Ebola news 10/13

[Buster's Uncle]

Ebola Update: Only 1 Person Had Contact with Infected Nurse
LiveScience.com
By Bahar Gholipour  56 minutes ago



Only one person has had contact with the second person to develop Ebola in Texas during the time when she might have been contagious, health officials said today (Oct. 13).

The second person with Ebola in Dallas is a nurse at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital. She was involved in caring for Thomas Eric Duncan, the first person to be diagnosed with Ebola in the United States, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services.

It is still unclear how the nurse contracted the virus despite wearing protective gear. She is now being treated and is in a stable condition, according to officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Health officials have identified one person who had contact with the nurse and are monitoring that person for any signs of the disease. Other people who cared for Duncan will be monitored formally as well, Dr. Tom Frieden, CDC director, said in a news conference today.

"We are doing a detailed investigation to better understand what might have happened," and at which step of Duncan's treatment the nurse might have contracted the virus, Frieden said. "Even a single infection is unacceptable," he said.

The nurse came down with a fever Friday night, and tested positive for Ebola. The CDC confirmed the case on Sunday (Oct. 12) after performing a second test. She is the first person to contract Ebola within the United States. (Duncan contracted the disease in Liberia.)

As a precautionary measure, the nurse was monitoring herself for any signs of infection, and sought care when she developed symptoms. The CDC had previously been monitoring about 48 people who had contact with Duncan before he was isolated and received treatment. Health officials will now formally monitor the people who treated Duncan and will identify people who had contact with the second case.

People can get infected with Ebola if they have direct contact with bodily fluids of a sick person or with objects such as contaminated needles. It can take from two to 21 days for an infected person to start showing symptoms, such as fever. After 21 days, if an exposed person has not developed symptoms, they will not become sick with Ebola, according to the CDC.

"Every hospital in this country needs to think about the possibility of Ebola in anyone with a fever who has travelled to West Africa in the past 21 days," Frieden said.

Since early 2014, more than 8,300 people have become ill and more than 4,000 have died of Ebola in the outbreak in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.


http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-only-1-person-had-contact-infected-nurse-171003376.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Investigators rush to find out how Ebola struck Dallas nurse
Reuters
By Lisa Maria Garza and Terry Wade  49 minutes ago



As hazmat crews clean up the Dallas home of the second patient diagnosed with Ebola in the U.S., neighbors say they're shocked but not afraid



DALLAS (Reuters) - Health investigators were racing on Monday to figure out how a nurse in Texas contracted Ebola even though she used protective equipment when treating a Liberian who died of the disease in Dallas last week.

The inquiry, reported by the Dallas Morning News, underscores the increased scrutiny hospital officials face over whether safety precautions taken by medical staff are sufficient and as nurses groups demand better training to avoid becoming infected with the deadly virus.

The newspaper, which did not name the public agency leading the inquiry, said the nurse whose infection was reported on Sunday could have been exposed to Ebola when two invasive procedures were performed to try to keep Thomas Eric Duncan alive: kidney dialysis and intubation to help him breathe. Both procedures have a high risk of causing transmission.

Officials said the worker at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas had used protective gear during treatment, including gowns, gloves, masks and shields as recommended by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Meanwhile, Louisiana's top law enforcement official said he would file a temporary restraining order to prevent the personal items of Duncan, who died on Wednesday, to be buried in a local landfill, even after being incinerated.



A hazmat worker moves a barrel while finishing up cleaning outside an apartment building of a hospital worker, Sunday, Oct. 12, 2014, in Dallas. The Texas health care worker, who was in full protective gear when they provided hospital care for Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan, who later died, has tested positive for the virus and is in stable condition, health officials said Sunday. (AP Photo/LM Otero)


Louisiana Attorney General Buddy Caldwell said material collected from Duncan and the Dallas apartment where he was staying was taken to Port Arthur, Texas on Friday to be processed at the Veolia Environmental Services incinerator. From there the incinerated material would go to a hazardous waste landfill in Louisiana.

"There are too many unknowns at this point, and it is absurd to transport potentially hazardous Ebola waste across state lines," Caldwell said in a statement.

The infected worker, a woman who officials have not named, is the first person to contract the disease in the United States. She had close and frequent contact during the 11-day treatment of Duncan.

The current Ebola outbreak is the worst outbreak on record and has killed more than 4,000 people, mostly in West Africa's Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. Duncan, a Liberian, was exposed to Ebola in his home country and developed the disease while visiting the United States.

The new case prompted President Barack Obama to order federal authorities to take additional steps to ensure the American medical system is prepared to follow correct protocols in dealing with Ebola, the White House said on Sunday.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on Sunday the nurse's illness indicated a professional lapse that may have caused other health workers at the hospital to be infected as well.

