Ebola news 10/1

[Buster's Uncle]

US hospital bungled report of Africa travel in Ebola case
AFP
21 minutes ago



Texas Gov. Rick Perry says a handful of school-aged children who had contact with a man diagnosed with Ebola are being monitored. (Oct. 1)



Washington (AFP) - The first person diagnosed with Ebola in the United States initially told a nurse he had traveled in Africa but was sent home anyway, raising concerns about US preparedness for the spread of the deadly virus.

The man, whose identity and nationality have not been released by health authorities, flew from Liberia, the hardest hit nation in West Africa's deadly Ebola outbreak, to Texas to visit family.

An apparent miscommunication among hospital staff left the man in the open community and contagious for four days, and he even came in contact with schoolchildren before he was finally isolated in a hospital, officials said Wednesday.

"I know that parents are being extremely concerned about that development," said Texas Governor Rick Perry.

"These children have been identified and they are being monitored and the disease cannot be transmitted before having any symptoms."

He arrived in Texas on September 20 and did not exhibit symptoms until September 24, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention chief Tom Frieden said Tuesday.

He sought medical care on the 26th, but was sent home because the medical team "felt clinically it was a low-grade common viral disease," said Mark Lester, executive vice president of Texas Health Resources.

"He volunteered that he had traveled from Africa in response to the nurse operating the checklist and asking that question," Lester added.

"Regretfully, that information was not fully communicated throughout the full team."



Texas Governor Rick Perry speaks at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, DC, August 21, 2014 (AFP Photo/Saul Loeb)


He was returned via ambulance to the Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas on September 28, and was placed in strict isolation.

The patient is currently in serious but stable condition, a hospital spokeswoman said.


- Symptoms of infection -

The incubation period for Ebola is between two and 21 days. Patients are not contagious until they start to show signs of fever, aches, vomiting and diarrhea.

As US officials scrambled to track down people the man encountered while sick, the worldwide death toll from Ebola jumped higher, to 3,338 dead and 7,178 infected since the beginning of the year, the World Health Organization said.

Meanwhile, the United Nations announced its first suspected victim of Ebola, a Liberian man who worked for the UN mission in Liberia and died of a probable but unconfirmed Ebola infection last week.

In response to the fast-moving outbreak, the World Bank boosted its aid to the campaign by adding $170 million toward expanding the health-care workforce and buying needed supplies for care and treatment.

The new aid took to $400 million the amount the bank has put toward the fight against the spread of Ebola, which has swept quickly through Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone.


- Hunt for cases -

While health experts say the public should not panic -- since Ebola is spread not through the air but only through close contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person -- medical personnel are on the lookout for more cases of Ebola on US soil.

Zachary Thompson, the director of Dallas County Health and Human Services, told local media WFAA "there may be another case that is a close associate with this particular patient."

Three crew members who worked in the ambulance that transported the patient have tested negative for Ebola, but they will be monitored for 21 days, the City Of Dallas said on Twitter.

Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Disease, said the man should have been identified as a suspected Ebola case the first time he sought care.

"If the person said, 'Well, I just came back from Liberia,' that would have been an enormous red flag for anybody, given the publicity that we have," Fauci said on CNN.

"So that is really the issue, to make sure physicians are aware that we have a problem, that there is an outbreak in West Africa and people will be coming to the United States who will be without symptoms."


http://news.yahoo.com/us-ebola-patient-had-contact-kids-governor-173422002.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Patient told Dallas hospital he was from Liberia
Associated Press
By DAVID WARREN and LAURAN NEERGARD  39 minutes ago



The CDC has confirmed the first diagnosed case of Ebola in the United States. The patient is being treated at a Dallas hospital after traveling earlier this month from Liberia. (Sept. 30)



DALLAS (AP) — The first Ebola patient diagnosed in the United States told health care workers on his initial hospital visit that he had recently been in an area affected by the deadly disease, but that information was not widely shared, a hospital official said Wednesday.

Thomas Eric Duncan went to a Dallas emergency room Friday and explained that he was visiting the U.S. from Liberia. He was sent home with antibiotics, according to his sister, Mai Wureh.

He returned two days later, after his condition worsened, and was admitted to Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital.

Dr. Mark Lester, who works for the hospital's parent company, said a nurse had asked Duncan whether he had been in any part of West Africa, where Ebola has killed thousands. But that "information was not fully communicated throughout the whole team."

A day after the man's diagnosis was confirmed, a nine-member team of federal health officials was tracking anyone who had close contact with him.

The team from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was in Dallas to work with local and state health agencies to ensure that those people are watched every day for 21 days.



A police car drives past the entrance to the Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas, Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2014. A patient in the hospital is showing signs of the Ebola virus and is being kept in strict isolation with test results pending, hospital officials said Monday. (AP Photo/LM Otero)


"If anyone develops fever, we'll immediately isolate them to stop the chain of transmission," Dr. Tom Frieden, the CDC director, said in an interview.

Duncan has been kept in isolation at the hospital since Sunday. He was listed in serious but stable condition.

Ebola is believed to have sickened more than 6,500 people in West Africa, and more than 3,000 deaths have been linked to the disease, according to the World Health Organization.

Officials are monitoring 12 to 18 people who may have been exposed to the man, including three members of the ambulance crew that transported him to the hospital and five schoolchildren.

Some of the people are members of his family, but not all, Dallas city spokeswoman Sana Syed said.



Medical officials from Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital confirm they are treating a patient with the Ebola virus, the first case found in the US. (Sept. 30


The ambulance crew tested negative for the virus and was restricted to home while their conditions are observed. The children, who attend four separate schools, apparently had contact with the man over the weekend and then returned to classes this week. But school officials have said they showed no symptoms.

