Possible read. But the writer's numbers illustrate the impossiblity of the situation. It's already out of control, and there is no real response anyone can make from the outside which can at all address the problem. Internally the social order (whatever it might have been before) is splintering into shivers. Fini. Done. If there is 30-40% of the population left over it will be a miracle. It will probably be more like 10-15% due to famine and other disease, and absolutely NO supplies or personel to treat things like dysentary, cholera, etc. Say a prayer, people. We all die. These will be going on before us.
MAIN EBOLA DISCUSSION THREAD - 09/16/2014 - 09/30/2014
- Thread starter Countrymouse
- Start date
- Status
naturallysweet
Has No Life - Lives on TB
Do you mean like the 45 gallons of live polio virus that were dumped into a river in Denmark recently? Put it out of your mind. Oh, yeah, and the waste at Emery being handled like standard medical waste and being dumped in the toilet, laundry being cleaned and reprocessed per standard methods. Yeah, I wouldn't worry to much about that, ok?
Cyclonemom
Veteran Member
Bonfire of the ebola victims: The bones and ashes of 700 plague victims lie in a mound next to incinerators imported from Britain - just one of the macabre scenes that reveal the true toll of the world's deadliest virus...
IAN BIRRELL reports from the ebola ravaged capital of Liberia
Official death toll has passed 3,000 – but could be up to 9,000
The WHO has warned of 17,000 more fatalities over the next six weeks
By IAN BIRRELL FOR THE MAIL ON SUNDAY
PUBLISHED: 16:02 EST, 27 September 2014 | UPDATED: 18:45 EST, 27 September 2014
As I walked into the walled Hindu-style cremation site outside Monrovia alongside the latest consignment of bodies, I saw a smouldering pile of ashes with smoke rising from it.
Scattered among the flickering flames were clearly visible human bones: femurs, hip joints and even the odd skull.
These were the remains of 15 ebola victims, their highly-contagious corpses set ablaze the night before on open pyres.
‘Look at that,’ said Stephen Rowden, a former landscape gardener from Essex overseeing the safe collection and elimination of corpses for Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF). He pointed to a massive mound of ash with more bits of bone sticking out: ‘That is more than 700 bodies.’
It was a very disturbing sight, underlining the immense human tragedy of this crisis that is ravaging parts of West Africa. Livestock incinerators imported from Britain are now replacing those open pyres. But this was just one among many horrifying scenes that confronted me in the heart of this alarming and worsening ebola outbreak.
Take the bewildered family I met by the side of a street in Monrovia. The man was cradling his four-year-old daughter, her listless head flopped on his shoulder, while beside him stood his other two remaining children.
A tailor by profession, this courteous man had seen his eldest child and mother die in recent days. Now his six-year-old son Jabbi looked lost, while his daughter Jenneba, 22, seemed the sickest I have seen anyone still standing.
Jenneba’s face was pale, her mouth turned down in pain, she sweated profusely. ‘I think I have ebola,’ she whispered to me. ‘I have been ill since last week. I am so scared.’ Her father Victor was desperately trying to get his children tested at a new clinic opened with 150 beds to cope with this fearsome disease.
‘I want treatment so badly for them,’ he said, explaining how their grandmother was the first family member to go down with classic ebola symptoms of diarrhoea, headaches and vomiting. ‘Now my children all have it. I am afraid for them.’
These pitiful people were among the latest victims of the world’s worst ebola epidemic, which is spinning out of control and snaring more people in its deadly grip each day. I met them in the epidemic’s epicentre as families fought for treatment and a crippled nation fights for its very survival with curfews and bans on social contact, while heroic teams of medics and hygienists risk their lives to fight an invisible enemy.
Yet already the Island Clinic was overflowing with patients after just two days in operation, so health workers in protective suits patiently explained that they could admit no more people.
One man pointed to a person lying deathly still on the back seat of a taxi, a single leg poking out from the blanket covering him. ‘That is my brother – look at him. They will not take him.’
As security staff pushed back people begging for help, an anguished woman in a white cardigan had tears streaming down her face. ‘My children, my sister, are sick but why will no one do anything to help them?’ she wailed.
She turned to me with arms outstretched: ‘Why will no one help my family? What can we do, please God what can we do?’
I felt ashamed since I had no answer. The awful truth was her family faced a terrible death – and the chances were she might follow them to the grave. Indeed, her children may be dead already. Just like that little girl and her sickly sister, just like the prostrate man in the taxi – and just like growing numbers of people in this blighted nation.
Some families said they were hiding in their homes and staying away from friends. Traditional handshakes have been abandoned; one man told me he had not even touched his children for nearly three months ‘because I love them so much’.
The main airport, even some supermarkets, take your temperature before permitting entry while buckets of chlorinated water stand outside public buildings from bars to shops. I have never washed my hands, let alone sprayed my shoes, so often.
Slowly, the world is starting to recognise the scale of this epidemic that broke out last December in a small Guinean village. It was not confirmed for almost four months, giving the disease time to spread across a region never struck by it before.
Now the official death toll has passed 3,000 – although one unpublished study of the imperfect data available indicates this is just one-third of the real number.
The World Health Organisation has warned of 17,000 more fatalities over the next six weeks.
One worst-case scenario predicts 1.4million deaths in Liberia and Sierra Leone alone by the end of the epidemic – more than one in ten of their populations.
Experts on the ground admit they have no idea what will happen as they struggle to curb this aggressive strain of a virus that starts like a common cold and ends with collapsed organs and blood pouring from orifices.
The outbreak is killing seven in ten victims and spreading fast after hitting urban areas for the first time in ebola’s history, which makes it tricky to contain by isolating the afflicted.
At its centre lies Liberia, home to nearly two-thirds of infections – many of them among the one million people living in the crowded capital Monrovia. ‘We have never seen anything like this,’ said Laurence Sailly, the head of mission for MSF, one of only two international organisations daring to run treatment centres in the country.
‘There is fear of this disease because it is not like any other and there is no known cure. The longer it lasts, the more difficult it is to control.’ Ultimately it is a numbers game. Each infected case spreads the virus to two other people on average if not isolated, so it rips through families and tight-knit communities with lethal speed and cruelty.
And fewer than one in five cases are cared for in centres that reduce risk of transmission.
MSF has created a fast-expanding treatment unit, which has 200 beds with only 290 other beds available across the rest of Liberia. It is nicknamed ‘the death cage’ by locals.
Inside the high-risk zone patients lie groaning softly or screaming in pain, their heads pounding as they puke ceaselessly, tended by staff looking like aliens in goggles and heavy-duty protective clothing that drains their energy in the intense heat.
The day before I visited MSF took in 31 new cases, replacing the dead or the fortunate few discharged. Only the worst cases are admitted; one worker told me of five entrants asked to wait for tests and then all five found slumped dead in their chairs just half an hour later. Sometimes as many are sent away as taken inside. ‘It is awful turning away people who are really sick, some lying on the ground unable to walk, others begging for their lives,’ said Stefan Liljegren, the Swedish field co-ordinator.
‘We’re telling them to go back by taxi and spread the disease. It is like a horror movie.’ Outside I found a family of nine from a nearby village wanting to be tested. They had one teenage girl already in the compound, but were told five-year-old Emmanuel was not yet sick enough to join her despite starting to vomit badly.
Although given a protective kit of disinfectant, masks and gloves, the family was dismayed. ‘We’ve been using our bare hands with the little boy, who has been very sick. We could not sleep last night – the fear of ebola is now here for us,’ said Varney Varfee, a driver.
Little wonder some on the front line confessed to crying in their masks. ‘I find the children the most distressing, like a little baby girl who died the other night,’ said Cokie van der Velde, a sanitation expert from Yorkshire working with MSF. ‘And it is going to get a lot worse – we are simply not taking enough infected people out of the population.’
This crisis comes in a country only recently emerged from devastating civil war, judged the world’s most corrupt and run by a Nobel Prize-winning president admired in the West but mistrusted by many fellow citizens. Liberia had poor healthcare before the crisis, with fewer than 200 doctors for 4million people. Those infected include 184 health workers, many among ebola’s earliest victims before safety protocols were put in place, while other critical conditions now go untreated.
I was shown shocking photographs taken covertly in the government-run Redemption Hospital revealing corpses left in faeces and a dead woman abandoned beside a child.
With an entire nation in virtual quarantine, a fast-growing economy has plunged towards recession. One shopkeeper said takings had fallen by one-third, while panic buying and import problems have driven up the price of staple foods such as rice.
A government minister even warned last week the crisis could send the region spiralling into renewed conflict.
Street posters declare ‘Ebola is Real’ and detail symptoms. Yet such is the distrust of officials that many still do not believe there is a real threat, fearing some kind of scam to cream off funds or steal the bodies from families that want to wash and bury them.
This became obvious when out with Mark Korvayan, a ministry of health official who criss-crosses Monrovia’s potholed streets with his body collection team. At each stop he had to give a health lecture and explain their actions to grieving and often sceptical communities.
‘I am afraid for myself, for my family, for my team,’ he told me. ‘We are fighting an enemy we cannot see but many people are still in denial. They insist it is just malaria.’
At the final stop for an old man in a cluster of fishing shacks beside the sea, a neighbour accused the burial squad of selling bodies and started screaming abuse.
I watched as several youths appeared armed with sticks and a fight broke out. Korvayan said that in another incident, a man even climbed on their open lorry containing the corpses. He ended up infecting his entire family.
Britain and the US have announced big programmes to help tackle ebola, pledging to build clinics and train staff – although implementation details remain sketchy and there are fears they are being far too slow.
In West Point, a notorious slum on a spit of sand feared as a hotbed of criminality by other Liberians, some of the 83,000 residents have organised themselves with military-style precision into teams tracking down cases and spreading safety messages. ‘This is a demonstration of love for my community and my country,’ said Archie C Bassay, an unemployed man who now leads a team of 105 volunteers paid $50 a month. ‘But every day more people are dying.’
Bassay introduced me to a midwife showing symptoms of ebola and a teacher who lost his son, then showed me the empty house of a seven-strong family all struck by the virus. His team has 62 cases being advised on care and rudimentary isolation in their own homes.
Yet even now, after so much trauma, this terrible disease still carries a stigma with local health workers admitting some people were afraid of them. ‘Some staff have even been thrown out of their homes for working here,’ said Sametta George, a nurse with MSF.
I saw this fear when the world’s youngest ebola survivor – a two-month-old baby called Jusu Kromah – ‘graduated’ from their clinic. After his mother died, an uncle agreed to bring up the boy.
Yet when he bought his family to collect the child, the women were petrified. One started shaking and crying, refusing to hold Jusu and impervious to staff assurances he was safe to touch.
Nearby was another survivor. ‘It was horrible but thank God I survived. I feel so happy to be out and grateful to be alive,’ said Foday Jallah, 37, a nurse and ambulance driver who caught the virus caring for a sick orphan. ‘It was certainly an experience in my life.’
He gave me a huge smile when I said that was the biggest understatement I had ever heard. It was a rare glimpse of joy and hope amid the hell of this escalating ebola crisis.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...oll-worlds-deadliest-virus.html#ixzz3EZb5nB5Q
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
IAN BIRRELL reports from the ebola ravaged capital of Liberia
Official death toll has passed 3,000 – but could be up to 9,000
The WHO has warned of 17,000 more fatalities over the next six weeks
By IAN BIRRELL FOR THE MAIL ON SUNDAY
PUBLISHED: 16:02 EST, 27 September 2014 | UPDATED: 18:45 EST, 27 September 2014
As I walked into the walled Hindu-style cremation site outside Monrovia alongside the latest consignment of bodies, I saw a smouldering pile of ashes with smoke rising from it.
Scattered among the flickering flames were clearly visible human bones: femurs, hip joints and even the odd skull.
These were the remains of 15 ebola victims, their highly-contagious corpses set ablaze the night before on open pyres.
‘Look at that,’ said Stephen Rowden, a former landscape gardener from Essex overseeing the safe collection and elimination of corpses for Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF). He pointed to a massive mound of ash with more bits of bone sticking out: ‘That is more than 700 bodies.’
It was a very disturbing sight, underlining the immense human tragedy of this crisis that is ravaging parts of West Africa. Livestock incinerators imported from Britain are now replacing those open pyres. But this was just one among many horrifying scenes that confronted me in the heart of this alarming and worsening ebola outbreak.
Take the bewildered family I met by the side of a street in Monrovia. The man was cradling his four-year-old daughter, her listless head flopped on his shoulder, while beside him stood his other two remaining children.
A tailor by profession, this courteous man had seen his eldest child and mother die in recent days. Now his six-year-old son Jabbi looked lost, while his daughter Jenneba, 22, seemed the sickest I have seen anyone still standing.
Jenneba’s face was pale, her mouth turned down in pain, she sweated profusely. ‘I think I have ebola,’ she whispered to me. ‘I have been ill since last week. I am so scared.’ Her father Victor was desperately trying to get his children tested at a new clinic opened with 150 beds to cope with this fearsome disease.
‘I want treatment so badly for them,’ he said, explaining how their grandmother was the first family member to go down with classic ebola symptoms of diarrhoea, headaches and vomiting. ‘Now my children all have it. I am afraid for them.’
These pitiful people were among the latest victims of the world’s worst ebola epidemic, which is spinning out of control and snaring more people in its deadly grip each day. I met them in the epidemic’s epicentre as families fought for treatment and a crippled nation fights for its very survival with curfews and bans on social contact, while heroic teams of medics and hygienists risk their lives to fight an invisible enemy.
Yet already the Island Clinic was overflowing with patients after just two days in operation, so health workers in protective suits patiently explained that they could admit no more people.