(Reporting By Terry Wadel; editing by Andrew Hay)


http://news.yahoo.com/investigators-rush-ebola-struck-dallas-nurse-160629231.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Nina Pham identified as Dallas nurse with Ebola
Yahoo News
By Jason Sickles, 1 hour ago
 



Dallas nurse Nina Pham contracted Ebola (Facebook)



DALLAS — The Texas nurse who contracted Ebola while caring for the first person to die of the virus in the U.S. has been identified as 26-year-old Nina Pham.

Health officials have not released the nurse’s name, but Yahoo News identified Pham through public records and a state nursing database.

Then on Monday, Pham’s family confirmed her identity to USA Today, the publication reported.

Pham, a critical care nurse at Texas Health Presbyterian Dallas, is one of at least 50 people who cared for Thomas Eric Duncan before he passed away last Wednesday.

Pham has been in isolation since late Friday. The CDC confirmed her Ebola diagnosis on Sunday. It is the first time the deadly virus has ever been transmitted in the United States.

The Dallas resident is a 2010 graduate of Texas Christian University and has been a nurse since June 2010, according to state records.

CDC director Dr. Thomas Frieden said Pham is in stable condition at Texas Health Presbyterian. An unidentified person Pham had close contact with last week is also in isolation at the hospital, but Frieden said that individual has not become ill.

Investigators have not determined how Pham specifically contracted the disease from Duncan, who died on his 10th day of intensive care at Texas Health Presbyterian.

"If this one individual was infected and we don't know how — within the isolation unit — then it is possible that other individuals could have been infected as well," Frieden said during a press conference. "We consider them to be at risk and we are doing an in-depth review and investigation."

A day earlier, Frieden characterized the transmission from Duncan to Pham as a possible breach in safety protocols. On Monday he apologized for those remarks.

"Some interrupted that as finding fault with the hospital or the health care worker, and I'm sorry if that was the impression given, that was certainly not my intention," Frieden said. "What we need to do, is all take responsibility for improving the safety of those on the front lines. I feel awful that a health care worker became infected in the care of an Ebola patient. She was there trying to help the first patient survive."

Tom Ha, a longtime friend of Pham's family, told the Dallas Morning News that it is in the nurse's genes to go out of her way to assist others.

"I expect, with the big heart that she has, she went beyond what she was supposed to do to help anyone in need," Ha told the newspaper.

(This story was updated at 2:05 p.m. ET.)


http://news.yahoo.com/nina-pham-identified-as-dallas-nurse-with-ebola-165521689.html

[Buster's Uncle]

WHO: Ebola is modern era's worst health emergency
Associated Press
By JIM GOMEZ  6 hours ago



Ebola outbreak in west Africa, Nigeria and aboard as of Oct. 10, 2014. (World Health Organization/Yahoo News)



MANILA, Philippines (AP) — The World Health Organization called the Ebola outbreak "the most severe, acute health emergency seen in modern times" on Monday but also said that economic disruptions can be curbed if people are adequately informed to prevent irrational moves to dodge infection.

WHO Director-General Margaret Chan, citing World Bank figures, said 90 percent of economic costs of any outbreak "come from irrational and disorganized efforts of the public to avoid infection."

Staffers of the global health organization "are very well aware that fear of infection has spread around the world much faster than the virus," Chan said in a statement read out to a regional health conference in the Philippine capital, Manila.

"We are seeing, right now, how this virus can disrupt economies and societies around the world," she said, but added that adequately educating the public was a "good defense strategy" and would allow governments to prevent economic disruptions.

The Ebola epidemic has killed more than 4,000 people, mostly in the West African countries of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, according to WHO figures published last week.

Chan did not specify those steps but praised the Philippines for holding an anti-Ebola summit last week which was joined by government health officials and private sector representatives, warning that the Southeast Asian country was vulnerable due to the large number of Filipinos working abroad.

While bracing for Ebola, health officials should continue to focus on major health threats, including non-communicable diseases, she said.

Philippine Health Secretary Enrique Ona said authorities will ask more than 1,700 Filipinos working in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea to observe themselves for at least 21 days for Ebola symptoms in those countries first if they plan to return home.

Once home, they should observe themselves for another 21 days and then report the result of their self-screening to health authorities to be doubly sure they have not been infected, he said, adding that hospitals which would deal with any Ebola patients have already been identified in the Philippines.

Last month, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged leaders in the most affected countries to establish special centers that aim to isolate infected people from non-infected relatives in an effort to stem the spread of Ebola.

