Ebola news 9/19

[Buster's Uncle]

MSF says French Ebola patient's repatriation far too slow
Reuters
By John Irish  September 18, 2014 2:45 PM



General view of the military Hospital Begin in Saint-Mande, eastern Paris, September 18, 2014. REUTERS/Charles Platiau



PARIS (Reuters) - Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) on Thursday criticized the delay in repatriating a foreign health worker infected with Ebola in Africa after it took two days to fly out the infected French volunteer from Liberia.

A specially adapted aircraft was due in Monrovia on Thursday from the United States to take the female healthcare worker home to France after she was diagnosed with the deadly disease.

Operations director Brice de la Vigne said MSF wanted a medivac plane to be located in West Africa to deal with emergencies rather than having to arrange for one to fly over from the U.S. as it had to do in this case.

"It's been a while now that MSF has asked the European Union and other states to put in place an efficient evacuation system," he told a news conference.

"It's just too long when you see that it takes 42 hours from the moment when a case is detected to when they are repatriated."



General view of the military Hospital Begin in Saint-Mande, eastern Paris, September 18, 2014. REUTERS/Charles Platiau


De la Vigne declined to give details on the patient's condition, but said very strict protection protocols had been maintained. Any additional preventive measures would only be taken once a full investigation into how she had contracted the disease was completed, he said.

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.

She had been working directly in an isolation unit. She will be treated at a military hospital outside Paris, sources said.


2,000 MSF STAFF IN REGION

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



General view of the military Hospital Begin in Saint-Mande, eastern Paris, September 18, 2014. REUTERS/Charles Platiau


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.

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

The U.N. Security Council will convene on Thursday to decide if Ebola is deemed a global threat. If it does it may help push a coordinated strategy to handle the spread of the disease.

"There is a problem that the main actors can't just intervene like that, so we have therefore asked armies who have a technical capacity to isolate cases and set up centres because bad centres make the epidemic worse," de la Vigne said.

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.

"We are waiting for Europe which has been cautious until now," de la Vigne said.

(Editing by Tom Heneghan)


http://news.yahoo.com/msf-says-french-ebola-patients-repatriation-far-too-184529766.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Sierra Leone capital at standstill as Ebola lockdown begins
Reuters
By Umaru Fofana  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



FREETOWN (Reuters) - Sierra Leone began a three-day lockdown on Friday in an effort to halt the spread of the Ebola virus, as President Ernest Bai Koroma urged residents to comply with the emergency measures.

Streets in the normally bustling seaside capital Freetown were deserted, barring vehicles carrying police officers and health workers. Radio stations played Ebola awareness jingles on repeat and encouraged residents to stay indoors.

"Today, the life of everyone is at stake, but we will get over this difficulty if all do what we have been asked to do," Koroma said in a television address late on Thursday.

"These are extraordinary times and extraordinary times require extraordinary measures."

Ebola has infected some 5,357 people in West Africa this year, killing 2,630 of them, in the worst epidemic of the virus that the world has seen.

At least 562 people have died in Sierra Leone and nearly 30,000 health workers, volunteers and teachers aim to visit every single household in the country of six million in just three days to educate them and isolate the sick.

But the teams were off to a slow start on Friday. Volunteers at the Murray Town Health Center in Freetown said they had not yet received their kits, containing soap, stickers and flyers.

"This means we are going to achieve less than our target for today or stay beyond 6 o'clock this evening to be able to do so," one of the volunteers said.

Some have questioned whether Sierra Leone's campaign will be effective.

"Food prices have gone up 30 percent. Many homes that cannot afford (food) are starving," said Ahmed Nanoh, executive secretary of Sierra Leone's chamber of agriculture.

"This morning many families are calling on the radio crying because of lack of food in their homes."

Healthcare workers seeking to contain the Ebola outbreak have often been met with deep mistrust by local communities.

In a tragic illustration of latent fears, a team of eight people educating locals on Ebola risks in neighbouring Guinea were killed and their bodies dumped in a village latrine.

An official for the United Nations children's agency UNICEF, Roeland Monasch, said the "Ose to Ose" campaign, which means "house to house" in local Krio, would be helpful.

"If people don't have access to the right information, we need to bring life-saving messages to them, where they live, at their doorsteps," he said.