One man pointed to a person lying deathly still on the back seat of a taxi, a single leg poking out from the blanket covering him. ‘That is my brother – look at him. They will not take him.’
As security staff pushed back people begging for help, an anguished woman in a white cardigan had tears streaming down her face. ‘My children, my sister, are sick but why will no one do anything to help them?’ she wailed.
She turned to me with arms outstretched: ‘Why will no one help my family? What can we do, please God what can we do?’
I felt ashamed since I had no answer. The awful truth was her family faced a terrible death – and the chances were she might follow them to the grave. Indeed, her children may be dead already. Just like that little girl and her sickly sister, just like the prostrate man in the taxi – and just like growing numbers of people in this blighted nation.
Some families said they were hiding in their homes and staying away from friends. Traditional handshakes have been abandoned; one man told me he had not even touched his children for nearly three months ‘because I love them so much’.
The main airport, even some supermarkets, take your temperature before permitting entry while buckets of chlorinated water stand outside public buildings from bars to shops. I have never washed my hands, let alone sprayed my shoes, so often.
Slowly, the world is starting to recognise the scale of this epidemic that broke out last December in a small Guinean village. It was not confirmed for almost four months, giving the disease time to spread across a region never struck by it before.
Now the official death toll has passed 3,000 – although one unpublished study of the imperfect data available indicates this is just one-third of the real number.
The World Health Organisation has warned of 17,000 more fatalities over the next six weeks.
One worst-case scenario predicts 1.4million deaths in Liberia and Sierra Leone alone by the end of the epidemic – more than one in ten of their populations.
Experts on the ground admit they have no idea what will happen as they struggle to curb this aggressive strain of a virus that starts like a common cold and ends with collapsed organs and blood pouring from orifices.
The outbreak is killing seven in ten victims and spreading fast after hitting urban areas for the first time in ebola’s history, which makes it tricky to contain by isolating the afflicted.
At its centre lies Liberia, home to nearly two-thirds of infections – many of them among the one million people living in the crowded capital Monrovia. ‘We have never seen anything like this,’ said Laurence Sailly, the head of mission for MSF, one of only two international organisations daring to run treatment centres in the country.
‘There is fear of this disease because it is not like any other and there is no known cure. The longer it lasts, the more difficult it is to control.’ Ultimately it is a numbers game. Each infected case spreads the virus to two other people on average if not isolated, so it rips through families and tight-knit communities with lethal speed and cruelty.
And fewer than one in five cases are cared for in centres that reduce risk of transmission.
MSF has created a fast-expanding treatment unit, which has 200 beds with only 290 other beds available across the rest of Liberia. It is nicknamed ‘the death cage’ by locals.
Inside the high-risk zone patients lie groaning softly or screaming in pain, their heads pounding as they puke ceaselessly, tended by staff looking like aliens in goggles and heavy-duty protective clothing that drains their energy in the intense heat.
The day before I visited MSF took in 31 new cases, replacing the dead or the fortunate few discharged. Only the worst cases are admitted; one worker told me of five entrants asked to wait for tests and then all five found slumped dead in their chairs just half an hour later. Sometimes as many are sent away as taken inside. ‘It is awful turning away people who are really sick, some lying on the ground unable to walk, others begging for their lives,’ said Stefan Liljegren, the Swedish field co-ordinator.
‘We’re telling them to go back by taxi and spread the disease. It is like a horror movie.’ Outside I found a family of nine from a nearby village wanting to be tested. They had one teenage girl already in the compound, but were told five-year-old Emmanuel was not yet sick enough to join her despite starting to vomit badly.
Although given a protective kit of disinfectant, masks and gloves, the family was dismayed. ‘We’ve been using our bare hands with the little boy, who has been very sick. We could not sleep last night – the fear of ebola is now here for us,’ said Varney Varfee, a driver.
Little wonder some on the front line confessed to crying in their masks. ‘I find the children the most distressing, like a little baby girl who died the other night,’ said Cokie van der Velde, a sanitation expert from Yorkshire working with MSF. ‘And it is going to get a lot worse – we are simply not taking enough infected people out of the population.’
This crisis comes in a country only recently emerged from devastating civil war, judged the world’s most corrupt and run by a Nobel Prize-winning president admired in the West but mistrusted by many fellow citizens. Liberia had poor healthcare before the crisis, with fewer than 200 doctors for 4million people. Those infected include 184 health workers, many among ebola’s earliest victims before safety protocols were put in place, while other critical conditions now go untreated.
I was shown shocking photographs taken covertly in the government-run Redemption Hospital revealing corpses left in faeces and a dead woman abandoned beside a child.
With an entire nation in virtual quarantine, a fast-growing economy has plunged towards recession. One shopkeeper said takings had fallen by one-third, while panic buying and import problems have driven up the price of staple foods such as rice.
A government minister even warned last week the crisis could send the region spiralling into renewed conflict.
Street posters declare ‘Ebola is Real’ and detail symptoms. Yet such is the distrust of officials that many still do not believe there is a real threat, fearing some kind of scam to cream off funds or steal the bodies from families that want to wash and bury them.
This became obvious when out with Mark Korvayan, a ministry of health official who criss-crosses Monrovia’s potholed streets with his body collection team. At each stop he had to give a health lecture and explain their actions to grieving and often sceptical communities.
‘I am afraid for myself, for my family, for my team,’ he told me. ‘We are fighting an enemy we cannot see but many people are still in denial. They insist it is just malaria.’
At the final stop for an old man in a cluster of fishing shacks beside the sea, a neighbour accused the burial squad of selling bodies and started screaming abuse.
I watched as several youths appeared armed with sticks and a fight broke out. Korvayan said that in another incident, a man even climbed on their open lorry containing the corpses. He ended up infecting his entire family.
Britain and the US have announced big programmes to help tackle ebola, pledging to build clinics and train staff – although implementation details remain sketchy and there are fears they are being far too slow.
In West Point, a notorious slum on a spit of sand feared as a hotbed of criminality by other Liberians, some of the 83,000 residents have organised themselves with military-style precision into teams tracking down cases and spreading safety messages. ‘This is a demonstration of love for my community and my country,’ said Archie C Bassay, an unemployed man who now leads a team of 105 volunteers paid $50 a month. ‘But every day more people are dying.’
Bassay introduced me to a midwife showing symptoms of ebola and a teacher who lost his son, then showed me the empty house of a seven-strong family all struck by the virus. His team has 62 cases being advised on care and rudimentary isolation in their own homes.
Yet even now, after so much trauma, this terrible disease still carries a stigma with local health workers admitting some people were afraid of them. ‘Some staff have even been thrown out of their homes for working here,’ said Sametta George, a nurse with MSF.
I saw this fear when the world’s youngest ebola survivor – a two-month-old baby called Jusu Kromah – ‘graduated’ from their clinic. After his mother died, an uncle agreed to bring up the boy.
Yet when he bought his family to collect the child, the women were petrified. One started shaking and crying, refusing to hold Jusu and impervious to staff assurances he was safe to touch.
Nearby was another survivor. ‘It was horrible but thank God I survived. I feel so happy to be out and grateful to be alive,’ said Foday Jallah, 37, a nurse and ambulance driver who caught the virus caring for a sick orphan. ‘It was certainly an experience in my life.’
He gave me a huge smile when I said that was the biggest understatement I had ever heard. It was a rare glimpse of joy and hope amid the hell of this escalating ebola crisis.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...oll-worlds-deadliest-virus.html#ixzz3EZb5nB5Q
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
Last edited:
It has come into my awareness that those fleeing the sweep of this plague (Africa) will be bringing along all assortment of virii and contagion which are endemic to their regions, but novel here. And if Brazil were to have Ebola start there in the slums, the flight from South America would bring their endemic virii to us as well. As I wrote, EV-D68 from Central America is a most recent example where will be hitting out kids severely this Fall and Winter.
Camp Fooked better have a few gallons of rum to help blunt the edginess that will surely be upon us. Couple this with North Americans willingness to hunker and not hob nob as usual if there is nasty diseases about ... would certainly put a bullet in what is left of the economy...
Camp Fooked better have a few gallons of rum to help blunt the edginess that will surely be upon us. Couple this with North Americans willingness to hunker and not hob nob as usual if there is nasty diseases about ... would certainly put a bullet in what is left of the economy...
Polio?!
did that idiot realize how much food comes out of the North Sea? or did anyone care? that redefines stupid
Obviously not. It happened within the past 8-10 days. That in a supposedly "advanced" western nation. The problem with all this bio stuff is that it multiplies, unlike nuke stuff that slowly decays. We just are not taking it seriously enough. Probably by the time we do, due to circumstantial threat, it will be too late and the over reactions will be just as damaging.
bw
Fringe Ranger
No one's job depends on stopping Ebola. It's way over there, none of them vote here. It's a few hundred muddy villagers in some God-forsaken rat hole. Why worry?
Now that it's a significant forest fire, the bureaucracy is slowing waking. But Ebola will have gone through three more doublings before they've chosen the site for their conference, put out the contract for housing at hotels, scheduled the entertainment and the caterer.
Not everything is a plot. Incompetence and inertia make a perfectly good explanation.
Tom McDowell
BAMN
Via PFI (my emphasis):
Luck has kept Ebola out of the U.S. But that’s very likely to change.
By Todd C. Frankel September 24
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...-the-united-states-but-thats-going-to-change/
Only a fluke of timing prevented Kent Brantly from being in Texas when he got sick with Ebola.
Brantly, the first U.S. doctor to get Ebola, was infected in late July while working at a missionary hospital in Liberia. But he didn’t immediately realize he was ill. That’s one of Ebola’s tricks: The virus can take three weeks to appear, although severe signs usually strike within 10 days. Still, that’s time enough for someone to jump on a plane and fly around the world.
So Brantly was already infected with Ebola but not yet sick — and thus not yet contagious — when, on July 20, his wife and children flew from Liberia to Texas for a wedding. The doctor was scheduled to meet them in Texas a week later. He never made that flight. He fell sick three days later. An Ebola diagnosis followed. He soon made a high-security medical evacuation to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta where he eventually recovered.
But Brantly came exceedingly close to returning to the United States with Ebola. As a doctor, he would’ve taken precautions to prevent anyone else from getting sick. However, the resulting panic — “Ebola in Texas!” — might have been impossible to contain.
A bit of luck was involved there.
And that luck seems to be holding six months into the worst Ebola outbreak in history.
Not a single reported Ebola case has made the leap from the West African outbreak to the United States or Europe — or Asia or Australia. Only two nations, Senegal and Nigeria, have seen any Ebola cases slip out of the virus’s hot zone centered on Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea.
Maintaining this lucky streak will only get more difficult — and soon impossible — as the outbreak grows exponentially.
“It is not unexpected that we are lucky so far,” said professor Alessandro Vespignani at Northeastern University, who runs a model projecting Ebola’s spread. There’s about a 10 percent chance of a single Ebola case getting imported to the United States in the next week. “The problem is what will happen in October, when we will likely have a much larger probability.”
And if the epidemic reaches anything close to 1.4 million cases, the worst-case projection for four months out, then Ebola in the United States becomes a near-certainty. That doesn’t mean an outbreak, but at least one case.
Calculating the odds that Ebola will spread is complex. It involves a bit of guesswork and lots of big data — for example, the number of international flights passing through the hot zone and the number of seats on those jets and the chances that any one of those seats will be taken by someone with an early, undetected Ebola infection.
The odds also reflect policy choices. Those choices can alter odds dramatically.
This is different than the probability of rain this weekend, Vespignani said. “We can affect the probability that Ebola will spread.”
So you can close borders. Cancel international flights. Step up pre-boarding screenings for fever, the virus’s earliest sign. All of these things have been tried in varying degrees. The World Health Organization has pushed countries to maintain flights and open borders, but with screening procedures. So far, those efforts have been effective, a WHO representative said.
The best defense might seem to go further.
“But you can’t seal off the world,” Vespignani said.
Cutting off all access means help can’t reach people in the outbreak. No doctors. No surgical gloves. No biohazard suits. So the virus would spread even faster. That would push the odds of Ebola escaping higher.
“These things compensate,” said Vespignani.
Another Ebola model is run by Dirk Brockmann at the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin. His team found that the probability, for example, that an infected person will board a flight from Freetown, Sierra Leone, and arrive in the United Kingdom is about 7 percent. For the United States, it’s 1.5 percent. Those odds might sound high, but as Brockmann explains, they mean that 67 infected individuals would need to board a plane for one of them to reach the United States. “This is indeed small,” Brockmann said.
The problem is that the odds are getting lower. The lucky streak can not continue if the epidemic is not brought under control.
When Brantly was infected, there were only about 1,000 Ebola cases.
And he nearly got to Texas.
Now, just two months later, there have been nearly 5,900.
That number could quadruple to 20,000 by early November, health officials said.
“The probability,” Vespignani said, ” is increasing week by week.”
===
Somewhat Related Via Dr. Niman (my emphasis):
NIH to admit patient exposed to Ebola virus for observation
http://www.nih.gov/news/health/sep2014/od-27.htm
NIH expects to admit a patient who has been exposed to the Ebola virus to its Clinical Center in the coming days. The patient is an American physician who was volunteering services in an Ebola treatment unit in Sierra Leone.
The patient is being admitted to the NIH Clinical Center for observation and to enroll in a clinical study.
Out of an abundance of caution, the patient will be admitted to the NIH Clinical Center’s special clinical studies unit that is specifically designed to provide high-level isolation capabilities and is staffed by infectious diseases and critical care specialists. The unit staff is trained in strict infection control practices optimized to prevent spread of potentially transmissible agents such as Ebola.
