Ebola news 8/26

[Buster's Uncle]

Ebola 'easier to avoid than malaria'
AFP
53 minutes ago



Members of the Guinean Red Cross distribute information leaflets during an awareness campaign on the Ebola virus on April 11, 2014 in Conakry (AFP Photo/Cellou Binani)



Monrovia (AFP) - The head of the US Agency for International Development said Tuesday poor understanding of Ebola was undermining the fight against the epidemic, pointing out that the fever is harder to get than malaria.

USAID director Jeremy Konyndyk, in Liberia to support the fight against an epidemic which has claimed the lives of almost 1,500 west Africans, told AFP educating people on how to protect themselves was the best way to beat Ebola.

"Compared to something like malaria, it is much harder a disease to get. But obviously must worse when you do get it," he said.

"So helping people to better understand how they can protect themselves, how they can avoid Ebola, is a critical piece of controlling this outbreak."

The epidemic has sent shockwaves throughout the world since it emerged in southern Guinea at the start of the year, grounding flights to the afflicted countries and damaging African economies.

But the death toll since it was discovered in 1976 is under 3,000 while, at conservative estimates, malaria is estimated to kill that many people every two days, the vast majority of them African children aged under five.



A medical worker feeds an Ebola child victim at a clinic in Kailahun on August 15, 2014 (AFP Photo/Carl de Souza)


Ebola transmission can be prevented by avoiding contact with an infected person's bodily fluids.

Malaria, spread through the bite of the Anopheles mosquito, often while the human host is asleep, is more difficult to avoid.

"One of the biggest challenges that we are faced with in this outbreak is misinformation or poor understanding. You know Ebola is not a hard disease to avoid, if you know how to avoid it," Konyndyk said.

Konyndyk is due to hold talks with the affected communities in Liberia, where 624 people have died, as well as health authorities in the field and the government.

USAID is a government agency working in more than 100 countries with a mission to end extreme global poverty.


http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-easier-avoid-malaria-135954848.html

[Buster's Uncle]

US health official: Ebola has 'upper hand'
Associated Press
By JONATHAN PAYE-LAYLEH  2 hours ago



Graphic provides an update on the spread of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa; 3c x 4 inches; 146 mm x 101 mm;



MONROVIA, Liberia (AP) — The Ebola virus has the "upper hand" in an outbreak that has killed more than 1,400 people in West Africa, a top American health official said, adding that experts have the tools to stop it.

Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is visiting Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, the three hardest hit countries, this week.

Nigeria has also recorded cases, but officials have expressed optimism that its spread there can be controlled. On Tuesday, Frieden continues his visit in Liberia, which has the most cases and deaths.

"Lots of hard work is happening, lots of good things are happening," Frieden told a meeting attended by President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf on Monday. "But the virus still has the upper hand."

The current outbreak is the largest ever and experts have struggled to contain it for a host of reasons: doctors took a long time to identify it, it is happening in a region where people are highly mobile, it has spread to densely populated areas and many people have resisted or hid from treatment. The disease has overwhelmed already struggling health systems in some of the world's poorest countries.

But Frieden expressed optimism that the outbreak can be contained.



Liberian security forces with riot gear stop people from leaving the West Point area, that has been hardest hit by the Ebola virus spreading in Monrovia, Liberia, Monday, Aug. 25, 2014. A Liberian doctor who was among three Africans to receive an experimental Ebola drug has died, the country's information minister said Monday.(AP Photo/Abbas Dulleh)


"Ebola doesn't spread by mysterious means, we know how it spreads," he said in his remarks, which were broadcast on Liberian TV. "So we have the means to stop it from spreading, but it requires tremendous attention to every detail."

Liberia has resorted to some of the most stringent measures to control the disease, including sealing off an entire slum neighborhood in the capital. Sirleaf has also declared a state of emergency and ordered all her ministers and top government officials to remain in the country or return from any trips.

Late Monday, her office said in a statement that any official who defied that order had been fired. The order was issued a few weeks ago and officials had been given a week to return. The statement did not say how many or who had been fired.

According to the latest World Health Organization tally, the Ebola outbreak has killed 1,427 people of the 2,615 sickened. The U.N. health agency says that 240 health care workers have been infected with Ebola, calling that an unprecedented number. Half of those infected have died.

The agency said that the high number of infections among health workers is due to a shortage of protective gear and its improper use and a shortage of staff to treat the tremendous influx of patients.



A man, left, renting out his wheelbarrow moves food goods for people in the West Point area that have been hardest hit by the Ebola virus spreading in Monrovia, Liberia, Monday, Aug. 25, 2014. A Liberian doctor who was among three Africans to receive an experimental Ebola drug has died, the country's information minister said Monday. (AP Photo/Abbas Dulleh)


In the current outbreak as many as 90,000 protective suits will be needed every month, according to Jorge Castilla, an epidemiologist with the European Union Commission's Department for Humanitarian Aid. That estimate takes into account a recent increase in the number of beds available for treating Ebola patients and more stringent standards to protect health workers.

