Ebola news 10/15

[Buster's Uncle]

WHO may declare Nigeria and Senegal Ebola-free within days
Reuters  8 hours ago



A school official takes a pupil's temperature using an infrared digital laser thermometer in front of the school premises, at the resumption of private schools, in Lagos, Nigeria, September 22, 2014. REUTERS/Akintunde Akinleye



GENEVA (Reuters) - Nigeria and Senegal could be declared Ebola-free within days after completing a 42-day period with no new cases, the World Health Organization said on Tuesday.

"If the active surveillance for new cases that is currently in place continues, and no new cases are detected, WHO will declare the end of the outbreak of Ebola virus disease in Senegal on Friday 17 October," the WHO said in a statement.

For Nigeria, the date is next Monday, Oct 20.

Senegal had one patient who was confirmed to have Ebola but he recovered and appears not to have infected anyone else.

In Nigeria, one traveller from Liberia triggered an outbreak in which eight people died, most of them health workers, before it could be contained.

But in the three worst affected countries, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, "new cases continue to explode in areas that looked like they were coming under control," WHO said.

"An unusual characteristic of this epidemic is a persistent cyclical pattern of gradual dips in the number of new cases, followed by sudden flare-ups."

WHO says that waiting for 42 days from the time when the last person with high risk exposure tests negative for the virus gives sufficient confidence to declare an outbreak over.

The 42-day period is twice the generally accepted maximum incubation period of the virus. However, some incubation periods are longer - that WHO said that in 95 percent of cases the incubation period was between one and 21 days. In 98 percent it was no longer than 42 days.

The health agency has said that the virus can survive even longer, remaining for as much as 90 days in the semen of an infected man.

Outside West Africa, the spread of the disease has been confirmed in Spain and the United States. Possible cases have been investigated in several other countries, but none has yet turned out to be Ebola.

The WHO said it was concerned by media reports that some countries facing a possible first Ebola case had declared the cases to be negative within hours.

"Such rapid determination of infection status is impossible, casting grave doubts on some of the official information that is being communicated to the public and the media," it said.

Countries without recognised laboratories specialising in viral haemorrhagic fever testing should send their first 50 negative specimens to a WHO collaborating centre, it said. All countries should have their first 25 positive tests double-checked.


http://news.yahoo.com/may-declare-nigeria-senegal-ebola-free-within-days-065234151.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Dallas nurses cite sloppy conditions in Ebola care
Associated Press
By MATT SEDENSKY and MARTHA MENDOZA  19 minutes ago



A second health care worker who treated Thomas Eric Duncan at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital tested positive for the Ebola virus. Nurses employed at the Dallas hospital are non-union emoployees, and they approached National Nurses United, angry about the blame they've received in handling Duncan



DALLAS (AP) — A Liberian Ebola patient was left in an open area of a Dallas emergency room for hours, and nurses treating him worked without proper protective gear and faced constantly changing protocols, according to a statement released by the nation's largest nurses' union.

Among those nurses was Nina Pham, 26, who has been hospitalized since Friday after catching Ebola while caring for Thomas Eric Duncan, the first person diagnosed with the virus in the U.S. He died last week.

Public-health authorities announced Wednesday that a second Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital health care worker had tested positive for Ebola, raising more questions about whether American hospitals and their staffs are adequately prepared to contain the virus.

The CDC has said some breach of protocol probably sickened Pham, but National Nurses United contends the protocols were either non-existent or changed constantly after Duncan arrived in the emergency room by ambulance on Sept. 28.

Medical records provided to The Associated Press by Duncan's family show that Pham helped care for him throughout his hospital stay, including the day he arrived in intensive care with diarrhea, abdominal pain, nausea and vomiting, and the day before he died.

When Pham's mother learned she was caring for Duncan, she tried to reassure her that she would be safe.

Pham told her: "Mom, no. Don't worry about me," family friend Christina Tran told The Associated Press.

Duncan's medical records make numerous mentions of protective gear worn by hospital staff, and Pham herself notes wearing the gear in visits to Duncan's room. But there is no indication in the records of her first encounter with Duncan, on Sept. 29, that Pham donned any protective gear.

Deborah Burger of National Nurses United, who convened a conference call with reporters to relay what she said were concerns of nurses at the hospital, said they were forced to use medical tape to secure openings in their flimsy garments and worried that their necks and heads were exposed as they cared for Duncan.

RoseAnn DeMoro, executive director of Nurses United, said the statement came from "several" and "a few" nurses, but she refused repeated inquiries to state how many. She said the organization had vetted the claims, and that the nurses cited were in a position to know what had occurred at the hospital. She did not specify whether they were among the nurses caring for Duncan.



This 2011 photo provided by Wilmot Chayee shows Thomas Eric Duncan, the first Ebola patient diagnosed in the U.S., at a wedding in Ghana. Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas, where Duncan was being treated for the disease, on Wednesday, Oct. 8, 2014 said Duncan has died. (AP Photo/Wilmot Chayee)


The nurses allege that his lab samples were allowed to travel through the hospital's pneumatic tubes, possibly risking contaminating of the specimen-delivery system. They also said that hazardous waste was allowed to pile up to the ceiling.

Wendell Watson, a Presbyterian spokesman, did not respond to specific claims by the nurses but said the hospital has not received similar complaints.

"Patient and employee safety is our greatest priority, and we take compliance very seriously," he said in a statement. He said the hospital would "review and respond to any concerns raised by our nurses and all employees."

The nurses' statement said they had to "interact with Mr. Duncan with whatever protective equipment was available," even as he produced "a lot of contagious fluids." Duncan's medical records underscore that concern. They also say nurses treating Duncan were also caring for other patients in the hospital and that, in the face of constantly shifting guidelines, they were allowed to follow whichever ones they chose.

When Ebola was suspected but unconfirmed, a doctor wrote that use of disposable shoe covers should also be considered. At that point, by all protocols, shoe covers should have been mandatory to prevent anyone from tracking contagious body fluids around the hospital.

A few days later, however, entries in the hospital charts suggest that protection was improving.

"RN entered room in Tyvek suits, triple gloves, triple boots, and respirator cap in place," a nurse wrote.

The Presbyterian nurses are not represented by Nurses United or any other union. DeMoro and Burger said the nurses claimed they had been warned by the hospital not to speak to reporters or they would be fired.

The AP has attempted since last week to contact dozens of individuals involved in Duncan's care. Those who responded to reporters' inquiries have so far been unwilling to speak.

David R. Wright, deputy regional administrator for the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, which monitors patient safety and has the authority to withhold federal funding, said his agency is going to want to get all of the information the nurses provided.

"We can't talk about whether we're going to investigate or not, but we'd be interested in hearing that information," he said.

CDC officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Duncan first sought care at the hospital's ER late on Sept. 25 and was sent home the next morning. He was rushed by ambulance back to the hospital on Sept. 28. Unlike his first visit, mention of his recent arrival from Liberia immediately roused suspicion of an Ebola risk, records show.