Investors are worried about the impact of the lockdown on Sierra Leone's iron ore production. In a bid to reassure them, African Minerals Ltd. said it expected no material impact on its iron ore operations.


http://news.yahoo.com/sierra-leone-capital-standstill-ebola-lockdown-begins-122549735.html

[Buster's Uncle]

British Ebola survivor flies to United States for blood donation
Reuters
September 18, 2014 11:49 AM


(Reuters) - A British man who survived Ebola after being treated in London has flown to the United States to try to help another patient suffering from the virus, the Foreign Office in the United Kingdom said on Thursday.

Media reports said William Pooley planned to donate his blood, which likely contains protective antibodies that could help fight the disease, for an emergency transfusion to an Ebola patient in Atlanta.

An American doctor who worked for the World Health Organization is being treated at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta after he became infected with Ebola in Sierra Leone.

A spokesman for the Emory hospital would not confirm on Thursday whether the doctor, who has not been named, will be getting blood donated from the British man, citing patient privacy laws.

There are two Ebola patients being treated in the United States. A spokesman for the Nebraska hospital where another American is receiving care for the virus said the British man was not headed to that facility.

Pooley, 29, contracted the disease while working as a volunteer nurse in Sierra Leone. He was discharged earlier this month from a special isolation unit at the Royal Free Hospital in London after 10 days of treatment with the experimental ZMapp drug.

London's Evening Standard newspaper said Pooley and the doctor he is hoping to help were reported to be close friends after working together at the Ebola treatment center in Kenema, Sierra Leone.

The pair has the same blood type, which made Pooley the perfect donor, the newspaper said.

There is no proven cure for Ebola, a deadly virus that was discovered nearly 40 years ago in the forests of central Africa. The worst-ever outbreak on record of the virus, which has killed at least 2,630 people in West Africa, has triggered a scramble to develop the first drug or vaccine to treat it.

Earlier this month at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, Dr. Rick Sacra received a plasma infusion from another American Ebola survivor, Dr. Kent Brantly. Brantly's blood likely contained protective antibodies that doctors said could help buy Sacra some time while his body worked to fight off the infection.

Brantly's blood type also turned out to be a match for his friend and fellow missionary Sacra.

(Reporting by Stephen Addison in London and Colleen Jenkins in Winston-Salem, North Carolina; Editing by Bill Trott)


http://news.yahoo.com/british-ebola-survivor-flies-united-states-blood-donation-154948589.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Liberia hopes U.S. Ebola pledge will spur others to act
Reuters
September 18, 2014 2:41 AM



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.

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.


http://news.yahoo.com/liberia-hopes-u-ebola-pledge-spur-others-act-064123700--business.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Death toll in West Africa Ebola epidemic reaches 2,630: WHO
Reuters
September 18, 2014 12:04 PM



Health workers remove the body of Prince Nyentee, a 29-year-old man whom local residents said died of Ebola virus in Monrovia September 11, 2014. REUTERS/James Giahyue



LONDON/GENEVA (Reuters) - At least 2,630 people have died in the worst outbreak of Ebola virus in history, which has so far infected at least 5,357 people in West Africa, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Thursday.

In an update on the epidemic, which is raging through Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia and has spread into Nigeria and Senegal, the WHO said there were no signs yet of it slowing.

"The upward epidemic trend continues in the three countries that have widespread and intense transmission - Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone," the United Nations health agency said.

Those three countries account for the vast majority of cases and deaths in the outbreak - 8 others have died in Nigeria, out of 21 cases, and one case has been confirmed in Senegal.

The WHO said a surge in Ebola in Liberia is being driven primarily by a continued increase in the number of cases reported in the capital, Monrovia, where 1,210 bed spaces were needed, five times the current capacity.

The WHO has said it hopes to be able to "bend the curve" in the almost exponential increase in cases within three months.

The latest data updated five days of data for Liberia and one day for the other countries, and showed no new deaths in Sierra Leone since the previous update.

The WHO said efforts to integrate various sources of data in Liberia would lead to many cases being reclassified and about 100 previously unreported cases had been found and would be included in later updates.