There has been a severe shortage of that equipment that is only now beginning to be resolved, he said. He did not say exactly how many suits were lacking.

The outbreak also desperately needs more workers to trace the people that the sick have come into contact with and more centers where patients can be screened for the disease in a safe way that contains any Ebola infections, said Castilla, who recently returned from a trip to Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

A separate Ebola outbreak emerged over the weekend in Congo, though experts say it is not related to the West African epidemic. Doctors Without Borders, which is running many of the treatment centers in the West Africa outbreak, said it was also sending experts and supplies to Equateur, a northwestern province of Congo. But the medical charity has already warned that the West African outbreak has stretched its resources.

"In normal times, we're able to mobilize teams specializing in hemorrhagic fevers, but currently we are facing an enormous epidemic in West Africa, limiting our capacity to respond to the outbreak in Equateur province," said Jeroen Beijnberger, the group's medical coordinator in Congo. "We need other actors to rapidly mobilize with us to help the (Congolese) Ministry of Health: We won't succeed alone."
___

Sarah DiLorenzo in Dakar, Senegal, contributed to this report.


http://news.yahoo.com/liberian-ministers-defied-ebola-order-fired-095558467.html

[Buster's Uncle]

'Perfect storm' for Ebola to spread, says virus pioneer
AFP
3 hours ago



Professor Peter Piot, director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, seen at his office in central London on July 30, 2014 (AFP Photo/Leon Neal)



Paris (AFP) - Peter Piot, the Belgian scientist who co-discovered the Ebola virus in 1976, on Tuesday said a "perfect storm" in West Africa had given the disease a chance to spread unchecked.

"We have never seen an (Ebola) epidemic on this scale," Piot was quoted by the French daily Liberation as saying.

"In the last six months, we have been witnessing what can be described as a 'perfect storm' -- everything is there for it to snowball."

The epidemic "is exploding in countries where health services are not functioning, ravaged by decades of civil war," Piot said.

"In addition, the public is deeply suspicious of the authorities. Trust must be restored. Nothing can be done in an epidemic like Ebola if there is no trust."

Piot is former chief of the UN agency UNAIDS and now director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, one of the world's foremost centres of expertise on tropical disease.

In the interview, he also castigated "the extraordinary slowness" of international organisations in responding to the outbreak.

"The World Health Organization (WHO) only woke up in July," whereas the epidemic began in December last year and health experts sounded the alarm in early March, said Piot.

"There is now leadership but it is late," he said.

The epidemic has killed 1,427 people out of more than 2,600 known cases of infection, with doctors and nurses paying a particularly heavy price.

The epidemic is focused on Liberia and Sierra Leone, which were wracked by conflict in the 1990s and the early part of the last decade, and on neighbouring Guinea.

Other cases have been recorded in Nigeria, whose north is hit by unrest, and in the Democratic Republic of Congo, whose east is in the grip of a decades-old conflict and where Ebola was first identified in 1976.

DRC Health Minister Felix Kabanga Numbi last Sunday said that the country's seventh recorded Ebola outbreak had "no link to (the epidemic) in west Africa".


http://news.yahoo.com/perfect-storm-ebola-spread-says-virus-pioneer-114203396.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Correction: Ebola story
Associated Press
1 hour ago


ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — In a story Aug. 22 about Ebola, The Associated Press erroneously reported that Nigeria's total of confirmed infections was 16. In fact, the number of Ebola cases confirmed by the WHO was 12.

The story also said that patients under surveillance were not restricted. Health officials advised those under surveillance to restrict their movements and avoid contact with others, but they were not forcibly restricted.

A corrected version of the story is below:

Ebola spreads in Nigeria; Liberia has 1,000 cases
Ebola outbreak widens in Nigeria; Liberia cases top 1,000; Experts fear "shadow zones"
Associated Press
By BASHIR ADIGUN and JONATHAN PAYE-LAYLEH



A Liberian soldier, right, scans people for signs of the Ebola virus, as they control people from entering the West Point area in the city of Monrovia, Liberia, Saturday, Aug. 23, 2014. (AP Photo/Abbas Dulleh)


ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — Two alarming new cases of Ebola have emerged in Nigeria, widening the circle of people sickened beyond the immediate group of caregivers who treated a dying airline passenger in one of Africa's largest cities.

The outbreak also continues to spread elsewhere in West Africa, with 142 more cases recorded, bringing the new total to 2,615 with 1,427 deaths, the World Health Organization said Friday.

Most of the new cases are in Liberia, where the government was delivering donated rice to a slum where 50,000 people have been sealed off from the rest of the capital in an attempt to contain the outbreak.

