Ebola news 9/17

[Buster's Uncle]

U.S. leaders call for 'war' on Ebola outbreak, pledge troops
Reuters
By Jeff Mason  September 16, 2014 7:43 PM



Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) speaks to the media on Capitol Hill in Washington July 10, 2014. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts



ATLANTA (Reuters) - U.S. lawmakers called for a government-funded "war" to contain West Africa's deadly Ebola epidemic before it threatens more countries, building on an American pledge to send 3,000 military engineers and medical personnel to combat the virus.

Democratic and Republican lawmakers pledged increased support for efforts to contain the virus that has killed nearly 2,500 people out of almost 5,000 cases in West Africa.

"We need to declare a war on Ebola," Senator Jerry Moran, a Kansas Republican, said during a joint hearing before the Senate committees on Appropriations and Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.

Senator Lamar Alexander, a Tennessee Republican, said the country should view the threat of Ebola "as seriously as we take ISIS," referring to the Islamic State militant group in Syria and Iraq.

The hearing was the Senate's first on the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, an epidemic the likes of which have not been seen before, President Barack Obama said during a meeting with top U.S. public health officials.

"It's spiraling out of control, it's getting worse," he said at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, where he flew to outline the plan to deploy 3,000 troops to West Africa.

The deployment represented a ramping-up in the Obama administration's response to the worst Ebola outbreak on record. It comes after repeated calls for governments to step in and help West African countries whose healthcare systems have been overwhelmed by the epidemic.

In a news conference at the Capitol, U.S. House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner said he was "a bit surprised the administration hasn’t acted more quickly to address what is a serious threat, not just to Africans but to others around the world."



U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN) speaks during the Reuters Washington Summit in Washington November 9, 2011. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst


Boehner said in coming weeks, "you’re going to see the Congress and the administration take further steps to look at how do we best contain this very horrible disease."

Acknowledging that the epidemic represented a national security crisis, U.S. administration officials said the focus of the military deployment would be on Liberia, where the threat of chaos is greatest. The disease has also hit hard in Sierra Leone and Guinea, and has led to a handful of deaths in Nigeria.

Under the plan, engineers, medical personnel and other service members would build 17 treatment centers with 100 beds each, train thousands of healthcare workers and establish a military control center for coordinating the relief effort, U.S. officials told reporters.

"Some have asked why should our military be involved," Senator Alexander said. "They have to be involved, if we want to deal with the problem. There's no way for the doctors and the nurses and the healthcare workers to deal with it."

Officials said the Defense Department had sought to reallocate $500 million in funds from fiscal 2014 to help cover the costs of the humanitarian mission.

"The reality is we all have to do more," said Senator Patty Murray, a Democrat from Washington.

Witnesses at the joint hearing said the proposed $88 million included in a stopgap U.S. government funding legislation to be considered by the House on Wednesday will only last through Dec. 11.

The measure, which meets a last-minute request from Obama, provides $30 million for more staff and supplies at the CDC and $58 million to speed up production of Mapp Biopharmaceutical's experimental Ebola drug ZMapp and vaccine candidates.

"We and others will need more funding. There is no doubt about that," Dr. Robin Robinson, director of Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, said when asked whether his agency had the resources it needs.

United Nations officials on Tuesday estimate it will now take a $1 billion response to contain the outbreak to tens of thousands of cases.

The World Health Organization has said it needs foreign medical teams with 500 to 600 experts as well as at least 10,000 local health workers. The figures may rise if the number of cases increases, as is widely expected.

"If we do not act now to stop the spread of Ebola, we could be dealing with it for years to come, affecting larger areas of Africa," Dr. Beth Bell, CDC director of the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, told the Senate hearing.

In addition to adding capacity, the U.S. effort in West Africa will focus on training. A site will be established where military medical personnel will teach healthcare workers how to care for Ebola patients, at a rate of 500 workers per week for six months or longer, officials said.

The U.S. Agency for International Development will support a program to distribute home protection kits with sanitizers and medical supplies to 400,000 households in Liberia, something Dr Kent Brantly, a U.S. missionary doctor who has recovered from Ebola, argued for passionately at the hearing.

Although some critics have said such kits might encourage families to treat Ebola patients at home, risking spreading the disease, Brantly said health agencies must "be open to practical interventions" that could help keep families safe from a disease he described as "a fire, straight from the pit of hell."

(Additional reporting by Tom Miles in Geneva, Sha; ron Begley in New York, Julie Steenhuysen in Chicago and Susan Heavey and David Lawder in Washington; Writing by Michele Gershberg; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)


http://news.yahoo.com/u-leaders-call-war-ebola-outbreak-pledge-troops-234350017.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Liberia hopes U.S. Ebola pledge will spur others to act
Reuters
45 minutes ago



Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf speaks during an interview with Reuters in Brussels November 25, 2013. REUTERS/Francois Lenoir



MONROVIA (Reuters) - Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf said on Wednesday she hoped U.S. President Barack Obama's decision to send 3,000 troops to West Africa to battle the worst Ebola outbreak on record would spur other countries to help.