The CDC said 76 staff members at the hospital could have been exposed to Duncan after his second ER visit. Another 48 people who may have had contact with him before he was isolated are being monitored. Pham remained hospitalized Tuesday in good condition and said in a statement that she was doing well.

The Rev. Jim Khoi, pastor at Our Lady of Fatima Church in Fort Worth, which Pham's family attends, said the 2010 Texas Christian University nursing school graduate appeared to be in good spirits when she spoke to her mother via video chat.

Pham's mother, Ngoc Pham, is "calm," Khoi said. "She trusts in God. And she asks for prayers."

___

Associated Press writers Margery Beck in Omaha, Nebraska, and Nomaan Merchant and Alex Sanz in Dallas contributed to this report.


http://news.yahoo.com/dallas-nurses-cite-sloppy-conditions-ebola-care-042120774.html

[Buster's Uncle]

US Ebola patient 'flew on domestic airplane'
AFP  35 minutes ago






Washington (AFP) - The second US health care worker infected with Ebola flew on a domestic airplane a day before her diagnosis, and health authorities said Wednesday they are seeking to interview 132 people on that flight.

The US Centers for Disease Control said the woman "exhibited no signs or symptoms of illness while on flight 1143, according to the crew," but the agency wants to speak with passengers anyway to determine if anyone is at risk.



A journalist works near a Ebola hand book distributed by the World Health Organization (WHO) during the 65th Session of the WHO Regional Committee for the Western Pacific in Manila on October 13, 2014 (AFP Photo/Jay Directo)


"Because of the proximity in time between the evening flight and first report of illness the following morning, CDC is reaching out to passengers who flew on Frontier Airlines flight 1143 Cleveland to Dallas/Fort Worth Oct. 13," the CDC said in a statement.

"Passengers who may have traveled on flight 1143 should contact CDC at 1 800 CDC-INFO (1 800 232-4636)."



World Health Organization's Assistant Director General Bruce Aylward holds a report on the Ebola virus during a press conference on September 16, 2014 at United Nations offices in Geneva, Switzerland (AFP Photo/Fabrice Coffrini)


Ebola is transmitted by close contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person. It is not contagious until a patient begins to show symptoms such as fever, aches, vomiting or diarrhea.



Health workers in protective gear stand at the entrance of the Ebola treatment unit of the John F. Kennedy Medical Center in Monrovia, October 13, 2014 (AFP Photo/Zoom Dosso)


The second case of US transmission of Ebola was announced by Dallas officials on Wednesday, and follows the diagnosis on Sunday of nurse Nina Pham.

Both health care workers were infected while caring for a Liberian man, Thomas Eric Duncan, who was infected in West Africa and diagnosed in Texas where he had flown to visit family.


http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-infection-rate-could-reach-10-000-week-180517151.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Map: Where Ebola is likely to go next
Vox
Updated by German Lopez on October 13, 2014, 1:30 p.m. ET


Ebola already reached the US when a patient was diagnosed in Texas on September 30. But where is the disease likely to go next? A map from MOBS Lab and Northeastern University shows the risks:



 

To develop these estimates, researchers used a computer model that tracks the frequency of international traffic to different countries, the progression of the disease in already affected countries, and the incubation time and other aspects of Ebola. The estimates will be updated as the epidemic continues.

Outside of Africa, the risk is relatively high in the UK and France, but thankfully very low in India and China. The more advanced health-care systems in the UK and France are much better equipped to deal with an Ebola outbreak, while less advanced systems in China and particularly India, which also have considerably bigger populations to manage, could struggle to deal with an epidemic.

Peter Piot, who helped discover and name the virus, told the Guardian about his concerns with an outbreak in India:

But an outbreak in Europe or North America would quickly be brought under control. I am more worried about the many people from India who work in trade or industry in west Africa. It would only take one of them to become infected, travel to India to visit relatives during the virus's incubation period, and then, once he becomes sick, go to a public hospital there. Doctors and nurses in India, too, often don't wear protective gloves. They would immediately become infected and spread the virus.

As Vox's Julia Belluz previously explained, this is one of the nightmare Ebola scenarios that keeps scientists up at night. It's good, then, that the chance of Ebola spreading to India and China seems fairly remote.


http://www.vox.com/xpress/2014/10/13/6959103/ebola-spread-international-epidemic-china-india-europe

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Can You Get Your Dog Sick?
Yahoo Health
Laura Tedesco  Oct‎ ‎15‎, ‎2014



Nina Pham, a Dallas nurse who was infected with the Ebola virus while caring for a patient, with her dog. (AP Photo/Courtesy of tcu360.com)



Not everyone being monitored for Ebola in Dallas is human. The infected nurse’s dog — a Cavalier King Charles spaniel named Bentley — has been quarantined for observation, since he was home with his owner, Nina Pham, when she developed a fever.

Although Bentley won’t be enjoying any strolls outside, Dallas city spokeswoman Sana Syed has assured the public that Pham’s furry friend isn’t going to be trapped in a cage for 21 days. “We’re going to do our best so that the dog is in the best mental state when he is returned to his owner,” she said. Another dog, Excalibur — the pet of a nursing assistant who caught the virus in Spain — wasn’t so fortunate: The 12-year-old rescue dog was euthanized, even though it was unclear whether the animal was infected with Ebola.

So is euthanasia — or just solitary confinement — even necessary? Could Bentley or Excalibur feasibly have caught Ebola from their owners? Research does shed some light on the subject: After the 2001-2002 Ebola outbreak in Gabon, about a third of dogs from villages with human cases tested positive for the virus, according to a study in Emerging Infectious Diseases.

“These findings strongly suggest that dogs can be infected by Ebola virus,” the researchers concluded. Interestingly, none of the furry patients developed Ebola symptoms, suggesting that infected dogs can appear to be healthy, yet may still shed viral particles in their urine, feces, and saliva until the Ebola clears.

But consider this: Many of these canines in the study had been feeding on infected animal carcasses or licking vomit off of sick people, the researchers reported. These circumstances aren’t likely among pets in the U.S. In fact, as the CDC recently stated, “The risk to pets is…very low, as they would have to come into contact with blood and body fluids of a person with Ebola.”

And, of course, most of us will never encounter Ebola, which means our pets aren’t likely at risk of exposure to it, either. But there are more everyday diseases that you could pass along to your pooch, said Whitney Krueger, an epidemiologist who has studied canine zooneses.

The biggie: methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, the type of staph that doesn’t respond to antibiotics typically used against the bacteria, Krueger said. How’s it transmitted? Most likely through direct contact — say, the bacteria is on your hand, and then you pet your pup, explained Ali Messenger, a public-health expert who has studied human-to-animal diseases.

And many of these human-to-dog transmissions may go unrecognized: “If someone had MRSA, and then their dog gets a skin infection, I don’t know if the vet would think to say, ‘Oh, well, you had MRSA, now your dog has MRSA,’” said Messenger. “I don’t know that many people make that connection.”

