Ebola news 9/3

[Buster's Uncle]

British Ebola patient discharged from hospital after ZMapp treatment
Reuters
52 minutes ago



LONDON (Reuters) - A British man who contracted Ebola in West Africa has been discharged after successful treatment with the experimental ZMapp drug, the Royal Free Hospital in London said on Wednesday.

William Pooley, 29, was treated in a special isolation unit after contracting the deadly disease in August when working as a volunteer nurse in Sierra Leone.

"Following 10 days of successful treatment in the high level isolation unit – the only one in the UK – Mr Pooley is being discharged from the Royal Free Hospital today," the hospital said in a statement on its website.

"He was flown to the hospital on Sunday 24 August 2014 and was treated with the experimental drug ZMapp," it added.

Pooley later told reporters at a news conference he thought he had been fortunate.

"I was very lucky in several ways," he said. "Firstly in the standard of care that I received, which is a world apart from what people are receiving in West Africa at the moment despite lot of organizations' best efforts.

"The other difference to a lot of Ebola cases (is) that my symptoms never progressed to the worst stages of the disease. I had some unpleasant symptoms but nothing compared to some of the worst of the disease."

Governments and aid organizations have scrambled to contain the disease, which according to the World Health Organization (WHO) has killed more than 1,500 in West Africa since March.

ZMapp is one of several treatments for Ebola under development. The drug, although never tested in humans, gained attention this summer when two American aid workers who contracted Ebola in Liberia were cured after receiving it.

ZMapp, which uses antibodies from tobacco plants, is made by the privately held Mapp Biopharmaceutical Inc, based in San Diego, California.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has said a federal contract worth up to $42.3 million would help accelerate testing of the treatment.

It said Mapp would manufacture a small amount of ZMapp for early stage safety studies and animal studies needed to prove its effectiveness and safety in people.

Human safety trials are due to begin this week on a vaccine from GlaxoSmithKline Plc and later this year on one from NewLink Genetics Corp.

(Reporting by Stephen Addison; editing by Sarah Young)


http://news.yahoo.com/british-ebola-patient-discharged-hospital-zmapp-treatment-101646318.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Ebola-hit Liberians keeping the faith
AFP
By Zoom Dosso  21 minutes ago



People pray during Sunday mass at the Restoration Baptist church in Monrovia on August 31, 2014 (AFP Photo/Dominique Faget)



Monrovia (AFP) - The faithful gather for a prayer service like any other in Liberia's sweltering Resurrection Baptist Ministries church, except today the reverend is taking time to explain why Ebola has forced a change in the seating arrangements.

"We have created space between the chairs and we have enlarged the aisles. This is the rule of Ebola," Joseph Johnson tells his flock, as they fan themselves in the cloying heat of a Monrovian summer morning.

"We have to make sure you don't have body contact with each other. When Ebola is contained we will get back to our own rules."

Johnson prides himself in doing God's work, but lately the prayers have taken a back pew to announcements on the deadly virus sweeping Liberia and other parts of West Africa.

The Ebola virus has killed over 1,500 people in four west African countries since the start of the year, spreading through contact with infected bodily fluids.

Liberia has borne the brunt of the epidemic, burying almost 700 people who got too close to an infected friend, lover, relative or, perhaps, patient or passenger.



Reverent Joseph Johnson speaks about the Ebola virus during Sunday mass at the Restoration Baptist church in Monrovia on August 31, 2014. Liberia on August 30, 2014 (AFP Photo/Dominique Faget)


Monrovia, a devout, predominantly Christian city of at least a million people, has churches of a wide variety of denominations on almost every street corner, as well as the occasional mosque.

Liberians, well accustomed to seeking solace in their faith, and in spiritual leaders like Joseph Johnson, have not stopped coming to services during the Ebola outbreak.

The preacher has a reputation as a firebrand.


- 'Ebola killing your children' -

Left hand in the air, right hand clutching a Bible to his chest, he closes his eyes and beseeches the congregation to stand.



Reverent Joseph Johnson tries to calm fears about Ebola during Sunday mass at the Restoration Baptist church in Monrovia on August 31, 2014 (AFP Photo/Dominique Faget)


"We ask you, oh Lord, to come to our aid. We ask you because you are the only one who can help us," he cries.

"We are dying, Ebola is killing us, it is killing your children. Our doctors have become powerless and who do we go to if not you?"

He asks the newcomers among his flock to stand so that they might be welcomed by his regular faithful.

"Do not shake their hands. Just salute them and tell them welcome. That is enough for now," he chides.

Only then can the sermon begin, but even this part of the service is all about the epidemic.



Worshippers gather for Sunday mass at the Restoration Baptist church in Monrovia on August 31, 2014 (AFP Photo/Dominique Faget)


"Ebola is not a fabrication, it is a reality. No pastor should fool you to say he has holy oil for Ebola. You will give him your holy money and you will die," he warns.

"Do not say that you are praying every day so you will have body contact with people and God will protect you. God did not say so."

Mopping sweat from his face in the oppressive heat, the tough-talking pastor takes a swipe at the government of President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, which was criticised for its early inadequate response to the crisis.


- Ebola's 'Ten Commandments' -

"The government we have in this country is the cause of innocent people being killed today by this deadly virus. When the virus entered for the first time from Guinea, a responsible government would have taken the necessary precautions to stop it at the border," he roars.



Boys wash their hands before entering the Restoration Baptist church for Sunday mass in Monrovia on August 31, 2014 (AFP Photo/Dominique Faget)


"They sat down and allowed it to eat us gradually until it got into the city. Here we are today, topping the death toll. The health system has broken down. Innocent people are dying on the daily basis."

A woman at the back of the congregation begins to sob uncontrollably and an awkward silence descends on the service.

The reverend knows what to do. He bows his head in a mark of respect and then stares from one member of his flock to the next.

"She has lost a loved-one because of Ebola," he confides.

Services in Johnson's church were once joyous occasions, with congregation members squeezing together on the wooden pews, shaking hands and hugging.