Ebola symptoms can include fever, muscle pain, vomiting and bleeding, and can appear as long as 21 days after exposure to the virus. The disease is not contagious until symptoms begin, and it takes close contact with bodily fluids to spread.

Officials said there are no other suspected cases in Texas, but the diagnosis sent chills through the area's West African community, whose leaders urged caution to prevent spreading the virus.

The man left Liberia on Sept. 19, arrived the next day to visit relatives and started feeling ill four or five days later, Frieden said.

Stanley Gaye, president of the Liberian Community Association of Dallas-Fort Worth, said the 10,000-strong Liberian population in North Texas is skeptical of the CDC's assurances because Ebola has ravaged their country.



Dr. Edward Goodman, left, epidemiologist at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas, points to a reporter for a question as Dr. Mark Lester looks on during a news conference about an Ebola infected patient they are caring for in Dallas, Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2014. Federal health officials confirmed the first Ebola case diagnosed in the United States. (AP Photo/LM Otero)


"We've been telling people to try to stay away from social gatherings," Gaye said Tuesday at a community meeting.

The CDC has not advised that people avoid large gatherings in this country.

The association's vice president warned against alarm in the community.

"We don't want to get a panic going," said vice president Roseline Sayon. "We embrace those people who are coming forward. Don't let the stigma keep you from getting tested."

Frieden said he did not believe anyone on the same flights as the patient was at risk.



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)


The man traveled from his home in the Liberian capital of Monrovia to Brussels and then to Dallas, according to a spokeswoman for the Belgium health ministry, Vinciane Charlier.

"Ebola doesn't spread before someone gets sick, and he didn't get sick until four days after he got off the airplane," Frieden said.

Four American aid workers who became infected in West Africa have been flown back to the U.S. for treatment after they became sick. They were treated in special isolation facilities at hospitals in Atlanta and Nebraska. Three have recovered.

A U.S. doctor exposed to the virus in Sierra Leone is under observation in a similar facility at the National Institutes of Health.

The U.S. has only four such isolation units, but Frieden said there was no need to move the latest patient because virtually any hospital can provide the proper care and infection control.

Passengers leaving Liberia pass through rigorous screening, the country's airport authority said Wednesday. But those checks are no guarantee that an infected person won't get through and airport officials would be unlikely to stop someone not showing symptoms, according to Binyah Kesselly, chairman of the Liberia Airport Authority's board of directors.

CDC officials are helping staff at Monrovia's airport, where passengers are screened for signs of infection, including fever, and asked about their travel history. Plastic buckets filled with chlorinated water for hand-washing are present throughout the airport.

Liberia is one of the three hardest-hit countries in the epidemic, along with Sierra Leone and Guinea.

___

Neergaard reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Nomaan Merchant in Dallas and Emily Schmall in Fort Worth; Jonathan Paye-Layleh in Monrovia, Liberia; Francis Kokutse in Accra, Ghana, and Matt Small of AP Radio, contributed to this report.


http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-case-stokes-concerns-liberians-dallas-053920222.html

[Buster's Uncle]

UN worker dies of suspected Ebola in Liberia
AFP
2 minutes ago



Monrovia (AFP) - The United Nations mission in Liberia announced on Wednesday the first suspected victim among its employees of the deadly Ebola epidemic ravaging the impoverished west African nation.

Karin Landgren, head of UNMIL, told reporters in the capital Monrovia the worker, a Liberian man, had died last week of probable -- but unconfirmed -- Ebola infection.

"It is a sad reminder of the ever-present risk, and sobering for us as a mission and as the UN family," she said, giving no further details on the staffer.

"UNMIL will continue to strengthen the measures we put in place to protect our staff, and to remind them to protect themselves and their families outside working hours."

Liberia, the hardest-hit country in the outbreak, has seen almost 2,000 deaths, according to UNMIL, since it announced the outbreak had spread from Guinea on March 31.

Landgren said the mission had taken steps since then to educate personnel and help them protect themselves against the virus, describing staff safety as her "top priority".

She described the outbreak as "Liberia's gravest threat since the civil war", referring to the back-to-back conflicts from 1989-2003 that left at least 250,000 people dead.

"Prices have risen, economic growth is expected to be cut by more than half, trade has reduced, many farmers are not tending their fields in affected areas, and children are not in school," she said.

She reaffirmed UNMIL's commitment to Liberia and said the mission would remain until at least the end of the year, with the Security Council considering an extension until October next year.

Landgren said she had travelled widely across Liberia in recent months and seen "considerable resilience, determination, and self-reliance".

"Even as the number of new cases increases, some communities have made progress in changing behaviour and reducing transmission risks. This is an achievement," she added.

Anthony Banbury, the head of the newly-formed UN Mission on Ebola Emergency Response, is due in Liberia on Thursday as part of three-nation introductory visit which will also take in Guinea and Sierra Leone.

Banbury said a priority for the Ghana-based mission would be "keeping its staff healthy and making sure that no one else is at risk of catching Ebola", according to New York-based UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric.


http://news.yahoo.com/un-worker-dies-suspected-ebola-liberia-192606896.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Experts question two-day delay in admitting Texas Ebola patient
Reuters
By Julie Steenhuysen and Sharon Begley  2 hours ago



CHICAGO/NEW YORK (Reuters) - The first patient to be diagnosed with Ebola in a U.S. hospital was evaluated initially and turned away, a critical missed opportunity that could result in others being exposed to the deadly virus, infectious disease experts said.