That may explain why the research on “reverse zooneses” — the technical name for diseases that humans can give to animals — is somewhat lacking. In a study review, published earlier this year in PLOS ONE, Messenger was only able to track down 56 solid studies looking at this phenomenon “from the beginning of time to 2012,” she said. “It’s a relatively new topic. We’ve documented that this is happening. We just don’t know how prevalent it is.”


https://www.yahoo.com/health/can-you-get-your-dog-sick-100000132952.html

[Buster's Uncle]

A second health worker in Dallas tests positive for Ebola
Vox
Updated by Julia Belluz on October 15, 2014, 11:28 a.m. ET



Texas Health Presbyterian, where two health workers have contracted Ebola from a patient.  Mike Stone/Getty Images



A second nurse in Dallas has tested positive for  Ebola Wednesday morning,  according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Amber Joy Vinson had traveled on a plane from Cleveland to Dallas the day before reporting symptoms to the hospital and officials are now tracking down all the passengers on her flight.

The news comes three days after officials announced the first-ever Ebola transmission in the United States involving Nina Pham, a 26-year-old nurse who cared for the Liberian patient who died from Ebola  in Dallas. Pham is in isolation and remains in good condition.

The second nurse, 29-year-old Vinson, also became infected while caring for Thomas Eric Duncan at Texas Health Presbyterian. On Tuesday, she had reported a fever and was put into isolation at the hospital. The day before, on Monday October 13, she traveled on Frontier Airlines flight 1143 Cleveland to Dallas/Fort Worth, the CDC said. "Because of the proximity in time between the evening flight and first report of illness the following morning, CDC is reaching out to passengers [on the flight]."

Vinson is being monitored for symptoms, and the CDC is following up with the patient's contacts. According to the CDC, she was not symptomatic at the time of her flight, which means she wouldn't have been contagious. Still, the agency is asking the 132 passengers on the flight to call 1 800-CDC INFO (1 800 232-4636).



Nina Pham, the first Texas health worker to get Ebola. (Photo from Nina Pham Facebook Community Page)


Vinson reportedly lived alone, and Dallas officials were already decontaminating her apartment Wednesday morning and distributing fliers about Ebola throughout the neighborhood.

"As we have said before, because of our ongoing investigation, it is not unexpected that there would be additional exposures," the CDC warned in a statement.

It's not yet clear how Vinson became infected with the virus. According to the New York Times, Dr. Daniel Varga, the chief clinical officer for Texas Health Resources, this second infection did not suggest "a systematic, institutional failure." He also said the hospital was trying to figure out how exactly the virus spread to the health workers.

"We're looking at every element of our personal protective equipment and infection control inside the hospital," Dr. Varga said in the Times. "We don't have an answer for this right now, but we're looking at every possible angle."


A series of missteps in Dallas

Duncan, the first person to be diagnosed with Ebola in the United States, died at at Texas Health Presbyterian on October 8. He tested positive for the virus over a week after arriving in Dallas from Liberia, one of countries hardest hit by the epidemic.

A hospital misstep in failing to diagnose Duncan at an early stage might have affected his outcome, but it has also affected the lives of everyone with whom he came into contact.

Officials are still following up with 48 people who had some kind of exposure to Duncan or his family prior to Duncan's diagnosis. So far, none of them have fallen ill, and they've passed the eight to ten day period when they would be most likely to show symptoms.

The CDC has also been monitoring one of Pham's contacts and 76 people who had exposure to Duncan after his diagnosis on September 28, during his hospital stay.

It's not yet clear how many of Vinson's contacts are being traced right now, but the investigation will involve the 132 passengers who shared her Cleveland-Dallas flight.


The CDC still says it can contain any US outbreak

"It is certainly possible that someone who had contact with [Duncan]... could develop Ebola in the coming weeks," the CDC director Tom Frieden said previously. Still, he added: "I have no doubt we will stop this in its tracks in the US. I also have no doubt as long as this continues in Africa, we need to be on guard."

That said, the failure to screen and diagnose Duncan on his first visit to hospital — and news that he transmitted Ebola to two health workers — will raise public concern about Ebola, in particular, among health-care workers and hospital staff who might come into contact with Ebola patients in their clinics.

To address those concerns, yesterday the CDC announced precautions that it would be taking in Dallas and in hospitals across the country. They include:

Sending an additional team to Dallas, including experts who successfully controlled outbreaks of Ebola in Africa in the past two decades, including in health-care settings.
Making improvements to processes and procedures at the Dallas hospital to reduce risk to health care personnel.
Having a site manager in place and at the Dallas hospital 24/7 as long as Ebola patients are receiving care, to oversee the putting on and taking off of personal protective gear and the care given in the isolation unit.
Establishing a dedicated CDC response team that could be on the ground within a few hours at any hospital with a confirmed patient with Ebola.
Providing more opportunities for healthcare providers to receive additional training and to get their questions answered from CDC experts.

This is part of a wider effort to protect Americans from Ebola. As a precautionary measure, the Department of Homeland Security announced last week that they would begin screening flight passengers coming in from West Africa for signs of infection, starting with five American airports.

For now, though, the major concern is stopping the outbreak at its source. Ebola is currently concentrated in West Africa, in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone. There, more than 8,000 people have gotten the virus, and more than 4,000 have died.

Transmission from patients to health workers has been an all-too-common feature of this outbreak. More than 230 health workers have died while caring for the sick in this epidemic — an unprecedented number, according to the World Health Organization.

Further reading: How you can and can't get Ebola, The nightmare Ebola scenario keeping scientists up at night, The lesson that should be learned from this Ebola outbreak.


http://www.vox.com/2014/10/15/6981157/a-second-health-worker-in-dallas-tests-positive-for-ebola

[Buster's Uncle]

American teacher now educating Liberians about Ebola
CBS News
By/Debora Patta/CBS News/October 14, 2014, 7:18 PM



MONROVIA, Liberia -- Health care workers are on another run in the overcrowded slum of Westpoint in Liberia's capital.

Through the warren of narrow alleys, they perform one of the most dangerous jobs in the world. The Ebola virus is so contagious that even a moment's lack of concentration can be fatal.

The workers locate a man who has Ebola symptoms, and must be treated quickly to avoid spreading the disease.

As the patient is placed in the ambulance, anxious eyes take notice.

Watching too is Katie Meyler, an American charity worker from New Jersey. This is her charity's ambulance. A donor bought it when it was clear Liberia's health care system was collapsing.

"And the ambulance is quickly removing people, in other communities it can three to four hours, but the ambulance here takes 30 minutes," Meyler says.

Meyler runs a school for girls in Westpoint. But with all classes cancelled now, she turned her school into an outreach center. She believes it's the only way the disease will be stopped.

"You've got sickness so be extra careful," Meyler tells a student. "You have had sickness around you, I'm telling you. "

Meyler works hand-in-hand with workers like Archie Gebessy who go door to door looking for residents who might be infected.

