Ebola news 9/30

[Buster's Uncle]

UN Ebola mission head wants significant progress in 60 days
Reuters
47 minutes ago



A Doctors Without Borders health worker takes off his protective gear under the surveillance of a colleague at a treatment facility for Ebola victims in Monrovia September 29, 2014. REUTERS/James Giahyue



ACCRA (Reuters) - The U.N. mission for Ebola wants to achieve significant progress in combating the deadly disease within 60 days, including ensuring that 70 percent of cases receive treatment, its new head Tony Banbury said on Tuesday.

At least 3,091 people have died from Ebola since the West African outbreak was first reported in the remote southeast forest region of Guinea in March. The other two most affected countries are Sierra Leone and Liberia.

The outbreak has overwhelmed health systems in one of the world's poorest regions, prompting the United Nations, international organizations and foreign governments to step up support for the affected countries.



A volunteer health worker practises using a personal protective equipment (PPE) suit at a newly-constructed Ebola virus treatment centre in Monrovia, Liberia, September 21, 2014. REUTERS/James Giahyue


"Seventy percent of infected people need to be under treatment, 70 percent of burials need to be done in a safe way in order to turn this around and we need to do it in 60 days," Banbury said in the capital of Ghana, the headquarters of the new U.N. mission.

"It's an extremely ... ambitious target and the only way it will be achieved is through this international effort," he said.

Banbury described the crisis as "very grave" but said that the political will, resources and action being shown on the ground were tangible signs of progress being made toward tackling it.



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


Most of the mission's work will take place in the countries most affected by Ebola and Ghana will act as a headquarters focused on logistics, policy and expertise, said Banbury.

(Reporting by Matthew Mpoke Bigg and Kwasi Kpodo; Editing by Bate Felix)


http://news.yahoo.com/u-n-ebola-mission-head-wants-significant-progress-153908117--business.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Texas hospital puts possible Ebola patient in isolation
Reuters
13 hours ago



(Reuters) - A Texas hospital said on Monday it has admitted a patient into "strict isolation" to be evaluated for possible infection with the Ebola virus, as health officials battle an epidemic in West Africa that has already killed thousands of people.

In a brief statement, Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas cited the unnamed patient's symptoms and recent travel history as reasons for the isolation.

The 898-bed acute-care hospital "is following all federal Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Texas Department of Heath recommendations to ensure the safety of patients, hospital staff, volunteers, physicians and visitors," it said.

The hospital said the CDC anticipated preliminary results of tests on the patient to be ready on Tuesday.

U.S. lawmakers this month called for a government-funded "war" to contain the epidemic before it threatens more nations, building on an American pledge to send 3,000 military engineers and medical personnel to combat the virus.

On Saturday, the U.S. National Institutes of Health said it would admit to one of its special observation wards in Bethesda, Maryland, an American physician exposed to the Ebola virus while volunteering in Sierra Leone.

Emory University Hospital in Atlanta this month admitted an American doctor infected with the virus for treatment in the same isolation unit where U.S. missionaries Nancy Writebol and Dr. Kent Brantly were treated before being discharged in August.

(Reporting by Eric M. Johnson, Editing by Alex Dobuzinskis and Clarence Fernandez)


http://news.yahoo.com/texas-hospital-puts-possible-ebola-patient-isolation-035947459.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Rains complicate delivery of Ebola supplies in West Africa
Reuters
By Stella Dawson  10 hours ago



Nancy Powell addresses the media in the U.S. embassy in New Delhi April 3, 2014. REUTERS/Anindito Mukherjee



WASHINGTON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - The rainy season in West Africa is compounding difficulties in getting supplies delivered and new treatment centres built as donors rush to isolate people infected with the deadly Ebola virus and stop its rapid spread, U.S. officials said.

Nancy Powell, newly appointed as the U.S. State Department's envoy to coordinate its Ebola response, said the top priority is to isolate as many people as quickly as possible. But that faces significant logistical hurdles.

"Infrastructure challenges in the rainy season is one of the biggest difficulties. And you add the rain and getting materials out of the capital and it is very difficult," Powell said in a news briefing last week.

The July to September rainy season is coming toward its end, but October is known for heavy thunderstorms that can drench the region and turn roads to mud.

Eric Talbert, executive director of Emergency USA which has opened a 22-bed Ebola treatment centre in Goderich, outside the capital of Freetown in Sierra Leone, said the downpours complicate getting supplies along unpaved roads.

"We are talking about dirt roads that are single track. The rains wash them out... Rains are not only going to escalate the logistical difficulties, but Ebola will spread if we cannot reach people and treat them," Talbert told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Powell said delivering supplies and trained staff quickly is essential in controlling the spread of the epidemic.

"This is the key way to bend the curve, isolate people and track people with whom they have had contact," Powell said. "But the numbers make it difficult to do, and the bigger the case load, the harder it gets to do."

More than 6,000 people in West Africa are estimated to have contracted the highly contagious Ebola virus, which causes fever, vomiting, bleeding and has a death rate over 50 percent. But infections probably are far higher, especially in rural areas, and researchers estimate the epidemic could reach 20,000 people by November.

The U.S. military is helping ferry medical supplies into Liberia and within the next month plans to construct 17 new Ebola treatment units. Britain is building centres in Sierra Leone.

International donors in parallel are distributing supplies to the far-flung rural communities where they want to isolate infected patients if it is too dangerous to transport them to a hospital.

This new focus on community care in parallel with building Ebola treatment centres requires getting supplies into rural areas on roads that can become impassable after heavy downpours.