Ban has also appealed for airlines and shipping companies not to suspend services to countries affected by Ebola. Doing so, he said, hinders delivery of humanitarian and medical assistance.


http://news.yahoo.com/calls-ebola-modern-worlds-worst-health-crisis-071902865.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Britain to send ambulances for suspected Ebola cases
AFP
52 minutes ago



Doctors and nurses pictured during a training exercise at the Army Medical Services Training Centre (AMSTC) at Strensall near York, northern England on October 7, 2014 (AFP Photo/Graham Harrison)



London (AFP) - Ambulances and medics in protective suits will be sent to anyone calling Britain's health emergency helpline with Ebola-like symptoms, the government announced Monday.

People dialling the 111 phone line, used for non-life-threatening emergencies, will be asked if they have been to west Africa recently and if they show typical signs of having contracted the virus.

No cases of Ebola infection have been reported so far in Britain and the public health risk is deemed low but authorities expect to see a handful of cases in the coming months.

Centred in the hard-hit west African countries of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, the worst-ever Ebola epidemic has already claimed more than 4,000 lives.

Call handlers are asking anyone reporting potential symptoms -- such as respiratory problems, high temperatures, or diarrhoea and vomiting -- about their recent travel history.

"If the person with symptoms has recently been to west Africa and is at high risk of having been in contact with Ebola, 111 will immediately refer them to local emergency services for assessment by ambulance personnel with appropriate protective equipment," Hunt said.

He said the screening and monitoring of travellers coming from the worst-affected countries would begin Tuesday at London Heathrow Airport's Terminal 1, which receives around 85 percent of all such arrivals at Britain's biggest airport.

The system will be expanded by the end of next week to the other Heathrow terminals, London Gatwick Airport and on the Eurostar trains linking London and southeast England with France and Belgium.

Passengers will have their temperature taken, and complete a questionnaire about their current health, recent travel history and potential contact with Ebola patients.

Any potential carriers will undergo a clinical assessment and if necessary be transferred to hospital.

"This will allow potential Ebola carriers arriving to be identified, tracked and given rapid access to expert health advice, should they develop symptoms," Hunt told parliament.

He said the measures should reach 89 percent of travellers known to have come from the affected region, admitting that no screening and monitoring procedure could catch 100 percent of people coming through.

Passengers will be asked to identify themselves "in their own best interests".

Hunt said the number of deaths was doubling in west Africa every three to four weeks but if 70 percent of those infected could reach treatment centres, the outbreak could be contained.

A British aid programme is rapidly training health workers in Sierra Leone and increasing the number of beds to accommodate patients.

Britain staged a nationwide exercise Saturday to test its readiness for an outbreak, featuring medics interacting with actors.


http://news.yahoo.com/britain-send-ambulances-suspected-ebola-cases-103325982.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Five Ugandans in isolation after Ebola-like Marburg virus death
AFP
8 hours ago



Ugandan medical staff disinfect a desk bearing a poster reading "Ebola" at the Entebbe International Airport on August 8, 2014 (AFP Photo/Isaac Kasamani)



Kampala (AFP) - Ugandan health officials said Monday that they are continuing to monitor five people feared to have contracted the Ebola-like Marburg virus, even though all suspected cases so far have tested negative.

A 30-year-old medical technician died from Marburg on September 28, 11 days after falling ill, at the Mengo hospital in the capital where he worked, sparking alarm in the east African nation.

"All the alert and suspect cases have been thoroughly investigated, and have all tested negative for the Marburg virus," primary health care minister Sarah Opendi Achieng said in a statement on Monday.

But five people are in medical isolation as doctors monitor their health as a precautionary measure.

The Marburg virus is one of the most deadly known pathogens. Like Ebola, it causes severe bleeding, fever, vomiting and diarrhoea and has a 21-day incubation period.

The government has made repeated appeals to the public "to remain alert" and observe the precautions to control the spread of the virus.

Like Ebola, the Marburg virus is also transmitted via contact with bodily fluids and fatality rates range from 25 to 80 percent.

The Ebola epidemic that has been raging in west Africa has so far claimed over 4,000 lives, with Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone worst hit.

A Marburg outbreak in Uganda in October 2012 killed 10 people.


http://news.yahoo.com/five-ugandans-isolation-ebola-marburg-virus-death-100016088.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Texas nurse infected with Ebola praised for her compassion: paper
Reuters
2 hours ago



DALLAS (Reuters) - The young woman who is first person known to have contracted the Ebola virus in the United States is a critical care nurse who graduated from Texas Christian University in 2010 and whose friends praised as compassionate, the Dallas Morning News reported on Monday.

The newspaper said it did not publish the young woman's name because it has not been released by Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital but identified her through public records, social media sites, a state nursing database and interviews with people who knew her. It did not publish her age.

Health officials have said she had close and frequent contact with Thomas Eric Duncan, the first person diagnosed with Ebola in the United States, during his 11-day treatment at the hospital. Duncan contracted Ebola in his home country of Liberia and became ill after arriving in Texas. He died on Wednesday.

There has been no official statement given on her condition but health officials have said testing indicated that the Ebola virus infection level in her body was relatively low.

