Ebola news 9/1

[Buster's Uncle]

Ebola health workers should get danger money, expert says
Reuters
By Misha Hussain  45 minutes ago



Health workers wearing protective clothing prepare themselves before to carrying an abandoned dead body presenting with Ebola symptoms at Duwala market in Monrovia August 17, 2014. REUTERS/2Tango



DAKAR (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Doctors and nurses fighting the world's biggest outbreak of the Ebola virus in West Africa should get incentives including better pay, insurance and access to the new Ebola drug ZMapp, an international health expert said.

The hemorrhagic fever, spread through the blood, sweat and vomit of the sick, has killed more than 1,550 people since March, including more than 120 health workers. Many work long hours with no access to proper protective equipment.

Johan von Schreeb, who has traveled to the region to advise officials on how to manage the deadly epidemic, said if health workers were not protected and remunerated for their dangerous work, they could not be expected to report for duty.

"There has to be reciprocity for those that are taking a risk in getting involved in this epidemic and are working to control it. If you take risks, you should be paid," said von Schreeb, head of research on healthcare in disasters at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm.

"Modern mobile phone technology can be used to track who is coming to work as well as transferring money directly so they can be paid on a performance-based system on top of their normal salaries," he told Thomson Reuters Foundation from Sierra Leone, where he is providing technical support for the outbreak.

The government of Sierra Leone has come under fire for its handling of the Ebola outbreak. On Saturday, health workers went on strike over pay and poor working conditions at a major state-run Ebola treatment center in Kenema in the country's east.

As well as holding formal walkouts, some health workers elsewhere in Sierra Leone, as well as others in Ebola-hit Liberia and Guinea, have simply not reported for work.

In Liberia, where infection rates are highest, President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf has issued orders threatening state officials with dismissal for failing to report for work or for fleeing the country.


SCARCE RESOURCES

Ishmael Mehemoh, chief supervisor at Sierra Leone's Kenema clinic in Sierra Leone, said that "gloves, aprons and boots are either not available at some times or are insufficient". He said the clinic's burial team had only "one broken stretcher" to transport corpses which posed a health hazard.

In a further sign of strained resources, nurses and members of the burial team at Kenema told Reuters the government had stopped paying their wages of $50 a week.

Von Schreeb said advanced treatment centers specifically for infected caregivers as well as insurance packages could help to encourage health care workers to continue their essential work.

    "There are negotiations with the UK government to set up an advanced 12-bed facility in Freetown specifically for health care workers. I sincerely hope the new drug ZMapp will be made available for these courageous people," said von Schreeb, noting there had not yet been a response from donors on the proposal.

    "There needs to be some sort of insurance scheme too, so if you die, your family are supported so that they can survive despite the loss of income," he added.

    Jorge Castilla-Echenique from the European Commission's humanitarian arm (ECHO), said pay incentives and insurance were good ideas and that ECHO would be willing to fund them.

But he had reservations about the concept of favorable treatment for health workers.

"You'd have to be very cold blooded given the lack of drugs. Lab technicians would get priority, followed by international health workers, followed by locals health workers and so on," said Castilla-Echenique, who has just visited Sierra Leone and Liberia.

    Sheik Umar Khan, a leading doctor in Sierra Leone, was infected with Ebola but did not receive the scarce ZMapp drug, nor was he flown abroad for advanced care. He died on July 29.

    Early on in the outbreak, two American health workers who contracted the virus at a clinic in Liberia were flown back to the United States, treated with ZMapp and both recovered. 

    A week ago, British nurse William Pooley was flown to England after contracting Ebola in Kenema, where some 25 health workers have died. He is being treated in London.