New treatment centers in Liberia are being overwhelmed by patients that were not previously identified. One center with 20 beds opened its doors to 70 possibly infected people, likely coming from "shadow-zones" where people fearing authorities won't let doctors enter, the U.N health agency said.

"This phenomenon strongly suggests the existence of an invisible caseload of patients who are not being detected by the surveillance system," the agency said. This has "never before been seen in an Ebola outbreak."

The two new cases in Nigeria were infected by their spouses, both medical workers who had direct contact with Liberian-American Patrick Sawyer, who flew into Nigeria from Liberia and Togo and infected 11 others before he died in July. The male and female caregivers also then died of Ebola, Health Minister Onyebuchi Chukwu said Friday.

Nigerian officials initially claimed the risk of exposure to others was minimal because Sawyer was whisked into isolation after arriving at the airport. Lagos state health commissioner Jide Idris later acknowledged that Sawyer was not immediately quarantined.

The two new cases were quarantined two days ago while being tested, Chukwu said. They had previously been under surveillance, meaning they were contacted daily to see if they developed any symptoms and they were advised to stay at home and avoid contact with others, but they were not forcibly restricted. Once they showed signs of the disease, they were brought in to a quarantine unit. People who contract Ebola are not contagious until they show symptoms, say health experts.

Authorities are now trying to identify and monitor everyone they have been in contact with.

In all, 213 people are now under surveillance in Nigeria, including six people, all "secondary contacts" like the caregivers' spouses, being monitored in the state of Enugu, more than 310 miles (500 kilometers) east of Lagos.

A mobile laboratory capable of diagnosing the disease has been moved there, Chukwu said.

Nigeria's total of confirmed infections is now 12, according to the World Health Organization. Five of them have died and five have recovered; the rest are being treated in isolation in Lagos, the commercial capital where Sawyer's flight landed.

The damage has been far greater in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, each dealing with hundreds of cases. Liberia has been hit hardest, recording 1,082 cases and 624 deaths.

In Liberia, a teenage boy died after being shot by security forces in West Point, a slum that was blockaded this week to stop the spread of Ebola, a Liberia government spokesman said Friday. Shakie Kamara was hurt in a clash with police and soldiers who sealed off their peninsula from the rest of Monrovia.

Days earlier in West Point, slum dwellers ransacked a holding center for Ebola patients after realizing that some patients had come from other parts of the city. Looters then made off with bloody sheets and mattresses that could spread the disease.

The government began distributing rice, some of it donated by the World Food Program, to alleviate food shortages a day after cordoning off the slum, said Information Minister Lewis Brown.

Some countries also continue to impose travel restrictions, even though they aren't recommended by the UN health agency.

On Friday, the Central African country of Gabon announced it was barring all flights and ships from Ebola-stricken countries. South Africa already announced a travel ban for non-citizens from these countries "unless the travel is considered absolutely essential." Senegal closed its borders with Guinea, and is barring air or sea travel from Sierra Leone and Liberia. Cameroon barred flights from Nigeria.

__

Paye-Layleh reported from Monrovia, Liberia. Associated Press writers Maram Mazan in Lagos, Nigeria; Babacar Dione in Dakar, Senegal; and Yves-Laurent Goma in Libreville, Gabon, contributed reporting.


http://news.yahoo.com/nigeria-confirms-2-ebola-cases-114318752.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Canada's Immunovaccine Inc says test of Ebola vaccine promising
Reuters
By Rod Nickel  19 hours ago



Some of the ultrastructural morphology displayed by an Ebola virus virion is revealed in this undated handout colorized transmission electron micrograph (TEM) obtained by Reuters August 1, 2014. REUTERS/Cynthia Goldsmith/CDC/Handout via Reuters



WINNIPEG Manitoba (Reuters) - Four monkeys survived the Ebola virus after being injected with a vaccine that included Immunovaccine Inc's technology, the tiny Canadian company said on Monday, and the announcement sent its stock soaring.

The Halifax, Nova Scotia-based company said four monkeys received the vaccine and later survived a dose of Ebola virus that normally would have been lethal. Two other animals that did not receive the vaccine died within a week.

Immunovaccine, which had a market capitalization of about C$77 million ($70 million) as of Friday, is one of a handful of companies involved in testing potential vaccines for the Ebola virus, which has killed nearly 1,500 people in West Africa.

Its Ebola program started a few months ago, after the U.S. National Institutes of Health asked Immunovaccine to apply technology from the company's anthrax vaccine to Ebola. The work was part of NIH tests on possible antigens, substances that cause the immune system to produce antibodies against Ebola.

Unlike antigens in some other early-stage Ebola vaccines, Immunovaccine's antigen does not use a live virus to carry the vaccine into cells.

The company has not disclosed the nature of its antigen.

