Ebola news 11/22

[Buster's Uncle]

International Ebola fight helping but more work needed -U.N. chief
Reuters  9 hours ago



United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon walks after speaking to the media after the UN Chief Executive Board's private session on the Ebola response in Washington November 21, 2014. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts



WASHINGTON (Reuters) - International efforts to fight Ebola are helping to slow the rate of new infections in some areas but increased infections in others and fears of further contagion in Mali indicate much work is still to be done, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Friday.

Ban said more trained medical teams are needed, especially in remote districts of countries in West Africa where more than 5,400 people have been killed by the virus. Ban said the coordinated efforts of country leaders and safer burial practices, combined with international support, are helping.

"If we continue to accelerate our response, we can contain and end the outbreak by the middle of next year," Ban told reporters after a U.N. Chief Executives' board meeting in Washington, D.C. "I appeal to the international community to stay engaged."

Still, he added, "the new chain of transmission in Mali is of course of deep concern."

All six known Ebola cases in Mali have died. Most of the deaths and cases are in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.

Margaret Chan, director-general of the World Health Organization, told reporters she is traveling to Mali to discuss the situation. She said 120 people who had contact with the first person to die of Ebola in Mali, a 2-year-old child, had passed the 21 day time-frame in which a person is considered potentially at risk of developing symptoms.

Of greater concern, she said, is a second person with Ebola who crossed into Mali from Guinea and has elicited close to 500 contacts.

"We are scaling up our action," Chan said. "We must smother this little fire before it gets out of control."

Overall, Chan said, there are some signs of progress in battling Ebola, and that cases are stabilizing in some areas.

The death toll has risen to 5,459 out of 15,351 cases identified in eight countries at the end of Nov. 18, the WHO said on Friday. The figures showed an increase of 39 recorded deaths and 106 new cases since those issued on Wednesday.

"We must maintain our vigilance," Chan said. "Complacency would be our enemy."


http://news.yahoo.com/international-ebola-fight-helping-more-needed-u-n-081652387.html

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UK volunteers fly to Sierra Leone to fight Ebola
Associated Press
By CLARENCE ROY-MACAULAY  4 hours ago



FREETOWN, Sierra Leone (AP) — The first wave of volunteers from Britain's National Health Service arrived in Sierra Leone Saturday amid what the World Health Organization has described as an "intense" surge in cases.

More than 30 NHS staffers, including general practitioners and nurses, were expected to stay in Freetown, the capital, for one week of training before moving to treatment centers across the country, Britain's Department for International Development said in a statement.

They join nearly 1,000 British soldiers, scientists and aid workers already in the country participating in the Ebola fight, International Development Secretary Justine Greening said.

"To beat Ebola we desperately need the experience and dedication of skilled doctors and nurses to care for the thousands of sick and dying patients who are not receiving the treatment they need," Greening said.

Ebola is believed to have killed more than 1,200 people in Sierra Leone and more than 5,400 across West Africa, according to WHO figures.

Only 13 percent of Sierra Leone's Ebola patients had been isolated, according to a WHO report released this week.

More than 1,000 British National Health staffers have volunteered for the Ebola effort. Those deployed Saturday will be posted to British-built treatment centers. They have already received nine days of training including operating in a mock treatment center.

On Friday, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said that despite recent signs of progress in Liberia and elsewhere, the largest Ebola outbreak ever recorded would take "until the middle of next year" to contain.

Liberia has recorded the most cases and deaths out of any country, though the spread of the disease has fallen off considerably in recent weeks and the government lifted a state of emergency earlier this month.

On Friday, however, Liberia's police force ordered that all public rallies, demonstrations and gatherings be banned until the country is declared free of the disease.

The only exception, the police said in a bulletin read on state radio, was campaign rallies related to Senate elections scheduled for Dec. 16.
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Associated Press writer Jonathan Paye-Layleh contributed to this report from Monrovia, Liberia.
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http://news.yahoo.com/uk-volunteers-fly-sierra-leone-fight-ebola-102256709.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Mali: New Ebola case confirmed, 2 more suspected
Associated Press
By BABA AHMED  2 hours ago



BAMAKO, Mali (AP) — Mali on Saturday confirmed a new case of Ebola and said two more suspected patients are being tested, raising concern about a further spread of the disease which has already killed at least five people in the country.

