Ebola news 9/29

[Buster's Uncle]

Australia won't send Ebola doctors to West Africa
Associated Press
12 hours ago



In this Sept. 19, 2014 file photo, Australia's Foreign Minister Julie Bishop address a meeting of the U.N. Security Council on Iraq, at the United Nations headquarters. Australia has ruled out sending doctors to West Africa to help fight the Ebola outbreak there because of logistical problems in repatriating any Australian who became infected with the deadly virus. Medecins Sans Frontieres, also known as Doctors Without Borders, as well as the Australian opposition party have called on the government to send a medical team to assist in a worsening doctor shortage in West Africa where the worst-ever outbreak of Ebola has killed more than 3,000 people. But Bishop said on Monday, Sept. 29, 2014, the Australian Health and Defense Departments had both advised that Australia could not safely evacuate Australian health workers back home. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews, File)



CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Australia on Monday ruled out sending doctors to West Africa to help fight the Ebola outbreak there because of logistical problems in repatriating any Australian who became infected with the deadly virus.

Medecins Sans Frontieres, also known as Doctors Without Borders, as well as the Australian opposition party have called on the government to send a medical team to assist in a worsening doctor shortage in West Africa where the worst-ever outbreak of Ebola has killed more than 3,000 people.

But Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said the Australian Health and Defense Departments had both advised that Australia could not safely evacuate Australian health workers back home.

"The Australian government is not about to risk the health of Australian workers in the absence of credible evacuation plans that could bring our people back to Australia," Bishop told reporters.

An American doctor who was exposed to Ebola while volunteering in Sierra Leone was admitted Sunday to a hospital at the National Institutes of Health near Washington, D.C., the health agency said.

Four other American aid workers who were sickened by Ebola while volunteering in the West African outbreak have been treated at hospitals in Georgia and Nebraska. One remains hospitalized while the others have recovered.

Australia announced two weeks ago that it would immediately provide an additional 7 million Australian dollars ($6.4 million) to help the international response to the outbreak.

The country had previously committed AU$1 million to the response.


http://news.yahoo.com/australia-wont-send-ebola-doctors-west-africa-042403564.html

[Buster's Uncle]

UN mission to combat Ebola opens HQ in Ghana
Associated Press
By SARAH DiLORENZO  6 minutes ago



Children sit in from of their home in the St. Paul Bridge neighborhood of Monrovia, Liberia, Sunday Sept. 28, 2014. Six months into the world’s worst-ever Ebola outbreak, and the first to happen in an unprepared West Africa, the gap between what has been sent by other countries and private groups and what is desperately needed is huge. Even as countries try to marshal more resources to close the gap, those needs threaten to become much greater, and possibly even insurmountable. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)



DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — The U.N. mission to combat Ebola opened its headquarters on Monday in Ghana, where it will coordinate international aid to assist West Africa to combat the accelerating crisis.

This outbreak has spiraled into the worst ever for Ebola, and the World Health Organization says it is has linked more than 3,000 deaths to the disease. Even that frightening figure is likely an underestimate of the true toll, said WHO. Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea have been hit hardest. Senegal and Nigeria have also been touched, but have not reported a new case in weeks.

In the face of desperate calls from governments and aid agencies on the ground, many promises of aid have poured in recently, and some of it — from health care workers to surgical gloves to protective suits for doctors and nurses — has begun to arrive. But some say the response is still too slow and haphazard.

The United Nations Mission for Ebola Emergency Response, also known as UNMEER, is now tasked with figuring out where the greatest needs are and making sure aid gets there, said Christy Feig, director of communications for WHO, which will play a significant role in the mission.

The head of the mission, Anthony Banbury, and his team arrived Monday in Ghana's capital of Accra.

Many countries in the region have closed their borders with the worst-affected countries and suspended flights into and out of them. That has choked off routes for supplies and health care workers into Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone. But Senegal officially opened a humanitarian corridor this weekend and U.N. flights can now make regular flights into the affected countries from Dakar. Ghana has also agreed to an air bridge.

The needs of the outbreak have continually outstripped projections: WHO says around 1,500 treatment beds have been built or are in the works, but that still leaves a gap of more than 2,100 beds. Between 1,000 and 2,000 international health care workers are needed, and they and local doctors and nurses will require millions of disposable protective suits to stay safe. Thousands of home hygiene kits are also being flown in to help families protect themselves at home.

