Ebola News 2/7

[Buster's Uncle]

State Dept. rewards ‘Ebola plane’ company with multimillion dollar raise
Deal worth up to $25 million also calls for private firm to educate the government on preparedness
Yahoo News
By Jason Sickles, 21 hours ago



Phoenix Air lands near Atlanta on Aug. 5 with Nancy Writebol aboard in an isolation chamber. (AP/Todd Kirkland)



On an unusually cold morning in northwest Georgia last month, Ebola survivor Nancy Writebol pulled up to the private aviation company Phoenix Air with five dozen Krispy Kreme doughnuts.

Her mission: to meet and thank the people who accomplished her elaborate air medical rescue from West Africa last summer — a feat that helped save the aid worker’s life.

“Their care and evacuation was an important part,” Writebol, 59, told Yahoo News. “It’s important to express gratitude. I’m just thankful for people who have been involved in the situation.”



Ebola survivor Nancy Writebol and her husband, David, touring the jet that rescued her from West Africa (Photo: Courtesy of the Writebol family)


She is one of 25 people, who were either stricken with Ebola or exposed to the deadly virus, who Phoenix Air has transported — to the U.S. or other countries — at the State Department’s request since early August.

Writebol showed her appreciation with sweets and hugs. The State Department, however, is rewarding the flight company’s heroics with a raise.

The new deal worth $12.5 to $25 million begins Saturday and puts Phoenix Air on 24/7 standby for another year. The company has two distinctive jets tailored to carry a special isolation chamber for transporting highly contagious patients.

Unlike the previous six-month contract, which ended up totaling $9.5 million, this agreement also calls on the aviation firm to share some of its operations knowledge and engineering expertise by helping the government get up to speed through training and development.

In justifying the contract, the State Department writes that it has identified a support gap in its mission to respond to critical threats overseas.



Cover page of the State Dept. contract justification. Click to read full document.


“This gap includes air mission planning, movement of emergency response personnel into and out of hazardous or non-permissive environments and medical evacuation of critically ill patients, including patients infected with unique and high contagious pathogens,” the State Department contract specifies.

U.S. officials were caught off guard last summer as the Ebola epidemic, which has killed nearly 9,000 people globally, raged in West Africa and American aid workers needed evacuating.

“The Centers for Disease Control [and Prevention], Department of Defense, and other government agencies have deployed crisis response teams that currently have no contingency plan for evacuation,” the State Department wrote in justifying an emergency contract with Phoenix Air last August.

The U.S. attempts to recoup some of the expense by asking sposoring humanitarian agencies or foreign governments to pay the estimated $215,000 it costs to evacuate someone from West Africa.

Phoenix Air, whose work ranges from executive charters to military training to aircraft modifications, never intended to be the go-to source for epidemic evacuations. From 2005 to 2010, it was contracted to transport the CDC’s employees in emergencies. During that time, the health agency inquired about ways to bring home personnel infected with an airborne virus if ever needed.

With the help of the DOD and Phoenix Air, the CDC engineered a negative-pressure, tent-like structure that allows caregivers to treat a single patient in flight without infectious germs escaping. But the Aeromedical Biological Containment System (ABCS) was specifically designed and FAA-approved for a “special mission” Gulfstream III — which the CDC was leasing from Phoenix Air at the time. There are only three such jets in the world, and Phoenix Air owns them all.

With the SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) scare over, the CDC asked Phoenix Air to shelve the unused system in 2011. It remained in storage until Writebol and Dr. Kent Brantly fell ill — and a doctor at the State Department remembered its existence.

Since then, the “Ebola plane” has ferried humanitarian workers to specialty hospitals in Omaha, Atlanta and Bethesda, Maryland. Phoenix Air was the only option in the world for a biocontainment evacuation until the DOD announced last week that its “Transport Isolation System” — a larger version of the ABCS capable of carrying four people — is ready for action.

“Phoenix Air management was very gratified to hear that,” Dent Thompson, the carrier’s vice president of operations, told Yahoo News.

The DOD’s design is the size of a minivan and made for a C-17 or C-130 transport aircraft. Three isolation systems are now staged at Joint Base Charleston Air Force Base in South Carolina in the event that one of 1,500 military personnel fighting Ebola in Africa gets the virus.



Staff Sgt. Cody Swayne loads a Transport Isolation System aboard a C-17 during a recent training exercise at Joint Base Charleston, S.C. (Photo: Senior Airman Jared Trimarchi/U.S. Air Force)

 
Because of its obligation to protect U.S. employees in embassies, consulates and on assignment worldwide, the State Department contract specifies that its rescue plane “requires a very unique combination of aircraft specifications and capacity.”

The State Department writes that it is working with the FAA and private industry to “foster new engineering solutions.” But with testing and certifications likely to take at least two years, the new agreement with Phoenix Air includes options to renew until February 2018.

“The pressure on our company has been enormous to react to the demand for it,” Thompson said.

But he said the carrier’s 150 employees realize it would “morally reprehensible” for them to back away now.

“We would never in a million years do that,” Thompson said. “As dumb as it sounds, we have an obligation to humanity to continue to do this until other people develop a capability.”

These are comforting words for Writebol and her husband, David. The couple, missionaries for the Christian outreach SIM USA, will return to Liberia this spring.

“It doesn’t matter if it’s a missionary or an aid worker or our service members, it’s important that we be able to care for people the best way that we can,” Writebol said.