In a separate Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo, 40 deaths had been reported out of 71 cases by Sept. 15, the WHO said.


http://news.yahoo.com/death-toll-west-africa-ebola-epidemic-reaches-2-131722589.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Eight bodies found after attack on Guinea Ebola education team
Reuters
13 hours ago



CONAKRY (Reuters) - Eight bodies, including those of three journalists, were found after an attack on a team trying to educate locals on the risks of the Ebola virus in a remote area of southeastern Guinea, a government spokesman said on Thursday.

"The eight bodies were found in the village latrine. Three of them had their throats slit," Damantang Albert Camara told Reuters by telephone in Conakry.

However, Guinea's Prime Minister Mohamed Saïd Fofana, speaking in a television message that had been recorded earlier, said 7 bodies of 9 missing people had been found.

He said six people have been arrested following the incident, which took place on Tuesday in Wome, a village close to the town of Nzerekore, in Guinea's southeast, where Ebola was first identified in March.

Since then the virus has killed some 2,630 people and infected at least 5,357 people, according to World Health Organization (WHO), mostly in Guinea, neighbouring Sierra Leone and Liberia. It has also spread to Senegal and Nigeria.

Authorities in the region are faced with widespread fears, misinformation and stigma among residents of the affected countries, complicating efforts to contain the highly contagious disease.

Fofana said the team that included local administrators, two medical officers, a preacher and three accompanying journalists, was attacked by a hostile stone-throwing crowd from the village when they tried to inform people about Ebola.

He said it was regrettable that the incident occurred as the international community was mobilising to help countries struggling to contain the disease.


http://news.yahoo.com/eight-bodies-found-attack-guinea-ebola-education-team-080919100.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Sierra Leone streets deserted as shutdown begins
AFP
By Rod MacJohnson  7 hours ago



Men in Kenema, Sierra Leone, on August 16, 2014 sit outside a diamond trading store, where business has ground to a halt as traders shut their shops in fear of contact with diamonds contaminated by Ebola (AFP Photo/Carl de Souza)



Freetown (AFP) - Sierra Leone's normally chaotic capital resembled a ghost town on Friday as residents were confined to their homes for the start of a three-day lockdown aimed at halting the deadly Ebola epidemic.

Streets across Freetown, a bustling city of 1.2 million people, emptied from midnight and by dawn the rare echo of rain on tin roofs and the rumble of thunder had replaced the usual blare of motorbike horns and the din of market stall music.

"Everyone seems to be complying and this is very good. This is an important way to fight Ebola. We expect everyone to stay at home," Freetown police chief Francis Munu told AFP.

Shops and offices were shut across the city, and only emergency vehicles plied streets which are normally jammed with traffic throughout the day.

Munu said his officers, covering the day in two shifts of 12 hours, were accompanying burial teams picking up bodies around the city and were prepared to protect them if they encountered resistance.

"Ose to Ose Ebola Tok" -- "House-to-House Ebola Talk" in the widely-spoken Krio language -- will see more than 7,000 volunteer teams of four visiting the country's 1.5 million homes over the coming days.



Medecins Sans Frontieres medical staff wearing protective clothing treat the body of an Ebola victim at their facility in Kailahun, on August 14, 2014 (AFP Photo/Carl de Souza)


The population of six million has been told to stay indoors from midnight (0000 GMT) for 72 hours except for essential business, with only emergency services, security forces and other key workers exempt.

Almost 30,000 volunteers will go door-to-door to educate locals and hand out soap, in an exercise that could lead to scores more patients and bodies being discovered in people's homes.


- 'Aching for a cure' -

Ebola fever can fell its victims within days, causing severe muscle pain, vomiting, diarrhoea and -- in some cases -- unstoppable internal and external bleeding.

More than 550 people have died from the disease in Sierra Leone alone, one of the three hardest-hit nations alongside Guinea and Liberia.



An MSF medical worker checks her protective clothing in a mirror at an MSF facility in Kailahun, on August 15, 2014 (AFP Photo/Carl de Souza)


The government has said the volunteers will not enter people's homes but will call emergency services to deal with patients or bodies of which they become aware.

Across the city residents waited on their verandas for the arrival of the health teams who began their rounds at 7:15 am.

"We are here to talk to you about Ebola and to find out how much you know about the disease, what you should do about its prevention and -- if anyone is sick in the family -- to take him or her to the nearest clinic," team leader Tommy Sackey told one family after knocking on their door in the west end of the city.