After graduating from Texas Christian University, she pursued a career in nursing and in August posted on her Facebook site that she had became a registered nurse and obtained credentials as a critical care nurse, the newspaper reported.

The newspaper reported that the woman owns a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel and that officials said the dog was being cared for.

At the Fort Worth church she attended with her family, she is known for her caring.

"I expect, with the big heart that she has, she went beyond what she was supposed to do to help anyone in need," Tom Ha, who taught the woman in his Bible class at Our Lady of Fatima, told the newspaper.

Ha told the newspaper that he and others are translating health information into Vietnamese to assist others in learning about Ebola.

On Sunday, her apartment in a section of Dallas known for its carefully restored older homes, was cleaned by a team specializing in removing hazard materials.

(Reporting by Jon Herskovitz; Editing by Will Dunham)


http://news.yahoo.com/texas-nurse-infected-ebola-praised-her-compassion-paper-154623364.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Some families affected by Ebola in Liberia pay bribes to keep the bodies
Yahoo News
By Dylan Stableford  3 hours ago



A Liberian policeman watches as an Ebola burial team prepares to take away the body of Mekie Nagbe, 28, for cremation on October 10, 2014 in Monrovia, Liberia. Nagbe, a market vendor, collapsed and died outside her home earlier in the morning while leaving to walk to a treatment center, according to her relatives. The burial of loved ones is important in Liberian culture, making the removal of infected bodies for cremation all the more traumatic for surviving family members. (Getty Images/John Moore)



Health workers scrambling to contain the deadly Ebola virus in Liberia now have to contend with an outbreak of corruption among those detailed to collect the bodies of victims.

The Wall Street Journal reports that retrieval teams are accepting bribes from families of Ebola victims to issue death certificates that say their loved ones died of other causes, allowing them to keep their bodies for a traditional burial.

“The family says the person is not an Ebola patient, and [the retrieval team] pull them away from the other people," Vincent Chounse, a community outreach worker on the outskirts of Monrovia, told the paper. "Then they say, ‘We can give you a certificate from the Ministry of Health that it wasn’t Ebola.' Sometimes it is $40. Sometimes it is $50. ... Then they offer bags to them and [the family] carry on their own thing.” A teenager in Montserrado told the Journal he saw the father of his neighbor pay $150 for a certificate that said his son's corpse was Ebola-free.

Government Information Minister Lewis Brown told the paper his office has received reports of health workers issuing fake death certificates, but he added that no burial team has "a capacity to go and issue certificates."

According to the World Health Organization, more than 4,000 Ebola cases have been reported in Liberia, resulting in 2,316 deaths since the outbreak began.

But local health officials say the numbers are not adding up.

“We are not receiving the amount of community calls that we should be,” Agnes “Cokie” van der Velde, who oversees body collection teams for Doctors Without Borders, told the paper.

The grim task of removing bodies infected with Ebola is critical, health officials say, because the dead are a major source of contagion.

Working against them is the stigma associated with Ebola among West Africans, and the desire for the family to have a traditional burial. Often, communities will assume that one person infected with the disease means his or her entire family is infected and therefore is discriminated against and shunned.

Van der Velde said while she was not aware of body retrieval teams accepting bribes, they are nonetheless in a tricky position. “We try to be very respectful, but in the end what we’re doing is taking their loved one, zipping them in a bag and taking them away."


http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-families-bodies-bribes-153423993.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Liberia avoids mass hospital strike amid Ebola
Associated Press
By JONATHAN PAYE-LAYLEH  2 hours ago



Liberian officials are pleading with nurses and physician assistants to show up to work Monday amid a dispute over hazard pay that has prompted calls for a strike in the middle of the Ebola epidemic. A strike could deliver a serious blow to the fight against Ebola in Liberia, where the World Health Organization has recorded more than 2,300 confirmed, suspected and probable deaths from the deadly disease — more than any other country.



MONROVIA, Liberia (AP) — Health workers reported for duty at Liberia's hospitals on Monday, largely defying calls for a strike that could have further hampered the country's ability to respond to the worst Ebola outbreak in history.

Nurses and other health workers — though not doctors — had threatened to strike if they did not receive the higher hazard pay they had been promised by the government. That would have made the already difficult care of Ebola patients even harder, since the bulk of the staff at clinics and hospitals is made of up of Liberia's nurses, physician assistants and community health workers.

Underscoring how overwhelmed the health system is, one patient in Liberia's capital complained Monday about a lack of food and water.

"Since this morning we have not eaten any food, there is no water, no medicine. We are dying," Junior Flomo, a patient at John F. Kennedy Memorial Medical Center in Monrovia, told The Associated Press by phone.

The outbreak has also reduced access to health care for those with other diseases because many hospitals and clinics have shut, often because their staff are afraid to come to work or are not sufficiently trained to handle a patient with Ebola if one arrives.

