Ebola news 10/10

[Buster's Uncle]

Spain seeks answers as seven more enter Ebola hospital
Reuters
By Sonya Dowsett  3 hours ago



Javier Limon, the husband of Spanish nurse Teresa Romero Ramos who contracted Ebola, looks out of the window of a ward he is being kept isolated in, at Madrid's Carlos III hospital, October 9, 2014. REUTERS/Susana Vera



MADRID (Reuters) - Seven more people have been admitted to a Spanish hospital unit monitoring possible Ebola cases where nurse Teresa Romero, the first person to contract the deadly virus outside West Africa, lay seriously ill on Friday.

With recriminations growing over how Romero became infected at the Madrid hospital, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said it was extremely unlikely that the disease - which has already killed around 4,000 people in West Africa - would spread in Spain.

"Our first priority is Teresa Romero - she is the only person that we know has the illness," he told reporters on the steps of the specially-adapted Carlos III hospital, surrounded by medical staff.

A hospital spokeswoman said 14 people were now under observation or being treated, including Romero's husband.

The seven new admissions late on Thursday included two hairdressers who had given Romero a beauty treatment before she was diagnosed, and hospital staff who had treated the 44-year-old nurse after she was admitted on Monday.

All had come voluntarily to be monitored for signs of the disease, although none of the 14 has so far tested positive for the disease except Romero, whose condition was described by the hospital as serious but stable.

Rajoy said he had set up a committee headed by the deputy prime minister to handle the crisis, five days after news first broke of Romero's infection.

Romero was infected in the hospital as she treated two Spanish missionaries who had caught the hemorrhagic fever in West Africa and she remained undiagnosed for days despite reporting her symptoms. On Friday, the nurse's husband could be seen staring out of the window of his hospital room, dressed in a blue surgical robe.

Concern has risen elsewhere in Europe after Macedonia said it was checking for Ebola in a British man who died there on Thursday, although authorities said it was unlikely he had the disease. A Prague hospital was testing a 56-year-old Czech man with symptoms of the virus.


POINTING THE FINGER

The Ebola virus causes fever, vomiting and diarrhea and sometimes internal bleeding, and is spread through direct contact with body fluids. About half of those infected in West Africa have died.

Spanish labor unions accused the government of trying to deflect the blame onto Romero for the failings of its health system, after the European Union asked Spain to explain how the virus could have been spread on a high-security ward.

The top regional health official in Madrid, Javier Rodriguez, has said Romero took too long to admit she had made a mistake by touching her face with the glove of her protective suit while taking it off.

"She has taken days to recognize that she may have made a mistake when taking off the suit. If she had said it earlier, it would have saved a lot of work," he said in a radio interview.

El Mundo newspaper published a cartoon on Friday showing Rajoy and other officials of his People's Party pointing at the nurse under the caption: "Protocol for passing on blame".

"They will find any way to blame her," Romero's brother, Jose Ramon, told the daily El Pais. "Basically, my sister did her job ... and she has become infected with Ebola."

One union representative said on Friday that health workers from doctors to ambulance drivers were worried about their lack of training in how to deal with Ebola patients.

"Finding staff to work voluntarily (in the isolation unit) is very difficult," said Jose Manuel Freire, spokesman for a health workers' union.

(Editing by Julien Toyer, Kevin Liffey and David Stamp)


http://news.yahoo.com/spain-seeks-answers-seven-more-enter-ebola-isolation-100614138.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Texas hospital defends itself over treatment of Ebola patient
Reuters
By Jon Herskovitz  21 hours ago



AUSTIN Texas (Reuters) - The Dallas hospital that treated the Ebola patient who died this week tried to fend off accusations on Thursday that it initially turned him away because he was a poor African immigrant without insurance.

"Our care team provided Mr. Duncan with the same high level of attention and care that would be given any patient, regardless of nationality or ability to pay for care," Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital said in a statement.

Duncan first sought help at the hospital on Sept. 25 and was sent home several hours later with antibiotics rather than being observed further, even though he told a nurse he had recently returned from West Africa, where an Ebola outbreak has killed nearly 4,000 people.

About two days after that, he returned to the same hospital by ambulance and was placed in an isolation unit. He died on Wednesday after being attached to a ventilator and a dialysis machine. The hospital said he was 45.

The hospital said his heart stopped and Duncan "had expressed his wishes to his attending physician that the care team should not perform chest compressions, defibrillation or cardioversion to prolong his life."

Civil rights activist Jesse Jackson said during a visit to Dallas for the case that Duncan was initially discharged because he was poor, black and without insurance. Duncan's fiancée asked for a full investigation regarding his care.

Dr. Craig Smith, medical director for infectious disease at University Hospital in Augusta, Georgia, said Ebola, like any disease, was easier to beat the sooner it was treated.

After he was admitted, a team of more than 50 people cared for him and an entire 24-bed intensive care unit was secured and dedicated to Duncan's care, the hospital said.

"The treatment area remains sealed and is being aggressively decontaminated," it said.

An experimental drug called ZMapp, a cocktail of three antibodies that has been used on American patients infected with Ebola while in West Africa, was not used on Duncan because it was not available, the hospital said.

A serum transfusion used on an Ebola patient airlifted from West Africa to a hospital in Nebraska was not used on Duncan either because his blood type did not match the treatment.

"The nurses, doctors, and team who cared for him, as well as the entire Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas community, grieve the loss of Mr. Duncan," the hospital said.

