Ebola news 10/8

[Buster's Uncle]

Why unchecked Ebola outbreak could crash West Africa's economy
The World Bank estimates that if the epidemic spreads throughout West Africa it could set back the regional economy by as much as $32.5 billion in direct and indirect costs. The US recorded its first Ebola fatality today.
Christian Science Monitor
By Michael Holtz
4 hours ago



The Ebola outbreak in West Africa could cost the region’s economies $32.5 billion by the end of 2015 if the epidemic isn’t quickly contained, the World Bank said Wednesday. An effective containment that prevents its spread throughout the region, however, would have a much lower economic impact.

The three worst affected countries – Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone – are already feeling the strain, and not just from the costs of combating the disease. Economists warn that in an age of globalization, nearby countries also face economic pressures of their own, even if they’re able to prevent the disease from crossing their borders.

David Evans, a senior economist at the World Bank, told the Associated Press that the epidemic has already forced mining operations to halt, businesses to close, and farming and investment to slow in West Africa. Prices of staple goods are shooting up while food supplies are dwindling across the region, the New York Times reports. Economic growth rates are projected to plummet as a result.

Most African countries have cancelled flights and closed their borders to Ebola-affected countries. Several international airlines, including British Airways, have also suspended flights to and from affected countries, further limiting international trade and business.

Given the fragile state of most West African economies, Forbes contributor Tim Worstall wrote in an opinion article that, “it’s entirely possible that the economic effects of Ebola will kill more than the disease itself.”

In such poor economies the absence of economic growth kills people: let alone what happens when economies start to shrink. With so many people at or just above the subsistence level it doesn’t take much of even a slowdown in the economy to push some of them below it.

The World Bank said Ebola’s trajectory was highly uncertain, but that failing to prevent its spread to neighboring nations could be economically catastrophic. Even if the disease is rapidly contained, the bank estimates the economic impact at over $9 billion. To put this in context, the combined GDP of the three worst affected countries in 2013 was $13.1 billion, according to the World Bank.

"The international community must find ways to get past logistical roadblocks and bring in more doctors and trained medical staff, more hospital beds and more health and development support to help stop Ebola in its tracks," said World Bank President Jim Yong Kim in a statement.

National Public Radio reports that the epidemic threatens economic interdependence across Africa:

Zemedeneh Negatu, managing partner for Ernst and Young in Ethiopia, says that the Ebola virus has awoken old African distrusts. "If this is the reaction we have when we have one outbreak," he says, "Then how are we going to continue to be Pan Africanist? How are we going to be saying we're going to grow together as Africa?"

Negatu says that just as with the Asian Tiger economies, African nations have to trade more with each other to grow economically. Ebola, he says, has exposed "the fault lines" in intra-African relations.

Five months into the epidemic, Ebola has killed more than 3,400 people and infected at least twice as many in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, the World Health Organization estimates. The Centers for Disease Control estimated last month that the disease could infect 1.4 million people within four months, a worst-case projection.

The first Ebola patient diagnosed in the US died in a Dallas hospital Wednesday, the AP reports.


http://news.yahoo.com/why-unchecked-ebola-outbreak-could-crash-west-africas-204315613.html

[Buster's Uncle]

UK to send troops, aircraft and ship to tackle Ebola in Sierra Leone
Reuters
By William James  6 hours ago



Britain's Defence Secretary Michael Fallon (R), and Chief of the Defence Staff Nick Houghton, arrive for a Cobra meeting at the Cabinet Office in London October 8, 2014. REUTERS/Luke MacGregor



LONDON (Reuters) - Britain is sending extra troops, aircraft and a naval vessel to Sierra Leone to help stem the spread of the Ebola virus, Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said following a meeting of the government's emergency response committee.

Prime Minster David Cameron chaired a meeting of the committee in an effort to assuage growing public concern about the spread of the deadly virus to Europe.

