Ebola news 10/25

[Buster's Uncle]

Dallas Nurse Nina Pham Free of Ebola: 'I Feel Blessed'
LiveScience.com
By Rachael Rettner  October 24, 2014 12:23 PM



A magnified view of the Ebola virus particles (in red) on the surface of a cell (in blue).



Nina Pham, the first nurse in Dallas to be infected with Ebola, is now free of the virus, and will be released from the hospital today (Oct. 24), officials said.

"I feel fortunate and blessed to be standing here today," Pham said at a news conference today. "Thorugout this ordeal, I have put my trust in God and my medical team," Pham said. "I as a nurse, I have special appreiadation for the care I have recived from so many people."

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said that doctors know Pham is virus-free, as she has had five consecutive negative tests. "She represents the nurses and health care workers who put themselves on the line," to care for people in need, Fauci said.

Pham was admitted last Thursday (Oct. 16) to the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, which is one of four hospitals in the U.S. with high-level containment rooms.

She contracted Ebola when she cared for Thomas Eric Duncan, the first person to be diagnosed with Ebola in the United States, in late September. Pham tested positive for the virus on Oct. 12.

Another nurse who also treated Duncan tested positive for the virus a few days later, and is currently receiving care at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta.

It's still not clear how Pham became infected with the virus. However, some people have questioned the original guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on how to use personal protective equipment when treating Ebola patients. The agency announced on Monday (Oct. 20) that it had updated those guidelines to better protect workers.

Health care workers are at higher risk for Ebola infection because they often treat patients who have reached the stage of the infection with the most symptoms, including vomiting, diarrhea and bleeding.

Ebola is spread through direct contact with an infected person, their bodily fluids, such as blood or secretions, or contaminated objects, such as needles and syringes, according to the CDC. People with Ebola are contagious only after they start showing symptoms.


http://news.yahoo.com/dallas-nurse-nina-pham-free-ebola-feel-blessed-162331264.html

[Buster's Uncle]

'Catastrophic' Ebola Toll in Liberia Is Predicted Unless Aid Scales Up
LiveScience.com
By Rachael Rettner  October 24, 2014 12:24 PM



A substantial and quick scaling up of Ebola interventions is needed or else there will be a catastrophic number of cases and deaths from the disease in parts of Liberia, a new study suggests.

Researchers created a model to predict how many cases of Ebola, and deaths from the disease, would occur in Montserrado County, Liberia — which includes the capital Monrovia — under different scenarios.

The study took into account control efforts that were in place in Liberia as of late September, including the commitment from the United States to provide 17 new Ebola treatment centers to care for 1,700 patients.

But the researchers found that without additional efforts to control the disease, there could be up to 170,996 people sick with Ebola (including unreported cases), and 90,122 people in the area who die of the disease, by Dec. 15.

However, if efforts are scaled up starting Oct. 31 — with the addition of 4,800 hospital beds, along with a fivefold increase in the speed with which cases are detected, and the distribution of protective kits for those who are caring for Ebola patients at home — then as many as 97,940 of these cases could be prevented, the study found.

If those same interventions were delayed until Nov. 15, only about half as many cases would be prevented, the researchers found.

"Our predictions highlight the rapidly closing window of opportunity for controlling the outbreak, and averting a catastrophic toll of new Ebola cases and deaths in the coming months," said Alison Galvani, senior author of the report and a professor of epidemiology at the Yale School of Public Health.

"Further delays in the provision of effective interventions will continue to undermine the likelihood of averting EVD [Ebola virus disease] cases and deaths, suggesting we must scale interventions to the continuously escalating need expeditiously," the researchers wrote in the Oct. 24 issue of the journal Lancet Infectious Diseases.

The researchers noted that their projections for Ebola cases under the "status quo" in September (i.e., with no additional efforts) may be slightly high, because the distribution of protective kits actually started in late September and early October, and this was not included in the researchers' predictions.

The Ebola outbreak in West Africa is the largest in history, and the number of cases is increasing most rapidly in Liberia. As of Oct. 19, there were more than 9,900 reported cases in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, including 4,555 deaths, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.


http://news.yahoo.com/catastrophic-ebola-toll-liberia-predicted-unless-aid-scales-162456768.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Fear and indifference leave West Africa desperate for Ebola staff
Reuters
By David Lewis  October 24, 2014 1:37 PM



A health worker fixes another health worker's protective suit in the Aberdeen district of Freetown, Sierra Leone, October 14, 2014. REUTERS/Josephus Olu-Mammah



DAKAR (Reuters) - When Australia offered more than $2 million last month to the medical charity leading the fight against Ebola in West Africa, Medecins Sans Frontieres bluntly rejected it.

