Ebola news 10/14

[Buster's Uncle]

German hospital: UN worker dies of Ebola
Associated Press  16 hours ago



BERLIN (AP) — A United Nations medical worker who was infected with Ebola in Liberia has died despite "intensive medical procedures," a German hospital said Tuesday.

The St. Georg hospital in Leipzig said the 56-year-old man, whose name has not been released, died overnight of the infection. It released no further details and did not answer telephone calls.

The man tested positive for Ebola on Oct. 6, prompting Liberia's UN peacekeeping mission to place 41 staff members who had possibly been in contact with him under "close medical observation."

He arrived in Leipzig for treatment on Oct. 9. The hospital's chief executive, Dr. Iris Minde, said at the time that there was no risk of infection for other patients, relatives, visitors or the public.

The man was kept in a secure isolation ward specially equipped with negative pressure rooms that are hermetically sealed and can only be accessed through a number of airlocks. All air and fluids are filtered and all equipment is decontaminated after use, Minde said.

The Ebola patient was the third to be flown to Germany for treatment.

The first, a Senegalese man infected with Ebola while working for the World Health Organization in Sierra Leone was brought to a Hamburg hospital in late August for treatment. The man was released Oct. 3 after recovering and returned to his home country, the hospital said.

Another patient, a Ugandan man who worked for an Italian aid group in West Africa, is undergoing treatment in a Frankfurt hospital.


http://news.yahoo.com/german-hospital-un-worker-dies-ebola-082155030.html

[Buster's Uncle]

CDC acknowledges it could have done more on Ebola
Associated Press
By EMILY SCHMALL and NOMAAN MERCHANT  1 hour ago



http://l3.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/qgHKEXPcgD0kBFRJsMPZKg--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9ZmlsbDtoPTU5NjtweW9mZj0wO3E9NzU7dz00NzI-/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/ap_webfeeds/9b0ba2826a3e7028620f6a7067004e2b.jpg



FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) — The nation's top disease-fighting agency acknowledged Tuesday that federal health experts failed to do all they should have done to prevent Ebola from spreading from a Liberian man who died last week in Texas to the nurse who treated him.

The stark admission from the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention came as the World Health Organization projected the pace of infections accelerating in West Africa — to as many as 10,000 new cases a week within two months.

Agency Director Tom Frieden outlined a series of steps designed to stop the spread of the disease in the U.S., including increased training for health care workers and changes at the Texas hospital where the virus was diagnosed to minimize the risk of more infections.

A total of 76 people at the hospital might have had exposure to Thomas Eric Duncan, and all of them are being monitored for fever and other symptoms daily, Frieden said.

That figure confirmed an Associated Press report on Monday that Pham was among about 70 hospital staffers who were involved in Duncan's care after he was hospitalized, based on medical records provided by Duncan's family.

The announcement of the government's stepped-up effort came after top health officials repeatedly assured the public over the last two weeks that they were doing everything possible to control the outbreak by deploying infectious-disease specialists to the hospital where Duncan was diagnosed with Ebola and later died.



This Texas Christian University yearbook photo shows Nina Pham, 26, who became the first person to contract the disease within the United States. Records show that Pham and other health care workers wore protective gear, including gowns, gloves, masks and face shields and sometimes full-body suits when caring for Thomas Eric Duncan. (AP Photo/Courtesy of tcu360.com)


"I wish we had put a team like this on the ground the day the patient — the first patient — was diagnosed. That might have prevented this infection. But we will do that from today onward with any case anywhere in the U.S.," Frieden said.

Frieden described the new response team as having some of the world's leading experts in how to care for Ebola and protect health care workers. They planned to review everything from how the isolation room is laid out, to what protective equipment health workers use, to waste management and decontamination.

In Europe, the WHO said the death rate in the outbreak has risen to 70 percent as it has killed nearly 4,500 people, most of them in West Africa. The previous mortality rate was about 50 percent.

President Barack Obama, speaking at the end of a meeting with U.S. and allied military leaders, declared that the "the world is not doing enough" to fight Ebola.

"Everybody's going to have to do more than they are doing right now, he said.