Smiling broadly, the head of the family, Sammy Jones, offered the team a seat on the porch while summoning to his wife and three children "to come listen to the crucial message on Ebola".

"The family is now in a better position (with) the disease," Sackey told AFP after handing out stickers and soap.



A girl suspected of being infected with the Ebola virus has her temperature checked at the government hospital in Kenema, Sierra Leone, on August 16, 2014 (AFP Photo/Carl de Souza)


- Remote villages -

Shipping clerk Francis Coker, who had volunteered to lead another team in central Freetown, told AFP the response to the campaign had been encouraging.

"So far the most frequently asked questions to our team have been about stigmatisation and untested drugs. It shows that people are aching for a cure," he said.

Steven Gaojia, who is coordinating the shutdown, told reporters 258 extra beds had been set up in makeshift treatment centres across Freetown in anticipation of the campaign uncovering dead bodies and new cases in people's homes.

"Six ambulances are now on standby. We have some 89 vehicles from humanitarian agencies while the Commercial Bikers Association has (offered) for our use some 382 motorcycles."

Across the country, "Ose to Ose" teams trekked bush paths to reach remote villages to spread the message.

"Ebola has uniquely brought people of all shades of opinion together," said Mamud Sherriff, a resident of Bo, the country's second city.

"Since early dawn many teams have left the city, reaching out to villages and talking to families using their local dialect."

Locals in Kenema, a quarantined eastern city at the epicentre of the epidemic, told AFP families were allowed to gather under trees outside their homes to listen to health advice.

In the northern district of Kabala, the only part of Sierra Leone not to be touched by the epidemic, residents were upbeat about the campaign.

"We are proud that we are the only community in the country that has not been affected by Ebola. We intend to keep this stand and this is why we welcome the campaign to update our knowledge," said Murray Samoura, a local herbalist.


http://news.yahoo.com/sierra-leone-streets-deserted-shutdown-begins-140509808.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Ebola lockdown brings Sierra Leone capital to a halt
Reuters
By Umaru Fofana and Josephus Olu-Mammah  1 hour ago



An empty street is seen at the start of a three-day national lockdown in Freetown September 19, 2014.REUTERS/Umaru Fofana



FREETOWN (Reuters) - Streets in the capital of Sierra Leone were deserted on Friday as the West African state began a contested, three-day lockdown in a bid to halt the worst Ebola outbreak on record.

President Ernest Bai Koroma urged people to heed the emergency measures as health workers, some clad in protective biohazard suits, went house to house, checking on residents and marking each doorway they visited with chalk.

Radio stations played Ebola awareness jingles on repeat and encouraged residents to stay indoors.

"As they are fighting this Ebola, we pray that it will be eradicated. That's what we are praying for," Mariam Bangura told Reuters as she waited at her home in Freetown's West End neighborhood. Other residents looked out over the normally bustling seaside city from windows and balconies.

Nearly 30,000 health workers, volunteers and teachers aim to visit every household in the country of six million people by Sunday to educate them about the disease and isolate the sick.

In Freetown, teams got off to a slow start, waiting several hours to receive kits containing soap, stickers and flyers.

"We are already late. You know this is the first day of the campaign, it is possible to be that way. But I believe by tomorrow it will not be so," said Alie Sufian Turay, the leader of one of the teams.

A few police cars and ambulances, sirens blaring, were the only traffic on the otherwise empty streets. One emergency vehicle was seen stopping at a house to take on a patient.

Ebola has infected about 5,357 people in West Africa this year, mainly in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia, killing 2,630 of them, in the most deadly epidemic of the virus since it was discovered in 1976 in the forests of central Africa.

Western nations, led by the United States, have pledged in recent days to ramp up their aid effort and the United Nations said on Thursday it would deploy a special mission, calling the outbreak a "threat to international peace and security". [ID:nL6N0RJ56N]

In Sierra Leone, at least 562 people have died so far from the disease.

"Today, the life of everyone is at stake, but we will get over this difficulty if all do what we have been asked to do," President Koroma said in a television address late on Thursday.

"These are extraordinary times and extraordinary times require extraordinary measures."

Some have questioned whether the campaign will be effective. Sierra Leone newspaper Awareness Times in an editorial called the preparations for the lockdown "chaotic" and recommended its postponement.