The patient who tested positive "was placed in an isolation center for intensive treatment," said a government statement distributed Saturday. No details about the patient were provided.

Mali officials are monitoring 310 people to limit the spread of the disease, said the statement.

Mali's five confirmed Ebola deaths are linked to a 70-year-old imam who was brought to the capital, Bamako, from Guinea, where the regional Ebola epidemic first began.

At a regional meeting in September, officials identified more than a dozen countries in West and Central Africa that were at risk of being affected by the ongoing outbreak, the worst ever recorded.

"The new cases in Mali remind us that no country in the region is immune to Ebola," Manuel Fontaine, UNICEF regional director for West and Central Africa, said in a statement Friday.

The World Health Organization says more than 5,400 people have died in the current outbreak, mostly in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Also on Saturday, the first group of volunteers from Britain's National Health Service arrived in Sierra Leone amid widespread concern about the worsening situation there.

More than 30 NHS staffers, including general practitioners and nurses, were expected to stay in Freetown, the capital, for one week of training before moving to treatment centers across the country, Britain's Department for International Development said in a statement.

They join nearly 1,000 British soldiers, scientists and aid workers already in the country participating in the Ebola fight, International Development Secretary Justine Greening said.

More than 1,000 British National Health staffers have volunteered for the Ebola effort.

Sierra Leone has recorded more than 1,200 Ebola deaths, and only 13 percent of Sierra Leone's Ebola patients were being isolated, according to a WHO report released this week.

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Associated Press writer Clarence Roy-Macaulay contributed to this report from Freetown, Sierra Leone.


http://news.yahoo.com/mali-ebola-case-confirmed-2-more-suspected-142912285.html

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Mali records new Ebola case, linked to dead nurse
Reuters  2 hours ago



Children watch as a health worker sprays disinfectants outside a mosque in Bamako November 14, 2014. REUTERS/Joe Penney



BAMAKO (Reuters) - Mali has recorded a new case of Ebola in the capital Bamako after the friend of a nurse who died of the hemorrhagic fever earlier this month tested positive for the disease, health and medical officials said on Saturday.

The nurse contracted the disease after treating an imam from neighboring Guinea, who died after being incorrectly diagnosed with kidney problems. This allowed Ebola to spread to five other people in the West African nation's second outbreak.

"Of two suspected cases tested, one was negative and the other positive. The latter was placed in an isolation center for intensive treatment," a statement from the health ministry said, adding that another 310 contact cases were being monitored.

Two Malian medical officials, who asked not to be named, confirmed the relationship between the new case and the deceased nurse.

A total of 5,459 people have died in the worst Ebola outbreak on record, according the World Health Organization (WHO). Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia account for all but 15 of them.

Of the six previously known cases of the disease in Mali, all have died, the WHO said on Friday.

(Reporting by Colin Baker, Tiemoko Diallo and Adama Diarra; Writing by Joe Bavier; Editing by Tom Heneghan)


http://news.yahoo.com/mali-records-ebola-case-linked-dead-nurse-140851943.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Ebola-related events in the United States and response
Reuters  19 hours ago



(Reuters) - Health agencies around the world are grappling with the worst Ebola epidemic since the virus was identified in 1976.

The following is a chronology of events in the United States and the government's response at home and abroad from the time the World Health Organization identified the beginnings of the outbreak in early 2014 in Guinea:

March 22: Guinea confirms hemorrhagic fever that killed more than 50 people is Ebola.

March 30: Liberia reports two Ebola cases; suspected cases in Sierra Leone.

May 26: WHO confirms first Ebola deaths in Sierra Leone.

July 25: Nigeria confirms its first Ebola case.

July 31: U.S. Peace Corps withdraws all volunteers from Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.

Aug. 2: U.S. missionary physician, Kent Brantly, infected with Ebola in Liberia, flown to Atlanta for treatment.

