Ebola News 12/24

[Buster's Uncle]

Exhausted Sierra Leone medics battle Ebola in the "red zone"
Reuters
By Emma Farge  11 hours ago



Health workers rest outside a quarantine zone at a Red Cross facility in the town of Koidu, Kono district in Eastern Sierra Leone December 19, 2014. Sierra Leone, neighbouring Guinea and Liberia are at the heart of the world's worst recorded outbreak of Ebola. Rates of infection are rising fastest in Sierra Leone, which now accounts for more than half of the 18,603 confirmed cases of the virus. REUTERS/Baz Ratner



HASTINGS, Sierra Leone (Reuters) - When Dr Sekou Kanneh goes to work at his Sierra Leonean Ebola clinic, he will probably be in the "red zone" for many hours, ignoring by necessity strict limits that govern foreign colleagues fighting the epidemic.

Conditions at Kanneh's treatment centre, the only Ebola unit in the country run by local staff, contrast to the purpose-built facilities where foreign volunteers who have flocked to Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia work.

Kanneh has received no official training to treat the virus that has killed over 7,000 people in West Africa. Still, he works up to four hour shifts in the stifling heat of the red zone, a ward where healthcare workers have direct contact with the highly contagious Ebola patients.

"We don't have time for surgery any more, and many of our surgeons are dead from Ebola," he told Reuters, rubbing his brow in the dense heat, his green medical gown dark with sweat.

Last week, U.S. medics showed United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon around their air-conditioned treatment centre near the Liberian capital, explaining how every precaution is taken to protect workers.

Highly-trained staff at the U.S. unit may stay in the red zone for a maximum of two hours - for good reason. Less time there means less risk of exposure to Ebola and of making possibly fatal mistakes. Workers must also avoid suffering dehydration in their polyethylene protective suits, which even with air conditioning are extremely hot to wear.

In the Sierra Leonean capital of Freetown, medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres limits the time local and international staff spend in the red zone of its facility to about one hour.


"DOCTOR, I'M DYING"

Britain, France, Cuba and others have also sent doctors, and the foreign-run facilities are generally well funded. But things are different when Kanneh puts on his "PPE" - the personal protective equipment of a suit, gloves and mask - at his unit on the site of a former police academy.

"If you tell me to remove my PPE after 45 minutes and I hear a patient saying 'doctor, doctor I'm dying', then I won't leave," Kanneh said at his clinic in Hastings, a community just outside Freetown.

Reassurance is vital for those suffering symptoms such as vomiting, diarrhoea and bleeding from eyes and ears. "The patients can't see faces because of the mask so the voice is really important," he told Reuters.

For Kanneh, who trained as a surgeon in Russia, the shifts are gruelling. One recent Sunday, he found himself working alone to supervise treatment of 27 patients as one colleague was at church and another is recovering from the virus.

Of the three impoverished countries worst hit by the outbreak, Sierra Leone now has the most cases and the numbers are rising fastest; roughly half are in Freetown.

Sierra Leone had only 136 doctors before the epidemic struck and 12 of them have become infected, mostly fatally, including the country's leading doctor, Victor Willoughby. He died last week, a few hours after the arrival in Sierra Leone of an experimental drug that could have been used to treat him.

Across the three countries, 358 healthcare workers have died from Ebola, according to World Health Organization figures.

But the loss of Willoughby, who mentored a generation of Sierra Leonean medical students, was a particularly heavy blow to morale. Willoughby had won great respect for staying throughout a civil war that lasted more than a decade until 2002, rather than taking a more lucrative post abroad.

"We have lost too many in the battle," Kanneh said. "I don’t want them to be forgotten. We remember them each time we go back into the red zone."


FRUSTRATED AND EXHAUSTED

At the Hastings centre, gloved workers walk along its open-air corridors with buckets, while a clergyman reads the Bible story of Lazarus - who was raised from the dead - to a handful of gaunt survivors.

Kanneh, who has no medical insurance, stays on site in a spartan room near the Ebola ward and is often on call overnight. Numbers of patients at Hastings have dropped since early December, thanks partly to six new facilities built by the British military.