(Editing by Ros Russell; Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, covers underreported humanitarian news, human rights, corruption and climate change. Visit www.trust.org)


http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-health-workers-danger-money-expert-says-150857716.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Liberia extends stay-home order amid Ebola crisis
Associated Press
By JONATHAN PAYE-LAYLEH  6 hours ago



In this photo taken on Friday, Aug. 29, 2014, a security guard, center left, working at the University Hospital Fann, speaks to people inside a car, as a man is treated for symptoms of the Ebola virus inside the Hospital in Dakar, Senegal. The effort to contain Ebola in Senegal is “a top priority emergency,” the World Health Organization said Sunday, as the government continued tracing everyone who came in contact with a Guinean student who has tested positive for the deadly disease in the capital, Dakar. (AP Photo/Jane Hahn)



MONROVIA, Liberia (AP) — Liberia's president ordered most civil servants to stay home another month in an effort to stop the spread of the deadly Ebola virus, according to a statement released Monday.

President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf ordered non-essential workers not to come to work and promised that all government workers would still be paid.

Liberia's schools are already closed in the effort to keep large numbers of people from gathering and potentially spreading the disease.

The World Health Organization says up to 20,000 people may contract the virus before it is put under control, and that it could take six months to do so.

More than 1,500 have died across West Africa from Ebola. Liberia has suffered the most deaths in the outbreak that has hit five West African countries. On Friday, Senegal announced its first case.

The WHO said a student from Guinea arrived in Dakar by road on Aug. 20 and was staying with relatives "in the outskirts of the city." It said that on Aug. 23, he went to a medical facility seeking treatment for fever, diarrhea and vomiting, all symptoms of Ebola.

He was treated for malaria and continued to stay with his relatives before turning up at the Dakar hospital on Aug. 26.


http://news.yahoo.com/liberia-extends-stay-home-order-amid-ebola-crisis-095119573.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Nigeria records another Ebola case in oil city, 16 cases in total
Reuters
3 hours ago



A female Immigration officer wearing a facemask and gloves checks a passenger's passport at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in Abuja, August 11, 2014. REUTERS/Afolabi Sotunde



ABUJA (Reuters) - Nigeria has a third confirmed case of Ebola disease in the oil hub of Port Harcourt, bringing the country's total confirmed infections to 16, with around 200 people under surveillance, the health minister said on Monday.

A doctor in Port Harcourt died last week after treating a contact of the Liberian-American man who was the first recorded case of the virus in Africa's most populous country. That raised alarm that Ebola, which looked on the verge of being contained in the commercial capital, Lagos, may flare up again elsewhere.

Patrick Sawyer, the first case, came in from Liberia, then collapsed at Lagos airport on July 20.

The shift to Port Harcourt shows how easily containment efforts can be undermined. Nigeria's government acted quickly at the end of July, setting up an isolation ward and monitoring contacts closely. But one of Sawyer's contacts in Lagos avoided quarantine and traveled east to Port Harcourt.

He has since recovered from the disease, but he infected the doctor who treated him, who then himself died of Ebola. A third case in the oil city was a female patient in the same hospital as the doctor and caught the disease from him.

Health Minister Onyebuchi Chukwu said in a press conference that 72 people in Lagos, a city of 21 million people, were still under surveillance.

"Two other contacts of the late Port Harcourt doctor, one of the doctors who managed him and a pharmacy technician working in the doctor's hospital, are symptomatic and have been admitted to the isolation ward in Rivers," Chukwu said, although he added that preliminary tests had been negative for Ebola.

The outbreak of Ebola in West Africa is the world's worst ever. It has killed at least 1,550 people, and the World Health Organisation says it could infect 20,000 more.

(Reporting by Camillus Eboh; Writing by Tim [manparts or roosters]; Editing by Larry King)


http://news.yahoo.com/nigeria-records-another-ebola-case-oil-city-16-133909899.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Poor response to Ebola causing needless deaths: World Bank head
Reuters
By Daniel Flynn and Tim [manparts or roosters]  6 minutes ago



World Bank President Jim Yong Kim addresses the U.S.-Africa Business Forum in Washington August 5, 2014. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst



DAKAR/LAGOS (Reuters) - The world's "disastrously inadequate response" to West Africa's Ebola outbreak means many people are dying who could easily be saved, the head of the World Bank said on Monday, as Nigeria confirmed another case of the highly contagious virus.