No additional details about the patient are available at this time.
It is important to remember that Ebola patients can be safely cared for at any hospital that follows CDC's infection control recommendations and can isolate a patient in a private room.
NIH is taking every precaution to ensure the safety of our patients, NIH staff, and the public. This situation is of minimal risk to NIH staff and the public.
About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit www.nih.gov.
http://www.nih.gov/news/health/sep2014/od-27.htm
===
.
Luck has kept Ebola out of the U.S. But that’s very likely to change.
By Todd C. Frankel September 24
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...-the-united-states-but-thats-going-to-change/
Only a fluke of timing prevented Kent Brantly from being in Texas when he got sick with Ebola.
Brantly, the first U.S. doctor to get Ebola, was infected in late July while working at a missionary hospital in Liberia. But he didn’t immediately realize he was ill. That’s one of Ebola’s tricks: The virus can take three weeks to appear, although severe signs usually strike within 10 days. Still, that’s time enough for someone to jump on a plane and fly around the world.
So Brantly was already infected with Ebola but not yet sick — and thus not yet contagious — when, on July 20, his wife and children flew from Liberia to Texas for a wedding. The doctor was scheduled to meet them in Texas a week later. He never made that flight. He fell sick three days later. An Ebola diagnosis followed. He soon made a high-security medical evacuation to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta where he eventually recovered.
But Brantly came exceedingly close to returning to the United States with Ebola. As a doctor, he would’ve taken precautions to prevent anyone else from getting sick. However, the resulting panic — “Ebola in Texas!” — might have been impossible to contain.
A bit of luck was involved there.
And that luck seems to be holding six months into the worst Ebola outbreak in history.
Not a single reported Ebola case has made the leap from the West African outbreak to the United States or Europe — or Asia or Australia. Only two nations, Senegal and Nigeria, have seen any Ebola cases slip out of the virus’s hot zone centered on Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea.
Maintaining this lucky streak will only get more difficult — and soon impossible — as the outbreak grows exponentially.
“It is not unexpected that we are lucky so far,” said professor Alessandro Vespignani at Northeastern University, who runs a model projecting Ebola’s spread. There’s about a 10 percent chance of a single Ebola case getting imported to the United States in the next week. “The problem is what will happen in October, when we will likely have a much larger probability.”
And if the epidemic reaches anything close to 1.4 million cases, the worst-case projection for four months out, then Ebola in the United States becomes a near-certainty. That doesn’t mean an outbreak, but at least one case.
Calculating the odds that Ebola will spread is complex. It involves a bit of guesswork and lots of big data — for example, the number of international flights passing through the hot zone and the number of seats on those jets and the chances that any one of those seats will be taken by someone with an early, undetected Ebola infection.
The odds also reflect policy choices. Those choices can alter odds dramatically.
This is different than the probability of rain this weekend, Vespignani said. “We can affect the probability that Ebola will spread.”
So you can close borders. Cancel international flights. Step up pre-boarding screenings for fever, the virus’s earliest sign. All of these things have been tried in varying degrees. The World Health Organization has pushed countries to maintain flights and open borders, but with screening procedures. So far, those efforts have been effective, a WHO representative said.
The best defense might seem to go further.
“But you can’t seal off the world,” Vespignani said.
Cutting off all access means help can’t reach people in the outbreak. No doctors. No surgical gloves. No biohazard suits. So the virus would spread even faster. That would push the odds of Ebola escaping higher.
“These things compensate,” said Vespignani.
Another Ebola model is run by Dirk Brockmann at the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin. His team found that the probability, for example, that an infected person will board a flight from Freetown, Sierra Leone, and arrive in the United Kingdom is about 7 percent. For the United States, it’s 1.5 percent. Those odds might sound high, but as Brockmann explains, they mean that 67 infected individuals would need to board a plane for one of them to reach the United States. “This is indeed small,” Brockmann said.
The problem is that the odds are getting lower. The lucky streak can not continue if the epidemic is not brought under control.
When Brantly was infected, there were only about 1,000 Ebola cases.
And he nearly got to Texas.
Now, just two months later, there have been nearly 5,900.
That number could quadruple to 20,000 by early November, health officials said.
“The probability,” Vespignani said, ” is increasing week by week.”
===
Somewhat Related Via Dr. Niman (my emphasis):
NIH to admit patient exposed to Ebola virus for observation
http://www.nih.gov/news/health/sep2014/od-27.htm
NIH expects to admit a patient who has been exposed to the Ebola virus to its Clinical Center in the coming days. The patient is an American physician who was volunteering services in an Ebola treatment unit in Sierra Leone.
The patient is being admitted to the NIH Clinical Center for observation and to enroll in a clinical study.
Out of an abundance of caution, the patient will be admitted to the NIH Clinical Center’s special clinical studies unit that is specifically designed to provide high-level isolation capabilities and is staffed by infectious diseases and critical care specialists. The unit staff is trained in strict infection control practices optimized to prevent spread of potentially transmissible agents such as Ebola.
No additional details about the patient are available at this time.
It is important to remember that Ebola patients can be safely cared for at any hospital that follows CDC's infection control recommendations and can isolate a patient in a private room.
NIH is taking every precaution to ensure the safety of our patients, NIH staff, and the public. This situation is of minimal risk to NIH staff and the public.
About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit www.nih.gov.
http://www.nih.gov/news/health/sep2014/od-27.htm
===
.
SheWoff
Southern by choice
Ebola outbreak: Clinics still short on doctors, supplies 6 months later
Bulk of promised global aid has yet to materialize on the ground
The Associated Press Posted: Sep 28, 2014 9:34 AM ET Last Updated: Sep 28, 2014 10:05 AM ET
Doctors are in short supply. So are beds for patients. Six months after the Ebola outbreak emerged for the first time in an unprepared West Africa and eventually became the worst-ever outbreak, the gap between what has been sent by other countries and private groups and what is needed is huge.
Even as countries try to marshal more resources, those needs threaten to become much greater, and possibly even insurmountable.
Fourteen-year-old D.J. Mulbah was taken by his mother and grandmother on Saturday in desperate pursuit of a coveted bed at the Ebola clinic run by Doctors Without Borders in Monrovia, Liberia's capital. Too weak to stand, he was put into a taxi with his backpack and a bucket for vomit. Now he lay on the dirt beside the worried women.
"He's been sick for a week with a runny stomach," said his mother, wiping the sweat off the boy's brow with her bare hands. "We tried calling an ambulance days ago, but nobody ever came."
Beds are filling up as fast as clinics can be built. Ambulance sirens blare through standstill traffic. Often, there is nowhere to take the sick except to "holding centres" where they await a bed at an Ebola treatment facility.
The virus has killed almost 3,000 people and infected more than 6,200 in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Nigeria and Senegal.
Global response inadequate
By 8 a.m., a dozen people who likely have Ebola are crouching and sitting on the ground outside the padlocked metal gates of a facility with a capacity of 160 patients. Soon, a triage nurse approaches, her voice muffled through a surgical mask covered by a plastic face shield. The clinic will take the boy. D.J. manages a faint smile. Seven of the 30 beds made available Saturday morning were vacated by survivors. The rest had died.
Statistics reviewed by The Associated Press and interviews with experts and those on the scene of one of the worst health disasters in modern history show how great the needs are and how little the world has done in response. Some foreign medical workers have bravely fought on, a few even contracting Ebola themselves as they cared for patients.
Liberia Ebola protective gear
Liberia needs more than one million protective suits and other gear such as gloves and boots in order to properly fight the epidemic. (Abbas Dulleh/Associated Press)
Experts warn that the window of opportunity to snuff out the dreaded disease may close unless promises of additional assistance immediately become reality.
The existing bed capacity for Ebola patients in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea and Nigeria is about 820, well short of the 2,900 beds that are currently needed, according to the World Health Organization. Recently, 737 beds were pledged by countries. Yet even after the promised treatment facilities are built, they will still be at least 2,100 beds short.
The shortage of health workers is also great. The WHO has estimated that 1,000 to 2,000 international health workers are needed in West Africa. More than 200 local health workers have died of Ebola trying to save patients, complicating recruitment efforts.
Doctors Without Borders, which has more Ebola clinics than anyone, currently has 248 foreign aid workers in the region.
On Saturday, Liberia's chief medical officer, Bernice Dahn, placed herself under quarantine after her assistant died of Ebola.
CBC reporter Adrienne Arsenault and producer Stephanie Jenzer arrived in Liberia this weekend and will be sending regular reports from the field. Follow their updates at @adriearsenault and @steph.jenzer.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/ebola...-on-doctors-supplies-6-months-later-1.2780455
Bulk of promised global aid has yet to materialize on the ground
The Associated Press Posted: Sep 28, 2014 9:34 AM ET Last Updated: Sep 28, 2014 10:05 AM ET
Doctors are in short supply. So are beds for patients. Six months after the Ebola outbreak emerged for the first time in an unprepared West Africa and eventually became the worst-ever outbreak, the gap between what has been sent by other countries and private groups and what is needed is huge.
Even as countries try to marshal more resources, those needs threaten to become much greater, and possibly even insurmountable.
Fourteen-year-old D.J. Mulbah was taken by his mother and grandmother on Saturday in desperate pursuit of a coveted bed at the Ebola clinic run by Doctors Without Borders in Monrovia, Liberia's capital. Too weak to stand, he was put into a taxi with his backpack and a bucket for vomit. Now he lay on the dirt beside the worried women.
"He's been sick for a week with a runny stomach," said his mother, wiping the sweat off the boy's brow with her bare hands. "We tried calling an ambulance days ago, but nobody ever came."
Beds are filling up as fast as clinics can be built. Ambulance sirens blare through standstill traffic. Often, there is nowhere to take the sick except to "holding centres" where they await a bed at an Ebola treatment facility.
The virus has killed almost 3,000 people and infected more than 6,200 in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Nigeria and Senegal.
Global response inadequate
By 8 a.m., a dozen people who likely have Ebola are crouching and sitting on the ground outside the padlocked metal gates of a facility with a capacity of 160 patients. Soon, a triage nurse approaches, her voice muffled through a surgical mask covered by a plastic face shield. The clinic will take the boy. D.J. manages a faint smile. Seven of the 30 beds made available Saturday morning were vacated by survivors. The rest had died.
Statistics reviewed by The Associated Press and interviews with experts and those on the scene of one of the worst health disasters in modern history show how great the needs are and how little the world has done in response. Some foreign medical workers have bravely fought on, a few even contracting Ebola themselves as they cared for patients.
Liberia Ebola protective gear
Liberia needs more than one million protective suits and other gear such as gloves and boots in order to properly fight the epidemic. (Abbas Dulleh/Associated Press)
Experts warn that the window of opportunity to snuff out the dreaded disease may close unless promises of additional assistance immediately become reality.
The existing bed capacity for Ebola patients in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea and Nigeria is about 820, well short of the 2,900 beds that are currently needed, according to the World Health Organization. Recently, 737 beds were pledged by countries. Yet even after the promised treatment facilities are built, they will still be at least 2,100 beds short.
The shortage of health workers is also great. The WHO has estimated that 1,000 to 2,000 international health workers are needed in West Africa. More than 200 local health workers have died of Ebola trying to save patients, complicating recruitment efforts.
Doctors Without Borders, which has more Ebola clinics than anyone, currently has 248 foreign aid workers in the region.
On Saturday, Liberia's chief medical officer, Bernice Dahn, placed herself under quarantine after her assistant died of Ebola.
CBC reporter Adrienne Arsenault and producer Stephanie Jenzer arrived in Liberia this weekend and will be sending regular reports from the field. Follow their updates at @adriearsenault and @steph.jenzer.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/ebola...-on-doctors-supplies-6-months-later-1.2780455
ainitfunny
Saved, to glorify God.
I just am astounded that anyone would start up such a line of thought and anyone else would lend credibility to the outrageous speculation, while nobody more credentialed than I am steps up to squash it as patently IGNORANT NONSENSE. We have DIRE, REAL threats to public health without trying to create another one based on absolutely nothing in the way of scientific truth.
Did you really believe polio comes from eating seafood? Did you think fish or shellfish GET polio? Did you think cold seawater a great medium for the replication of polio virus? Where are the data to support such an idea?
SheWoff
Southern by choice
Ebola Could Infect One and A Half Million Soon, Says CDC
By Jayalakshmi K | IB Times – 9 hours ago
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has warned of Ebola infecting around one and a half million people by the end of January, based on statistical projections of the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute (VBI).
The forecast supports the drastically higher projections released earlier by epidemiologists at the VBI, who modelled the Ebola spread as part of a National Institutes of Health-sponsored project called Midas, short for Models of Infectious Disease Agent Study.
The World Health Organization (WHO) had predicted that 20,000 cases could be expected before the epidemic is controlled but the present modelling showed 20,000 people could be infected in just a single month.
If control measures are improved, the numbers could significantly reduce, said the forecast.
"If the disease keeps spreading as it has been we estimate there could be hundreds of thousands of cases by the end of the year in Liberia alone," said Bryan Lewis, a computational epidemiologist with the Network Dynamics and Simulation Science Laboratory at VBI.
The work with Ebola has been ongoing from 2000, largely funded by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency looking at the global threat from the virus.
Liberia Chief Medical Officer
Meanwhile, Liberia's chief medical officer Bernice Dahn has put herself under quarantine for 21 days, following the death of her assistant from the deadly Ebola virus, reports BBC.
The WHO has placed the death toll from Ebola at above 3,000. At particular risk are health workers, 375 of whom have been infected, and 211 have so far died from the virus in Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone.