However, modelling by the African Center of Meteorological Applications for Development points to relief ahead. It forecasts rainfall well below average through December for Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Senegal.


http://news.yahoo.com/rains-complicate-delivery-ebola-supplies-west-africa-070419032.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Ebola-hit Liberia staring into the abyss, experts warn
AFP
By Marc Bastian  7 hours ago



A medical staff member wearing a protective suit walks past the crematorium where victims of Ebola are burned, in Monrovia, on September 29, 2014. (AFP Photo/Pascal Guyot)



Monrovia (AFP) - With its collapsed health service, sick and poorly equipped security forces and broken economy, Ebola-hit Liberia finds itself on the brink of complete societal breakdown, experts warn.

The already impoverished west African state was on the slow road to recovery after 14 years of ruinous civil war ended in 2003, following the deaths of 250,000 people.

But Information Minister Lewis Brown recently warned that the epidemic, which has left more than 1,800 dead so far this year, risks plunging Liberians back into conflict.

Many observers of the country's latest devastating crisis, while stopping short of talk of war, worry about the heightened risk of unrest in a country stalked by death.

"We have a lot to worry about. If we have thousands or tens of thousands more deaths, that's going to have a very destabilising effect," said Sean Casey, director of anti-Ebola operations in Liberia for the International Medical Corps (IMC).

A humanitarian worker, speaking on condition of anonymity, reflects growing concern among politicians, analysts and health care workers over the possibility of a "social explosion".

"There is the fear, frustration, anger at the impotence of the government, and the associated economic destabilisation," he said.

Monrovia, a sprawling, chaotic capital city of more than one million inhabitants, remains under control but gives the impression of a powder keg that could ignite at the slightest provocation.

Early Saturday, police came to investigate a body left lying in the street, the apparent victim of a murder.

A small crowd gathered, watching as a truck with the word "Ebola" emblazoned on the side pulled up, called just as a precaution.

Suddenly the crowd began yelling, pelting police officers with stones, and a brief scuffle ensued, in which at least six men were arrested.

The force assured locals that they would investigate claims that police had killed the man because he was out during the nighttime curfew.

The atmosphere is just as tense outside Ebola treatment centres, where large crowds of relatives gather, deprived of news of their loved ones.

"We beg the international community to find a solution before everything goes off here," cries Kevin Kassah, a young man in the middle of one such angry crowd.


- Hunger setting in -

Woefully short of manpower, security forces do not intervene in the protests of these seething gatherings.

Several police stations in Monrovia have closed after officers died of Ebola fever, and a military camp on the outskirts of Monrovia has reported around 30 sick soldiers, according to a diplomat.

The health system -- embryonic at best before the crisis, with some 50 doctors and 1,000 nurses for 4.3 million people -- has been hit hard, losing 89 health workers out of 184 infected, according to the World Organization Health Organization (WHO).

"A lot of hospitals are closed right now because the staff died," says Casey, of the IMC.

In a stark illustration of the crisis, the country's most senior medical officer is currently in quarantine after her deputy died of Ebola fever.

The WHO and various charities have stepped in to fill the gap left by the weakened authorities, basing their activities in a new but desperately short-staffed "Ebola Operation Centre" run jointly with the government.

The World Bank gave Liberia 41 million euros ($52 million) last week towards its Ebola response, but the government, lacking the resources or the confidence to manage the money, immediately handed it over to the United Nations for the maintenance and construction of treatment facilities.

In another symbol of the breakdown of governance and heightened tension in the capital, a male junior finance minister was sacked last week for assaulting a policewoman.

No sector of society has been left untouched by the crisis.

Schools have been closed for months with no reopening date in sight, and unemployment is soaring as both the formal and black-market economies collapse.

Meanwhile hunger is becoming a problem in the streets of Monrovia.

"Before, I was making 1,500 (Liberian) dollars (14 euros, $17.75) a day. Now to get 500 is not easy. Everybody remains home," says Kerkula Davy, a father of three who sells belts to motorists at a crossroads.

"It's not enough for food. I need at least 800 a day."


http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-hit-liberia-staring-abyss-032725669.html

[Buster's Uncle]

U.S. military to quickly ramp up Ebola mission in Liberia
Reuters
By James Giahyue  10 hours ago



Police stand guard as officers test the body of a man for the Ebola virus, which according to police is standard protocol when bodies are discovered, in Monrovia September 27, 2014. REUTERS/James Giahyue



MONROVIA (Reuters) - The United States plans to quickly increase its presence in Liberia, where military personnel are deploying to help the West African nation halt the advance of the worst Ebola epidemic on record, the general in charge of the mission said on Monday.

Washington is sending some 3,000 soldiers to the region to build treatment centres and train local medics. Around half will be based in Liberia, with the rest providing logistical support outside the country.

"This is about urgency and speed. So what you're going to see here pretty soon is forces flown here," Major General Darryl Williams told journalists in the capital, Monrovia.

"I have 175 soldiers and I have another 30 that are in other countries that are beginning to set up the logistics hub to fly forces in here," he said.

Williams said the U.S. mission was planning to build and supply 17 Ebola treatment units across the country but added that Liberian authorities would still be leading the effort.

"The (Armed Forces of Liberia) has a great capability. They are already out there ... and helping us, because they have this knowledge of the local area. So we are not doing anything by ourselves," he said.

At least 3,091 people have died from Ebola since the West African outbreak was first identified in Guinea six months ago.