Despite massive promises of aid in recent weeks, many areas have grossly inadequate resources. For instance Nimba County, one of the places Ebola has hit hardest in Liberia outside the capital, has only one ambulance, and it is often broken down, the county's medical officer, Collins Bowah, said Monday. Nimba natives who live in the capital of Monrovia have started a fundraiser to help out those back home.
___

Associated Press writer Jonathan Paye-Layleh contributed from Monrovia, Liberia.


http://news.yahoo.com/un-mission-combat-ebola-opens-hq-ghana-120150873.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Another Doctor Exposed to Ebola Arrives in U.S. for Treatment
The Atlantic Wire
By Russell Berman  1 hour ago






The National Institutes of Health in Maryland is treating an American doctor who was exposed to the Ebola virus in Sierra Leone.

The patient arrived in the United States on Sunday afternoon and is being enrolled "in a clinical protocol," NIH said.

NIH is not identifying the patient, only saying in a statement that it is "an American doctor who was volunteering services at an Ebola clinic in Sierra Leone."

Out of an abundance of caution, the patient has been admitted to the NIH Clinical Center’s special clinical studies unit that is specifically designed to provide high-level isolation capabilities and is staffed by infectious diseases and critical care specialists. The unit staff is trained in strict infection control practices optimized to prevent spread of potentially transmissible agents such as Ebola."

NIH spokesmen told The Wire on Monday morning that there were no additional details or updates on the patient's condition.

Two American aid workers were previously treated for Ebola at Emory University in Atlanta and discharged last month. President Obama met with one of those patients, Dr. Kent Brantly, at the White House earlier in September.

In its latest update on Friday, the World Health Organization said 3,083 people had died of Ebola during the outbreak in west Africa and 6,553 cases had been reported.


This article was originally published at http://www.thewire.com/global/2014/09/another-doctor-exposed-to-ebola-arrives-in-us-for-treatment/380896/

[Buster's Uncle]

Doctor exposed to Ebola treated in US
AFP
12 hours ago



A girl walks past a sign warning of the dangers of Ebola, outside a government hospital in Freetown, Sierra Leone, on August 13, 2014 (AFP Photo/Carl de Souza)



Washington (AFP) - An American doctor who was exposed to the Ebola virus in Sierra Leone was admitted to a clinic of the National Institutes of Health outside Washington.

The patient, whose identity was not revealed, was volunteering as a physician in a unit treating those suffering from the tropical fever that has already killed more than 3,000 people in west Africa since the end of last year.

"Out of an abundance of caution, the patient has been admitted to the NIH Clinical Center's special clinical studies unit that is specifically designed to provide high-level isolation capabilities and is staffed by infectious diseases and critical care specialists," the medical research center said in a statement, released Sunday.

"The unit staff is trained in strict infection control practices optimized to prevent spread of potentially transmissible agents such as Ebola."

It stressed that treating the patient in the United States "presents minimal risk" to other patients, NIH staff and the public.

Two American doctors and a Christian missionary infected by the Ebola virus in Liberia were flown back to the United States to receive treatment and have since recovered.

Global health experts have agreed that blood therapies and convalescent serums can be used to fight Ebola immediately, while safety trials begin for potential vaccines.

There is no drug or vaccine on the market to treat Ebola.

Ebola is transmitted by close contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person. The virus causes fever, vomiting, diarrhea and sometimes fatal bleeding.

The Ebola epidemic has now infected more than 6,500 people in West Africa and killed nearly half of them, according to the World Health Organization.


http://news.yahoo.com/doctor-exposed-ebola-treated-us-055925827.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Liberia: Top doctor goes under Ebola quarantine
Associated Press
By JONATHAN PAYE-LAYLEH  September 27, 2014 3:30 PM



Police carry out forensic testing for the Ebola virus on a corpse found on a street in Monrovia September 27, 2014. The death toll from an outbreak of Ebola in West Africa has risen to at least 3,091 out of 6,574 probable, suspected and confirmed cases, the World Health Organisation said on Friday. Liberia has recorded 1,830 deaths, around three times as many as in either Guinea or Sierra Leone, the two other most affected countries, according to WHO data received up to September 23. REUTERS/James Giahyue (LIBERIA - Tags: HEALTH)



MONROVIA, Liberia (AP) — Liberia's chief medical officer is placing herself under quarantine for 21 days after her office assistant died of Ebola.

Bernice Dahn, a deputy health minister who has represented Liberia at regional conferences about combating the epidemic, told The Associated Press on Saturday that she did not have any Ebola symptoms but wanted to ensure she was not infected.

The World Health Organization says 21 days is the maximum incubation period for Ebola, which has killed more than 3,000 people across West Africa and is hitting Liberia especially hard. WHO figures released Friday said 150 people died in the country in just two days.

