Ebola news 10/26

[Buster's Uncle]

Mali rushes to track Ebola after toddler dies
Associated Press
By BABA AHMED  4 hours ago



In this photo taken Saturday, Oct. 25, 2014, health workers walk towards an area used for Ebola quarantine after they worked with diseased Fanta Kone at a Ebola virus center in Kayes, Mali. After 2-year-old Fanta Kone’s father died in southern Guinea, the toddler’s grandmother took her from the forested hills where the Ebola outbreak first began months ago to bring her home to Mali. It wasn’t long, though, before the little girl started getting nosebleeds. (AP Photo/Baba Ahmed)



KAYES, Mali (AP) — After 2-year-old Fanta Kone's father died in southern Guinea, the toddler's grandmother took her from the forested hills where the Ebola outbreak first began months ago to bring her home to Mali. It wasn't long, though, before the little girl started getting nosebleeds.

By the time the pair made their way back more than 600 miles (1,000 kilometers) to the heat-baked town of Kayes several days later, the toddler had a high fever and was vomiting blood. Doctors swiftly diagnosed Fanta with Ebola, but she soon succumbed to the virus already blamed for killing nearly 5,000 people in the region. Her grandmother, quarantined with a couple dozen others, could only watch from a distance in an isolation tent over the weekend as health workers in hazmat suits prepared the tiny corpse for burial.

There has been panic and fear in this town of 128,000 since news first spread of the girl's death, which was the country's first confirmed Ebola case about 10 months after the epidemic began in neighboring Guinea.

"We are in a panic — everyone is talking about Ebola," said Bruno Sodatonou, a 35-year-old restaurant worker in the town of 128,000. "We don't know how to protect ourselves. Some are now wearing gloves, while others are trying to avoid handshakes with people."

Mali — which shares a porous land border with Guinea — has long been seen as vulnerable to Ebola because of the large number of people moving back and forth between the two countries. Fanta's case has especially alarmed health authorities because she is believed to have been in a contagious state of Ebola as she traveled.

"The child's symptomatic state during the bus journey is especially concerning, as it presented multiple opportunities for exposures - including high-risk exposures - involving many people," the World Health Organization said in announcing the Malian case.



In this photo taken Saturday, Oct. 25, 2014, a health worker, right, briefs another, left, on the use of their Ebola security gear before working with diseased Fanta Kone at a Ebola virus center in Kayes, Mali. After 2-year-old Fanta Kone’s father died in southern Guinea, the toddler’s grandmother took her from the forested hills where the Ebola outbreak first began months ago to bring her home to Mali. It wasn’t long, though, before the little girl started getting nosebleeds. (AP Photo/Baba Ahmed)


Dr. Koumare Toumani, director-general of the Kayes hospital, said the little girl and her grandmother though were quickly isolated upon arrival. A dozen of Fanta's family members are now being observed along with 11 health care workers, he said.

"It's true in the initial hours after the announcement of the Ebola case confirmation people were afraid, including health care workers," he said. "But calm has returned after religious and administrative officials carried out public awareness efforts."

Health authorities now though can only imagine how many people little Fanta may have come into contact along the way. Ebola is spread through direct contact with the bodily fluids of people showing symptoms of the disease, such as Fanta's bloody nose or potentially her soiled clothing.

Public transport buses in Guinea and Mali are often overcrowded, with children sitting on laps and passengers standing in the aisles.

Already they are making a list of the towns that Fanta and her grandmother passed through: Keweni, Kankan, Sigouri, Kouremale and the capital of Bamako. Health officials there are rushing to finish an isolation facility that can be used should additional cases emerge.

"Continued high-level vigilance is essential, as the government is fully aware," WHO said.


http://news.yahoo.com/mali-rushes-track-ebola-toddler-dies-150925262.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Florida to monitor health of travelers from Ebola-hit countries
Reuters  1 hour ago



Florida Governor Rick Scott said the state will require 21-day health monitoring of people returning to the state from Ebola-affected countries in Africa, even though the state has no airports authorized to receive travelers from the three nations. If a person is deemed to have had a "high risk" of contracting the disease, Florida will take further action, which may include mandatory quarantine. Scott said the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has declined to identify risk levels of people who have returned from those three African countries.



(Reuters) - Florida will require 21-day health monitoring of people returning to the state from Ebola-affected countries in Africa, Governor Rick Scott said, even though the state has no airports authorized to receive travelers from the three nations.

Scott signed an executive order mandating twice-daily health evaluations of anyone who has come from Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. Four known individuals fall into that category in Florida, Scott said in a news release.

If a person is deemed to have had a "high risk" of contracting the disease, Florida will take further action, which may include mandatory quarantine.

Scott said the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has declined to identify risk levels of people who have returned from those three African countries.

“I want to be clear that we are taking this aggressive action at the state level out of an abundance of caution in the absence of much-needed Ebola risk classification information from the CDC,” Scott said in the news release.

The CDC did not have any information to provide on Sunday about risk classifications Florida is seeking, a CDC official said in an email.



Florida Republican Governor Rick Scott, talks with reporters after visiting a campaign office to meet volunteers and make phone calls on Florida's primary election day in Tampa, Florida, August 26, 2014. REUTERS/Steve Nesius


New York, New Jersey and Illinois imposed 21-day mandatory quarantines in the last two days for medical workers and other people arriving with a high risk of having contracted Ebola in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea, which have suffered most of the nearly 5,000 fatal cases of Ebola.

Each of those three states has an airport that receives passengers traveling from the affected West African nations, though there are no direct flights to the United States.

The other two airports are Washington Dulles in Virginia and Hartsfield Airport in Atlanta.

“We are using what information is available to our Department of Health through the CDC’s Epi-X web-based system, which monitors individuals who travel to areas with infectious diseases, including Ebola,” Scott said. “Using this system, we know that four individuals have already returned to Florida after traveling to Ebola-affected areas.

State health officials are working to identify anyone who has returned to Florida after traveling to an Ebola region and are investigating their risk of getting the disease, he said.

(Reporting by Kevin Murphy in Kansas City; Editing by Eric Walsh)


http://news.yahoo.com/florida-monitor-health-travelers-ebola-hit-countries-192220995.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Quarantine or not? Key Ebola question pits Obama vs. governors
New York, New Jersey, and Illinois have ordered the quarantine of anyone returning to the US who has been in contact with Ebola patients in West Africa. Medical experts warn this could discourage health care workers from going there to help.
Christian Science Monitor
By Brad Knickerbocker  58 minutes ago


The Obama administration and three prominent governors – two of them Democrats – are at odds over whether or not people returning to the US from Ebola-stricken countries in West Africa should be quarantined.

New York, New Jersey, and Illinois – led, respectively, by Governors Andrew Cuomo (D), Chris Christie (R), and Pat Quinn (D) – have ordered mandatory quarantine for those deemed "high risk" of carrying the disease. Generally speaking, that means health care workers or anybody else who has had direct contact with an Ebola patient in Sierra Leone, Guinea, or Liberia.