Liberia has recorded 1,830 deaths, around three times as many as Guinea or Sierra Leone, the two other heavily affected countries.

The epidemic has overwhelmed regional health sectors still struggling to rebuild after years of civil war and turmoil. The disease has infected 375 healthcare workers across the region, killing 211 of them.

Bernice Dahn, Liberia's chief medical officer and deputy health minister, put herself in quarantine over the weekend as a precaution against Ebola after one of her assistants died from the disease.

"As destructive as the Liberian Civil War was, at least our people knew the warring factions and the frontlines," Liberia's Foreign Affairs Minister Augustine Kpehe Ngafuan told the U.N. General Assembly on Monday.

"With Ebola, the enemy is more insidious and there are no clear-cut frontlines because someone's child, someone's husband, someone's workmate could actually be the enemy and the frontline at the same time," he said.

The U.S. embassy in Morovia said on Monday that work to build a 25-bed unit to treat infected health workers, international and Liberian, had begun in Margibi Country in central Liberia. Construction is due to be completed in a few weeks.

"It is intended to provide a high standard of care, so that when they put themselves at risk they have someplace they can go to be treated," said Deborah Malac, U.S. ambassador to Liberia. "We will be sending approximately 65 medical personnel to staff that hospital."

After a slow initial response, foreign governments and international organisations are now pouring funds, supplies and personnel into West Africa.

U.S. President Barack Obama on Thursday called on more nations to help fight the outbreak, saying hundreds of thousands of lives were at stake.

Britain, France, China and Cuba have all pledged military and civilian personnel alongside cash and medical supplies.


http://news.yahoo.com/u-military-quickly-ramp-ebola-mission-liberia-072026610.html

[Buster's Uncle]

The Ebola response shows how unprepared we are for global pandemics
Vox
Updated by Julia Belluz and Steven Hoffman on September 30, 2014, 9:00 a.m. ET



A medical staff member wearing a protective suit walks past the crematorium where victims of Ebola are burned, in Monrovia, Liberia.  Pascal Guyot/AFP 



Throughout history, there have been epidemics. They have ripped around the world, leaving piles of dead bodies in their wake: the black plague of the 14th century wiped out up to 70 percent of Europe; the death toll of the 1918 flu pandemic grew to 75 million; and the ongoing HIV/AIDS pandemic has reached every country on the planet and has taken the lives of more than 30 million since the 1980s, when the virus was discovered.

All these disease outbreaks started small, in only a few people. Then they infected a few hundred, then thousands, and millions of people.

Ebola killed more than 3,000 people in 2014, the largest ever outbreak of this disease. Even though the public health community knows from previous outbreaks how to contain it, we did alarmingly little to stop Ebola until very recently — and some say too late.





Five months passed from the time the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that Ebola was in West Africa (March) until this crisis was declared a "public health emergency of international concern" (August).

In August, we started to see unprecedented action, political will, and resources being poured into Ebola. But this surge response only came when it seemed to be politically expedient. As you can see in the chart above, leaders woke up to Ebola when public attention on the disease peaked following the news that two Americans had been infected in Liberia, weeks after Ebola cases had already started their exponential ascent.


We've known we can't actually properly respond to global disease outbreaks for years

The inadequate international response to Ebola has played out with other diseases in the past. The SARS scare in 2003 spurred 196 countries to revise the International Health Regulations that were supposed to improve responses to global health emergencies.

These regulations were meant to make the reporting of outbreaks more transparent and build out capacity for disease surveillance. Individual countries were supposed to pay to improve their disease surveillance and reporting systems, and richer countries were under an international legal obligation to support their poorer cousins.

But the H1N1 swine flu scare in 2009 showed that the changes didn't fully work. A high-level expert panel in 2011 reviewed the international regulations and concluded that the world is "ill-prepared to respond to a severe influenza pandemic or to any similarly global, sustained and threatening public-health emergency".

They found the WHO faced systematic difficulties in leading the world's response, that states too often did their own thing despite the agreement, and that countries did not have all the public health capacities to actually comply with the regulations.



Medical staff remove the corpse of a victim of Ebola from a house in Monrovia, Liberia. (Photo by Pascal Guyot/AFP)


For example, if a country doesn't have a strong disease surveillance systems in place — to report local outbreaks to WHO — the goal of the regulations can't be achieved. If a country doesn't have labs to test specimens for disease, again, the regulations won't work. And that's exactly what happened with Ebola in West Africa.

The countries where Ebola made the leap from its animal host (believed to be fruit bats) into humans this year happen to be three of the poorest in the world, and it took them at least three months to even realize they were harboring an Ebola outbreak.

Criticisms about the regulations have been well documented, with some observers saying they define pandemics too narrowly, others highlighting their vagueness, and still others emphasizing how they rely on political pressure for compliance since there are no formal enforcement mechanisms. Academics have also complained about how the International Health Regulations provide opportunities for politicizing pandemics.

Even if the these regulations were perfect, they have not actually been implemented by many countries — a concern noted by the G20 as recently as 2013. Yet, they continue to be the framework on which global disease responses rest.


The Ebola response was slow

With Ebola, this cycle is playing out again. The global health community essentially watched a slow car crash and did nothing about it until after it lit on fire and exploded.

It's not clear whether the interventions happening now will hit Africa quickly enough, and whether the commitments there will outlast public interest in the disease. This is disturbing because we know how to stop Ebola outbreaks. We've done it more than 20 times in the past through basic infection-control measures: isolating sick patients, avoiding their blood, vomit, and sweat, following the contacts of those infected to make sure they aren't falling ill too and quarantining those who do.

