Ebola News 1/3

[Buster's Uncle]

British nurse with Ebola in critical condition: hospital
Reuters  2 hours ago



Pauline Cafferkey is in critical condition after contracting Ebola while working as a nurse in Sierra Leone.



LONDON (Reuters) - A British nurse being treated for Ebola in London is in critical condition after deteriorating over the last two days, her hospital said on Saturday.

The Royal Free Hospital has been treating Pauline Cafferkey, 39, with blood plasma from an Ebola survivor and an experimental anti-viral drug.

She was diagnosed with Ebola on Monday after returning to Britain late on Sunday from Sierra Leone, where she had been working for the charity Save the Children at a treatment centre outside the capital, Freetown.

Cafferkey is the first person to have been diagnosed with Ebola on British soil.

The West African Ebola outbreak was first identified in Guinea's remote southeast in early 2014. Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia have borne the brunt of the 20,000 infections and nearly 8,000 dead.

The Royal Free, Britain's main centre for Ebola cases, successfully treated British aid worker William Pooley with the experimental drug ZMapp after he was flown back to Britain in August.

The hospital has not specified which drug Cafferkey is being treated with, but said no supplies of ZMapp were available.

On Wednesday, the hospital had said Cafferkey was sitting up in bed, talking and reading. But a doctor treating her warned at the time that the course of the disease could be unpredictable.

Ebola is transmitted through bodily fluids, and the hospital said it was treating Cafferkey inside a specially designed tent around her bed with controlled ventilation to reduce the risk of further infections.

(Reporting by David Milliken; Editing by Kevin Liffey)


http://news.yahoo.com/uk-nurse-suffering-ebola-critical-condition-hospital-150200544.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Somalia dismisses Ebola scare
AFP  3 hours ago



A medic at an Ebola medical unit in Monrovia on December 19, 2014 (AFP Photo/Evan Schneider)



Mogadishu (AFP) - The government of war-torn Somalia has moved to reassure residents that there was no outbreak of Ebola in the country, dismissing rumours that a man had brought the virus back with him from Guinea.

"As soon as we heard the rumours of a case of Ebola virus in Somalia, we acted quickly and decisively to isolate the alleged victim, a Somali citizen named Abdulkadir Jinow Barow, and those who had been in contact with him," Health Minister Ali Mohamed Mohamud told reporters.

The minister hit out at "irresponsible reporting without the checking of facts or sources by some elements of the media, combined with the wildfire spreading of rumours on social media", saying the rumours "could have caused widespread panic" in the Horn of Africa nation.

"The man did not have the Ebola virus," the minister told reporters, speaking alongside the purported Ebola victim -- who also insisted he was "perfectly healthy".

"He has now been given the all clear and we can state categorically that there has been no outbreak of Ebola in Somalia," the minister said.

The man falsely reported to have been infected with Ebola in Guinea, where he ran a business, said he was "very confused and upset" by the rumours.


http://news.yahoo.com/somalia-dismisses-ebola-scare-152530728.html

[Buster's Uncle]

SKorean Ebola medic flown to Germany for anonymity
Associated Press
By FRANK JORDANS  4 hours ago



This March 13, 2014 file photo shows an outside view of the Charite hospital in Berlin, Germany. A member of a South Korean medical team treating Ebola patients in Sierra Leone has been flown to Germany after suffering an injury with a hypodermic needle. Berlin's renowned Charite hospital said in a statement that the unidentified medic was taken to its special isolation unit Saturday, Jan. 3, 2015. The hospital didn't say whether an Ebola infection had been confirmed in the patient. (AP Photo/dpa, Joerg Carstensen, File)



BERLIN (AP) — A South Korean medic exposed to Ebola while working in West Africa has been flown to Germany for treatment because the patient's anonymity would be better protected there, authorities in Berlin said Saturday.

Doctors at Berlin's renowned Charite hospital said the medic, who had worked for an aid group treating Ebola patients in Sierra Leone, arrived in Berlin Saturday, five days after suffering an injury with a hypodermic needle.

"The person wasn't flown to South Korea because the Korean government asked Europe step in," said Dr. Frank Bergmann, who oversees the treatment of highly infectious patients at Charite hospital. "First of all it's good from a transportation point of view to come here and secondly it's better for the person's anonymity to be treated here in Europe."

He said the South Korean government and the medic had requested that as few details as possible be released, declining to give the person's profession, age, gender or employer.

Ebola can be transmitted through bodily fluids and persons suspected of carrying the virus have been shunned in some countries by people fearful of infection. Experts say, however, that with proper precautions patients pose no risk to those around them.

The medic had been treating a delirious Ebola patient on Monday when the patient jolted, causing the needle on a blood-filled syringe to pierce the three plastic gloves the medic was wearing, said Bergmann.

"The patient had a very high viral load and died the next day, which means that there was a very high risk of infection," he said.

Bergmann said the medic currently shows no symptoms of Ebola, but the incubation period will last a further 16 days, during which the person will remain under close medical supervision.