"This morning many families are calling on the radio crying because of lack of food in their homes," said Ahmed Nanoh, executive secretary of Sierra Leone's chamber of agriculture.

"Food prices have gone up 30 percent. Many homes that cannot afford (food) are starving.

Medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres, which has been at the forefront of the effort to contain the epidemic, warned last week that the lock-down could lead to the concealment of cases, potentially causing the disease to spread further.

However, an official for the United Nations children's agency UNICEF, Roeland Monasch, said the "Ose to Ose" campaign, which means "house to house" in local Krio, would be helpful.

"If people don't have access to the right information, we need to bring life-saving messages to them, where they live, at their doorsteps," he said.

Investors are worried about the consequences of the lockdown on Sierra Leone's iron ore production. In a bid to reassure them, African Minerals Ltd. said it expected no material impact on its iron ore operations.


GUINEA PURSUES KILLERS

Healthcare workers seeking to contain the Ebola outbreak have often been met with deep mistrust by local communities, hampering their efforts to stop its spread.

One team of eight people educating locals on Ebola risks in a remote part of southeastern Guinea were killed and their bodies dumped in a village latrine.

While recognizing that the risks faced by health workers, the World Health Organization warned on Friday that the tragedy must not be allowed to derail efforts to educate people about the disease.

"We should continue the dialogue with the community, we should continue to explain our work, continue to show our empathy with the victims, with the families, with the communities," WHO expert Pierre Formenty said.

NGOs warned in a joint statement that the Ebola crisis could set back by a decade economic progress in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, and called on more governments to follow U.S. steps to expand efforts to stop the disease's spread.

U.S. President Barack Obama said earlier this week it would deploy 3,000 troops in the region. There are currently around 20 military personnel on the ground in Liberia conducting planning and assessment for the mission.

Another 45 U.S. soldiers are due to arrive in Liberia's capital Monrovia over the weekend to begin setting up a command center there, Department of Defence spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby said on Friday.

"Right now, the effort does not include U.S. military personnel treating Ebola patients. We're going to be in support of other healthcare workers that are experts at doing this," he said.

In a rare piece of good news, Senegal's health minister said on Friday there was no further risk of Ebola spreading in his country, following the end of a quarantine period for those who came into contact with an infected man from Guinea.

"The risk of the Ebola virus spreading from the imported case is non-existent for our country," Awa Marie Coll Seck told a news conference. State television said the 21-year-old Guinean student was being repatriated on a military aircraft.

Ebola is endemic in forest mammals in parts of Central Africa but the deadly Zaire strain has never previously appeared in West Africa. Scientists say that a fruit bat butchered as bushmeat in Guinea last December probably started the epidemic.

A parallel outbreak has so far killed 40 people out of 71 cases in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

(Additional reporting by Bate Felix in Dakar, Joe Bavier in Abidjan and Phillip Stewart in Washington D.C.; Writing by Emma Farge and Joe Bavier; Editing by Crispian Balmer)


http://news.yahoo.com/u-n-deploy-ebola-mission-death-toll-reaches-005254873.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Death toll in West Africa Ebola epidemic reaches 2,630: WHO
Reuters
September 18, 2014 10:55 AM



A Liberian woman stands as health workers wearing protective clothing prepare to carry an abandoned dead body presenting with Ebola symptoms at Duwala market in Monrovia August 17, 2014. REUTERS/2Tango



LONDON/GENEVA (Reuters) - At least 2,630 people have died in the worst outbreak of Ebola virus in history, which has so far infected at least 5,357 people in West Africa, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday.


In an update on the epidemic, which is raging through Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia and has spread into Nigeria and Senegal, the WHO said there were no signs yet of it slowing.

"The upward epidemic trend continues in the three countries that have widespread and intense transmission - Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone," the United Nations health agency said.

Those three countries account for the vast majority of cases and deaths in the outbreak - 8 others have died in Nigeria, out of 21 cases, and one case has been confirmed in Senegal.

The WHO said a surge in Ebola in Liberia is being driven primarily by a continued increase in the number of cases reported in the capital, Monrovia, where 1,210 bed spaces were needed, five times the current capacity.

The WHO has said it hopes to be able to "bend the curve" in the almost exponential increase in cases within three months.