But we didn't stop Ebola this time. This crisis became so big, it outstripped our ability to contain it through these well-honed methods.

This has reduced countries to desperate measures: the US is sending in 3,000 troops to battle a virus. Sierra Leone has forced all of its citizens into repeated lockdowns to stop the disease from spreading further and root out hidden cases in door-to-door searches.

Many observers have put the blame on the WHO, pointing out that its slow response exacerbated this crisis. Some have said this can be attributed to budget cuts that have left the agency understaffed, under-resourced and demoralized.

Meanwhile, the WHO also insists it is just a "technical agency," tasked with providing analysis and data, and not providing political leadership or acting as a first responder. That means, while they aren't the ones who will give medical treatment on the ground, they'll provide guidance and evidence necessary to coordinate a response. But, as an editorial in the journal Nature pointed out, we don't have an alternative global health body. "If the WHO is not the first responder to an emergency such as this, then who is?"


We need to act on lessons learned

We've had outbreaks before, and they show us we're not prepared. Our global health systems have repeatedly proven themselves ineffective in identifying and responding to this kind of disease outbreak. We've known about these weaknesses and inadequacies for years yet have done little about them.

For disease outbreaks, it's clear we must take lessons learned from past failures more seriously. Complacency has cost lives — in this outbreak alone, already more than 3,000  and counting.

Those lessons learned point to action needed in at least two areas. The first is at the national level: countries' health systems must be strengthened. For poorer countries, this means prioritizing health in national budgets and renewing the focus on preventative public health measures rather than only curative medical care.

For richer countries, this means putting foreign aid dollars into public health systems — building up the infrastructure, establishing clear coordination mechanisms, developing preparedness plans, and expanding lab and surveillance networks, especially in the poorest countries.

These fixes are longer-term, harder to measure, and far less sexy than distributing medicines or building new hospitals, but they are what's needed most to save lives in this outbreak and the next one.

Richer countries also need to support poorer countries when health crises arise, such as through lending staff to a Global Health Emergency Workforce or financing an emergency International Health Systems Fund that countries can access as soon as outbreaks are identified. In the model we have now, individual countries and the WHO have to beg for money when outbreaks happen, and this takes time and costs lives.

We need action at the global level, too. International institutions are in desperate need of reform. WHO has proven itself incapable of leading the charge, whether for its financial troubles or bureaucratic processes, and no other actor has stepped up to lead either.

If you are scared of Ebola, it's only the beginning. The failure to fight this epidemic in a timely manner is not just the fault of indifference or laziness or an impotent WHO; it's a well-known systems failure. Poorly coordinated outbreak responses aren't a new problem and they'll probably arise with every future epidemic.

Ebola won't be the plague that wipes us out, but there will be future outbreaks and we will have watched them coming, meticulously documented their potential in one journal and newspaper article after another, and done nothing about their fundamental root causes to stop them.


http://www.vox.com/2014/9/30/6843117/slow-ebola-virus-epidemic-response-WHO-after-brantly-Americans-infected

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In The Fight Against Ebola, We May Have To Bet On A Drug
Forbes
Dr. Scott Gottlieb  9/29/2014 @ 7:39AM



As the Ebola epidemic spirals on, it’s becoming increasingly clear that our usual tools for combatting infectious outbreaks are, in this case, failing.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now estimates that, absent a seriously stepped up effort to control the spread, we could see as many as 1.4 million cases by early next year. And that estimate excludes the cases in Guinea.

The scope of the epidemic, and the lack of health resources, has outstripped the ability to track down all those exposed to the infection and isolate them. These activities form the backbone of public health techniques, and they are failing.

What if we’re too late to this battle to get ahead of it? Even now, we may be too slow and tentative in funneling enough resources to keep pace with the continued spread. If the epidemic continues to swell, it may take a drug to change the trajectory.

Yet at every turn, our public health officials say that a vaccine or therapeutic isn’t going to reverse this catastrophe. That we shouldn’t bet on a medicine to change our fate. They say that only our public health response will resolve this crisis. One of the key voices in this debate is the World Health Organization. They may be wrong.

Partly their position owes to necessary posturing. Public health leaders need to reinforce the primacy of public health means in order to inspire the political will to marshal those resources. Part of it stems from a view by public health officials that place a stubborn primacy on their work in lieu of alternative redemption.

But a bigger share of the attitude reflects a calculus by public health leaders, that any therapeutic is going to arrive too late to make a difference on the ground. As the epidemic grows, and talk of endemic infection starts to mount, we may have to bet on a therapeutic to firmly reverse, and eventually snuff out the continued spread of infection. We may, sadly, be in this fight a lot longer than many are now anticipating.

The good news is that there’s nothing inherently complex about Ebola that suggests it wont be a druggable target. Moreover, there are a number of promising molecules that already show activity against the virus. We need a more concerted effort to get these medicines into advanced testing and to make them available in the field.

We also need a clear approach to how these drugs are going to eventually be cleared for use – and who is in charge. In this case, the World Health Organization should not be relied upon to “approve” drugs that will be supported with U.S. funds, and supplied by U.S. firms. The WHO has a unsuccessful history in similar circumstances.

When left-leaning international NGOs were advocating that funds from the “President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief” (known as PEPFAR) be used to purchase cheap, counterfeit HIV medicines for Africa, the WHO created a process to sanction these medicines. The NGOs argued that the cheaper counterfeits could spread fixed dollars over more patients, allowing more infected people to be treated. But the groups also saw the precedent that would be set by using U.S. funds to buy counterfeit drugs as a strike against patent systems that they long derided.