Liberia has been the worst hit by the disease, accounting for 1,830 deaths - 150 in the last two days alone.
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/ebola-could-infect-one-half-million-soon-says-062412577.html#gaeeFfT
By Jayalakshmi K | IB Times – 9 hours ago
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has warned of Ebola infecting around one and a half million people by the end of January, based on statistical projections of the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute (VBI).
The forecast supports the drastically higher projections released earlier by epidemiologists at the VBI, who modelled the Ebola spread as part of a National Institutes of Health-sponsored project called Midas, short for Models of Infectious Disease Agent Study.
The World Health Organization (WHO) had predicted that 20,000 cases could be expected before the epidemic is controlled but the present modelling showed 20,000 people could be infected in just a single month.
If control measures are improved, the numbers could significantly reduce, said the forecast.
"If the disease keeps spreading as it has been we estimate there could be hundreds of thousands of cases by the end of the year in Liberia alone," said Bryan Lewis, a computational epidemiologist with the Network Dynamics and Simulation Science Laboratory at VBI.
The work with Ebola has been ongoing from 2000, largely funded by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency looking at the global threat from the virus.
Liberia Chief Medical Officer
Meanwhile, Liberia's chief medical officer Bernice Dahn has put herself under quarantine for 21 days, following the death of her assistant from the deadly Ebola virus, reports BBC.
The WHO has placed the death toll from Ebola at above 3,000. At particular risk are health workers, 375 of whom have been infected, and 211 have so far died from the virus in Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone.
Liberia has been the worst hit by the disease, accounting for 1,830 deaths - 150 in the last two days alone.
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/ebola-could-infect-one-half-million-soon-says-062412577.html#gaeeFfT
Uhhmmm...
Veteran Member
Ah, hello polio was and is a waterborne illness
it was dumped in a river...freshwater
Live Virus...Fresh Water....not speculation just following logical progression
who ever dumped the barrel did something really stupid add infectious agent to ecosystem that has not seen that agent in the wild in over 50 years.
snipped from article
http://reclaimourrepublic.wordpress...d-into-belgian-water-by-pharmaceutical-giant/
Swimmers and fishermen face “limited” danger according to a risk analysis conducted by the Scientific Institute of Public Health and the Supreme Council of Health, which also encouraged worried residents to contact their doctors to debate “re-vaccination.”
r
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Sacajawea
Has No Life - Lives on TB
I tend to agree with this sentiment. They pay lip service to the urgency and dire need, meanwhile what help is provided is too little too late.
I am astounded at all the comments from people who refuse to see the sense in stopping unnecessary travel - while providing the level of protection needed to people who MUST travel for shipping, essential trade and relief supplies and workers. Travel restrictions do not need to interfere with those priorities, but all personal private and business travel should most definitely be stopped. They CAN'T be that stupid and incompetent to believe it's all or nothing...
unless the agenda is to let it happen: let it spread. I suspect to make a global financial reset possible without spendthrift governments having to bear the responsibility.
Doomer Doug
TB Fanatic
Napoleon said "Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by incompetence."
I see no conspiracy here at all. What I see is incompetent, CYA burrowocracies that seek to look like they are doing something without actually doing anything.
The only reason the system cares about Africa is it is a good source of material wealth in minerals, oil and certain other products the West wants and needs. Nobody gave a damn about Rwanda in the 1990s. They sat and watched while up to one million people hacked each other to death. Nobody cares about what is going on in South Africa, or Zimbabe under that senile clown Mugabe.
The fact the total population of West Africa is less than 40 million people, outside of Nigeria's 175 million, is also a factor.
The blunt truth is nobody gives a damn what happens in Africa as long as it stays in Africa.
"They" could have done much more, much earlier, and with more impact if Ebola had broken out in Alabama, and not Liberia.
I see no conspiracy here at all. What I see is incompetent, CYA burrowocracies that seek to look like they are doing something without actually doing anything.
The only reason the system cares about Africa is it is a good source of material wealth in minerals, oil and certain other products the West wants and needs. Nobody gave a damn about Rwanda in the 1990s. They sat and watched while up to one million people hacked each other to death. Nobody cares about what is going on in South Africa, or Zimbabe under that senile clown Mugabe.
The fact the total population of West Africa is less than 40 million people, outside of Nigeria's 175 million, is also a factor.
The blunt truth is nobody gives a damn what happens in Africa as long as it stays in Africa.
"They" could have done much more, much earlier, and with more impact if Ebola had broken out in Alabama, and not Liberia.
jed turtle
a brother in the Lord
well, on the flip side, if ebola had broken out in Alabama, Liberia nor any other African country, sure as hell wouldn't have sent a penny of aid...
What would have happen is the world would have closer it's border to us and stopped flights out of our country .. Hummm. .. the same thing we should be doing..
Incompetence doesn't make it any less criminal.. It is the same defence as I helped killed a million People and cremated them and made the ash into concrete Butttt... it was orders... A lot of people hung for that..
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Possible Impact
TB Fanatic
The control gap...
v1.0 290914
Monday, 29 September 2014
by Ian M Mackay
http://virologydownunder.blogspot.com.au/2014/09/the-control-gap.html
I have a theory.
This theory is meant only to apply to disease outbreak/epidemic/pandemic situations, and then
only to those which include fatal cases.
This theory of mine has only emerged since I've been plotting Ebola virus cases numbers from
the West African epidemic. I precede the explanation with the caveat that there is very probably
already a well developed, well-known actual epidemiology term to describe this theory. But I'm
not a trained epidemiologist and this is just a blog, so please forgive me my ignorance.
The theory goes that when a gap grows between the number of new cases being reported and
the number of deaths or laboratory confirmations in that population, despite the outbreak
having been going for a while, this represents an indication that control of the situation is
slipping, or has been lost.
Mind the gap.
This "control gap" - my term, so don't expect to find it anywhere official or that knows of that
which it speaks - can also appear when looking at suspected or probable cases of disease X, and
the number of those that have been confirmed by a laboratory test.
Other explanations for the control gap may exist of course; testing may be scaled back
deliberately, reporting of deaths may have been deliberately throttled for some political reason.
So it may not reflect being "out of control" as much as someone else being "in control".
Probably still more variations that I have not thought of at all.
Ebola virus disease (EVD) in Liberia.
In the graphics below I've used the accumulation of World Health Organization data for Liberia,
up to 23-Sept.
First up (will do more in this post later) - the fold increase in total case numbers
(suspect+probable+laboratory confirmed) compared to the fold-increase in the distance
between that total and the total number of laboratory confirmed cases alone. This distance, or
the "control gap|lab", has widened over time. It has widened because total cases have climbed
more steeply than the number given a laboratory confirmed diagnosis of EVD.
For whatever reason(s), laboratory confirmations are not keeping pace with the total case
numbers, and they seemed to start slipping at the end of July.
I suspect a principal reason - and I'm not on the ground of course, so this is all speculation and
second-hand knowledge - is that laboratory capacity is overwhelmed.
Other reasons include that samples might not always be collected or that many recent clinically
defined EVD cases are actually due to something clinically similar to EVD, but not an Ebola
virus infection. If it were this last one though, the total numbers would be readjusted
downwards as new diagnoses were made...if the laboratory has time to make those of course...so
I doubt it as a major role.
^ Click to expand
Minding the gap.
A.) Ebola virus disease case graph for Liberia showing the accumulation of
total (suspect+probable+laboratory confirmed) cases (pink line; left y-axis) and deaths (blue
line; left y-axis), the laboratory confirmations (green line; left y-axis) and the proportion of fatal
cases (right y-axis) at each reporting date (x-axis). The size of the gap between laboratory
confirmed cases and total cases is indicated for a range of reporting dates, using a vertical green
drop-line.
B.) The drop-lines have been copied and aligned and the amount they have grown has been
measured using a scale bar so that the fold-increase can be compared to the first reporting date
used, 8-July. The fold-increase value is written at the top of each drop-line. Along the bottom
(enclosed within a grey box) are the case numbers at each reporting date examined and the
fold-increase (in bold) compared to the 8-July baseline.
SusieSunshine
Veteran Member
http://www.ksat.com/content/pns/ksat/news/2014/09/29/us-ebola-patient-nih.html
NEWS
Patient exposed to Ebola arrives in U.S.
POSTED TODAY, 6:09 AM
UPDATED TODAY, 6:09 AM
An American doctor who was exposed to Ebola has arrived at the NIH Clinical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, the National Institutes of Health said Sunday.
The doctor was volunteering at an Ebola treatment unit in Sierra Leone and arrived from an "overseas location" according to the NIH.
No more details on the patient were made available, but the doctor will be there for observation and research purposes, officials said.
The NIH is currently testing an experimental Ebola vaccine on human volunteers that did extremely well in earlier trials with chimpanzees, doctors say.
The patient will be kept in isolation.
"Out of an abundance of caution, the patient has been admitted to the NIH Clinical Center's special clinical studies unit that is specifically designed to provide high-level isolation capabilities and is staffed by infectious diseases and critical care specialists," the NIH statement said. Safety measures are in place to protect other patients and the public.
The Ebola outbreak in West Africa is the worst on record, according to the World Health Organization. The number of deaths from Ebola now stands at 3,083 and the number of cases has reached 6,553, the WHO said in a statement. The figures are based on information provided on September 23 by health ministries in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, the countries most impacted by the Ebola outbreak.
NEWS
Patient exposed to Ebola arrives in U.S.
POSTED TODAY, 6:09 AM
UPDATED TODAY, 6:09 AM
An American doctor who was exposed to Ebola has arrived at the NIH Clinical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, the National Institutes of Health said Sunday.
The doctor was volunteering at an Ebola treatment unit in Sierra Leone and arrived from an "overseas location" according to the NIH.
No more details on the patient were made available, but the doctor will be there for observation and research purposes, officials said.
The NIH is currently testing an experimental Ebola vaccine on human volunteers that did extremely well in earlier trials with chimpanzees, doctors say.
The patient will be kept in isolation.
"Out of an abundance of caution, the patient has been admitted to the NIH Clinical Center's special clinical studies unit that is specifically designed to provide high-level isolation capabilities and is staffed by infectious diseases and critical care specialists," the NIH statement said. Safety measures are in place to protect other patients and the public.
The Ebola outbreak in West Africa is the worst on record, according to the World Health Organization. The number of deaths from Ebola now stands at 3,083 and the number of cases has reached 6,553, the WHO said in a statement. The figures are based on information provided on September 23 by health ministries in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, the countries most impacted by the Ebola outbreak.
bw
Fringe Ranger
Are these clauses related? Is he there to be a subject in some way? If he was exposed but did not get infected, then he should be no more suitable a vaccine test subject than anyone pulled off the street. And if he IS infected, the vaccine is useless on him. Perhaps this juxtaposition is just poor reporting.
kittyluvr
Veteran Member
U.S. Troops Battling Ebola Get Off to Slow Start in Africa
U.S. troops are arriving in Monrovia, Liberia as part of a plan to build tent hospitals and train local nurses to treat an Ebola epidemic that is showing signs of gaining speed. Video by WSJ's Drew Hinshaw.
The American military effort against history's deadliest Ebola outbreak is taking shape in West Africa, but concerns are mounting that the pace isn't fast enough to check a virus that is spreading at a terrifying clip.
On Saturday, a handful of troops from the Navy's 133rd Mobile Construction Battalion led a bulldozer through thigh-high grass outside Liberia's main airport, bottles of hand sanitizer dangling from their belt loops.
They had been digging a parking lot in the East African nation of Djibouti this month when they received a call to build the first of a dozen or more tent hospitals the U.S intends to construct in this region. The soldiers started by giving the land a downward slope for water runoff—"to keep out any unwanted reptiles," said Petty Officer Second Class Justin Holsinger.
The number of people infected with Ebola could hit 1.4 million by mid-January. What is the world doing about it? WSJ's Jason Bellini has #TheShortAnswer.
While this team levels the earth, superiors hash out the still-uncertain details of the American intervention here.
The epidemic is showing signs of gaining speed—6,574 cases had been reported officially as of Sept. 23, with 3,091 deaths. Those fatalities are more than double the number of both a month ago. The actual number of cases is believed to be three or four times as high. Had no international aid come, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said, the number of cases in Liberia and Sierra Leone might have soared to 1.4 million by mid-January.
On Sunday, meanwhile, the National Institutes of Health said it is preparing to care for an American doctor who was exposed to the Ebola virus while volunteering in Sierra Leone.
"There is no argument the disease is out in front of the response," said Ken Isaacs, vice president of programs and government relations for Samaritan's Purse, who as an expert in humanitarian assistance is leading who is leading the relief organization's Ebola efforts in Liberia. In terms of response, he added, "where we are today is where we should have been 60 to 90 days ago."
A local health official checks the temperature of a newly arrived U.S. soldier at the airport in Robertsfield, Liberia, as other troops disembark. Glenna Gordon for The Wall Street Journal
Now, some help has arrived, partly in the form of a rare—if not unprecedented—U.S. effort. They will level swampy grassland, unload supplies and build tents, then train thousands of nurses from Sierra Leone and Liberia to treat Ebola.
The epidemic in Liberia and Sierra Leone will likely worsen until 70% of Ebola patients can find room in a treatment center or other setting where they can't transmit the disease to others, the CDC said. Currently, just 18% do so, it said.
On Sept. 16, President Barack Obama ordered 3,000 U.S. soldiers into West Africa. In a speech at the United Nations on Thursday, Mr. Obama criticized the international response thus far and said other donors—governments and organizations—need to step up quickly with aid.