On the patient's first visit to Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas last Friday, he walked into the hospital presenting “non-specific symptoms” and was sent home with a prescription for antibiotics, Dr. Edward Goodman, an infectious disease specialist at the hospital, told a news conference on Tuesday.

On the second visit two days later, the patient, who has not been identified, arrived by ambulance, potentially putting at risk the emergency responders who transported the patient that Sunday. They have been quarantined but so far have tested negative for the virus.

For months, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has been warning American hospitals that Ebola was just a plane ride away. The CDC has urged hospital emergency department staff to ask patients whether they have recently traveled to Liberia, Sierra Leone or Guinea, the three countries hardest hit by the worst Ebola outbreak on record.

At least 3,091 people have died from Ebola since the West African outbreak was first reported in a remote forest region of Guinea in March.

It was only on that second visit on Sunday, however, that the hospital learned that the patient had recently arrived in the United States from Liberia and admitted him to an isolation unit.

Dr. Goodman said the hospital is reviewing what they might have missed on the patient's initial visit. "Our staff is thoroughly trained on infectious disease protocols. We have been meeting literally for weeks in anticipation of such an event," he said.

In the early stages of infection, Ebola resembles many other viral illnesses, causing headache, fever, fatigue, muscle pain and sore throat, which is why health experts stress the need to ask about travel histories.

The two-day lag “is a critical point,” said infectious disease expert Dr. Michael Osterholm of the University of Minnesota. “It is going to be very important to go back and look at this and ask basic questions about what happened and could it have been handled differently” so the patient was not in the community and at home for two days while he was contagious.

If he appeared to have Ebola-like symptoms, asking about travel history should have been a tipoff to test for that disease, Osterholm said.

“Once someone hits a healthcare setting, asking about travel history should be a standard question today,” he said.

CDC Director Dr. Thomas Frieden said in a news conference that it is possible some people who came in contact with the man could become infected with Ebola, but it probably would only be a handful of people, mostly family members.

Osterholm was also struck by the fact that the man was apparently not a healthcare worker caring for Ebola patients in West Africa, as were five other patients exposed to the disease there and were airlifted back to the United States for treatment.

That raises questions about how the Texas patient contracted the disease.

“In any kind of emergency you wish things could have gone a little bit quicker,” said Gerald Parker, vice president for Public Health Preparedness and Response at Texas A&M Health Science Center, referring to the two-day lag between when the patient sought treatment and when he was admitted to the hospital. “But I still give the hospital, state and federal officials high marks in this regard.”

Parker said it is not a surprise to anyone in the public health community that the United States has a case of Ebola, “but it underscores that Ebola is a global and national security issue and that we need to double down on our efforts to help West Africa get this outbreak under control.”

Epidemiologist Anne Rimoin of the University of California Los Angeles was not overly concerned about the time lag, given the fact that Ebola can only spread through direct contact with the bodily fluids of an infected patient.

“Until someone becomes very, very ill they are not very contagious,” said Rimoin, who was flying to the Democratic Republic of Congo on Wednesday to conduct public health research there. The hospital “probably suspected typhoid or malaria, which is far more common.”

(story corrects spelling of "Ann" to "Anne" in second-to-last paragraph)

(Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen; Additional reporting by Lisa Maria Garza in Dallas; Editing by Ken Wills and Jonathan Oatis)


http://news.yahoo.com/experts-two-day-delay-admitting-texas-ebola-patient-144358869.html

[Buster's Uncle]

World Bank chief says Ebola outbreak shows harm of inequality
Reuters
4 hours ago



World Bank President Jim Yong Kim speaks during the Climate Summit at the U.N. headquarters in New York, September 23, 2014. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson



WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Fighting the Ebola epidemic means confronting the issue of inequality, as people in poor countries have less access to knowledge and infrastructure for treating the sick and containing the deadly virus, the head of the World Bank said.

Three poor countries in West Africa - Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone - have seen their health systems overwhelmed by the worst outbreak of the disease on record. The epidemic has killed at least 3,000 people in the region.

"Now, thousands of people in these (three) countries are dying because, in the lottery of birth, they were born in the wrong place," World Bank President Jim Yong Kim said in prepared remarks at Howard University in Washington.

"This ... shows the deadly cost of unequal access to basic services and the consequences of our failure to fix this problem."

Kim, the first public health expert to lead the World Bank, said the development institution was committed to addressing income inequality as well as the inequality of access to things like food, clean water and healthcare.

Kim spoke ahead of the IMF-World Bank meetings in Washington next week, where the bank will focus on its goal of shared prosperity, or boosting the incomes of the poorest 40 percent of people in each country.



A burial team wearing protective clothing prepare the body of a person suspected to have died of the Ebola virus for interment, in Freetown September 28, 2014. REUTERS/Christopher Black/WHO/Handout via Reuters


The World Bank has devoted $400 million to fight the spread of Ebola and improve health systems in West Africa. It estimated the outbreak could sap billions of dollars from economies in the region by the end of next year if it is not contained.

After a slow initial response, foreign governments - including the United States, Britain, France, China and Cuba - are also now providing funds, supplies and personnel to the affected parts of West Africa.

But health experts said the assistance was still insufficient and not arriving quickly enough to halt the spread of the deadly hemorrhagic fever.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated last week that, in a worst-case scenario, the number of infections could reach 1.4 million late January, compared with about 6,000 today.

Kim said the delays in fighting Ebola echoed past problems in quickly getting effective treatment for HIV to Africa.

"It has been painful to see us replay old failures from previous epidemics," Kim said. "Concerned citizens need to demand immediate deployments of capital and human resources to the affected countries.