These advocacy groups easily swayed the politically minded WHO. But it turned out that the counterfeit drugs were, in many cases, sub potent. They contained fake ingredients. In short, the drugs didn’t work. A bigger catastrophe was averted only because the U.S. (which had the bulk of the money) didn’t go along with the scheme.

Right now, in the search for a therapeutic aimed at Ebola, world drug regulators are coming together under the auspices of the WHO. But the WHO is largely a policy making process. We need a functioning regulatory body to take on these tasks. The United Nations should form a task force comprised of staff from tier one regulatory bodies like the U.S. FDA and the European Medicines Agency, with participation of experts from the African nations where the products would be put to greatest use.

Companies developing Ebola therapeutics are mostly Western outfits that are looking toward their own regulators for guidance on how to proceed with trials and access in Africa. Any scheme to sanction use of these products has to rely heavily on Western regulators. The decisions made by such a task force, in turn, can be used to form the basis of separate approvals in each of the participating Western nations.

What Ebola drugs would be first up for testing, and perhaps see wider use in the field. Canadian drug maker Tekmira Pharmaceuticals (TKMR) said last Monday that U.S. and Canadian regulators authorized the use of its Ebola treatment in patients who have confirmed or suspected infections from the deadly virus. The drug is being made available through an expanded access protocol, authorized by the U.S. FDA and Health Canada that allow drug developers to offer experimental therapies to patients with serious diseases who cannot participate in controlled clinical trials.

Among some of the other therapeutics that have cleared various amounts of preclinical testing, and could be put in the field, are a number of antiviral drugs.

BioCryst Pharmaceuticals (BCRX) has an antiviral drug, BCX4430, which has demonstrated activity against a wide range of viruses, including Ebola, in in-vitro preclinical testing. The drug has shown a good safety record in animal testing.

 Fuji Film Holdings (FUJIF) has a drug Avigan that shows a broad ability to block viral replication. This includes activity against Ebola in animal tests. The drug was approved by Japanese drug regulators in 2014 for treatment of influenza and is currently being stockpiled by Japan for use against pandemic flu.

Sarepta Therapeutics (SRPT) has a compound that targets the ability of a virus to make copies of its genetic material, a key step in viral replication. Sarepta’s Ebola product, AVI-7537, works by directly binding to the viral RNA.

We could be in a long fight against Ebola. Or a bigger battle if the virus mutates in ways that makes it more contagious, and allows it to spread outside Africa.

As we start to funnel resources into West Africa, and try and snuff out Ebola’s continued spread, we also need to think long term. We didn’t foresee how this epidemic would unfold, or marshal the resources to meet that challenge. Even now, we may be far more dependent on a therapeutic to save us, than we realize.


http://www.forbes.com/sites/scottgottlieb/2014/09/29/in-the-fight-against-ebola-we-may-have-to-bet-on-a-drug/?partner=yahootix

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Texas patient confirmed as first Ebola case diagnosed in US
Yahoo News
By Jason Sickles, 50 minutes ago



Texas Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas where the first case of Ebola diagnosed in the U.S. has been confirmed. (Jason Sickles, Yahoo News)



DALLAS – A Texas man just back from West Africa has been confirmed as having the first case of Ebola to be diagnosed in the U.S.

Authorities with the Centers for Disease Control revealed the finding Tuesday, two days after the unidentified patient arrived at a Dallas hospital with suspicious symptoms.

Officials at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas put the man into “strict isolation” and sent a blood specimen to the state public health lab for testing.

The CDC said results show the man has the deadly disease which has been linked to more than 3,000 recent deaths in Africa. According to the World Health Organization, there have been more than 6,500 cases confirmed in Africa, with Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone among the hardest hit.

Dr. Christopher Perkins with the Dallas County health department told reporters that the Texas man didn’t start showing symptoms until he arrived home.

“We know at this time this person was not symptomatic during travel but became symptomatic once arriving here and being home for several days,” said Perkins, according the Dallas Morning News. “So that decreases the threat that might be to the general population.”

CDC officials are scheduled to release more details within the hour.

The CDC has a team enroute to North Texas to help health officials re-trace the man's contacts since he has been back in the states.

Ebola is highly contagious and deadly, but only spread through contact with bodily fluids. Dallas County Health and Human Services Director Zachary Thompson spent most of his day trying to calm the fears of North Texans.

“It is easier to get the flu than it is to get the Ebola virus,” Thompson told KTVT-TV. "You have to get it through secretion, blood, that type of transmission. So this is not a situation where you go to the grocery store and you get infected with the virus.”

Ebola symptoms include sudden fever, fatigue and headache. Officials said symptoms may appear anywhere from two days to three weeks after exposure.

Four American aid workers have contracted Ebola in West Africa and been evacuated to the U.S. for treatment since late July. Three of them were released after making full recoveries. A fourth patient arrived in Atlanta on Sept. 9, but spokespersons at Emory University Hospital have said privacy laws prevent the release of an updated condition. On Sunday, a U.S. doctor who had been volunteering in an Ebola clinic in Sierra Leone was brought to the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland as safety precaution after he was exposed to the disease.