But with funding falling far short of that for the foreign facilities, staff at Hastings are exhausted and frustrated. A pharmacist showed Reuters a list of around 180 staff members out of a total of 257 who say they have not received their full government wages and risk allowance.

"If you look at the risk allowance of white people, it's much higher. I'm angry. This is risky work," said Mohamed Marrah, who supervises workers as they don PPEs.

Even in centres run by Western groups, the majority of staff are local. Medecins Sans Frontieres has around 30 foreign workers and 250 Sierra Leonians at its Prince of Wales facility.

"It's not unrealistic for Sierra Leone doctors to have the same conditions as Western ones but somebody has to be prepared to fund that," said O.B. Sisay, director of the situation room at the National Ebola Response Centre.


http://news.yahoo.com/exhausted-sierra-leone-medics-battle-ebola-red-zone-065056787.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Death toll in Ebola outbreak rises to 7,573: WHO
Reuters  1 hour ago



A grave digger watches as health workers carry the body of an Ebola victim for burial at a cemetery in Freetown December 17, 2014. REUTERS/Baz Ratner



GENEVA (Reuters) - The death toll from Ebola in the three West Africa countries hardest hit by the epidemic has risen to 7,573 out of 19,463 confirmed cases recorded there to date, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday.

Sierra Leone has the most cases, 9,004, while Liberia has the highest death toll, 3,384, according to its latest figures. Guinea, where the outbreak began a year ago, is the third hardest-hit.

The Ebola crisis that claimed its first victim exactly a year ago is likely to last until the end of 2015, according to Peter Piot, a scientist who helped to discover the virus in 1976.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay, editing by David Evans)


http://news.yahoo.com/death-toll-ebola-outbreak-rises-7-573-165709328.html

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Ebola crisis could last through 2015 as marks year since outbreak-expert-TRFN
Reuters
By Belinda Goldsmith  6 hours ago



A grave digger watches as health workers carry the body of an Ebola victim for burial at a cemetery in Freetown December 17, 2014. REUTERS/Baz Ratner



LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - The Ebola crisis in West Africa that claimed its first victim exactly a year ago is likely to last until the end of 2015, according to a scientist who helped to discover the virus.

Two-year-old Emile Ouamouno died in the remote village of Meliandou in southern Guinea on Dec. 28 last year after suffering from a fever, headache and diarrhoea. His 3-year-old sister, mother and grandmother died days later.

These deaths went unnoticed and the disease smouldered undetected, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO). It was not until March that health officials in Guinea started to realise something worrisome was happening.

Ebola had never struck in West Africa and it took a while to recognise the start of what has become the world's worst outbreak of the virus that has killed more than 7,500 people and infected nearly 19,500 in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia.

By August, the WHO declared the epidemic to be a "public health emergency of international concern".

Peter Piot, director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and part of a team to discover Ebola in 1976, said progress was being made in trying to stop the virus spreading but it would take time to develop vaccines.

"This will be an epidemic with a very long tail, and a bumpy tail ... we need to be ready for a long effort, a sustained effort [for] probably the rest of 2015," Piot told the BBC on Wednesday.

The hemorrhagic fever, which causes vomiting, diarrhoea and bleeding, is spread by contact with bodily fluids of the sick and it has no known cure.

Scientists studying Ebola since its discovery in Zaire - now Democratic Republic of Congo - in 1976 have long suspected fruit bats as being the natural hosts.

Piot, who has just returned from Sierra Leone, said the virus had peaked in Liberia where it has claimed about 3,376 lives, according to WHO figures.

He said it was likely to peak in Sierra Leone in the next few weeks where the virus has claimed 2,556 lives so far. Sierra Leone has almost half of confirmed cases.

Simple treatments such as intravenous fluids and antibiotics had driven mortality rates in Sierra Leone to as low as one in three compared to about 70 percent previously, he said.

"Treatment centres have now been established across the country with British help. You don't see any longer the scenes where people are dying in the streets," said Piot who has previously criticised the WHO's slow response to the outbreak.