In Guinea, a private clinic that served much of the city's elite, including many expatriates, stopped accepting new patients this weekend after a woman there showed symptoms of Ebola. The woman never went past the lobby of the clinic, a statement from the medical center in the capital Conakry said Monday, and the area she was in has been disinfected and sealed off.



Debora Patta is on the ground in the Liberian capital of Monrovia, where international effort could start paying off to stop the spread of Ebola.


Patients who were already inside the clinic are still being cared for and are at no risk, the statement said, since they never had any contact with the woman.

Doctors Without Borders is following up with anyone the woman came into contact with. She is now being treated for Ebola at a hospital, the statement said.

The Ebola outbreak that was first identified in March in Guinea has hammered Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. Around 8,400 people are believed to have caught the disease. Liberia has recorded the highest death toll with more than 2,300 deaths linked to the virus.

Health care workers in West Africa are particularly vulnerable, working in overcrowded wards, often without proper protective gear and not enough staff. About 400 health care workers have become infected in this outbreak, nearly half of those in Liberia.

Despite that, head doctors at several hospitals said their staff largely showed up for work Monday.



Liberian health workers queue to enter one of the largest Ebola treatment units at the Island Clinic Monrovia ,Liberia. Monday, Oct. 13, 2014. Some nurses in Liberia defied calls for a strike on Monday and turned up for work at hospitals amid the worst Ebola outbreak in history. In view of the danger of their work, members of the National Health Workers Association are demanding higher monthly hazard pay. The association has more than 10,000 members, though the health ministry says only about 1,000 of those are employed at sites receiving Ebola patients. (AP Photo/ Abbas Dulleh)


"Considering the situation in which we find ourselves we don't think strike is the way forward," said Dr. Jerry Brown, head of ELWA2, a treatment center on the outskirts of Monrovia. "Because if we strike now, more and more patients will remain in the communities. And as more and more patients remain in the communities, there will be more new cases and there will be a setback."

"Things are back to normal, and we are working," said Dr. Atai Omoruto, a Ugandan doctor heading up an Ebola treatment center at Island Clinic in the western suburbs of Monrovia, Liberia's capital. She said all nurses and physician assistants were at work.

Other hospitals also said all their employees were at work, and health workers could be seen lining up outside one clinic near the capital to get in.

But at one government hospital in Tubmanburg, 60 kilometers (40 miles) from the capital, only some nurses and physician assistants were reporting to work Monday, said Dr. Gobee Logan, the doctor in charge there.

George Williams of the Health Workers Association, which represents 10,000 health workers, including about 1,000 who work on Ebola wards, accused the Liberian government of pressuring people to go back to work.



A Liberian policeman watches as an Ebola burial team prepares to take away the body of Mekie Nagbe, 28, for cremation on October 10, 2014 in Monrovia, Liberia. Nagbe, a market vendor, collapsed and died outside her home earlier in the morning while leaving to walk to a treatment center, according to her relatives. The burial of loved ones is important in Liberian culture, making the removal of infected bodies for cremation all the more traumatic for surviving family members. (Getty Images/John Moore)


Information Minister Lewis Brown said the government had simply asked health workers to go to work since it is in the national interest.

It was unclear if the health workers had been offered higher hazard pay, as they were demanding.

Liberia initially agreed to pay $700 per month in hazard pay to health workers, including nurses and physician assistants, on top of monthly salaries of about $200 or $300. But the government has since lowered that bonus to $435 per month, saying it can't afford the higher rate because the epidemic and efforts to contain it have expanded so much.

Doctors receive at least $825 in monthly hazard pay, and their salaries are more than double those of most other health workers.

___

Associated Press writer Boubacar Diallo in Conakry, Guinea, contributed to this report.


http://news.yahoo.com/nurses-turning-hospitals-liberia-103634667.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Ebola: How it spreads
Associated Press
By The Associated Press  October 12, 2014 2:04 PM



First responders guard the apartment of a healthcare worker Sunday, Oct. 12, 2014, in Dallas. The healthcare worker, who was caring for Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan, tested positive for the disease in preliminary tests. If the preliminary diagnosis is confirmed, it would be the first known case of the disease being contracted or transmitted in the U.S. (AP Photo/Brandon Wade)



Some facts about how Ebola spreads:

WHEN IS EBOLA CONTAGIOUS?

Only when someone is showing symptoms, which can start with vague symptoms including a fever, flu-like body aches and abdominal pain, and then vomiting and diarrhea.

HOW DOES EBOLA SPREAD?

Through close contact with a symptomatic person's bodily fluids, such as blood, sweat, vomit, feces, urine, saliva or semen. Those fluids must have an entry point, like a cut or scrape or someone touching the nose, mouth or eyes with contaminated hands, or being splashed. That's why health care workers wear protective gloves and other equipment.