Generally, it "presents those vaccines to the immune system in a slightly different way so that the immune system processes the vaccine a lot better, and as a result produces stronger immunity to that target," Chief Executive Marc Mansour said in an interview.

He said the company is exploring options to develop the vaccine with various organizations, but would not identify them. Assuming it strikes the partnerships it needs to continue development, clinical trials could start as early as next year, he said.

Other companies testing Ebola vaccines include U.S.-based NewLink Genetics Corp, which holds the license for a vaccine developed by the Canadian government, privately held Profectus BioSciences and British drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline PLC.

Immunovaccine is also developing therapies for cancer.

Its stock on the TSX Venture Exchange jumped as much as 44 percent after a trading halt, and was up 16.5 percent at C$1.13 in afternoon trading.

(Reporting by Rod Nickel in Winnipeg, Manitoba; Editing by David Gregorio)


http://news.yahoo.com/canadas-immunovaccine-inc-says-test-ebola-vaccine-promising-162610434.html

[Buster's Uncle]

UN envoy says 'war' on Ebola could take six more months
AFP
By Rod Mac Johnson  18 hours ago



French NGO Doctors Without Borders (MSF) staff members stand in protective gear at the MSF ELWA hospital in Monrovia, where patients suffering from Ebola are treated (AFP Photo/Zoom Dosso)



Freetown (AFP) - The UN's Ebola envoy said Monday the fight against the epidemic was a "war" which could take six more months, as its global health body claimed the disease was affecting an "unprecedented" number of medical staff.

David Nabarro, a British physician the United Nations appointed to coordinate the global response to the crisis, was in Sierra Leone's capital Freetown for the fifth day of a tour of the region.

"The effort to defeat Ebola is not a battle but a war which requires everybody working together, hard and effectively," he told a news conference.

"I hope it will be done in six months but we have to do it until it is completed."

UN officials have pledged to step up efforts against the lethal tropical virus, which has infected more than 2,600 and killed 1,427 since the start of the year.

The World Health Organization in fresh figures on Monday said more than 120 health workers across west Africa have died during the "unprecedented" outbreak, and more than 240 had been infected.



Then senior United Nations System Coordinator for Avian and Human Influenza, David Nabarro, speaks at the press briefing during the International Monetary Fund and World Bank annual meeting in Singapore, September 17, 2006 (AFP Photo/Roslan Rahman)


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

"To date, more than 240 health care workers have developed the disease in Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone, and more than 120 have died."

It added that "Ebola has taken the lives of prominent doctors in Sierra Leone and Liberia", depriving those countries of badly needed experienced medical care.

Adding to the crisis, the Democratic Republic of Congo on Sunday confirmed its two first cases of Ebola this year, claiming they were unrelated to the epidemic in west Africa.

And in Liberia, the death of a doctor treated with an experimental serum cast doubt on hopes that new drugs could help to contain the worst-ever outbreak of the deadly disease.



A group of Guinean sanitation control agents prepare to leave as reinforcements for the provinces infected by Ebola, August 20, 2014 in Conakry (AFP Photo/Cellou Binani)


- Flight bans hinder UN -

Nabarro, who has been charged with revitalising the health sectors of Ebola-hit Liberia, Guinea, Sierra Leone and Nigeria, said bans on flights to afflicted countries were hampering UN efforts to stop the epidemic.

Almost all airlines running services to and from the three hardest-hit nations' capitals have announced a temporary suspension until the spread of the disease is brought under control.

"By isolating the country, it makes it difficult for the UN to do its work," said Nabarro.

"Pilots and others, as well as passengers, generally have very low risk of Ebola infection," Keiji Fukuda, the WHO's Assistant Director-General on Health Security, told the news conference.



A Doctor's Without Borders (MSF) medical worker wears protective clothing at an MSF Ebola treatment facility in Kailahun, Sierra Leone, on August 15, 2014 (AFP Photo/Carl de Souza)


Liberia has suffered most since the outbreak of the deadly virus erupted earlier this year, with 624 deaths.

Guinea, where the disease was first discovered, has reported 406 deaths, Sierra Leone 392 and Nigeria five, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday.

The news conference followed an announcement by Liberia that a doctor treated with experimental American anti-Ebola serum ZMapp had died.

Abraham Borbor, a Liberian national, died on Sunday night but two other health workers receiving the serum are still in treatment, Liberian Information Minister Lewis Brown told AFP.

Japan had said earlier that it was ready to offer an experimental drug developed by a Japanese company to help stem the global tide of Ebola.



A nurse wearing protective clothing demonstrates the facilities at the Royal Free Hospital in north London, in preparation for any patients testing positive for the Ebola virus, August 6, 2014 (AFP Photo/Leon Neal)


The WHO has been discussing the use of unapproved drugs as a way of containing the outbreak.

"Given the overall situation, it is reasonable to go ahead and use these medicines but in a very controlled and very careful way," Fukuda said.