(Reporting by Jon Herskovitz; Editing by Sandra Maler)


http://news.yahoo.com/texas-hospital-defends-itself-over-treatment-ebola-patient-211641373.html

[Buster's Uncle]

In 2005 Marburg virus outbreak, some lessons for Ebola crisis
Reuters
By Peter Apps  9 hours ago



WASHINGTON (Reuters) - When I see the footage of health workers in protection suits taking up the fight against Ebola in west Africa, memories come flooding back.

    Nine years ago, I took a Reuters team into the heart of another haemorrhagic fever catastrophe, the 2005 Marburg virus outbreak in northern Angola. I saw what it took to bring it under control.

    The outbreak was much smaller. In the final analysis, some 227 people were believed to have died - at its peak it was thought higher but laboratory testing showed some cases were misdiagnosed.

    Still, in many ways it was a microcosm of the current crisis.

    As with Ebola now, Marburg - a fever that kills through massive internal bleeding - leapt out of the jungle into a region struggling to recover after decades of war.

    Similarly, it overwhelmed fragile medical facilities, killing doctors and nurses and fuelling panic and horror.

    The world, perhaps belatedly, responded. By the time I arrived in April 2005 with a four person Reuters team, the United Nations World Health Organisation and other aid groups were starting to have an effect.

    Ultimately, however, it was local people who broke the cycle of infection.

    That meant overcoming some of the most natural human instincts, making people so scared they were no longer willing to treat their own sick loved ones.

    It was all about fear and in the end, the right kind of fear won.


    SUSPICION OF HEALTH WORKERS

    Mercifully, the sheer isolation of Uige and Angola's destroyed transport infrastructure helped limit the virus' spread. In the local area, however, it wreaked havoc.

    By the time we flew in, almost all essential supplies were running out. Trucking firms were simply avoiding the region.

    The first international health teams were met with hostility and fear. Getting the population onside required huge compromises and greater risk for the medics.

    In the early days, teams from WHO and elsewhere wore full body protective gear as soon as they left their vehicles before entering crowded slums to check the sick and the dead.

    The teams were attacked, at one stage entirely pulled from their work. Terrified residents, health workers said, were convinced it was the specialists spreading the virus.

    Almost no one was willing to bring sick relatives to hospital. As with Ebola, the virus was spread through bodily fluids - blood, sweat and urine in particular. Through looking after their loved ones, wider families became infected and died.

    Gradually, things started to change. The health workers changed their tactics, making their way to the doorsteps of affected homes in regular clothing, only then pulling on their isolation suits.

    The day before we flew out, a UN anthropologist told me a story that made them think they were finally winning.

    In a village outside Uige, a pregnant woman had begun to vomit blood. Her husband had heard the warnings. Instead of nursing her, he locked her in the house, took his children out and called the authorities.

    By the time they arrived two days later, she was dead.   

    He was utterly heartbroken, no longer sure he wanted to live. But the family survived.


    "NO TIME TO CRY"

    "It is impossible for us to tell how he was feeling," the anthropologist told me. "We're working so hard to save people that we do not have time to cry for the dead."   

    The scale of the current crisis dwarfs that of the Angola outbreak, close on 4,000 infected, more than half of them dead.

    That is a much lower mortality rate than Marburg in Angola but that only serves to make the virus more virulent. Marburg killed so quickly it limited its own spread.

    In Sierra Leone and Liberia, in contrast, the higher survival rate means more victims seek out hospitals. Families take sweating sickening relatives from health centre to health centre in search of the handful of spare beds. The taxis that take them, health experts say, become vectors for transmission and further infection.

    The broadening international aid effort, now including several thousand U.S., British and other foreign military medics as well as engineers and logistics experts, will doubtless build medical capacity and probably save lives.

    Once again, however, I fear that what it will really take is persuading ordinary people to overcome their strongest instincts and abandon their sick.


http://news.yahoo.com/2005-marburg-virus-outbreak-lessons-ebola-crisis-084349169.html

[Geo]

Ebola Scare on US Airways Flight 845 from Philadelphia to Punta Cana - October 8th 2014

[Buster's Uncle]

Liberian leader brings money and hygiene message to Ebola's "hot zone"
Reuters
By Daniel Flynn  11 hours ago



Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf speaks to villagers about Ebola virus precautions outside Ganta, Liberia, October 7, 2014. REUTERS/Daniel Flynn



GANTA Liberia (Reuters) - Normally bustling with trucks carrying rubber, timber and other goods to and from Guinea, the streets of Ganta in Liberia's Ebola "hot zone" have fallen quiet since the bridge spanning the border was shut in August to try to halt the spread of the disease.

Now, fear of the deadly haemorrhagic fever - which has killed more than 3,800 people in three small West African states, 2,200 of them in Liberia - stalks the town, with many locals saying they are afraid to seek medical treatment.

"Even if you have a runny stomach or headache and you go to the hospital, you'll just be considered as an Ebola person," said Musu Kardamie, head of a local women's association. "We're dying on a daily basis in this country, especially in Ganta."

When President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf visited the remote corner of the northerly Nimba county this week, she found that Ebola was not the only emergency affecting communities that have been quarantined over the disease.

Hunger is also biting, and when Johnson Sirleaf's presidential cortege distributed rice and money at several stops and then moved on, fights broke out among desperate young men over the bags of rice, worth about $40 each.

The president also brought money to pay the nurses of the United Methodist Hospital, who had not received any salaries in over a month, despite caring for more than 100 Ebola patients.

"I have come to say 'thank-you' for the service that you continue to render, not only to the people of Nimba but the people of Liberia," Johnson Sirleaf said, before a stocky assistant distributed wads of cash from a rucksack to nurses in crisp white uniforms who danced and clapped in gratitude.

But the president's mission went beyond handouts.