Protect Environmental workers move disposal barrels to a staging area outside the apartment of a healthcare worker who treated Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan and tested positive for the disease, Monday, Oct. 13, 2014, in Dallas. (AP Photo/Brandon Wade)


Nina Pham became the first person to contract the disease on U.S. soil as she cared for Duncan. Pham released a statement Tuesday through Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital saying she is "doing well," and the hospital listed her in good condition. The hospital CEO said medical staff members remain hopeful about her condition.

The 26-year-old nurse had been in Duncan's room often, from the day he was placed in intensive care until the day before he died last week.

"I'm doing well and want to thank everyone for their kind wishes and prayers," she said.

Pham's parents live in Fort Worth, where they are part of a close-knit, deeply religious community of Vietnamese Catholics. Members of their church held a special Mass for her Monday and sorority sisters at the Texas Christian University held a candlelight vigil for her Tuesday. At the hospital, she received a plasma transfusion from a doctor who beat the virus.

She and other health care workers wore protective gear, including gowns, gloves, masks and face shields — and sometimes full-body suits — when caring for Duncan. Health officials have said there was a breach in protocol that led to the infections, but they don't know where the breakdown occurred.

Among the changes announced Tuesday by Frieden was a plan to limit the number of health care workers who care for Ebola patients so they "can become more familiar and more systematic in how they put on and take off protective equipment, and they can become more comfortable in a healthy way with providing care in the isolation unit."

Frieden said he was fully aware of the fear among health care workers in Texas and around the country about the risks of contracting the virus should it spread further. In response, he said an on-site manager who is an expert in infectious diseases will be in charge of every step of the process, along with new training for health care workers.

"Ebola is unfamiliar. It's scary, and getting it right is really, really important because the stakes are so high," he said, adding that he wishes the CDC had done more from the beginning.

"We did send some expertise in infection control, but I think we could in retrospect, with 20/20 hindsight, we could have sent a more robust hospital infection-control team and been more hands on with the hospital from day one about how exactly this should be managed," Frieden said.

The agency explained that its initial priority in Dallas was public health: tracking down anyone who had contact with Duncan to be sure there was no spread of the virus in the community, CDC spokeswoman Barbara Reynolds said.

___

Associated Press writers Martha Mendoza, Maud Beelman and Alex Sanz in Dallas and Tammy Webber in Chicago also contributed to this report.


http://news.yahoo.com/doctor-gives-blood-ebola-infected-dallas-nurse-050231595.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Maine hospital observing patient as possible Ebola case
Reuters
By Dave Sherwood  11 hours ago



PORTLAND Maine (Reuters) - A patient in Portland, Maine, is being held for observation for a potential case of Ebola at the request of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, health officials said.

No information about the patient, his condition or travels has been released by the hospital, and there is no confirmation of Ebola, according to Dr. August Valenti, an infectious disease specialist at Maine Medical Center. He said in a statement that the decision was a precautionary step.

"Maine Medical Center is using policies developed by the World Health Organization. Those policies exceed the policies of Center for Disease Control and represent the strictest of guidelines," Valenti said.

Hospitals across the United States are on high alert as authorities continue to investigate how a nurse in an isolation ward at a hospital in Texas contracted Ebola, the first instance of a person contracting the disease on U.S. soil.

Numerous other Ebola scares in the past week, including one in which passengers at Boston's Logan Airport were removed from an airplane that had arrived from Dubai, have turned out to be false alarms.

Portland hospital officials said health workers there are using a higher level of protective apparel than that recommended by the CDC.

The Maine hospital's response comes as medical experts, including CDC chief Dr. Thomas Frieden, have acknowledged a need to rethink how highly infectious diseases are handled in the United States.

The current Ebola outbreak, the worst on record, has killed some 4,447 people, mostly in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea in West Africa.

(Editing by Scott Malone and Doina Chiacu)


http://news.yahoo.com/maine-hospital-observing-patient-possible-ebola-case-140129897.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Zuckerberg donates $25 million to Ebola fight
AFP
11 hours ago



Facebook Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg speaks during an interview session at the Newseum in Washington, DC, September 18, 2013 (AFP Photo/Jim Watson)



Washington (AFP) - Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg said Tuesday he and his wife were donating $25 million to help US efforts to contain the deadly Ebola epidemic.

