Aake Oertsqvist, a specialist in infection control responsible for the Stockholm area, was quoted as saying the risk of an Ebola outbreak in Sweden was "very low".

"The virus is not airborne, but is spread among humans through direct or indirect contact via blood and other fluids," he was quoted as saying.


http://news.yahoo.com/sweden-discovers-suspected-case-ebola-official-200900008.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Ebola-hit Liberia bans sailors from disembarking
AFP
August 30, 2014 5:08 PM



Monrovia (AFP) - Liberia on Saturday said it would deny permission for any crew to disembark from ships at the country's four seaports until the Ebola epidemic ravaging west Africa was under control.

Sailors on commercial ships can normally ask for a "shore pass" allowing them to get off the vessel and access the port, but the documents are being withdrawn to curb the spread of the virus, said Matilda Parker, head of Liberia's ports authority.

"For vessels coming in we have cancelled shore passes. Absolutely no one from on board vessels will be allowed down," she told AFP.

The country's four seaports, including the Freeport of Monrovia, would adopt a "zero tolerance" approach, Parker said, against an outbreak which has claimed 1,500 lives since the start of the year.

Liberia, the hardest-hit of five west African nations struggling with the epidemic, has seen almost 700 deaths.

"For the workers who are going onboard vessels, they are going through three layers of screening at the gate, at the security desk and also at the peer. They have been instructed not to get in contact with anybody on board," Parker added.

Parker, a US-educated private sector management specialist, was taken on in 2009 to become what remains the world's only female port authority head, charged with turning around the fortunes of the underperforming, inefficient Freeport of Monrovia.

The port is run by APM Terminals, which operates in 63 countries, as part of a deal committing the company to a $145 million investment including a 600-metre wharf and state-of-the-art container tracking technology.

The port -- known as the "gateway to Liberia's economy" -- handles the majority of imports in an economy which has to buy in almost all commodities, meaning the price of fuel, machinery, manufactured goods and food rely heavily on its smooth running.

ArcelorMittal, the world’s biggest steel producer and the first investor to enter post-war Liberia in 2005, has ploughed an estimated $75 million in Buchanan, the country's second-largest port.


http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-hit-liberia-bans-sailors-disembarking-110948911.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Ghana to serve as UN base for supplies bound for Ebola countries
Reuters
August 29, 2014 7:27 PM



ACCRA (Reuters) - The United Nations will use Ghana as a base for supplies bound for countries stricken by an Ebola outbreak that has killed more than 1,550 people in West Africa, the Ghanaian presidency said in a statement on Friday.

More than 3,000 people have been infected since the virus was detected in the remote jungles of southeastern Guinea early this year. It quickly spread to Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria, and Senegal reported its first case on Friday.

UN chief Ban Ki-moon had a telephone conversation on Friday evening with Ghana's President John Dramani Mahama, who agreed to let international agencies use Ghana's capital Accra as a base for air lifting supplies and personnel to affected countries, the statement said.

Mahama chairs the West African regional grouping, ECOWAS, which has set up a solidarity fund to fight the deadly disease.

"Using Accra as the logistics and coordination center would therefore open a vital corridor to get urgently needed supplies and health personnel into the affected countries and areas," the statement said.

Regular international commercial flights to the affected countries have been suspended, making it difficult for supplies to reach them.

The statement said the UN and local authorities would work closely to put in place appropriate screening and prevention measures to avoid any adverse effects on Ghana as a result of the international operations.

The UN will also help review and strengthen Ghana's Ebola preparedness as steps are taken to prevent the virus from spreading to that country, according to the statement.

(Reporting by Kwasi Kpodo; Editing by Toni Reinhold)


http://news.yahoo.com/ghana-serve-un-supplies-bound-ebola-countries-232753258.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Ebola Outbreak: Do Hazmat Suits Protect Workers, or Just Scare Everyone?
LiveScience
By Laura Geggel, Staff Writer | August 29, 2014 03:12pm ET



Credit: DmitriMaruta | Shutterstock.com



For health care workers and researchers, wearing pressurized, full-body suits around Ebola patients may be counterproductive to treating the disease, say three Spanish researchers in a new letter published in the journal The Lancet. But other health experts, wary of wearing less protective gear, disagree.

Health agencies often require that health care workers caring for Ebola patients wear hazardous material (hazmat) suits that protect against airborne diseases. But the Ebola virus rarely spreads through the air, according to the researchers at the University of Valencia and Hospital La Paz-Carlos III, in Madrid.

Ebola is transmitted through contact with infected patients’ secretions (such as blood, vomit or feces), and such contact can be prevented by wearing gloves and masks, the researchers wrote.

Wearing full-body protection gear is "expensive, uncomfortable, and unaffordable for countries that are the most affected," they said. It may also send the message that such protection against the virus is being preferentially given to health care workers and is out of reach to the general public, they wrote in their article.

Moreover, the image of health care workers in hazmat suits could lead to panic, causing people to flee the area and possibly spread the virus elsewhere, they added.

Instead, protective gear such as gloves, waterproof smocks, goggles, masks and isolated rooms may be enough to manage infected patients, so long as they are not hemorrhaging or vomiting, the letter said. "In control of infectious diseases, more is not necessarily better and, very often, the simplest answer is the best," the researchers wrote.

The current Ebola virus outbreak is the worst in history. It began in February 2014 in Guinea and has since infected people in Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone, killing more than 1,500 people. Just 47 percent of infected patients have survived. 

But other experts disagree with the researchers, saying a high level of protection against the virus is needed in places with struggling health care systems, including the countries in West Africa where the outbreak is raging.

"The authors have a point, but I don't think a very strong one," said Dr. William Schaffner, a professor of preventive medicine and an infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee, who was not involved with the letter.

"It must indeed be unsettling for people to see folks in hazmat suits come into their communities," Schaffner told Live Science. "It's very foreign, and often increases their anxiety about events."

But it's better to err on the side of safety, he said. Because the Ebola virus does spread through contact with infected bodily fluids, if health care workers don't immediately clean up such excretions, it's possible these fluids could infect others not wearing appropriate protective gear.

Patients may also start vomiting or bleeding at any time, increasing the risk of infection for health care workers who are not wearing protective suits, he said.

"I would remind us that there are any number of health care workers, including Dr. [Kent] Brantly and Ms. [Nancy] Writebol, were using elaborate equipment in Africa and nonetheless became infected," Schaffner said. (Brantly and Writebol have both since recovered.)

In hospitals with cutting-edge technologies, such as Emory University Hospital, health care workers may not have to wear full-body suits for all Ebola patients, if the patients are on the mend, he said. If they are not displaying symptoms such as vomiting or bleeding, health care workers may be able to scale down their uniforms and use goggles and gloves in lieu of wearing hazmat suits, Schaffner said.

But "when you have a circumstance as hazardous as Ebola, it's important to be secure," Schaffner said.

The letter was published online Thursday (Aug. 28) in The Lancet.


http://www.livescience.com/47620-ebola-protective-gear.html?