"On behalf of the Liberian people and in my own name, I want thank President Obama and the American people for scaling up the American response," Johnson Sirleaf said in an address to Liberians.

"We remain in touch with the leaders of other governments to take similar steps and join us in partnership to end this disease," she said.

Johnson Sirleaf said her government was "fighting back" against the deadly virus, which has claimed the lives of some 1,300 people in Liberia, the country hardest hit by the epidemic.

On Tuesday, Obama called the outbreak a looming threat to international security and said the United States would be increasing its efforts to help stop the spread of the disease.

The U.S. plan includes establishing a regional command and control center in Liberia's capital; building 17 treatment centers with 100 beds each, and training thousands of health care workers.

A planeload of hospital equipment from the United States is due to arrive in Liberia on Friday, a senior administration official said on Wednesday. This is the first of 13 air shipments headed for Monrovia, carrying equipment for a 25-bed hospital to be built there.

Liberia, which was founded in the 19th century by descendants of freed American slaves, has welcomed assistance from its long-time ally, the United States.

"Ebola will not defeat us; never. We have faced great tragedies before. These have tested us and shown our true character," said Johnson Sirleaf, referring to a 1989-2003 civil war in which up to a quarter of a million people were killed.

"I call on you to stand up again. We are fighting back and we will win."

The worst Ebola outbreak since the disease was identified in 1976 has killed nearly 2,500 people, or about half of those infected. In addition to Liberia, cases have been reported in Guinea, Sierra Leone, Nigeria and Senegal.

An outbreak said to be unrelated to the one in West Africa has been reported in Democratic Republic of Congo.

Some Liberians blame Johnson Sirleaf, a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize for her work on women's rights, for not doing more to protect them from the illness.

The current Ebola outbreak was first confirmed in March in the remote forests of southeastern Guinea.

In her address, Johnson Sirleaf said her government had acted "swiftly and decisively" with measures such as a curfew and travel restrictions.

"We acted within the scale of our capacity to contain the scale of an outbreak we could not imagine possible," she said.

Also on Wednesday, medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres said that a French volunteer working for it in Liberia has contracted Ebola, and that seven of its local staff have fallen ill from the virus and three of them have died. [id:NL6N0RI55X]

Healthcare workers account for hundreds of those who have been infected with Ebola.

The volunteer is the first French national and MSF's first international staff member to be stricken with the disease in the outbreak, MSF said in a statement. The French government said she would be evacuated to France in a special medical plane.

MSF is the leading organization fighting the outbreak, with more than 2,000 staff members working across West Africa.

(Reporting by Daniel Flynn; Writing by Bate Felix and Emma Farge; Editing by Toni Reinhold)


http://news.yahoo.com/liberia-hopes-u-ebola-pledge-spur-others-act-001500853--business.html

[Buster's Uncle]

As U.S. Fights Ebola, NGOs Breathe Easier (Op-Ed)
LiveScience.com
By Dr. Matthew Bank, North Shore University Hospital  4 hours ago


Dr. Matthew Bank is a trauma surgeon and critical care specialist at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, New York. He spent time working with Doctors Without Borders, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, in Nigeria in 2007. He contributed this article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

As a former aid worker in West Africa, I was deeply concerned watching the slow response of the developed world to the rapidly moving Ebola epidemic. Since the first cases were reported in mid-March, thousands of patients were infected or died before the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a public health emergency — and it has now spread across Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Nigeria.

While official WHO recognition can bring resources to combat the disease's spread, a new milestone was reached yesterday when U. S. President Barack Obama announced a specific plan to bring American military and healthcare resources into West Africa in a coordinated attempt to control the rapidly worsening Ebola epidemic.


The need is great

The importance of this announcement cannot be underestimated. Previously, the only Western assistance the underfunded and understaffed African health ministries had been receiving was from Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) such as International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and Doctors Without Borders (formally Médecins Sans Frontières, or MSF).

Working for MSF in 2007 in Nigeria, I have experienced the level of care a typical, well-run NGO can sustain. Stationed in Port Harcourt for two months, I was the only trauma surgeon staffing an MSF hospital that treated thousands of trauma victims each year. 

We had no intensive care equipment, and lacked even basic resources such as oxygen and intravenous infusion pumps. This would be unheard of at a trauma center in the United States. This is a simple, but unadulterated, example of the limits of most NGOs.


Intensive care

Unlike trauma patients, for victims of Ebola virus, the only known treatment is "supportive care." This means that while there are no specific drugs available that have been proven to help patients with Ebola, there are treatments that can support infected patients long enough for their own immune system to fight off the virus.