On Saturday, Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) ordered  twice daily monitoring for anyone returning from places the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention designates as affected by Ebola. Gov. Scott said if the state health department determines any of those monitored are at a high risk of contracting the disease, the state will take further action to protect those individuals and the rest of Florida with a mandatory quarantine.

Appearing on five television news shows Sunday, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, warned that mandatory, 21-day quarantining of medical workers returning from West Africa is unnecessary and could discourage volunteers from going there to help fight the spread of the disease.

"If you put everyone in one basket, even people who are clearly no threat, then we have the problem of the disincentive of people that we need," Dr. Fauci said on ABC's This Week. "Let's not forget the best way to stop this epidemic and protect America is to stop it in Africa, and you can really help stopping it in Africa if we have our people, our heroes, the health care workers, go there and help us to protect America."

UN Ambassador Samantha Power weighed in too, telling NBC News that returning American health care workers should be "treated like conquering heroes and not stigmatized for the tremendous work that they have done."

Amb. Power, who is traveling in West Africa, said quarantine plans in New York, New Jersey, and Illinois are "haphazard and not well thought out."

"We cannot take measures here that are going to impact our ability to flood the zone," Power said. "We have to find the right balance between addressing the legitimate fears that people have and encouraging and incentivizing these heroes."

A senior administration official told the New York Times the decision by the governors was “uncoordinated, very hurried, an immediate reaction to the New York City case that doesn’t comport with science.”

New York's quarantine measures were announced after Dr. Craig Spencer returned to New York City from treating Ebola victims in Guinea for Doctors Without Borders. He was admitted to Bellevue Hospital Center last Thursday to be treated for Ebola symptoms.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends voluntary quarantines. But appearing on "Fox News Sunday," Gov. Christie defended his action in ordering a mandatory quarantine.

"I don't think when you're dealing with something as serious as this you can count on a voluntary system," he said. "This is the government's job."

"I think this is a policy that will become a national policy sooner or later," he added.

"It's too serious a situation to leave it to the honor system of compliance," Gov. Cuomo said recently.

Meanwhile, Kaci Hickox, the first nurse forcibly quarantined in New Jersey under the state's new policy, said in a telephone interview with CNN that her isolation at a hospital was "inhumane," adding: "We have to be very careful about letting politicians make health decisions."

Ms. Hickox has twice tested negative for Ebola and has exhibited no evidence of the disease. She told CNN that she was put in an isolation tent inside University Hospital in Newark where she has no shower, no flushable toilet, and was given paper scrubs to wear.

"While we understand that the required quarantine is an inconvenience, it is our primary goal to make sure the patient is as comfortable as possible," hospital spokesperson Stacie Newton told CNN. "We have given our prompt attention to provide the patient with basic needs and to accommodate additional requests made by the patient."


http://news.yahoo.com/quarantine-not-key-ebola-pits-obama-vs-governors-202307575.html

[Buster's Uncle]

West African woman tests negative for Ebola in Australian hospital
Reuters  50 minutes ago



SYDNEY (Reuters) - An 18-year-old West African woman has tested negative for Ebola after emigrating to Australia from Guinea with her family 12 days ago, state health authorities said on Monday.

Australia has introduced mandatory home quarantine for travelers arriving from the West African countries most affected by the Ebola outbreak. Several people have been tested, but no cases of the deadly disease have been found.

"The results are negative," a Queensland department of health spokeswoman said on Monday.

The woman, who has been in home quarantine and monitored by health authorities since her family's arrival, was taken to the Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital on Sunday after telling health workers she had developed a fever, Queensland chief health officer Dr Jeannette Young told a news conference on Sunday.

"She's otherwise well and she has been in home quarantine since the time she arrived into Queensland," said Young, adding there was no risk to the Australian public.

The woman, who traveled to Australia with eight members of her extended family, was met at the airport in Brisbane by health authorities as a precaution and has been monitored daily. All were placed in home quarantine.

"She didn't have any known contact with anyone that was sick with Ebola virus disease but she did come from an area that had a reasonably large number of cases, so that's why it was thought appropriate that she go into home quarantine when she arrived here," Young said.

The Ebola outbreak that began in March has killed nearly 5,000 people, the vast majority in West Africa.

The disease can take as long as three weeks before its victims show symptoms, at which point it becomes contagious. Ebola, which can cause fever, vomiting and diarrhea, spreads through contact with bodily fluids such as blood or saliva.

(Reporting by Lincoln Feast and Morag MacKinnon; Editing by Michael Perry and Robin Pomeroy)


http://news.yahoo.com/west-african-woman-being-tested-ebola-australian-hospital-092921344.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Mali seeks to contain Ebola fears after girl dies
AFP
By Ahamadou Cisse  23 hours ago



People walk in front of a poster warning against the deadly Ebola virus in Freetown, October 4, 2014 (AFP Photo/Florian Plaucheur)



Bamako (AFP) - Mali authorities on Saturday sought to calm fears after Ebola claimed its first victim in the African country, a contagious toddler who took a 1,000-kilometre bus journey before being treated.

The World Health Organization (WHO) warned the situation in Mali was an "emergency", and said in its latest Ebola situation report that the biggest outbreak on record has now killed 4,922 people, the vast majority of them in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, with 10,141 cases reported.

The US states of New York and New Jersey ordered mandatory quarantine for medics who had treated victims of the disease in west Africa, after a doctor who had returned from the region became the first Ebola case in New York City.

President Barack Obama told Americans on Saturday that they must be "guided by the facts, not fear". He sought to calm a jittery public by hugging one of the two nurses who became the first to contract Ebola on American soil after treating a patient, but has now been declared free of the disease.

Mali President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita aimed to ease fears after the death of a two-year-old girl, the first Ebola case in the landlocked country, who travelled from neighbouring Guinea.

"We are doing everything to prevent panic," he said in an interview with French radio.

"Since the start of this epidemic, we in Mali took all measures to be safe, but we can never hermetically seal ourselves from this," he said.



A newspaper vendor holds up a copy of the NY Post in front of the entrance to Bellevue Hospital on October 24, 2014 in New York, where Dr Craig Spencer is being treated for the Ebola virus (AFP Photo/Timothy A. Clary)


"Guinea is a neighbouring country, we have a common border that we have not closed and that we will not close."

Mauritania meanwhile reinforced controls on its border with Mali, which led to a de facto closing of the border, according to local sources.


- Mali 'emergency' -

The WHO said it was treating the situation in Mali as an "emergency" because the toddler had travelled for hundreds of kilometres on public transport with her grandmother while showing symptoms of the disease -- meaning that she was contagious.

"The child's symptomatic state during the bus journey is especially concerning, as it presented multiple opportunities for exposures," the UN agency said.

The girl and her grandmother travelled by public transport from Keweni in Guinea through the towns of Kankan, Sigouri and Kouremale to the Malian capital Bamako.