Liberia's government has asked people to keep themselves isolated for 21 days if they think they have been exposed. The unprecedented scale of the outbreak, however, has made it difficult to trace the contacts of victims and quarantine those who might be at risk.

"Of course we made the rule, so I am home for 21 days," Dahn said Saturday. "I did it on my own. I told my office staff to stay at home for the 21 days. That's what we need to do."

Health officials, especially front-line doctors and nurses, are particularly vulnerable to Ebola, which is spread via the bodily fluids of infected patients. Earlier this month, WHO said more than 300 health workers had contracted Ebola in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, the three most-affected countries. Nearly half had died.

In Guinea, the country where Ebola cases were first confirmed back in March, officials said Saturday that the country's appeal court had been closed until further notice after a staffer there died of Ebola.

Justice Ministry spokesman Ibrahima Beavogui confirmed the closure of the court — located in the capital, Conakry — said it was necessary to protect officials and suspects.

Another justice official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the press, said the the secretary for the court clerk died of Ebola last week. "All the records of the department passed through the hands of this woman," the official said.

Making sure Ebola-stricken countries have the necessary supplies, including personal protective equipment, has been a challenge especially given that many flights in and out of the Ebola zone have been canceled.

At an emergency meeting of the African Union on Sept. 8, regional travel hub Senegal said it was planning to open a "humanitarian corridor" to affected countries.

Senegal was expected on Saturday to receive a flight carrying humanitarian staff from Guinea — the first time aid workers from one of the three most-affected countries were allowed in Senegal since the corridor was opened, said Alexis Masciarelli, spokesman for the World Food Program.

The airport in Dakar, Senegal's capital, has set up a terminal specifically for humanitarian flights where thorough health checks will be conducted, Masciarelli said.

The current plan calls for two weekly rotations between Dakar and Ebola-affected countries and a third weekly rotation between Dakar and Accra, Ghana, where a special U.N. mission to fight Ebola will be headquartered, Masciarelli said.

Mustapha Sidiki Kaloko, African Union commissioner for social affairs, said Saturday he plans to travel to West Africa Sunday to meet regional leaders and airline executives to try to convince them to resume flights canceled because of Ebola.

The first batch of an AU Ebola taskforce, totaling 30 people, left for Liberia on Sept. 18, Kaloko said. Taskforce members are expected to arrive in Sierra Leone on Oct. 5 and in Guinea by the end of October, he said.
__

Associated Press writers Boubacar Diallo in Conakry, Guinea, Robbie Corey-Boulet in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, and Elias Meseret in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, contributed to this report.


http://news.yahoo.com/liberia-top-doctor-goes-under-ebola-quarantine-111704072.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Ebola clinics fill up as Liberia awaits aid
Associated Press
By KRISTA LARSON and MARIA CHENG  September 28, 2014 6:36 AM



Local workers look on as a team of U.S. Navy engineers prepares the ground for a 25-beds medical facility they are building next to the airport in Monrovia, Liberia, Saturday Sept. 27, 2014. Six months into the world’s worst-ever Ebola outbreak, and the first to happen in an unprepared West Africa, the gap between what has been sent by other countries and private groups and what is desperately needed is huge. Even as countries try to marshal more resources to close the gap, those needs threaten to become much greater, and possibly even insurmountable. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)



MONROVIA, Liberia (AP) — Doctors are in short supply. So are beds for patients. Six months after the Ebola outbreak emerged for the first time in an unprepared West Africa and eventually became the worst-ever outbreak, the gap between what has been sent by other countries and private groups and what is needed is huge.

Even as countries try to marshal more resources, those needs threaten to become much greater, and possibly even insurmountable.

Fourteen-year-old D.J. Mulbah was taken by his mother and grandmother on Saturday in desperate pursuit of a coveted bed at the Ebola clinic run by Doctors Without Borders in Monrovia, Liberia's capital. Too weak to stand, he was put into a taxi with his backpack and a bucket for vomit. Now he lay on the dirt beside the worried women.

"He's been sick for a week with a runny stomach," said his mother, wiping the sweat off the boy's brow with her bare hands. "We tried calling an ambulance days ago but nobody ever came."

Beds are filling up as fast as clinics can be built. Ambulance sirens blare through standstill traffic. Often there is nowhere to take the sick except to "holding centers" where they await a bed at an Ebola treatment facility.