"Right now, everybody has the best of intentions, but people are not putting in the kinds of resources that are necessary to put a stop to this epidemic," he said. More nations urgently need to contribute goods and services like health-care workers, equipment and air transport, he said.
Several countries and organizations have donated money and technical assistance, from the World Bank to Cuba, which is sending 165 doctors, nurses and other health specialists to the region. But more is needed, particularly because the health systems in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea have been overwhelmed.
Other help is beginning to arrive. On Sunday morning, a privately contracted 747 cargo plane landed with 2,016 rolls of plastic sheeting from the U.S. government, one of the materials needed to build an Ebola clinic.
It would take hours to unload the plane, the crew said. Liberia's airport, built in 1942, had just three small forklifts. U.S. Air Force personnel will also have to repair the runway, or for the time being, just paint it so planes don't land on parts in disrepair.
"Some companies would rather go to Afghanistan than come here," said the plane's loadmaster, Felix Curtis.
In the cockpit, a nervous first officer was wearing surgical gloves, a medical mask on his seat. He shared a pen with a Liberian, then darted to the bathroom to wash his hands: "Am I going to be OK?" he asked.
The files on most of Liberia's Ebola cases are stored in three-ring binders on a shelf in an abandoned World War II-era chimpanzee testing lab, filled with bats. That is where the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases conducts blood tests for Ebola. A small three-ring binder holds all the case files from April 15 to Aug. 12. A binder twice that size holds the files from just five days in late September.
"Well," said Alec Hail, the doctor who supervises the testing. "That's remarkable."
The U.S. government supplied 2,016 boxes of plastic sheeting. Glenna Gordon for The Wall Street Journal
Even with the U.S. response, the CDC fears thousands more lives may still be lost. New centers are filling up as quickly as they are built. On Sept. 21, the World Health Organization opened its second clinic in Monrovia, Liberia's capital. By evening, every bed was taken.
"I don't think we can open them any faster," said head clinician Anne Deborah Omoruto Atai. Near the doctor's office, a fierce rainstorm was flooding part of the clinic.
Meanwhile, the embattled Liberian government is struggling to manage a response to the disease. Last week, an official at the health ministry—the focal point for the Ebola effort—died of Ebola.
Other workers abandoned the building, which on Thursday was being sprayed with chlorine. The next morning, the chief medical officer placed herself under 21-day quarantine, on concerns that she had been exposed.
That situation has created a desperate groundswell of support for the U.S. military mission here. "We want the U.S. Army to take over this entire situation," said Sarka Weah, among a group of men watching the naval unit bulldoze the field.
"Yes!" screamed the others.
A chartered 747 carried 2,016 boxes of plastic sheeting supplied by the American government to Liberia, where it will be used in the building of care centers and clinics. Glenna Gordon for The Wall Street Journal
The clinic will only hold 25 beds, and not for ordinary Liberians: just health workers. U.S. officials hope it will entice other countries to send their own nurses and doctors.
"It's hard to know where all they'll come from," said Frank Mahoney, who heads the CDC's Ebola response in Liberia.
This month, the U.S. Agency for International Development helped Liberia's government convert an unused conference room in a telecommunications building into a war room. The U.S. aid agency had 12 tables wooden built, helped restore running water to the toilets and brought in filing cabinets from the U.S. Embassy, said people involved that effort.
Last Tuesday evening, James Dorbah Jallah, the national coordinator of Liberia's Ebola Task Force, sat in the war room trying to get bottled water delivered to an Ebola clinic that had run out.
"It's not possible," said the supervisor of the government's motor pool over speakerphone. "Everybody's gone home."
Write to Drew Hinshaw at drew.hinshaw@wsj.com and Betsy McKay at betsy.mckay@wsj.com
http://online.wsj.com/articles/u-s-troops-battling-ebola-get-off-to-slow-start-in-africa-1411948064
U.S. troops are arriving in Monrovia, Liberia as part of a plan to build tent hospitals and train local nurses to treat an Ebola epidemic that is showing signs of gaining speed. Video by WSJ's Drew Hinshaw.
The American military effort against history's deadliest Ebola outbreak is taking shape in West Africa, but concerns are mounting that the pace isn't fast enough to check a virus that is spreading at a terrifying clip.
On Saturday, a handful of troops from the Navy's 133rd Mobile Construction Battalion led a bulldozer through thigh-high grass outside Liberia's main airport, bottles of hand sanitizer dangling from their belt loops.
They had been digging a parking lot in the East African nation of Djibouti this month when they received a call to build the first of a dozen or more tent hospitals the U.S intends to construct in this region. The soldiers started by giving the land a downward slope for water runoff—"to keep out any unwanted reptiles," said Petty Officer Second Class Justin Holsinger.
The number of people infected with Ebola could hit 1.4 million by mid-January. What is the world doing about it? WSJ's Jason Bellini has #TheShortAnswer.
While this team levels the earth, superiors hash out the still-uncertain details of the American intervention here.
The epidemic is showing signs of gaining speed—6,574 cases had been reported officially as of Sept. 23, with 3,091 deaths. Those fatalities are more than double the number of both a month ago. The actual number of cases is believed to be three or four times as high. Had no international aid come, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said, the number of cases in Liberia and Sierra Leone might have soared to 1.4 million by mid-January.
On Sunday, meanwhile, the National Institutes of Health said it is preparing to care for an American doctor who was exposed to the Ebola virus while volunteering in Sierra Leone.
"There is no argument the disease is out in front of the response," said Ken Isaacs, vice president of programs and government relations for Samaritan's Purse, who as an expert in humanitarian assistance is leading who is leading the relief organization's Ebola efforts in Liberia. In terms of response, he added, "where we are today is where we should have been 60 to 90 days ago."
A local health official checks the temperature of a newly arrived U.S. soldier at the airport in Robertsfield, Liberia, as other troops disembark. Glenna Gordon for The Wall Street Journal
Now, some help has arrived, partly in the form of a rare—if not unprecedented—U.S. effort. They will level swampy grassland, unload supplies and build tents, then train thousands of nurses from Sierra Leone and Liberia to treat Ebola.
The epidemic in Liberia and Sierra Leone will likely worsen until 70% of Ebola patients can find room in a treatment center or other setting where they can't transmit the disease to others, the CDC said. Currently, just 18% do so, it said.
On Sept. 16, President Barack Obama ordered 3,000 U.S. soldiers into West Africa. In a speech at the United Nations on Thursday, Mr. Obama criticized the international response thus far and said other donors—governments and organizations—need to step up quickly with aid.
"Right now, everybody has the best of intentions, but people are not putting in the kinds of resources that are necessary to put a stop to this epidemic," he said. More nations urgently need to contribute goods and services like health-care workers, equipment and air transport, he said.
Several countries and organizations have donated money and technical assistance, from the World Bank to Cuba, which is sending 165 doctors, nurses and other health specialists to the region. But more is needed, particularly because the health systems in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea have been overwhelmed.
Other help is beginning to arrive. On Sunday morning, a privately contracted 747 cargo plane landed with 2,016 rolls of plastic sheeting from the U.S. government, one of the materials needed to build an Ebola clinic.
It would take hours to unload the plane, the crew said. Liberia's airport, built in 1942, had just three small forklifts. U.S. Air Force personnel will also have to repair the runway, or for the time being, just paint it so planes don't land on parts in disrepair.
"Some companies would rather go to Afghanistan than come here," said the plane's loadmaster, Felix Curtis.
In the cockpit, a nervous first officer was wearing surgical gloves, a medical mask on his seat. He shared a pen with a Liberian, then darted to the bathroom to wash his hands: "Am I going to be OK?" he asked.
The files on most of Liberia's Ebola cases are stored in three-ring binders on a shelf in an abandoned World War II-era chimpanzee testing lab, filled with bats. That is where the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases conducts blood tests for Ebola. A small three-ring binder holds all the case files from April 15 to Aug. 12. A binder twice that size holds the files from just five days in late September.
"Well," said Alec Hail, the doctor who supervises the testing. "That's remarkable."
The U.S. government supplied 2,016 boxes of plastic sheeting. Glenna Gordon for The Wall Street Journal
Even with the U.S. response, the CDC fears thousands more lives may still be lost. New centers are filling up as quickly as they are built. On Sept. 21, the World Health Organization opened its second clinic in Monrovia, Liberia's capital. By evening, every bed was taken.
"I don't think we can open them any faster," said head clinician Anne Deborah Omoruto Atai. Near the doctor's office, a fierce rainstorm was flooding part of the clinic.
Meanwhile, the embattled Liberian government is struggling to manage a response to the disease. Last week, an official at the health ministry—the focal point for the Ebola effort—died of Ebola.
Other workers abandoned the building, which on Thursday was being sprayed with chlorine. The next morning, the chief medical officer placed herself under 21-day quarantine, on concerns that she had been exposed.
That situation has created a desperate groundswell of support for the U.S. military mission here. "We want the U.S. Army to take over this entire situation," said Sarka Weah, among a group of men watching the naval unit bulldoze the field.
"Yes!" screamed the others.
A chartered 747 carried 2,016 boxes of plastic sheeting supplied by the American government to Liberia, where it will be used in the building of care centers and clinics. Glenna Gordon for The Wall Street Journal
The clinic will only hold 25 beds, and not for ordinary Liberians: just health workers. U.S. officials hope it will entice other countries to send their own nurses and doctors.
"It's hard to know where all they'll come from," said Frank Mahoney, who heads the CDC's Ebola response in Liberia.
This month, the U.S. Agency for International Development helped Liberia's government convert an unused conference room in a telecommunications building into a war room. The U.S. aid agency had 12 tables wooden built, helped restore running water to the toilets and brought in filing cabinets from the U.S. Embassy, said people involved that effort.
Last Tuesday evening, James Dorbah Jallah, the national coordinator of Liberia's Ebola Task Force, sat in the war room trying to get bottled water delivered to an Ebola clinic that had run out.
"It's not possible," said the supervisor of the government's motor pool over speakerphone. "Everybody's gone home."
Write to Drew Hinshaw at drew.hinshaw@wsj.com and Betsy McKay at betsy.mckay@wsj.com
http://online.wsj.com/articles/u-s-troops-battling-ebola-get-off-to-slow-start-in-africa-1411948064
Possible Impact
TB Fanatic
Are these clauses related? Is he there to be a subject in some way? If he was exposed but did not get infected, then he should be no more suitable a vaccine test subject than anyone pulled off the street. And if he IS infected, the vaccine is useless on him. Perhaps this juxtaposition is just poor reporting.Originally Posted by Caregiver
the doctor will be there for observation and research purposes ... The NIH is currently testing an experimental Ebola vaccine on human volunteers
Could be a drug that blocks/slows virus replication,
this would allow patient's immune system time to muster up the proper antibodies.
Old Gray Mare
TB Fanatic
More bad news. Fair use.
Wall Street Journal
Cocoa Prices Surge on Ebola Fears
Concerns Grow Over Possible Disruption of Supply Chain in West Africa
By Alexandra Wexler and Sara Jerving
Updated Sept. 19, 2014 3:41 p.m. ET
The deadly Ebola virus spreading through West Africa is sparking fears in the market that supplies of cocoa, one of the region's top exports, could be disrupted.
Prices for the key chocolate ingredient have surged 6.3% this week, settling just shy of the highest level in more than three years on mounting concerns that the outbreak will reach the Ivory Coast or Ghana, which produce about 60% of the world's cocoa. No cases have been reported in either country. But Ivory Coast shares a poorly policed border with Liberia and Guinea, two of the countries hardest hit by Ebola.
Even a small number of Ebola cases in Ivory Coast could have a sweeping impact in the cocoa market, analysts say. Cocoa is grown on tiny plots, with growers selling their beans to middlemen who ride from farm to farm on motorbikes gathering the crop to transport to the coast for export. The travel restrictions and quarantines used to contain the disease could quickly isolate millions of farmers, choking off supplies to the world's chocolate makers.
"The fear people have is that once Ebola is verified in Ivory Coast ... it will be pandemonium," said Hector Galvan, senior market strategist at RJO Futures in Chicago. "The worst case scenario—you lose virtually all cocoa exports out of Ivory Coast [or] Ghana for an unknown period of time."
The last time exports were halted out of Ivory Coast, during a period of postelection civil war in late 2010 and early 2011, cocoa futures spiked to 32-year highs.
Any interruption to cocoa exports would be devastating for Ivory Coast, which is heavily reliant on the income generated from agriculture. A disruption would also quickly radiate through the global market, where record demand for chocolate is squeezing supply. Cocoa futures are up 20% this year and hit a three-year high last month.
On Friday, cocoa for December delivery on ICE Futures U.S. rose to a near five-week high of $3,259 a ton, up 2.1% on the day. Traders and investors are calling the increase an "Ebola premium." A halt to exports from the region could send prices to $4,000 a ton, Mr. Galvan said.
"Ebola or no Ebola, there is pressure on cocoa prices because of the high demand," said Akin Olusuyi, managing director of Cocoa Products (Ile-Oluji) Limited, a processor in Nigeria's Ondo state. Nigeria, the fourth-largest cocoa producer, has had 19 confirmed Ebola cases in the current outbreak, but only five in the past 21 days, according to the World Health Organization.
The number of new Ebola cases is still rising. The WHO counted 5,335 confirmed or suspected cases with 2,622 dead as of Sept. 14 in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, the three hardest-hit countries. On Tuesday, President Barack Obama said the epidemic is "spiraling out of control" and ordered 3,000 U.S. troops to the region.
Many analysts are bracing for the outbreak to spread more widely beyond those three countries.