A health worker checks the temperature of African Union chair Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma as she arrives in Conakry on October 24, 2014 (AFP Photo/Cellou Binani)


"The two stayed in Bamako for two hours before travelling on to Kayes," in Mali's southwest, where treatment was sought for the child, the WHO said.

The route made for a journey of around 1,000 kilometres (600 miles).

"Bleeding from the nose began while both were still in Guinea, meaning that the child was symptomatic during their travels through Mali."

Mali's health ministry however denied that the girl had been showing symptoms before she reached Kayes.

The Malian authorities were tracing everyone who had contact with the girl and her grandmother and placed more than 50 people under observation.

One metric tonne of medical supplies was dispatched from WHO stocks in Liberia to Bamako late Friday.



Liberian Red Cross health workers at the ELWA 2 Ebola management center in Monrovia on October 23, 2014 shovel sand which will be used to absorb fluids emitted from the bodies of Ebola victims (AFP Photo/Zoom Dosso)


- Mandatory US quarantines -

New York City's first Ebola victim, 33-year-old doctor Craig Spencer, who fell ill one week after returning from treating patients in Guinea, was said to be in a stable condition in isolation at the city's Bellevue Hospital Center.

His fiancee and two of his friends are in quarantine but appear healthy, officials said.

In the wake of his diagnosis in the country's largest city, the US states of New York and New Jersey ordered mandatory quarantines of 21 days -- the maximum gestation period for Ebola -- for any individuals who have had direct contact with an Ebola patient while in the worst affected countries.

On Saturday, an American nurse, Kaci Hickox, published a scathing account of her treatment after being put in isolation following a stint caring for Ebola patients in Sierra Leone.

"This is not a situation I would wish on anyone, and I am scared for those who will follow me," Hickox wrote in The Dallas Morning News. "I am scared that, like me, they will arrive and see a frenzy of disorganization, fear and, most frightening, quarantine."

She said an official at the Newark, New Jersey, airport who "barked questions at me as if I was a criminal."

After Hickox spent several hours at the airport's quarantine office her temperature rose because "I was flushed and upset", and she was whisked to hospital only to test negative for Ebola.

Dallas-based nurse Nina Pham, who became the first person to contract Ebola in the United States after treating an Ebola patient who eventually died at a Dallas hospital, was declared free of the disease on Friday.

Her nursing colleague Amber Vinson, who had also caught the disease, has also been given the all-clear.


- Vaccine doses by 2015 -

The search for an effective vaccine to fight the disease for which there is currently no licensed cure intensified as the WHO said several hundred thousand doses could be available in the "first half" of 2015.

Experts are pinning their hopes on the experimental vaccine rVSV, with doses arriving in Geneva for a new round of trials, and ChAd3, made by Britain's GlaxoSmithKline.

Five other potential vaccines are in the pipeline.

The WHO hopes to send huge numbers of doses of whichever proves effective in trials to Africa for "real-world" tests.


http://news.yahoo.com/mali-seeks-contain-ebola-fears-girl-dies-111511300.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Infectious Disease Specialist Dr. Anthony Fauci Rejects Mandatory Quarantine
ABC News
By BENJAMIN BELL  Oct 26, 2014, 12:57 PM ET



   
Kaci Hickox, a nurse, is shown in this undated photo. She was the first person in New Jersey placed under a mandatory 21-day quarantine for people who had direct contact with Ebola patients. Myspace



Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of NIH's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said today he "would not have recommended" mandatory quarantines for medical workers returning from West Africa to the U.S.

He said he does not believe the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention should change its policy recommendations.

This week, after Dr. Craig Spencer returned from Guinea to New York City and was diagnosed with Ebola, Republican New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and New York's Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced they would institute a mandatory 21-day quarantine for health care workers returning from West Africa who had contact with those suffering from Ebola.

But today on "This Week," Fauci said he would not have supported the quarantine had he been consulted about the decision.

"As a scientist and as a health person, if I were asked I would not have recommended that," Fauci said.

"The CDC will continue to make their policies based on scientific data," he added when asked whether there should be a national policy.

Fauci also said he could not explain the alleged poor treatment of a nurse returning from West Africa who was subject to the recently installed quarantine in New Jersey and who said she felt treated like a "criminal" by authorities.

"I cannot explain that, Martha," Fauci told ABC News' Martha Raddatz. "I can just tell you that what we want to do is to make sure first, protect the American public, but do so based on scientific data, where we keep repeating over and over again, the scientific data tells us that people who are without symptoms, with whom you don't come into contact with body fluids, are not a threat, they will not get infected."

Kaci Hickox, who had been working in Sierra Leone, returned to the U.S. Friday and wrote about her experience for dallasnews.com, saying, "This is not a situation I would wish on anyone, and I am scared for those who will follow me."

"The scientific evidence is what needs to drive us," Fauci said in response to the case. "We appreciate the fears of the American people, but you don't want to have policy that would have negative unintended consequences."

Fauci said he was concerned that such quarantine restrictions could discourage health care workers from traveling to West Africa to help combat the spread of Ebola.

"There are different levels of risk to a health care worker, and that there are different levels of monitoring," Fauci said. "If you put everyone in one basket, even people who are clearly no threat, then we have the problem of the disincentive of people that we need.

"Let's not forget the best way to stop this epidemic and protect America is to stop it in Africa, and you can really help stopping it in Africa if we have our people, our heroes, the health care workers, go there and help us to protect America," he said. "We can't lose sight of that."


http://abcnews.go.com/Health/infectious-disease-specialist-dr-anthony-fauci-rejects-mandatory/story?id=26465651

[Buster's Uncle]

Poor health systems in Asia cause for Ebola alarm
Associated Press
By CHRIS BRUMMITT  14 hours ago



In this Oct. 23, 2014 photo, medical workers wearing protective suits, handle a protective stretcher as they conduct a training exercise on dealing with suspected Ebola cases at a hospital in Guangzhou in south China's Guangdong province. The longer the Ebola outbreak rages in Africa, the greater chance a traveler infected with the virus touches down in an Asian city. How quickly any case is detected - and the measures taken once it is - will determine whether the virus takes hold in a region where billions live in poverty and public health systems are often very weak. (AP Photo)



SINGAPORE (AP) — The longer the Ebola outbreak rages in West Africa, the greater chance a traveler infected with the virus touches down in an Asian city.

How quickly any case is detected — and the measures taken once it is — will determine whether the virus takes hold in a region where billions live in poverty and public health systems are often very weak. Governments are ramping up response plans, stepping up surveillance at airports and considering quarantine measures. Still, health experts in the region's less developed countries fear any outbreak would be deadly and hard to contain.

"This is a non-treatable disease with a very high mortality rate. And even a country like the United States has not been able to completely prevent it," said Yatin Mehta, a critical care specialist at the Medanta Medicity hospital near New Delhi. "The government is trying. They are preparing and they are training, but our record of disaster management has been very poor in the past."

More than 10,000 people have been infected with Ebola and nearly half of them have died, according to the World Health Organization. The Ebola epidemic in West Africa is the largest ever outbreak of the disease with a rapidly rising death toll in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. There have also been cases in three other West African countries, Spain and the United States.