WALKING THE WALK

    When an elderly chieftain in the village of Belah approached for a traditional greeting carrying a gift of kola nuts on a plastic plate, the president refused it, saying: "I don't want to receive this because of Ebola. You must stay safe!"

At the village health checkpoint, she washed her hands in chlorine solution and had her temperature taken.

    And in every village she visited, she asked community leaders if they were following the rules for fighting Ebola, a disease passed on by contact with the bodily fluids of victims, who can suffer fever, vomiting and diarrhoea.

That meant shunning traditional greetings that involve touching, and practices such as washing dead bodies by hand.

"It took us a while to say this," she told Reuters. "The only way you can prevent transmission is to break people's cultural habits."

She admits that at first her government focused only on isolating victims, but since then it has launched a communications offensive.

In the capital Monrovia, named after 19th century U.S. president James Monroe, containers of chlorinated water with taps sit outside every building. In churches, celebrants wear gloves as they distribute communion wafers.

Public information placards by the roadside exhort passers-by: "Don't Be The Next Victim. Stop Washing Dead Body. Stop Touching Sick Persons. Stop Traveling With The Ebola Virus. Report All Suspected Cases."

But it is harder to get the message out to the countryside, not least with transport and the economy breaking down.

Work on a tarmac highway to connect Monrovia to Nimba county - some eight hours' drive away - was suspended by two Chinese contractors when Ebola struck. For long stretches, the route remains little more than a muddy track, though the government hopes work will resume within months.


OUTBREAK IN DECLINE?

Johnson Sirleaf said in an interview that there were early signs the outbreak in her country might be "in decline".

In Nimba County, medical officer Collins Saa Bowah agreed: "We are beginning to see a decrease in the cases."

But medical NGOs in the frontline of the battle against Ebola are much more cautious, wondering whether a fall in the number of registered cases may be the result of sick people in remote areas staying at home, or simply afraid to go for treatment.

"We don't have the means of getting to where the cases are. Sometimes it takes four or five days before we can get to the affected areas," said Randall Boyer, a local youth officer.

The hospital in Ganta lies near the centre of the outbreak, which was detected six months ago just over the border in Guinea and spread to Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Liberia, founded by freed American slaves, has strong ties with the United States, and President Barack Obama is sending 3,000 military personnel to build treatment centres there and train staff.

But for now, there are still only six specialised Ebola Treatment Units (ETUs) for all of Liberia's 4 million people, and hospitals like Ganta's have been forced to step into the breach.

Director Victor Taryor said nurses were currently treating four confirmed Ebola cases and, with more aid arriving as the international community steps up its response, the hospital's eye and fistula departments were being converted into an ETU.

As night falls, Nimba County's commercial hub of Gbarnga empties. Schools there remain shut under an emergency government order, and after 7 p.m. shops, restaurants and bars must also close. Ebola has crippled the local economy.

"The town is not moving like before," said Christian Karr, whose hotel has been deserted since foreign NGOs pulled out of the region. "The government needs to do more."


http://news.yahoo.com/liberian-leader-brings-money-hygiene-message-ebolas-hot-064722398--business.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Healthcare crippled as Ebola overwhelms hospitals in Liberia
Reuters
By James Harding Giahyue and David Lewis  8 hours ago



Health workers take blood samples for Ebola virus testing at a screening tent in the local government hospital in Kenema, Sierra Leone, June 30, 2014. REUTERS/Tommy Trenchard



MONROVIA/DAKAR (Reuters) - The two women came from opposite ends of Liberian society - one a beauty queen and daughter of a prominent lawmaker, the other an ordinary home maker from a remote northern town.

When they both needed urgent healthcare, however, these differences meant little. Neither had the deadly Ebola infection, but both were turned away from hospitals overrun by an outbreak that has killed more than 3,800 people, 2,200 in Liberia alone.

In the end, it was Comfort Fayiah, the ordinary 27-year-old, who survived, giving birth to twins in the street as passers by did what they could to provide some privacy.

Nikita Forh, 21, died at her father's plush Monrovia home, unable to secure the treatment she needed to fend off an asthma attack because doctors at the JFK hospital in the capital requested a certificate proving she did not have Ebola.

"I told them that if I carried my daughter home she would not make it through the night, but they did not listen," Edward Forh, a member of the house of representatives for Montserrado County, told national radio.

"My daughter died before my eyes like a dog. Those nurses killed my child," he said. "I will sue the government."

Liberia's Medical and Dental Council says it is investigating Forh’s case and warned that any medical staff caught rejecting or refusing sick people would be investigated.

"We took an oath to restore or protect lives," Dr John Mulbah, the council's director, told a news conference.

With Ebola, that oath has become much more complicated. Medics lacking equipment and training fear unwittingly exposing themselves and other patients to Ebola in caring for other healthcare needs.

The cases highlight how the trail of social and human destruction Ebola has left in its wake as it spreads through Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea extends far beyond just those who contract the deadly haemorrhagic fever.

Health systems which were already struggling to tackle issues ranging from malaria to complicated pregnancies before Ebola have since been utterly overwhelmed.

Many clinics became places of infection rather than treatment so were closed down. Health systems have been gutted of personnel, some too afraid to come to work while others have succumbed to the deadly virus.

Liberia had only had around 50 trained doctors for the country's 4 million people before the outbreak of Ebola struck.

According to the latest figures from the World Health Organisation, across the region, 382 healthcare workers have caught Ebola. Of these, 216 have died, with Liberia and Sierra Leone being hit particularly hard.

Over six months into the Ebola outbreak, the global response is slowly picking up steam. Hundreds of millions of dollars in aid and equipment have been pledged and new beds for Ebola patients are gradually being rolled out.

Liberia is gradually scaling up the number of emergency treatment centres from six at present to around 20, a development for those without Ebola as well as those with it.