What was urgently needed from rich Western countries, MSF said, was not more money but doctors and nurses.

Despite warnings that hundreds of thousands may die, foreign governments and organizations are still hesitating to dispatch highly trained civilian and military personnel to fight the worst ever outbreak of the deadly virus.

Even in the highly controlled environments in the West, two U.S. nurses and one Spaniard have contracted the disease, putting its dangers in sharp focus for Western governments and news media.

On Thursday, a New York City doctor who worked for MSF in Guinea became the organization's third foreign medic to contract the disease while treating people in West Africa.

The contrast with other humanitarian disasters, from the Haitian earthquake to the 2004 Asian Tsunami is stark. Aid workers say it can partly be explained by unease over Ebola's deadly nature, uncertainty over how to look after infected staff, and competing demands from other crises around the world.

With nearly 5,000 recorded deaths, and estimates the real toll is likely to be three times higher, governments and health organizations have pledged hundreds of millions of dollars.

But the World Health Organization said this week that just 25 percent of the isolation beds needed to halt the disease's march through Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia are in place.

The WHO estimates that 1,000 foreign medical workers and 20,000 locals are needed to man the 50 Ebola treatment units due to be rolled out across the three worst effected nations.

So far, the WHO says there are firm commitments from foreign teams for just 30 of these Ebola units.

"The big gap is still in human resources," said Manuel Fontaine, head of U.N. child agency UNICEF in West Africa. "Money is necessary. It is an expensive operation. But we need people."

In order to get Ebola under control, U.N. organizations estimate they must get 70 percent of all cases into treatment centers and ensure 70 percent of those who die of Ebola are buried safely. They hope to achieve that within two months.

"It seems like it should be feasible but there is a lot of concern about bringing back infections," he said.


THOUSANDS OF DETAILS

Without doubt, treating Ebola is dangerous. At least 443 health workers are known to have contracted Ebola, of whom 244 have died.

Donors are stumping up millions of dollars to pay local healthcare workers risk bonuses following a rash of strikes.

"Building ETUs (Ebola treatments units) is the easy part, the more challenging and more dangerous part is making them run safely. To stay safe you have to think through thousands of details," said Sean Casey, who runs one such unit for the International Medical Corps in Bong County in northern Liberia.

After the Haiti earthquake, Casey said "hundreds if not thousands" volunteered. This was party due to geography but also as they were able to work for two weeks at a time.

A stint fighting Ebola in West Africa involves six weeks in the region and another three away from work to avoid potentially infecting hospitals back home, he said.

Casey said organizations were often reluctant to tackle the disease. "In Haiti, everyone was there on the ground. Here all the usual actors have not responded to the call for help and some have even pulled out their staff," he said.

U.S. charity Samaritans Purse withdrew non-essential staff treating patients in July after two of its members caught Ebola. It has since returned but is not providing frontline care.

Trevor Hughes, director of security and risk management at U.S.-based International Relief and Development, which has staff on the ground, said Ebola was testing the limits of people who are used to volunteering for crises.

"There is an issue of the obvious, which is certainly fear," he said, adding that while organizations offered training, equipment and support, volunteers still worried about issues like insurance, logistics and whether sufficient standards were being maintained in a chaotic crisis zone.


AFRO-CUBAN SOLUTION

One major issue had been the lack of guarantees that volunteers would be evacuated to Western hospitals if they fell ill. U.S. and EU officials have since guaranteed this.

"There will be a mark when the logistics and other things will be in place, when there is a little bit more trust being built, and people will start heading out," Hughes said.

"It might be too little too late," he added.

Some aid workers suggest that the strategic importance of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea was not high enough to mobilize major resources until people in the United States and Europe fell ill and it became an issue in the West.

Citing the case of an Ebola treatment center in Macenta, Guinea, one aid worker said France was putting up financing but then "sub-contracting" the construction and operation of these units to non-governmental groups.

"France says it is building it but in fact it is being built by MSF and it will be run by the Red Cross," she said.

The United States has pledged more cash and manpower than any other nation - up to $1 billion and as many as 4,000 troops. But U.S. personnel will build treatment units and train local staff, not provide care. Britain is adopting a similar strategy.