"The Ebola epidemic is at a critical turning point. It has infected 8,400 people so far, but it is spreading very quickly and projections suggest it could infect one million people or more over the next several months if not addressed," Zuckerberg said on his Facebook page.

"We need to get Ebola under control in the near term so that it doesn't spread further and become a long term global health crisis that we end up fighting for decades at large scale, like HIV or polio."

He said he and his wife Priscilla were donating the funds to the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Foundation.

"We believe our grant is the quickest way to empower the CDC and the experts in this field to prevent this outcome," Zuckerberg said.

"Grants like this directly help the frontline responders in their heroic work. These people are on the ground setting up care centers, training local staff, identifying Ebola cases and much more."

The Ebola virus has already killed more than 4,000 people, most in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Underfunded health systems in west Africa have been crippled by the disease, which has spiraled out of control and infected 7,400 people since the beginning of the year.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation last month pledged $50 million to help boost the fight against the Ebola outbreak, providing the funds to UN agencies and international organizations involved in the outbreak.


http://news.yahoo.com/zuckerberg-donates-25-million-ebola-fight-154219366.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Family that lived with Texas Ebola victim showing no symptoms -mayor
Reuters
12 hours ago



A worker in hazardous material suit is sprayed down by a co-worker after coming out of an apartment unit where a man diagnosed with the Ebola virus was staying in Dallas, Texas, October 5, 2014. REUTERS/Jim Young



WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The family who shared an apartment with a Liberian man who died of Ebola in Texas is showing no signs of illness, while the dog of a nurse who contracted the deadly virus is healthy and being cared for, Dallas's mayor said on Tuesday.

Thomas Eric Duncan's girlfriend, her 13-year-old son and two nephews in their 20s had been living with Duncan before he was admitted to a Dallas hospital on Sept. 28.

"So far no signs of the virus in any of them," Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings said on CNN. "We check them twice a day, and everybody's healthy."

Rawlings said none of the other people being monitored after contact with Duncan, who died Oct. 8, have gotten sick. There is a 21-day incubation period for the virus that has killed at least 4,400 people, predominantly in West Africa.

Federal health officials are working around the clock at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, Rawlings said, as the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tries to determine how 26-year-old nurse Nina Pham became infected while caring for Duncan in an isolation ward where he was treated for 11 days.

Pham's dog, Bentley, a 1-year-old King Charles Spaniel, was taken from her apartment Monday night and is being cared for in isolation, said the mayor, who called the nurse a hero.

"That dog was very important to her. We want to make sure that dog is healthy as can be at this point and being taken care of at this point," Rawlings said. He said Pham was sent a video of her pet, "so hopefully that buoys her up a bit."

Officials have said they do not know how the virus infected Pham, who was wearing protective gear while caring for Duncan. She is the first person known to have contracted Ebola in the United States.

Dr. Brett Giroir, who was appointed by Texas Governor Rick Perry to lead a task force on infectious disease preparedness, said on CNN that every person at the Dallas hospital who had any contact with Duncan was interviewed by the CDC and local health authorities and assessed for risk.

He would not say how many hospital workers were on that list. Those who had real contact with Duncan were being actively monitored by the CDC, he said.

Ebola, which can cause fever, vomiting and diarrhea, spreads through contact with bodily fluids such as blood or saliva.

The infection of the Dallas nurse is the second known to have occurred outside West Africa since the outbreak that began in March. It follows that of a nurse's aide in Spain who helped treat a missionary from Sierra Leone who died of the virus.

Texas Health Presbyterian has been criticized for not admitting Duncan the first time he went to the hospital.

"He should have been identified as an Ebola patient and put in isolation," Giroir said. "There will clearly be lessons learned from this incident."


http://news.yahoo.com/family-lived-texas-ebola-victim-showing-no-symptoms-144012156.html

[Buster's Uncle]

U.S. sets up rapid-response Ebola team; Dallas nurse improves
Reuters
By Terry Wade  5 hours ago



Registered nurse (RN) Sandy Sheble-Hall removes his goggles as per proper protocol directives given by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) instructors 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



DALLAS (Reuters) - The United States is establishing a rapid-response team to help hospitals "within hours" whenever there is a case of Ebola, the top doctor leading the fight against the deadly virus said on Tuesday.