Fears have grown since a nurse in Spain became the first person known to have caught the virus outside Africa and the World Health Organization warned that Europe was almost certain to see further cases.

"The Ebola outbreak in West Africa is already a global threat to public health, and it’s vital that the UK remains at the forefront of responding to the epidemic," Fallon said.

Ebola has killed more than 3,400 people in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, and its spread has become a global concern - even hurting the value of Britain's top share index as the threat of the epidemic hit airline and tourism shares.[.L]



Britain's International Development Secretary Justine Greening arrives for a Cobra meeting at the Cabinet Office in London October 8, 2014. REUTERS/Luke MacGregor


"Following today’s meeting, we are stepping up significantly the UK’s contribution and leadership in work to tackle the outbreak, on land, in the air and at sea," Fallon said.

The pledge will see 750 military personnel travel to Sierra Leone next week to help establish treatment centers and a training facility. Three helicopters and a 100-bed naval hospital will also be sent to the region.

Alpha Kanu, Sierra Leone's information minister, welcomed the pledge, saying Britain had reassured the government during a recent London donors' conference that it would not abandon the former colony.

"This is a bold and big step," he told Reuters. "In as much as we need equipment and money, we also need personnel. It would be good if most of the 750 were medics."

Around 40 British military personnel, including engineers and planners, are currently in Sierra Leone overseeing the construction of a treatment center near capital city Freetown.



Construction workers build an Ebola virus treatment center in Freetown October 5, 2014. REUTERS/Umaru Fofana


Britain had already pledged to send 100 field hospital staff to Sierra Leone and plans to build at least five treatment centers in the country with a total of 700 beds.


DOMESTIC RISK

Wednesday's meeting in London of senior ministers and public health officials was convened to discuss Britain's preparedness in the event an Ebola case is discovered in Britain.

According to a spokesman from Cameron's office, health officials told the meeting that the risk to the UK remained low and that Britain was conducting contingency planning and training hospital, ambulance and other key health staff on how to handle the disease.

Information posters would be displayed in airports and a nationwide preparation exercise would be carried out, the spokesman said without giving further details. Public Health England, the government body that monitors potential contagions, had on Tuesday ruled out screening airline passengers.

In the United States, media reports said that travelers arriving there from Ebola-stricken Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea would face mandatory screening measures for the deadly virus as soon as this weekend.

Any cases discovered in Britain would be directed to London's Royal Free Hospital, which has a specialist unit capable of treating two patients and could expand its capacity if necessary, a health service spokeswoman said.

(Additional reporting by Umaru Fofana in Freetown; Editing by Larry King)


http://news.yahoo.com/britain-send-750-troops-sierra-leone-build-ebola-145030305.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Exclusive: Emergency centers needed to contain Ebola in West Africa - U.N.
Reuters
By Louis Charbonneau  3 hours ago



Health workers wearing protective equipment stand at the Island Clinic in Monrovia, September 30, 2014, where patients are treated for Ebola. REUTERS/Christopher Black/WHO/Handout via Reuters



UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The worst outbreak of Ebola on record can be contained if countries quickly build and staff treatment centers in West African nations hardest hit by the deadly virus, the United Nations Ebola response coordinator said on Wednesday.

"If we can reduce the number of people who are passing on their infection to others by about 70 percent, then the outbreak will come to an end," Dr. David Nabarro, the senior U.N. coordinator for the international response to Ebola, told Reuters.

"If, on the other hand, people continue to be able to transmit the virus to others when they have been ill, then the outbreak will continue and continue growing at the rate it is."

Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone have been hardest hit by the disease, and cases have been reported in Senegal and Nigeria. On Wednesday, the World Health Organization said Ebola had claimed the lives of 3,879 people from among 8,033 confirmed, probable and suspected cases since it was identified in Guinea in March.

Nabarro praised the United States, Britain, the African Union and others for marshalling healthcare workers and military personnel to build and staff treatment centers in affected areas. He urged all countries to contribute whatever they could to the effort.