By 8 a.m. a dozen people who likely have Ebola are crouching and sitting on the ground outside the padlocked metal gates of a facility with a capacity of 160 patients. Soon a triage nurse approaches, her voice muffled through a surgical mask covered by a plastic face shield. The clinic will take the boy. D.J. manages a faint smile. Seven of the 30 beds made available Saturday morning were vacated by survivors. The rest had died.



Bystanders listen to a street preacher calling on people to raise their hands and "Wave Ebola Bye Bye" in Monrovia, Liberia, Saturday Sept. 27, 2014. Six months into the world’s worst-ever Ebola outbreak, and the first to happen in an unprepared West Africa, the gap between what has been sent by other countries and private groups and what is desperately needed is huge. Even as countries try to marshal more resources to close the gap, those needs threaten to become much greater, and possibly even insurmountable. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)


Statistics reviewed by The Associated Press and interviews with experts and those on the scene of one of the worst health disasters in modern history show how great the needs are and how little the world has done in response. Some foreign medical workers have bravely fought on, a few even contracting Ebola themselves as they cared for patients. Experts warn that the window of opportunity to snuff out the dreaded disease may close unless promises of additional assistance immediately become reality.

The existing bed capacity for Ebola patients in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea and Nigeria is about 820, well short of the 2,900 beds that are currently needed, according to the World Health Organization. Recently 737 beds were pledged by countries. Yet even after the promised treatment facilities are built, they will still be at least 2,100 beds short.

The shortage of health workers is also great. WHO has estimated that 1,000 to 2,000 international health workers are needed in West Africa. More than local 200 health workers have died of Ebola trying to save patients, complicating recruitment efforts.

Doctors Without Borders, which has more Ebola clinics than anyone, currently has 248 foreign aid workers in the region.

President Barack Obama has ordered up to 3,000 U.S. military personnel to West Africa to train health workers and build more than a dozen 100-bed field hospitals, including reserved sections for infected aid workers in Liberia.



Bystanders listen to a street preacher calling on people to raise their hands and "Wave Ebola Bye Bye" in Monrovia, Liberia, Saturday Sept. 27, 2014. Six months into the world’s worst-ever Ebola outbreak, and the first to happen in an unprepared West Africa, the gap between what has been sent by other countries and private groups and what is desperately needed is huge. Even as countries try to marshal more resources to close the gap, those needs threaten to become much greater, and possibly even insurmountable. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)


Among other promises of global assistance:

— The African Union has said it will deploy 100 health workers to assist the West African countries affected by Ebola. The first batch of an AU Ebola taskforce, totaling 30 people, left for Liberia on Sept. 18. Taskforce members are expected to arrive in Sierra Leone on Oct. 5 and in Guinea by the end of October.

— Britain and France have both pledged to build field hospitals in Sierra Leone and Guinea.

— China is sending a 59-person lab team to Sierra Leone.

— Cuba will send 461 health workers, who will be trained in biosecurity, and some will go to Liberia and Guinea.



U.S. Air Force personnel load boxes containing tents onto a truck at the airport in Monrovia, Liberia, Saturday Sept. 27, 2014. Six months into the world’s worst-ever Ebola outbreak, and the first to happen in an unprepared West Africa, the gap between what has been sent by other countries and private groups and what is desperately needed is huge. Even as countries try to marshal more resources to close the gap, those needs threaten to become much greater, and possibly even insurmountable. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)


Dr. Joanne Liu, international president of Doctors Without Borders, urged world leaders this week to take "immediate action."

"The reality on the ground today is this: The promised surge has not yet delivered," she said.

MSF and other aid workers are distributing home-care kits with gloves and surgical gowns to try and keep those awaiting hospital beds from infecting relatives at home, though only thousands of kits are being distributed in Monrovia, a city of 1.6 million.

"We have been working furiously trying to set up treatment centers but (incoming patients) have been outpacing our ability to set them up," said Dr. Frank Mahoney, co-lead of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control team in Liberia.

Unless the situation is put under control, the outbreak may infect as many as 1.4 million people by the end of the year and nearly half of those people could die, the CDC estimated this week. More than 3,000 are currently believed to have died from Ebola, which is spread through direct contact with the bodily fluids of the sick.



Health workers stand outside the Island Clinic Ebola isolation and treatment center in Monrovia, Liberia, Friday Sept. 26, 2014. The outbreak of Ebola has overwhelmed the weak health systems of some of the world's poorest countries - there aren't enough doctors and nurses or even clinics to treat the spiraling number of cases.(AP Photo/Jerome Delay)


If more people get sick than those who recover or die, the needs will grow even more pronounced.