"Otherwise, thousands more will die needless deaths and an economic catastrophe may take place."

(Reporting by Anna Yukhananov; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)


http://news.yahoo.com/world-bank-chief-says-ebola-outbreak-shows-harm-151517834.html

[Buster's Uncle]

W. Africa Ebola crisis hits tourism, compounds hunger in Gambia
Reuters
By Misha Hussain  10 hours ago



DAKAR (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Pestilence, cyclical droughts and floods, and the West Africa Ebola crisis have pushed hunger to record levels in Gambia, where 200,000 people need urgent food assistance, the United Nations says.

Tourism is a significant source of income for the country, and even though Gambia has not seen cases of Ebola, the outbreak in the region has caused visitor numbers to plummet by 60 percent compared to last year, said Ade Mamonyane Lekoetje, the U.N. representative for Gambia.

“In 2011-12 we had the floods and droughts, then in 2013 we had the birds eating all the crops, and now we have Ebola threatening the tourist industry, a lifeline to farmers who need to top up their household income,” Lekoetje told the Thomson Reuters Foundation at a donor gathering in Dakar.

"The government is keen to emphasise Gambia is Ebola-free," she added, noting that the true impact of the outbreak will not be known until after the tourist high season from October to April.

She said a third of the country's 1.8 million people are struggling to have three square meals a day and many have had to sell cattle and take children out of school to buy food.

Ebola - which has killed more than 3,000 people in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea since March - has compounded Gambia's woes. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say some 1.4 million are at risk in the region without immediate action.

Gambia says it has mounted surveillance along its borders, halted air travel from Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, and launched an aggressive Ebola awareness campaign.

“The problem is that tourists tend to think about Africa or West Africa as homogenous, not as individual countries. So Ebola in Sierra Leone has a negative impact on Gambia and other countries in the region,” Lekoetje said.

A sliver of a country sandwiched between northern and southern Senegal, Gambia's beaches are popular among European sunseekers, many of them British. Tourism contributes one-fifth of GDP, according to the CIA Factbook.

Yet U.N. figures indicate more than a third of Gambians live on less than $1.25 a day.

Malnutrition of children under the age of five is at a 10-year high of 25 percent – 10 percent higher than the emergency threshold of 15 percent set by the World Health Organization, according to latest U.N. figures.


EAT WHAT YOU GROW

The U.N. says that some 20 million people are at risk of hunger throughout the Sahel belt stretching from Senegal to Chad, but officials were surprised to see Gambia hit so hard.

“This is a newly emerging phenomenon in Gambia because until now they have been able to manage and be food secure either through agriculture or through other means of livelihood,” said Robert Piper, U.N. coordinator for the Sahel.

Meanwhile, Gambia is pushing to be self-sufficient in the food sector by 2016, regardless of the weather in a country where 80 percent of the population depends on agriculture, said Minister for Social Welfare Omar Sey.

“We are encouraging every Gambian to grow what you eat and eat what you grow, so that we can be food self-sufficient by 2016. Rice and other commodities that can be grown in the Gambia will not be imported,” Sey told the Thomson Reuters Foundation at the donor meeting.

“Gambia will no longer need to depend on rain irrigation as the government is moving to take water from the River Gambia, which divides the country in two, as a more reliable source of water.”


http://news.yahoo.com/w-africa-ebola-crisis-hits-tourism-compounds-hunger-095556487.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Liberia's Sirleaf sees signs of Ebola 'stabilisation'
AFP
2 hours ago



A health worker takes a patient's temperature on October 1, 2014 at a Doctors Without Borders Ebola treatment center in Monrovia (AFP Photo/Pascal Guyot)



Paris (AFP) - Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf said Wednesday the Ebola outbreak that has devastated her country was showing signs of stabilising, in an interview with French television.

"We are beginning to see stabilisation, even in Monrovia which has been hit the hardest, we are beginning to see a slowdown in the numbers of people reporting to a treatment centre," she told France 24 news channel.

"That's something that tells us ... that we are finally on the road to solving this."

Liberia has accounted for more than half of the 3,091 Ebola deaths since the deadly disease hit west Africa late last year.

The epidemic has crippled the country's already weak health services, killing 89 health workers, and its spiral out of control has prompted stark warnings of an explosion of cases and complete collapse of the fragile post-war society.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has sounded grave warnings over the possibility of tens of thousands more cases in the coming months.

However a more optimistic Sirleaf said this was "absolutely not" going to happen.

"I am just waiting now for them to get the recent statistics, and I hope they will admit this is just simply wrong and that all of our countries are getting this thing under control."

She hailed an international response which has seen the International Monetary Fund fast-track much-needed aid and the US send critical supplies and troops to the country to build new treatment centres.

"We have to admit that the international response was late in coming, and based on our own limited capacity to respond, we had quite an acceleration in the disease," she said.

"Today that has changed, the international response is quite large ... so now we are very hopeful that while it was late, we now have the capacity to be able to address this in a very significant way."

Sirleaf admitted the economic impact of the outbreak would be dire.

"We have a $132 million reduction in our budget, which is close to $600 million anyway, and so we are going to be hit hard, however we have natural resources ... once we beat Ebola, we are going to bounce back."


http://news.yahoo.com/liberias-sirleaf-sees-signs-ebola-stabilisation-173000769.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Reeling from Ebola, WHO warns of MERS risk to Africa
Reuters
By Tom Miles  2 hours ago



A WHO member gives advice to a burial team as they prepare to collect the body of a person suspected to have died of the Ebola virus in Freetown September 28, 2014. REUTERS/Christopher Black/WHO/Handout via Reuters



GENEVA (Reuters) - Vulnerable countries, especially in Africa, need to defend themselves against the possible seasonal spread of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) in the first half of 2015, the World Health Organization said on Wednesday.