He said developing a vaccine was essential "so that when there is another epidemic or maybe when this epidemic drags on for a long time, that we have that vaccine available".

This week the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services awarded contracts to NewLink Genetics Corp and GlaxoSmithKline Plc for faster development of vaccines.


http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-crisis-could-last-2015-marks-since-outbreak-122431365--finance.html

[Buster's Uncle]

How this Instagram-for-doctors is helping the ebola fight
Gigaom
By Carmel DeAmicis  December 22, 2014 7:20 PM



Doctors without Borders, the esteemed non-profit that sends medics into developing countries, has found an unlikely ally in the war against ebola. It’s using Figure 1, a social network that bills itself as the “Instagram for doctors,” to recruit physicians to the cause. Figure 1 is giving Doctors without Borders free advertising in order to raise awareness of the mounting ebola crisis and prod potential volunteers to help in whatever way they can.

The app pinned this picture of a nurse in New Guinea to the top of its feed, putting it front and center of its users. “It got a crazy amount of attention, over 15,000 views in 24 hours, which for us is quite good,” Figure 1 co-founder Dr. Greg Levy said. “All kinds of favorites and comments.”

Figure 1 was started to make it easy for doctors to educate themselves about new illnesses, procedures, and technology. Doctors and med students peruse a feed of injury and ailment images uploaded by other doctors, with all patient identifying features blurred.

“We had studied workflow behaviors of young physicians, keeping track of cases by taking pictures with their phones and sharing with their colleagues,” Figure 1 co-founder Dr. Josh Landy said. “We took a workflow that already existed and gave them away to have it searchable and protect patient privacy.”

Social networking, when developed for a particular profession, can sometimes create substantial value for their users. And as the Figure 1 – Doctors without Borders partnership shows, it can also create an unparalleled opportunity to reach a wide swath of such professionals.

As Figure 1’s user base grows, so does its power to reach medical professionals. Figure 1 has 150,000 doctors on the app, so it still has a ways to go. There aren’t a ton of up-to-date numbers on how many doctors are in the U.S., but the 2012 Bureau of Labor Statistics puts it at roughly 700,000.

The initial positive reaction to the Figure 1 ebola ad convinced Doctors without Borders to expand its partnership. The app is now helping it advertise new types of health techniques in Papa New Guinea. To combat tuberculosis, drones are bringing specimens from remote rural areas to the nearest hospitals for testing. Showing that activity to doctors in the U.S. keeps them abreast of the latest technology and — in theory — piques their interest in joining Doctors without Borders.


http://news.yahoo.com/instagram-doctors-helping-ebola-fight-002026787.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Sierra Leone district declares three-day Ebola lockdown
Reuters  20 minutes ago



FREETOWN (Reuters) - Sierra Leone's northern district of Port Loko, the area with the highest rate of Ebola transmission, plans a three-day lockdown over Christmas as it seeks to contain the disease's spread.

Sierra Leone is the worst-hit country in West Africa with over 9,000 cases. The rate of infection is fastest in the capital Freetown and the neighboring province of Port Loko, where 44 out of a total 58 new cases were reported on Wednesday.

"Port Loko will do a lockdown and a house-to-house campaign to find the sick," said OB Sisay, an official in the National Ebola Response Centre. He said the new measures would start at midnight on Wednesday and could be extended into the new year.

Sierra Leone has also banned Christmas parties and other festivities nationwide in an effort to stop the epidemic.

(Writing by Emma Farge; editing by Andrew Roche)


http://news.yahoo.com/sierra-leone-district-declares-three-day-ebola-lockdown-204045180.html

[Buster's Uncle]

CDC Monitoring Tech For Possible Ebola Exposure
AP | By PHILLIP LUCAS
Posted:  12/24/2014 5:34 pm EST    Updated:  8 minutes ago   



Created by CDC microbiologist Frederick A. Murphy, this colorized transmission electron micrograph (TEM) revealed some of the ultrastructural morphology displayed by an Ebola virus virion. | CDC Global Health | Flickr



ATLANTA (AP) — A laboratory technician at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was being monitored Wednesday for possible accidental exposure to the Ebola virus that came during an experiment, officials said Wednesday evening.