"When the risk is very high, the West is not going to send a lot of its own people," Dakar-based independent West African political analyst Gilles Yabi told Reuters.

Cuba, however, has bucked the trend, with Havana training up 461 doctors and nurses so they can help fight Ebola. So far, 256 have been dispatched to West Africa.

Having been criticized for not doing enough to help while also imposing border closures and travel restrictions that have hurt Ebola-hit nations, African nations are now starting to pledge medics.

Doctors from Uganda, with years of experience fighting Ebola, are helping run a clinic in Monrovia. Congo, which has faced six outbreaks back home, is training 1,000 volunteers.

East African Nations have promised over 600 health workers and Nigeria, which has successfully contained its Ebola cases this year, has pledged 500 medics.

Ian Quick, director at Rethink Fragility, an organization that focuses on fragile states, said the Ebola response was echoing current trends international peacekeeping, where rich states provide funds but poor nations send personnel.

“It makes sense in terms of comparative advantage ... but does tend to stick in everyone's craw ethically.”

(Additional reporting by Daniel Flynn in Dakar, Pascal Fletcher in Johannesburg, and Tom Miles in Geneva; Editing by Daniel Flynn and Giles Elgood)


http://news.yahoo.com/fear-indifference-leave-west-africa-desperate-ebola-staff-164936004--finance.html

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US journalist says body was 'at war' with Ebola
Associated Press
By JENNIFER McDERMOTT  42 minutes ago



Ebola survivor Ashoka Mukpo talks with a reporter inside his home in Providence, R.I., Saturday Oct. 25, 2014. Mukpo says he knew he really was in trouble when he saw the people treating him in full suits and hoods. "The only thing you can see is their eyes, and they're dripping with chlorine," he said. (AP Photo/Stew Milne)



PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — Ashoka Mukpo knew he really was in trouble when he saw the people treating him in full protective suits and hoods.

The American video journalist is home now after recovering from Ebola he contracted while working in the virus-ravaged West African country of Liberia. In an interview with The Associated Press, he described the fear he felt when medical workers appeared at his bedside in the heavy duty gear needed to prevent the spread of the deadly infection.

"The only thing you can see is their eyes. And they're dripping with chlorine," Mukpo said. "You just realize what a bad situation you're in when your caregivers have to come in with such an incredible amount of protection."

Mukpo contracted the virus after working for a month as a freelance cameraman for NBC and other media outlets. He recounted the harrowing experiences he endured first with his diagnosis, then his treatment and at last his recovery on Saturday at his Rhode Island home two days after the latest Ebola case in the United States: the hospitalization of a New York City emergency room physician who had worked in Guinea.

The 33-year-old Mukpo recalled taking his temperature, seeing it read 101.3, and feeling "pure fear." Being diagnosed with Ebola, Mukpo said, forced him to confront the possibility of his own death, and made him understand the terror and isolation so many West Africans are going through.

Mukpo said he felt as if his body was "at war" with the virus: he was in pain and weak, he had a fever that went as high as 104 degrees, it was hard to walk and eat, and he lost 15 pounds in a week. Mukpo isn't sure how he contracted Ebola because he said he was careful while filming.

Mukpo was flown to the Nebraska Medical Center Oct. 6, where he was isolated in a biocontainment unit, given constant fluids and an experimental Ebola drug.

He is only one of a handful of people who have been treated for Ebola in the United States: One patient, Thomas Eric Duncan, died after traveling from Liberia to Dallas while other health care workers who have been infected have, like Mukpo, recovered.

Mukpo said it was difficult not to hold the hand of a loved one when he was so sick, but he added he's not sure how much direct contact he would've wanted.

"I needed to go into my body and find a place of strength, and find a place of calm," he said.

Mukpo said he had no other choice but to find that strength, because there is little room for fear.

"I'm going to make it, I'm not going to give in to fear," Mukpo said he told himself. "I'm not going to give in to depression, embarrassment, I'm just going to live."

Receiving a blood transfusion from Ebola survivor Dr. Kent Brantly, who was treated in Atlanta, was a turning point. The next day, Mukpo's eyesight was clearer, his headache and fever had lessened, and his body felt more under his control.

Mukpo was released from the hospital Wednesday and flew back to Rhode Island.

Mukpo said he felt compelled to go to Liberia because he had previously spent about two years there as a human rights advocate.