A WHO Emergency Committee recommended steps "to strengthen infection prevention control practices, build capacity of heath care workers and provide protective equipment in vulnerable countries, especially African countries."

Poor infection control and a lack of expertise and equipment are widely seen as key reasons for the rapid spread of the deadly Ebola virus in three West African countries.

The committee, whose experts issue an update on the disease every three months, also called for improved MERS awareness among pilgrims going to Saudi Arabia for the annual Muslim haj journey and for surveillance of pilgrims during and after haj.

The committee said although there had been significant efforts to strengthen preventative measures against MERS, also known as MERS coronavirus (MERS-CoV), more was needed.

"The current data suggest that MERS-CoV transmission could be seasonal, with an upsurge expected next spring," it said.

MERS, which is thought to originate in camels, has killed 333 people and infected more than 850 since it emerged in 2012.

But unlike Ebola, which has killed 10 times as many people, there was still no evidence of sustained human-to-human transmission of MERS in communities, and the committee said the disease still did not constitute a "public health emergency of international concern".

Aside from travel-related cases, MERS has been confined to the Arabian peninsula, Lebanon, Jordan and Iran.

The number of cases of MERS had fallen since an upswing in April and although transmission was still occurring in small clusters "in health care settings", the spread of the disease seemed "generally contained", the committee said.

Much about the spread of the disease remains unknown, and the WHO committee said. It called for stronger epidemiological surveillance - of humans but also of camels in the Middle East and Africa.

(Reporting by Tom Miles; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)


http://news.yahoo.com/reeling-ebola-warns-mers-risk-africa-175116309.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Africa's uneven health care becomes easy prey for Ebola
AFP
By Selim Saheb Ettaba  22 minutes ago



A little girl suffering from Ebola enters a Doctors without Borders treatment centre in Liberia (AFP Photo/Pascal Guyot)



Dakar (AFP) - Threatened by the possible spread of an Ebola epidemic which respects no borders, Africa is divided between a handful of countries equipped to withstand an outbreak and many more which would be devastated, experts say.

While nations like Ivory Coast, Kenya and South Africa have well-equipped hospitals with specialist units and high-tech labs, vast expanses of the continent remain health care deserts.

The Ebola epidemic has taken 3,000 lives in west Africa, cruelly laying bare the frailties of underdeveloped Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, according to World Bank president Jim Yong Kim.

"The knowledge and infrastructure to treat the sick and contain the virus exists in high- and middle-income countries," he said on Wednesday.

"However, over many years, we have failed to make these things accessible to low-income people in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone," he said.

Tom Kenyon, director for global health at the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said "large numbers of specialists" from foreign countries was not the priority in fighting the disease.

"What we need are those that can provide a basic level of care, meticulous attention to fluid and electrolyte status and these other simple medications," he told reporters in early September.

Yet even this remains an unattainable goal for the three worst-hit countries. They averaged only one doctor for every 100,000 inhabitants even before the epidemic, and now they face the collapse of their health care systems.

At the Redemption Hospital in the Liberian capital Monrovia, an AFP journalist saw patients lying on the floor in mid-September because there were no beds available.

"Yesterday, we received 60 cases, and they keep coming," Alfred Gaye, a nurse at the hospital, told AFP.



Health workers burn used protective gear at an Ebola treatment centre in Conakry, Guinea (AFP Photo/Cellou Binani)


At the other end of the continent geographically, and a world away in terms of development, South Africa has 80 times the density of medical staff of Liberia.

The country is "pretty well prepared" for an outbreak, according to Lucille Blumberg, deputy director of the National Institute for Communicable Diseases.

South Africa boasts 11 public hospitals capable of treating Ebola, in addition to numerous private clinics.

"Ebola can spread here just as well as anywhere else but... here you could protect the people by isolating them easier, preventing them from moving around," said Joseph Teeger, a South African family doctor.


- Worrying lack of resources -

The picture is grim in Benin and Niger, poverty-stricken neighbours of Nigeria which has reported a handful of Ebola deaths but has declared the outbreak within its borders under control.

"We are not prepared for thousands of patients. But we will be prepared to accommodate two, three or four cases," said Akoko Kinde Gazar, the public health minister in Benin, a country with just 12 specialist beds for Ebola.

Niger would need eight regional centres to have any serious chance of coping with an outbreak, says Chaibou Hallarou, a spokesman for the Office of Surveillance and Epidemic Response.

It has just one Ebola centre and one mobile team based in the capital.



Ebola has killed more than 3,000 people in west Africa (AFP Photo/Pascal Guyot)


Ebola preparedness is weak outside of big population centres right across Africa. And the unwillingness to set up facilities in more remote areas is not just a question of funding.

Suspicious locals have attacked health workers in the countryside, a trend which reached a gruesome nadir in the murder of eight Ebola educators in southern Guinea in mid-September.

So although Ivory Coast has set up 16 Ebola units staffed by hundreds of trained healthcare workers across the country, the authorities have decided against remote clinics.

"When we saw what happened in Guinea and Liberia, we decided to put these treatment centres in our hospitals," said Daouda Coulibaly, an epidemiologist at the National Institute of Public Health.


- 'Arrogant' doctors and nurses -

Ebola spreads through contact with infected bodily fluids, so family members and healthcare workers looking after the sick are particularly at risk.

Faced with an outbreak which has the potential to spread fast, people's willingness to follow safety guidelines is essential, yet Africans are not always inclined to respect their doctors and nurses.