But there is not much joy to be seen among the religious of Monrovia these days, just grief, despair and -- sometimes -- hope in the possibility of salvation.

Before entering the church, everyone has to wash their hands thoroughly in chlorine solution and, once inside, people keep their distance.

Before Johnson finishes his sermon, he runs the churchgoers through Ebola's version of the Ten Commandments -- a secular checklist of dos and don'ts that might offer protection from an earthbound Hell.

"Keep your children home. Do not let them get out. For seven weeks now my children have been home, none of them is allowed to get out," he says.

"Do not eat bush meat, do not touch dead bodies, and do not touch the vomit, urine, saliva or any bodily fluid from the next person. Take the necessary precautions and God will do the rest."


http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-hit-liberians-keeping-faith-113019178.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Missionary infected with Ebola to discuss recovery
Associated Press
By MITCH WEISS  2 hours ago



CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — After weeks of battling Ebola, a North Carolina missionary was planning to talk publicly for the first time about her fight to survive the deadly virus.

Nancy Writebol and her husband, David, planned to hold a news conference Wednesday at the SIM USA charity's sprawling campus south of Charlotte. The news conference comes one day after the charity announced that an American doctor treating obstetrics patients at its hospital in Monrovia, Liberia, has tested positive for Ebola.

The Writebols left their home last year for missionary work at a clinic in Liberia, where Nancy Writebol's duties included disinfecting staff entering or leaving the Ebola treatment area. After she was infected, Nancy Writebol, 59, was flown to the United States and kept in isolation at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta.

She was released Aug. 19 and has been spending time with her husband at an undisclosed location. Her husband was quarantined for a week at the SIM campus before being released.

Earlier, David Writebol said he and his wife expected to enter a world of poverty, pain and suffering when they left for missionary work in Liberia. They accepted the risks, having faith God would ensure their safety.

So when a doctor told Writebol his wife was infected with the virus, he said he turned to God for strength.

The virus that has killed more than 1,500 people in West Africa is spread by direct contact with blood or bodily fluids, not through casual contact.

Another missionary, Dr. Kent Brantly, was released last month after spending three weeks in an isolation unit at the same hospital. He hasn't spoken yet about his plans, but spent much of his first public appearance pleading for help for countries still struggling with the virus.

After Brantly, 33, and Nancy Writebol were infected, their charity organizations, Samaritan's Purse and SIM, reached out to top infectious disease experts for help.

Meanwhile, SIM President Bruce Johnson said more details about the American doctor infected with Ebola would be released Wednesday. It is not yet known how the doctor contracted the virus.


http://news.yahoo.com/missionary-infected-ebola-discuss-recovery-090904355.html

[Buster's Uncle]

This Ebola Chart Is Terrifying
Business Insider
By Lauren F Friedman  19 hours ago



On Tuesday, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Thomas Frieden warned that the West African Ebola outbreak is "spiraling out of control."

This Ebola graphic from Reuters makes the pattern of disease, which began spreading slowly in the spring before spinning out of control this summer, frighteningly clear:



Reuters


Ebola begins with flu-like symptoms and escalates into vomiting, diarrhea, and often bleeding. It has infected 3,069 people and killed 1,552 in West Africa this year, primarily in Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia. (A limited number of cases have been reported in Nigeria and Senegal, and a separate, smaller outbreak is underway in the Democratic Republic of Congo.)

On August 29, the World Health Organization reported that more than "40% of the total number of cases have occurred within the past 21 days." In Liberia, where — according to the WHO — "the capacity to cope with the increasing caseload remains dramatically low," an even higher proportion of total cases (63%) have emerged in recent weeks, suggesting that the death toll there will continue to rise sharply.

Last week, the WHO warned that Ebola, which is spread via the bodily fluids of a sickened person, could ultimately infect 20,000 people before it is brought under control. The virus, Frieden said, "is moving faster than anyone anticipated."


http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-chart-terrifying-195400062.html

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Ebola Virus Infects a Third American Missionary
Doctor's Plight in Liberia Shines Light on Risks and Ethical Choices for Missionaries
Wall Street Journal
By Tamara Audi, Cameron McWhirter and Betsy McKay  Updated Sept. 3, 2014 1:23 a.m. ET



A burial team unloads the bodies of Ebola victims at a crematorium last month in Liberia, the nation where several Americans have fallen ill. Getty Images



A third American missionary has been infected with Ebola while working in Liberia and is being treated in an isolation unit in the Monrovia hospital where he works, putting into sharp focus the risks and ethical dilemmas confronting missionaries around the world.

The doctor, who wasn't identified, is the second missionary working for SIM USA, a Charlotte, N.C., Christian organization, to contract the deadly disease. Nancy Writebol, a SIM USA missionary, and Kent Brantly, a doctor working for Samaritan's Purse, another U.S.-based Christian group, were evacuated last month to an isolation unit at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta. Both recovered from the disease and were discharged.

The doctor is "doing well and is in good spirits," the organization said. Another American doctor has been sent to Liberia to care for him, according to a spokesman. It isn't clear whether he will be evacuated to the U.S.; SIM USA is going to explore all options, the spokesman said.

The unnamed American doctor has been in Liberia only a few weeks. He was sent in after Dr. Brantly fell ill, said Bruce Johnson, SIM USA's president, in an interview last month.

Ebola has infected at least 3,069 people in Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria, killing 1,552 of them, including a Spanish Catholic priest who was evacuated to Spain after contracting the disease. Since then, hundreds of missionaries and foreign aid workers have been evacuated.



 

"It's this constant tension of being able to send people in who have the expertise and knowledge to serve," while also trying to ensure worker safety, SIM's Mr. Johnson said. Missionaries "are fully aware" of the risks, he said. "They feel a call to serve."

Among the many thousands of missionaries of various faiths who answer that call, the worst Ebola outbreak in history is prompting soul-searching: How much should they risk to serve increasingly desperate populations? Is it right to get treatment unavailable to others? When is it too dangerous to stay? And what message does it send when they leave?