Unfortunately, that level of care can be extremely resource-intensive. It entails completely isolating a patient while still delivering intravenous fluids, treatments for respiratory failure and electrolyte imbalances, and other interventions.

Resources such as negative-pressure isolation rooms; ventilators; and reliable, rapid laboratory testing for electrolytes are usually well past the limits of the most NGOs.  These organizations do not accept governmental funding and support, and simply do not have the resources for a sustained, broad and effective response to large international epidemics, such as the current Ebola outbreak.

Despite dedicated and hard-working personnel, any response relying on NGO support for control the current Ebola outbreak was doomed to fail.

With this background in mind, the President's announcement today was welcome.

As of August 31, at least 2,400 people have died of Ebola in West Africa. More than two thousand more are suspected of having the disease. The epidemic has been growing rapidly without any response from the world's richest country, the United States. Yesterday, that changed.


http://news.yahoo.com/u-fights-ebola-ngos-breathe-easier-op-ed-214844393.html

[Buster's Uncle]

French MSF volunteer contracts Ebola in Liberia
AFP
6 hours ago



A female French volunteer working for Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has contracted the deadly Ebola virus while on assignment in Liberia, the charity says (AFP Photo/Dominique Faget)



Paris (AFP) - A female French volunteer working for Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has contracted the deadly Ebola virus while on assignment in Liberia, the charity said Wednesday.

It marks the first time MSF has announced that a French national has been diagnosed with the disease.

The woman was placed in isolation on Tuesday "after she developed a fever", MSF said in a statement. Tests later confirmed she had been contaminated with the tropical virus that has been ravaging west Africa.

The staff member, who was working in Monrovia, will soon be transferred to a specialised treatment centre in France, the organisation said.

"MSF applies very strict protocols of protection for its staff -- before, during and after their time in a country affected by the current Ebola outbreak," said Brice de le Vingne, MSF Director of Operations.

"This dramatically reduces the risk of transmission of the disease. However, the risk is part of such an intervention, and sadly our teams are not spared."

For privacy reasons, no further details were given about the affected volunteer.

MSF says it currently has more than 2,000 staff members working to combat Ebola in west Africa, including some 200 international workers.

The international community is scrambling to respond to the current Ebola outbreak, the worst on record. The virus has killed more than 2,400 people in Liberia, Guinea, Sierra Leone and Nigeria this year.

The United Nations Security Council is to hold an emergency session on Thursday to discuss ramping up the global aid response to the crisis.

US President Barack Obama on Tuesday announced the United States would send 3,000 military personnel to west Africa to tackle the outbreak, which he said was "spiralling out of control".


http://news.yahoo.com/french-msf-volunteer-contracts-ebola-liberia-195853268.html

[Buster's Uncle]

French nurse for medical charity MSF contracts Ebola in Liberia
Reuters
By John Irish and James Harding Giahyue  4 hours ago



PARIS/MONROVIA (Reuters) - A French volunteer working for Medecins Sans Frontieres in Liberia has contracted Ebola, the medical charity said on Wednesday, adding that seven local staff members have already fallen ill from the deadly virus.

The volunteer, the first French national and MSF's first international staff member to catch the disease in the outbreak, was put in quarantine on Tuesday when early symptoms of the illness appeared, according to an MSF statement.

She will be evacuated to France in a special medical plane in line with the country's evacuation plan, the French government said.

MSF is the leading organization fighting the worst Ebola outbreak on record, with more than 2,000 staff members working across West Africa.

Healthcare workers account for hundreds of the infected in an outbreak that has already killed nearly 2,500 people and infected close to 5,000 across Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone.

But most cases have occurred in government healthcare centers, often due to a lack of vigilance or resources to buy the protective equipment against the highly contagious virus, which spreads through bodily fluids.

"For this epidemic, seven national staffs contracted the virus and three of them died," MSF emergency coordinator Laurence Sailly told reporters in Liberia's capital, Monrovia, on Wednesday, revealing the extent of MSF's exposure for the first time.

She did not give further details on the other cases.

MSF said it applies very strict protection protocols for its staff and that it planned to launch an investigation into the French worker's case. Its Ebola treatment center in Monrovia known as ELWA 3 will not accept new patients until the probe was completed, Sailly added.

MSF President Joanne Liu had previously warned that infection among its own staff could exacerbate the outbreak by spreading it further among the healthy.

"One of our biggest things is that we do not want our staff to get infected. Because if this happens, then that is how things really collapse quickly," she said in an August interview.

The World Health Organization has previously warned that the number of cases in West Africa could climb as high as 20,000 as ill-equipped governments in one of the poorest regions of the world struggle to contain it.