"Health-care delivery in Ghana is not patient friendly. Some doctors and nurses -- the loud minority -- are arrogant and disrespectful to patients," local specialist Joseph Boateng told AFP.

"Patients find it difficult to talk to their doctors and nurses about their illnesses. Patients are not encouraged to participate in their own care."

However, the opposite tends to be true in Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), which are both well-versed in dealing with Ebola outbreaks and have evolved well-trained workforces.

"There is not a lot of fear of the medical system, people are willing to seek help," said Trevor Shoemaker, leader of Uganda's CDC.

In Gabon, too, previous outbreaks have also contributed to awareness, "be it political, personal or concerning the health of the population", says Eric Leroy, director of the International Centre for Medical Research.

Ebola is no respecter of international boundaries, and experts agree that nations need to work together.

While examples of such solidarity remain rare, small but growing numbers of Africans at one end of the continent are looking out for those at another.

South African epidemiologist Kathryn Stinson, who has volunteered for a mission in Sierra Leone in October, hopes to provide the model for such cooperation.

"We are sharing a continent with others who are bearing the consequence of a foundering health system that is, in turn, betraying its own people," she wrote in a local newspaper ahead of her departure.

"While fully understanding the risks, it's time to put my money where my mouth is."


http://news.yahoo.com/africas-uneven-health-care-becomes-easy-prey-ebola-153711212.html

[Buster's Uncle]

GlaxoSmithKline, NewLink working to bring Ebola vaccines online: WHO
Reuters
By Stephanie Nebehay  2 hours ago



The signage for the GlaxoSmithKline building is pictured in Hounslow, west London June 18, 2013. REUTERS/Luke MacGregor



GENEVA (Reuters) - Both GlaxoSmithKline and NewLink Genetics are working to boost their capacity to make Ebola vaccines, with a goal of a "very significant increase in scale during the first half of 2015", the World Health Organization said on Wednesday.

Even under the best conditions, if the experimental vaccines are proven to be safe and confer protection in clinical trials, a significant number of doses will not be available until late in the first quarter of 2015, the WHO said.

GSK and NewLink are conducting phase 1 trials in healthy volunteers currently or soon in more than 10 sites in Africa, Europe and North America, the WHO said in a statement after hosting a two-day meeting of 70 experts.

Initial safety data was expected by year-end, with phase II trials early next year to generate more data.

"Both companies are working to augment their manufacturing capacity. The goal is a very significant increase in scale during the first half of 2015," the U.N. agency said.

"The next step is to make these vaccines available as soon as possible – and in sufficient quantities – to protect critical frontline workers and to make a difference in the epidemic’s future evolution," it said.

At least 3,091 people have died from Ebola in the worst outbreak on record of the hemorrhagic disease that has been ravaging Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea in West Africa.

More than 6,500 cases have been diagnosed, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control has warned that the number of infections could rise to up to 1.4 million people by early next year without a massive global intervention to contain the virus.

Some 800 vials of the NewLink vaccine, donated by the government of Canada, could yield from 1,500 to 2,000 doses, and priority should be given to consenting health workers, WHO said. The vaccine was developed by Canada's Public Health Agency but the commercial license is held by Iowa-based NewLink.

The overall challenge is to achieve clinical and regulatory work that normally takes from two to four years "within a matter of months" without compromising safety and efficacy standards, it said.

"All agreed on the ultimate goal: to have a fully tested and licensed product that can be scaled up for use in mass vaccination campaigns," it said.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Tom Miles and Sonya Hepinstall)


http://news.yahoo.com/gsk-newlink-working-bring-ebola-vaccines-online-162658624--finance.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Man being treated in Texas for Ebola traveled to U.S. via Brussels: Liberia
Reuters
4 hours ago



DAKAR (Reuters) - A man being treated for the Ebola virus in Texas traveled from Liberia to the United States via Brussels, the Liberian information ministry said on Wednesday.

The West African country's government said earlier that the man, who is now in serious condition in an isolation ward, had not shown any signs of fever or symptoms of the disease when he left Liberia on Sept. 19.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has said that the patient sought treatment six days after arriving in Texas on Sept. 20, and was admitted to an isolation room two days later.

(Reporting by David Lewis; Editing by Mark Heinrich)


http://news.yahoo.com/man-being-treated-texas-ebola-traveled-u-via-161801527--finance.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Liberia short on ambulances for Ebola patients
Associated Press
By KRISTA LARSON  4 hours ago



The Ebola outbreak is putting stress on first responders in Liberia. Ambulance drivers say they are struggling with chronic shortages of safety equipment and patients who don't want to go to the hospital. (Oct. 1)



FREEMAN RESERVE, Liberia (AP) — The man with reddened eyes sat in his underwear outside his thatched home. He was weak from diarrhea, so his wife called the Ebola hotline for an ambulance. Now that it was here, though, he didn't want to go.

"Have you been around someone who died? Ever been around any sick people?" asks Gordon Kamara, the first responder.

"No sir," the sick man replies, as more than a dozen neighbors crowd around to see. More emerge on the porches of nearby homes in alarm at the site of first responders in gloves and face masks.

"Mr. Kollis, your appearance to me is not well," Kamara says in frustration. "If you do not come with me now, I will not be coming back for you."

Neighbors plead with Kollis to leave, saying someone who stayed in the house already had died of Ebola. Kollis refuses, saying he is worried about who will provide for his children. The first responders retort his children will get sick and die if he stays.

"Who will pick up your diarrhea? You are losing water quickly. Do you want to die here?" Kamara says firmly.