The latest data updated five days of data for Liberia and one day for the other countries, and showed no new deaths in Sierra Leone since the previous update.

The WHO said efforts to integrate various sources of data in Liberia would lead to many cases being reclassified and about 100 previously unreported cases had been found and would be included in later updates.

In a separate Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo, 40 deaths had been reported out of 71 cases by Sept. 15, the WHO said.

(Reporting by Kate Kelland and Tom Miles; Editing by John Stonestreet and Sonya Hepinstall)


http://news.yahoo.com/death-toll-west-africa-ebola-epidemic-reaches-2-131717287.html

[Buster's Uncle]

US says no Ebola patient contact for troops in Liberia
AFP
15 minutes ago



Liberian Red Cross health workers wearing protective suits arrive to carry away the body of an Ebola victim at the JFK ebola treatment center, on September 17, 2014, in Monrovia (AFP Photo/Zoom Dosso)



Washington (AFP) - US troops heading to Liberia to help fight the Ebola epidemic will help train health workers but will have no "direct contact" with patients infected with the virus, the Pentagon said Friday.

The 3,000-strong contingent due to deploy to Liberia will be focused on training health workers in the country and setting up facilities to help West African countries tackle the crisis, spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby told a news conference.

The troops will carry protective gear but "there's no intent right now for them to have direct contact with patients," Kirby said.

The first US military cargo plane arrived in Monrovia on Thursday as part of the US effort to help fight the epidemic, he said, after President Barack Obama this week issued an appeal for urgent international action.

"Right now, the effort does not include US military personnel treating Ebola patients," Kirby said. "We're going to be in support of other health care workers that are experts at doing this."

Kirby said a C-17 aircraft with equipment and seven service members landed on Thursday, with two more cargo planes expected this weekend in Monrovia carrying 45 personnel.

The small team will then set up a headquarters for Major General Darryl Williams, who will oversee the US mission to train local health workers and establish additional medical facilities, he said.

Military engineers are due to build new Ebola treatment centers in affected areas, the Obama administration said this week, while US officials would help recruit medical personnel to work at the units.

The State Department meanwhile said it supported the steps being taken by Sierra Leone to halt the spread of the disease by imposing a three-day nationwide shut-down.

"We are pleased to hear that the campaign is proceeding calmly and that the people of Sierra Leone are overwhelming cooperating by staying at home and engaging with the outreach teams," a State Department official told AFP, adding the US embassy had been closed to comply with the campaign.

The Pentagon has spent $30 million so far to help provide a field hospital and other equipment and has requested up to one billion dollars from Congress to combat the outbreak, which would require shifting funds from other department programs, according to Kirby.

Obama unveiled the troop deployment to West Africa earlier this week, issuing an international call to action to prevent the virus from spreading "exponentially."

Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has welcomed the US mission and said she hoped Washington's move would prompt other countries to provide more support to address the epidemic, which has killed more than 2,600 people in Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone this year.

The UN Security Council has called the virus a threat to world peace.

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


http://news.yahoo.com/us-says-troops-liberia-no-contact-ebola-patients-181000818.html

[Buster's Uncle]

France OKs 'experimental treatments' on Ebola-hit nurse
AFP
15 hours ago



French Social Affairs and Health Minister Marisol Touraine (C) arrives on September 3, 2014 for a meeting in Paris with health workers, leaving for Guinea to reinforce the west African country's fight against the spread of Ebola (AFP Photo/Miguel Medina)



Paris (AFP) - France's health minister on Friday authorised "experimental treatments" for a French nurse who has contracted Ebola and is now being treated in a Paris hospital.

"She is receiving experimental treatments," Marisol Touraine said, adding that these drugs were administered "as soon as she arrived."

A medical plane carrying the young female Doctors Without Borders (MSF) volunteer arrived in France from Liberia overnight.

She was then taken immediately to the Begin military hospital on the outskirts of the capital.

"She was immediately transferred to the hospital in conditions of absolute security and immediately taken into care," Touraine said.

The nurse is "currently in a confinement chamber and has dedicated staff looking after her."

The minister "exceptionally" authorised the importation and use of several experimental drugs to combat the Ebola virus, which has so far killed more than 2,600 people in West Africa.

The drugs authorised in France were Favipiravir from Japan, ZMapp from the United States and TKM-100-802 from Canada, according to France's Official Journal.