U.S. President Barack Obama has called Ebola a major threat to global security and announced a major expansion of his country's role in stopping its spread, including deployment of 3,000 troops to the region.

(Additional reporting by Daniel Flynn; Writing by Emma Farge; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)


http://news.yahoo.com/french-worker-medical-charity-msf-contracts-ebola-liberia-182219585.html

[Buster's Uncle]

First French Ebola victim to be flown home from Liberia
AFP
3 hours ago



Volunteers wearing t-shirts of the United Nations Development Programme show a placard to raise awareness about the symptoms of the Ebola virus to students in Abidjan, on September 15, 2014 (AFP Photo/Sia Kambou)



Paris (AFP) - The first French Ebola patient was set to be flown home Thursday, as the World Bank warned the spiralling epidemic is threatening economic catastrophe in west Africa.

Doctors Without Borders, known by its French acronym MSF, said a female volunteer had contracted the killer virus while on assignment in Liberia.

France's health ministry said she "will be repatriated to Paris in conditions of maximum security in a dedicated air ambulance".

The Ebola outbreak in west Africa is the worst in history, with more than 2,400 people already dead and quickening infection rates threatening to spiral out of control.

The World Bank on Wednesday warned that fear of the deadly virus is choking off economic activity in the worst-hit countries, with potentially "catastrophic" results.

MSF has played a major role in combatting the epidemic, with more than 2,000 staff members in the region including some 200 international workers.

But health bodies have warned that medical facilities are already so overwhelmed by new cases that they are having to turn people away to die on the streets.



A man stands guard at Elwa hospital in Monrovia, which is run by the non-governmental French organization Medecins Sans Frontieres on September 7, 2014 (AFP Photo/Dominique Faget)


MSF president Mego Terzian said the French Ebola patient, said to be in stable condition, was expected back in Paris on Thursday.

She is the first Western MSF worker to have caught the disease, though "unfortunately several African MSF colleagues have been affected," he added.

MSF gave no further details on the woman involved whom, they said, had been placed in isolation on Tuesday after showing symptoms of the deadly disease.


- 'Spiralling out of control' -

The United Nations Security Council is to hold an emergency session on Thursday to discuss ramping up the global aid response to the crisis.

US President Barack Obama on Tuesday pledged to send 3,000 military personnel to west Africa to combat the epidemic, "the likes that we have not seen before".



A health worker, wearing Personal Protective Equipment, stands inside the high-risk area at Elwa hospital in Monrovia on September 7, 2014 (AFP Photo/Dominique Faget)


"It's spiralling out of control. It is getting worse. It's spreading faster and exponentially," he said.

President Obama's announcement "is a significant moment in the battle against Ebola," Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf said in a statement.

"Our American partners realise Liberia cannot defeat Ebola alone," said Sirleaf, whose country has registered more than half of the reported deaths from the disease.

"We hope this decision by the United States will spur the rest of the international community into action."


- 'Catastrophic blow' -

The current epidemic, the worst since Ebola was discovered in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1976, has killed more than half of those infected.



United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Valerie Amos talks during a press conference on global aid to fight the Ebola outbreak in west Africa on September 16, 2014 at UN offices in Geneva (AFP Photo/Fabrice Coffrini)


The virus can fell its victims within days, causing severe fever and muscle pain, weakness, vomiting and diarrhoea -- in some cases shutting down organs and causing unstoppable bleeding.

No licenced vaccine or treatment exists, although experts have stepped up their research in response to the crisis.

On Wednesday, a healthy British volunteer became the first to receive a new vaccine for the Ebola virus in a trial at the University of Oxford.

The volunteer is one of 60 who will receive the drug in tests that will run alongside similar trials in the US in the hope of producing a vaccine by the end of the year.

The vaccine specifically targets the Zaire variety of Ebola, which has killed 2,461 people out of 4,985 recorded cases in Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria and Senegal since the start of the year, according to the World Health Organization.

But on Wednesday, the World Bank warned that even the fear of the disease is strangling the economies of the worst-hit countries, keeping workers at home and placing a heavy burden on their strained health systems.

If it spreads unchecked across Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, the bank predicted its impact could grow eight-fold, "dealing a potentially catastrophic blow to the already fragile states".

"The sooner we get an adequate containment response and decrease the level of fear and uncertainty, the faster we can blunt Ebola's economic impact," said World Bank President Jim Yong Kim.

In the worst-case scenario, Liberia's economic growth could fall by 11.7 percentage points next year, plunging the country into recession with a 4.9 percent contraction.

In Sierra Leone, the worst-case impact could be 8.9 percentage points lost from growth in 2015, and in Guinea, 2.3 points.

Sierra Leone is preparing for a nationwide three-day lockdown in an attempt to curb the spread of the disease.


http://news.yahoo.com/france-receive-first-ebola-patient-215220735.html