He also lauded the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda for providing skilled doctors and nurses.

"They've had the experience of dealing with Ebola inside their own countries and that is invaluable," he said. An outbreak of Ebola believed to be separate from the one in West Africa has been reported in Democratic Republic of Congo.

Healthcare systems in affected West African countries do not have the capacity to deal with the epidemic. Treatment centers are full and healthcare workers are at risk of infection.

Ebola can take as long as three weeks before its victims show symptoms, at which point it becomes contagious. Ebola, which can cause fever, vomiting and diarrhea, spreads through contact with bodily fluids such as blood or saliva.

Nabarro, who was the U.N. coordinator for the international response to avian and human influenza outbreaks, said the scale of the Ebola outbreak was doubling every three to four weeks.

"So good quality care in an isolated space that enables people to have a good chance of recovery is the key requirement," he said. "To do that, we need to have people who are skilled in providing care."


BATTLE WILL BE WON

The United Nations last month established its first-ever mission designed specifically to combat a public health crisis, the Ghana-based U.N. Mission for Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER).

"We're certainly going to see this battle won," Nabarro said. "The question is when ... and can we minimize the number of people who will lose their lives, or the damage to the economies of the affected countries while this happens.

"I'm sure that it will be a relatively short time before we start to see what I call the bending of the epidemic curve so that it starts to come down again," he said.

Nabarro said he was saddened by the death of the first person diagnosed with Ebola in the United States, Liberian national Thomas Eric Duncan, who flew to Dallas in late September after having contact with a woman who was infected and later died.

He said Duncan's case highlighted the danger of Ebola, classified as a level 4 biological hazard and one of the deadliest illnesses for which no vaccine or proper treatment exist.

"Even where you've got a very high-quality healthcare system, sometimes it's not possible to save people," Nabarro said.

The U.S. government on Wednesday ordered extra screening of passengers arriving at five major U.S. airports from West Africa.

Nabarro said he supports the idea of screening passengers to identify high-risk individuals who might have contracted the virus, but he said travel bans or isolating affected countries would be the wrong approach.

He said if countries are well prepared and well organized they can deal with outbreaks, as Nigeria has, that may occur as a result of individuals crossing their borders.

(Reporting by Louis Charbonneau; Additional reporting by Angela Moore; Editing by Toni Reinhold)


http://news.yahoo.com/emergency-centers-needed-contain-ebola-west-africa-u-215607442.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Ebola Screening Will Start in 5 US Airports
LiveScience.com
By Bahar Gholipour, Staff Writer  2 hours ago



Starting this week, five U.S. airports will implement screening procedures to check travelers for Ebola, officials announced today.

The five airports chosen — JFK International Airport in New York, along with Washington-Dulles, Newark, Chicago-O'Hare and Atlanta international airports — receive over 94 percent of travelers from the Ebola-affected countries of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, according to officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Department of Homeland Security's Customs & Border Protection (CBP).

Staff at these airports will check travelers from the affected countries for fever and any signs of illness, and ask those individuals questions about their exposure to Ebola. Every day, about 150 people arrive to the United States from the three affected countries, said CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden.

"We believe these new measures will further protect the health of Americans, understanding that nothing we can do will get us to absolute zero risk until we end the Ebola epidemic in West Africa," Frieden said in a news conference today (Oct .

If a traveler is found to have a fever or history of contact with a person infected with Ebola, then a CDC public health officer stationed at the airport will interview the person to further evaluate the situation and decide what should be done next, Frieden said.

The screenings at JFK will begin on Saturday. Nearly half of travelers from the three West African countries land in JFK, the officials said.

Screenings at the other four airports will start next week.

Since early 2014, more than 8,000 people have become infected in the Ebola outbreak in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, and more than 3,800 people in these countries have died from the virus, according to the World Health Organization.