The World Health Organization says blood, feces and vomit are the most infectious fluids, while the virus is found in saliva mostly once patients are severely ill and the whole live virus has never been culled from sweat.

The Texas Department of State Health Services said Sunday that a health-care worker who provided hospital care for the first patient to die from Ebola in the United States has tested positive for the virus. The worker, who was not identified, was wearing full protective gear while attending to the patient during his second visit to the hospital, according to a hospital official. If the diagnosis is confirmed, it would be the first known case of Ebola being transmitted in the U.S.

WHAT ABOUT MORE CASUAL CONTACT?

Ebola isn't airborne. Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has said people don't get exposed by sitting next to someone on the bus.

"This is not like flu. It's not like measles, not like the common cold. It's not as spreadable, it's not as infectious as those conditions," he added.

WHO GETS TESTED WHEN EBOLA IS SUSPECTED?

Hospitals with a suspected case call their health department or the CDC to go through a checklist to determine the person's level of risk. Among the questions are whether the person reports a risky contact with a known Ebola patient, how sick they are and whether an alternative diagnosis is more likely. Most initially suspicious cases in the U.S. haven't met the criteria for testing.

HOW IS IT CLEANED UP?

The CDC says bleach and other hospital disinfectants kill Ebola. Dried virus on surfaces survives only for several hours.


http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-spreads-120132608--politics.html

[Buster's Uncle]

How is Dallas coping in face of second Ebola diagnosis?
'It is calmer this time – we have been through it once,' says Dallas Councilwoman Jennifer Staubach Gates, after a nurse was diagnosed with the disease.
Christian Science Monitor
By Bryan Kay  19 minutes ago


When news first broke that a man visiting Dallas, Thomas Eric Duncan, had tested positive for Ebola, a creeping sense of unease gripped the city.

Almost two weeks later, after a nurse who helped treat Mr. Duncan, was diagnosed with the disease, city officials’ efforts to quell panic appeared to be at least somewhat successful.

Politicians and health officials appeared to be quicker off the mark this time after the news broke over the weekend, quickly calling an early Sunday morning press conference and sealing off the residence of the patient.

Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings appeared on the street where the nurse lives Sunday morning, hours after her diagnosis was confirmed, while residents woke up to literature about Ebola on their doorsteps.

For some, the message to keep calm and carry on seemed to be getting through. Initial reaction on the street where the second victim lives was measured. One resident said that she was reassured that, because the nurse, Nina Pham, was a health-care worker, she would have known to take proper precautions.

As the day went on, people resumed normal daily business, spending time outside with their children and taking afternoon strolls.

In the wider Dallas area, there was similar sentiment.

"It is calmer this time – we have been through it once," says Jennifer Staubach Gates, the Dallas councilwoman in whose district Duncan, a Liberian who died Wednesday, was staying. "It is important to point out the transmission this time was in a hospital, not the community... I think the public understands that."

Ms. Gates, a registered nurse, says she understands the pressures under which health-care professionals operate and how a breach of protocol, which the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention have blamed for Pham’s diagnosis, could have occurred at the hospital.

"That is not to say it is not concerning," she explains. "It is very concerning to me."

That distinction between taking proper precautions and not panicking is one that US medical experts have repeatedly urged over the past two weeks. The World Health Organization says that more than 4,000 people have died in West Africa during the current Ebola outbreak, the worst since the disease’s discovery in 1978. So far in the US, though, the cases have numbered just two. 

“We need to be concerned, but we don’t want to have a climate of fear,” said Jesse Goodman, a professor of medicine at Georgetown University, in an Associated Press interview on Friday. “We need to take care of the Ebola epidemic, but if we have instead of the Ebola epidemic, an epidemic of fear, we’re going to end up making bad decisions.”

Judge Clay Jenkins, presiding officer of the Dallas county commissioners court, reiterated that Ebola can only be contracted by coming into contact with the bodily fluids of someone who has been diagnosed with the disease.

And so far, the 48 people being monitored by the CDC for potential exposure to Duncan continue to be symptom-free, Gates points out.

Any additional cases that arise should be looked at individually, along with any related public exposure, she says.

"We don't want to create more alarm," Gates says.

Material from the Associated Press was used in this report.


http://news.yahoo.com/dallas-coping-face-second-ebola-diagnosis-183600182.html

[Buster's Uncle]

U.S. health officials reject ban on travel from Ebola-stricken countries
Reuters
1 hour ago



NEW YORK (Reuters) - The United States has no plans to eliminate travel from countries in West Africa suffering the worst Ebola outbreak on record, Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said in a briefing on Monday.

"Enhanced" airport screenings began at John F. Kennedy International in New York City over the weekend, and will expand to four others beginning this Thursday, he said, including at Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International.