"The purpose of increasing the number of Ebola treatment units is (also) to allow medical staff at other facilities to know that they are safe when treating other patients," said Sean Casey, emergency team director at International Medical Corps, which runs a treatment centre outside Monrovia.

Casey cited the case of a man who tested negative for Ebola but was referred to another clinic to be checked for tuberculosis. "We had to intervene directly with the hospital director to demonstrate this man did not have Ebola and only then did they eventually accept to treat him,” Casey said.

Health experts have warned that deaths from diseases like malaria, diarrhoea and pneumonia are likely to soar in West Africa as people are either unable or unwilling to make it to clinics to get treatment.


    STAYING AWAY

Deaths from malaria alone, which even before the Ebola crisis killed around 100,000 a year in the West Africa region as a whole, could increase four-fold in Ebola-hit countries as people miss out on life-saving treatments, experts have warned.

It is already happening.

Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), the leading international medical charity on the ground, commissioned research that found a drastic drop in availability and use of heathcare in Monrovia in August compared to the same month in 2013.

The number of beds available were down by 47 percent and in health structures that remained open, there were 49 percent fewer outpatient consultations. Research also showed antenatal care down 40 percent and 41 percent fewer assisted births.

"We are entering the peak season so with health centres being closed and people self treating, we would expect the mortality of malaria to be very high this year," Thomas Curbillon, head of MSF's mission in Liberia, told Reuters.

"The only thing (people) can do is treat themselves," he said, adding that MSF was working to get as many other health structures functioning as possible.

UNFPA, a U.N. agency that works on pregnancy and family planning, estimates that in neighbouring Sierra Leone, there will be some 123,000 pregnant women and girls in 2015. Half a million more would be expected to seek contraception.

However, in a briefing on the impact of Ebola there, it says there are already clear signs of people steering clear of health facilities for fear they will catch Ebola.

Between May and July, the number of women attending reproductive health clinics fell by 25 percent. The number of people seeking family planning help at Marie Stopes clinics had fallen by over 90 percent, it added.

"If this trend continues, drastic increases in maternal mortality, infant mortality and unwanted pregnancies are to be expected," UNFPA warned.

(Writing by David Lewis; Additional reporting by Daniel Flynn in Monrovia; editing by Philippa Fletcher)


http://news.yahoo.com/healthcare-crippled-ebola-overwhelms-hospitals-liberia-103924044.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Tests show hospitalized Czech man does not have Ebola
Reuters
12 hours ago



PRAGUE (Reuters) - Tests showed that a Czech man hospitalized with symptoms of Ebola does not have the virus, Czech Health Minister Svatopluk Nemecek said on Friday.

"Laboratory tests did not confirm Ebola," he told Czech Radio, confirming earlier media reports. "There is a suspicion of malaria and further checks need to be done. The essential thing is that it is not Ebola."

The 56-year-old Czech businessman who had recently traveled in Liberia was put in isolation at a Prague hospital on Thursday with signs of the virus, which has killed nearly 4,000 people in West Africa since March in the largest outbreak on record.

Fears that the Ebola outbreak will spread globally rose on Thursday as the health of an infected Spanish nurse deteriorated and a British man who died in Macedonia was being tested for the virus.

(Reporting by Jason Hovet and Jan Strouhal; Editing by Dominic Evans)


http://news.yahoo.com/tests-show-hospitalized-czech-man-does-not-ebola-064546794.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Ebola fears spread as Spanish nurse worsens, British man tested
Reuters
By Lisa Shumaker  13 hours ago



Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) instructor Rupa Narra (L) gives guidance to health care workers in preparation for the response to the current Ebola outbreak, during a CDC safety training course in Anniston, Alabama, October 6, 2014. REUTERS/Tami Chappell



(Reuters) - Fears that the Ebola outbreak will spread globally rose on Thursday with the deteriorating health of an infected Spanish nurse, a British man who died in Macedonia being tested for the virus and more demands by U.S. lawmakers for travel bans.

At least 26 members of the U.S. House of Representatives want travel bans and visa restrictions on citizens of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, the impoverished West African nations hardest hit since the worst Ebola outbreak on record.

The calls came a day after the death in Texas of the first person to be diagnosed with Ebola in the United States and after the United States and Britain announced they will start screening many airline passengers arriving from affected countries for fever and other Ebola symptoms.

Fears of having to clean up vomit and feces in airplane bathrooms from infected travelers with insufficient protection prompted about 200 airline cabin cleaners to walk off the job for a day in New York.

"The nation is frightened, and people are frightened of this disease," U.S. cabinet secretary for health, Sylvia Burwell said at a press conference. "They’re frightened because it has a very high mortality rate. They’re frightened because they need to learn (and) understand what the facts are about that disease.”

The Ebola virus causes hemorrhagic fever and is spread through direct contact with body fluids from an infected person, who would suffer severe bouts of vomiting and diarrhea. About half of people infected have died in the current outbreak, although up to 90 percent of patients have died in previous outbreaks.

Spain's government rejected criticism that its methods of dealing with Ebola were not working and blamed the infection of a Spanish nurse on human error.

Teresa Romero, 44, is the first person to have contracted Ebola outside of Africa after becoming infected by one of two Spanish priests repatriated from Africa with the disease. Romero had told another doctor at the hospital that she had touched her face with her protective gloves.

Macedonia officials are taking strict precautions after a British man died within hours of being admitted to hospital in the capital Skopje on Thursday.

Authorities sealed off a hotel where he had been staying, isolating a second Briton and hotel staff. The man had been suffering from fever, vomiting and internal bleeding, but it is not yet known whether he had Ebola and it was unclear whether he had traveled to West Africa.