Residents of the village of Freeman Reserve, about 30 miles north of Monrovia, Liberia, watch members of District 13 ambulance service disinfect a room as they pick up six suspected Ebola sufferers that had been quarantined, Tuesday Sept. 30, 2014. Six months into the world’s worst-ever Ebola outbreak, and the first to happen in an unprepared West Africa, the gap between what has been sent by other countries and private groups and what is desperately needed is huge. Even as countries try to marshal more resources to close the gap, those needs threaten to become much greater, and possibly even insurmountable. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay


The medical team from the Response 2 private ambulance then tries talking to other relatives but it's of no use. There are other patients who want to be saved and not enough ambulances to collect them, Kamara says, and the ambulance moves on.

Ebola has killed nearly 2,000 people here in Liberia, and is now growing exponentially because the sick often remain at home where they spread the virus through bodily fluids. There are simply not enough ambulances to drive across the rutted roads into the countryside where the disease is flourishing.

Even when ambulances can reach people, the fear of being transported to a facility where more than half the patients leave in body bags keeps some from going.

"I don't have police or the authority to force them to leave their homes," says Kamara, who spent the first four hours of his day trying to find enough protective clothing to do his job. "We still have a lot of people to go pick up. We can't stay here."

Families say the wait time can be up to four days. Many instead resort to taxis — which threatens to spread the virus further — while others push their sick relatives in wheelbarrows to the horror of onlookers.



Mr. Kollis, center, who shows signs of possible Ebola infection, refuses to leave his home and board a District 13 ambulance dispatched to fetch him in Monrovia, Liberia, Tuesday Sept. 30, 2014. Unable to force patients into the ambulance, the crew left Mr. Kollis behind. Aid donations from western countries are still inadequate, as the international community tries to increase the ability to care for the spiraling number of people infected with the disease which has hit Liberia the hardest.(AP Photo/Jerome Delay)


The cases are endless, and sometimes far from the Ebola treatment centers: Kamara and his crew head next to the village of Freeman Reserve, more than 30 miles from the capital through fields of rubber trees and past children bathing in the pools of drainage ditches.

At least eight people have died here since July from Ebola, and the 50 people who were in contact with them now have been moved to an elementary school turned into a holding center. Three are now showing symptoms and sit outside the principal's office. Two-year-old Nathaniel Edward is listless and limp.

The boy's grandmother died of Ebola, and now his mother is sick too. Kamara and his co-worker Konah Deno don their yellow protective suits and eye goggles.

"Don't worry, you will do well," he tells the pair, as his assistant sprays a mixture of bleach and water on the ground behind them to disinfect the path they have walked.

On the way to the clinic in Monrovia, people on the side of the road hail the ambulance to get help for a sick woman. Kamara stops because today he has space, but in the end it is futile: She decides not to go after all.



Nowa Paye, 9, is taken to an ambulance after showing signs of the Ebola infection in the village of Freeman Reserve, about 30 miles north of Monrovia, Liberia,Tuesday Sept. 30, 2014. Three members of District 13 ambulance service traveled to the village to pickup six suspected Ebola sufferers that had been quarantined by villagers. Aid donations are still inadequate, as the international community tries to increase the ability to care for the spiraling number of people infected with the disease which has hit Liberia the hardest. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)


The six patients inside Kamara's ambulance arrive at Island Clinic just as the facility is ready to release more than 50 survivors whose families line the dirt road outside the entrance. Taped to the wall nearby is a list of names, below which someone has scrawled in red marker "THESE PATIENTS DID NOT MAKE IT!"

Kamara is off to collect nine more patients before his day is done, but says he'll be thinking about those he has just left at the clinic.

"I wish them well. I pray that God will be with them because He heals. The doctors treat but God heals."


http://news.yahoo.com/liberia-short-ambulances-ebola-patients-160310665.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Concerns, questions as Dallas becomes 'ground zero' for Ebola in U.S.
Reuters
By Lisa Maria Garza and Marice Richter  2 hours ago



DALLAS (Reuters) - The first case of Ebola diagnosed in the United States - a man being treated in a Dallas hospital - has sparked worries that the virus that has killed thousands in West Africa could spread in one of the country's largest metropolitan regions.

But there is also a sense of confidence in a city that often brims with bravado and has some of the top hospitals in the country, as well as a public health system that has managed incidents such as a major outbreak of West Nile virus.

"Time for panic? Absolutely not," the Dallas Morning News said in an editorial on Wednesday, echoing many in the fourth-largest U.S. urban area, home to nearly 7 million people.

"We would not wish this deadly virus on any country but no nation in the world is better equipped to respond faster and with greater medical expertise than ours," it said.

That expertise should help prevent an outbreak of the disease, which has killed more than 3,000 people in West Africa, the newspaper said.

The arrival of Ebola in Texas set off a flood of conversation among Dallas residents about being at ground zero for the disease's emergence in the United States.

"I have full faith in the public health system but we are humans and make mistakes and making a mistake in this case could lead to a lot of fatalities," said BreeAnna Moore, 27, who lives in a Dallas suburb and now has second thoughts about traveling into the city.

Airports, bus areas and other places where masses of people move were operating normally on Wednesday but there was a concern shared among many about how the disease is spread.

A few drug stores in Dallas said purchases of hand cleansers appeared to be up while the Texas Department of State Health Services posted information on how to spot and avoid the disease.

The Ebola patient had recently flown to Texas from Liberia and state official said they were trying to find all the people he had come into contact with for about a week before he was admitted to the hospital. Public school officials said the man may have had contact with five students in Dallas but the state's health department said so far, there are no other suspected cases.

At Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, where the patient is in serious condition, officials have tried to reassure the public that he is isolated and not a threat to other patients.