The nurse, who has not been identified, is the first French national to be infected with the virus, which causes severe muscle pain, vomiting, diarrhoea and -- in some cases -- unstoppable internal and external bleeding.


http://news.yahoo.com/france-oks-experimental-treatments-ebola-hit-nurse-071058945.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Ebola screening for Nigeria's Mecca-bound pilgrims
AFP
By Phil Hazlewood  September 18, 2014 5:21 PM



Pilgrims arrive to perform the afternoon prayer in Mecca's Grand Mosque on October 10, 2013 (AFP Photo/Fayez Nureldine)



Lagos (AFP) - With some 76,000 Nigerian Muslims expected this year at the hajj in Saudi Arabia, organisation was always going to be a major logistical undertaking.

But after more than 2,600 deaths from Ebola in West Africa this year, including eight in Nigeria, the authorities have had to put in extra security measures to allay fears about its possible spread outside the region.

Nigeria is the only country of the five in the region affected by the mass outbreak of haemorrhagic fever that has been given permission to send its pilgrims to Mecca for the world's largest gathering of Muslims.

At the hajj cargo terminal at Murtala Mohammed International Airport in Lagos and at other departure points across the country, that means a three-tier health screening check before they are even allowed to board the plane.

On Thursday, five busloads of pilgrims from Oyo state in southwest Nigeria arrived at the terminal, all dressed in the same yellow and beige patterned cloth for easy identification in the Muslim holy city.

The men, in "buba and sokoto" -- traditional long robe and trousers -- formed one queue while the women, their heads covered by the hijab in the same pattern, lined up separately.



A Muslim faithful on pilgrimage to Mecca undergoes health checks for the ebola virus at the Hajj Camp, Murtala Mohammed International Airport in Lagos, on September 18, 2014 (AFP Photo/Pius Utomi Ekpei)


Shopping bags carried on heads were put down as workers from the Ports Health Authority used contactless thermometers to check the travellers' temperatures; fever is one symptom of the virus.

Just one woman was taken aside for secondary screening but later allowed to proceed.

Another queue formed at a water tank at the compound entrance gates. A helpful official squirted soap from a bottle.

One pilgrim, Afolabi Inabo, said she was sure the measures would work.

"Ebola cannot spread because we have sanitisers, we wash our hands, we have soap, we have masks, we have (latex) gloves," she told AFP.



Muslim faithfuls on pilgrimage to Mecca queue to undergo health checks for the ebola virus on September 18, 2014 at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport in Lagos (AFP Photo/Pius Utomi Ekpei)


Some 35,000 pilgrims nationwide have already undergone the same procedure, while both the state and federal governments in Nigeria have carried out health checks even before the pilgrims get on the bus.


- Vigilant -

Nigeria has been widely praised for its response to Ebola, despite initial fears that the virus could spread like wildfire in the crowded megacity of Lagos, where the first case was detected in July.

Health Minister Onyebuchi Chukwu said on Wednesday that no case of Ebola had been detected in Nigeria for a week, although four people were still under surveillance in Lagos and 344 in the southern oil city of Port Harcourt.

Oguntimehin Olukayode, from the Lagos State health ministry, told reporters that Nigeria had responded "tremendously well" but it was important to be vigilant -- particularly with the hajj such a crowded event.

Some two million people are expected at the hajj next month, according to the Saudi authorities.

"The idea behind the screening all passengers in and out of Nigeria is basically to make sure that Nigeria doesn't export any case to any country and at the same time we don't import any case," said Olukayode.

"It's part of that overall role that Nigeria is looking to ensure this doesn't become a problem."

Alex Okoh, from the Ports Health Authority in Lagos, said officials were all too aware of how easily an infected person could get into Nigeria after the first case arrived unwell on a flight from the Liberian capital Monrovia.

Checks have since been stepped up at seaports and stronger measures put in place at land borders as well as illegal routes into the country.

For the hajj, more than 6,000 pilgrims have been checked and approved for travel in Lagos so far, she said.

"It's huge," she said of the operation, which is backed by the World Health Organization. "So far, so good. We haven't had any suspect cases for Ebola on the hajj pilgrimage," she said.


http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-screening-nigerias-mecca-bound-pilgrims-212115724.html