In a newspaper editorial, World Bank President Jim Yong Kim said Western healthcare facilities would easily be able to contain the disease, and he urged wealthy nations to share knowledge and resources to help African countries tackle it.

"The crisis we are watching unfold derives less from the virus itself and more from deadly and misinformed biases that have led to a disastrously inadequate response to the outbreak," Kim wrote in the Washington Post.

"Many are dying needlessly," read the editorial, co-written by Harvard University professor Paul Farmer with whom Kim founded Partners In Health, a charity that works for better healthcare in poorer countries.

Ebola can only be transmitted by contact with the bodily fluids of an sick person but rigorous measures are required for its containment. There is no known cure, though work on experimental vaccines has been accelerated.

More than 1,500 people have been killed in West Africa in the worst outbreak since the disease was discovered in 1976 near the Ebola river in what is now Democratic Republic of Congo. More than 3,000 people, mostly in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia have been infected.

Poor healthcare provision has exacerbated the challenge. Liberia had just 50 doctors for its 4.3 million people before the outbreak, and many medical workers have died of Ebola.

Shortages of basic goods, foodstuffs, and medical equipment have been worsened by the decision by airlines to stop flying to the worst hit countries. Several neighboring states have closed their borders and many international organizations have pulled their foreign staff.

The World Health Organization said last week that casualty figures may be up to four times higher than reported and said up to 20,000 people may be affected before the outbreak ends. It launched a $490 million plan to contain the epidemic.

Kim and Farmer said that if international organizations and wealthy nations mounted a coordinated response with West African nations using the WHO plan, the fatality rate could drop to below 20 percent - from 50 percent now.

"We are at a dangerous moment," they wrote. "Tens of thousands of lives, the future of the region and hard-won economic and health gains for millions hang in the balance."


"DERISORY"

Nigeria confirmed a third case of Ebola on Monday in the oil hub of Port Harcourt, bringing the total confirmed infections nationwide to 16, with around 200 people under surveillance.

A doctor in Port Harcourt died last week after treating a contact of the Liberian-American man who was the first recorded case of the virus in Africa's most populous country. That raised alarm that Ebola, which looked on the verge of being contained in the commercial capital, Lagos, may flare up elsewhere.

Senegal, a transport hub and center for aid agencies, became the fifth African nation to confirm a case of Ebola on Friday, a 21-year-old Guinean student who had evaded surveillance in his homeland and arrived in Dakar.

"People should know that if it were not for this boy's state of health, he would be before the courts," President Macky Sall told state television. "You cannot be a carrier of sickness and take it to other countries."

Some shops in the bustling Senegalese capital ran out of hand sanitizer on Monday as concerned residents stocked up.

The house and shop owned by the student's relatives in the densely populated Dakar neighborhood of Parcelles Assainies was disinfected by health teams. Authorities placed 20 people who had come into contact with the student under surveillance and were giving them twice daily health checks.

Medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) called for the rapid deployment of staff and resources.

"The international response is slow and derisory. It can equally be defined as irresponsible," MSF said.

(Additional reporting by Pascal Fletcher in Johannesburg, Diadie Ba in Dakar, Tansa Musa in Cameroon, James Harding in Monrovia; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)


http://news.yahoo.com/poor-response-ebola-causing-needless-deaths-world-bank-164708158.html

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Tim [manparts or roosters] has my pity...

[Buster's Uncle]

Saudi suspends labour visas for nations worst-hit by Ebola
AFP
2 hours ago



Cleaners dangle from ropes while cleaning the windows of a high-rsie building in the Saudi capital Riyadh on February 13, 2014 (AFP Photo/Fayez Nureldine)



Riyadh (AFP) - Saudi Arabia has stopped granting visas to workers from Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, the countries worst-hit by the deadly Ebola virus, the labour ministry announced Monday.

The "preventive measure" is based on "directives from the foreign and health ministries to avoid" the spread of Ebola to the kingdom, the official news agency SPA reported.