In September, a traveler arriving from Liberia was diagnosed with Ebola in the United States. The 42-year-old man, Thomas Eric Duncan, developed symptoms four days after his arrival and died today (Oct. after spending more than a week in treatment in Texas.

Airport screening may help identify people with Ebola earlier on in the disease, and early diagnoses could increase people's chances of survival, Frieden said.

The new "enhanced screening" measures will ensure that the United States is taking a "layered approach" to help minimize the risk of Ebola in this country, said Alejandro Mayorkas, deputy secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.

In addition to asking questions, checking temperatures and collecting contact information from the travelers arriving from the three affected countries, CBP officers will observe all passengers who are coming into the United States through any point of entry "for overt signs of illnesses through visual observation and questioning as appropriate," Mayorkas said.

The new efforts are being added to existing measures, which include raising awareness and "issuing 'do not board' orders to airlines if CDC and the Department of State determine a passenger is a risk to the traveling public," Mayorkas said.

Officials said they have the authority to isolate people, both U.S. citizens and foreigners, who may be infectious and a risk to others.

Frieden noted that many passengers who have fevers may turn out to have diseases other than Ebola, such as malaria, that are common to West Africa.

Still, Frieden reminded U.S. health care practitioners to consider Ebola in anyone who has fever and ask if they have been in West Africa in the past three weeks.

If travelers from those three West African countries show no signs of disease and have no known history of exposure to the virus, they will receive information about monitoring their health and spotting symptoms of Ebola.


http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-screening-start-5-us-airports-223025312.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Ebola orphans facing grim fight for survival
AFP
By Marc Bastian  10 hours ago



Liberia is the worst hit of the three West African countries most affected by the Ebola epidemic, with more than 2,069 people dying from the disease, according to the latest World Health Organisation figures released on October 1, 2014 (AFP Photo/Dominique Faget)



Monrovia (AFP) - Hundreds of children have been killed by the Ebola epidemic ravaging west Africa, yet for the thousands spared, the grim struggle for survival has only just begun.

Children across Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea are finding themselves alone in the world, ostracised by communities terrified by the contagion and without family to look after them.

"It was different with the HIV epidemic," says UNICEF spokeswoman Sarah Crowe, referring to the system of extended family and friends taking on AIDS orphans.

"It was a safety net. Now with the fear of Ebola, the system has broken down," she says.

Ebola, which has killed around half of the 7,000 people it has infected in the world's worst-ever outbreak of the virus, is spread through contact with infected bodily fluids.

One of the most shocking consequences of its deadly march through west Africa is the plight of children of the adult victims who wander the streets or clog up treatment centres, with nowhere to go.

"They continue to suffer from the impact of Ebola by loss of family members, stigma and rejection from community members and even relatives for fear of contracting the virus," said Krista Armstrong of the British charity Save the Children.

The majority of people who are dying in the outbreak are aged between 25 and 45, according to Crowe.



A man and his two children suspected to be infected by Ebola wait outside a hospital in Foredugu, Sierra Leone, on October 6, 2014 (AFP Photo/Florian Plaucher)


But around 500 under 15s have also died, according to UNICEF regional director Manuel Fontaine. Those who have lost at least one parent number in the thousands, the agency estimates.

Across the three hardest-hit countries are children who have survived infection but lost their parents or been abandoned by their families.

"The most difficult thing is a child whose family has been affected by the disease... while the child is negative. They are supposed to be isolated for 21 days but there are no facilities," said Laurence Sailly, coordinator of an Ebola treatment centre run by Medecins Sans Frontieres in Monrovia.

One such case is five-year-old Harry, who turned up at the centre with his sick parents in late September.

His parents were sent immediately to the "red zone", which only 40 percent of patients leave alive, while Harry spent several days in the "green zone".


- 'Survivors network' -

Caregivers took turns during their breaks to keep him company, giving him crayons and paper to pass the time as his parents fought a losing battle nearby against the virus.