A hospital in the Czech capital Prague is testing a 56-year-old man with symptoms of the disease who had recently traveled to Liberia, a spokesman said.

Containing the outbreak has become a top priority for governments around the world and is no longer just an issue in West Africa, where nearly 4,000 have died since March. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has estimated 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.

Shares in Lakeland Industries a maker of suits to wear while handling hazardous materials, rose more than 50 percent on Thursday on expectations of the disease spreading.


"OUR PEOPLE ARE DYING"

African leaders called on other countries to provide more money and equipment to deal with the Ebola crisis in the worst affected countries.

"Our people are dying," Sierra Leone's President Ernest Koroma told major donors gathered at a World Bank meeting in Washington via video conference. "Without you we can't succeed, without your quick response a tragedy unforeseen in modern times will threaten the well-being and compromise the security of people everywhere," he said.

Liberia is facing recession and may need more aid from the International Monetary Fund given the budgetary toll the virus has taken, its finance minister said.

"Our economy was projected to grow by 5.9 percent. That growth has been revised down to 1 percent," Finance Minister Amara Konneh said on Wednesday. "Technically, the economy is in recession."

A Republican senator on Thursday was holding up a $700 million increase in the U.S. military's funding to fight Ebola in West Africa, citing concerns about protecting the health of military staff and the long-term future of the mission.

The Obama administration originally requested a shift of $1 billion from a war operations budget to support the deployment of nearly 4,000 troops to West Africa and set up dozens of medical treatment facilities.


http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-fears-spread-spanish-nurse-worsens-british-man-065049547--finance.html

[Buster's Uncle]

U.N. Liberia medic arrives in Germany for Ebola treatment
Reuters
October 9, 2014 4:58 AM



LEIPZIG Germany (Reuters) - A medical official with the U.N. Mission in Liberia who tested positive for Ebola arrived in the German city of Leipzig on Thursday to be treated at a local clinic with specialist facilities, authorities said.

The unidentified medic infected in Liberia is the second member of the U.N. mission, known as UNMIL, to contract the virus. The first died on Sept. 25. He is the third Ebola patient to arrive in Germany for treatment.

"The man will be treated on an isolation ward... with strict security measures," said Dr Iris Minde, head of Leipzig's St Georg clinic in a statement. "There is no danger of infection for other patients, relatives, visitors or the public."

The hospital stressed its doctors and carers were fully prepared and have regular training on how to work in an isolation ward with highly infectious patients. A Spanish nurse became the first person to contract Ebola outside of Africa, while caring for a priest who died of the disease.

The world's worst outbreak of Ebola on record has killed 3,879 people by Oct. 5, most of them in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, according to the latest figures from the World Health Organisation (WHO).

A WHO employee who arrived in Germany from Sierra Leone for treatment last month was released last weekend after successful treatment at a clinic in Hamburg. Another patient is being treated in Frankfurt.


http://news.yahoo.com/u-n-liberia-medic-arrives-germany-ebola-treatment-085818936--business.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Thomas Eric Duncan Was Released From Hospital With 103-Degree Fever: Records
Good Morning America
By RHEANA MURRAY 56 minutes ago
 


Thomas Eric Duncan, the first person in the U.S. to be diagnosed with Ebola who later died, already had a high temperature when he was released from the hospital during his initial visit, according to records.

Duncan's fever reached 103 degrees while he was at the hospital in Dallas, which was flagged with an exclamation point in the system, according to records obtained by the Associated Press.

The victim's family confirmed to ABC News that the AP had obtained a copy of Duncan's medical records.

They reveal that Duncan rated his pain so severe it was an eight on a scale of one to 10 and he had complained of abdominal pain, dizziness, a headache and decreased urination. Doctors at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital gave him CT scans to rule out appendicitis, stroke and other ailments, according to the records.

But Duncan was sent home with antibiotics and told to take Tylenol. He returned to the hospital two days later when his symptoms worsened. He died this past Wednesday.

Duncan, who hails from Liberia, had arrived in the U.S. on Sept 20. to visit family in Dallas.

His neighbors in Monrovia told ABC News that he had helped carry a vomiting pregnant woman to get help, but his records reveal that he told the hospital he hadn't been in contact with anyone who was sick, according to the AP.

The hospital was aware that Duncan had recently been in Africa.

The Texas Department of State Health Services confirmed today that Duncan's remains have been cremated.

A family spokesperson said the ashes will be given to Duncan's son.

Four of Duncan's relatives are being monitored for the deadly disease and are in isolation. The family is waiting until after his girlfriend Louise Troh's incubation period ends to hold a funeral service. Troh, who is referred to as Duncan's wife by his family, currently has no symptoms of Ebola.


https://gma.yahoo.com/thomas-eric-duncan-released-hospital-103-degree-fever-190700547--abc-news-health.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Tomorrow's Results Today: Real-Time Ebola And HIV Dx
Forbes
Nicole Fisher Contributor  10/09/2014 @ 7:51AM



In a world where nearly 4 billion people lack access to basic health care, the need for mobile testing using simple methods such as a single drop of blood could have momentous impacts on care. The level of individualized, near real-time care could become a reality in the developing world, as well as in many remote areas of the industrialized world. Anita Goel, M.D., Ph.D., a Harvard-MIT-trained physicist and physician, claims, “technologies like our Gene-RADAR® are emerging from the new field of nanobiophysics which will mobilize, personalize, and decentralize the next generation of health infrastructure, exponentially increasing access on a global scale.”