"If this outbreak continues, the sheer caseload will make it much more difficult to contain," said Dr. Bruce Aylward, assistant-director general in charge of emergencies at WHO. "We will need more health workers to take care of them, more PPE (protective suits), more hospitals, more of everything."

A top priority is sending enough protective equipment, including gloves, gowns, masks and boots. WHO is shipping about 240,000 protective suits a month in addition to supplies sent by other agencies. Under-sourced clinics are reportedly washing and reusing protective gear that is meant to be worn once and burned.

"We still do have gaps in the supply, which are quite significant," said Antonio Vigilante, the Deputy Special Representative of the U.N. Secretary-General in Liberia. "Nobody expected that the requirements of protective gear would go in the order of millions." Liberia now requires an estimated 1.3 million protective suits, Vigilante said.

One of the world's top makers of the suits, DuPont, says it has more than doubled production but would not say who has placed orders. Officials are also looking into whether protective clothing can be locally produced.



Construction workers take a break as they build an Ebola isolation and treatment center in front of a unfinished and abandoned government building in Monrovia, Liberia, Thursday, Sept. 25, 2014. The center , due to open within two weeks, will add 200 beds to existing centers. The outbreak of Ebola has overwhelmed the weak health systems of some of the world's poorest countries: There aren't enough doctors and nurses or even clinics to treat the spiraling number of cases.(AP Photo/Jerome Delay)


"The situation on the ground is just disastrous," said Dr. Heinz Feldmann, chief of virology at the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who recently returned from Liberia.

"The idea of having hundreds of people in tent structures for Ebola management is unbelievable but the way this is spreading, we need to find a solution now."
___

AP Medical Writer Maria Cheng reported from London. Sarah DiLorenzo in Dakar, Senegal and Randall Chase in Dover, Del., contributed to this report.


http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-clinics-fill-liberia-awaits-aid-133846087.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Bill Gates warns Ebola could spread beyond West Africa
Reuters
By Stella Dawson  12 minutes ago



Microsoft technology advisor Bill Gates speaks in a news conference in Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa July 24, 2014. REUTERS/Tiksa Negeri



WASHINGTON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - It is impossible to guess whether world leaders have done enough to bring the Ebola epidemic under control, given the risks that it will spread to countries beyond West Africa, the technology billionaire and philanthropist Bill Gates said on Monday.

Countries should get ready to handle a possible outbreak of the deadly hemorrhagic fever in case it spreads further as people from Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea move across borders, Gates said at a breakfast meeting sponsored by the newspaper Politico and Bank of America.

“Because of that uncertainty, I am not going to hazard a guess,” Gates said when asked whether he thinks the massive ramping up of international aid over the past few weeks is enough.

The World Bank already has started working with countries on developing plans should the highly infectious disease spread.

The lesson so far is that countries with strong primary healthcare systems already in place are well positioned to halt the march of Ebola, as Nigeria and Senegal have demonstrated in their quick response to cases there, Gates said.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation funneled extra money in July and August towards Nigeria and pledged an additional $50 million on Sept. 10 to fight the epidemic, which so far has infected over 6,000 people mostly in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.

The World Health Organization warns the infection rate probably is three times that number and could reach 20,000 by November. The death rate is over 50 percent.

To contain the epidemic, the United States on Sept. 16 announced the deployment of 3,000 military engineers and medical personnel to build 17 treatment clinics and train healthcare workers, mostly in Liberia, at a cost of about $1 billion.

The United Kingdom and France also are increasing their assistance and the United Nations has stepped forward to coordinate the international effort.


PRIMARY HEALTHCARE SYSTEMS CRITICAL

The Gates Foundation has deep expertise in fighting infectious diseases, especially malaria, HIV/Aids, polio and tuberculosis, and has invested billions of dollars in developing countries over the past decade. Gates said those efforts have produced tangible results, such as reducing preventable child deaths by half since 1990 and putting the eradication of polio now within grasp.

A byproduct of these disease-specific investments has been the development of a skilled cadre of primary healthcare experts, who can respond quickly to other types of disease outbreaks, he said.

In Nigeria, for example, there is a strong infrastructure of clinics in place from polio vaccine programs. This enabled the country to respond quickly and contain the small number of Ebola cases in Lagos and Port Harcourt that were carried by an infected doctor who traveled there from Liberia.

Rwanda and Ethiopia also have built up strong primary healthcare systems, partly in conjunction with targeted aid programs such as child and maternal healthcare, Gates said.