"We also don't want to be in a situation where something potentially life-saving cannot be used," he added.


- Ebola hits DR Congo -

The clamour for untested drugs is expected to intensify after DR Congo on Sunday confirmed two of eight samples taken from victims of a mystery fever had tested positive for Ebola.

The confirmation marks the seventh outbreak of Ebola in DR Congo, where the virus was first identified in 1976, near the a river after which it is named.

Meanwhile Britain's first Ebola patient, a male nurse who contracted the disease in Sierra Leone, was admitted to the country's only specialist Ebola isolation unit in London at the weekend.

The patient, named in British media as 29-year-old William Pooley, is not "seriously unwell" according to the Department of Health.

The WHO has echoed Nabarro's warning that it could take several months to bring the epidemic under control.

The agency estimates its count of the infected and dead is likely far too low, due in part to community resistance to outside medical staff and a lack of access to infected areas.

The Ivory Coast has closed its borders with Guinea and Liberia, just days after Senegal did the same with Guinea, while South Africa has banned entry for non-citizens arriving from Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia.


http://news.yahoo.com/un-envoy-says-flight-bans-hindering-war-ebola-180404217.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Liberian doctor who received rare Ebola drug ZMapp dies
Reuters
19 hours ago



Liberian soldiers patrol the West Point area as people's movement is controlled due to fear of the Ebola virus spreading, in the city of Monrovia, Liberia, Saturday, Aug. 23, 2014. (AP Photo/Abbas Dulleh)



MONROVIA (Reuters) - A Liberian doctor who treated victims of an Ebola epidemic and then contracted the disease himself has died even though he was given the experimental drug ZMapp, Liberia's information minister said on Monday.

Abraham Borbor's death could curb optimism about the drug that mounted last week when two U.S. aid workers who caught Ebola in Liberia were declared free of the virus after receiving the same treatment at a hospital in the United States.

People in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia are desperate for a cure for the contagious hemorrhagic fever that has killed at least 1,427 people since March in the deadliest outbreak the world has seen.

But Mapp Biopharmaceutical says it will take time to replenish its exhausted stocks of ZMapp and scientists say it is too early to confirm the value of the medication that has been tested on laboratory animals but not previously on humans.

The disease has reaped a grim toll on healthcare workers, often working long hours in tough conditions at low-tech facilities, often lacking adequate protective gear.

Nearly 100 have died, according to the World Health Organization, including doctor Sheik Umar Khan, who was considered a hero in his native Sierra Leone for leading the fight against Ebola.

Doctors at the Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) facility where he was treated agonized over the ethics of giving him ZMapp and the risk of a backlash if it was perceived to have killed him. They decided against it.

Victims suffer vomiting, diarrhoea, internal and external bleeding in the final stages of the disease, leaving their bodies coated in the virus.

Liberia, where Ebola is spreading fastest, received three doses of ZMapp on Aug. 13 and used them to treat three doctors: Borbor and Zukunis Ireland from Liberia and Aroh Cosmos Izchukwu from Nigeria.

Initially, officials said they were responding to treatment but Information Minister Lewis Brown said Borbor died on Sunday. A Spanish priest treated with ZMapp this month also died.


OUTBREAK ADVANCING

There are other drugs in the pipeline and the outbreak has added urgency to research into a disease with no cure or vaccine, but all the drugs are unproven and have yet to clear even the initial stage of clinical trials.

In one sign of potential progress, four monkeys survived Ebola after being injected with Immunovaccine Inc's experimental vaccine, the Canadian company said on Monday, an announcement that sent its stock soaring.

West Africa's first Ebola outbreak was detected five months ago in the forests of southeastern Guinea but it was not until Aug. 8 that the World Health Organization declared an international health emergency and promised more resources.

That delay drew criticism from some health groups, who said the U.N. health agency should have responded faster.

"It appears that the outbreak is still advancing and is advancing in many parts of the country (Sierra Leone)," David Nabarro, Ebola response coordinator for the United Nations, told a news conference in Sierra Leone.

In a bid to stop the virus, West African governments have closed borders, halted flights from affected countries, stopped international conferences and increased medical provision.

Liberia declared a curfew last week and put two neighborhoods under quarantine.


FLIGHT BAN

Fears of contamination on flights escalated in July when a man infected with Ebola arrived at an airport in Lagos, Nigeria, and collapsed. He died and five people including health care workers who treated him have died in that country since then. Nabarro urged countries to reverse flight bans.

"The understandable decision by some countries not to want to receive aeroplanes that have touched ground in this country or in its neighbors, that understandable decision has huge operational impact ... on our ability to bring in staff and to bring in goods," he said.

Ebola has highlighted the gap between the care afforded to Western patients and many who are treated in Africa. Liberia, for example, used a school in a run down neighborhood of the capital as a quarantine center and patients lay on the floor.