Aug. 5: Second U.S. missionary with Ebola, Nancy Writebol, flown from Liberia to Atlanta.

Aug. 12: WHO says deaths top 1,000, approves use of unproven drugs or vaccines.

Aug. 21: The two missionary workers are released from hospital on Aug. 19 and Aug. 21, free of Ebola.

Aug. 29: Senegal reports first confirmed case.

Sept. 3: Third U.S. missionary doctor with Ebola, Rick Sacra, flown from Liberia to Omaha, Nebraska, for treatment.

Officials announce human trials for two vaccines, and U.S. contract to speed up testing experimental ZMapp treatment.

Sept. 8: United States to send field hospital to Liberia.

Sept. 9: Fourth Ebola patient, who asks not to be unidentified, flown to Atlanta for treatment from Sierra Leone.

Sept. 11: Sacra improves after infusion of plasma from U.S. Ebola survivor Brantley and undisclosed experimental drug.

Sept. 16: United States promises 3,000 military engineers, medical staff to West Africa to build clinics, train workers.

Sept. 17: U.S. House of Representatives approves $88 million to help fight outbreak.

Sept. 20: Liberian Thomas Eric Duncan flies to Dallas after helping Ebola victim in Liberia.

Sept. 25: Duncan goes to Dallas hospital with fever, stomach pain. He is sent back to apartment where he is staying despite telling nurse he traveled from West Africa.

Sept. 28: Duncan returns to Texas Presbyterian Hospital.

Sept. 30: U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirms Duncan has Ebola; first diagnosed in United States.

Oct. 2: Duncan may have had contact with up to 100 people.

NBC News says American freelance cameraman, Ashoka Mukpo, infected in Liberia and will be flown home for treatment.

Oct. 6: Mukpo taken to Nebraska Medical Center.

Oct. 8: Duncan dies in Dallas hospital.

United States orders five airports to screen travelers from West Africa for fever.

Oct. 9: Some U.S. lawmakers want travel ban on West African nations hit hardest by Ebola.

Oct. 10: WHO says 4,033 dead out of 8,399 cases in seven countries.

Oct. 11: New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport begins screening travelers from three West African countries.

Oct. 12: Dallas nurse Nina Pham has Ebola; first to contract it in United States. She cared for Duncan.

Oct. 15: Second Texas nurse, Amber Vinson, who also treated Duncan, has Ebola.

Oct. 17: Obama appoints Ebola response coordinator.

Oct. 20: United States issues stricter guidelines for health workers treating Ebola patients.

Atlanta hospital that treated unidentified American patient says the man was free of Ebola and released Oct. 19.

Oct. 21: As of Oct. 22 travelers to United States from Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea must fly into one of five airports for enhanced screening.

Oct. 22: United States will monitor for 21 days anyone entering from West African countries at center of epidemic.

NBC cameraman Mukpo free of Ebola; leaves Nebraska hospital.

Oct. 23: New York City doctor Craig Spencer, who treated patients in Guinea, tests positive for Ebola.

Mali becomes sixth West African country hit by Ebola.

Oct. 24: Dallas nurse Pham is Ebola-free; leaves hospital.

New York and New Jersey order quarantine of medical workers returning from Ebola-hit West Africa countries. Nurse Kaci Hickox tests negative and is quarantined in New Jersey, under protest, for two days. She goes to Maine, is ordered isolated at home. She challenges order.

Oct. 25: Illinois orders quarantine of all "high-risk" travelers returning from Ebola-hit West African countries and on Oct. 26 Florida orders 21 days of monitoring and quarantine for "high-risk" individuals.

Oct. 27: U.S. Army begins isolating personnel returning from Ebola missions in West Africa.

Oct. 28: Dallas nurse Vinson free of Ebola; leaves hospital.

Oct. 29: Quarantine-like monitoring expanded to all U.S. military returning from relief missions.

California enacts 21-day quarantine of travelers who had contact with Ebola patients.

Nov. 3: Maine and nurse Hickox agree she can travel freely.

Nov. 5: Obama will ask Congress for $6.2 billion in new funds to fight Ebola in West Africa and United States.