"I saw these awful things happening to this country that I had a connection to," he said. "There was still some confusion about what the international response could be. I felt like 'OK, if I shoot film, I write, I'm going to help be part of the solution to this.' And I felt like that was worth the risk."



Ebola survivor Ashoka Mukpo talks with a reporter outside his home in Providence, R.I., Saturday Oct. 25, 2014. Mukpo says he knew he really was in trouble when he saw the people treating him in full suits and hoods. "The only thing you can see is their eyes, and they're dripping with chlorine," he said. (AP Photo/Stew Milne)


As for returning to Liberia, Mukpo said he would consider it in the future, under the right circumstances. For now, he said he's enjoying being somewhere safe and spending time with his family.

He says he's getting stronger every day and he feels grateful, blessed and lucky to be home.

Still, he said, he's acutely aware of the fact that most people battling the disease don't have a team of doctors.

"I would aspire that people, even in our moment of fear about Ebola in America, would consistently redirect their attention to what's going on in West Africa," he said. "These are good people who are getting sick, these are real people who are getting sick, and they deserve the benefit of everything we can do to help them solve this crisis."

Many West Africans who survive Ebola lose a family member, or their entire family, to the disease, Mukpo said, and his heart goes out to them.

"This thing takes a piece from you," he said. "It can be very small, or it can be very big."


http://news.yahoo.com/us-journalist-says-body-war-ebola-192305250.html

[Buster's Uncle]

U.S. FDA issues emergency authorization for two new Ebola tests
Reuters
By Yasmeen Abutaleb  34 minutes ago



NEW YORK (Reuters) - Federal health regulators granted emergency authorization on Saturday for two new tests made by BioFire Defense that detect Ebola in humans, highlighting new steps by the government to prevent a severe outbreak in the United States.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has been working closely with Salt Lake City-based BioFire, a subsidiary of medical diagnostics maker BioMerieux, to obtain the necessary performance data to allow for the authorizations, the federal agency said in a news release.

BioFire's tests can detect Ebola in a blood or urine sample in one hour, compared with the 24 to 48 hours current tests take to deliver results, said Matt Scullion, vice president of sales and marketing for BioFire Defense.

The test can also be performed in a hospital with BioFire lab equipment, whereas current tests need to be sent to specialized labs.

"We have managed to come up with a system that has automated all of the traditional steps that you'd go through to set up a test like this," Scullion said. "All the hospitals already using our systems can begin testing patients."

More than 300 U.S. hospitals have BioFire lab equipment, Scullion said, including Emory Hospital and Bellevue Hospital, where Dr. Craig Spencer, who recently returned from treating Ebola patients in West Africa, is currently being treated for the disease.

"We understand the importance of quickly diagnosing Ebola cases in the U.S. and abroad. FDA is committed to working with companies in the most expedited manner to increase the availability of authorized diagnostic tests for Ebola for emergency use during this epidemic," the agency said.

Under an emergency use authorization, the FDA may allow unapproved medical products to be used to fight life-threatening diseases on an emergency basis when there are no approved or available alternatives.

"Obviously, having more tests authorized for use during this outbreak is a benefit," said Sharon Yao, an FDA spokeswoman. "Hospitals can now test human specimens for Ebola in their facilities and obtain a determination in under two hours."

So far only a handful of people have been diagnosed with Ebola in the United States, most of them medical workers who contracted the disease after treating other patients.

All told, nearly 5,000 people have died in the current outbreak, mostly in the West African nations of Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone.

(Additional reporting by Eric Beech; Editing by Frank McGurty and Franklin Paul)


http://news.yahoo.com/u-fda-issues-emergency-authorization-two-ebola-tests-211533022.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Can You Get Ebola on Public Transportation?
LiveScience.com
By Rachael Rettner  October 24, 2014 5:19 PM



News that a doctor in New York with Ebola traveled on the subway the day before he developed symptoms of the disease may have some people worried about contracting Ebola on public transportation.

Yesterday, Dr. Craig Spencer, who recently returned from treating Ebola patients in Guinea, developed a fever and tested positive for Ebola. He is now being treated in an isolation unit at Bellevue Hospital in New York City.

The day before Spencer developed symptoms, he rode the city subway's A, 1 and L lines, and went bowling at an alley in Brooklyn, Dr. Mary Travis Bassett, the New York City public health commissioner, said at a news conference on Thursday evening.