The virus, for which there is no treatment or vaccine, has claimed 1,552 lives out of 3,069 reported cases -- 694 in Liberia, 430 in Guinea, 422 in Sierra Leon and six in Nigeria, according to latest figures from the World Health Organisation.

Saudi Arabia made a similar decision in April when it announced the suspension of visas for Muslim pilgrims from Guinea and Liberia.

The hajj annual pilgrimage, the world's biggest Muslim gathering, draws two million people to Saudi Arabia each year, including many from the West African countries affected by the Ebola outbreak. This year it falls in October.

The "temporary suspension" of labour visas from the three African nations "will not affect the labour market in Saudi Arabia" where the number of workers from these countries "is very little," SPA quoted deputy labour minister Mufrej al-Haqbani as saying.

He said laboratory tests before arrival were "strictly required" by the labour ministry for all foreigners coming from west Africa.

Apart from Nigeria, Ebola has also spread to Senegal.


http://news.yahoo.com/saudi-suspends-labour-visas-nations-worst-hit-ebola-144205929.html

[Buster's Uncle]

WHO: Senegal Ebola case 'a top priority emergency'
Associated Press
By BABACAR DIONE  22 hours ago



The World Health Organization said Sunday that the effort to contain Ebola in Senegal is "a top priority emergency," as the government continued tracing everyone who came in contact with a Guinean student who has tested positive for the deadly disease in the capital, Dakar. The WHO said in a statement Sunday that Senegal faces an "urgent need" for support and supplies including hygiene kits and personal protective equipment for health workers.



DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — The effort to contain Ebola in Senegal is "a top priority emergency," the World Health Organization said Sunday, as the government continued tracing everyone who came in contact with a Guinean student who has tested positive for the deadly disease in the capital, Dakar.

Senegal faces an "urgent need" for support and supplies including hygiene kits and personal protective equipment for health workers, the WHO said in a statement Sunday.

"These needs will be met with the fastest possible speed," the WHO said.

The U.N. health agency provided new information on the movements of the 21-year-old student in the city before he was diagnosed with Ebola.

Senegal confirmed that the student had tested positive for Ebola on Friday, making the country the fifth in West Africa to be affected by an outbreak that has killed more than 1,500 people.

The student showed up at a hospital in Dakar on Aug. 26 but did not reveal that he had been in contact with other Ebola victims, said Health Minister Awa Marie Coll Seck.



In this photo taken on Friday, Aug. 29, 2014, a security guard, center left, working at the University Hospital Fann, speaks to people inside a car, as a man is treated for symptoms of the Ebola virus inside the Hospital in Dakar, Senegal. The effort to contain Ebola in Senegal is “a top priority emergency,” the World Health Organization said Sunday, as the government continued tracing everyone who came in contact with a Guinean student who has tested positive for the deadly disease in the capital, Dakar. (AP Photo/Jane Hahn)


The next day, an epidemiological surveillance team in neighboring Guinea alerted Senegalese authorities that it had lost track of a person it was monitoring three weeks earlier, and that the person may have crossed into Senegal.

The student was tracked to the hospital in Dakar that same day and was immediately quarantined, and a test confirmed he had Ebola, Seck said.

In Sunday's statement, the WHO said the student arrived in Dakar by road on Aug. 20 and was staying with relatives "in the outskirts of the city."

It said that on Aug. 23, he went to a medical facility seeking treatment for fever, diarrhea and vomiting, all symptoms of Ebola.

He was treated for malaria, however, and continued to stay with his relatives before turning up at the Dakar hospital on Aug. 26.