Editor’s note: Some of the numbers in this story have been updated. Despite multiple requests over two days, the State Department responded to questions after the story originally published.


http://news.yahoo.com/state-dept-rewards-ebola-plane-company-with-multimillion-dollar-raise-163242202.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Nearly 3,600 children orphaned by Ebola outbreak in West Africa - UNICEF -TRFN
Reuters  5 hours ago



United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) Ivory Coast Representative Adele Khudr speaks to children during an Ebola awareness drive in Toulepleu, at the border of Liberia, in western Ivory Coast, in this file photo taken on November 4, 2014. REUTERS/Thierry Gouegnon



NEW YORK (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - The Ebola outbreak in West Africa has orphaned nearly 3,600 children in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, the United Nations Children's Fund said on Friday.

By mid-January, 16,600 children were left without one or both parents or their main caregiver in the three countries worst hit by the epidemic, UNICEF said.

Extended families and communities were providing care for the vast majority of the children with only three percent of them needing to be placed outside family or community care.

"Since overcoming their initial fears and misconceptions about Ebola, families have been showing incredible support, providing care and protection for children whose parents have died," Manuel Fontaine, UNICEF's regional director for West and Central Africa, said in a statement.

Children who had been exposed to Ebola were being kept under a 21-day observation period - the maximum incubation period of the virus - and provided with support by a network of survivors.

Ebola survivors are able to interact with the children during the monitoring period because they have developed a level of resistance to the virus, UNICEF said.

The epidemic created a window of opportunity for aid workers to identify vulnerable children and provide them with adequate care in countries where child protection systems were already weak before the outbreak, UNICEF said.

"We have a chance to address other forms of vulnerability that existed before the Ebola crisis, such as child marriage, child labour, sexual violence and exploitation," Fontaine said.

Nearly 9,000 people have died out of 22,495 known cases in the Ebola epidemic that began in December 2013. [ID:nL6N0VE530]


http://news.yahoo.com/nearly-3-600-children-orphaned-ebola-outbreak-west-094351538.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Guinea to expand use of experimental anti-Ebola drugs
Reuters  49 minutes ago



Tablets of Avigan (generic name : Favipiravir), a drug approved as an anti-influenza drug in Japan and developed by drug maker Toyama Chemical Co, a subsidiary of Fujifilm Holdings Co. are displayed during a photo opportunity at Fujifilm's headquarters in Tokyo October 22, 2014. REUTERS/Issei Kato



CONAKRY (Reuters) - Guinea's government has authorized the wider use of an experimental drug to treat Ebola in treatment centers after successful initial trials, officials said on Saturday.

The expansion of the treatment comes as the number of people with Ebola in Guinea has doubled in the past week, reversing a broader trend of decline across the three worst-hit West African states - Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

The experimental Japanese drug - Avigan, or favipiravir - developed by Toyama Chemical, a subsidiary of Japan's Fujifilm, has been tested by French and Guinean teams in southern Guinea since mid-December.

French President Francois Hollande's office said on Wednesday that the results had been positive and the drug appeared to accelerated the recovery process of patients.

"We have decided to broaden the use of this drug. It will only be available in the Ebola Treatment Units, not the hospitals," Sakoba Keita, coordinator of Guinea's Ebola response, told reporters on Saturday.

Guinea's anti-Ebola task force said about two dozen new cases of Ebola had been recorded in the last two weeks, taking the total number to 53 as of Friday. Officials are accessing villages where they had previously faced local resistance to their presence.

Health officials have not provided any data for the results of the trials of the anti-Ebola drug.

Keita said that after testing in Gueckedou and Nzerekore, favipiravir has been distributed to the town of Coyah and talks are underway start treatment in the capital, Conakry.

"We are looking to see how we can get it to other parts of the country too," he said.

The epidemic has killed nearly 9,000 people over the last year, mainly in the three worst-affected West African nations.

Guinea, where the outbreak began, has recorded over 1,900 dead from some 3,000 confirmed cases.

"The Ebola situation is getting better but we are not cured," said Jean-François Delfraissy, a French Ebola expert working alongside Guinean authorities to contain the crisis.

(Reporting by Saliou Samb. Writing by David Lewis, editing by Mike Peacock)


http://news.yahoo.com/guinea-expand-experimental-anti-ebola-drugs-184649331--finance.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Guinea tries 58 over attack on Ebola outreach mission
AFP  21 hours ago



Boots and protective suits at an Ebola treatment centre in Conakry on December 8, 2014 (AFP Photo/Cellou Binani)



Conakry (AFP) - Guinea has put 58 people on trial over an attack on Ebola outreach workers by a mob wielding machetes, a judicial source said on Friday.

The defendants are accused of wounding several government workers and staff from the global medical aid agency Medecins sans Frontieres (MSF) with the knives as well as assaulting them with sticks and stones.

"The 58 people were referred to court for assault and battery, destruction of public buildings, public insults and threats, and rebellion," the source said.

The group, who have been on trial since Monday in the western town of Forecariah, were arrested after the attack in early January on the nearby island of Kaback.

A judicial source in Forecariah told AFP they face six months each in jail if convicted, with verdicts expected next week.

Guinea and its neighbours Sierra Leone and Liberia have registered more than 9,000 deaths since the epidemic flared up in December 2013, according to figures released Friday by the World Health Organization.

Mobs have sporadically attacked healthworkers in all three countries after being taken in by a variety of conspiracy theories, often characterising the outbreak as a plot by the West to murder Africans and harvest their organs.

Guinea has seen the worst of the bloodshed and the situation is particularly tense in the west African nation's densely-forested southern region, where the epidemic began.

A police officer and his driver were killed and their bodies burned in the Forecariah region on January 10 by villagers who accused them of spreading the virus.

In September last year, eight members of an outreach team were killed by protesters denying the reality of the virus and denouncing a "white conspiracy" in the southeastern town of Womey.


http://news.yahoo.com/guinea-tries-58-over-attack-ebola-outreach-mission-004230510.html