In contrast, Liberia and Sierra Leone, still recovering from brutal civil wars that left their healthcare systems underfunded, rely heavily on clinics and hospitals run by a network of charities and non-profit groups. Their governments lacked a depth of institutional expertise in healthcare, Gates said.

“If we had had that, this epidemic would have been caught faster,” he said.

Building a healthcare structure in the three countries worst hit by Ebola is critical, otherwise deaths from preventable diseases will quickly outpace those from Ebola, Gates said.

If mothers are afraid to get professional assistance in delivering their babies for fear of contracting Ebola and children cannot get malaria treatments, the long-term impact of the epidemic will be far more damaging, he said

"That will be very tragic, and it won't get the type of attention that Ebola is getting," Gates said.

He estimated that it will take 20 years of donor investment in some African countries to build resilient healthcare systems able to control preventable diseases and manage health crises.

(Reporting by Stella Dawson; Editing by Lisa Anderson)


http://news.yahoo.com/bill-gates-warns-ebola-could-spread-beyond-west-183221769.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Ebola screening for ships' crews in West Africa's biggest port
AFP
16 minutes ago



Health officials take the body temperature of a Ukrainian sailor at the Apapa Sea Port, in Lagos, Nigeria, on September 29, 2014 (AFP Photo/Pius Utomi Ekpei)



Lagos (AFP) - Sand is unloaded from the vast hold of the Pintail cargo ship into waiting trucks at the port of Apapa in Nigeria's financial capital, Lagos.

But on board, port health officials are keen to stop the crew bringing anything else into Nigeria, especially the Ebola virus, which has claimed more than 3,000 lives this year in West Africa.

In a cabin on board the 56,880 tonne vessel, which arrived in Lagos on Sunday, the 19-strong crew are undergoing daily temperature checks until they eventually weigh anchor.

Twenty people have contracted Ebola in Nigeria and eight have died, according to the World Health Organization.

But with no case since September 8 and no one under surveillance, officials are keen to keep it that way.

"This (the screening) is important because we still have an outbreak (of Ebola) in other parts of the (West Africa) sub-region," Alex Okoh, director of point of entry health services in Lagos, told AFP.



Cargo ships dock at the Apapa Sea Port in Lagos, Nigeria, on September 29, 2014 (AFP Photo/Pius Utomi Ekpei)


"Whatever their route is, we want to ensure that the crew is safe."

Screening -- part of wider checks at all entry and exit points in Nigeria -- is no small task at the sprawling port, which is west Africa's busiest.

Apapa has 33 berths capable of accommodating three ships each and anywhere from 50 to 70 or more ships are docked at one time every day.

Port health officials, wearing protective masks and latex gloves, get crews to fill out health forms: last port of call, next port of call, plus the names and details of everyone on board.

Daily temperature readings are also recorded, allowing ship owners easy access to information, particularly if the vessels make stops along the west African coast, including in Ebola-affected nations.

Port authorities in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea, which have been worst-hit by Ebola, as well as Senegal are conducting similar screening programmes, a spokeswoman for the UN health body said.

"The health of the crew is very important. It's a priority. It's good modern practice," said Ruslan Rosenko, the Ukrainian master of the Cyprus-flagged bulk carrier.


http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-screening-ships-crews-west-africas-biggest-port-200032775.html

[Buster's Uncle]

What America's Richest Man Thinks We Should Do About Ebola
ABC News
By NOAH WEILAND  6 hours ago






America's richest man has a plan to fight Ebola, and he isn't shy about trumpeting its greatest benefactor: the United States.

In his first interview since donating $50 million to counter the quickly-expanding threat of Ebola in West Africa, Bill Gates outlined the obligations America has in shaping the institutions that will curb the crisis.

He told an intimate audience at the Bank of America building in Washington, D.C., today that the Ebola outbreak is "a great example of where the world needs to come together."

The $50 million pledge through his foundation is intended to "scale up" the fight, letting the money be released in "flexible funds" to United Nations agencies and global organizations that can purchase medical supplies and support facilities treating the outbreak.

Gates also cited the expertise of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as evidence of America's responsibility to step in and help. He referred to America's ability to counteract health crises as "the best in the world."

"The U.S. is the leader in being able to move into areas like this," he said.

After President Obama told the U.N. last Thursday that the crisis is "a marathon, but you have to run it like a sprint," Gates echoed the urgency, telling the audience that "the next few months will be really tense." To effectively stop the spread, Gates said he believes the appropriate infrastructure must be in place within the next month.

"What happens when you have people panic is that the entire health system shuts down," he said.