Here's what you need to know about Ebola and public transportation:


Should people be worried about getting Ebola on the subway?

People who rode in the same subway car either with Spencer, or after he left it, have "very minimal to zero risk" of catching Ebola, said Dr. Amesh Adalja, a representative for the Infectious Diseases Society of America.

That's because Spencer wasn't experiencing symptoms when he rode the subway, and the virus can only be spread once someone is symptomatic, Adalja said.

Also, Ebola is spread through direct contact with the infected person, or their blood or bodily fluids, and Spencer did not vomit or bleed on the subway.

"Unless he was discharging blood and body fluids on the subway," there's no way that anyone in the car with him could have gotten Ebola, Adalja said.


But what if a person with Ebola coughs or sneezes onto a subway pole or other surface? Should people be worried about touching those surfaces?

The risk that Spencer would have spread the virus this way is low, Adalja said. Because Spencer did not yet have Ebola symptoms, he would not be expected to have the virus in his bodily fluids, Adalja said.

A person sick with a fever from Ebola is unlikely to feel well enough go out and interact with others, Derek Gatherer, a researcher at Lancaster University in the United Kingdom who studies virus genetics, told Live Science in a June interview.

In addition, the virus cannot live very long outside of a human or other animal, Adalja said. On dry surfaces, the virus can survive for several hours, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.


Why can't people who have Ebola spread the disease before their symptoms show?

Before symptoms develop, the virus is concentrated in internal organs, such as the spleen, and it is not widespread in the body, Adalja said. By the time the virus has spread to bodily fluids, the person has developed symptoms, he said.


Do regular soap and hand sanitizer kill Ebola?

Yes. "The virus isn't very hardy," Adalja said, and ordinary cleaners can kill it.


http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-public-transportation-211957659.html

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Ebola could kill 90,000 in Liberia by year-end unless efforts scaled up: study
Reuters
By Magdalena Mis  October 24, 2014 8:27 AM



Health workers carry the body of an Ebola virus victim in the Waterloo district of Freetown, October 21, 2014. REUTERS/Josephus Olu-Mamma



LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Efforts to control the Ebola virus in Liberia must be quickly and dramatically scaled up or tens of thousands of people will die in the coming months, said a study published on Friday.

Nearly 4,900 deaths have been recorded across West Africa since the virus was first detected in Guinea in March, according to the World Health Organization. Liberia has been the hardest hit of the countries most affected by the virus, with 2,705 deaths and 4,665 recorded cases.

Without accelerated efforts to control the disease, Ebola will kill 90,000 in Liberia and infect 171,000 by mid-December, a study in medical journal The Lancet Infectious Diseases said.

"Our predictions highlight the rapidly closing window of opportunity for controlling the outbreak and averting a catastrophic toll of new Ebola cases and deaths in the coming months", Alison Galvani, one of the authors of the study, said in a statement.

Additional medical facilities for Ebola treatment, a fivefold increase in detection of new cases, together with allocation of protective kits for households could avert as many as 98,000 cases by mid-December, the study said.

Researchers based their analysis on a study of Liberia's Montserrado County, which encompasses the capital Monrovia and where the vast majority of cases have been recorded.

Without expanded efforts to control the epidemic, the national toll would be even higher, they said.

"The scale of interventions that are currently being implemented are still paltry in comparison to what we anticipate is needed," Joseph Lewnard, one of the authors of the paper told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in a phone interview.

The United States has pledged an additional 1,700 beds for Ebola treatment centres in West Africa, however 4,800 beds could be needed for Montserrado County alone, said Lewnard.

Even a two-week delay could greatly limit the effectiveness of interventions and result in tens of thousands of people dying, he said.

Controlling the outbreak is especially difficult in Monrovia's West Point slum, where over 75,000 people live without running water, making it difficult to implement World Health Organization's recommendation to wash hands with water and soap while caring for sick family members.

A team of 51 doctors and nurses from Cuba arrived in Liberia on Wednesday to help to fight the epidemic.

The United States is also gradually deploying troops to Liberia as part of a 3,000-strong mission to help West African nations cope with the epidemic by building Ebola treatment units and training local medical staff.


http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-could-kill-90-000-liberia-end-unless-122750033.html

[Buster's Uncle]

In NYC Ebola case, crowded city complicates efforts to track exposure
Reuters
By Jonathan Allen and Julie Steenhuysen  October 23, 2014 11:08 PM



NEW YORK/CHICAGO (Reuters) - As a New York City doctor tests positive for Ebola after volunteering in West Africa, health officials face the challenge of deciding how wide a net to cast for his possible contacts in the largest, most crowded city in the United States.