Should symptoms develop, doctors could provide experimental drugs and "with our European standards there should be a good prognosis," he added.


http://news.yahoo.com/south-korean-flown-germany-ebola-treatment-085819968.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Ebola fight remains tough but may be won this year: UN mission chief
Reuters  11 hours ago



Anthony Banbury, head of the UN Ebola response team speaks to the media on September 30, 2014 in Accra (AFP Photo/Chris Stein)



ACCRA (Reuters) - The world can stamp out the Ebola outbreak in West Africa by the end of the year but months of tough work remain, the outgoing chief of the United Nations' anti-Ebola mission said on Friday.

The outbreak, first identified in Guinea's remote southeast in early 2014, has struck six West African nations, with Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia bearing the brunt of the 20,000 infections and nearly 8,000 dead.

Faced with criticism the world was not doing enough, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon set up the U.N. Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER) mission in September to coordinate global efforts.

"We have not come anywhere close to ending the crisis. We’ve done a lot in 90 days in a very successful response but we have a long and difficult way to go," Anthony Banbury told reporters in Accra, where the U.N. mission is based.

"It's going to go on for not just weeks but some months more. But I believe we will do it in 2015 and we’re going to do it by working very closely not just with governments of the countries but the communities," he said.

Banbury will be replaced by veteran humanitarian official Ould Cheikh Ahmed of Mauritania on Saturday.

A spike of cases in Sierra Leone meant UNMEER missed its target of ensuring that by early December 70 percent of all Ebola patients were being treated in isolation units and 70 percent of all those who died from Ebola were buried properly.

Banbury said there were now enough functioning treatment centres in the region.

The target of 100 percent safe burials by end of January 2015 was on track now that there were some 254 safe burial teams operating in the affected countries.

Six other countries, including Nigeria, Senegal, Mali, the United States, Spain and Britain, have reported cases imported from the worst affected countries.

Last week, a nurse was diagnosed with the virus in Britain upon her return from Sierra Leone. She is being treated with blood plasma from a survivor of the virus and an experimental antiviral drug, according to the London hospital treating her.


http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-fight-remains-tough-may-won-un-mission-072035492.html

[Buster's Uncle]

UK nurse with Ebola in critical condition: hospital
AFP  3 hours ago



A nurse diagnosed with Ebola after returning from Sierra Leone is wheeled in a quarantine tent trolley onto a Hercules Transport plane at Glasgow International Airport on December 30, 2014 (AFP Photo/)



London (AFP) - A British nurse who contracted Ebola in Sierra Leone and was hospitalised in London this week is now in a "critical" condition, the hospital treating her said Saturday.

"The condition of Pauline Cafferkey has gradually deteriorated over the past two days and is now critical," the Royal Free Hospital in London said in a statement.

On Wednesday, doctors had said the 39-year-old Scot was sitting up in bed, reading and talking to staff from inside her isolation tent in the hospital.

They said Cafferkey, who was working with the charity Save the Children in Sierra Leone, had agreed to have blood plasma treatment and take an experimental anti-viral drug.

However, they were not able to give her ZMapp, the drug successfully used to treat fellow British volunteer nurse William Pooley, because global supplies had run out.

The plasma was taken from the blood of a patient successfully treated in Europe, in the hope that the antibodies it contained would help her fight the virus.

Doctor Michael Jacobs, infectious diseases consultant at the Royal Free, had warned at the time that "Ebola runs a very variable course and the next few days are going to be very critical".

Cafferkey, who works for the state-run National Health Service in Scotland, had been volunteering at a British-built treatment centre in Kerry Town when she contracted the deadly virus.



A general view of The Royal Free Hospital in north London pictured on December 30, 2014, where the first Ebola patient to be diagnosed in the UK will be treated after being airlifted from Glasgow (AFP Photo/Leon Neal)


Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said: "Our thoughts continue to be with Pauline Cafferkey and her family during this extremely distressing time.

"I would like to thank all of the health professionals involved in treating Pauline, as they continue to show tremendous dedication and expertise."


- 382 health workers killed -

Cafferkey is the second person to be treated for Ebola in Britain after Pooley, who recovered and has since returned to Sierra Leone.

She was diagnosed in Glasgow on December 29 after flying home, and was transferred to the Royal Free, which has the only isolation ward in Britain equipped for Ebola patients.

British health authorities said Friday they had traced all the British-based passengers who travelled on the last two legs of Cafferkey's journey to Scotland.

She flew from Sierra Leone's capital Freetown to Casablanca in Morocco, and then on to London Heathrow Airport and finally Glasgow.

Her temperature was taken at Heathrow but did not raise alarms, and she was cleared to fly on to Glasgow.

Ebola has killed 7,890 people in the past year, out of 20,171 cases, according to the latest tally by the World Health Organization (WHO).

Almost all the deaths and cases have been recorded in the three west African countries worst hit by the outbreak: Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea.

It is spread only through direct contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person showing symptoms such as fever or vomiting, and as such people caring for the sick are particularly exposed.

As of December 28 -- not counting Cafferkey -- a total of 678 healthcare workers were known to have contracted the virus, and 382 of them had died, the WHO said.


http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-hit-uk-nurse-critical-condition-hospital-143449374.html