"Five persons died last months," Gebessey says. "Here are the family. And it happened because they didn't have the basic education to prevent themselves."

Meyler tries to bring comfort to the sick -- who are allowed no human contact.

"They are dying of hopelessness, they are dying of isolation and loneliness," Meyler says.

To ease that pain she sends mobile phones to patients who at least can phone their families.

On the day we spent with her, Meylar gets through to a sick mother who has already lost one of her children.

"I am overjoyed to hear that ... that the family are doing better now," Meyler says through tears. "I am so grateful as this time when so many people are dying."

Despite efforts like Meyler's, a walk around this city makes it clear it is not enough. There is increased awareness of Ebola in Monrovia -- we reek of chlorine, everywhere you wash your hands in it.

But it is still going to take a massive international effort to stop the deadly march of this disease.
.
© 2014 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.


http://www.cbsnews.com/news/american-teacher-now-educating-liberians-about-ebola/?ftag=YHF4eb9d17

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Workers at Madrid Hospital Say Spain Was Ill-Prepared for Ebola
Spanish Experience Points Up Challenges for U.S. in Handling Disease
The Wall Street Journal
By Ilan Brat, Christopher Bjork and Jeannette Neumann  Updated Oct. 15, 2014 7:05 a.m. ET



Aid workers and doctors transport infected Spanish priest Miguel Pajares from a plane to an ambulance at an air base in Madrid on Aug. 7. Spanish Defense Ministry/ Associated Press



MADRID—As Ebola was spreading in Africa, more than 100 Spanish nurses asked a court here in July to look at the country’s defenses. Patients with the deadly virus were certain to arrive, they wrote, and Spain’s medical system was ill-prepared to contain it.

The warning was prescient. Over the next two months, two Spanish missionaries stricken with Ebola were brought home and admitted to Spain’s pre-eminent center for highly infectious diseases—which had been taken apart in recent months after budget cuts, then hastily reassembled.

Medical workers at the center, in Madrid’s Carlos III Hospital, said they were given insufficient training and supervision for the task, one-size-fits-all protective outfits that sometimes didn’t fully cover their skin, and too little space to remove that gear safely.

The vulnerability to the virus was exposed last week when the hospital confirmed that a nursing aide who cared for the missionaries, both of whom died, had become the first person to contract it outside of West Africa.

The aide, Teresa Romero, was listed Tuesday in serious but stable condition. A doctor and eight others initially involved in her care were among 15 people under medical observation after reporting high-risk contact with her.

“We warned them that we’re going to get gored by this bull,” said Manuel Torres, a 59-year-old nurse who treated the first of the two missionaries and Ms. Romero. “When the bull charges, it really charges, and now here’s the result.”

Government officials have declined to answer detailed questions about alleged lapses. Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy told reporters at the hospital last week that containing Ebola is “complex and difficult,” but that the risk of the disease spreading in Spain was very low.

In recent days, however, officials have moved to institute stricter training and improve vigilance in Carlos III’s seventh-floor quarantine unit, where 50 medical workers are caring for Ms. Romero.

The hospital’s experience highlights the challenges for the U.S. and other countries with sophisticated medical systems in the face of Ebola.

As in Dallas, where a nurse who cared for an Ebola patient tested positive for the disease, Spanish authorities said the infection was likely the result of a breach in treatment protocol.

They said they followed European and World Health Organization protocols and that Ms. Romero apparently contracted the virus by touching her face with a gloved hand while removing her gear.

That assertion set off a storm of protest by medical professionals, who said she was working in an environment of shortages and improvisation that made careful adherence to safety standards more difficult.

Medical workers jeered Mr. Rajoy when he visited the hospital last week and threw surgical gloves at his car, protesting what they called wider failures in the country’s health-care system.

Some medical professionals say Spain, emerging from years of recession, was in no condition to have accepted Ebola patients.

Carlos III Hospital’s budget fell 23% between 2009 and 2013. Early this year, the Madrid regional government downgraded its infectious-diseases unit, saying resources would be better spent treating elderly people with chronic ailments.

In April, intensive-care doctors at La Paz University Hospital, also in Madrid, were told they would be assigned to treat any Ebola cases. They wrote to hospital officials saying they would refuse without adequate preparation.

Doctors Without Borders and the Spanish military offered courses, said Daniel Bernabeu, a physician at La Paz and president of the Amyts doctors’ union in Madrid. Instead, he said, the hospital’s occupational safety team organized its own sessions.

Health workers heading to Africa for Doctors Without Borders practice putting on and taking off their gear under the watch of an experienced person, the agency says. Once in Africa, they observe the care at an Ebola treatment center before they are entrusted to provide it themselves.

People who took the course at La Paz said they didn’t get to try on protective gear, but watched as a trainer demonstrated.

“We asked them, ‘What happens if I take off the glove wrong, or if I cut myself?’ said Amelia Batanero, a 47-year-old nurse. “They didn’t answer any of our questions.”



Medical staff seen in protective suits work at the Carlos III hospital on Sunday. Agence France-Presse/Getty Images


As concern grew over the summer, nurses petitioned a Madrid court to investigate the hospital´s readiness in light of worker-safety laws. “We don’t feel prepared,” they wrote. The court declined, saying evidence of violations was insufficient.

In early August, the disease was at the doorstep.

Mr. Rajoy’s cabinet had approved a request by the Rev. Miguel Pajares, who had been infected in Liberia, to be treated in Spain. The day before he was to arrive, La Paz’s intensive care doctors again resisted, warning that the hospital was ill-prepared and lacked a separate entrance that could keep the patient isolated en route to a quarantine cell.

Overnight, by government decree, the infectious-diseases unit was reassembled on a vacated floor of Carlos III, according to Dr. Bernabeu, Mr. Torres and several other staffers.

Maintenance crews scrambled to equip two quarantine cells with beds, blood-analysis machines and vital-signs monitors. Doctors and nurses who had been transferred from Carlos III to La Paz and elsewhere were summoned back.

Problems became evident soon after the priest’s arrival, hospital workers said. Staff inside a quarantine cell couldn’t communicate with those outside. Walkie-talkies were provided the next day. Hazmat suits were too big or too small for some staff.

Medical workers had to step out of quarantine into a changing area about three-feet square—inhibiting the meticulous and risky task of undressing.

Medical workers said flaws persisted after Brother García Viejo arrived at Carlos III in late September. Hospital workers said the video camera in his cell wasn’t recording and there was no camera in the changing room, making it harder to determine how Ms. Romero became infected.

Dr. Ashish Jha, director of the Harvard Global Health Institute, said the Spanish case underscores the importance of training health care workers to treat Ebola. “It’s not that training and practice gets you to 100%,” he said, “but it can substantially reduce the likelihood that a worker will get infected while taking care of a patient.”

Since late last week, authorities have taken corrective steps.