Early symptoms of Ebola include fever, headache, body aches, cough, stomach pain, vomiting, and diarrhea, and patients aren't contagious until those begin. The virus requires close contact with body fluids to spread so health care workers and family members caring for loved ones are most at risk.

Asia, home to 60 percent of the world's population, scores higher than West Africa on most development indexes and includes emerging or developed countries like Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea and Japan. But countries like India, China, the Philippines and Indonesia have vast numbers of poor, many of whom live in crowded slums, and underfunded health systems.



In this Oct. 23, 2014 photo, medical workers wearing protective suits, unload a protective stretcher from an ambulance as they conduct a training exercise on dealing with a suspected Ebola case at a hospital in Guangzhou in south China's Guangdong province. The longer the Ebola outbreak rages in Africa, the greater chance a traveler infected with the virus touches down in an Asian city. How quickly any case is detected - and the measures taken once it is - will determine whether the virus takes hold in a region where billions live in poverty and public health systems are often very weak. (AP Photo)


The Philippine government estimates there are up to 1,700 Filipino workers in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, plus more than 100 peacekeeping troops in Liberia. The Department of Health is suggesting a 21-day quarantine period before its citizens leave those three countries, but doesn't know how it will pay for that, said spokesman Lyndon Lee Suy.

"The DOH is doing its part, but it is downstream, it is on the receiving end," said Dr. Antony Leachon, president of the Philippine College of Physicians. "What is important is that Ebola shouldn't be able to enter. Since we have 10 million migrant workers, we have problems containing that."

Indonesia has put 100 hospitals that have experience of treating patients suffering from bird flu on standby for Ebola, said Tjandra Yoga Aditama, head of the Health Ministry's research and development board.

The only way of ensuring that the virus doesn't spread into a country is enforced quarantine for people coming from countries with an outbreak or — even more effective — a total travel ban. But those measures would mean that doctors and other experts trying to beat the virus at its source in West Africa would be less willing or unable to help, making the outbreak worse.

Airports in Asia have stepped up their defenses: screening passengers who have travelled from affected countries, taking any with high temperature for observation and trying to keep contact them with for 21 days — the incubation period. Even assuming these measures are carried out effectively, people can and do lie about their travel history, and common drugs like Paracetamol are effective in reducing fever.



In this Oct. 23, 2014 photo, medical workers wearing protective suits, treat a mock patient during a training exercise on dealing with a suspected Ebola case at a hospital in Guangzhou in south China's Guangdong province. The longer the Ebola outbreak rages in Africa, the greater chance a traveler infected with the virus touches down in an Asian city. How quickly any case is detected - and the measures taken once it is - will determine whether the virus takes hold in a region where billions live in poverty and public health systems are often very weak. (AP Photo)


Authorities in China say 8,672 people have entered southern Guangdong province from Ebola-ridden areas since Aug. 23.

There are more than 160 direct flights per month from Africa to the region's capital, Guangzhou, a reflection of the booming economic ties between China and Africa. All arrivals are subject to medical observation, which, according to guidelines from the Health Ministry, involves medical staff visiting or calling them morning and evening for 21 days to ask them about their temperature. People whose temperature is above normal should be immediately quarantined for three weeks.

In Hong Kong, around 15 passengers a day arrive from the affected region, chief port health officer Dr. Edwin Tsui Lok-kin said. Prior to the Ebola outbreak, Singapore had an average of about 30 people arriving a month collectively from Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, the government says.

Dale Fisher, the head of the infectious diseases' division at the Singapore National University Hospital, said governments in the region should be educating health workers about the disease and the need to ask anyone presenting with a fever at a medical facility about their travel history.

"Asia is very diverse in its capacity, and there are some countries with people that travel a lot that may not have the best infrastructure and are at greater risk," said Fisher, who has twice been to Liberia to assist in the WHO's response. "If an index case arrived back in a large Asian city and they were to sit in an open ward vomiting, then you would have a pretty big job on your hands."



In this Oct. 21, 2014 file photo a health worker shows the proper way to wear an "Ebola suit" during a media tour of the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine facility to show the Philippine government's readiness in the still Ebola-free country at Alabang, Muntinlupa city, south of Manila, Philippines. The longer the Ebola outbreak rages in Africa, the greater chance a traveler infected with the virus touches down in an Asian city. How quickly any case is detected - and the measures taken once it is - will determine whether the virus takes hold in a region where billions live in poverty and public health systems are often very weak. (AP Photo/Bullit Marquez, File)


He said that an outbreak could be brought under control with quick isolation and effective tracing of anyone who might have been in contact with the patient, citing the example of Nigeria, African's most populous country. It was declared Ebola free after confirming 19 cases, seven of them fatal.

Asian health systems and workers have experience in countering infectious diseases, including severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, which first appeared in Hong Kong in 2003, infecting more than 8,000 people and killing about 800. The region grappled a highly pathogenic strain of bird flu around the same time that killed about 800 people in 12 countries, and new strains continue to crop up.

Sujatha Rao, a former Indian health secretary, said India's health system kicked into overdrive when confronted with a health crisis, as was seen during the 2009 H1N1 pandemic. "In India we're very good at crisis management, but we are hopeless at routine care," Rao said.

Asked whether the country was prepared for Ebola, she added: "We are not ready. But that said, there is only so much preparation that any country can do."

___

Associated Press writers Oliver Teves in Manila, Philippines, Nirmala George in New Delhi, Kelvin Chan in Hong Kong, Ali Kotarumalos in Jakarta, Indonesia, and Louise Watt and AP researcher Yu Bing in Beijing contributed to this report.

___


http://news.yahoo.com/poor-health-systems-asia-cause-ebola-alarm-051240578.html

[Buster's Uncle]

US envoy visiting Ebola-hit Africa condemns world response
AFP
By Mouctar Bah  2 hours ago



Health workers burn used protective gear at the Medecins Sans Frontieres center in Conakry on September 13, 2014 (AFP Photo/Cellou Binani)



Conakry (AFP) - The US ambassador to the United Nations criticised the level of international support for nations hit by Ebola as she began a tour Sunday of west African nations at the epicentre of the deadly outbreak.

Samantha Power said before arriving in Guinea that too many leaders were praising the efforts of countries like the United States and Britain to accelerate aid to the worst-affected nations, but were doing little themselves.

"The international response to Ebola needs to be taken to a wholly different scale than it is right now," Power told NBC News.

She said many countries "are signing on to resolutions and praising the good work that the United States and the United Kingdom and others are doing, but they themselves haven't taken the responsibility yet to send docs, to send beds, to send the reasonable amount of money."

Besides Guinea, Power will travel to Sierra Leone and Liberia -- the three nations that account for the vast majority of the 4,922 deaths from the Ebola epidemic.

In Conakry on Sunday, the US envoy met with religious leaders and Ebola survivors at Guinea's largest mosque and assured them of US support.