In this photo taken on Friday, Aug. 29, 2014, a health worker measures a patient's temperature at the Connaught Hospital, which has suffered the loss of medical workers in the past from the Ebola virus, in Freetown, Sierra Leone. Dr. Sheik Humarr Khan was one of those on the front lines of the Ebola outbreak. The tireless Khan was jovial but forceful, doling out praise and criticism to junior doctors at his hospital. But Khan became infected and died, and so have at least 120 other medical workers in Sierra Leone and in three other countries, creating immediate and long-term impacts in a region that already had an understaffed and under equipped health care system. (AP Photo/ Michael Duff)


"Though the investigation is in its early stages, he is not presently known to have traveled elsewhere," said the WHO, which received its information from Senegal's health ministry.

The presence of Ebola in Senegal, a tourist and transport hub, could complicate efforts to bring the outbreak under control. The country has already closed its land border with Guinea, where the outbreak originated, and barred air and sea travel from Sierra Leone and Liberia in an attempt to keep the disease out.

In Dakar on Sunday, at least one pharmacy was limiting purchases of hand sanitizer to one small bottle per person because of rising demand — underscoring fears that the number of cases in the city could soon multiply.

Senegalese authorities have isolated the house where the Guinean student was staying as well as the medical facility where he sought treatment prior to visiting the Dakar hospital.

There is no cure or licensed treatment for Ebola, so health workers can only provide supportive care to patients such as keeping them hydrated.

The Guinean student "is doing very well," a doctor monitoring his case in Dakar said Sunday.

"This morning when I called the hospital, the doctor told me that the patient had no complaints and that his fever had disappeared," said Dr. Gallaye Ka in an interview with the private radio station RFM.

Health care workers are especially vulnerable to infection. The WHO says 240 health workers have contracted the disease during the current outbreak and more than half of those have died.

In Sierra Leone on Sunday, officials said they had avoided a strike threatened by workers at an Ebola treatment center in the east of the country, the region hardest hit by the outbreak.

Protective equipment is being sent to the health workers and a "monthly incentive allowance" will be paid on Monday, health ministry spokesman Sidie Yahya Tunis told The Associated Press.

On Friday, Sierra Leone President Ernest Bai Koroma replaced Health Minister Miatta Kargbo with Abu Bakarr Fofanah, a move his office described as necessary to more efficiently combat the outbreak. Kargbo was recalled to work in the president's office.

___

Associated Press writer Clarence Roy-Macaulay contributed reporting from Freetown, Sierra Leone.


http://news.yahoo.com/senegal-ebola-case-top-priority-emergency-111739589.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Nurses go on strike in Ebola-hit Liberia
AFP
2 hours ago



Women stop to clean their hands with sanitiser before entering the John Fitzgerald Kennedy hospital in Monrovia on September 1, 2014 (AFP Photo/Dominique Faget)



Monrovia (AFP) - Nurses at Liberia's largest hospital went on strike on Monday, demanding better pay and equipment to protect them against a deadly Ebola epidemic which has killed hundreds in the west African nation.

John Tugbeh, spokesman for the strikers at Monrovia's John F Kennedy hospital, said the nurses would not return to work until they are supplied with "personal protective equipment (PPEs)", the hazmat-style suits which guard against infectious diseases.

"From the beginning of the Ebola outbreak we have not had any protective equipment to work with. As result, so many doctors got infected by the virus. We have to stay home until we get the PPEs," he said.

The Ebola virus, transmitted through contact with infected bodily fluids, has killed more than 1,500 people in four countries since the start of the year -- almost 700 of them in Liberia.

A high proportion of the deaths -- almost a tenth -- have been among health workers and the World Health Organization has warned that the outbreak is set to get a lot worse, predicting up to 20,000 cases before it is brought under control.

The surgical section at JFK is the only trauma referral centre in Liberia and a long-term dispute would severely damage the country's capability to respond to the Ebola crisis.

The hospital closed temporarily in July over the infections and deaths of an unspecified number of health workers who had been treating Ebola patients.

"We need proper equipment to work with (and) we need better pay because we are going to risk our lives," Tueh said.

It was not immediately clear how large the striking group was, or what contingency plans were in place at the hospital, which has not made a statement on the action.


http://news.yahoo.com/nurses-strike-ebola-hit-liberia-225150202.html