Ebola news 10/11

[Buster's Uncle]

Dead Briton in Macedonia did not have Ebola: official
AFP
19 minutes ago



Medical staff arrive at the Super 8 hotel in Skopje after visiting quarantined guests and personnel following the death of a British man who allegedly displayed Ebola-like symptoms, on October 10, 2014 (AFP Photo/Robert Atanasovski)



Skopje (AFP) - A British man who died in Macedonia displaying Ebola-like symptoms did not have the disease, results from a German lab analysis showed, an official said on Saturday.

"The patient did not have the Ebola virus," health ministry spokeswoman Jovanka Kostovska told reporters.

An autopsy to determine the cause of his death was being undertaken, she said.

Thirty-five people quarantined after it was thought they had contact with him were to be released.

The British man died in the Macedonian capital Skopje on Thursday after displaying fever and severe vomiting, symptoms associated with Ebola.

Initial tests in Macedonia showed it was highly unlikely that the man had Ebola, but authorities sent samples to a laboratory in Hamburg for further analysis.

Macedonian authorities quarantined 25 people from the hotel where the man had been staying, including a fellow Briton, along with 10 people in the hospital where he was admitted.

The head of the hospital, Zvonko Milenkovic, said Saturday that Briton's symptoms may be of various illnesses but excluded any infectious disease.

Macedonian official have not named the victim, saying only that he was born in 1956.

He arrived in Macedonia from London on October 2 and was not thought to have travelled to any of the west African countries affected by the Ebola virus, his friends were reported to have said.

The current Ebola outbreak, the worst on record, has claimed more than 4,000 lives since the start of the year, mainly in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

A nurse in Spain this week became the first person to contract the killer virus outside Africa, after caring for two repatriated Ebola patients who later died at a Madrid hospital.


http://news.yahoo.com/dead-briton-macedonia-did-not-ebola-official-173056206.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Could Ebola Really Be the 'Next AIDS'?
LiveScience.com
By Rachael Rettner  October 10, 2014 11:33 AM



A scanning electron micrograph of the Ebola virus.



The Ebola outbreak has been escalating in the past few months, but could it cause a global pandemic similar to that of AIDS, as was suggested today by a top public health official?

Speaking at a meeting in Washington, D.C., today (Oct. 9), Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, compared the two diseases. "In the 30 years I've been working in public health, the only thing like this has been AIDS," Frieden said, referring to the Ebola outbreak. "And we have to work now so that this is not the world's next AIDS."

Ebola and HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, have a number of similarities. Both are spread through blood and bodily fluids, both have high fatality rates, both emerged out of Africa and researchers have not developed a vaccine against either virus, said Dr. Amesh Adalja, an infectious-disease physician at the University of Pittsburgh.

But there are also major differences between the two viruses that would prevent Ebola infections from becoming as widespread as AIDS, experts say.

HIV has a long latency period during which people are able to spread the virus — for example, through sexual activity or sharing hypodermic needles — but do not yet have any symptoms of the disease, Adalja said. In contrast, the Ebola virus does not spread from people who do not yet have symptoms, and once people do get sick, they feel too ill to go about their usual activities, Adalja said.

The fact that Ebola does not have a latency period "will be one of the limiting factors of its spread," Adalja said.

Dr. Bruce Hirsch, an infectious-disease specialist at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, New York, agreed. "I do not think that Ebola has the potential to be the world's next AIDS," Hirsch said.

Unfortunately, Ebola is a quick killer, but this means the outbreak will eventually burn itself out, Hirsch said. "That's both its terror and also the advantage we have, in terms of public health measures to control the virus," Hirsch said.

Still, the Ebola outbreak is similar to AIDS in the lessons it holds, he said. "I do think that Ebola has the potential to teach us the same message that AIDS has taught us," which is that the health of humans around the world is connected, Hirsch said.

"If anyone is deprived of appropriate health care … everybody on the planet is going to pay the price for that," Hirsch said. "We need to think about our health globally."

The Ebola outbreak had sickened more than 8,000 people in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, and killed more than 3,800 people as of Oct. 5, when the numbers were last updated, according to the CDC. The United States recently had its first case of Ebola (a man named Thomas Eric Duncan, who died this week), and Spain also has a case of Ebola.

The projected worst-case scenario is that 1.4 million people in Liberia and Sierra Leone could be infected with Ebola in four months, according to a recent report from the CDC.

It is essential to prevent a worst-case scenario in these countries, Hirsch said, not only because the death toll would be a human tragedy, but also because the outbreak puts people around the world at risk. "We are not safe from Ebola until everyone is safe from Ebola," Hirsch said.


http://news.yahoo.com/could-ebola-really-next-aids-153348807.html