Prospects for a quick end to the contagion fell as the World Health Organization (WHO) predicted that three impoverished countries in West Africa - Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea - could produce as many as 10,000 new cases per week by early December.

U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) director Dr. Thomas Frieden, acknowledging the lapses in treatment in Dallas for a Liberian man in late September, told reporters:

"I wish we had put a team like this on the ground the day the first patient was diagnosed ... but we will do that from today onward with any case in the U.S."

"We will be there, hands on, within hours, helping hospitals with the situation if there is another case," he said.

A nurse who contracted Ebola from the Liberian patient, Thomas Eric Duncan, in a Dallas hospital said on Tuesday she was doing well, while Frieden said 76 people were still being monitored in the Dallas area. The nurse, Nina Pham, 26, is "in good condition," Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital said in a statement.

U.S. President Barack Obama, addressing defense chiefs from about 20 countries, said "the world as a whole is not doing enough" to combat the hemorrhagic fever and must stop it at its source. Health authorities say the outbreak in West Africa is the worst on record with at least 4,447 dead. An unrelated outbreak has killed more than 40 people in Democratic Republic of the Congo.



A man wearing a hazardous material suit prepares to remove a pet dog named Bentley from the home of a nurse infected with Ebola, in this handout picture released by the City of Dallas, Texas, October 13, 2014. REUTERS/City of Dallas/Handout


Ebola, which can cause fever, bleeding, vomiting and diarrhea, spreads through contact with bodily fluids such as blood or saliva. The Dallas nurse, Pham, became the first person infected by Ebola in the United States while caring for Duncan for much of his 11 days in the hospital. He died on Oct. 8.

Pham received a transfusion on Monday containing antibodies to fight the virus, according to a Roman Catholic priest in her congregation. Duncan did not receive one because he did not match the donor's blood type. Christian relief group Samaritan's Purse has said that Dr. Kent Brantly, a physician who survived an Ebola infection, donated plasma to Pham.

“I’m doing well and want to thank everyone for their kind wishes and prayers," Pham said in a statement released by the hospital. "I am blessed by the support of family and friends."

The CDC's Frieden said at a news conference that 48 people who had potential contact with Duncan "have passed through the highest risk period" for developing Ebola symptoms. He said 76 people who may have come into contact with Duncan after he was hospitalized on Sept. 28 now were being monitored. That group includes Pham and other health workers and hospital staff.


WHITE HOUSE DEFENDS CDC'S FRIEDEN

The hospital has been criticized for not admitting Duncan the first time he sought help, days after arriving in the United States from Liberia. He returned days later in an ambulance.

"We did send some expertise in infection control, but I think ... we could have sent a more robust hospital infection control team and been more hands on," Frieden said on Tuesday.



A member of the Protect HazMat team carries protective clothing and supplies near the apartment of the health worker who was infected with the Ebola virus at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas, Texas October 13, 2014. REUTERS/Jaime R. Carrero


He said two nurses from Emory University's Serious Communicable Disease Unit are now on the ground working with the Dallas hospital on the proper use of personal protective gear.

Frieden is recommending that the hospital limit the number of staff who care for Pham so that people who treat her can become more familiar and more comfortable with using protective gear. Nurses groups have demanded better training and guidance on how to use equipment that already includes face shields, masks, gowns and gloves.

Frieden has come under pressure over the response and preparedness for Ebola, but White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Obama is confident of Frieden's ability to lead the public health effort. He said White House Homeland Security adviser Lisa Monaco "continues to play the role of coordinating the efforts" of all agencies involved.

WHO Assistant Director-General Bruce Aylward said on Tuesday that by the first week in December, the WHO projections suggest there may be between 5,000 and 10,000 new cases a week in impoverished Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia.

Aylward stressed the difficulty of making accurate predictions. The WHO said the actual mortality rate is about 70 percent in those countries, compared with the roughly 50 percent reported previously.


ONE CONTACT WITH NURSE

One person known to have had close contact with the Dallas nurse Pham has been put under observation in the hospital in case he develops signs of Ebola, the CBS Dallas television station reported on Tuesday.

The man, who has not been identified, is an employee of global eye care company Alcon, a unit of the drug company Novartis. The company was not immediately available to comment.