Dr. Brantly and Ms. Writebol were treated with an experimental drug that hadn't yet been offered to any Africans and that now is no longer available. Doctors haven't yet determined whether the drug was helpful to the two Americans. So far, their medical and transport costs have approached $2 million—much of it paid for by insurance.

"It's a real gut check," said Seth Barnes, a missionary and executive director of Adventures in Missions. The Georgia-based Christian group has sent 100,000 missionaries mostly on short-term humanitarian stints in the last 25 years. "You go back and you say: Why am I doing this? Was I called by God? Is the stuff that I say I believe really real?"

Throughout history, missionaries and aid workers have routinely put themselves at risk to serve others. In the 19th century, missionaries would pack their belongings in caskets, expecting to die in far-off countries. Today, missionaries' mortality rate is vastly improved, though there have been some high-profile deaths in recent years.



CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden gives an update in Atlanta on Tuesday on efforts to curb the outbreak. Associated Press


Even in remote places, modern missionaries can connect to home and the news via mobile phones and the Internet. Some have access to a network of security personnel, risk-analysis assessments, doctors and vehicles that can spirit them away from danger.

As more missions rely on a mix of local and international staff, American missionaries say they often struggle when faced with the decision whether to leave local colleagues.

"I certainly am aware I have a 'get out of jail free card' with my U.S. passport," said Matt McGarry, a country director for Catholic Relief Services based in Jerusalem. Mr. McGarry recently returned to Gaza after evacuating during the worst fighting between Israel and Hamas.

Ismail Mehr, president of the Islamic Medical Association of North America, said he understands the impulse of aid workers to stay. But doing so can hurt the long-run cause: "You have an obligation to your volunteers. If you don't take care of them, the next time you have an Ebola outbreak or a Gaza or a Haiti, you are not going to have people who are going to go there."

Developing countries often rely on an ad hoc network of religious missions and nongovernmental organizations to supplement or provide basic services, which can be affected when foreigners pull out.

F. Zeela Zaizay, a Liberian nurse working for MAP International, a Christian health organization, said he was working with Italian and German mission groups on an education initiative to prevent the spread of Ebola when they recently pulled out.

"When they left, it meant that almost all of my dreams were almost broken," Mr. Zaizay said recently. Still, he said, "I understand why they go."

Some stay despite the dangers. As Ebola began to ravage West Africa this spring, Augustine Aiyadurai, a devout Christian from southern India, wrote that he and other missionaries at Liberia's remote Curran Lutheran Hospital were struggling over whether to evacuate. "In the Lord's prayer we say, 'Give us this day our daily Bread,' " he emailed a friend. "I now pray, give us this day the decision we need to take."



Members of the Ebola body-removal team spray each other with chlorine to disinfect after removing a body from a home in Unification Town, Liberia, last week.  Kieran Kesner for The Wall Street Journal


Mr. Aiyadurai remained. "If I leave," his wife recalls him saying, "the others here will be frightened. I can't leave them now."

In late July, the 57-year-old fell ill, likely with malaria, and was turned away from better-equipped city hospitals overwhelmed with Ebola patients. He died less than a week later, on Aug. 2.

Officials with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, which funded his salary though it didn't employ him, said they offered to help evacuate him in late June and July. When he finally agreed to leave, he was too ill to fly, church officials said.

Mr. Aiyadurai's widow disputes that, saying church officials "had not indicated any plans of evacuating Augustine in late June or July" but that her husband initiated his own arrangements to leave.

"The idea of evacuating him dawned on them only when he became too ill to be evacuated," she said.

Mr. Aiyadurai's family members say they hope to be able to afford the trip to his grave site one day.


http://online.wsj.com/articles/ebola-sickens-a-third-american-missionary-1409700251?ru=yahoo?mod=yahoo_itp

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Getting help to Ebola-stricken countries to cost $600 million: UN
Reuters
2 minutes ago



Health workers surround an Ebola patient who escaped from quarantine from Monrovia's Elwa hospital, in the centre of Paynesville in this still image taken from a September 1, 2014 video. REUTERS/Reuters TV



WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The cost of getting supplies needed to West African countries to get the Ebola crisis under control will be at least $600 million, Dr David Nabarro, the senior United Nations Coordinator for Ebola Disease, told reporters on Wednesday.

More than 40 percent of the Ebola cases in West Africa, where the outbreak began in March, have occurred in the past 21 days, officials from the World Health Organization said, another indication that the epidemic is fast outpacing efforts to control it.

The overall fatality rate is 51 percent, ranging from a low of 41 percent in Sierra Leone to a high of 66 percent in Guinea, WHO reported.

The fatality rate reflects serious problems with case management, infection prevention and control, and inadequate medical and public health measures. In Sierra Leone, the medical capacity in Freetown is so inadequate that Ebola patients are being transferred to facilities in Kenema, which are overwhelmed.

The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo is unrelated to and independent of the West African epidemic, WHO director-general Margaret Chan told reporters.

The U.S. government "has been a very strong supporter" of WHO's efforts in the outbreak, she added, naming countries including China, South Africa, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, France, Kuwait, and Canada as providing logistical, medical or other support.

Those efforts continue to fall short, however. Most new Ebola infections are occurring in the community as families care for patients who have no place to go and often refuse to be identified to public health workers, said Dr Keiji Fukuda, the WHO's assistant Director-General for Health Security.

"Finding places to take care of people who are ill is absolutely essential to controlling this outbreak," Fukuda said.

(Reporting by Sharon Begley; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)


http://news.yahoo.com/getting-help-ebola-stricken-countries-cost-600-million-153912110.html

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West Africa struggles to contain Ebola as warnings and deaths mount
Reuters
By James Harding Giahyue  8 hours ago



Health workers push an Ebola patient who escaped from quarantine from Monrovia's Elwa hospital, into an ambulance in the centre of Paynesville in this still image taken from a September 1, 2014 video. REUTERS/Reuters TV



MONROVIA (Reuters) - The United Nations said on Tuesday the spread of the deadly Ebola virus in West Africa was causing food shortages in one of the world's poorest regions and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned the disease was threatening the stability of stricken countries and their neighbors.