"Given the extremely porous nature of the border of Liberia and [Ivory Coast] ... it appears to be a minor miracle that there have been no reported cases of Ebola" there, said Benjamin Spatz, a West Africa policy expert and former adviser to the Liberian government.
There are many investors and analysts who see a widespread Ebola outbreak in Ivory Coast as a remote threat.
"Certainly the market discussion of Ebola and cocoa has risen recently, (but) to date, trade flows of cocoa have not been affected by this outbreak," said Gillian Rutherford, a senior vice president at Pacific Investment Management Co. who oversees $25 billion across several commodity portfolios. Pimco is currently neutral on cocoa, Ms. Rutherford said.
Large chocolate companies, including Nestlé SA and Mars Inc., said they are monitoring the situation. Barry Callebaut AG BARN.EB -0.94% , the world's largest cocoa processor, is distributing information about the virus to workers in West Africa, a spokesman said. Agriterra Ltd. AGTA.LN -2.43% , a London-based company that has corn, beef and cocoa operations across Africa, curtailed its cocoa operations in Sierra Leone on Wednesday. Ivory Coast's cocoa harvest typically starts in October.
Kevin Kerr, president of commodities trading and consulting firm Kerr Trading International, placed bets on rising cocoa prices in his personal account about a month ago.
"If the concerns over Ebola spread to cases in the Ivory Coast, we could see prices shoot up another 20% or more," said Mr. Kerr, who manages about $250 million.
—Obafemi Oredein and Neena Rai contributed to this article.
Write to Alexandra Wexler at alexandra.wexler@wsj.com
Wall Street Journal
Cocoa Prices Surge on Ebola Fears
Concerns Grow Over Possible Disruption of Supply Chain in West Africa
By Alexandra Wexler and Sara Jerving
Updated Sept. 19, 2014 3:41 p.m. ET
The deadly Ebola virus spreading through West Africa is sparking fears in the market that supplies of cocoa, one of the region's top exports, could be disrupted.
Prices for the key chocolate ingredient have surged 6.3% this week, settling just shy of the highest level in more than three years on mounting concerns that the outbreak will reach the Ivory Coast or Ghana, which produce about 60% of the world's cocoa. No cases have been reported in either country. But Ivory Coast shares a poorly policed border with Liberia and Guinea, two of the countries hardest hit by Ebola.
Even a small number of Ebola cases in Ivory Coast could have a sweeping impact in the cocoa market, analysts say. Cocoa is grown on tiny plots, with growers selling their beans to middlemen who ride from farm to farm on motorbikes gathering the crop to transport to the coast for export. The travel restrictions and quarantines used to contain the disease could quickly isolate millions of farmers, choking off supplies to the world's chocolate makers.
"The fear people have is that once Ebola is verified in Ivory Coast ... it will be pandemonium," said Hector Galvan, senior market strategist at RJO Futures in Chicago. "The worst case scenario—you lose virtually all cocoa exports out of Ivory Coast [or] Ghana for an unknown period of time."
The last time exports were halted out of Ivory Coast, during a period of postelection civil war in late 2010 and early 2011, cocoa futures spiked to 32-year highs.
Any interruption to cocoa exports would be devastating for Ivory Coast, which is heavily reliant on the income generated from agriculture. A disruption would also quickly radiate through the global market, where record demand for chocolate is squeezing supply. Cocoa futures are up 20% this year and hit a three-year high last month.
On Friday, cocoa for December delivery on ICE Futures U.S. rose to a near five-week high of $3,259 a ton, up 2.1% on the day. Traders and investors are calling the increase an "Ebola premium." A halt to exports from the region could send prices to $4,000 a ton, Mr. Galvan said.
"Ebola or no Ebola, there is pressure on cocoa prices because of the high demand," said Akin Olusuyi, managing director of Cocoa Products (Ile-Oluji) Limited, a processor in Nigeria's Ondo state. Nigeria, the fourth-largest cocoa producer, has had 19 confirmed Ebola cases in the current outbreak, but only five in the past 21 days, according to the World Health Organization.
The number of new Ebola cases is still rising. The WHO counted 5,335 confirmed or suspected cases with 2,622 dead as of Sept. 14 in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, the three hardest-hit countries. On Tuesday, President Barack Obama said the epidemic is "spiraling out of control" and ordered 3,000 U.S. troops to the region.
Many analysts are bracing for the outbreak to spread more widely beyond those three countries.
"Given the extremely porous nature of the border of Liberia and [Ivory Coast] ... it appears to be a minor miracle that there have been no reported cases of Ebola" there, said Benjamin Spatz, a West Africa policy expert and former adviser to the Liberian government.
There are many investors and analysts who see a widespread Ebola outbreak in Ivory Coast as a remote threat.
"Certainly the market discussion of Ebola and cocoa has risen recently, (but) to date, trade flows of cocoa have not been affected by this outbreak," said Gillian Rutherford, a senior vice president at Pacific Investment Management Co. who oversees $25 billion across several commodity portfolios. Pimco is currently neutral on cocoa, Ms. Rutherford said.
Large chocolate companies, including Nestlé SA and Mars Inc., said they are monitoring the situation. Barry Callebaut AG BARN.EB -0.94% , the world's largest cocoa processor, is distributing information about the virus to workers in West Africa, a spokesman said. Agriterra Ltd. AGTA.LN -2.43% , a London-based company that has corn, beef and cocoa operations across Africa, curtailed its cocoa operations in Sierra Leone on Wednesday. Ivory Coast's cocoa harvest typically starts in October.
Kevin Kerr, president of commodities trading and consulting firm Kerr Trading International, placed bets on rising cocoa prices in his personal account about a month ago.
"If the concerns over Ebola spread to cases in the Ivory Coast, we could see prices shoot up another 20% or more," said Mr. Kerr, who manages about $250 million.
—Obafemi Oredein and Neena Rai contributed to this article.
Write to Alexandra Wexler at alexandra.wexler@wsj.com
Doomer Doug
TB Fanatic
Creating a disease in a lab, and then intentionally spreading it is malice. Allowing a natural disease to spread because you don't give a #$%% about Africa is negligence. They are not the same thing at all. The level of incompetence has been astounding in my opinion. We are dealing with minimal health care systems due to a lot of government shortcomings in West Africa. This was combined with a minimal Western response for a lot of political and economic reasons. The final result is Ebola was allowed to get a running head start and is now totally out of control for the foreseeable future.
The latest "official" numbers out of Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone are "only" in the 50 to 100 PER DAY RANGE of new infections. I have said I think you need to multiply those by a factor of between four and 10 to get real numbers. We are now having 500 infections per day in West Africa in my opinion. You will get the CDC and WHO famous estimate of 20,000 total Ebola cases in October alone. We likely have a minimum of 100,000 Ebola infected today.
By the end of October, I think we will have a total of between 150,000 and 250,000 Ebola infected people in West Africa alone.
Ebola is out of control in West Africa. The system has collapsed. The western response is slow, not enough and will not even be in place until Thanksgiving at the earliest.
The scenes with the 700 charred corpses is medieval level, bodies stacked on the carts, level stuff. The fact they still aren't dealing with the bodies pretty much locks in the explosive growth rates we are seeing.
Sierra Leone has guaranteed a massive Ebola epidemic with its continued lockdowns of infected people. Now that really is criminally negligent homicide.
The latest "official" numbers out of Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone are "only" in the 50 to 100 PER DAY RANGE of new infections. I have said I think you need to multiply those by a factor of between four and 10 to get real numbers. We are now having 500 infections per day in West Africa in my opinion. You will get the CDC and WHO famous estimate of 20,000 total Ebola cases in October alone. We likely have a minimum of 100,000 Ebola infected today.
By the end of October, I think we will have a total of between 150,000 and 250,000 Ebola infected people in West Africa alone.
Ebola is out of control in West Africa. The system has collapsed. The western response is slow, not enough and will not even be in place until Thanksgiving at the earliest.
The scenes with the 700 charred corpses is medieval level, bodies stacked on the carts, level stuff. The fact they still aren't dealing with the bodies pretty much locks in the explosive growth rates we are seeing.
Sierra Leone has guaranteed a massive Ebola epidemic with its continued lockdowns of infected people. Now that really is criminally negligent homicide.
It became crimminally negligent when WHO fired epidemiologists in order to focus on obesity and smoking.
the .gov in West Africa just did what they normally do eg fail, at anything that doesn't line their pockets
God Help Us All
r
Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital of Dallas monitoring patient possibly infected with Ebola virus
By Claire Cardona
ccardona@dallasnews.com
8:52 pm on September 29, 2014
Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital of Dallas is carefully evaluating a patient who may have Ebola Virus Disease.
Based on the patient’s symptoms and recent travel history, the patient has been admitted into “strict isolation,” said spokeswoman Candace White in a prepared statement.
Preliminary test results are expected Tuesday.
http://thescoopblog.dallasnews.com/...l-monitoring-patient-for-possible-ebola.html/
The hospital is following Centers for Disease Control and Texas Department of Heath recommendations to ensure the safety of patients, staff, volunteers, physicians and visitors, White said.
In August, Dr. Kent Brantly, a Fort Worth doctor who contracted Ebola while working as an aid worker in Africa, was treated in an Atlanta hospital for the virus. Brantly was discharged after nearly three weeks of treatment. He and another American aid worker, Nancy Writebol, received an experimental treatment called Zmapp.
It’s unknown if the drug helped or whether they improved on their own, as others who have survived the disease did.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
By Claire Cardona
ccardona@dallasnews.com
8:52 pm on September 29, 2014
Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital of Dallas is carefully evaluating a patient who may have Ebola Virus Disease.
Based on the patient’s symptoms and recent travel history, the patient has been admitted into “strict isolation,” said spokeswoman Candace White in a prepared statement.
Preliminary test results are expected Tuesday.
http://thescoopblog.dallasnews.com/...l-monitoring-patient-for-possible-ebola.html/
The hospital is following Centers for Disease Control and Texas Department of Heath recommendations to ensure the safety of patients, staff, volunteers, physicians and visitors, White said.
In August, Dr. Kent Brantly, a Fort Worth doctor who contracted Ebola while working as an aid worker in Africa, was treated in an Atlanta hospital for the virus. Brantly was discharged after nearly three weeks of treatment. He and another American aid worker, Nancy Writebol, received an experimental treatment called Zmapp.
It’s unknown if the drug helped or whether they improved on their own, as others who have survived the disease did.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Last edited:
Cyclonemom
Veteran Member
The man who discovered Ebola on why this epidemic spiraled out of control
http://www.vox.com/2014/9/29/685170...ed-ebola-on-why-this-epidemic-spiraled-out-of
When Dr. Peter Piot was a young scientist, in 1976, he received a shiny, blue thermos in his Antwerp lab. It was filled with the blood of a Belgium nun who worked in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (then Zaire). The woman had fallen ill with a mysterious sickness, and Piot was asked to screen the blood for yellow fever.
"We didn't even imagine the risk we were taking," Piot, now the director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, wrote in his memoir No Time to Lose. The sample tested negative for yellow fever and a range of other pathogens. But Piot would later discover that — in that "soup of half-melted ice" and cracked vials — lurked a deadly virus he named Ebola.
Just before his discovery, Piot's professors told him that he had no future in infectious diseases. Back then, many people believed that science had solved the problems viruses created in humans with new vaccines and antivirals. Then came Ebola — a disease for which we still have no cure — and later HIV/AIDS in the 1980s.
Piot is now one of the world's foremost infectious diseases experts, and a former under-secretary general of the United Nations. He's been watching the world's largest-ever epidemic unfold from his post in London, and we spoke with him about his thoughts on the outbreak and how the global community can prevent future tragedies of this scale. This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.
Julia Belluz: You've been working on Ebola since you co-discovered the virus in 1976. For nearly 40 years, this disease has largely been ignored by the international community except for brief flashes of interest, mostly spurred by Hollywood. Now we are seeing unprecedented attention and political galvanization around Ebola. What changed?
Peter Piot: In the 38 years since 1976 until this current outbreak, there have been something like 1,500 people who died in total. So that's less than 50 deaths per year. Up to now, it was not a real public health problem. This year, nearly 3,000 have died. All 24 previous outbreaks were both time and place limited to very confined communities. Even in the worst case, Ebola would kill 300 people. Here it has involved entire countries, and it has been going on for over nine months now.
JB: But the death toll was rising rapidly for months before the international community responded. What do you think finally sparked collective action?
PP: It was the Americans getting Ebola, I'm afraid. Beyond that, I don't know what changed it, really. Early in the second or third week of July, I gave an interview with CNN and I said this crisis requires a state of emergency and a quasi-military operation. After the interview, I thought maybe I exaggerated. But I felt that it was really getting out of hand and it looked like a completely different type of Ebola outbreak than we'd seen before. Then it took another month, so I really don't know.
"IT TOOK 1,000 DEATHS BEFORE A PUBLIC HEALTH EMERGENCY WAS DECLARED, AND CYNICALLY IT TOOK TWO AMERICAN DOCTORS TO BECOME INFECTED."
JB: Before this year, could you have imagined an Ebola outbreak of this size?
PP: I never thought it would get this big. I always thought it was an accident of history where someone becomes infected — from a bat probably — and then an outbreak is contained. Ebola came and went. I really never thought this could happen. But it shows again: when the right, or bad conditions are all combined with each other, then these things will happen again.
JB: We've seen a surge in the number of deaths now for weeks with no sign that the virus is slowing down. Why do you think this outbreak spun so far out of control?