The family of a British volunteer nurse repatriated from Sierra Leone after contracting the virus said on Monday he was in the best place possible for treatment.

William Pooley, 29, is the first Briton to test positive for the disease. He was flown home in a specially adapted Royal Air Force cargo plane and transported to an isolation unit at the Royal Free Hospital in London.

The first recorded Ebola case took place in what is now Democratic Republic of Congo and the country declared a new Ebola outbreak in its northern Equateur province on Sunday after two of eight patients tested for Ebola came back positive.

The U.N. health agency said it had sent in protective equipment for medical staff, which is not connected to the epidemic in West Africa.

Liberia's health ministry announced on Monday that a five-person medical team from Democratic Republic of Congo had just arrived to help in the fight against Ebola.

(Additional reporting by Josephus Olu-Mammah and Umaru Fofana in Sierra Leone, Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva, Emma Farge in Dakar, Kaori Kaneko in Tokyo and Belinda Goldsmith in London; Writing by Matthew Mpoke Bigg; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)


http://news.yahoo.com/liberian-doctor-received-rare-ebola-drug-zmapp-dies-115945924.html

[Buster's Uncle]

WHO pulls staff after worker infected with Ebola in Sierra Leone
Reuters
By Umaru Fofana and Media Coulibaly  11 minutes ago



Medicins Sans Frontieres (MSF) health workers prepare at ELWA's hospital isolation camp during the visit of Senior United Nations (U.N.) System Coordinator for Ebola, David Nabarro, in Monrovia August 23, 2014. REUTERS/2Tango



FREETOWN/KINSHASA (Reuters) - The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday it had shut a laboratory in Sierra Leone after a health worker there was infected with Ebola, a move that may hamper efforts to boost the global response to the worst ever outbreak of the disease.

At least 1,427 people have died and 2,615 have been infected since the disease was detected deep in the forests of southeastern Guinea in March. A separate outbreak was confirmed in Democratic Republic of Congo on Sunday.

The WHO has deployed nearly 400 of its own staff and partner organizations to fight the epidemic of the highly contagious hemorrhagic fever, which has struck Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea and Nigeria.

Nigeria's health minister said on Tuesday his country had "thus far contained" the Ebola outbreak, with only one of 13 confirmed cases being treated in isolation.

The WHO said it had withdrawn staff from the laboratory testing for Ebola at Kailahun -- one of only two in Sierra Leone -- after a Senegalese epidemiologist was infected with Ebola.

"It's a temporary measure to take care of the welfare of our remaining workers," WHO spokesperson Christy Feig said, without specifying how long the measure would last. "After our assessment, they will return."

Feig said she could not assess what impact the withdrawal of WHO staff would have on the fight against Ebola in the Kailahun, the area hardest hit by the disease.

One of the deadliest disease known to man, Ebola is transmitted by contact with body fluids and the current outbreak has killed at least 120 healthcare workers.

The Senegalese medic -- the first worker deployed by WHO to be infected -- will be evacuated from Sierra Leone in the coming days, Feig said. He is currently being treated at a government hospital in the eastern town of Kenema.


CONGO OUTBREAK

With its resources stretched by the West African outbreak, medical charity Medicins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said on Tuesday it could provide only limited help to tackle Congo's outbreak.

A report from the U.N. mission in Congo on Tuesday said 13 people there had died from Ebola, including five health workers.

Congo said on Sunday it would quarantine the area around the town of Djera, in the isolated northwestern jungle province of Equateur, where a high number of suspected cases has been reported. It is Congo's seventh outbreak since Ebola was discovered in 1976 in Equateur, near the Ebola river.

"Usually, we would be able to mobilize specialist hemorrhagic fever teams, but we are currently responding to a massive epidemic in West Africa," said Jeroen Beijnberger, MSF medical coordinator in Congo. "This is limiting our capacity to respond to the epidemic in Equateur Province."

However, the charity said it would send doctors, nurses and logistics experts to the region and would work with the government to open an Ebola case management center in Lokolia.

Congo's Health Minister Felix Kabange Numbi said on Sunday the outbreak in Equateur was a different strain of the virus from the deadly Zaire version in West Africa.

The WHO plans to send protective equipment for medical staff in Equateur.

Sierra Leone and Liberia -- struggling to recover from a decade of civil war in the 1990s -- have seen their healthcare systems overwhelmed by Ebola, the first outbreak in West Africa.

Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf issued orders on Tuesday that any official of ministerial rank who had not returned to their duties would be dismissed. Civil servants who failed to report for work would also have their salaries suspended, a presidency official told Reuters.

Some Liberian officials have been fleeing the country or just not turning up at work for fear of contracting the virus, prompting President Ellen Johnson on Tuesday to issue orders threatening those of ministerial rank with dismissal.

More junior civil servants would have their salaries suspended, a presidency official told Reuters.