White House Budget Director Shaun Donovan pressed U.S. lawmakers to speed up funds to fight Ebola, including the remaining $250 million in requested Defense Department money under review.

"The rapid spread of the Ebola virus in West Africa shows that time is of the essence. Given the nature of this crisis, every minute counts," Donovan wrote in an Oct. 10 letter to Appropriations Chairman Harold Rogers and ranking Democrat Nita Lowey.

Meanwhile, the family who shared an apartment with Duncan after he arrived in Texas is showing no signs of illness, Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings said on CNN.

The infection of the Dallas nurse is the second known to have occurred outside West Africa since the outbreak that began in March. It follows the transmission of the virus to a Spanish nurse in Madrid who helped treat a missionary who was repatriated from Sierra Leone and died of Ebola. The nurse was slightly better on Tuesday and remains the only known case in Spain.

(Additional reporting by Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas; Julie Steenhuysen in Chicago; and Roberta Rampton, Doina Chiacu and David Lawder in Washington; Editing by Jim Loney, Jonathan Oatis and Grant McCool)


http://news.yahoo.com/family-lived-texas-ebola-victim-showing-no-symptoms-143123355.html

[Buster's Uncle]

UN nuclear agency to help West Africa fight Ebola
Reuters
12 hours ago



VIENNA (Reuters) - The United Nations atomic agency plans to help West African countries fight the Ebola epidemic with nuclear-related technology that can quickly diagnose a disease which has killed more than 4,400 people.

Specialized equipment is expected to be delivered in coming weeks to Sierra Leone and then to Liberia and Guinea, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said in a statement on Tuesday.

IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano said it was a "small but effective contribution" to efforts to combat the outbreak.

The epidemic is still spreading in the three countries and the number of cases in West Africa will exceed 9,000 this week, the World Health Organization (WHO) said in Geneva. The death toll so far in the outbreak, first reported in Guinea in March, has reached 4,447, a senior WHO official said.

The IAEA said a nuclear-derived diagnostic technology known as Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) allows the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) to be detected within a few hours. Other methods, it said, require growing on a cell culture for several days before a diagnosis is determined.

"Early diagnosis of EVD, if combined with appropriate medical care, increases the victims’ chance of survival and helps curtail the spread of the disease by making it possible to isolate and treat the patients earlier," the IAEA said.

While health authorities in Sierra Leone and other affected countries are already using the technology, their diagnostic capability is limited, the Vienna-based agency said.

The IAEA said it will provide Sierra Leone with an RT-PCR machine and other equipment, and that similar support will "eventually" also be transferred to Liberia and Guinea.

(Reporting by Fredrik Dahl; Editing by Mark Heinrich)


http://news.yahoo.com/un-nuclear-agency-help-west-africa-fight-ebola-145803267.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Majority Say US Gov't Should Do More to Prevent Ebola Epidemic
ABC News
By Gary Langer  12 hours ago



Belkys Fortune, left, and Teressa Celia, pose in protective suits in an isolation room during a demonstration of procedures for possible Ebola patients at Bellevue Hospital, New York, Oct. 8, 2014.



Nearly two-thirds of Americans are concerned about a widespread epidemic of the Ebola virus in the United States, and about as many in a new ABC News/Washington Post poll say the federal government is not doing enough to prevent it.

Indeed, more than four in 10 - 43 percent - are worried that they or an immediate family member might catch the disease. That's similar to the level of concern about other viral outbreaks in some previous ABC/Post polls - but more consequential, given Ebola's high mortality rate.

See PDF with full results, charts and tables here.

Despite these concerns, more than six in 10 are at least somewhat confident in the ability of both the federal government, and their local hospitals and health agencies, to respond effectively to an outbreak. Future views remain to be seen; most interviews in this poll were done before the news Sunday morning that a nurse who treated an Ebola patient in Dallas had herself become infected. (Results of interviews conducted Sunday were essentially the same as on previous nights.)

In terms of preventive actions, the poll, produced for ABC by Langer Research Associates, finds near-unanimous support (91 percent) for stricter screening of incoming passengers from Ebola-affected countries in Africa. Two-thirds support restricting entry of such individuals into the United States.