Although there are significant gaps in health care around the world, there is no lack of technology in the health sector. But how do we prepare the ecosystem – especially the deeply entrenched, regulated system in the US – to adopt next-generation technologies like Gene-RADAR® – the first product coming out of Nanobiosym.  Gene-RADAR® is an iPad-sized mobile diagnostic platform that works off of a drop of blood or saliva to deliver a real-time diagnosis at a price point makers claim are 10 to 100 times cheaper than conventional tests.



Gene-RADAR


Decentralizing Health Care

When Google was launched in 1998 it revolutionized the world and our access to knowledge about the world, by taking books, manuscripts, music, general history and information out of libraries, and into homes, information began to decentralize immediately. Like that ground-breaking endeavor, Gene-RADAR® has the ability to be the first mobile device that can test for diabetes, tuberculosis, AIDS, HIV, Ebola, E.Coli and even certain types of cancer in under an hour. The ability, domestically and abroad, for individuals and providers to know this information without the US-based four-walled hospital could fundamentally transform the way we understand and practice medicine.

In the United States however, this means that we must prepare the ecosystem for the kinds of shocks that could result from unleashing this kind of technology. Further, it means understanding and harnessing the power of such technology that intersects physics, nanotechnology and information technology. When there are critical gaps and limitations to what can be done in silos, the need for combining these kinds of technologies and innovations is paramount. Gene-RADAR® integration means that potentially the unmet need for diagnosis is not only in the hands of those who need it, but that the costs also plummet.  With Gene-RADAR®, Nanobiosym aims to deliver the same test in a mobile device for at least 10 times cheaper and with real time results.


Unmet Need Meets Customization

Empowering individuals to take responsibility for their own health care begins with access. By bringing Gene-RADAR® to individuals, Dr. Goel believes that consumers will be more empowered to take ownership over their own health. Further, both industrialized nations and developing countries can benefit from increased access and quality of care.

Currently, Gene-RADAR® is custom building “apps” for customers in both the developed and developing worlds and have already designed two pilot studies to run simultaneously in a large US hospital system and in Rwanda.finger-blood





The aim in Rwanda, where 3% of the population is HIV+, is to improve basic testing and efficiency.  In collaboration with the country’s Ministry of Health, USAID, and other global health agencies, Nanobiosym hopes to eventually provide a low cost solution to an estimated 200,000 people in Rwanda in urgent need of HIV viral load tests today – a demand that their current traditional centralized lab infrastructure is not able to fulfill.

In the United States, Nanobiosym’s goal is to use Gene-RADAR® to demonstrate a mobile cost-effective and real-time solution to cut costs while delivering better patient care. This also enables the next generation of pharma, and how these changes will impact the way Americans are diagnosed and treated. What makes Gene-RADAR® special, says Dr. Goel, is that the applications behind the platform are extremely flexible, and therefore can be customized for each partners’ needs, accommodating their nuances such as the user group who will be tested, the disease targets and even the site location.


Policy Change Must Happen For The Entire Ecosystem

Health care is a multibillion-dollar industry in the US with significant supply chain issues.  This says nothing of the trillions of dollars spent globally each year on health care. For the world to embrace and realize the proposed impact of a disruptive technology like Gene-RADAR® many changes and partnerships will have to be forged.

Due to the potential disruption in diagnostics, access to care, treatment planning, monitoring, medical reimbursements and compensation, pharma and medical device industries, Nanobiosym has the potential to revolutionize what we consider personalized health care. This, however, will not come without difficulty, as none of those changes can exist in a vacuum. Policy, regulatory and pricing changes will have to occur across the ecosystem.



Dr. Anita Goel


At present, Dr. Goel and NBS have earned prestigious funding awards from many US-based government sponsors including, but not limited to, the Department of Defense, Department of Energy, US Air Force Office of Scientific Research, USAID and National Science Foundation. Nanobiosym also has an Advisory Board comprised of some of the world’s foremost science and technology experts such as MIT Professor Bob Langer and Cloud Computing Pioneer Paul Maritz, as well as business leaders like Ratan Tata of India’s Tata Group, Ambassador John Palmer, John Abele from Boston Scientific BSX 0% and Alfred Ford of the Ford Motor F -0.36% Company.

On September 27th and 28th, Nanobiosym convened on Harvard’s campus to host a Global Summit to “democratize health care.” In line with Dr. Goel’s vision, the Summit was created to focus on personalization and decentralization of the next generation of health care practices and the early adopters and change agents across various siloes within our ecosystem that are driving this transformation on a global scale.


http://www.forbes.com/sites/nicolefisher/2014/10/09/little-things-do-make-a-big-difference-globalizing-personal-health/?partner=yahootix

[Buster's Uncle]

Family of dead Texas Ebola patient grieve in isolation
Reuters
By Lisa Maria Garza  October 9, 2014 4:10 PM



DALLAS (Reuters) - Thomas Eric Duncan died without his loved ones. Now the family of the first person diagnosed with Ebola in the United States is grieving alone, some in quarantine and most isolated by social stigma and fear of the virus.

Duncan, a Liberian national who was visiting his fiancée in Texas, died in an isolation ward of a Dallas hospital on Wednesday unable to be surrounded by the people dearest to him. He died 11 days after being admitted.

About 48 people who had direct or indirect contact with Duncan since he arrived in Texas on Sept. 20 are being monitored, but none have yet shown any symptoms, health officials say. Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital said he was 45.

Duncan's fiancée, Louise Troh, is in mandatory quarantine at an undisclosed location within the city limits. Her only link to her family is daily phone calls. She has no TV or Internet access, her daughter Mawhen Jallah said.

For over a week, Jallah, 28, has missed work to stay home and care for her 2-year-old daughter Naya. The daycare provider the little girl usually attends refused to take her in because she is from "that family."