It was not immediately clear how many officials would be affected by the presidential order.

Liberia said a ban on travel to the region imposed by neighboring countries was complicating the fight against Ebola and leading to shortages of basic goods.

"Isolating Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea is not in any way contributing to the fight against this disease," Information Minister Lewis Brown said. "How do we get in the kinds of supplies that we need? How do we get experts to come to our country? Is that African solidarity?"

(Additional reporting by Emma Farge; Editing by Daniel Flynn and Gareth Jones)


http://news.yahoo.com/msf-only-offer-limited-help-congo-ebola-outbreak-131608348--finance.html

[Buster's Uncle]

American Ebola Survivors Are Likely Immune to Virus Strain Now
LiveScience.com
By Bahar Gholipour, Staff Writer  August 25, 2014 10:47 AM






The two American Ebola patients who recovered and left the hospital this week are now thought to be immune to the strain of the virus that infected them, experts say. Ebola survivors are generally believed to be immune to future infection with the virus strain that made them sick.

"There is strong epidemiological evidence that once an individual has resolved an Ebola virus infection, they are immune to that strain," Dr. Bruce Ribner, director of the infectious disease unit at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, told reporters Thursday (Aug. 21).

Dr. Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol contracted the Ebola virus while caring for patients in the current Ebola outbreak in West Africa. They received an experimental drug, and were flown to the United States, where they recovered. Tests showed both patients were free of the Ebola virus after spending three weeks in the hospital.

Assuming that Brantly and Writebol continue to recover, they would not be at risk of becoming sick again with Ebola if they were to decide to return to Africa, Ribner said. "They would probably not be at risk for infection if they were caring for patients with Ebola disease during this outbreak," he said.

Studies of blood samples taken from Ebola survivors a few years after they became infected with the virus show that these people have developed antibodies that can neutralize the Ebola virus. This suggests that Ebola survivors are immune to the disease, and will not get infected again.

However, no one has tested what really happens if a survivor is exposed to the virus for a second time. Ribner said it is not clear whether survivors become immune to all strains of the Ebola virus or only the one that infected them, nor is it clear how long this immunity lasts.



A microscopic view of the Ebola virus.


There are five known species of the Ebola virus. The current outbreak is caused by Zaire Ebola virus, which is the deadliest type. In previous outbreaks involving this strain, only 10 percent of patients have survived the infection.

In the current outbreak, about 47 percent of people infected with the virus have survived, according to the World Health Organization. It is possible that early treatment efforts have played a role in improving survival rates in this outbreak.

It is not clear which biological factors may determine a person's chance of surviving Ebola, but a stronger immune system appears to be one important factor. Also, laboratory evidence suggests that some people with a genetic mutation may be entirely resistant to Ebola infection.

The doctors still don't know if the experimental drug played any role in helping the American Ebola patients survive, but patients' better nutrition and stronger immune systems may have helped their recovery, Ribner said.


http://news.yahoo.com/american-ebola-survivors-likely-immune-virus-strain-now-144722929.html

[Buster's Uncle]

British Ebola sufferer 'receiving experimental drug'
AFP
7 hours ago



A nurse wears protective clothing as he demonstrates the facilities in place at the Royal Free Hospital in north London on August 6, 2014 (AFP Photo/Leon Neal)



London (AFP) - A British nurse infected with Ebola while working in Sierra Leone is being given the same experimental drug used on two US missionaries who have recovered for the disease, doctors in London said Tuesday.

William Pooley, 29, is being treated with ZMapp after being flown out of Sierra Leone on a specially-equipped British military plane on Sunday.

Others who have received ZMapp include two US missionaries, Dr Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol, who were treated in the US city of Atlanta before leaving hospital last week.

Liberian doctor Abraham Borbor died Sunday despite receiving the serum.

"We have had the opportunity to give him the ZMapp treatment," said Michael Jacobs of London's Royal Free Hospital, where Pooley is being treated in a special isolation unit.

"What has become apparent to us is that he is clearly a rather resilient and remarkable young man," he said.

Pooley was working as a volunteer nurse in Kenema in Sierra Leone's east, one of the areas worst hit by Ebola, when he was infected.

In an interview with the Guardian newspaper days before he contracted Ebola, he spoke of his pride at being able to help people with the virus.

"It's great seeing them walking away after some of them have been in a terrible state and me seeing them on the ward," he said.

There is no known cure or vaccine for Ebola, a violent haemorrhagic transmitted through bodily fluids.

ZMapp is grown in tobacco leaves and contains a cocktail of antibodies.

Doctors have stressed that without rigorous clinical trials, they cannot tell for sure if it helps patients recover or not.

Ebola has killed 1,427 people since the start of the year. The countries worst hit include the west African states of Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia.