The screening assesses whether arriving passengers have a fever, the first symptom of an Ebola infection, and requires those coming directly or indirectly from Liberia, Sierra Leone or Guinea to answer questions about their contact with any Ebola patients.

Someone can be infected with the Ebola virus but not show symptoms, however, so fever screening would not identify such a person. Thomas Eric Duncan, the first patient diagnosed with Ebola in the U.S., apparently had no fever when he landed in Dallas last month, but developed the disease days later and died last week.

Until the Ebola outbreak in West Africa is brought under control, Frieden said, "there is no way to get risk in the U.S. to zero."

(Reporting by Sharon Begley; Editing by Chris Reese)


http://news.yahoo.com/u-health-officials-reject-ban-travel-ebola-stricken-173013424--finance.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Boston hospital monitoring patient for possible Ebola case
Reuters
19 hours ago



Kwan Keu Lai (C), a doctor with Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, waits as she receives guidance from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) instructor Rupa Narra (R) on October 6, 2014. REUTERS/Tami Chappell



(Reuters) - A man in Massachusetts who recently returned from Liberia is being evaluated at a Boston hospital for a potential case of Ebola after complaining of a headache and muscle aches, health officials said on Sunday.

The patient is at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center but there is no confirmation of Ebola, said Dr. Kenneth Sands, chief quality officer at Beth Israel.

The response in Massachusetts demonstrates the high state of alert medical facilities are under since a Texas health worker became the first person on Sunday to contract the disease in the United States. She had treated a Liberian man who died of the deadly virus last week.

"We are taking all necessary precautions in collaboration with the city of Boston and the department of public health for the potential that this is suspected Ebola,” Sands said at a news conference. "We are only at the stage where we are doing an assessment."

Sands said if Ebola is suspected, doctors will test him for the disease, possibly with the help of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. Testing would take 24 to 48 hours, he said.

There have been several Ebola scares in the United States in the past week. A plane was briefly quarantined at a Las Vegas Airport on Friday after a passenger reported feeling unwell. Health officials around the country have fielded scores of possible cases that were false alarms.

The Massachusetts patient first reported to the Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates hospital in Braintree, Massachusetts, and was then transferred to Beth Israel, said Ben Kruskal, a physician and chief of infectious disease at Vanguard, in a statement.

Kruskal said the Braintree building was closed briefly but reopened

The current Ebola outbreak, the worst on record of the disease, has killed more than 4,000 people, mostly in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea in West Africa.

(Reporting by Kevin Murphy in Kansas City, Peter Cooney in Washington and Frank McGurty in New York; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Eric Walsh)


http://news.yahoo.com/patient-isolated-massachusetts-clinic-displaying-ebola-symptoms-newspaper-200117720.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Spain to increase Ebola training as nurse remains seriously ill
Reuters
By Rodrigo De Miguel and Sarah White  4 hours ago



Health workers in protective suits stand near a window at an isolation ward on the sixth floor of Madrid's Carlos III Hospital October 12, 2014. REUTERS/Paul Hanna



MADRID (Reuters) - Spain will ramp up training for health workers and emergency services dealing with Ebola cases, authorities said on Monday, as a nurse who caught the virus in Madrid after caring for infected patients remained seriously ill.

Recriminations are flying in Spain over whether hospitals were well enough prepared to deal with Ebola cases, after 44-year-old Teresa Romero last week became the first person in the current outbreak to catch the deadly virus outside Africa.

A broader training program is being developed, said healthcare academic Fernando Rodriguez Artalejo, who is part of a scientific committee advising the government.

"(It is for) doctors, nurses, nursing aides, security staff... police, firemen, anyone who has something to bring to the fight against this health problem," Rodriguez Artalejo told a news conference.

Romero's condition was still very serious and had not changed on Monday, he said, after officials on Sunday said there were smalls signs of improvement.

The Spanish government has defended its handling of the outbreak after coming under fire for reacting slowly, amid claims from unions that health staff received insufficient training and equipment to deal with the disease.

In the United States, where a Texas health worker has contracted the disease after treating an infected patient who traveled from Liberia, the spotlight has also fallen on how medical guidelines could have been breached.

Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo on Monday insisted Spain was right to have repatriated two priests who caught the disease in West Africa, and who later died. Romero had cared for the priests in Madrid.

"This is what all developed countries which have had this problem have done," he told El Pais newspaper.

The latest Ebola outbreak has killed over 4,000 people, mostly in West Africa, though it is now spreading elsewhere.

Rodriguez Artalejo said there should not be cause for alarm in Spain, which had the means to fight Ebola, and denied the training revamp was a reaction to criticism.

"It is perfectly possible to control this outbreak," he said, adding the virus was not easily transmitted.