Politico, which hosted the highly-choreographed event, inadvertently caused a clumsy exchange about a key issue in the Ebola emergency: the success and timeliness of the global reaction to the outbreak.

Politico's White House correspondent Mike Allen, who moderated the event with Politico editor Susan Glasser, promoted a new article on the website that details the criticisms of the response to the calamity. But Gates was unconvinced.

"Unless you have an algorithm for the future ... I'm pretty impressed with how quickly people have stepped up on this," he said.

Though he said he believes the epidemic "would have been caught a month or two before it was" had the sufficient systems been in place, he nevertheless praised Congress' generosity: at least $175 million has been committed by the U.S. government, and the U.S. military is looking to give $500 million in "humanitarian assistance" that would be redirected from its budget. Almost 3,000 American troops have been mobilized to offer support to field hospitals and training facilities for health employees.

"There's an overall approach now," Gates said. "And the U.S. as usual on world problems [is] stepping up both in terms of the science, the understanding, and now the U.S. military's logistic ability to get supplies in and create field hospitals that are critical."

"If we can stop Ebola when it's just these three countries [Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and Guinea] ... building back up primary health care should be pretty straightforward," he added.

The eventual goal should be to not just rely on American and global institutions, but to encourage a kind of grassroots support for bearing the burden, Gates said.

"Getting as many Americans out in action to see this ... that’s our best tool," he said.


http://news.yahoo.com/americas-richest-man-thinks-ebola-164500111.html

[Buster's Uncle]

The man who discovered Ebola on why this epidemic spiraled out of control
Vox
Updated by Julia Belluz on September 29, 2014, 8:50 a.m. ET@juliaoftorontojulia.belluz@voxmedia.com



Dr. Peter Piot  LEON NEAL/AFP



When Dr. Peter Piot was a young scientist, in 1976, he received a shiny, blue thermos in his Antwerp lab. It was filled with the blood of a Belgium nun who worked in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (then Zaire). The woman had fallen ill with a mysterious sickness, and Piot was asked to screen the blood for yellow fever.

"We didn't even imagine the risk we were taking," Piot, now the director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, wrote in his memoir No Time to Lose. The sample tested negative for yellow fever and a range of other pathogens. But Piot would later discover that — in that "soup of half-melted ice" and cracked vials — lurked a deadly virus he named Ebola. 

Just before his discovery, Piot's professors told him that he had no future in infectious diseases. Back then, many people believed that science had solved the problems viruses created in humans with new vaccines and antivirals. Then came Ebola — a disease for which we still have no cure — and later HIV/AIDS in the 1980s.

Piot is now one of the world's foremost infectious diseases experts, and a former under-secretary general of the United Nations. He's been watching the world's largest-ever epidemic unfold from his post in London, and we spoke with him about his thoughts on the outbreak and how the global community can prevent future tragedies of this scale. This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

Julia Belluz: You've been working on Ebola since you co-discovered the virus in 1976. For nearly 40 years, this disease has largely been ignored by the international community except for brief flashes of interest, mostly spurred by Hollywood. Now we are seeing unprecedented attention and political galvanization around Ebola. What changed?

Peter Piot: In the 38 years since 1976 until this current outbreak, there have been something like 1,500 people who died in total. So that's less than 50 deaths per year. Up to now, it was not a real public health problem. This year, nearly 3,000 have died. All 24 previous outbreaks were both time and place limited to very confined communities. Even in the worst case, Ebola would kill 300 people. Here it has involved entire countries, and it has been going on for over nine months now.

JB: But the death toll was rising rapidly for months before the international community responded. What do you think finally sparked collective action?

PP: It was the Americans getting Ebola, I'm afraid. Beyond that, I don't know what changed it, really. Early in the second or third week of July, I gave an interview with CNN and I said this crisis requires a state of emergency and a quasi-military operation. After the interview, I thought maybe I exaggerated. But I felt that it was really getting out of hand and it looked like a completely different type of Ebola outbreak than we'd seen before. Then it took another month, so I really don't know.


"It took 1,000 deaths before a public health emergency was declared, and cynically it took two American doctors to become infected."


JB: Before this year, could you have imagined an Ebola outbreak of this size?

PP: I never thought it would get this big. I always thought it was an accident of history where someone becomes infected — from a bat probably — and then an outbreak is contained. Ebola came and went. I really never thought this could happen. But it shows again: when the right, or bad conditions are all combined with each other, then these things will happen again.

JB: We've seen a surge in the number of deaths now for weeks with no sign that the virus is slowing down. Why do you think this outbreak spun so far out of control?