Dr. Craig Spencer, an emergency doctor who was working with Doctors Without Borders in Ebola-stricken Guinea earlier this month, returned to the city last Friday.

Since then, city officials say, he visited a city park, had a meal at a restaurant, visited a Brooklyn bowling alley, took at least three subway trains and went for a 3-mile (4.8-km) run.

A New York health official involved in the case told Reuters that the focus will be on finding people who have had close contact with Spencer.

Dr. Mary Travis Bassett, the city's health commissioner, said at a press conference that Spencer had only come in close contact with two friends and his fiancée, all of whom seemed fine but had now been quarantined.

Officials had spoken to a taxi driver who had given Spencer a ride on Wednesday but did not consider him at risk.

Officials will not undertake the likely impossible task of tracking down every last commuter who rode the same subway trains as Spencer because the chance any of them had caught Ebola was "probably close to nil," she said.

The worst Ebola outbreak on record has killed at least 4,877 people in West Africa since March, with a small number of infections detected outside Africa. The first patient to be diagnosed on U.S. soil, Liberian traveler Thomas Duncan, arrived in late September and died on Oct. 8. Two nurses who treated him fell ill.

Since then, U.S. hospitals have been on high alert, with dozens of suspected cases evaluated for the deadly virus. Spencer is the first confirmed case in New York City.

The city will follow guidelines laid down by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which says that Ebola is transmitted by contact with the bodily fluids, such as vomit or sweat, of a person sick with the disease.

Dr. Gavin Macgregor-Skinner, an expert in public health at Pennsylvania State University, helped advise officials in the densely populated Nigerian city of Lagos. Nigeria was declared Ebola-free on Monday.

Macgregor-Skinner said it will be important that public health officials cast as wide a net as possible for Spencer's contacts.

"We believe the more people you had in contact tracing, the more confident people are that public health is doing the job it is set up to do," he said.

Experts said the fact that Spencer is an experienced doctor who had knowledge of dealing with Ebola was encouraging.

Doctors Without Borders said it had guidelines for staff returning from Ebola assignments that included regularly self-monitoring for signs of illness. A spokesman for the humanitarian group did not respond to a request for more details.

"From what I understand, immediately upon getting symptoms, this patient isolated himself, so his circle of contacts is going to be very small," said Dr. Amesh Adalja, a public health expert with the Infectious Diseases Society of America who is not involved in Spencer's case.

New York City's health department has a deep experience with containing illnesses, not least those that arrive through its busy airports. Before becoming director of CDC in 2009, Thomas Frieden ran the department.

"It's kind of bread and butter for New York to do that kind of work," Adalja said. "They are a model for the nation because they have a larger burden of the nation's tuberculosis cases."

(Reporting by Jonathan Allen in New York and Julie Steenhuysen in Chicago; Writing by Jonathan Allen; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)


http://news.yahoo.com/nyc-ebola-case-crowded-city-complicates-efforts-track-030804193.html

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NYC Doctor Tests Positive for Ebola
LiveScience.com
By Karen Rowan  October 23, 2014 10:50 PM



A scanning electron micrograph of the Ebola virus.



A doctor in New York has Ebola, officials announced on Thursday evening (Oct. 23).

"Testing confirmed that a patient here in New York City has tested positive for Ebola," New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said at a news conference Thursday evening.

The man is now in an isolation unit at the city's Bellevue hospital. The 33-year-old doctor was working with Doctors Without Borders in Guinea, and completed his work there on Oct. 12, Dr. Mary Travis Bassett, New York City public health commissioner, said at the news conference.

There are four people in New York who had contact with the patient, and they have been quarantined, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said. These people include the man's fiancée, two friends, and a driver who drove the patient in an Uber car. One of these contacts is now also at the hospital, Bassett said.

Officials reminded the public that Ebola can only be transmitted by direct contact with an infected person, or with their bodily fluids. "Ebola is an extremely hard disease to contract," de Blasio said.

"New York is a dense place, a lot of people on top of each other. But the more facts you know, the less frightening" this situation is, Cuomo said.

Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, noted that the family members of Thomas Eric Duncan -- the man in Dallas who had and eventually died from Ebola -- did not develop the disease themselves. "It does not spread easily. It does not spread like the flu, the common cold," Frieden said.