A new treatment protocol requires supervised hand-washing with a bleach solution after each step of removing protective gear, Dr. Bernabeu said. Under a newly instituted training protocol, he said, medical workers will practice putting on and taking off protective gear twice a day for a week.

A video camera that can help supervisors detect procedural breakdowns was recently installed in the changing room outside Ms. Romero’s cell; previously there were cameras only inside her isolation cell and one other.

After two experts from the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control told Spanish officials that the isolation unit’s changing room is too small, the regional government announced the unit was being “reinforced and bolstered.”

Mr. Torres said construction workers are building four new airtight quarantine cells there, with more space for medical workers to shed infected garb.

—Gautam Naik and Betsy McKay contributed to this article.


http://online.wsj.com/articles/workers-at-madrid-hospital-say-spain-was-ill-prepared-for-ebola-1413320546?ru=yahoo?mod=yahoo_itp

[Buster's Uncle]

Second Nurse Infected with Ebola Was on Jetliner Before Diagnosis
ABC News  Oct 15, 2014, 12:15 PM ET
By SYDNEY LUPKIN



A second Texas nurse who has tested positive for Ebola was on a commercial jetliner from Cleveland to Dallas the night before she arrived at the hospital with a fever and was later diagnosed with the deadly virus, officials said today.

The nurse, who has been identified as nurse Amber Vinson, 29, was part of the team at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital who took care of Thomas Eric Duncan, a Liberian man who died of Ebola on Oct. 8. She is the second member of the hospital staff to contract the virus and a Dallas official warned today that additional cases among the hospital's health care workers is a "very real possibility."

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is reaching out to the 132 passengers who flew with the woman on Frontier Airlines Flight 1143 on Monday evening, landing in Dallas at 8:16 p.m. Although according to crew members the health care worker had no symptoms during the flight, the CDC is identifying and notifying passengers because she arrived at the hospital with a fever the following morning.

Once it landed in Dallas, the plane was cleaned for the evening before flying out the next day, according to a statement from Frontier Airlines, which said its procedures are "consistent with CDC guidelines." It was cleaned again in Cleveland the following night.

“The fight against Ebola in Dallas is a two-front fight now,” Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins said, speaking at a morning press conference.

President Obama was supposed to visit New Jersey and Connecticut today, but he canceled the trip to hold a cabinet meeting in the White House to coordinate a response to the Ebola outbreak.

Authorities said they are now tracking 75 people following the second hospital worker’s diagnosis. The unidentified health care worker reported a fever Tuesday and was isolated at the hospital, authorities said.

The preliminary Ebola test was run late Tuesday at the state public health laboratory in Austin, and results were received at about midnight, authorities said. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has begun confirmation testing.

The woman was put into isolation within 90 minutes, and she is dealing with her diagnosis "with grit and grace," Jenkins said.

Authorities said this may not be the last case to be found among the hospital’s staff.

"We are preparing contingencies for more and that is a very real possibility," Jenkins said.

Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings also suggested additional people may get sick.

"It may get worse before it gets better, but it will get better,” the mayor said.

Dr. Daniel Varga of Texas Health Resources defended practices at the hospital, which has faced criticism amid the Ebola diagnoses.

“It’s clear there was an exposure somewhere, sometime in our treatment of Duncan. Let’s be clear we’re a hospital that serves this community extremely well,” Varga said at the press conference.

“We’re the first to diagnose and treat this insidious disease that has attacked two of our own.”

City workers went to the neighborhood of the second patient early this morning to knock on doors to alert people to the news and to be alert to possible symptoms. They handed out flyers and later began robo calls to the area, Varga said.

Rawlings said the community remains vigilant.

“The only way that we are going to beat this is person by person, moment by moment, detail by detail,” Rawlings said. "While Dallas is anxious about this … We are not fearful.”

Health officials interviewed the patient, hoping to track down any contacts or potential exposures in the community, the CDC said in a statement.

"While this is troubling news for the patient, the patient’s family and colleagues and the greater Dallas community, the CDC and the Texas Department of State Health Services remain confident that wider spread in the community can be prevented with proper public health measures including ongoing contact tracing, health monitoring among those known to have been in contact with the index patient and immediate isolations if symptoms develop," the CDC said in a statement.

Authorities visited the patient's apartment this morning to begin decontamination efforts.

Dallas Police Depart        ✔   @DallasPD 
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Decon in progress in apt building of 2nd health care worker with Ebola. @dallasfireres_q @dallaspiosana #DallasEbola
 
6:48 AM - 15 Oct 2014

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The workers donned hazmat suits, trying to protect themselves from exposure.

Dallas Police Depart        ✔   @DallasPD 
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.@MaxDPD :@DallasFireRes_q hazmat suiting up to decon apartment of 2nd health care worker with Ebola #DallasEbola
 
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The new diagnosis comes days after nurse Nina Pham, 26, who also treated Duncan, was diagnosed with Ebola. Duncan was diagnosed with Ebola Sept. 30 and died Oct. 8.

CDC Director Thomas Frieden had previously suggested that Pham may not be the only person who became infected while treating Duncan. “It is possible that other individuals could have been infected,” Frieden said.

Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell admitted that the reasons for the hospital workers becoming infected aren't clear.

"Those are people that came in contact because we don't understand exactly how the breach in protocol occurred," Burwell told ABC News today. "We are taking the precaution of making sure that anyone within that treatment phase will be tracked and monitored in a more serious way."

Ebola has killed more than 4,000 people, mostly in the West African countries of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, according to recent figures by the World Health Organization.


http://abcnews.go.com/Health/healthcare-worker-texas-tests-positive-ebola-authorities/story?id=26206090

[Buster's Uncle]

Second Dallas nurse with Ebola was on Frontier Airlines Flight 1143
CDC asking all 132 passengers to call and be interviewed
Yahoo
By Jason Sickles, 6 hours ago



A decontamination team enters the apartment of a second Dallas nurse infected with Ebola. (Dallas Police Department)



DALLAS – A second nurse who treated Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan has been diagnosed with the deadly disease a day after flying from Ohio to Texas, officials said.

The nurse, identifed by her family as Amber Joy Vinson, 29, reported a fever on Tuesday and was immediately isolated at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas, officials said. Federal health officials said she is ill and will soon be transferred to a biocontainment unit at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta.

Vinson was not experiencing symptoms at the time of her flight, but CDC director Dr. Tom Frieden said during a news conference that she “should not have travelled” on her return flight to Texas after learning in Ohio that she was a potential infection risk.

The CDC is now asking all 132 passengers on Frontier Airlines Flight 1143 from Cleveland to Dallas-Fort Worth which landed at 8:16 p.m. Monday to call 1-800-CDC-INFO.

“Public health professionals will begin interviewing passengers about the flight, answering their questions, and arranging follow up,” the CDC said in a statement. “Individuals who are determined to be at any potential risk will be actively monitored.”