Doctors in Liberia were out on strike as they struggled to cope with the worst outbreak of Ebola on record, while the global aid organization Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said 800 more beds for Ebola patients were urgently needed in the Liberian capital Monrovia alone, while in Sierra Leone highly infectious bodies were rotting in the streets.

Governments and aid organizations have scrambled to contain the disease, which according to the World Health Organization (WHO) has killed more than 1,500 in West Africa since March.

In an address to United Nations member states, MSF President Joanne Liu said, "Six months into the worst Ebola epidemic in history, the world is losing the battle to contain it." She said aid charities and West African governments did not have the capacity to stem the outbreak and needed intervention by foreign states.

Slamming what she called "a global coalition of inaction," Liu called for the urgent dispatch of field hospitals with isolation wards and mobile medical laboratories.

MSF, also known as Doctors Without Borders, said biological disaster response teams were needed to support West Africa's buckling healthcare systems.

There are no approved Ebola vaccines or treatments, but as hospitals and Ebola treatment centers battled to contain the disease and tend to the sick and dying, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said a federal contract worth up to $42.3 million would help accelerate testing of an experimental Ebola virus treatment being developed by privately held Mapp Biopharmaceutical Inc.

The agency said in a statement that Mapp, based in San Diego, California, would manufacture a small amount of its ZMapp drug, which uses antibodies manufactured in tobacco plants, for early stage safety studies and animal studies needed to prove its effectiveness and safety in people.

ZMapp is one of several treatments for Ebola under development. The drug, although never tested in humans, gained attention this summer when two American aid workers who contracted Ebola in Liberia were cured after receiving it. Their physicians said they did not know if the drug helped.

Human safety trials are due to begin this week on a vaccine from GlaxoSmithKline Plc GSK.L and later this year on one from NewLink Genetics Corp NLNK.O.

The Ebola epidemic in West Africa could infect more than 20,000 people and spread to more countries, the World Health Organization warned last week. With a fatality rate of 52 percent, the death toll stood at 1,552 as of Aug. 26.

Cases of Ebola have been reported in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Nigeria, Senegal, and Democratic Republic of Congo. The cases in Congo, which include 31 deaths, are thought to be a separate outbreak and not related to the West African cases.


AMERICAN STRICKEN, MEDICAL STAFF STRIKE

U.S. missionary organization SIM USA said on Tuesday that an American doctor treating obstetrics patients at the ELWA hospital in Monrovia had tested positive for Ebola. The doctor, who was not working in the hospital's Ebola treatment center, was in an isolation ward at the hospital and responding well so far, SIM said on its website.

At Monrovia's John F. Kennedy Medical Center (JFK) scores of staff went on strike to protest against working conditions and unpaid bonuses. Amid shortages of equipment and trained staff, more than 120 healthcare workers have died in West Africa in the Ebola outbreak.

"Health workers have died (fighting Ebola), including medical doctors at ... JFK and to have them come to work without food on their table, we think that is pathetic," George Williams, secretary general of the Health Workers Association of Liberia, told Reuters.

Williams said healthcare workers at JFK, the country's largest referral hospital, had gone unpaid for two months.

The Liberian strike came a day after healthcare workers at the Connaught hospital in Sierra Leone's capital Freetown held a one-day protest over pay and conditions.

Staff there returned to work on Tuesday after they said the government settled a backlog of hazard pay and agreed to raise the weekly risk bonus to $100 from $40 for nurses working in Ebola wards and members of burial crews.

Separately, the Liberian government began offering a $1,000 bonus to any healthcare workers who agreed to work in Ebola treatment facilities.

The World Health Organization and other international bodies have rushed to support healthcare systems in affected countries, but additional staff and resources have been slow to arrive.


PRICES SURGE, OBAMA ADDRESSES WEST AFRICANS

In Monrovia, Medecins Sans Frontieres said its new ELWA 3 center, which has 160 beds, was overflowing with patients. "Every day we have to turn sick people away because we are too full," said Stefan Liljegren, MSF coordinator at the site.

Further pressuring the ability of the region's governments to spend money on healthcare, the epidemic has put harvests at risk and sent food prices soaring in West Africa, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said. The agency issued an alert over food security for Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, which are most affected by the outbreak.

Restrictions on people's movements and establishment of quarantine zones to contain the spread of the haemorrhagic fever have led to panic buying, food shortages and price hikes.

"Even prior to the Ebola outbreak, households in some of the most affected areas were spending up to 80 percent of their incomes on food," said Vincent Martin, head of an FAO unit in Dakar coordinating the agency's response. "Now these latest price spikes are effectively putting food completely out of their reach."

The director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Thomas Frieden, said he expected the outbreak to accelerate and urged governments to act now.

"We're likely to see significant increases in cases. Already we have widespread transmission Liberia. In Sierra Leone, we're seeing strong signs that that will happen in the near future," he said.

Frieden said the outbreak was the first epidemic of Ebola the world has ever known, meaning it was spreading widely in society and "threatening the stability" of affected and neighboring countries.

Frieden, who has been briefing U.S. President Barack Obama on the outbreak, said there was still a window of opportunity, but "that window is closing."

"We need action now to scale up the response. We know how to stop Ebola. The challenge is to scale it up to the massive levels needed to stop this outbreak," he said.

"The virus is moving faster than anyone anticipated. We need to move fast."

In a video message to West Africans in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea and Nigeria and released on YouTube, Obama affirmed the United States' support in the fight against Ebola and attempted to dispel some myths about how it is spread. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFKMYY-2A2k

    "Ebola is not spread through the air like the flu. You cannot get it from casual contact like sitting next to someone on a bus," he said.