A Red Cross worker in Monrovia on October 4, 2014. The outbreak has claimed more than 3,000 lives this year in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. UNICEF estimates some 3,700 children have lost at least one parent. (AFP Photo/Pascal Guyot)


Finally, UNICEF found a family of Ebola survivors to look after Harry, whose name has been changed to protect his identity.

This temporary solution may have to become permanent: Harry's father died and his mother was in the final stages of the fever when AFP visited the centre on Sunday.

"We have created a 'survivors network', with which we try to look after the children," says UNICEF's Crowe.

The agency, which is contributing to the training of 400 social workers and mental health professionals in Liberia, has announced a comprehensive plan to find carers for children in Sierra Leone.

Over the next six months, more than 2,500 survivors -- who appear to be immune to recontamination -- will be trained in Sierra Leone to care for children in quarantine, according to UNICEF.

In Guinea, the agency is providing psychological support to 60,000 vulnerable children and their families in areas affected by Ebola.

Even in the grim category of children turned into orphans by Ebola there are some who are less fortunate than others.

Some, for example, are "hidden" orphans -- children of Ebola victims whose deaths were never officially declared, who are not even recognised as part of the crisis.

"Every day there are children at home without parents, and the community is afraid to help," said Crowe.

The preferred solution is always to try to find the family, says Armstrong, but if this proves impossible, NGOs seek host families to whom they provide basic financial support.

Facilities providing temporary accommodation have also been set up for infant survivors or those requiring quarantine.

But there are not enough of these facilities in Liberia, Guinea or Sierra Leone which are among the poorest on the planet and are not receiving enough help from the international community.

UNICEF says it has received just a quarter of the $200 million it deems necessary for its work on Ebola.


http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-orphans-facing-grim-fight-survival-142922726.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Report: Cost of Ebola could top $32 billion
Associated Press
By DEB RIECHMANN  9 hours ago



A teacher uses a thermometer to test the temperature of students, checking for possible Ebola fever at Adekunle primary school in Lagos, Nigeria, Wednesday, Oct. 8, 2014. Spotting any symptoms early is a key factor in treating any victims and in arresting the spread of this extremely contagious disease, according to health experts. (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba)



WASHINGTON (AP) — Ebola's economic toll could reach $32.6 billion by year's end if the disease ravaging Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone spreads across West Africa, the World Bank said Wednesday.

The outbreak has the potential "to inflict massive economic costs" on those three countries and its closest neighbors, according to the bank's assessment.

"The international community must find ways to get past logistical roadblocks and bring in more doctors and trained medical staff, more hospital beds and more health and development support to help stop Ebola in its tracks," said Jim Yong Kim, the bank's president.

"Prudent" investment in better health systems could have lessened the economic fallout, he said.

The report estimated the costs of two scenarios:

—more than $9 billion if the disease is rapidly contained in the three most severely affected countries.

—$32.6 billion if it takes a long time to contain Ebola there and the disease spreads to neighboring nations.

One way to ease the impact, the report said, was be if immediate action halted the outbreak and calmed fears. Concerns about the disease are causing neighboring countries to close their borders, and airlines and businesses to suspend commercial activities in the three worst-affected countries.

David Evans, a senior economist at the World Bank and co-author of the report, said fear prompts flights to be canceled, mining operations to halt, businesses to close and farming and investment to slow as people try to avoid putting themselves and their employees at risk. That behavior has a larger economic impact than sickness and death, he said.

"Policies to renew commercial activity while protecting other countries from contagion are what we need to mitigate this fear factor, which is key to mitigating the economic impact of the crisis," Evans told the Associated Press.

"Closing borders and halting flights has a huge impact," he said. "These economies trade with the outer world. They have international investment in mining. Liberia imports food. So as we close borders and cancel flights, there is a real impact on the food security and the incomes of the households in these countries."

The World Health Organization estimates that Ebola has killed more than 3,400 people in West Africa and infected at least twice that many.

___

Associated Press reporter Matt Small in Washington contributed to this report.


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