PP: I think this is a result of a perfect storm of a lack of trust in authorities, in western medicine, dysfunctional health services, a belief in witchcraft as cause of disease and not viruses, traditional funeral rites, and a very slow response both nationally and internationally. The longer we wait, the longer there is an insufficient response, the worse it will get, the more difficult it will be to control this epidemic through quarantine and isolation and all the methods that worked in the past.

JB: Most of what you point out here has to do with things that we had no control over — an accident of geography, local beliefs. Can you point to a place where the ball was dropped in this Ebola response, something that should have been done to minimize the suffering in West Africa?

PP: It took more than three months to diagnosis the epidemic. The first case was in December and then they only diagnosed that it was Ebola in March. But then it took far too long before the international community did anything. That goes from the WHO, to the US, and UK governments. It took 1,000 deaths before a public health emergency was declared by the WHO, and cynically it took two American doctors to become infected. I think that's where particularly the local office of the WHO was inadequate, that's for sure. But it's not just WHO. It's the member states of the WHO, the ones who decide about the budget at the WHO.

JB: What do you think will be the lessons learned from this epidemic?

PP: This outbreak has highlighted the fact that we need to make sure we are far better equipped for epidemics in general. There will be others. But the good news is also that experimental therapies and vaccines for Ebola are now being tested for their efficacy so I think that's positive. For the next outbreak, we should have stockpiles of vaccines and therapies.

I also think this outbreak is changing the paradigm that there will be more investment, and accelerated development of drugs for rare diseases. Another impact is that there will be a financially protected team that can deal with outbreaks at the WHO and that there will be massive support to strengthen the health systems and services in these countries.



A Liberian health worker interviews family members of a woman suspected of dying of the Ebola virus  in Monrovia, Liberia. (John Moore/Getty Images)


JB: Strengthening health systems seems to be the thing we need most to make sure all nations can identify and respond to outbreaks like this, but that's also the hardest thing to fix.

PP: I don't think you can fix it. Each country is different. There is an illusion that there is one fix for the three neighboring countries [battling Ebola — e.g. Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea]. But they all have different problems. It's important to have a commitment to the long-term view — so when we're talking about global health programs and international development, that there is the long-term view that includes building health systems. That's not a matter of two or five years, that's ten years you need as a horizon.

JB: Those long-term timelines don't exactly square with political agendas, which are  short term. What happens when the political will and interest falls away?

PP: We've been there before. After war, we say 'never again.' After Katrina, we say 'we'll do this and that,' and then it gets out of the public eye. I don't know how to do it. I hope that the Ebola epidemic is a wake up call for that if we don't invest more in these health systems, that we are at risk for a repetition of the current Ebola crisis.

JB: What is the biggest public-health threat on the horizon?

PP: The biggest threat remains a flu pandemic. There I think we're better prepared with early alerts and the good news is that China is quite open now. The first cases of flu often come from China. In more recent years — still fortunately small outbreaks — there was open and prompt reporting [to the international community about flu cases]. I think there we have made real progress. But I think it'll come back to the fact that there has to be some central leadership.


http://www.vox.com/2014/9/29/6851701/the-man-who-discovered-ebola-on-why-this-epidemic-spiraled-out-of

[Buster's Uncle]

Air France flies to Ebola-hit Guinea out of 'solidarity': Hollande
AFP
4 hours ago



Air France planes are parked on the tarmac at Orly's airport, near Paris, on September 18, 2014 (AFP Photo/Eric Feferberg)



Paris (AFP) - Air France is maintaining its flights to Ebola-hit Guinea as a sign of France's "solidarity", President Francois Hollande said Monday as he hosted a visit by Guinea's President Alpha Conde.

International help needed to be ramped up for Guinea and other west African nations struggling with the deadly epidemic, which has killed more than 3,000 people since the start of the year, the French leader said.

At the same time, those countries suffering "should not be isolated and should remain open," he said.

"That is why Air France continues to work" by maintaining flights to Guinea's capital Conakry, Hollande said.

Air France, however, in August suspended its services to neighbouring Sierra Leone, which is also beset by the virus.

Other airlines, including British Airways, have also halted flights to Ebola-struck parts of west Africa.

Hollande assured Conde of France's "total solidarity" as Guinea grapples with the disease. Ebola has infected 1,074 people and killed 648 in Guinea.

He said his government has allocated 35 million euros ($44 million) and would soon establish a third Ebola clinic with the dispatch of another 25 French doctors to help Guinea battle the epidemic.


http://news.yahoo.com/air-france-flies-ebola-hit-guinea-solidarity-hollande-203345439.html