As she sat on a worn brown couch in her dimly lit apartment hours after hearing about Duncan’s death, Jallah sobbed while her daughter pranced around wearing a pink tutu.

"My God, help me understand what happened to Eric," she cried.

Troh’s other daughter, Youngor Jallah, and her kids had some contact with Duncan when he was symptomatic so they are under observation and a voluntary quarantine.

The focus has changed from praying for Duncan’s survival to counting the days until the 21-day incubation period is over and Troh is no longer in danger of being stricken with the deadly virus, Jallah said.

"It's very, very hard for her. It's going on almost two weeks now. We are not there to help her. It is so painful. We are African so when something happens to one person we always there for each other. Right now, there is nobody that can go to her. None of her children can see her and it is so frustrating."

Duncan's son with Troh, 19-year-old Karsiah Duncan, was hoping to rekindle their relationship after last seeing his father in Africa at age 3. Karsiah, who is a college student in San Angelo in west Texas, told reporters on the eve of Duncan’s death that he felt God was calling him home to visit Duncan.

He did not get the chance and is devastated, the family said.

(Editing by Jill Serjeant and Eric Walsh)


http://news.yahoo.com/family-dead-texas-ebola-patient-grieve-isolation-194332840.html

[Buster's Uncle]

'Epidemic of fear' could hurt Africa more than Ebola
Reuters
By Pascal Fletcher  8 hours ago



JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - An Ebola victim who traveled to the United States and a case of contagion in Europe have triggered a global frenzy to act. While Africa welcomes a real international response at last, there are also fears the reaction may be more damaging than the disease.

No one can minimize the horror of the daily deaths and suffering in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, as the silent but aggressive sickness wipes out families and communities, nor the health risk the virus poses to an interconnected global village.

But Africans at many levels are bristling at an unfocused and lop-sided view of the health emergency they say ignores geography, distorts reality and will set back the real development advances made by a continent in the last decade.

"Hysteria and panic, I see, are really more contagious than the disease itself," said economist Carlos Lopes from Guinea-Bissau, who heads the U.N. Economic Commission for Africa.

With some U.S. politicians clamoring for a quarantining of Africa after a Liberian traveler - who died this week - brought the disease to the United States, Lopes, along with other economists, politicians and business leaders, is worried that Sub-Saharan Africa will face blanket Ebola "stigmatization".

The vision of Africa held by investors and tourists had been brightening. The region, its one billion people and natural riches, was starting to be seen as a promising beacon of growth. Old stereotypes of a dark continent of poverty, conflict and pestilence were starting to be left behind.

Now however the epidemic - in three small countries of the continent's western corner that together represent just one percent of Africa's economy - threatens to hurt that progress.

"There are two epidemics - the health epidemic and the epidemic of fear," said Mark Weinberger, global chairman and CEO of business services firm Ernst & Young, which has tracked Africa's increasing attractiveness to investors in recent years.


SELF-FULFILLING SCENARIO

The World Bank warned this week that besides the severe damage to the epicenter economies of Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea - the latter two will see their GDP growth halved - West Africa as a sub-region could lose around $32 billion and even more than $40 billion if the Ebola emergency spreads to larger neighboring economies like Nigeria, Ivory Coast and Senegal.

The bank said that to avoid disruption to transportation, cross-border trade, supply chains and tourism in West Africa, remedial efforts needed to focus not just on "containing the epidemic" but also "mitigating aversion behavior".

In World Bank-speak, "aversion behavior" means knee-jerk panic reaction - flight and tourism cancellations, postponed business trips and meetings and shelved investment decisions, border closures, transport and travel curbs - which could multiply the economic damage of the Ebola epidemic.

"The impact is being felt all across Africa," Abdul Tejan-Cole, a Sierra Leonean who is executive director of the Open Society Initiative for West Africa, told Reuters.

Weinberger said the irrational fear factor could slow investment decisions about Africa and expressed concern that the World Bank's impact projection could become self-fulfilling.

"They are describing a worst-case scenario that may or may not happen," he told Reuters.


EBOLA "GOES ANYWHERE"

Ebola could have "dramatic consequences" for West Africa if it spreads, the International Monetary Fund acknowledged this week in its World Economic Outlook. But it maintained a bright forecast for Sub-Saharan Africa's prospects overall.

Forecasting the region's growth would accelerate to 5.8 percent next year from a buoyant 5.1 percent this year and in 2013, the IMF said: "The outlook is expected to remain favorable for the lion's share of the region's countries."

It's a broader perspective that Nigeria's finance minister, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, thinks should be kept at the forefront.

She bridles at what she terms sloppy media reporting about the epidemic, which she says unfairly paints the whole of West Africa, and the wider continent, with the same toxic brush.

"There is a danger. People are really scared of Ebola. We must manage the views on it properly," Okonjo-Iweala said on the sidelines of an FT Africa Summit 2014 in London.

She and others believe the media and experts should focus less on worst case scenarios and more on examples of success in containing Ebola. For example Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation and biggest economy, appears to have checked its own small outbreak that was imported by a sick Liberian.

Senegal has also contained a similar imported outbreak.

In the Ebola hot zones of Liberia and Sierra Leone, reactions are torn between welcoming the increased international attention and rejecting its Doomsday focus.

"They've splattered photos of hopeless patients lying on the floor without showing any respect for their dignity as human beings," said Ibrahim Kamara from Makeni in Sierra Leone.

Obsessive Western media cover of the United States and Spanish cases - so few in comparison with daily death tolls in West Africa - also prompts fierce objections.

But others believe it will at least keep the world focused on fighting the epidemic.