The person working in a secure laboratory in Atlanta may have come into contact with a small amount of a live virus, CDC spokeswoman Barbara Reynolds says in an emailed statement. CDC officials said the experiment material was on a sealed plate, but wasn't supposed to be moved into the lab the technician was working in.

There was no exposure outside the lab and scientists notified CDC officials of the potential problem on Tuesday, Reynolds said.

The possible exposure is under internal investigation and has been reported to Secretary of Health and Human Services Sylvia Burwell, Reynolds said. Additional employees have been notified, but none has required monitoring.

CDC Director Tom Frieden said he's troubled by the report.

"I have directed that there be a full review of every aspect of the incident and that CDC take all necessary measures," he said in a statement.

In June, at least 52 workers at the CDC took antibiotics as a precaution because a lab safety problem was thought to have exposed them to anthrax.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/24/cdc-monitoring-tech-for-p_0_n_6378806.html?ncid=txtlnkusaolp00000592

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CDC technician may have been exposed to Ebola due to lab error: NY Times
Reuters  27 minutes ago



(Reuters) - A technician at the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may have been exposed to the deadly Ebola virus due to a laboratory error, the New York Times reported on Wednesday, citing federal officials.

The worker will be monitored for signs of infection for 21 days, the disease's incubation period, and a group of fewer than 12 other employees who entered the lab where the mistake happened will also be assessed for exposure, the newspaper said.

The mistake, which occurred on Monday and was discovered on Tuesday, involved sending Ebola samples that had not been inactivated to another lab down the hall. The technician who worked with the samples wore gloves and a gown but not a mask, the Times said.

The error follows cases of the mishandling of dangerous samples of anthrax and influenza at the CDC in June, calling into question safety practices at the highly respected research institute.

Representatives of the CDC were not immediately available for comment.

(Writing by Eric Walsh in Washington; Editing by Eric Beech)


http://news.yahoo.com/cdc-technician-may-exposed-ebola-due-lab-error-222347277.html

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Report: Ebola survival improving in Sierra Leone
Associated Press
By MARILYNN MARCHIONE  1 hour ago



In this Oct. 16, 2014, file photo, a healthcare worker dons protective gear before entering an Ebola treatment center in Freetown, Sierra Leone. In a letter published online Wednesday, Dec. 24. 2014, by the New England Journal of Medicine, doctors report that the Ebola death rate seems to have fallen even though there are no specific medicines or vaccines to fight the virus. (AP Photo/Michael Duff, File)



One year into the world's worst Ebola outbreak, doctors are reporting an encouraging sign: About 70 percent of patients in a hard-hit area of Sierra Leone now survive.

The Ebola death rate has fallen even though there are no specific medicines or vaccines to fight the virus. The outbreak began last December in the West African country of Guinea, but it wasn't recognized until last spring. There have been nearly 20,000 cases and more than 7,500 deaths, mostly in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, the World Health Organization estimates.

In a letter published online Wednesday by the New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Kathryn Jacobsen of George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, and other doctors tell of 581 patients taken to an Ebola treatment center that opened near Sierra Leone's capital, Freetown, in late September.

They were given antibiotics, malaria medicines, ibuprofen for pain and fever, intravenous nutrients, anti-nausea medicine and other supportive care. About 31 percent died, including 38 people who were dead when they arrived. Among those admitted more recently, since Nov. 5, mortality was less than 24 percent.

That is much lower than the 74 percent death rate other doctors reported for 106 patients who were treated in the eastern Sierra Leone town of Kenema, in May and June, when some health workers were on strike and response to the outbreak was in crisis mode.

The new results are cause for "cautious optimism" that access to care may be improving survival, said one author of the earlier report, Tulane University's Dr. Daniel Bausch. But they are not from a clinical trial or experiment, so the value of any specific treatment is not known, he said.