But a revelation that the hospital had turned away the patient two days before being admitted on Sunday has caused some people to wonder if others could be infected.

Visitors still come by to see friends and families at the Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, which is considered one of the better medical facilities in the city. Most take medical officials at their word on safety but there is still concern.

"I don't see people running around in Hazmat suits so I guess I'm OK," Tom DeLancy, 54, said as he drank a cup of coffee in the hospital lobby after visiting his niece who is recovering from minor surgery.

Erika Rodriguez, 23, said the American public should have been bracing for something like this.

"It's just sad that no one cared about Ebola when it was in Africa but now everyone's eyes are open because it's here," she said.

(Reporting by Lisa Maria Garza Marice Richter; Writing by Jon Herskovitz; Editing by Eric Beech and Bill Trott)


http://news.yahoo.com/concerns-questions-dallas-becomes-ground-zero-ebola-u-180055432--finance.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Ebola deaths reach 3,338, but widely undercounted, WHO says
Reuters
By Tom Miles  1 hour ago



A burial team wearing protective clothing prepare the body of a person suspected to have died of the Ebola virus for interment, in Freetown September 28, 2014. REUTERS/Christopher Black/WHO/Handout via Reuters



GENEVA (Reuters) - The death toll from the world's worst Ebola outbreak on record reached 3,338 people out of 7,178 cases in West Africa as of Sept. 28, the World Health Organization said on Wednesday.

It said the total number of new cases had fallen for a second week, but warned against reading any good news into the figures as they were almost certainly under-reported and there were few signs of the epidemic being brought under control.

"Transmission remains persistent and widespread in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, with strong evidence of increasing case incidence in several districts," the WHO's update said.

Although the spread of the disease appears to have stabilized in Guinea, where the epidemic originated, "it must be emphasized that in the context of an outbreak of EVD (Ebola virus disease), a stable pattern of transmission is still of grave concern, and could change quickly," it said.

The WHO data, based on figures from ministries of health, showed 710 dead in Guinea, 1,998 in Liberia and 622 in Sierra Leone.

The WHO report said both Guinea and Sierra Leone reported cases in previously uninfected districts bordering Ivory Coast.

In Liberia, there remained "compelling evidence obtained from responders and laboratory staff in the country that there is widespread under-reporting of new cases, and that the situation in Liberia, and in Monrovia in particular, continues to deteriorate."

Two U.S. Navy mobile laboratories had arrived in Liberia and would be operational by Oct. 5, while a Chinese team in Sierra Leone had begun testing up to 20 samples a day in Freetown.

In two other West African countries, Nigeria - where eight people died - and Senegal, there have been no further suspected cases in more than 21 days, the incubation period of the disease. The WHO deems an outbreak is over when two incubation periods have passed.

Last week the U.S. Centers for Disease Control estimated there would be 8,000 cases reported in Liberia and Sierra Leone by Sept. 30, but said the true figure would likely be 21,000 after correcting for under-reporting.

(Reporting by Tom Miles; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)


http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-deaths-reach-3-338-widely-undercounted-says-181448435.html

[Buster's Uncle]

UN says 1st staffer dies of 'probable' Ebola
Associated Press
By CARA ANNA  1 hour ago



The Ebola outbreak is putting stress on first responders in Liberia. Ambulance drivers say they are struggling with chronic shortages of safety equipment and patients who don't want to go to the hospital. (Oct. 1)



UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The United Nations said Wednesday a staff member in Liberia has died from "probable Ebola," while the World Health Organization said it was optimistic that an Ebola vaccine could be available for mass vaccination campaigns as early as 2015.

The spokesman for Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told reporters that the death of the Liberian national is the first of a U.N. staffer in the outbreak that he is aware of.

Stephane Dujarric said the staffer was working with the U.N. mission in that country. The secretary-general's special representative there told reporters in the capital, Monrovia, on Wednesday that the staffer died last week.

"It is a sad reminder of the ever-present risk, and sobering for us as a mission and as the U.N. family," Karin Landgren said.

The World Health Organization on Wednesday said the Ebola outbreak, the worst ever of the virus, has sickened more than 7,000 people, with more than 3,300 deaths linked to the disease. The United States reported its first case on Tuesday.

Global concern about the outbreak has led the United Nations to create a separate mission targeting the virus to be established in the capitals of the three main affected countries this week.



Karin Landgren, Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG) to the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL), addresses a news conference in Monrovia, Liberia, Wednesday Oct. 1, 2014. Landgren said, speaking about the Ebola crisis: "The world is absolutely not doing enough yet, we are still challenged to outrun the disease." (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)


In an update issued Wednesday, the World Health Organization was optimistic there would be a fully tested and licensed Ebola vaccine available for use in mass vaccination campaigns, possibly starting in 2015.

At the conclusion of a vaccine meeting at the agency's Geneva headquarters this week, WHO said experts were aiming to "accomplish, within a matter of months, work that normally takes two to four years."

Other Ebola researchers have previously said that it would be unlikely that using untested vaccines could help slow the outbreak.

WHO acknowledged there were significant technical problems with using vaccines in West Africa, including the requirement that vaccines must be stored at minus 80 degrees Celsius. Experts also said it was important to test the use of the immunizations in all groups, including children, pregnant women and people with HIV.

Even with "massive efforts," WHO said a significant number of vaccine doses would not be available until late in the first quarter of 2015.

___

Associated Press writers Maria Cheng in London and Sarah DiLorenzo in Dakar, Senegal, contributed to this report.


http://news.yahoo.com/un-says-1st-staffer-dies-probable-ebola-170256998.html