Vinson was among 76 hospital workers who cared for Duncan, a Liberian citizen who died from Ebola at Texas Health Presbyterian a week ago.

At an early morning news conference, a bleary eyed Dr. Daniel Varga, the hospital's chief clinical officer, called Vinson's infection “an unprecedented crisis.”

“This is a heroic person, a person who has dedicated her life to helping others and is a servant leader,” Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins said during a news conference.



Nurse Nina Pham and Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan. (AP Photos)
 

Jenkins called the second diagnosis a “gut shot” to the hospital staff. He acknowledged that officials are making contingency plans and that others who treated Duncan may develop Ebola as well.

“That is a very real possibility,” he said.

It wasn't immediately known how the Vinson contracted the disease, but Varga said, “It’s clear there was an exposure somewhere, sometime in their treatment of Mr. Duncan.” 

“We’re a hospital that may have done some things different with the benefit of what we know today,” he said. “Make no mistake, no one wants to get this right more than our hospital.”

The latest positive test for Ebola was determined at about midnight Tuesday at a state laboratory in Austin.

A hazardous-materials team is now decontaminating Vinson's Dallas apartment in a community not far from the hospital. City officials said she lived alone and had no pets.

Vinson, a nurse in Texas for two years according to state records, was reportedly in Ohio visiting family near Akron. She arrived in Cleveland last Saturday on Frontier flight 1142, according to the airline.

Vinson becomes the third person to be diagnosed with Ebola in Dallas since Sept. 30. City officials addressed the public early Wednesday.

“I continue to believe that while Dallas is anxious about this — and, with this news this morning, the anxiety level goes up a level — we are not fearful,” Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings said. “It may get worse before it gets better, but it will get better.”

Duncan, who had travelled from West Africa to Dallas days before becoming ill, was the first person to ever be diagnosed with the virus in the United States. The disease, for which there is no known cure, has killed more than 4,000 people in West Africa in 2014, the World Health Organization estimates.

Duncan, 42, was treated at Texas Health Presbyterian for 10 days before his death. Last Friday, 26-year-old nurse Nina Pham began running a fever while at home and went to the hospital, where she was isolated. She tested positive for Ebola on Sunday. Hospital officials reported that she was in good condition as of late Tuesday.

Texas Health Presbyterian officials have said Pham wore protective clothing and insist that staff followed safety precautions issued by federal officials. How Pham, a nurse for four years, contracted Ebola hasn’t been determined, but CDC director Dr. Tom Frieden has said he believes there was a breach in safety procedures.

Pham’s diagnosis sparked immediate concern for workers at Texas Health Presbyterian. On Tuesday, the CDC said 76 health care workers who could have come in contact with Duncan were being monitored for symptoms.

“As we have said before, because of our ongoing investigation, it is not unexpected that there would be additional exposures,” the CDC said in a written statement early Wednesday. “An additional health care worker testing positive for Ebola is a serious concern, and the CDC has already taken active steps to minimize the risk to health care workers and the patient.”

News of the third Ebola infection comes a day after the largest U.S. nurses' union alleged that some Texas Health Presbyterian workers had reported that nurses treated Duncan for days without proper protective gear and faced constantly changing protocols.

RoseAnn DeMoro, executive director of Nurses United, said the allegations came from “several” and “a few” nurses, but she refused repeated inquiries to state how many, the Associated Press reported. She said that the organization had vetted the claims and that the nurses cited were in a position to know what had occurred at the hospital. She refused to elaborate.

A hospital spokesman did not respond to specific claims by the nurses but said the hospital has not received similar complaints.


http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-diagnosed-in-second-dallas-nurse-105542930.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Member states losing race against Ebola: UN
AFP
6 hours ago



An ambulance is readied by technicians wearing biological hazard protective clothes to transport a Guinean patient suspected of having contracted Ebola, in Cascavel, state of Parana, Brazil, on October 10, 2014 (AFP Photo/Luiz Carlos Cruz)



United Nations (United States) (AFP) - The world is falling behind in a desperate race to gain the upper hand over the deadly Ebola outbreak, a top UN official warned on Tuesday.

"Ebola got a head start on us," said Anthony Banbury, head of the UN Mission for Ebola Emergency Response.

"It is far ahead of us, it is running faster than us, and it is winning the race," the Briton told the UN Security Council in New York, by remote link from UNMEER headquarters in Accra.

"If Ebola wins, we the peoples of the United Nations lose so very much,' he said.

"We either stop Ebola now or we face an entirely unprecedented situation for which we do not have a plan," Banbury stressed.

He said that with infection rates rising exponentially every day. UNMEER will need 7,000 beds for treatment.

"There's much bad news about Ebola but the good news is we know how to stop it," said Banbury.

But to push back the spread "we must defeat Ebola and we must do it fast," he said.

"With every day that passes, the number of sick people increases," Banbury added.

"Time is our biggest enemy. We must use every minute of every day to our advantage and that is what UNMEER is doing."

WHO assistant director general Bruce Aylward, describing his figures as a working forecast, said the epidemic "could reach 5,000 to 10,000 cases per week by the first week of December."

The latest death toll is 4,447, from 8,914 recorded infection cases, Aylward said as the worst-ever Ebola outbreak spirals in the three hardest-hit countries of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.


http://news.yahoo.com/member-states-losing-race-against-ebola-un-114806328.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Amid Ebola fear, West Africans in US try to help
Associated Press
By JENNIFER McDERMOTT  8 hours ago



In this Wednesday, Oct. 8, 2014 photo, Winston Gould, left, president of the Liberian Community Association of Rhode Island, listens to newspaper publisher Jacob Dorbor, right, during a meeting of the association, in Providence, R.I. Rhode Island’s close-knit Liberian community is trying to strike a balance between their longstanding tradition of hospitality and the fear of infection from Ebola's spread. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)




PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — When a friend called Togar Johnson from a bus stop last month to ask for a lift, Johnson made what he considered a difficult but prudent decision: He said no.

The friend had recently returned to the United States from Ebola-ravaged Liberia, and Johnson believed contact with him was just too risky. Even if it had been Johnson's own flesh and blood, the most he would have offered was cash — enough to stay at a hotel for 21 days, the incubation period of the deadly virus.

"I would not accept them," Johnson said when asked what he would do if his daughter or grandchild had placed the same call. "They have to be isolated."

As West Africans who have made their home in the United States watch the infection kill thousands half a world away, they are struggling to help far-off family and friends. In cities such as Minneapolis, Philadelphia, New York, Providence and Long Beach, California, they are praying, collecting donations and buying medical supplies for their countrymen.

At the same time, many West Africans in this country are afraid of what those same loved ones could bring to their doorsteps. They are trying to strike a balance between their longstanding tradition of hospitality — opening their arms to new arrivals — and their fear of infection.

Those fears intensified after the first person diagnosed with Ebola in the U.S., Thomas Eric Duncan, died last week in Dallas. Over the weekend, authorities disclosed that a Dallas nurse who treated the Liberia man had contracted Ebola, too, in the first known case of the virus being transmitted in the U.S.