The Ebola outbreak has killed more than 4,000 people, mainly in the West African countries of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, raising broad concerns about its rapid spread there and the risk globally. Margaret Chan, head of the World Health Organization, on Monday called it "the most severe acute public health emergency in modern times." In five U.S. airports, the federal government is beginning to screen arriving passengers whose travel originated from the three most-affected countries.

Barack Obama, for his part, gets essentially an even split in his handling of the federal response to the Ebola outbreak: Forty-one percent of Americans approve and 43 percent disapprove, with typical partisan and ideological divisions.

WHO'S WORRIED - Worries about catching Ebola are 13 percentage points more prevalent among women than men (49 vs. 36 percent), but the biggest differences are by education, income and race. Among people who have a postgraduate degree, just 20 percent are worried that they or an immediate family member might catch the Ebola virus. That rises to 32 percent of those with an undergraduate degree and to 50 percent among all those who lack a college degree - peaking at 62 percent of those who don't have a high school diploma.

By income, worry ranges from 19 percent of those in the $100,000-plus bracket to 51 percent in less-than-$50,000 households, including 58 percent of those with incomes less than $20,000 a year. And by race, worry about catching Ebola is 21 points higher among nonwhites than whites, 57 vs. 36 percent. Indeed, a third of nonwhites, 32 percent, are "very" worried about becoming infected, compared with fewer than half as many whites, 14 percent.

These gaps may reflect differences in information about Ebola, different levels of confidence in the quality of health care available to each group, or some of both.

VIEWS of GOVERNMENT - There's also a sharp difference by a combination of partisanship and ideology: While 27 percent of liberal Democrats worry about catching the virus, that rises to 44 percent of conservative Republicans. (Each group accounts for about one in seven adults.)

The reason seems clear: Conservative Republicans are vastly less likely than liberal Democrats to express confidence in the federal government's ability to respond effectively to an outbreak, 48 vs. 84 percent.

Conservative Republicans also are far more apt than liberal Democrats to express concern about the possibility of a widespread outbreak, 73 vs. 45 percent, and to say the United States should be doing more to try to prevent further cases, 77 vs. 40 percent. (Differences also are reflected by partisanship alone and ideology alone. The divisions simply peak among the two most disparate political/ideological groups.)

The difference between these groups is much wider in terms of their confidence in the federal government to respond compared with their confidence in their local hospitals and health agencies. There's a 36-point gap between liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans on the former, compared with 15 points on the latter.

There are group differences on specific actions, as well. Restricting entry by people from affected countries wins less support from young adults vs. those age 30 and older (57 vs. 70 percent), and is less popular with liberals and Democrats compared with others.

COMPARISONS - At 43 percent, worries about catching the Ebola virus are lower than worries about catching the swine flu at their peak in October 2009, but higher than worries about catching the SARS virus in late April 2003. Those concerns fluctuated, and at other times were more similar to worry about Ebola now. In one other comparison, concern about catching the bird flu virus was similar in March 2006 to today's level on Ebola.

Confidence in the federal government's ability to handle an outbreak is similar to what it was for bird flu, but lower than it was for swine flu; the same pattern holds for confidence in local hospitals and health agencies.

The difference between those episodes and this one, as noted, is Ebola's very high mortality rate - but also its lower risk of contagion.

Finally, the public's sense that the federal government is "doing all it reasonably can do" to try to prevent an outbreak stands in stark contrast to views on a very different sort of public health crisis in a very different time, the anthrax attacks of fall 2001. At that time, in the midst of a post-9/11 rally in support of the federal government, 61 percent said it was doing all it could. As noted, just 33 percent say so now.

METHODOLOGY - This ABC News/Washington Post poll was conducted by telephone Oct. 9-12, 2014, in English and Spanish, among a random national sample of 1,006 adults, including landline and cell-phone-only respondents. Results have a margin of sampling error of 3.5 points, including design effect. Partisan divisions are 31-24-36 percent, Democrats-Republicans-independents.