In some previous Ebola outbreaks, survival has improved as time goes on and cases are detected and treated sooner. The pace of this outbreak also has slowed, and there have been far fewer cases than health officials had predicted. In September, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention gave a worst-case scenario estimate of as many as 1.4 million cases by mid-January without more help in the region. Last month, the agency said that projection won't happen.

The CDC's director, Dr. Thomas Frieden, just returned from his second trip to Ebola-stricken countries, and said "there's been a world of difference" since his first visit several months ago.

"There's been real momentum and real progress," although there is still a long way to go to ending the outbreak, he said on a telephone briefing Monday. "The challenge is not to let up."

In an editorial, the medical journal said the same.

"It is painfully clear that the world's initial handling of this dangerous outbreak was far from optimal, but we now appear to be making progress in the battle," the editors write.

But they say big medical centers in the U.S. "have sat largely on the sidelines" and need to make it easier for their staffs to help fight Ebola in Africa.

There are no specific drugs or vaccines to fight Ebola, but some experimental ones are being readied for testing. Doctors also recently started using the blood of Ebola survivors to treat new cases in Africa.


http://news.yahoo.com/report-ebola-survival-improving-sierra-leone-220600262.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Sierra Leone declares five-day Ebola lockdown in north
AFP  3 hours ago



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



Freetown (AFP) - The Sierra Leone government on Wednesday declared a five-day lockdown in the country's north to step up efforts to contain the Ebola epidemic, while making an exception for Christmas.

"Muslims and Christians are not allowed to hold services in mosques and churches throughout the lockdown except for Christians on Christmas Day (Thursday)," Alie Kamara, resident minister for the Northern Region, told AFP.

The lockdown is designed "to intensify the containment of the Ebola virus," he said, adding: "We are working to break the chain of transmission."

Deputy communication minister Theo Nicol said "the lockdown for five days... is meant for us to get an accurate picture of the situation," adding: "Other districts will carry on with their own individual lockdown after this if they deemed it necessary."

Ebola has killed more than 7,500 people, almost all of them in west Africa.

Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea are the three countries worst-hit by the epidemic, and Sierra Leone recently overtook Liberia as the country with the highest number of Ebola infections.

Kamara said shops and markets would be closed throughout the period, and "no unauthorised vehicles or motorcycle taxis" would be allowed to circulate "except those officially assigned to Ebola-related assignments."

Among "key objectives" is to allow health workers to identify patients, Kamara said.

Sierra Leone declared a state of emergency on July 31 after the Ebola outbreak and imposed restrictions on the movement of people.

As of Wednesday six of the country's 14 departments have these restrictions in place.

On December 12, the government announced a restriction on large Christmas and New Year gatherings.

Several residents in the country's north told AFP by telephone that locals had largely been conforming to the new strictures.


http://news.yahoo.com/sierra-leone-declares-five-day-ebola-lockdown-north-191910556.html

[Buster's Uncle]

First conviction in Sierra Leone under Ebola laws
AFP  21 hours ago



A medical worker listens as UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon gives a speech during his visit to an Ebola treatment unit in Freetown on December 19, 2014 (AFP Photo/Evan Schneider)



Freetown (AFP) - A village chief has become the first person in Sierra Leone to be jailed under laws aimed at preventing the spread of the Ebola virus, court officials and lawyers said.

Amadu Kargbo was sentenced to six months in jail by a court in the southwestern city of Moyamba for secretly burying the dead and failing to report a sick patient, court official Foday Fofanah told AFP.

He was also fined one million leones ($235) and ordered to spend 21 days in quarantine before going to jail.

Lawyers in the capital Freetown said it was the first known conviction under the country's Ebola laws.

Fofanah said the chief had pleaded guilty to secretly burying his daughter, who had died of Ebola.

He added that Kargbo's wife had also died after attending the funeral of another family member, although it was not clear if any of the charges related to his wife's death and burial.

Ebola has killed more than 7,500 people, almost all of them in west Africa and Sierra Leone recently overtook Liberia as the country with the highest number of Ebola infections.