"We're in this with you for the long haul," she said, also paying tribute to the survivors whose strength, "having gone through this horrible experience," was a metaphor for how the affected country would ultimately emerge stronger from the Ebola crisis.



US Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power speaks during the Civil Society Forum at the US-Africa Leader Summit in Washington, on August 4, 2014 (AFP Photo/Jim Watson)


More than 10,000 people have contracted the virus in west Africa, according to the latest World Health Organization figures.

Another country in the region, Mali, was scrambling to prevent a wider outbreak after a two-year-old girl died from her Ebola infection following a 1,000-kilometre (600-mile) bus ride from Guinea. She was Mali's first recorded case of the disease.


- 'Feel like a criminal' -

In the United States, An American nurse who was placed in quarantine after caring for Ebola sufferers in Sierra Leone has complained she was made to feel "like a criminal" upon arrival in New Jersey.

Kaci Hickox, who later tested negative, was the first person to be placed under a mandatory 21-day quarantine for medical staff returning to parts of the US who may have had contact with Ebola patients in west Africa.

The new rules took effect in the states of New York, New Jersey and Illinois on Friday, the same day Hickox returned.



A man dressed in a protective suit and mask holds a poster demanding a halt to all flights from West Africa,as he protests outside the White House in Washington, DC on October 16, 2014 (AFP Photo/Mladen Antonov)


"This is not a situation I would wish on anyone, and I am scared for those who will follow me," Hickox wrote in The Dallas Morning News.

"I am scared about how healthcare workers will be treated at airports when they declare that they have been fighting Ebola in west Africa. I am scared that, like me, they will arrive and see a frenzy of disorganisation, fear and, most frightening, quarantine."

She said she was being kept outside the main hospital building, with only a hospital bed, a non-flush chemical toilet, and no shower.

"To put me in prison is just inhumane," she told CNN Sunday.

In response, Power expressed concern that the new quarantine policies were "haphazard and not well thought out".

"We cannot take measures here that are going to impact our ability to flood the zone" with health workers, Power said.



Medical workers at the John Fitzgerald Kennedy hospital in Monrovia walk past a sick woman waiting for assistance, on September 6, 2014 (AFP Photo/Dominique Faget)


"We have to find the right balance between addressing the legitimate fears that people have and encouraging and incentivising these heroes."

US health officials also voiced concern that the new rules could discourage much-needed medical personnel from volunteering to go to west Africa.

"When they (health workers) come back, they need to be treated in a way that doesn't disincentivise them from going there," National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director Anthony Fauci told CNN.

President Barack Obama told Americans Saturday they must be "guided by the facts, not fear" after a 33-year-old US doctor returned from Africa became the first Ebola case in New York City.

Australian authorities said Sunday a teenage girl was in isolation in hospital and undergoing tests for Ebola after she developed a fever following her arrival from Guinea 11 days ago.

The 18-year-old, who arrived in Australia with eight other family members, had been in home quarantine in Brisbane before she developed a "raised temperature" overnight.


- Mali sees no symptoms -

The WHO has warned the situation in Mali was an "emergency" after a girl died from Ebola following a bus ride from Guinea to Mali with her grandmother.

But an advisor to the Malian health ministry told AFP the 43 people placed under medical observation in Kayes in western Mali -- where the girl died on Friday -- "do not show for the moment any signs of the illness," said doctor Lamine Diarra.

About a dozen other people are also being observed in the capital Bamako, where the little girl had spent about three hours visiting with relatives on the way to Kayes, he added.

Mauritania meanwhile reinforced controls on its border with Mali, which effectively led to the frontier being closed, according to local sources.

Ebola is spread though close contact with the sweat, vomit, blood or other bodily fluids of an infected person.


http://news.yahoo.com/us-envoy-visiting-ebola-hit-africa-condemns-world-164424848.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Ebola Quarantine in the U.S. Called ‘Inhumane’ and ‘Draconian’
Takepart.com
By Kristina Bravo | 2 hours ago



New York and New Jersey are beefing up their precautions against Ebola, but not everyone approves.

A senior health official on Sunday criticized the 21-day mandatory quarantine for travelers who had direct contact with patients in West Africa arriving in New York and New Jersey, saying the measures could dissuade American health workers from volunteering to help battle the epidemic in the ravaged region. The quarantine was imposed after Craig Spencer, a New York City doctor who returned from Guinea, tested positive for Ebola.

"I don't want to be directly criticizing the decision that was made but we have to be careful that there are unintended consequences," Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said on Meet the Press. He called the move “draconian,” saying it exceeds federal regulations.

"The best way to stop this epidemic is to help the people in West Africa,” said Fauci. “We do that by sending people over there, not only from the U.S.A. but from other places.”

Kaci Hickox, a nurse who came home from treating patients in Sierra Leone, was put in isolation on Friday despite showing no symptoms, and blood tests coming up negative for Ebola. The Texas native criticized her treatment in an essay she wrote for the Dallas Morning News Saturday.

“I am scared about how health care workers will be treated at airports when they declare that they have been fighting Ebola in West Africa,” she wrote. “I am scared that, like me, they will arrive and see a frenzy of disorganization, fear, and most frightening, quarantine.”

In an interview with CNN on Sunday, Hickox described her treatment as “inhumane”:

She remains quarantined at University Hospital in Newark, N.J.

The New York Times reported that administration officials have been urging the governors of New York and New Jersey to reverse the order, but they’re standing by their decision. Illinois and Florida have announced that they’re adopting similar measures.

“I’m sorry if in any way [Hickox] was inconvenienced but inconvenience that could occur from having folks that are symptomatic and ill out amongst the public is a much, much greater concern of mine,” New Jersey Governor Chris Christie told the Times.

According to the World Health Organization, as of Friday, the number of Ebola cases has exceeded 10,000, including 4,922 deaths. Some parts of Africa are beginning to recover. Senegal and Nigeria have been declared Ebola-free. 


http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-quarantine-u-called-inhumane-draconian-191432769.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Nurse quarantined for Ebola monitoring will sue: lawyer
Reuters  1 hour ago



(Reuters) - A nurse held in quarantine for Ebola monitoring in New Jersey plans to file a federal lawsuit challenging her confinement as a violation of her civil rights, her lawyer told Reuters on Sunday.

Norman Siegel, a well-known civil rights lawyer, said that Kaci Hickox's confinement after she returned from West Africa raised "serious constitutional and civil liberties issues," given that she remains asymptomatic and has not tested positive for Ebola."We're not going to dispute that the government has, under certain circumstances, the right to issue a quarantine," he said. "The policy is overly broad when applied to her.”

(Reporting by Joseph Ax; Writing by Fiona Ortiz; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)


http://news.yahoo.com/nurse-quarantined-ebola-monitoring-sue-lawyer-211329434.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Nurse criticizes Ebola quarantine, raising concern
Associated Press
By VERENA DOBNIK  7 hours ago



New Jersey nurse Kaci Hickox details the harrowing experience of mandatory quarantine.