In past years Ebola has killed up to 90 percent of those it has infected, but the death rate in the current outbreak is closer to 60 percent due to early treatment.


http://news.yahoo.com/texas-patient-confirmed-as-first-ebola-case-diagnosed-in-us-205031312.html

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New UN Ebola chief vows swift response to crisis
AFP
By Chris Stein  2 hours ago



Anthony Banbury, head of the UN Ebola response team speaks to the media on September 30, 2014 in Accra (AFP Photo/Chris Stein)



Accra (AFP) - The new head of the UN Ebola response team vowed Tuesday to take swift action on the crisis, saying ambitious targets must be met to prevent the spread of the virus worldwide.

Anthony Banbury's pledge came after warnings that Liberia was on the brink of collapse and that thousands of children who have lost parents to the epidemic faced being treated as outcasts.

Sierra Leone's government was meanwhile forced to deny that Ebola had been defeated, after hundreds took to the streets in the belief that there were no more confirmed cases.

In Ghana's capital, Accra, Banbury, the special representative for the UN Mission on Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER), said the team was hoping to stem the spread of the disease.

"We don't know how long it will take. We hope to do it as fast as possible and to close the UNMEER mission as quickly as possible," he told a news conference.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon set up UNMEER earlier this month in response to criticism of the world body's response to Ebola, which has killed more than 3,000 people in west Africa this year.

An advance team arrived in Accra on Monday amid growing concern over the spread of the virus, particularly in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone.



A health worker in a protective suit closes the gate of Island Hospital after welcoming new patients suspected of suffering from the Ebola virus in Monrovia on September 30, 2014 (AFP Photo/Pascal Guyot )


The world's worst Ebola epidemic has claimed 3,091 lives in five west African countries as of Saturday out of 6,574 infected, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).


- 'Extremely ambitious target' -

The international mobilisation includes a planned 3,000-strong US military contingent to Liberia, while Britain is to set up a medical centre in Sierra Leone.

Some 150 US troops arrived in Liberia at the weekend with a 25-bed field hospital which was delivered by three C-17 cargo aircraft, Pentagon spokesman Colonel Steven Warren said Monday.

The field hospital will be set up for health workers infected by the Ebola virus, he added.

Banbury said UNMEER officials were also on the ground in Ebola-hit nations, without specifying numbers or locations, adding that the world was now helping to confront the disease.



Workers of a cleaning company collect garbage in central Monrovia on September 30, 2014 (AFP Photo/Pascal Guyot )


"If UNMEER was never created, if the world was not responding, the number of cases would go from whatever they are now, we don't know for sure, maybe around 20,000, to 1.4 million," he told reporters.

"Then every country in the world would be at risk."

UNMEER's plan is based on WHO recommendations to treat at least 70 percent of infected people and conduct at least 70 percent of burials safely to turn a corner on the spread, he added.

"In 60 days we're going to do everything possible to achieve it. It's an extremely, extremely, extremely, extremely ambitious target," he told a news conference.

"Within 30 days we need to put in place almost all the material resources necessary... Those are very, very ambitious targets but we have no choice but to pursue them."


- 'Destabilising effect' -

Experts warned that with its collapsed health service, sick and poorly equipped security forces and broken economy, Ebola risked plunging Liberia back into a spiral of violent civil unrest.

"If we have thousands or tens of thousands more deaths, that's going to have a very destabilising effect," said Sean Casey, head of the International Medical Corps' anti-Ebola operations in Liberia.

In Geneva, Liberian Commerce Minister Axel Addy said Ebola risked reversing economic gains made since the end of the civil war in 2003, compounding a previous slowdown in economic growth.

Elsewhere, the UN children's agency said thousands of children mourning dead parents and in urgent need of support felt "unwanted and even abandoned" by frightened and suspicious relatives.

"Ebola is turning a basic human reaction like comforting a sick child into a potential death sentence," said UNICEF's regional director for west and central Africa, Manuel Fontaine.

"The fear surrounding Ebola is becoming stronger than family ties."

In Sierra Leone, crowds surged onto the streets of the northern commercial hub of Makeni, chanting "Ebola is no more" and "Ebola is defeated".

The government was forced to issue a statement after locals said celebrations began when a group of suspected Ebola victims were released from a holding centre with negative lab test results.


http://news.yahoo.com/un-ebola-chief-vows-swift-response-crisis-175222340.html

[Buster's Uncle]

US Ebola labs, health equipment arrive in Liberia
Associated Press
By JONATHAN PAYE-LAYLEH  50 minutes ago



An Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) employee walks past drying safety boots at MSF's Ebola isolation and treatment center, in Monrovia, Liberia, Monday Sept. 29, 2014. Six months into the world’s worst-ever Ebola outbreak in West Africa authorities are desperately waiting for shipments of aid to help in the fight of this deadly disease. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)



MONROVIA, Liberia (AP) — American mobile Ebola labs should be up and running in Liberia this week, and U.S. troops have broken ground for a field hospital, as the international community races to increase the ability to care for the spiraling number of people infected with the disease.

Ebola is believed to have sickened more than 6,500 people in West Africa, with the vast majority of the cases in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone. More than 3,000 deaths have been linked to the disease, according to the World Health Organization.

But even those tolls are likely underestimates, partially because there aren't enough labs to test people for Ebola. The numbers for Liberia, in particular, have lagged behind reality because it takes so long to get test results, WHO has warned.

Nigeria has also recorded some cases, and Senegal had one; in both cases, a sick traveler imported the disease. Both countries moved quickly to isolate the sick and trace anyone who had contact with them, and neither country has had a new case for weeks.

"It's reasonable to assume there will be no more transmission in those countries," Steve Monroe, deputy director of the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told reporters Tuesday.