The patient arrived at JFK International Airport on Oct. 17, having left Africa on Oct. 14, travelling to the U.S. by way of Europe, Bassett said. At no time during his journey was he ill, and when he arrived in New York he still had no symptoms, she said.

The patient first developed a fever between 10 a.m. and 11 a.m. on Thursday, and contacted Doctors Without Borders.

Between arriving home and developing a fever, the patient was out and about in the city, officials said. He went for a 3-mile run, took the subway (lines A, 1 and L), and went bowling at The Gutter, in Williamsburg. The bowling alley is now closed, out of an abundance of caution, Bassett said.

"At the time the doctor was on the subway he had not had fever, and he had no problems with body fluids in the sense that he did not have diarrhea," vomiting or bleeding, Bassett said. "He was not symptomatic at that time, so he did not have a stage of disease that [would mean] a risk of contagiousness on the subway."

The city's health department released a statement earlier that a doctor who recently arrived in the United States from West Africa was being tested for the viral disease at Bellevue Hospital.

That statement also reminded the public that people cannot become infected with the disease simply by being near someone who has it. Ebola is spread through direct contact with an infected person or with their bodily fluids, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Health officials had already begun looking into who the doctor might have been in contact with recently, the health department said earlier.

The patient was taken to the hospital earlier on Thursday by a specially trained team wearing personal protective equipment (PPE), the health department said. "For the past few weeks we've been preparing for just this circumstance," Cuomo said at the news conference. "We are as ready as one could be for this circumstance."

"What happened in Dallas was actually the exact opposite," he said. "We had the fortune of learning from the Dallas experience."

In New York, the affected person is a doctor,  so he was familiar with the possibility and the symptoms of Ebola, and he handled himself accordingly, he said.

Bellevue Hospital is a facility that has been designated to isolate and treat cases of Ebola in New York. The hospital has four single-bed rooms in its infectious disease ward for treating Ebola patients. A laboratory in the same area of the hospital will handle blood samples to be tested for the virus, according to an earlier announcement from NYC Health and Hospitals Corporation.


http://news.yahoo.com/nyc-doctor-tests-positive-ebola-025007429.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Ebola in NYC Is 'No Cause for Alarm,' Mayor Says
LiveScience.com
By Bahar Gholipour  October 24, 2014 1:46 PM



A New York City doctor who recently returned from Guinea in West Africa became the first person in the city to test positive for Ebola, on Thursday Oct. 23, but authorities are emphasizing that there is no cause for alarm.

"We are fully prepared to handle Ebola," New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said at a news conference today (Oct. 24), adding that New York medical practitioners have been studying how to treat the disease.

The patient remains in stable condition, in an isolation unit at the city's Bellevue hospital, said Dr. Mary Travis Bassett, New York City public health commissioner.

All cautionary steps have been taken and "There is no reason for New Yorkers to change their daily routine in any way," de Blasio said.

Dr. Craig Spencer, 33, flew back from Guinea where he was treating patients with Ebola. He arrived at John F. Kennedy International Airport on Oct. 17. He didn't have any symptoms when he arrived, but yesterday morning he developed a fever and alerted health officials.

Bellevue Hospital is the facility that is designated to treat Ebola patients should they arrive in New York. Doctors at Bellevue are consulting with doctors at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, and Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, who recently treated other patients with Ebola, officials said.

Spencer was transported to the hospital by an Emergency Medical Services (EMS) team specialized in working in hazardous environments, wearing personal protective gear.

"EMS drilled for quite a while knowing the day might come when they have to receive a patient with Ebola. The process played out exactly as the protocol dictated," de Blasio said."

The training and preparation for Ebola has paid off and the city is "ahead of the crisis," he said.

Spencer was in contact with four people after he started having symptoms, when he was potentially contagious. These people included his fiancée, two friends and a taxi driver, all of whom are now quarantined, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said yesterday.

In the days before developing a fever, Spencer went for a 3-mile run, took the subway lines A, 1 and L, and went bowling at The Gutter, in Williamsburg. The bowling alley is now closed as a cautionary measure, officials said.

The doctor's commute on the subway did not pose a risk to other passengers because at the time he did not have a fever, or any other symptoms of Ebola, such as diarrhea, vomiting or bleeding, Bassett said on Thursday.


http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-nyc-no-cause-alarm-mayor-says-174615407.html