NEW YORK (AP) — The nurse who was quarantined at a New Jersey hospital because she had contact with Ebola patients in West Africa criticized the way her case has been handled, raising concerns from humanitarian and human rights groups over unclear policies for the newly launched quarantine program.

Kaci Hickox, the first traveler quarantined under Ebola watches in New Jersey and New York, wrote the first-person account for the Dallas Morning News (http://bit.ly/1w4Vi4J), which was posted on the paper's website Saturday. Her preliminary tests for Ebola came back negative.

"This is not a situation I would wish on anyone, and I am scared for those who will follow me," Hickox wrote of her quarantine. "I am scared about how health care workers will be treated at airports when they declare that they have been fighting Ebola in West Africa. I am scared that, like me, they will arrive and see a frenzy of disorganization, fear and, most frightening, quarantine. ... The U.S. must treat returning health care workers with dignity and humanity."

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie on Friday imposed a mandatory quarantine of 21 days — the incubation period of the deadly virus — on travelers who have had contact with Ebola patients in the countries ravaged by Ebola — Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone. A similar measure was announced in Illinois, where officials say such travelers could be quarantined at home.

The hazy details of how such quarantines will be handled are drawing sharp criticism as infectious disease experts say enforcement logistics are up in the air. Health officials in all three states with quarantine policies did not return messages from The Associated Press seeking details about enforcement.

Cuomo on Saturday acknowledged that the policy might be hard to enforce, according to the New York Daily News.



A New York City police officer and a member of New York's Office of Emergency Management walk to the building entrance of Ebola patient Dr. Craig Spencer in New York, Saturday, Oct. 25, 2014. Spencer remained in stable condition while isolated in a hospital, talking by cellphone to his family and assisting disease detectives who are accounting for his every movement since arriving in New York from Guinea via Europe on Oct. 17. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)


The governor said officials had never considered whether people refusing to go along with the order could face prosecution or arrest, adding "It's nothing that we've discussed, no," the newspaper said.

In her essay, Hickox described being stopped at Newark Liberty International and questioned over several hours after touching down Friday. She said none of those who questioned her would explain what was going on or what would happen to her.

Hickox is a nurse who had been working with Doctors Without Borders in Sierra Leone. Officials said she was taken to a hospital after developing a fever, but Hickox said she was merely flushed because she was upset by the process. Hickox remained isolated in a building adjacent to the hospital, state health department officials said Sunday.

Doctors Without Borders executive director Sophie Delaunay complained Saturday about the "notable lack of clarity" from state officials about the quarantine policies, and an American Civil Liberties Union official in New Jersey said the state must provide more information on how it determined that mandatory quarantines were necessary.

"Coercive measures like mandatory quarantine of people exhibiting no symptoms of Ebola and when not medically necessary raise serious constitutional concerns about the state abusing its powers," said Udi Ofer, executive director of the ACLU of New Jersey.



A man shows the front page of a local newspaper while reading in the subway on October 24, 2014 in New York City (AFP Photo/Kena Betancur)


Doctors Without Borders said Hickox has not been issued an order of quarantine specifying how long she must be isolated and is being kept in an unheated tent. It urged the "fair and reasonable treatment" of health workers fighting the Ebola outbreak.

"We are attempting to clarify the details of the protocols with each state's departments of health to gain a full understanding of their requirements and implications," Delaunay said in a statement.

Christie, campaigning Saturday in Iowa for a fellow Republican, said he sympathizes for Hickox but said he has to do what he can to ensure public health safety.

"My heart goes out to her," the governor said, while also noting that state and local health officials would make sure quarantine rules are enforced. He said the New Jersey State Police won't be involved.

Health officials said preliminary tests for Ebola came back negative for Hickox but Newark University Hospital would not say if she would be released for the balance of the quarantine period or remain in the hospital.



A man has his temperature taken using an infrared digital laser thermometer at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in Abuja, August 11, 2014. (REUTERS/Afolabi Sotunde)


In the very early stages of Ebola, patients may still test negative because the virus has not yet reached detectable levels in the blood. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says it may take up to three days after the onset of symptoms for the virus to reach detectable levels in some patients, prompting repeat testing in some cases.

Hickox's mother, Karen Hickox, said Saturday her daughter probably wasn't expecting to be quarantined upon her return to the United States, but is dealing with it.

"I spoke with her (Friday and Saturday)," she said. "She was more frustrated (Friday) but there were some tears (Saturday) ... If you knew her, she's a very compassionate person but she doesn't usually get emotional."

The quarantine measures were announced after a New York physician, Craig Spencer, working for Doctors Without Borders returned from Guinea was admitted to Manhattan's Bellevue Hospital Center earlier this week to be treated for Ebola. Hospital officials said Saturday he was experiencing gastrointestinal symptoms and "entering the next phase of his illness."

A senior White House official said Saturday that how to treat health care workers returning from the affected West African countries continues to be discussed at meetings on Ebola as the administration continues to take a "careful look" at its policies.



Patient Nina Pham is hugged by Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, outside of National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Md., Friday, Oct. 24, 2014. Pham, the first nurse diagnosed with Ebola after treating an infected man at a Dallas hospital is free of the virus. The 26-year-old Pham arrived last week at the NIH Clinical Center. She had been flown there from Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)


Dr. Irwin Redlener, a Columbia University professor and director of the New York-based National Center for Disaster Preparedness, said the logistics of the states' new quarantine policy are "a problem."

"The challenge now is how you translate this quarantine plan to operational protocol," Redlener said.

He warned that quarantines might discourage doctors and nurses from going to West Africa to help, an issue raised by aid groups and Dr. Rick Sacra, one of the American health care workers successfully treated for Ebola contracted while he worked in Liberia.

"Until Ebola is under control in Africa, we're never going to see the end of such cases coming to the United States," Redlener said.

___

Associated Press writers Darlene Superville in Washington, D.C., Jonathan Lemire in New York, Jill Colvin in Clive, Iowa and Bruce Shipkowski in Trenton, New Jersey, contributed to this story.


http://news.yahoo.com/nurse-criticizes-ebola-quarantine-raising-concern-042359595.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Mauritania closes border with Mali over Ebola fears
Reuters
By Adama Diarra and Kissima Diagana  13 hours ago



BAMAKO/NOUAKCHOTT (Reuters) - Mauritania has closed its border with Mali to prevent the spread of Ebola, officials said on Saturday, highlighting fears of further contagion in West Africa after a girl from Guinea died of the disease in Mali this week.

Earlier, Mali's President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita said that his country would not close its border with Guinea despite the girl's case, which may have exposed many to the disease as she travelled hundreds of kilometres through Mali - including a stop in the capital Bamako - on public transport.

Health experts are rushing teams to Mali to help try to contain the outbreak in the sixth West African nation to record Ebola this year. Senegal and Nigeria contained their outbreaks and been declared free of the disease but at least 4,922 people have died elsewhere, mainly in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Limame Ould Deddeh, chief medical officer in Kobenni, a town in eastern Mauritania near the Mali frontier, said the government in Nouakchott had sent orders to close all land crossings. Weekly markets had been suspended, he said.