    Instead, he said the most common way people become infected "is by touching the body fluids of someone who is sick or has died from it, like their sweat, saliva or blood, or through a contaminated item, like a needle."

    Obama said that was why so many people were becoming infected while caring for Ebola patients at home, and he urged people who felt sick to get prompt treatment because half of the people who become ill recover.

    "Stopping this disease won't be easy, but we know how to do it. You are not alone," Obama said.

To try to ease the strain on their economies, Ivory Coast, which closed its borders with Liberia and Guinea last month, announced on Tuesday it would open humanitarian and economic corridors to its two western neighbours.

The death toll from an Ebola outbreak in the Djera region of northern Democratic Republic of Congo has risen to 31, Minister of Health Felix Kabange Numbi told Reuters on Tuesday. The outbreak in Congo's Equateur province is thought to be separate from the West African epidemic.


http://news.yahoo.com/west-africa-struggles-contain-ebola-warnings-deaths-mount-064630450.html

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Dr. Rick Sacra identified as third American missionary infected with Ebola
How Massachusetts father contracted disease still unknown
Yahoo
By Jason Sickles, 7 minutes ago


It is unclear how the ELWA Hospital staff member, who was treating pregnant woman, contracted the virus. (ABC News)



The third American health worker infected with Ebola in Africa has been identified as Dr. Rick Sacra.

The diagnosis came just two days after a seemingly healthy Sacra wrote about the unprecedented Ebola epidemic on his personal blog.

His dispatch from West Africa last weekend started with a humble salutation: “Dear Praying Friends.”

The 51-year-old Massachusetts resident told of arriving in Monrovia, Liberia less than a month ago to work at a mission hospital. The Ebola outbreak has thrust the capital city’s health care system into chaos and medical emergencies are mounting, Sacra wrote.

“Please continue to pray!” he requested. The Christian specifically asked for strength, safety and protection for patients and medical staff.

Shortly after publishing the blog entry, Sacra began feeling Ebola symptoms and immediately quarantined himself.

“My heart was deeply saddened, but my faith was not shaken, when I learned another of our missionary doctors contracted Ebola,” said Bruce Johnson, president of SIM USA, a Charlotte-based charity that sponsor’s the doctor’s work in Liberia.

Sacra is the third U.S. medical missionary in the past six weeks to contract the deadly disease while working at the charity’s ELWA (Eternal Love Winning Africa) hospital near Monrovia.



Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol


Physician Kent Brantly, and a missionary volunteer, Nancy Writebol, were treated with an experimental drug and evacuated to Atlanta, where they both recovered and were recently released. Earlier in July, a Liberian American, Patrick Sawyer, fell ill upon his arrival in Nigeria and died of the disease.

But unlike Brantly and Writebol, Sacra had not been working at the facility’s Ebola isolation unit, which is separate from the main hospital. Instead, the married father of three was seeing obstetrics patients.

All other hospitals in Monrovia have recently been closed for decontamination after Ebola victims came to their facilities, Sacra wrote. The ELWA mission hospital reopened for obstetrics only on Aug. 6 after being decontaminated.

“When the patients started arriving, they had often been to several other hospitals and traveled for hours seeking care,” wrote Sacra, who made it to Monrovia on Aug. 4. “More than 35 cesarean sections were performed to save women and their babies in the first 20 days — sometimes two or three a day.”

In late August, Sacra said he lobbied for the hospital to accept a non-obstetrics patient, a 13-year-old girl named Lisa suffering severe abdominal pain. Sacra and a Liberian surgeon operated deep into the night to repair holes in her intestine caused by infection.

“I am happy to report that Lisa is improving and slowly recovering,” Sacra wrote last Saturday. “But she is just one of so many people in Liberia who are at risk because of the Ebola tsunami that swept through an already fragile healthcare system.”

The Ebola outbreak in West Africa has been described as the worst ever. More than 1,550 people have died since it was first reported in the forests of southeastern Guinea in March.

There is no approved treatment or vaccine for Ebola, but health officials say it can be contained if the sick are immediately quarantined and vigilant sanitation practices are followed. The virus has been known to kill 50 to 90 percent of those infected.

The air ambulance which was used to bring Brantly and Writebol to Atlanta’s Emory University Hospital departed Georgia early Wednesday on the same route used on the previous evacuations.

“We aren’t commenting right now, you’ll have to call the State Department,” Phoenix Air Group Inc. Vice President Dent Thompson told Yahoo News.

How Sacra contracted the virus is not clear because it requires direct contact with the bodily fluids of someone who is sick.

The Sacra family has served the organization’s ELWA hospital on and off for nearly two decades in the war-torn country. Most recently, Dr. Sacra has been splitting time between Massachusetts and the mission’s 136-acre Monrovia campus to set up a new hospital and family practice residency training program for Liberian doctors.

Sacra was excited when Brantly arrived last October to begin a two-year post-residency assignment. The two quickly became friends.

“He’ll also be a part of developing this vision,” Sacra wrote last fall. “We are anxious to see what God is going to do!”


http://news.yahoo.com/dr-rick-sacra-identified-as-third-american-missionary-infected-with-ebola-152103368.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Guinea detects Ebola in new region as U.S. warns outbreak out of control
Reuters
By Saliou Samb and Daniel Flynn  13 minutes ago



* President says healthcare staff "dropped the ball"

* U.S. doctor says outbreak is not under control anywhere

* U.S. official rebuts call for disaster response teams


CONAKRY/DAKAR, Sept 3 (Reuters) - Guinea's government said on Wednesday that Ebola had spread to a previously unaffected region of the country, as U.S. experts warned that the worst ever outbreak of the deadly virus was spiralling out of control in West Africa.

Guinea, the first country to detect the haemorrhagic fever in March, had said it was containing the outbreak but authorities announced that nine new cases had been found in the southeastern prefecture of Kerouane.

The area, some 750 km (470 miles) southeast of the capital Conakry, lies close to where the virus was first detected deep in Guinea's forest region. The epidemic has since spread to four other West African countries and killed more than 1,500 people.