PP: I think this is a result of a perfect storm of a lack of trust in authorities, in western medicine, dysfunctional health services, a belief in witchcraft as cause of disease and not viruses, traditional funeral rites, and a very slow response both nationally and internationally. The longer we wait, the longer there is an insufficient response, the worse it will get, the more difficult it will be to control this epidemic through quarantine and isolation and all the methods that worked in the past.
JB: Most of what you point out here has to do with things that we had no control over — an accident of geography, local beliefs. Can you point to a place where the ball was dropped in this Ebola response, something that should have been done to minimize the suffering in West Africa?
PP: It took more than three months to diagnosis the epidemic. The first case was in December and then they only diagnosed that it was Ebola in March. But then it took far too long before the international community did anything. That goes from the WHO, to the US, and UK governments. It took 1,000 deaths before a public health emergency was declared by the WHO, and cynically it took two American doctors to become infected. I think that's where particularly the local office of the WHO was inadequate, that's for sure. But it's not just WHO. It's the member states of the WHO, the ones who decide about the budget at the WHO.
JB: What do you think will be the lessons learned from this epidemic?
PP: This outbreak has highlighted the fact that we need to make sure we are far better equipped for epidemics in general. There will be others. But the good news is also that experimental therapies and vaccines for Ebola are now being tested for their efficacy so I think that's positive. For the next outbreak, we should have stockpiles of vaccines and therapies.
I also think this outbreak is changing the paradigm that there will be more investment, and accelerated development of drugs for rare diseases. Another impact is that there will be a financially protected team that can deal with outbreaks at the WHO and that there will be massive support to strengthen the health systems and services in these countries.
JB: Strengthening health systems seems to be the thing we need most to make sure all nations can identify and respond to outbreaks like this, but that's also the hardest thing to fix.
PP: I don't think you can fix it. Each country is different. There is an illusion that there is one fix for the three neighboring countries [battling Ebola — e.g. Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea]. But they all have different problems. It's important to have a commitment to the long-term view — so when we're talking about global health programs and international development, that there is the long-term view that includes building health systems. That's not a matter of two or five years, that's ten years you need as a horizon.
JB: Those long-term timelines don't exactly square with political agendas, which are short term. What happens when the political will and interest falls away?
PP: We've been there before. After war, we say 'never again.' After Katrina, we say 'we'll do this and that,' and then it gets out of the public eye. I don't know how to do it. I hope that the Ebola epidemic is a wake up call for that if we don't invest more in these health systems, that we are at risk for a repetition of the current Ebola crisis.
JB: What is the biggest public-health threat on the horizon?
PP: The biggest threat remains a flu pandemic. There I think we're better prepared with early alerts and the good news is that China is quite open now. The first cases of flu often come from China. In more recent years — still fortunately small outbreaks — there was open and prompt reporting [to the international community about flu cases]. I think there we have made real progress. But I think it'll come back to the fact that there has to be some central leadership.
CARD 1 OF 13 LAUNCH CARDS
What is the Ebola virus?
Most people's views of Ebola are probably informed by Hollywood — they think of it as a deadly and contagious virus that swirls around the world, striking everyone in its path and causing them to hemorrhage from their eyeballs, ears and mouth until there is no more blood to spill.
In reality, Ebola is something quite different. About half of the people who contract Ebola die. The others return to a normal life after a months-long recovery that can include periods of hair loss, sensory changes, weakness, fatigue, headaches, eye and liver inflammation.
About the blood: while Ebola can cause people to hemorrhage, about half of Ebola sufferers ever experience that Biblical bleeding that's become synonymous with the virus.
More often than not, Ebola strikes like the worst and most humiliating flu you could imagine. People get the sweats, along with body aches and pains. Then they start vomiting and having uncontrollable diarrhea. These symptoms can appear anywhere between two and 21 days after exposure to the virus. Sometimes, they go into shock. Sometimes, they bleed. Again, about half of those infected with the virus die, and this usually happens fairly quickly — within a few days or a couple of weeks of getting sick.
Nor is Ebola as contagious as Hollywood would have you believe. You need to have contact with the bodily fluids — vomit or sweat or blood — of someone who is symptomatic and shedding the virus to get the disease. That's why health-care workers and family caretakers who nurse the sick have borne the burden of Ebola.
The virus isn't airborne, thankfully. Experts expect that it will never become airborne. As Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told the Senate recently: "Very, very rarely does [a virus] completely change the way it's transmitted."
What makes Ebola scary is the fact that there is no cure or treatment yet on the market, but those who have access to hospital care — including fluids and antivirals — have a much higher chance of beating the disease. The trouble is, until now, Ebola always strikes in Africa — and among populations where few have access to that kind of advanced medical care.
http://www.vox.com/2014/9/29/685170...ed-ebola-on-why-this-epidemic-spiraled-out-of
When Dr. Peter Piot was a young scientist, in 1976, he received a shiny, blue thermos in his Antwerp lab. It was filled with the blood of a Belgium nun who worked in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (then Zaire). The woman had fallen ill with a mysterious sickness, and Piot was asked to screen the blood for yellow fever.
"We didn't even imagine the risk we were taking," Piot, now the director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, wrote in his memoir No Time to Lose. The sample tested negative for yellow fever and a range of other pathogens. But Piot would later discover that — in that "soup of half-melted ice" and cracked vials — lurked a deadly virus he named Ebola.
Just before his discovery, Piot's professors told him that he had no future in infectious diseases. Back then, many people believed that science had solved the problems viruses created in humans with new vaccines and antivirals. Then came Ebola — a disease for which we still have no cure — and later HIV/AIDS in the 1980s.
Piot is now one of the world's foremost infectious diseases experts, and a former under-secretary general of the United Nations. He's been watching the world's largest-ever epidemic unfold from his post in London, and we spoke with him about his thoughts on the outbreak and how the global community can prevent future tragedies of this scale. This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.
Julia Belluz: You've been working on Ebola since you co-discovered the virus in 1976. For nearly 40 years, this disease has largely been ignored by the international community except for brief flashes of interest, mostly spurred by Hollywood. Now we are seeing unprecedented attention and political galvanization around Ebola. What changed?
Peter Piot: In the 38 years since 1976 until this current outbreak, there have been something like 1,500 people who died in total. So that's less than 50 deaths per year. Up to now, it was not a real public health problem. This year, nearly 3,000 have died. All 24 previous outbreaks were both time and place limited to very confined communities. Even in the worst case, Ebola would kill 300 people. Here it has involved entire countries, and it has been going on for over nine months now.
JB: But the death toll was rising rapidly for months before the international community responded. What do you think finally sparked collective action?
PP: It was the Americans getting Ebola, I'm afraid. Beyond that, I don't know what changed it, really. Early in the second or third week of July, I gave an interview with CNN and I said this crisis requires a state of emergency and a quasi-military operation. After the interview, I thought maybe I exaggerated. But I felt that it was really getting out of hand and it looked like a completely different type of Ebola outbreak than we'd seen before. Then it took another month, so I really don't know.
"IT TOOK 1,000 DEATHS BEFORE A PUBLIC HEALTH EMERGENCY WAS DECLARED, AND CYNICALLY IT TOOK TWO AMERICAN DOCTORS TO BECOME INFECTED."
JB: Before this year, could you have imagined an Ebola outbreak of this size?
PP: I never thought it would get this big. I always thought it was an accident of history where someone becomes infected — from a bat probably — and then an outbreak is contained. Ebola came and went. I really never thought this could happen. But it shows again: when the right, or bad conditions are all combined with each other, then these things will happen again.
JB: We've seen a surge in the number of deaths now for weeks with no sign that the virus is slowing down. Why do you think this outbreak spun so far out of control?
PP: I think this is a result of a perfect storm of a lack of trust in authorities, in western medicine, dysfunctional health services, a belief in witchcraft as cause of disease and not viruses, traditional funeral rites, and a very slow response both nationally and internationally. The longer we wait, the longer there is an insufficient response, the worse it will get, the more difficult it will be to control this epidemic through quarantine and isolation and all the methods that worked in the past.
JB: Most of what you point out here has to do with things that we had no control over — an accident of geography, local beliefs. Can you point to a place where the ball was dropped in this Ebola response, something that should have been done to minimize the suffering in West Africa?
PP: It took more than three months to diagnosis the epidemic. The first case was in December and then they only diagnosed that it was Ebola in March. But then it took far too long before the international community did anything. That goes from the WHO, to the US, and UK governments. It took 1,000 deaths before a public health emergency was declared by the WHO, and cynically it took two American doctors to become infected. I think that's where particularly the local office of the WHO was inadequate, that's for sure. But it's not just WHO. It's the member states of the WHO, the ones who decide about the budget at the WHO.
JB: What do you think will be the lessons learned from this epidemic?
PP: This outbreak has highlighted the fact that we need to make sure we are far better equipped for epidemics in general. There will be others. But the good news is also that experimental therapies and vaccines for Ebola are now being tested for their efficacy so I think that's positive. For the next outbreak, we should have stockpiles of vaccines and therapies.
I also think this outbreak is changing the paradigm that there will be more investment, and accelerated development of drugs for rare diseases. Another impact is that there will be a financially protected team that can deal with outbreaks at the WHO and that there will be massive support to strengthen the health systems and services in these countries.
JB: Strengthening health systems seems to be the thing we need most to make sure all nations can identify and respond to outbreaks like this, but that's also the hardest thing to fix.
PP: I don't think you can fix it. Each country is different. There is an illusion that there is one fix for the three neighboring countries [battling Ebola — e.g. Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea]. But they all have different problems. It's important to have a commitment to the long-term view — so when we're talking about global health programs and international development, that there is the long-term view that includes building health systems. That's not a matter of two or five years, that's ten years you need as a horizon.
JB: Those long-term timelines don't exactly square with political agendas, which are short term. What happens when the political will and interest falls away?
PP: We've been there before. After war, we say 'never again.' After Katrina, we say 'we'll do this and that,' and then it gets out of the public eye. I don't know how to do it. I hope that the Ebola epidemic is a wake up call for that if we don't invest more in these health systems, that we are at risk for a repetition of the current Ebola crisis.
JB: What is the biggest public-health threat on the horizon?
PP: The biggest threat remains a flu pandemic. There I think we're better prepared with early alerts and the good news is that China is quite open now. The first cases of flu often come from China. In more recent years — still fortunately small outbreaks — there was open and prompt reporting [to the international community about flu cases]. I think there we have made real progress. But I think it'll come back to the fact that there has to be some central leadership.
CARD 1 OF 13 LAUNCH CARDS
What is the Ebola virus?
Most people's views of Ebola are probably informed by Hollywood — they think of it as a deadly and contagious virus that swirls around the world, striking everyone in its path and causing them to hemorrhage from their eyeballs, ears and mouth until there is no more blood to spill.
In reality, Ebola is something quite different. About half of the people who contract Ebola die. The others return to a normal life after a months-long recovery that can include periods of hair loss, sensory changes, weakness, fatigue, headaches, eye and liver inflammation.
About the blood: while Ebola can cause people to hemorrhage, about half of Ebola sufferers ever experience that Biblical bleeding that's become synonymous with the virus.
More often than not, Ebola strikes like the worst and most humiliating flu you could imagine. People get the sweats, along with body aches and pains. Then they start vomiting and having uncontrollable diarrhea. These symptoms can appear anywhere between two and 21 days after exposure to the virus. Sometimes, they go into shock. Sometimes, they bleed. Again, about half of those infected with the virus die, and this usually happens fairly quickly — within a few days or a couple of weeks of getting sick.
Nor is Ebola as contagious as Hollywood would have you believe. You need to have contact with the bodily fluids — vomit or sweat or blood — of someone who is symptomatic and shedding the virus to get the disease. That's why health-care workers and family caretakers who nurse the sick have borne the burden of Ebola.
The virus isn't airborne, thankfully. Experts expect that it will never become airborne. As Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told the Senate recently: "Very, very rarely does [a virus] completely change the way it's transmitted."
What makes Ebola scary is the fact that there is no cure or treatment yet on the market, but those who have access to hospital care — including fluids and antivirals — have a much higher chance of beating the disease. The trouble is, until now, Ebola always strikes in Africa — and among populations where few have access to that kind of advanced medical care.
Cyclonemom
Veteran Member
Leaving Ebola fighters behind to die
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...4/09/28/leaving-african-heroes-behind-to-die/
By Karen Attiah September 28
Dr. Margaret Chan, right, director general of the World Health Organization, and Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, chairperson of the African Union, at the United Nations meeting on Ebola on Thursday.
I had a chance to attend Thursday’s high level emergency meeting at the United Nations on the Ebola outbreak. For two hours, world leader after world leader pledged solidarity with the countries of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, the three West African countries hardest hit by the Ebola virus. From Japan to France, Cuba to the United Kingdom, many speakers used the opportunity to announce their government’s intentions to ramp up their donations to the disease-stricken countries and to urge their fellow world leaders to do the same.
The United Nations established the U.N. Mission for Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER), based in Accra, Ghana, to spearhead the efforts to manage the outbreak, which has to date claimed more than 3,000 lives across West Africa.
Almost every world leader noted the bravery of first responders to the Ebola crisis, calling them ‘heroes’. Despite all of the rhetoric seemingly laced with care and concern for the the victims, the fact remains that no African doctors or health workers have been evacuated as of yet to Western facilities for treatment. No Western leaders announced specific frameworks to evacuate African doctors or other health personnel who contract Ebola, which, at this stage of the outbreak, is indefensible.