In Providence, where the Liberian community claims 15,000 members, the Liberian Community Association of Rhode Island is raising money to rent an apartment or a house for people arriving from Liberia whose relatives are too afraid to take them in.

One man who spoke at an association meeting last week said he would welcome someone who had been to Liberia into his home, but he would give the visitor separate dishes and silverware. Some said they would feel comfortable accepting guests. But Liberian community leader Daniel Gould said he just couldn't do it.

"I'm a caring, loving person. All Liberians are," he said. "But I can't take that chance."

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has not recommended isolating travelers from West Africa who haven't shown any Ebola-like symptoms. But Dr. Michael Fine, director of the Rhode Island Department of Health, said he can understand ordinary people's fears.

"People are doing the best they can," he said.

The virus is spread only through direct contact with bodily fluids such as saliva, semen, sweat, blood, vomit or feces. Health care workers treating the infected are especially at risk.

West African communities here say they want to protect not only themselves but their adopted homeland. In Minnesota, a task force formed to answer questions and combat misconceptions about the disease wants local Liberians to let the group know of anyone who arrives from that region.

"An Ebola crisis here would be the worst thing we would want to see," said Abdullah Kiatamba, chairman of the Minnesota African Task Force Against Ebola.

Some West Africans in the U.S. are also trying to assuage the fears of American neighbors who now look askance at them.

In Minnesota, home of the largest Liberian population in the United States, estimated by community leaders at 30,000 to 35,000 people, members of the Ebola task force went to speak with local school districts because some parents didn't want their kids playing with children from West Africa.

To help those already afflicted by the outbreak, the Liberian-American Community Association of Southern California joined with a Liberian-born trauma surgeon to donate supplies ranging from bleach to a pair of electrocardiogram machines.

And in the Little Liberia section of New York's Staten Island, Day Keay said she has been praying for her homeland almost night and day. Keay, who has been in the U.S. for 14 years, said her foster daughter has lost 15 members of her family.

"We are all afraid," she said. "It's like we live in the church, asking for God's mercy for our people back there."

Kormasa Amos, a community leader in Rhode Island, said West Africans must not lose their compassion for their countrymen.

"If we can't take care of our own, how can we expect others to?" she said. "If we turn our people away, the world will say: If they can't do it, why should we?"


http://news.yahoo.com/amid-fear-west-africans-us-try-help-061148145.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Liberian healthcare workers call off Ebola strike
Reuters
5 hours ago


MONROVIA (Reuters) - Healthcare unions in Liberia called off a strike on Wednesday over pay and working conditions for medical staff tackling an epidemic of the deadly Ebola virus.

The strike, which began on Monday, garnered poor support and most hospitals and clinics in the West African country had been operating normally.

Liberia is the country hardest-hit by the outbreak of the viral hemorrhagic fever that has killed more than 4,400 people, mostly in three West African nations, including Sierra Leone and Guinea.

"We have called for the strike action to be called off on humanitarian grounds," said George Williams, secretary-general of the National Health Workers Association of Liberia.

"Our doors are open for negotiations at a later date... but as of now we call off the action based on numerous appeals from the Liberian people both home and the diaspora."

The outbreak has also reached Nigeria, Senegal, Spain and the United States but outbreaks have been contained so far.

The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday the epidemic was continuing to spread in the three worst-hit nations and there could be between 5,000 and 10,000 new cases a week by early December.

(Reporting by James Harding Giahyue; Writing by Daniel Flynn; Editing by David Lewis)


http://news.yahoo.com/liberian-healthcare-workers-call-off-ebola-strike-130631233.html

[Buster's Uncle]

News Guide: Latest news on Ebola
Associated Press
By The Associated Press  7 hours ago



Graphic shows how to carefully remove protective gear used when treating ebola infected patients



Health officials announced early Wednesday that a second health care worker at a Dallas hospital had preliminarily tested positive for Ebola.

The news came the day after a top U.S. health official acknowledged that a nurse at the hospital — the first recorded case of the disease being contracted in the U.S. — might not have been infected if a special response team had been sent to Dallas immediately after a Liberian man there was diagnosed with the disease.

Meanwhile, the World Health Organization warned that West Africa could face up to 10,000 new Ebola cases per week within two months. It also said the death rate during the outbreak has risen.

A look at the top Ebola developments worldwide:


THE LATEST

The Texas Department of State Health Services said Wednesday said that the second health care worker reported a fever Tuesday and was immediately isolated at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas, which has become the center of the disease in the United States.

Health officials said the worker was among those who took care of Thomas Eric Duncan, the first person diagnosed in the U.S. with Ebola. Duncan, who had traveled from Liberia where he contracted the disease, died Oct. 8.


THE CDC

Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said he wished the agency had deployed a team of infectious-disease specialists to Dallas on the day Duncan was diagnosed. He said it might have prevented a nurse that treated him from contracting the disease, and that the agency will send a rapid response team to any U.S. hospital that diagnoses another Ebola patient.

Frieden's stark admission came as he outlined a series of steps designed to stop the spread of Ebola in the U.S., including increased training for health care workers and changes at the Dallas hospital aimed at minimizing the risk of further infections.

Meanwhile, 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.


CALLS FOR ACTION

President Barack Obama said Tuesday that "the world is not doing enough" to fight the Ebola outbreak, and he suggested he will begin pressuring other world leaders to do more.

Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations' mission for Ebola response told the U.N. Security Council that the world must meet critical goals by Dec. 1 "or face an entirely unprecedented situation for which we don't have a plan."

Anthony Banbury said that by that date, at least 70 percent of people infected should be in treatment and at least 70 percent of Ebola burials should occur without contamination. He said he is "deeply, deeply worried" that current efforts will fall short.


THE SITUATION IN WEST AFRICA

Doctors Without Borders said Tuesday that 16 of its staff members have been infected with Ebola and that nine have died. The toll highlights the high risk of infection faced by those caring for Ebola patients, even at well-equipped and properly staffed treatment centers.

Meanwhile, a Sierra Leone soldier tested positive for Ebola, but he's not a member of a battalion of peacekeepers waiting to deploy to Somalia and he didn't have contact with that group, a government official said Tuesday.

Fear of Ebola's spread has already slowed the deployment of the Sierra Leone battalion, which was supposed to relieve soldiers serving with an African Union mission to protect the Somali government and fight al-Shabab militants. The replacement's deployment was put on hold this summer when the Ebola outbreak in West Africa spiraled out of control.


DALLAS NURSE

Nina Pham, who contracted Ebola while caring for an infected Liberian man, remained hospitalized in stable condition Tuesday and said in a statement she was "doing well."

Pham, the first person to contract the disease within the United States, was among more than 70 staff members at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas involved in caring for a Liberian man who was diagnosed while visiting the U.S.