"There has been a new outbreak in Kerouane but we have sent in a team to contain it," said Aboubacar Sikidi Diakité, head of Guinea's Ebola task force. He insisted the outbreak was being contained.

The nine confirmed cases were in the town of Damaro in the Kerouane region, with a total of 18 people under observation, the health ministry said in a statement.

The latest outbreak started after the arrival of an infected person from neighbouring Liberia, the ministry said. Guinea has recorded a total of 489 deaths and 749 Ebola cases as of Sept. 1.

President Alpha Conde urged health personnel to step up their efforts to avoid new infections.

"Even for a simple malaria, you have to protect yourselves before consulting any sick person until the end of this epidemic," Conde said in a televised broadcast. "We had started to succeed but you dropped the ball and here we go again."

Cases of Ebola have been reported in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Nigeria, Senegal and Democratic Republic of Congo. The cases in Congo, which include 31 deaths, are a separate outbreak unrelated to the West African cases, however, the World Health Organization has said.


OUTBREAK NOT UNDER CONTROL

In a stark analysis last week, the WHO warned that the Ebola epidemic in West Africa could infect more than 20,000 people and spread to 10 countries. It outlined a $490 million roadmap for tackling the epidemic.

Doctor Tom Kenyon, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control's (CDC) Centre for Global Health, said on Wednesday the outbreak was "spiralling out of control" and he warned that the window of opportunity for controlling it was closing.

"Guinea did show that with action, they brought it partially under control. But unfortunately it is back on the increase now," he told a conference call. "It's not under control anywhere."

He warned that the longer the outbreak went uncontained, the greater the possibility the virus could mutate, making it more difficult to contain. Ebola is only transmitted in humans by contact with the blood or bodily fluids of sick people, though suspected cases of airborne infection have been reported in monkeys in laboratories.

A senior U.S. official rebutted a call from medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) for wealthy nations to deploy specialised biological disaster response teams to the region. MSF on Tuesday had warned that 800 more beds for Ebola patients were urgently needed in the Liberian capital Monrovia alone.

"I don't think at this point deploying biological incident response teams is exactly what's needed," said Gayle Smith, Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Development and Democracy on the National Security Council.

She said the U.S. government was focusing efforts on rapidly increasing the number of Ebola treatment centres in affected countries, providing protective equipment and ensuring local staff received training.

"We will see a considerable ramp-up in the coming days and weeks. If we find it is still moving out of control we will look at other options," Smith told a conference call.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said on Tuesday a federal contract worth up to $42.3 million would help accelerate testing of an experimental Ebola virus treatment being developed by privately held Mapp Biopharmaceutical Inc.

Human safety trials are due to begin this week on a vaccine from GlaxoSmithKline Plc and later this year on one from NewLink Genetics Corp.

(Writing by Bate Felix and Daniel Flynn; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)


http://news.yahoo.com/guinea-detects-ebola-region-u-153833751.html

[Buster's Uncle]

U.S. missionary describes 'dark days' of battling Ebola
Reuters
9 minutes ago



SIM missionary Nancy Writebol poses for a photo in an undisclosed location in this August 20, 2014 handout provided by SIM USA August 21, 2014. REUTERS/SIM USA/Handout via Reuters



(Reuters) - Smiling and appearing robustly healthy, a U.S. missionary infected with Ebola while working in Liberia on Wednesday shared publicly her battle with the deadly virus for the first time.

Nancy Writebol, 59, of Charlotte, North Carolina, has been recovering in an undisclosed location since her release last month from an Atlanta hospital that also treated another missionary who contracted the often lethal virus.

She told reporters there were mornings when she woke up and thought with surprise, "I'm alive."

"I thought whether I live or whether I die, it's going to be okay. It’s going to be okay," she said, speaking at times through tears about her recovery at the Charlotte headquarters of the Christian organization that she worked with, SIM USA.

Still, "there were many times when I thought, 'I don’t think I am going to make it any more," she told reporters at the group's Charlotte headquarters. "There were some very, very dark days."

On Tuesday, SIM USA said another U.S. doctor involved with its mission in Liberia had contracted the disease. The group, which has not disclosed the physician's name, is expected to provide additional detail on Wednesday and has said the physician is doing well and in good spirits.

Writebol's account of her illness comes as global health officials warned that the most severe Ebola outbreak in history appears to be worsening.

The outbreak has infected more than 3,000 people and killed some 1,550 since it was first detected early this year in West Africa, according to the World Health Organization.

For Writebol, her recovery involved a dramatic medical journey that drew international attention as well as scrutiny over treatment options.

After contracting the disease in Liberia in July, she was flown back to the United States to receive care in an isolation unit at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta.

She was also one of a few patients to receive an experimental treatment, Mapp Biopharmaceutical Inc's ZMapp, although doctors at Emory said they could not determine whether it made a difference in her recovery.

During the course of her illness, she endured "dark hours of fear and loneliness," her husband has said, leaving the hospital virus-free, but in weakened condition.

A mother of two, Writebol has been recuperating in an undisclosed location with her husband, fellow missionary David Writebol, who was also in Liberia but developed no symptoms.

She was treated at Emory with another U.S. missionary, Dr. Kent Brantly, a Texas doctor who also received ZMapp and was also released last month.

Brantly, who worked with another missionary group called Samaritan's Purse, this week said he felt like he was going to die during the throes of the illness but somehow recovered.

"I don’t think there is anything special about me that made God save my life," he told NBC News in an interview, which aired late Tuesday and early Wednesday. "I survived. That is not to say that for everybody else who died God was absent."

(Reporting by Letitia Stein in Tampa, Florida; Editing by Scott Malone and Susan Heavey)


http://news.yahoo.com/u-missionary-describes-dark-days-battling-ebola-154752827.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Fear hampers recruitment of volunteers in Ebola battle: WHO
Reuters
By Toni Clarke and Sharon Begley  5 minutes ago



WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Fear of contracting the deadly Ebola virus is hampering efforts to recruit international health workers and slowing the delivery of protective garments and other vital materials to stricken areas in West Africa, World Health Organization officials said on Wednesday.