A second Mauritanian official confirmed the move.

Mali's first Ebola case was a two-year-old girl who died on Friday in Kayes, the main town in western Mali, near to the border with Mauritania and Senegal.

Kayes is a major transit point for trade with Senegal but a government official in Dakar said no decision had been taken yet on what measures would be taken.


POTENTIAL CONTACTS TRACED

Mali's Keita said the incident showed it was impossible to completely seal his country off from the outbreak in Guinea but said he remained calm as the girl's journey and potential contacts had already been traced swiftly.

"Guinea is Mali's neighbour. We have a shared border that we did not close and we will not close," he told France's RFI radio station.

Land-locked Mali relies on the ports of neighbouring Senegal, Guinea and Ivory Coast as gateways for much of its import needs. There is little accurate data but border closures by West African states trying to protect themselves from the epidemic have had a crippling effect on regional economies.

Keita said that the girl's grandmother had made a mistake by going to a funeral in Guinea, where more than 900 people have died of Ebola, and bringing her back.

"We are paying dearly for this," he said. "But I think this will cause more fear than anything else. The case was quickly contained."

Ebola experts say the real death toll from the worst outbreak on record may be as much as three times higher due to under-reporting.

Over 10,000 people have been infected by the disease but U.N. officials warn that figure could rise exponentially in coming weeks if the global response pledged does not swiftly translate into action on the ground.

Diplomats and health experts say the Guinean girl appears to have had Ebola-like symptoms and travelled for four days before she was eventually diagnosed with the disease on Oct. 23. Ebola cases are contagious as soon as they show symptoms.

The World Health Organisation said that 43 contacts had been identified and isolated. But a Malian health official, who asked not to be identified, said authorities estimated that at least 300 people had been in contact with the infected child.

"We will do everything we can to avoid panic. I notice that Bamako is calm today," Keita said.


http://news.yahoo.com/mauritania-closes-border-mali-over-ebola-fears-084209142.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Concerns mount over US Ebola quarantine
AFP
By Naomi Seck  2 hours ago



Police set up a barrier in front of The Gutter bowling alley, where Craig Spencer visited before being quartantined, in Brooklyn, New York, on October 24, 2014 (AFP Photo/Jewel Samad)



Washington (AFP) - New mandatory Ebola quarantine measures in three US states came under fire Sunday, with President Barack Obama's administration said to pressure their governors to reverse their decision.

Health authorities also expressed concern the strict new rules will discourage badly needed health workers from volunteering in the crisis in West Africa, where more than 4,900 people have already died in the worst ever outbreak of the hemorrhagic virus.

Kaci Hickox, who became the first American nurse isolated under the new orders on Friday, blasted her treatment as "inhumane."

"I feel like my basic human rights have been violated," Hickox told CNN. She had flown into New Jersey after caring for the ill in hard-hit Sierra Leone.

Hickox has been isolated in a hospital out of fear she could develop the disease later, given its 21-day incubation period.

She is being kept outside the main hospital building, with only a hospital bed, a non-flush chemical toilet and no shower. She has only been allowed to wear paper scrubs and has not been told how long she will have to remain isolated.

"When I arrived, I was not symptomatic, and that Friday they tested my blood, and I am negative," all signs she is not contagious, Hickox told CNN's "State of the Union."



Demonstrators with the United African Congress (UAC) hold a rally for the "Stop Ebola" movement in New York on October 24, 2014 the morning after it was confirmed that Doctor Craig Spencer tested positive for Ebola (AFP Photo/Timothy A. Clary)


"To put me in prison... is just inhumane."


- 'Not a threat' -

Strict new rules in New York, New Jersey and Illinois -- implemented Friday -- require a three-week quarantine for anyone exposed to the disease.

And on Sunday, Florida's governor ordered twice-daily monitoring for 21 days of anyone returning from an Ebola-stricken country, though stopping short of requiring quarantine.

Ever since New York and New Jersey implemented their measures, senior Obama administration officials have been speaking with their governors on a daily basis to convince them to rescind the order, The New York Times reported.

The decisions by the governors -- Democrat Andrew Cuomo of New York and Republican Chris Christie of New Jersey -- were "uncoordinated, very hurried, an immediate reaction to the New York City case that doesn't comport with science," a senior administration official told the Times.



A woman wearing a protective mask walks through Grand Central Terminal on October 24, 2014 (AFP Photo/Timothy A. Clary)


The official was referring to the case of a doctor, 33-year-old Craig Spencer, who tested positive a week after returning from Guinea. Health authorities have said the risk he infected others is extremely low.

Both Christie and Cuomo stood by their decision, saying current federal guidelines were insufficient.

Health authorities, however, the state measures could be counterproductive.

"The best way to protect us is to stop (the outbreak) in Africa, and one of the best ways to stop it in Africa is to get health workers who are going there and helping them with their problem," National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director Anthony Fauci told CNN.

"When they come back, they need to be treated in a way that doesn't disincentivize them from going there."

He stressed that people who are neither ill nor symptomatic are not a threat.


- 'Haphazard and not well thought out' -

US envoy to the United Nations Samantha Power has expressed concern the new quarantine policies were "haphazard and not well thought out."

"We cannot take measures here that are going to impact our ability to flood the zone" with health workers, Power said as she began a tour of West African nations struggling with the disease.

Fauci, speaking on ABC television's "This Week," stressed that it was possible to monitor people considered at risk of infection by taking their temperature and monitoring for symptoms.

"There's a big, big difference between completely confining somebody that they can't even get outside and doing the appropriate monitoring based on scientific evidence," he said on CNN.

There have been nine cases of Ebola in the United States so far, most among health workers who volunteered in Africa, with only one death.

Ebola is spread though close contact with the sweat, vomit, blood or other bodily fluids of an infected person.


http://news.yahoo.com/concerns-mount-over-us-ebola-quarantine-163358012.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Medical establishment also a casualty of Ebola crisis
AFP
By Richard Ingham and Elisabeth Zingg  15 hours ago



A newspaper vendor sells copies of the New York Post in front of the entrance to Bellevue Hospital October 24, 2014 in New York (AFP Photo/Timothy A. Clary)



Paris (AFP) - Beyond the human tragedy of the Ebola epidemic unfolding in west Africa, the crisis is claiming a collateral victim: trust in the medical order.

The biggest casualty is the reputation of the UN's World Health Organization (WHO), which analysts fault for foot-dragging and misjudgements.

Also under assault are Big Pharma, the West's aid policies in Africa and public faith in the rich world's lavishly funded health systems.

"Failures in leadership have allowed a preventable disease to spin out of control, with vast harms to social order and human dignity," a commentary carried by The Lancet said on October 7.

"If the Ebola epidemic does not spur major reforms, it will undermine the credibility of (the) WHO and the UN, and enable the conditions for future crises to persist."

Patrick Zylberman, a historian of medicine at France's National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), said the WHO had been slow to heed warnings from frontline groups such as Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF, Doctors Without Borders).