CRAMPED CHANGING ROOM

Some Spanish health worker unions want authorities to investigate whether the Carlos III hospital where the priests were treated broke labor laws. The nursing aides' union SAE said on Monday it had filed a complaint with Madrid public prosecutors, over failings in workplace safety.

Health authorities have rejected claims that the protective suits used by those caring for Ebola patients were inadequate.

The European Center for Disease Prevention and Control, which inspected the hospital where Romero is being treated, concluded that measures there were of a very high quality.

But they found that a special room used by staff to remove protective suits was too small, according to Fernando Simon, health ministry emergencies coordinator. "Staff will very soon be able to get changed in a wider place," he said on Sunday.

One doctor treating Romero has said that she thinks she may have caught the virus by touching her face with her protective gloves, possibly when taking off her suit, although authorities have yet to pinpoint exactly how the transmission happened.

Fifteen people - including Romero's husband, several nurses, doctors and hairdressers who came into contact with her as well as a cleaner and hospital porter - are under observation in an isolated ward. None have yet shown symptoms of the disease.

(Reporting by Rodrigo de Miguel and Sarah White; Editing by Dominic Evans)


http://news.yahoo.com/spain-increase-ebola-training-nurse-remains-seriously-ill-145648666.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Breach in Protocol Led to New Ebola Diagnosis, Says CDC Director
ABC News
By GEETIKA RUDRA and BEN CANDEA  Oct 12, 2014, 11:48 AM ET


A female health care worker who treated Thomas Eric Duncan has contracted Ebola, becoming the first person to get the disease in the United States, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said today.

Officials said the nurse was wearing full protective gear while treating Duncan in quarantine at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, but somehow she got infected anyway, through what they said must have been a breach of Ebola safety protocol.

She started having symptoms -- including a low fever -- Friday night and drove herself to her own hospital. Within 90 minutes, she was in isolation and late Saturday night, the preliminary Ebola test came back positive.

The woman has been interviewed by investigators, but she could not identify when the breach may have happened, CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden said.

"It is deeply concerning that this infection occurred," he said.

"It is possible that we will see more Ebola cases," Frieden said. "We will undertake a complete investigation of how this may have occurred. That's so important, so we can understand it better, and intervene to prevent this from happening in the future."



Dr. Tom Frieden, head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, speaks at a news conference, Oct. 12, 2014, in Atlanta. John Amis/AP Photo


The health care worker, who was said to be in stable condition, had been taking her temperature twice daily under the CDC's self-monitoring regimen since treating Duncan, who died last week.

Health officials are also monitoring another person, whom they have in isolation, who may have had contact with her, Frieden said.

She was not one of the initial 48 people who have been monitored for Ebola after they came into contact with Duncan when he was admitted into the hospital, but is instead part of an additional group of people who may have come into contact with Duncan while he was being treated, the CDC chief said.

"We are confident that the precautions we have put in place will protect our health care workers," said Dr. Daniel Varga with Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital.

Health officials were trying to determine how many people she might have had contact with and who else might need to be monitored.

"In order to determine that number we cast the net wide and identify first who might have had contact," Frieden said. "Then we do detailed interviews and record interviews with each and every one of them to identify those who definitely did have contact, those who definitely didn't and those for whom we cannot rule out that they had contact."

The apartment complex where she lives was being decontaminated today, said Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings. Officials also went door-to-door in the neighborhood and distributed leaflets about the virus.

A dog found inside her apartment is also being monitored, Rawlings said. A hazmat crew was the building this afternoon, cleaning the interior of the apartment.

ABC News chief health and medical editor Dr. Richard Besser called the health care worker's case concerning, adding that public health officials will need to investigate how the exposure occurred.

While the CDC has said that any hospital is capable of safely treating Ebola, Besser said health care workers need training and practice using protective equipment to do so successfully.

"I would never have gone into an Ebola ward in Africa without being dressed and decontaminated by experts," he said. "Health care workers here should expect no less."

Frieden urged that all hospitals be prepared to care for patients with Ebola.

"Diagnosis needs to be done anywhere," Frieden said. "What is the safest way to provide care, that is what we will be looking at."



PHOTO: Thomas Eric Duncan, seen here in this 2011 file photo, was the first patient diagnosed with Ebola in the U.S.  Wilmot Chayee/AP Photo


Duncan died Wednesday at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, where he had been isolated during his treatment. His medical records show he had a 103-degree fever when he initially went to the hospital, but was sent home with antibiotics and Tylenol.

He returned to the hospital two days later when his symptoms worsened.

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

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

Doctors and nurses at the hospital were aware Duncan had recently been in Africa.

While the health care worker undergoes treatment at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, the hospital will divert its emergency care services to surrounding hospitals, Varga said.


http://abcnews.go.com/Health/protocol-breach-led-ebola-diagnosis-cdc-director/story?id=26135108