By contrast, in the worst affected countries, the disease has whipped through entire communities, killing whole families because there are too few doctors and nurses and not enough beds to isolate and treat the sick. At least 3,700 children have lost a parent in the outbreak, the U.N. children's agency said Tuesday, and fear of infection has made it difficult to find people to care for them.



Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) employees wearing protective gear receives an ambulance carrying suspected victims of the Ebola virus at MSF's Ebola isolation and treatment center in Monrovia, Liberia, Monday Sept. 29, 2014. Six months into the world’s worst-ever Ebola outbreak in West Africa authorities are desperately waiting for shipments of aid to help in the fight against this deadly disease. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)


In response to the accelerating outbreak, the United Nations has created its first ever mission for a public health emergency.

"The risk of expansion is dramatic and the number of affected people is doubling," Anthony Banbury, the head of the U.N. mission, told reporters Tuesday in Ghana, where the mission is based.

Over the next month, the mission will work on getting the necessary infrastructure, including treatment centers, into the field, he said.

Aid agencies and many countries are also pouring in supplies and equipment.

Two mobile Ebola labs staffed by U.S. Naval researchers arrived this weekend and will be operational this week, the U.S. Embassy in Monrovia said in a statement Monday. The labs will reduce the amount of time it takes to learn if a patient has Ebola from several days to a few hours.



Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) employees wearing protective gear walk past suspected victims of the Ebola virus in the triage section of MSF's Ebola isolation and treatment center in Monrovia, Liberia, Monday Sept. 29, 2014. Six months into the world’s worst-ever Ebola outbreak in West Africa authorities are desperately waiting for shipments of aid to help in the fight of this deadly disease. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay


The U.S. military also delivered equipment to build a field hospital, originally designed to treat troops in combat zones. The 25-bed clinic will be staffed by American health workers from the U.S. Public Health Service and will treat doctors and nurses who have become infected.

Ebola is transmitted through contact with bodily fluids, so health care workers are at high risk of infection. They have become sick at an alarming rate in this outbreak, WHO says, with 375 infected so far.

The U.S. is planning to build 17 other clinics in Liberia and will help to train more health workers to staff them. Britain has promised to help set up 700 treatment beds in Sierra Leone, and its military will build and staff a hospital in that country. France is sending a field hospital and doctors to Guinea.

But the needs remain enormous. The World Food Program said Tuesday it only has about 40 percent of the $93 million it needs to deliver food to people who are struggling to feed themselves because their neighborhoods have been quarantined or they've lost the heads of their households. Around 1,500 treatment beds have been built or are in the works, but that still leaves a gap of more than 2,100 beds, says WHO. Between 1,000 and 2,000 international health care workers are needed, according to the agency.
___

AP Medical Writer Lauran Neergaard in Washington and Associated Press writer Francis Kokutse in Accra, Ghana, contributed to this report.


http://news.yahoo.com/us-ebola-labs-parts-clinic-arrive-liberia-092003955.html

[Buster's Uncle]

CDC confirms first Ebola case diagnosed in the United States
Reuters
56 minutes ago



The Centers for Disease Control sign is seen at its main facility in Atlanta, Georgia June 20, 2014. REUTERS/Tami Chappell



(Reuters) - U.S. health officials said on Tuesday the first patient infected with the deadly Ebola virus had been diagnosed in the country.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed the diagnosis. No additional details were immediately available.

Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital of Dallas officials said in a statement on Monday that an unnamed patient was being tested for Ebola and had been placed in "strict isolation" due to the patient's symptoms and recent travel history.

U.S. hospitals have treated several patients who were diagnosed with Ebola in West Africa, the center of the worst known outbreak of the virus that has killed more than 3,000 people.

(Reporting by Michele Gershberg; Editing by David Gregorio)


http://news.yahoo.com/cdc-confirms-first-ebola-case-diagnosed-united-states-210648959.html

[Buster's Uncle]

First Ebola case diagnosed in the United States: CDC
Reuters
By Julie Steenhuysen and Sharon Begley  15 minutes ago



The Centers for Disease Control sign is seen at its main facility in Atlanta, Georgia June 20, 2014. REUTERS/Tami Chappell



(Reuters) - U.S. health officials said on Tuesday the first patient infected with the deadly Ebola virus had been diagnosed in the country, in a new sign of how the outbreak ravaging West Africa can spread globally.

The patient had recently traveled to West Africa and developed symptoms several days after returning to Texas, state officials said. The patient was admitted to an isolation room at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed the diagnosis. U.S. health officials and lawmakers have been bracing for the eventuality that a patient would arrive on U.S. shores undetected, testing the preparedness of the nation's healthcare system.

The Texas Department of State Health Services said it was working with the CDC, the local health department and the hospital "to investigate the case and help prevent transmission of the disease."

"The hospital has implemented infection control measures to help ensure the safety of patients and staff," the statement said.

U.S. hospitals have treated several patients who were diagnosed with Ebola in West Africa, the center of the worst known outbreak of the virus that has killed more than 3,000 people. The previous U.S. patients were all medical and other aid workers who were diagnosed while still in West Africa.

Ebola symptoms generally appear between two and 21 days after infection, meaning there is a significant window during which an infected person can escape detection, allowing them to travel.

CDC Director Dr. Thomas Frieden has said U.S. hospitals are well prepared to handle Ebola patients and has assured the public that the virus should not pose the same threat in the United States as it does in Africa.

Stocks in small biotechnology companies working on Ebola therapies or vaccines rose on the news of the U.S. Ebola patient in after-hours trading.

(Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen in Chicago and Sharon Begley in New York; Editing by Michele Gershberg and Lisa Shumaker)


http://news.yahoo.com/cdc-confirms-first-ebola-case-diagnosed-united-states-210648959.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Ebola outbreaks in Nigeria, Senegal, appear contained: CDC reports
Reuters
By Julie Steenhuysen  2 hours ago



A woman (R) walks at the construction site of an Ebola virus treatment centre at the Samuel K. Doe sports complex in Monrovia September 27, 2014. REUTERS/James Giahyue



CHICAGO (Reuters) - Efforts to contain the Ebola outbreaks in Nigeria and Senegal appear to have succeeded, even as the virus continues to spread in the hardest-hit West African countries of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, U.S. and African health officials said on Tuesday.

In Nigeria, no new cases of Ebola have occurred since August 31, "suggesting that the Ebola outbreak in Nigeria might have been contained," according to one of three reports released on Tuesday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In Senegal, healthcare workers have contained Ebola after a single case was confirmed on August 29. The man has since recovered.

The smaller outbreaks in both countries started when infected travelers crossed borders after the Ebola outbreak in West Africa had begun to raise alarms among public health experts. At least 3,091 people have died from Ebola since the West African outbreak was first reported in the remote southeast forest region of Guinea in March.

The first case in Nigeria was a traveler exposed to Ebola in Liberia, who flew by commercial airline to Lagos on July 20, where he was immediately transported to a private hospital with symptoms of fever, vomiting and diarrhea.

When the case was discovered in Africa's largest city, Nigeria declared an Ebola emergency and quickly established a National Ebola Emergency Operations Center that helped streamline and coordinate the tracing of contacts of Ebola patients.

As of September 24, healthcare personnel identified a total of 19 laboratory-confirmed Ebola cases and one probable case, as well as 894 contacts with those patients. In addition, contact tracers conducted 18,500 face-to-face visits checking for signs of Ebola symptoms. No new cases have emerged.

The first confirmed case in Senegal occurred in August in a 21-year-old Guinean man who traveled from his home in Guinea to Dakar to visit family.

Medical personnel learned of the man's possible exposure from Guinean health authorities after his mother and sister had been admitted to an Ebola unit on August 26 and identified the young man as a contact. All three were likely exposed when preparing the body of the patient's brother - who died of Ebola in Guinea on August 10 - for burial.

Senegalese health workers identified a total of 67 contacts of the patient. All were monitored for Ebola for 21 days with no further Ebola cases. The patient recovered and was released on September 19.

The reports were written by experts at the CDC, as well as contributors in Africa and international health partners.

(Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen; Editing by Dan Grebler)


http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-outbreaks-nigeria-senegal-appear-contained-cdc-reports-193653732.html

[Buster's Uncle]

CDC experts to deploy to Texas if patient has Ebola: official
Reuters
By Marice Richter  1 hour ago



Pedestrians walk past a mural showing the symptoms of the Ebola virus in Monrovia, Liberia, September 26, 2014. REUTERS/James Giahyue



DALLAS (Reuters) - U.S. health specialists are ready to deploy to Dallas if a patient being evaluated for Ebola is found to be carrying the disease that has killed thousands of people in West Africa, a Dallas County official said on Tuesday.

Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital of Dallas officials said in a statement on Monday that an unnamed patient was being tested for Ebola and had been placed in "strict isolation" due to the patient's symptoms and recent travel history.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is expected to provide initial test results on the patient later on Tuesday, hospital officials said.

Texas and Dallas County health officials are in close contact with the CDC, which would send its experts to Dallas if tests on the patient confirm Ebola, said Zach Thompson, director of the Dallas County Department of Health and Human Services.

"Everyone is preparing for the worst and hoping for the best," he said.

The United States is sending some 3,000 soldiers to West Africa to build treatment centers and train local medics.

At least 3,091 people have died from Ebola since the West African outbreak was first identified in Guinea six months ago.

There have been no confirmed cases of Ebola being contracted in the United States but several American aid workers in West Africa have been brought back for treatment of the disease.

An American physician volunteering in Sierra Leone was admitted for treatment to an isolation unit at the U.S. National Institutes of Health medical center in Bethesda, Maryland, on Sunday.

Emory University Hospital in Atlanta admitted an American doctor infected with the virus to the same isolation unit where missionaries Nancy Writebol and Dr. Kent Brantly were treated and discharged in August.

(Reporting by Marice Richter; Writing by Jon Herskovitz; Editing by Eric Beech)


http://news.yahoo.com/cdc-experts-deploy-texas-patient-ebola-official-201311188.html

[Buster's Uncle]

CDC director says U.S. should be able to contain Ebola spread
Reuters
2 hours ago



(Reuters) - The first patient diagnosed with Ebola in the United States initially sought treatment six days after arriving in the country, potentially exposing a "handful" of family members and others to the virus, a top U.S. health official said on Tuesday.

Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said he had no doubt that local and federal health authorities could contain the potential spread of the deadly virus in the country.

"It is certainly possible someone who had contact with this individual could develop Ebola in the coming weeks," Frieden told a press conference. "I have no doubt we will stop this in its tracks in the United States."

The patient was hospitalized at a Dallas hospital on Sunday after traveling from Liberia, one of the countries hit hardest by the worst Ebola outbreak on record.

(Reporting by Michele Gershberg; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)


http://news.yahoo.com/cdc-director-says-u-able-contain-ebola-spread-221131000.html