"Everyone agrees there was a delayed response, which is partly responsible for the scale of the epidemic today," Zylberman said.

It took the WHO until August 8 to press the global alarm button, when it declared the outbreak to be a Public Health Emergency of International Concern, or PHEIC.



World Health Organization (WHO) Assistant Director General for Health Systems and Innovation Marie Paule Kieny gestures during a press conference on Ebola vaccines on October 21, 2014 at the United Nations offices in Geneva (AFP Photo/Fabrice Coffrini)


That was 20 weeks after the first suspected cases emerged in the world's worst outbreak of haemorrhagic fever -- "a terrible delay," Zylberman said.

Always running to catch up, the WHO in April estimated needs to tackle Ebola at $4.8 million, which in July it raised to $71 million before hiking it to $490 million in August. A few weeks later, the UN launched an appeal for $988 million.

Zylberman said the WHO could plead mitigating circumstances -- it is just the sum of the nation-states that oversee it.

Staffing in its infectious diseases department has fallen from 95 to 30 people, partly because of a decision to shift resources to non-transmissible diseases such as cancer, he said.

Its operational budget is just a third of that of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). And just 30 percent of the funds are controlled by the WHO itself.

In 2011, the budget was cut by nearly $600 million, causing a reduction in the WHO's emergency response units, and some of its epidemic control experts left.

The WHO has promised to carry out a full review of its handling of the Ebola crisis after the epidemic is under control.



A health worker wearing a protective suit is sprayed down at the Medecins sans Frontieres Ebola treatement centre near the main Donka hospital in Conakry on September 25, 2014 (AFP Photo/Cellou Binani)


Another failure, say critics, has been priorities for drug research.

Big Pharma pours billions into exploring cures for obesity, diabetes, heart disease, cholesterol, Alzheimer's, impotence and even baldness.

But, with the exception of military-funded projects, there was negligible interest in Ebola, which struck rarely and claimed few lives -- all of them in poor tropical Africa.

"Ebola Vaccine At Least 50 White People Away," the satirical US news site The Onion headlined on July 30.

Vaccines are now being rushed into trials at unprecedented speed and will be rolled out if they are deemed safe and effective. If things go wrong, the medical establishment may have another nightmare on its hands.


- Dud strategy? -

Public health experts also say Ebola spread in part because of inadequate or misdirected aid.

Lacking basic resources -- even gowns, masks and latex gloves -- Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea were sitting ducks.

Because of porous borders and jet travel, Ebola became a global scare. The final bill may far outstrip what it would have cost to stop the outbreak at the onset.

"In the last decade, less than two percent of international aid dedicated to health in Liberia has been provided for basic health infrastructure, training health workers and public health education," said Sebastian Taylor at Britain's University of East Anglia.

"Stronger investments in building basic health capacity in countries like Liberia will be key to containing the risk of similar outbreaks in the future."

In Europe and North America, only a handful of Ebola cases have surfaced.

Yet several fumbles and dread of the disease have chipped away at public confidence.

A Pew Research poll conducted among more than 2,000 US adults between October 15 and 20 found that 54 percent had little or no concern about getting Ebola. In early October, that figure was 58 percent.

Seeking to shore up confidence, US President Barack Obama has appointed an Ebola "czar," hugged a nurse who recovered from the disease, and urged the public to remain calm and be "guided by the science -- the facts, not fear."


http://news.yahoo.com/medical-establishment-casualty-ebola-crisis-055152792.html

[Buster's Uncle]

U.S. envoy in West Africa to see how world failing in Ebola fight
Reuters
By Michelle Nichols  8 hours ago



U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Samantha Power speaks to members of the Security Council during a meeting on the Ebola crisis at U.N. headquarters in New York, September 18, 2014. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton



CONAKRY (Reuters) - The U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, arrived in Guinea's capital Conakry on Sunday to see first hand how the global response is failing to stop the deadly spread of Ebola in West Africa.

Power, who will also visit Sierra Leone and Liberia, said

she hopes to gain a better understanding of which resources are missing so she can push other countries to offer more help.

The three West African countries are bearing the brunt of the worst outbreak of the hemorrhagic fever on record that the World Health Organization (WHO) says has killed nearly 5,000 people. A small number of cases have also been reported in Mali, Nigeria, Senegal, Spain and the United States.

"We are not on track right now to bend the curve," Power told Reuters. "I will take what I know and I learn and obviously provide it to President Obama, who's got world leaders now on speed dial on this issue."

"Hopefully the more specific we can be in terms of what the requirements are and what other countries could usefully do, the more resources we can attract," she said.

The United Nations said last month almost $1 billion was needed to fight Ebola for the next six months. According to the U.N. Financial Tracking Service, nearly $500 million has been committed and a further $280 million in non-binding pledges made.

"As we have seen, along with Spain, it is not a virus that is going to remain contained within these three effected countries if we don't deal with it at its source," Power said.

Aid groups on the ground say that what is needed are more doctors, nurses and treatment centers. Ebola patients are being turned away when there are not enough beds and usually cared for at home, where they risk infecting more people, aid workers say.


BED, MEDICAL STAFF SHORTAGES

According to the Africa Governance Initiative (AGI), even if existing international commitments are met by December, there could be a shortage of over 6,000 beds across Sierra Leone and Guinea.

Nearly half of the beds currently planned in the three countries will lack the medical staff needed to support them, a study by former British prime minister Tony Blair's London-based development consultancy found.

AGI based its projections on the WHO's worst-case scenario, which foresees 10,000 new cases per week in December.

"The international community badly misjudged the impact of the Ebola epidemic in its first few months and is compounding that error by failing to act quickly enough now," AGI's chief executive Nick Thompson said.

He called upon more countries to follow the examples of the United States, Britain and Cuba, which have deployed military and medical personnel to the region to bolster efforts to stop the epidemic at its source.

"We're just running behind the train and the train goes way faster than we're reacting," Susana Santos, country director in Guinea for the Spanish chapter of aid organisation Action Against Hunger, told Power during a meeting on Sunday.

"There's a need for everyone to step up, and step up faster," she said

Some Republican lawmakers have called for a travel ban on the worst affected countries after four cases of Ebola were diagnosed in the United States.

Obama has resisted such a move on advice from public health officials who say Ebola, which is spread through contact with bodily fluids of an infected person, poses no major health threat to the country.

Power said the benefits of seeing the Ebola response first hand outweighed the risks of traveling to Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone and that she would take all necessary precautions during her visit and upon her return to the United States, including checking her temperature "many times a day".

"But above all what I will do is encourage people who are frightened right now to recognize that hundreds of health workers have gone in and out of these effected countries many months ago and recently and have come home safe and are living within their communities," Power said.

"We can manage this outbreak and stop it in its tracks if we follow the science and if we follow the protocols."

Power also plans to visit the headquarters of the United Nations Ebola response mission in Ghana, which is coordinating efforts in West Africa.


http://news.yahoo.com/u-envoy-west-africa-see-world-failing-ebola-131720911.html