The survey was produced for ABC News by Langer Research Associates of New York, N.Y., with sampling, data collection and tabulation by Abt-SRBI of New York, N.Y.


http://news.yahoo.com/majority-us-govt-more-prevent-ebola-epidemic-144905687--abc-news-topstories.html

[Buster's Uncle]

How plasma transfusions, antibodies fight Ebola
Associated Press
By MARILYNN MARCHIONE  7 hours ago



A Dallas nurse being treated for Ebola has received a plasma transfusion from a doctor who beat his own infection with the deadly virus after getting a similar treatment. The reason: Antibodies in the blood of a survivor may help a patient fight off the germ.

Dr. Kent Brantly went to Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas on Sunday to donate the plasma to nurse Nina Pham. Brantly got Ebola while caring for patients in Africa, and received plasma from a 14-year-old boy who recovered under his care there.

Brantly also received ZMapp, an experimental drug that contains antibodies against Ebola. Its maker says supplies are now exhausted, leading doctors to look at plasma transfusions as an alternative.

Here is some background about the treatment:

Q. What are antibodies?

A. Antibodies are made by the immune system to fight a germ, and they remain in the blood for some time after an infection resolves. Certain immune system cells replenish them so the person is able to fight off infection if the same germ turns up again. It takes time for an Ebola patient to make enough, so the patient may need someone else's antibodies to fight the disease until they can produce their own.

Q. Why are doctors giving plasma?

A. Plasma, the clear part of the blood, contains antibodies. Plasma can be removed from whole donated blood or a donor's blood can be filtered through a machine to extract just the plasma. A recipient must have a blood type compatible with the donor.

Q. Is there any proof this works?

A. Antibodies have helped many people battle other infectious diseases but their use against Ebola is too new to establish a track record. So many things affect whether an Ebola patient recovers — how quickly the disease was diagnosed, whether intravenous fluids and other supportive care were given — that it's impossible to know whether plasma or an antibody drug made a difference.

Q. How often can someone donate plasma?

A. "It's believed you can replace your antibodies in about two days," so it's not uncommon for people to donate twice a week, said Dr. James Crowe, an immunologist and director of the Vanderbilt Vaccine Center in Nashville.

Q. Who else has received plasma?

A. Brantly also donated plasma for Ashoka Mukpo, a freelance video journalist being treated in Nebraska, and a fellow doctor who served in Africa, Dr. Rick Sacra, who also was hospitalized in Nebraska and recovered. Brantly said in a recent speech that he also offered his blood to Thomas Eric Duncan, a Liberian man who was treated for Ebola in Dallas, but that their blood types didn't match. Duncan died on Wednesday, and Pham, the nurse, had been taking care of him.

Q. Have other survivors in the U.S. offered plasma?

A. That's not known. Brantly was the first Ebola patient brought back to the U.S. and some others treated since then are said to still be recovering and gaining their strength back. Whether any of them is well enough or willing to donate has not been said.


http://news.yahoo.com/plasma-transfusions-antibodies-fight-ebola-144955340.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Colombia denying entry to recent travelers to Ebola-hit countries
Reuters
14 minutes ago



BOGOTA (Reuters) - Colombia has begun denying entry to travelers who have recently visited West African countries affected by Ebola, Foreign Ministry sources said on Tuesday, the first Latin American country to do so.

The measure effective Tuesday applies to recent visitors to Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea and Nigeria, and was taken in response to a recommendation by the National Health Institute to prevent the virus spreading, sources at the Foreign Ministry not authorized to speak on the record told Reuters.

Colombian border guards will deny entry to anyone whose passport shows recent travel to the countries, and consulates will turn down visa applications to anyone who visited them in the previous four weeks, a Foreign Ministry document seen by Reuters showed.

The rules also apply to Colombian nationals, it showed.

Health authorities say the outbreak in West Africa is the worst on record with at least 4,447 dead. An unrelated outbreak has killed more than 40 people in Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The Ebola epidemic is still spreading in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia. Projections show there could be between 5,000 and 10,000 new cases a week in early December, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday.

The deadly virus was discovered in 1976 in what is now known as the Democratic Republic of Congo and symptoms include cause fever, bleeding, vomiting and diarrhea. It spreads through contact with bodily fluids such as blood or saliva.

(Reporting by Luis Jaime Acosta; Editing by Ryan Woo)


http://news.yahoo.com/colombia-denying-entry-recent-travelers-ebola-hit-countries-030544267--finance.html