Since March, more than 3,500 confirmed or probable cases of the disease have been reported and more than 1,900 people have died, Dr. Margaret Chan, director-general of the WHO, told reporters at a Washington news conference.

Chan said overwhelming fear of Ebola was making it difficult to recruit the foreign medical teams needed to mount an effective response. "That's the reality," she said.

She said the WHO was seeking to gain air and sea access to the affected countries, which have become increasingly isolated as airlines and boats refuse to land or dock for fear of contagion.

Dr. David Nabarro, the senior United Nations Coordinator for Ebola, told the news conference the international effort to contain the outbreak needed to be scaled up three- to four-fold, at a cost of at least $600 million.

That includes increasing the number of motorcycles, ambulances and other vehicles available to transport patients to medical facilities; increasing the supply of protective equipment, gloves and gowns; providing hazard pay and other incentives for local workers; and taking steps to protect local economies from collapse.

Dr. Keiji Fukuda, the WHO assistant director-general for health security, said several thousand medical personnel would be needed to treat the sick as the outbreak grew along with several hundred international experts to help run laboratories and train healthcare workers.

In Liberia on Tuesday, the government began offering a $1,000 bonus to any healthcare worker who agreed to work in Ebola treatment facilities.

Neither the WHO nor the United Nations can force airlines to land in affected countries. Chan said the WHO was in discussions with commercial airline associations and others to address their concerns.

The overall fatality rate of the current outbreak is 51 percent, ranging from a low of 41 percent in Sierra Leone to a high of 66 percent in Guinea, WHO said.

Countries affected by the epidemic include Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, Senegal and Sierra Leone. An outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo is unrelated to and independent of the West African epidemic, Chan said.

The U.S. government "has been a very strong supporter" of WHO's efforts in the outbreak, she added, naming countries including China, South Africa, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, France, Kuwait, and Canada as providing logistical, medical or other support.

Those efforts continue to fall short, however. Most new Ebola infections are occurring in the community as families care for patients who have no place to go and often refuse to be identified to public health workers, Fukuda said.

(Reporting by Toni Clarke in Washington; Editing by Howard Goller)


http://news.yahoo.com/fear-hampers-recruitment-volunteers-ebola-battle-194911614.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Third American Ebola Patient Is Named
LiveScience.com
By Rachael Rettner, Senior Writer  34 minutes ago



A 51-year-old doctor who resides in Boston has become the third American health care worker to contract Ebola during the current outbreak in West Africa.

Dr. Rick Sacra was caring for pregnant women in a hospital in Liberia when he developed symptoms of Ebola and tested positive for the illness, according to SIM USA, a Christian mission organization that employs the doctor.

Sacra was not treating Ebola patients, and it's not yet known how he contracted the disease, Bruce Johnson, president of SIM USA, said in a news conference today.

Some of Sacra's work included delivering babies and performing C-sections, Johnson said. "Here's a doctor bringing new life into Liberia, as death is surrounding us," Johnson said.

The current Ebola outbreak has killed more than 1,500 people in West Africa.

Sacra and his wife, Debbie, have worked with SIM since the late '80s; he was at one point SIM's country director in Liberia, Johnson said. Sacra volunteered to go to Liberia after learning that two other health care workers had been infected with Ebola in that country. The two — Dr. Kent Brantly, from the charity Samaritan's Purse, and Nancy Writebol, a nurse with SIM — were treated in the United States, and have recovered. Today, Writebol gave her first public statement regarding her experience with the disease.

There are currently no plans to bring Sacra back to the United States, but SIM is "exploring all opportunities and options," for the doctor's care, Johnson said. "Right now, our focus is the care of Rick right there in Liberia," Johnson said.

Both Brantly and Writebol received an experimental Ebola treatment called ZMapp, but there is no more of the drug to give Sacra, Johnson said.

The news of Sacra's infection is disheartening, but "it does not dampen our resolve and our commitment in SIM to serve the people of Liberia and to attack this Ebola epidemic," Johnson said.

Rick is being cared for at SIM's Ebola care center.

"Many of those who are caring for Rick are those who he has taught and mentored in medical practice. You can imagine, they love and admire Dr. Rick, and are taking good care of him," Johnson said.

Sacra is in good spirits, and his wife is "holding up very well," Johnson said.


http://news.yahoo.com/third-american-ebola-patient-named-190547211.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Ebola Survivor Nancy Writebol Tells of Her Tough Battle
LiveScience.com
By Bahar Gholipour, Staff Writer  1 hour ago



When Nancy Writebol, an American missionary working in West Africa, learned she had contracted the Ebola virus, she thought, "It's going to be OK."

The 59-year-old shared details of her fight against the deadly disease for the first time in a news conference today (Sept. 3) at the SIM USA charity in Charlotte, North Carolina.

"I just want to express first of all my appreciation to the lord for his grace, for his mercy, and for his saving of my life," Writebol said.

"There were many mornings I woke up and thought, 'I'm alive!'" Writebol said. "And there were many times when I thought 'I don't think I'm going to make it anymore.'"

Writebol and another American health-care worker, Dr. Kent Brantly, contracted Ebola last month while caring for patients in Liberia, one of the countries affected by the current Ebola outbreak. Writebol and Brantly were both flown to the United States and continued to receive medical care in an isolation unit at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta. Both recovered from the disease and left the hospital about two weeks ago.

Writebol said she is grateful to the doctors in Liberia and in the United States, for her family, and for all the prayers.

"This is not our story, this is God's story. God is writing this," Writebol said.

"It's been a challenge, but we are humbled that God would choose us to tell that story," Writebol's husband, David, said.

Since it started in Guinea in February, the Ebola outbreak has spread to several countries, infecting about 3,000 people. At least 1,500 people have died during the outbreak, according to the World Health Organization.