Pham graduated from nursing school four years ago and was certified in critical care procedures two months before the disease arrived in the U.S., and family friend Christina Tran told The Associated Press that Pham understood the risks of caring for someone with Ebola.


NEWS CREW QUARINTINE MADE MANDATORY

NBC News medical correspondent Nancy Snyderman admitted that some members of her crew violated a voluntary quarantine to protect against Ebola, a misstep that caused New Jersey health officials to make that quarantine mandatory.

NBC said Tuesday that Snyderman and her crew are taking their temperatures regularly and remain healthy. The team was reporting in Liberia alongside cameraman Ashoka Mukpo, who tested positive for the deadly disease and is now being treated in Nebraska.

Snyderman confirmed the violation, but neither she nor NBC representatives would give details.


http://news.yahoo.com/news-guide-latest-news-ebola-104241988.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Cuba to the rescue: Ebola-stricken countries welcome Castro's doctors
The US is the biggest financial donor to Ebola-infected countries in West Africa. But the largest number of healthcare workers deployed in the field hail from an island nation with a cash-strapped communist government.
Christian Science Monitor
By Whitney Eulich  1 hour ago


Cuba has a long history of exporting doctors and nurses, ever since its 1959 revolution led by communist leader Fidel Castro. So when Ebola struck in West Africa, Cuba was quick to step up to the plate. In recent weeks, it has dispatched 65 health workers to Sierra Leone, making it the largest nation-provider of medial professionals working to help contain the epidemic. And it's preparing to send another nearly 300 workers to Liberia and Guinea in the coming weeks.

More than 4,000 people have died from Ebola and nearly 9,000 have contracted the disease, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Those numbers are predicted to grow at a rapid pace if Ebola is not contained: WHO has forecast that West Africa could see 10,000 new cases a week by December.

While financial aid and other support like food and security have trickled into the region as the world wakes up to the threat posed by Ebola, human resources are in highest demand. “Money and materials are important, but those two things alone cannot stop Ebola virus transmission,” Margaret Chan, director-general at the WHO said late last month.

“We need most especially compassionate doctors and nurses … working under very demanding conditions.”

The US is the biggest financial donor to the fight against Ebola, pledging $400 million in aid and sending some 4,000 troops to the region. But in terms of trained healthcare workers, its contribution has been 65 uniformed officers from the Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, reports The Wall Street Journal.

Cuba is "punching above its weight," when it comes to the fight against Ebola, reports The Washington Post. The island nation of 11 million isn't wealthy; its GDP per capita is less than one-sixth that of Britain's.

"The little we have, we share. Our principle resource is human capital,” Dr. Jorge Perez Avila, the director of the Pedro Kouri Institute for Tropical Medicine in Havana, told CNN.


DEPLOYING DOCTORS

This is the first time Cuban doctors have mobilized to fight Ebola, and Cuban state media reports that some 15,000 health professionals have expressed an interest in traveling to West African nations to help.

Under Castro, Cuba nationalized its healthcare system and inserted a constitutional guarantee of free healthcare for all. As a result, health indicators on the island have greatly improved, reports The Washington Post.

Havana regularly sends medical aid and teams of healthcare workers to nations suffering natural disasters. The Post writes that health workers are “up there with rum and cigars in terms of Cuban exports.”
Soon after its revolution, Cuba sent doctors to Chile to help the nation recover from a deadly 1960 earthquake.
Cuba sent 2,500 health workers to Pakistan after an earthquake in 2005.
1,500 Cuban health professionals traveled to Haiti after its 2010 earthquake.
Some 30,000 Cubans currently work in Venezuela’s health system; Cuba is partially paid in oil for its contribution.
An estimated 4,500 Cuban doctors are currently supplementing Brazil’s public health system in rural parts of the country or undesirable city neighborhoods.

“We work on malaria, cholera, dengue, a disaster situation, floods in Venezuela, floods in Guatemala, floods in Belize,” Jorge Delgado Bustillo, head of the Cuban Medical Brigade to Sierra Leone, told The Wall Street Journal.


MIXED RESPONSE TO CUBAN DOCTORS

Although Cuban doctors are known around the world for their service, their reception abroad is not always warm.

According to The Christian Science Monitor, when Brazil announced its Mais Medicos program, which brings thousands of foreign doctors – including many Cuban – to work in areas lacking medical personnel, there was resistance from Brazilian health professionals.

When the program was announced, the Brazilian Medical Association argued that the country didn't need more doctors and unsuccessfully sued to stop the program, which it called "electioneering." And some warned that the foreign doctors – particularly the thousands arriving from Cuba – were unqualified and coming to take Brazilian jobs….

Criticism is harshest around the arrival of Cuban doctors. Though Cuba has a record of exporting top-notch medical care to places like Venezuela, Honduras, and Haiti, some say the quality doesn't live up to its reputation. They are also seen as victims of the program: "slave laborers" in thrall to the Cuban government.

The program pays foreign governments 10,000 reais (about $4,500) per month per doctor. In most cases that money is then transferred directly to the professionals. However, Cuban doctors working in Brazil have reportedly received a small fraction of this salary, and ended up living on an income below minimum wage. Some Cuban doctors in Brazil have even defected from the program and sought asylum.

In Venezuela, criticism of Cuban care often falls along class lines, with wealthier citizens sharing tales of botched procedures or faulty diagnoses. However, Cuban doctors and nurse mostly practice in slums where the poorest live. In 2005, a reporter for the Monitor saw “first-hand why the Cuban doctors working in Venezuela [were] so effective at creating goodwill between the two countries.”

"I was very impressed by the Cuban doctors and gym teachers and what they are doing for the poor neighborhoods," says Danna [Harman].

Critics charge that the doctors are not really doctors but only medics or nurses, she says. "That may be true, but they are right there in the neighborhoods, they know the community, and they are paying attention to people's problems, which is enough, in many cases, for people to feel better," she says.

For example, Danna was feeling ill and went to a private hospital in Caracas this week. "I waited for almost two hours and was confronted by a rude receptionist and an unfriendly doctor, who told me I needed to go see a specialist - and then charged me a lot of money.

"I wished I'd just gone back to the barrio and checked in with the Cuban medic I'd interviewed for today's story. At least she would have made me feel better psychologically, even if she didn't actually solve the problem.

To be sure, fighting Ebola will take more than a friendly doctor. Doctors were trained by WHO-standards in Cuba before arriving in Sierra Leone. But there were still some cultural issues that needed to be checked upon arrival.

“They’re a very cuddly people,” Katrina Roper, a technical officer with the UN told The Wall Street Journal. The Cuban professionals were shaking each other's hands and hugging at their welcome ceremony. Ebola is transferred through bodily fluids, including sweat; public health campaigns in West Africa have tried to discourage hugging and embracing. “Tomorrow will be me explaining why they have to stop shaking hands and sharing things,” Ms. Roper said.


http://news.yahoo.com/cuba-rescue-ebola-stricken-countries-welcome-castros-doctors-170804279.html