The UN's Ebola envoy, David Nabarro, said Monday it could take six months to stop the current outbreak.


http://news.yahoo.com/british-ebola-sufferer-receiving-experimental-drug-170558892.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Ebola-hit Liberia fires absentee ministers
AFP
By Zoom Dosso  4 hours ago



Liberia's President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf speaks during a meeting with health workers on August 9, 2014 (AFP Photo/Zoom Dosso)



Monrovia (AFP) - Liberia's leader has sacked ministers and senior government officials who defied an order to return to the west African nation to lead the fight against the deadly Ebola outbreak, her office said on Tuesday.

President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf had told overseas ministers to return within a week as part of a state-of-emergency announcement on August 6, warning that extraordinary measures were needed "for the very survival of our state".

Sirleaf "directed that all officials occupying ministerial level positions or equivalent -- senior and junior -- managing directors, deputy/assistant directors or equivalent, commissioners et cetera who violated the orders are hereby relieved of their positions," her office said in a statement.

It did not say how many ministers were affected or which ones had been fired.

But a government insider clarified that only deputy ministers and senior officials were involved in the dismissal, and not cabinet-level ministers.

United Nations officials have pledged to step up efforts against the lethal tropical virus, which has infected more than 2,600 and killed 1,427 since the start of the year.



A picture taken on August 25, 2014 shows nurses wearing protective suits escorting a man infected with the Ebola virus to a hospital in Monrovia (AFP Photo/Zoom Dosso)


The World Health Organization said on Monday more than 120 health workers across west Africa have died during the "unprecedented" outbreak, and more than 240 had been infected.

In Sierra Leone, the WHO has temporarily pulled back its health workers from the Kailahun post after one of them was infected and an investigation is under way to prevent further infections before sending a team back there.

"This was the responsible thing to do. The field team has been through a traumatic time through this incident," said Dr Daniel Kertesz, WHO representative in Sierra Leone, in a statement.

Also Tuesday the African Development Bank warned the epidemic could cut economic output in the three worst-hit countries, as well as neighbouring Ivory Coast, by between one and 1.5 percent of gross economic product.

"If people don't start worrying about agriculture, there is going to be a food crisis. That will be the first direct impact on farmers in this region," said president Donald Kaberuka.



Two men infected with the Ebola virus wait for nurses to escort them to a hospital in Monrovia, August 25, 2014 (AFP Photo/Zoom Dosso)


- Second Ebola front -

Meanwhile a second front has opened up in Africa's struggle with Ebola, after the Democratic Republic of Congo said on Tuesday it was preparing for a "battle of at least three months" after 13 people died after contracting the virus in the remote northeast.

Congolese authorities said the outbreak concerned Zaire Ebola, the species that is ravaging west Africa, but said the two outbreaks were not linked.

The United Nations' Ebola envoy David Nabarro, in Guinea's capital Conakry on Tuesday on the third leg of a tour of the region, has described the fight against the epidemic as a "war" which could take six more months.

"I understand that the situation is more or less stable in Guinea," he said.



Staff members at the French NGO Doctors Without Borders Elwa hospital in Monrovia, where patients suffering from Ebola are treated, on August 21, 2014 (AFP Photo/Zoom Dosso)


"But with the surge of new outbreaks of the epidemic in recent weeks, there is an urgent need to consider a regional humanitarian rapid large-scale operation to stop the epidemic in a maximum period of six months."

Guinea, where the disease was first discovered, has reported 406 deaths, Sierra Leone 392 and Nigeria five, the WHO said on Friday.


- Deaths likely underestimated -

Liberia has suffered the worst effects of the outbreak, registering 624 deaths.

Sirleaf's office said she met a delegation of the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, including its global head Tom Frieden, on Monday to discuss combatting the epidemic.

Frieden was quoted as saying there was an urgent need for more treatment facilities.

The WHO has echoed Nabarro's warning that it could take several months to bring the epidemic under control.

The agency estimates its count of the infected and dead is likely far too low, due in part to community resistance to outside medical staff and a lack of access to infected areas.

Meanwhile in Nigeria, the health ministry said Tuesday that two more people had been released from isolation after recovering from Ebola, leaving only one living patient with the disease in the country.

Elsewhere in the region, the Ivory Coast has closed its borders with Guinea and Liberia, just days after Senegal did the same with Guinea, while South Africa has banned entry for non-citizens arriving from Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia.

Ivorian Health Minister Raymonde Goudou Coffie told a press conference in Abidjan that it was "uncanny' that the country has so far no reported cases of Ebola which is ravaging neighbouring Guinea and Liberia.

Peter Piot, the Belgian scientist who co-discovered the Ebola virus in 1976, said on Tuesday a "perfect storm" in west Africa had given the disease a chance to spread unchecked.

"We have never seen an (Ebola) epidemic on this scale," Piot was quoted by the French daily Liberation as saying.


http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-hit-liberia-fires-absentee-ministers-170501490.html