Nov. 7: Dallas declared Ebola-free.

Nov. 11: Dr. Spencer is free of Ebola, leaves hospital.

Nov. 12: Nurses protest over protection measures provided.

Nov. 15: Surgeon and U.S. resident Martin Salia has Ebola; is flown from home country Sierra Leone to Omaha, Nebraska.

Nov. 16: U.S. adds travelers from Mali for screening.

Nov. 17: Salia dies; second person to succumb to Ebola in United States.

Nov. 21: WHO reports 5,459 deaths out of 15,351 cases.

(Editing by Toni Reinhold and Grant McCool)


http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-related-events-united-states-response-224756877.html

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Ebola victim's fiancee moves into new Dallas home
Associated Press
By EMILY SCHMALL  20 hours ago



DALLAS (AP) — The fiancee of Thomas Eric Duncan, the Liberian man who died of Ebola, is settling into a Dallas condominium a month after emerging from quarantine with most of her possessions destroyed and many places reluctant to rent to her.

Louise Troh said Friday she is "relieved" to be able to leave her daughter's cramped, two-bedroom apartment for her own home.

"Thanks be to God I found a place to lay my head," she told The Associated Press.

The condo was purchased by three families who attend Wilshire Baptist Church with Troh, according to the church's pastor, George Mason. Troh will pay them rent.

The three-bedroom unit is located in Vickery Meadows, the densely populated immigrant neighborhood near downtown Dallas where Troh and three others lived before being evacuated after Duncan became the first person diagnosed with Ebola in the United States.

Troh and the others completed a 21-day quarantine period in a cottage at a Catholic church retreat center in southern Dallas. Except for a few bins of photographs and personal items, everything in Troh's former apartment was taken away and burned because of possible contamination. Duncan stayed with Troh for 10 days before his first trip to the emergency room.

Troh's new home has been furnished by the nonprofit Dwell with Dignity, Mason said.

Rather than return to her $9 per hour job at a nursing home, Troh said she is focused on her memoir, to be published in April, and moving on from an ordeal she told AP "destroyed" her life.


http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-victims-fiancee-moves-dallas-home-212631358.html

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British health volunteers heading to S. Leone to tackle Ebola
AFP  15 hours ago



A nurse wearing personal protective equipment checks on a patient at the Kenama Ebola treatment center run by the Red Cross Society in Sierra Leone on November 15, 2014 (AFP Photo/Francisco Leong)



London (AFP) - A first group of volunteers from Britain's state National Health Service were to depart Saturday for Sierra Leone to join the Ebola epidemic fight, the UK government said.

More than 30 NHS workers were to arrive in the capital Freetown on Sunday for a week of training before moving to British-built treatment centres around the west African country.

The group includes doctors, nurses, clinicians, psychiatrists and emergency medicine consultants.

The volunteers have gone through nine days of intensive training at a specialist Ministry of Defence unit in northern England, which has a replica treatment centre.

More than 1,000 NHS workers have put their names forward and more teams of British volunteers are due to go out to Sierra Leone over the coming weeks.

"I'd been following the stories on the news, so when I saw an email from the NHS highlighting the Ebola situation in Sierra Leone and calling for volunteers I felt I had act," said Donna Wood, senior sister at Haywood Hospital in Stoke-on-Trent, central England.

"I knew I could use the skills I've got to make a difference and join a team to help bring the disease under control."

More than 5,000 people have died in the west African Ebola outbreak and more than 15,000 have been infected.

Recent data has shown a decline in cases in Liberia, the worst-hit country, and Guinea, but last week, 533 new cases were reported in Sierra Leone -- the highest weekly tally since the epidemic began in that country.

"Our fight against Ebola in west Africa is one of Britain's biggest responses to a disease outbreak," said International Development Secretary Justine Greening.

"But to beat Ebola we desperately need the experience and dedication of skilled doctors and nurses to care for the thousands of sick and dying patients who are not receiving the treatment they need."

One UK-built treatment centre is already open in the former British colony of Sierra Leone, with a further five to open in the coming weeks, with a total of 700 beds between them.