"The more they delay, the more bad it becomes for the world. Ebola has no boundary, it goes anywhere and attacks anytime," said Richard Kemokai, a social worker in Liberia.

(Additional reporting by Umaru Fofana in Freetown, David Lewis in Dakar, Karin Strohecker in London, Ed Cropley in Johannesburg, and Alphonso Toweh in Washington; Editing by Sophie Walker)


http://news.yahoo.com/epidemic-fear-could-hurt-africa-more-ebola-123717954--business.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Macedonia checking for Ebola after Briton dies, hotel sealed off
Reuters
By Kole Casule  October 9, 2014 3:20 PM



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



SKOPJE (Reuters) - Macedonia said it was checking for the Ebola virus in a British man who died within hours of being admitted to hospital in the capital Skopje on Thursday.

Authorities sealed off a hotel where he had been staying, isolating a second Briton and hotel staff.

A Health Ministry official said the man had arrived from Britain on Oct. 2 and had been rushed to hospital at 3 p.m. (9 a.m. EDT) on Thursday, where he died several hours later.

Dr. Jovanka Kostovska of the ministry's commission for infectious diseases said the man had been suffering from fever, vomiting and internal bleeding, and that his condition had deteriorated rapidly.

Amid fears that the disease might spread in Europe, Kostovska told a news conference: "These are all symptoms of Ebola, which raises suspicions with this patient."

It was unclear, however, whether the man had recently been to West Africa, where Ebola has killed nearly 4,000 people since March in the largest outbreak on record.

"Initially we had information that he had been to Nigeria, but then his friend told us they hadn't been anywhere," said Kostovska.

A government spokesman said later: "Medical authorities have informed us that up till now they cannot confirm whether the patient who died had Ebola. But as a precaution, based on the protocol of the World Health Organisation, medical authorities are taking all measures as if the patient had been suffering from a highly infectious disease."

Ebola is spread through direct contact with body fluids from an infected person.

The health of a Spanish nurse, the first person believed to have contracted Ebola outside Africa, worsened on Thursday in Madrid. A hospital in the Czech capital Prague is testing a 56-year-old man with symptoms of the disease, a spokesman said.

Kostovska said that blood and tissue samples would be sent to Germany for tests, and that steps had been taken to isolate the hotel where the Briton had stayed. Authorities did not name the man, saying only that he was born in 1956.

(Writing by Matt Robinson; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)


http://news.yahoo.com/macedonia-seals-hotel-briton-dies-suspected-ebola-180926598.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Spain Ebola patient at 'serious risk' of dying
AFP
By Roland Lloyd Parry  October 9, 2014 4:15 PM



Medical staff wearing protective suits work in a quarantine area on October 8, 2014 at the Carlos III hospital in Madrid, where a Spanish nurse was admitted infected with Ebola (AFP Photo/Curto de la Torre)



Madrid (AFP) - A Spanish nurse who is the first person known to have been infected with Ebola outside Africa is at "serious risk" of dying after her condition worsened Thursday, officials said.

Teresa Romero, 44, is "very ill and her life is at serious risk as a consequence of the virus," Madrid's regional president Ignacio Gonzalez told parliament.

A spokeswoman for the La Paz-Carlos III hospital where Romero is being treated told reporters: "Her clinical situation has deteriorated but I can't provide more information," on the patient's request.

Romero helped treat two elderly Spanish missionaries who died after returning from west Africa with Ebola in August and September. She tested positive for the disease on Monday.

Her case has heightened concerns that the worst epidemic of Ebola on record could spread from west Africa, where it began late last year. It has since killed nearly 3,900 people, mostly in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.

Romero went on leave after the second of the missionaries died on September 25. Authorities said she did not leave Madrid's region.

She started to feel ill on September 29 but was not admitted to hospital until seven days later, during which time officials fear other people may have been exposed.



A photo taken on October 9, 2014 in Madrid shows Spanish newspapers featuring pictures of nurse Teresa Romero (AFP Photo/Tom Gandolfini)


Health Minister Ana Mato said in a statement the government was working to "boost the protocol for tackling Ebola to exceed European recommendations".

She added that she would discuss the situation at meeting with regional health officials on Friday.


- Health protocols 'failed' -

Romero had been receiving injections with antibodies extracted from the blood of Ebola survivors, hospital officials said.

Arriving at the hospital on Thursday, her brother Jose Ramon said he believed doctors were going to switch her to a different treatment. He believed she had been intubated, but the hospital denied this.

Romero said in a newspaper interview published Wednesday she thought she might have caught the deadly virus by touching her face with an infected glove after cleaning the room of one of the missionaries.

Health officials said they were monitoring scores of other people -- mostly health staff -- who had been in contact with Romero. They will be under observation for 21 days, the maximum incubation period for Ebola.

Seven other people have been admitted to the hospital as a precaution, including Romero's husband and several health workers, the hospital said, raising that figure by one on Thursday after another doctor was taken in for observation.

The nurse's family dog -- a mixed breed mutt named Excalibur -- was put down on Wednesday as a precaution, triggering an uproar from animal rights activists.

Ebola is transmitted by close contact with the bodily fluids of a person who is showing symptoms of infection or who has recently died of the virus. Symptoms include fever, aches, vomiting and diarrhoea.

Regional health minister Javier Rodriguez, a member of Gonzalez's administration run by Spain's ruling conservative Popular Party, admitted on Wednesday that "something had not worked" properly in the health safety protocol that were meant to prevent Ebola infections.

Spain's Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has said officials are investigating how the infection happened.

The opposition Socialist Party has called for a crisis committee of ministers to be set up to coordinate the response and keep the public informed.


http://news.yahoo.com/spain-ebola-patient-serious-risk-dying-164033054.html