Yesterday (Sept. 2), SIM USA announced that another one of its missionary workers, Dr. Rick Sacra, had been infected with Ebola in West Africa. Sacra had been working with pregnant women at SIM's ELWA hospital in Monrovia, Liberia, and it's unclear how he contracted the virus.

Ebola is transmitted through contact with blood and bodily fluids of an infected person and is not spread through casual contact. Health-care workers treating Ebola patients use protective suits to avoid contact with the virus.

Writebol and her husband went to Liberia for missionary work last year, and enjoyed serving there. "It was a joy to be there, every single day was new," Writebol said.

During the outbreak, Writebol's duties involved helping doctors put on their protective gear and disinfecting them as they exited isolation areas. Both Writebol and Brantly believe they had followed all precautionary guidelines and don't know how they contracted the virus.

One day Writebol started to feel ill, but she thought she had malaria, an illness she had experienced in the past year. She also tested positive for malaria and started malaria medication. But as she wasn't get any better, doctors also ran an Ebola test, "just to set everybody's mind at ease," she said.

The test was positive, and Writebol's husband had to deliver the news to her.

"I said, 'David, It's going to be OK,'" Writebol said. "I went to the front door and our doctors were standing there and their comments were, 'Nancy, we are so sorry.'"

Both Writebol and Brantly received an experimental drug, ZMapp, but it is difficult to know how much the drug helped with their recovery, because they were the first-ever patients to receive it.

"I'm often asked what saved me," Writebol said. "Was it the ZMapp, was it the supportive care? Was it the Liberian or U.S. medical people? Or was it your faith? And my answer to that question is all of the above."

The Writebols are now going to take some time for rest and recuperation, they said. "We want to see our children and our grandchildren, and we are looking forward to what God has for us in our next mission."


http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-survivor-nancy-writebol-tells-her-tough-battle-183805909.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Doctor with Ebola treated patients in Nigeria, left dozens at risk: WHO
Reuters
By Stephanie Nebehay  1 hour ago



GENEVA (Reuters) - A Nigerian doctor with Ebola carried on treating patients and met scores of friends, relatives and medics before his death, leaving about 60 of them at high risk of infection, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Wednesday.

Members of his church visited him in hospital in the oil hub Port Harcourt and performed a healing ceremony "said to involve the laying on of hands", said the U.N. agency.

"Given these multiple high-risk exposure opportunities, the outbreak of Ebola virus disease in Port Harcourt has the potential to grow larger and spread faster than the one in Lagos," the WHO said.

More than 1,900 people have died in West Africa in the world's worst outbreak of Ebola, WHO director-general Margaret Chan said earlier on Wednesday, marking a major acceleration in fatalities from just over 1,500 last week.

Nigeria's health minister said the country now had 18 Ebola cases, after a fourth case surfaced in Port Harcourt, which is home to many expatriate workers in major international oil companies.

The virus can be spread by direct contact with body fluids and secretions of an infected person or during traditional burial rituals, the WHO says.


NUMEROUS CONTACTS

The doctor, whom the WHO did not name, was infected by a man who fled quarantine in Lagos, who was himself linked to the first case in Africa's most populous country, a Liberian man who sought treatment in Lagos.

The doctor's wife and one of his patients had since caught the deadly disease and 200 people who came into contact with him were being monitored for symptoms including fever and muscle pain, followed by vomiting and diarrhoea, the WHO said.

Of these, around 60 are considered to have had high-risk or very high-risk exposure, it said.

Two days after developing the symptoms on Aug. 11, he went on treating patients at his private clinic and operated on two of them, the WHO statement said.

"Prior to hospitalisation, the physician had numerous contacts with the community, as relatives and friends visited his home to celebrate the birth of a baby," the WHO added.

During his six days in hospital before dying on Aug. 22, he came into contact with the members of his church and was "attended by the majority of the hospital’s health care staff."

There is now a 26-bed isolation facility for Ebola cases in Port Harcourt, "with plans for possible expansion", the WHO said.

Travellers are being screened at domestic and international airport gates in the city, the capital of Rivers State, it said.

Efforts have been stepped up to educate the public about the disease with the help of local religious and community leaders, the WHO said.

"However, civil unrest, security issues, and public fear of Ebola create serious problems that could hamper response operations. Military escorts are needed for movements into the isolation and treatment centre," it said.

There is no cure or vaccine although an experimental drug made by a U.S.-based Mapp Pharmaceutical Inc. has been given to several patients who survived. The virus can kill up to 90 percent of those infected.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Andrew Heavens)


http://news.yahoo.com/doctor-ebola-treated-patients-nigeria-left-dozens-risk-203221006.html

[Buster's Uncle]

African Union to hold emergency meeting on Ebola
AFP
1 hour ago



Health care workers wearing full body suits burn infected items at the Elwa hospital run by Medecins Sans Frontieres in Monrovia on August 30, 2014 (AFP Photo/Dominique Faget)



Addis Ababa (AFP) - The African Union announced Wednesday it will hold an emergency meeting next week aimed at hammering out a continent-wide strategy to deal with the Ebola epidemic.

The AU's Executive Council said next Monday's meeting, to be held at the body's headquarters in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, would also "deliberate on the suspension of flights, and maritime and border closures, as well as stigmatisation of the affected countries and their nationals".

"The council's emergency meeting has been necessitated by the need to have a common understanding of the Ebola Virus Disease and current status of the response and to come up with a collective continental approach, taking into account the socio-political and economic impact of the disease," the AU said in a statement.

It said concerns had been raised by some member states that moves by other African nations to close borders and halt flights "could have serious socio-economic and cultural effects, and could ultimately lead to increased suffering".

More than 1,900 people have died in the Ebola epidemic sweeping through West Africa, the head of the World Health Organisation said Wednesday.

The latest toll represents a significant increase from the 1,552 deaths and 3,069 cases reported by the Geneva-based organisation just days ago.


http://news.yahoo.com/african-union-hold-emergency-meeting-ebola-204244665.html