Authorities have banned public gatherings as well as New Year celebrations as part of sweeping efforts to stem the spread of the virus.


http://news.yahoo.com/first-conviction-sierra-leone-under-ebola-laws-022611854.html

[Buster's Uncle]

CDC monitoring lab tech after possible Ebola exposure
AFP  41 minutes ago



The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention headquarters on October 13, 2014 in Atlanta, Georgia (AFP Photo/Jessica Mcgowan)



Washington (AFP) - A lab worker may have been exposed to a live sample of the deadly Ebola virus, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Wednesday, adding that the accident is under investigation.

The technician is not currently showing any symptoms of the hemorrhagic fever, which has killed more than 7,500 people in an outbreak in West Africa.

However, he will be monitored for 21 days, the CDC said in its statement.

Infection with the virus, which causes fever, headache, diarrhea, vomiting and in some cases bleeding, typically shows up within 21 days after exposure.

"A small amount of material from an Ebola experiment" transferred from a maximum level four biosafety lab to a level two lab "may have contained live virus," the CDC said.

The technician, who has not been named, worked in the level two lab in Atlanta, and processed the sample.



CDC Director Thomas Frieden on October 16, 2014 in Washington, DC (AFP Photo/Alex Wong)


"The material was on a sealed plate but should not have been moved" into the level two laboratory, where safety precautions are less stringent, the CDC said.

"We cannot rule out possible exposure of the one laboratory technician who worked with the material" there, it added.

However, it stressed that there was no risk of exposure outside of the lab or to the general public. None of the other workers in the lab are currently being monitored.

CDC Director Tom Frieden said he was "troubled by this incident."

"I have directed that there be a full review of every aspect of the incident and that CDC take all necessary measures," he added.

"No risk to staff is acceptable, and our efforts to improve lab safety are essential -- the safety of our employees is our highest priority."

In July, the CDC acknowledged a pattern of safety errors, including two incidents earlier this year, in which workers shipped anthrax, flu, botulism and a bacteria known as brucella to other labs without proper precautions.

In one incident in early June, around 80 workers were potentially exposed to anthrax when samples were not properly handled and deactivated before shipment.

No one is believed to have been hurt in the mishaps.


http://news.yahoo.com/cdc-monitoring-lab-tech-possible-ebola-exposure-233727158.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Sierra Leone bans Christmas parties amid Ebola
Associated Press
By CLARENCE ROY-MACAULAY  5 hours ago



FREETOWN, Sierra Leone (AP) — Alice Marke and her family aren't celebrating Christmas the way they used to: The deadly Ebola epidemic in Sierra Leone means no festive parties at the beach, no carolers singing at night.

Authorities this year have banned any activities that could further the spread of the highly contagious virus now blamed for killing more than 7,000 people in West Africa over the past year.

"We will stay at home glued to our radio and television sets for broadcast of Christian services and prayers for the country, especially for the speedy end to the deadly Ebola disease early in the New Year," Marke says.

Faith is important in this country with a sizeable Christian population still recovering from a brutal civil war that ended more than a decade ago. It's not uncommon to see Biblical verses painted on public transport buses.

Now Ebola is spreading fastest in Sierra Leone's Western Area, which includes the capital of Freetown. It's believed that more than half of all new cases come from this part of the country, and authorities fear those infected but not yet symptomatic could unwittingly spread it to other parts of the country if people travel to their rural hometowns as is common over the Christmas holidays.

So the government is restricting travel between districts during the holidays. People will be allowed to attend church on Christmas Day, but "are requested to return home immediately after church services," President Ernest Bai Koroma has said.

Public gatherings at restaurants, nightclubs and beaches are banned. And markets are being asked to cut back their hours, reducing the amount of time people have to buy Christmas presents.

"I know that this is the festive season where Sierra Leoneans often celebrate with families in a flamboyant and joyous manner, but all must be reminded that our country is at war with a vicious enemy that is still taking the lives of our brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, children and friends," Koroma said recently.

The president said the state of emergency was still in place, adding "that my government will implement its measures to the letter during this festive season."