Cuba, Norway, Australia, New Zealand and Denmark have committed to providing health workers to staff the British treatment centres alongside the NHS volunteers.


http://news.yahoo.com/british-health-volunteers-heading-leone-tackle-ebola-024939351.html

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Cuban doctor with Ebola flies out of Sierra Leone
Reuters  November 21, 2014 1:45 AM



FREETOWN (Reuters) - A Cuban doctor who caught Ebola while treating patients in Sierra Leone left the country on Thursday afternoon in an aircraft bound for Switzerland, a Reuters witness said.

The doctor Felix Baez, 43, is the first known Cuban to have contracted the disease which has killed at least 5,450 people in West Africa since March in the worst outbreak on record.

Baez, a father of two children, was due to arrive in Geneva for medical treatment later on Thursday.

A Cuban health official said on Wednesday he was in stable condition. It was not immediately clear how he came to catch the hemorrhagic fever which is spread via bodily fluids such as blood, sweat and vomit.


http://news.yahoo.com/cuban-doctor-ebola-flies-sierra-leone-064523463.html

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Cuban doctor arrives in Geneva for Ebola treatment
Associated Press
By DAVID RISING  November 21, 2014 7:37 AM



Persons wearing protective gear sit in an ambulance carrying a Cuban doctor who contracted Ebola at the Geneva Airport before it heads from the airport to the university hospital HUG in Geneva, Switzerland, Thursday evening, Nov. 20, 2014. The medic, a member of the 165-member Cuban medical team sent to fight Ebola in Sierra Leone has been diagnosed with the disease, and was transferred to Geneva for treatment. (AP Photo/Keystone, Martial Trezzini)



BERLIN (AP) — A Cuban doctor who contracted Ebola in Sierra Leone arrived in Switzerland for treatment and was able to walk off the transport plane, a Geneva medical official said Friday.

Felix Baez Sarria arrived on a flight overnight and was transported in a specially outfitted ambulance with a police escort to Geneva University Hospital.

Geneva canton (state) Chief Medical Officer Dr. Jacques-Andre Romand told The Associated Press the 43-year-old Baez wore a protective suit and mask as he got off the plane and climbed onto a gurney before boarding the ambulance.

Romand said doctors will decide on a treatment regime for Baez, which could include experimental drugs.

"As soon as we know what is going on, if there is medication that will help him we will give it to him," Romand said.

Baez, a member of the 165-person medical team Cuba sent to Sierra, caught the disease when he rushed to help a patient who was falling over. His treatment in Switzerland was organized through the WHO.



Police vehicles escort the ambulance carrying a Cuban doctor who contracted Ebola at the Geneva Airport before it heads from the airport to the university hospital HUG in Geneva, Switzerland, Thursday evening, Nov. 20, 2014. The medic, a member of the 165-member Cuban medical team sent to fight Ebola in Sierra Leone has been diagnosed with the disease, and was transferred to Geneva for treatment. (AP Photo/Keystone, Laurent Gillieron)


Ebola is spread through direct contact with the bodily fluids of sick patients — including blood, feces and urine. Health workers have been particularly vulnerable to contracting the virus.

Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone have been the hardest hit in the epidemic that has sickened more than 15,100 people since spring and caused more than 5,400 deaths, according to World Health Organization figures.

On Friday, French President Francois Hollande announced he would travel to Guinea next week to help put in place efforts to counter the virus. He is the first non-African head of state to visit the area since the outbreak started.

France plans to send mobile health clinics to Guinea and pledged 170 million euros ($211 million) to help fight the disease.

Also on Friday, Doctors Without Borders flew one of its Spanish health care workers home from Mali after she accidently pricked herself with a needle used on a person suffering from Ebola.

Spanish Health Ministry spokesman Fernando Simon said the woman has not shown any symptoms but is being treated as a "high-risk" case.
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Ciaran Giles in Madrid and Lori Hinnant in Paris contributed to this story.


http://news.yahoo.com/cuban-doctor-arrives-switzerland-ebola-aid-081419938.html