The Christmas holiday is less of an issue in predominantly Muslim Guinea.

Festivities are being celebrated more freely in neighboring Liberia, where the number of Ebola cases has been dropping. Families are busily shopping for Christmas gifts at markets in the capital of Monrovia, a city of 1.5 million people, despite orders to avoid mass gatherings.

Some roads have been completely taken over by multitudes of people shopping, rubbing against one another and interacting as if Ebola is no longer here.

"If somebody is sick, we advise them to remain home and take care; that person shouldn't go to market areas," said Health Minister Tolbert Nyenswah , who heads Liberia's Ebola response. "And people should go about their normal business as usual but then be careful ... because the disease is here and there is no room for complacency,"

___

Associated Press writer Jonathan Paye-Layleh in Monrovia, Liberia and Krista Larson in Dakar, Senegal contributed to this report.


http://news.yahoo.com/sierra-leone-bans-christmas-parties-amid-ebola-183927724.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Fourth UN staff contracts Ebola in Liberia
AFP  5 hours ago



A nurse walks with a little girl suffering from Ebola, at the Medecins Sans Frontieres clinic in Monrovia on September 27, 2014 (AFP Photo/Pascal Guyot)



Monrovia (AFP) - A fourth member of the UN mission in Liberia, the country hardest-hit by the Ebola epidemic, has been hospitalised after testing positive for the virus.

"This is the fourth case of Ebola in the mission and UNMIL personnel continue to mourn the deaths of two colleagues who died from the disease only three months ago," a UN statement said Wednesday, referring to the United Nations Mission in Liberia.

Liberia tops the number of Ebola deaths in the world with 3,376 fatalities but has seen a clear decrease of new transmissions in the past month.

Ebola has killed 7,518 people, almost all of them in the west African epicentres of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.

The UN member tested positive on Tuesday and was immediately transferred to an Ebola treatment unit, Karin Landgren, the special representative of UN chief Ban Ki-moon said.

"UNMIL is taking all necessary measures to mitigate any possible further transmission –- both within the mission and beyond," Landgren said.

It said the mission had stepped up surveillance "to ensure that all people who came into contact with the staff member while symptomatic are assessed and quarantined."

"All UNMIL staff considered at risk are being isolated. The vehicles used to transport the patient and locations they visited while symptomatic are being decontaminated."

"The confirmation of an additional Ebola case in UNMIL at the start of the holiday period is a stark reminder that we must all remain vigilant until there are no cases in Liberia or west Africa," the statement said.

Ban, who recently toured west Africa for a first-hand assessment of the fight against Ebola, said on his return that the UN must learn lessons from the crisis and begin preparing now for the next outbreak of the deadly disease.

The secretary general also called for recovery efforts to be stepped up in west Africa to rebuild shattered economies, get children back in school and begin caring for Ebola orphans.

His appeal followed sharp criticism from non-governmental organisations that the United Nations, in particular the World Health Organization, were too slow to swing into action.


http://news.yahoo.com/fourth-un-staff-contracts-ebola-liberia-161435306.html

[Buster's Uncle]

CDC monitoring tech for possible Ebola exposure
Associated Press
By PHILLIP LUCAS  1 hour ago



ATLANTA (AP) — A laboratory technician at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was being monitored Wednesday for possible accidental exposure to the Ebola virus that came during an experiment, officials said.

The person working in a secure laboratory in Atlanta may have come into contact with a small amount of a live virus, CDC spokeswoman Barbara Reynolds said in an emailed statement. The experimental material was on a sealed plate, but wasn't supposed to be moved into the lab in which the technician was working, Reynolds said. The worker will be monitored for 21 days and the person's name hasn't been released.

Additional employees have been notified, but none has required monitoring, Reynolds said. Other staff will be assessed for exposure.

There is no risk to the public and lab scientists notified CDC officials of what happened on Tuesday, Reynolds said. The lab has been decontaminated twice, and the material in question was destroyed before CDC officials became aware of the mistake.

The possible exposure is under internal investigation and has been reported to Secretary of Health and Human Services Sylvia Burwell, Reynolds said. Additional employees have been notified, but none has required monitoring.

Transfers from the lab the experiment material came from have been stopped during the internal review, and the lab the exposure may have happened in is closed, Reynolds said.

The technician's potential exposure is at least the second to prompt a precautionary response from the agency in six months.

In June, at least 52 workers at the CDC took antibiotics as a precaution because a lab safety problem was thought to have exposed them to anthrax.

News of the technician's possible exposure to Ebola comes days after CDC Director Tom Frieden returned from West Africa, where an outbreak of the virus has killed thousands. Frieden said Monday that response to the outbreak has improved significantly in recent months, but the virus continues to spread in Monrovia, Liberia and Conakry, Guinea.

Public health officials have said Ebola spreads through direct contact with the bodily fluids of someone who is infected with the virus — putting health care workers and those in close quarters with infected people at higher risk of contracting the virus. Four health care and aid workers who contracted the virus have been treated and released from Emory University Hospital in Atlanta.

In a statement, Frieden said he's troubled by the technician's potential exposure and the CDC has worked to improve safety protocols as it helps respond to the outbreak in Africa.

"I have directed that there be a full review of every aspect of the incident and that CDC take all necessary measures," he said.

The CDC plans to publish a report on what happened, Reynolds said. It is also planning to report the potential exposure to an external advisory committee that offers advice on best practices in lab science and safety.


http://news.yahoo.com/cdc-monitoring-tech-possible-ebola-exposure-221844541.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Medical detective work is next phase in Ebola fight
Reuters
By Matthew Mpoke Bigg  12 hours ago



World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Margaret Chan addresses the media after a two-day meeting of its emergency committee on Ebola, in Geneva August 8, 2014. REUTERS/Pierre Albouy



ACCRA (Reuters) - Medical detective work will be the next big phase in the fight against Ebola when the United Nations deploys hundreds of health workers to identify chains of infection as the virus passes from person to person, top U.N. health workers said.

The health teams will travel to each district and region of Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, the three countries at the center of the epidemic, to trace who each infected person has potentially contacted.

The effort will run in parallel with measures to minimize the spread of infection, such as treating all Ebola patients in specialized centers and burying all victims safely.

But Phase Two of the plan is to contain the virus by understanding its lines of transmission, said World Health Organization Director-General Margaret Chan.

"You chase the virus. You hunt the virus. The virus lives in an infected person so you chase every case, isolate them and then all the people who come into contact with the infected person," Chan told Reuters on a visit to West Africa.

She was accompanying U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on a four-country tour to encourage health workers and focus global attention on the fight against the epidemic.

The world's worst Ebola outbreak has killed 7,518 of 19,340 confirmed cases, according to WHO figures on Monday, though the number of new cases is slowing in most places.

The disease spreads through contact with an infected person or corpse, so family members who care for patients or people who prepare victims for burial are at risk.

As a result, people often know how they fell ill. Patients who say they do not know are a concern because their cases can signify chains of transmission yet to be identified, Chan said.

"You don't have control of Ebola until you know where all your transmission chains are and until your cases are coming from known contact lists," said Bruce Aylward, WHO's head of Ebola response.

"You always hear about disease detective work and that is what Ebola is about now," he said. Contact-tracing involves visiting households to pick up signs of illness, and requires cooperation from local authorities and community leaders.

Illustrating the scale of the challenge, 25 percent of new cases in Liberia are coming from new sources, Aylward said. By contrast, officials in Guinea said in November all the cases in the capital stemmed from just four chains of transmission.

The overall cost of the Ebola response could rise to around $4.1 billion, said U.N. Special Envoy on Ebola David Nabarro.

To accomplish Phase Two, the U.N. health agency will mobilize 900 epidemiologists, triple the number currently available, he said. Around half will be foreigners.

The aim is to get teams in place by the end of January, following a separate plan to get all patients treated and all victims safely buried by the end of this month.

(Editing by Ed Cropley and Giles Elgood)


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