Very recently, Dr. Olivet Buck, a Sierra Leonean doctor, died after the World Health Organization denied a request that she be transported to Germany for treatment. In July, Dr. Sheik Humaar Khan, an eminent physician that headed up Sierra Leone’s Ebola response, died after negotiations for his evacuation. On Sunday, health officials reported that Liberia’s chief medical officer, Dr. Bernice T. Dahn, has been placed under a quarantine after her assistant died from Ebola on Thursday. Sierra Leone officials have criticized the WHO for its sluggishness on decisions to evacuate their country’s infected doctors.
President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf said during the meeting on Thursday that the Ebola virus in Liberia had killed over 1,700, including “85 trained to save lives.” She added that the projected losses from the virus threatens to “reverse our gains in malaria control and child and maternal mortality.”
“Partners and friends,” Sirleaf said, “based on understandable fears, have ostracized us; shipping and airline services have sanctioned us; and the world has taken some time to fully appreciate and adequately respond to the enormity of our tragedy.” If the grim projections for Ebola fatalities come to pass, West Africa’s hard fought economic and development gains of the past decade are at serious risk. The world cannot allow this to happen.
The European Commission President José Manuel Barroso announced during the high level meeting that the European Union would set up a hub to facilitate air transport for medical evacuation of health workers from Ebola-affected countries. It is not immediately clear whether this plan is for foreign workers or African workers. The U.S. Agency for International Development came under fire briefly after it was reported that the field hospital it was setting up in Monrovia was intended to treat only foreign workers. The agency now says that the facility will treat health workers of all nationalities.
Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone simply cannot afford to lose a single doctor. According to World Bank data, Guinea had just one health-care worker per 10,000 people in 2010, with Liberia and Guinea employing even fewer health-care workers than that. (To put these numbers in perspective, the United States has 122 health-care workers per 10,000 and the United Kingdom has almost 130.) After 2003 in Liberia, after the country signed a peace accord to end its disastrous civil war, only 30 physicians remained to care for 3 million people. Many sub-Saharan African doctors and health-care workers who stay in their countries to help their compatriots face supply shortages, low pay and a lack of government spending on health-care outcomes even in situations that are not following a conflict.
None of this is to say that doctors or nurses deserve to live or die more than anyone else who falls victim to the virus. But these African nations were already operating under severe shortages of health-care workers. With the influx of attention, pledges of hundreds of millions of dollars of support and resources, one hopes that the new efforts by the U.N. and its partners will help prevent Ebola from claiming more lives of African doctors and researchers.
To accomplish this, travel and air service bans must be lifted. Bureaucracy must be replaced with compassionate decisiveness. Health workers must be provided with adequate protective gear. We cannot allow “medical apartheid” to characterize the international treatment of the African medical personnel and health workers from Europe or the United States. After all, the African doctors will be the ones to be on the front lines to help their countries against malaria, child mortality, malnutrition and other diseases that threaten African nations but not foreign workers.
The African doctors fighting Ebola are heroes, just as much as any foreign volunteers. We cannot leave them behind to die.
Cyclonemom
Veteran Member
U.S. Hospitals Face Risks in Ebola Virus Waste Disposal
http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2014/09/29/341846.htm
U.S. hospitals may be unprepared to safely dispose of the infectious waste generated by any Ebola virus disease patient to arrive unannounced in the country, potentially putting the wider community at risk, biosafety experts said.
Waste management companies are refusing to haul away the soiled sheets and virus-spattered protective gear associated with treating the disease, citing federal guidelines that require Ebola-related waste to be handled in special packaging by people with hazardous materials training, infectious disease and biosafety experts told Reuters.
Many U.S. hospitals are unaware of the regulatory snafu, which experts say could threaten their ability to treat any person who develops Ebola in the U.S. after coming from an infected region. It can take as long as 21 days to develop Ebola symptoms after exposure.
The issue created problems for Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, the first institution to care for Ebola patients here. As Emory was treating two U.S. missionaries who were evacuated from West Africa in August, their waste hauler, Stericycle , initially refused to handle it. Stericycle declined comment.
Ebola symptoms can include copious amounts of vomiting and diarrhea, and nurses and doctors at Emory donned full hazmat suits to protect themselves. Bags of waste quickly began to pile up.
“At its peak, we were up to 40 bags a day of medical waste, which took a huge tax on our waste management system,” Emory’s Dr. Aneesh Mehta told colleagues at a medical meeting earlier this month.
Emory sent staff to Home Depot to buy as many 32-gallon rubber waste containers with lids that they could get their hands on. Emory kept the waste in a special containment area for six days until its Atlanta neighbor, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, helped broker an agreement with Stericycle.
While U.S. hospitals may be prepared clinically to care for a patient with Ebola, Emory’s experience shows that logistically they are far from ready, biosafety experts said.
“Our waste management obstacles and the logistics we had to put in place were amazing,” Patricia Olinger, director of environmental health and safety at Emory, said in an interview.
NOT IF, BUT WHEN
The worst Ebola outbreak on record is now projected to infect as many as 20,000 people in West Africa by November, while U.S. officials have said that number could rise above 550,000 by mid-January without an international intervention to contain its spread. Experts say it is only a matter of time before at least some infected patients are diagnosed in U.S. hospitals, most likely walking into the emergency department seeking treatment.
Already there have been several scares. As of Sept. 8, as many as 10 patients have been tested by U.S. hospitals for suspected Ebola cases, Dr. Barbara Knust, team leader for the CDC’s Ebola response, said at a medical meeting this month. All tested negative.
The CDC has issued detailed guidelines on how hospitals can care for such patients, but their recommendations for handling Ebola waste differs from the U.S. Department of Transportation, which regulates the transportation of infectious waste.
CDC advises hospitals to place Ebola-infected items in leak-proof containers and discard them as they would other biohazards that fall into the category of “regulated medical waste.” According to DOT guidelines, items in this category can’t be in a form that can cause human harm. The DOT classifies Ebola as a Category A agent, or one that is potentially life-threatening.
DOT regulations say transporting Category A items requires special packaging and hazmat training.
CDC spokesman Tom Skinner said the agency isn’t aware of any packaging that is approved for handling Ebola waste.
As a result, conventional waste management contractors believe they can’t legally haul Ebola waste, said Thomas Metzger, communication director for the National Waste & Recycling Association trade group.
A TEMPORARY FIX
Part of Emory’s solution was to bring in one of the university’s large-capacity sterilizers called an autoclave, which uses pressurized steam to neutralize infectious agents, before handing the waste off to its disposal contractor for incineration.
Few hospitals have the ability to autoclave medical waste from Ebola patients on site.
“For this reason, it would be very difficult for a hospital to agree to care for Ebola cases – this desperately needs a fix,” said Dr Jeffrey Duchin, chair of the Infectious Diseases Society of America’s Public Health Committee.
Dr. Gavin Macgregor-Skinner, an expert on public health preparedness at Pennsylvania State University, said there’s “no way in the world” that U.S. hospitals are ready to treat patients with highly infectious diseases like Ebola.
“Where they come undone every time is the management of their liquid and solid waste,” said Macgregor-Skinner, who recently trained healthcare workers in Nigeria on behalf of the Elizabeth R. Griffin Research Foundation.
Skinner said the CDC is working with DOT to resolve the issue. He said the CDC views its disposal guidelines as appropriate, and that they have been proven to prevent infection in the handling of waste from HIV, hepatitis, and tuberculosis patients.
Joe Delcambre, a spokesman for DOT’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, could not say whether requiring hospitals to first sterilize Ebola waste would resolve the issue for waste haulers. He did confirm that DOT is meeting with CDC.
Metzger said his members are also meeting with officials from the DOT, the CDC and the Environmental Protection Agency to sort out the issue.
Until the matter is resolved, however, “We’re bound by those regulations,” he said.
(Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen; Editing by Michele Gershberg and John Pickering)
Cyclonemom
Veteran Member
UN mission to coordinate Ebola response opens headquarters in Ghana
http://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2014/09/29/un-mission-to-combat-ebola-opens-hq-in-ghana
By SARAH DiLORENZO, Associated Press
DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — The U.N. mission to combat Ebola opened its headquarters on Monday in Ghana, where it will coordinate international aid to assist West Africa to combat the accelerating crisis.
This outbreak has spiraled into the worst ever for Ebola, and the World Health Organization says it is has linked more than 3,000 deaths to the disease. Even that frightening figure is likely an underestimate of the true toll, said WHO. Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea have been hit hardest. Senegal and Nigeria have also been touched, but have not reported a new case in weeks.
In back-to-back speeches at the United Nations on Monday, the foreign ministers of Liberia and Sierra Leone described the terrible toll Ebola has taken on their efforts to lift their people from poverty and recover from civil wars and pleaded with the international community to continue to sending much-needed aid.
"Only when the number of available beds surpasses the number of cases can we say Ebola is under control," Sierra Leone's Foreign Minister Samura Kamara told the General Assembly. "This is a fight for all of us; we must prove that humanity will be equal to this new challenge to our collective existence."
In the face of such desperate calls, many promises of aid have poured in recently, and some of it has begun to arrive. France promised on Monday to set up another field hospital in Guinea and to send 25 more doctors.
But some say the response is still too slow and haphazard.
The United Nations Mission for Ebola Emergency Response, also known as UNMEER, is now tasked with figuring out where the greatest needs are and making sure aid gets there, said Christy Feig, director of communications for WHO, which will play a significant role in the mission.
The head of the mission, Anthony Banbury, and his team arrived Monday in Ghana's capital of Accra.
The needs of the outbreak have continually outstripped projections: WHO says around 1,500 treatment beds have been built or are in the works, but that still leaves a gap of more than 2,100 beds. Between 1,000 and 2,000 international health care workers are needed, and they and local doctors and nurses will require millions of disposable protective suits to stay safe. Thousands of home hygiene kits are also being flown in to help families protect themselves at home.
Despite massive promises of aid in recent weeks, many areas have grossly inadequate resources. For instance Nimba County, one of the places Ebola has hit hardest in Liberia outside the capital, has only one ambulance, and it is often broken down, the county's medical officer, Collins Bowah, said Monday.
And there remain misunderstandings about the disease that have hindered efforts to slow the disease's spread. On Monday, Sierra Leone's Ebola response task force said it learned "with dismay" of reports of people in some regions — including ones put under quarantine recently — rejoicing that Ebola was over. It warned in a statement that the outbreak is continuing and all measures to contain Ebola, like avoiding public gatherings and frequent hand-washing, should be followed.
___
Associated Press journalists Chris Den Hond in Paris, Alexandra Olson at the United Nations, Jonathan Paye-Layleh in Monrovia, Liberia, and Clarence Roy-Macaulay in Freetown, Sierra Leone, contributed to this report.
readynwaiting
Contributing Member
http://www.nbcdfw.com/news/health/North-Texas-Patient-Tested-for-Possible-Ebola-277529961.html
North Texas Patient Tested for Possible Ebola
A patient in a Dallas hospital is showing signs of the Ebola virus and is being kept in strict isolation with test results pending, hospital officials said Monday.
In a statement released Monday evening, a spokesperson for Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital said the patient is undergoing evaluation for Ebola based on the patient's symptoms and recent travel history.
North Texas Patient Tested for Possible Ebola
A patient in a Dallas hospital is showing signs of the Ebola virus and is being kept in strict isolation with test results pending, hospital officials said Monday.
In a statement released Monday evening, a spokesperson for Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital said the patient is undergoing evaluation for Ebola based on the patient's symptoms and recent travel history.
Suzieq
Veteran Member
*Dallas hospital isolating patient showing signs of Ebola Virus
Posted: Sep 29, 2014 9:43 PM CDT Updated: Sep 29, 2014 10:07 PM CDT
DALLAS, TX - (AP)
A Dallas hospital says it is isolating a patient who is showing signs of having the Ebola virus.
Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas said in a statement Monday night that the patient's symptoms and travel history suggest the patient may have Ebola, the virus that has killed more than 3,000 people across West Africa.
The hospital expects to receive preliminary test results Tuesday from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Presbyterian Hospital says it's taking measures to keep its doctors, staff and patients safe.
*(Fair Use)
Link: http://www.wmcactionnews5.com/story...isolatingpatient-showing-signs-of-ebola-virus
Posted: Sep 29, 2014 9:43 PM CDT Updated: Sep 29, 2014 10:07 PM CDT
DALLAS, TX - (AP)
A Dallas hospital says it is isolating a patient who is showing signs of having the Ebola virus.
Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas said in a statement Monday night that the patient's symptoms and travel history suggest the patient may have Ebola, the virus that has killed more than 3,000 people across West Africa.
The hospital expects to receive preliminary test results Tuesday from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Presbyterian Hospital says it's taking measures to keep its doctors, staff and patients safe.
*(Fair Use)
Link: http://www.wmcactionnews5.com/story...isolatingpatient-showing-signs-of-ebola-virus
Gonna be a LONG wait. Welcome to Camp Fooked...
Summerthyme
Man do I see a potential FUBAR with this....
For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/09/29/us-health-ebola-liberia-idUSKCN0HO28420140929
U.S. military to quickly ramp up Ebola mission in Liberia
By James Giahyue
MONROVIA Mon Sep 29, 2014 6:40pm EDT
2 Comments
(Reuters) - The United States plans to quickly increase its presence in Liberia, where military personnel are deploying to help the West African nation halt the advance of the worst Ebola epidemic on record, the general in charge of the mission said on Monday.
Washington is sending some 3,000 soldiers to the region to build treatment centers and train local medics. Around half will be based in Liberia, with the rest providing logistical support outside the country.
"This is about urgency and speed. So what you're going to see here pretty soon is forces flown here," Major General Darryl Williams told journalists in the capital, Monrovia.
"I have 175 soldiers and I have another 30 that are in other countries that are beginning to set up the logistics hub to fly forces in here," he said.
Williams said the U.S. mission was planning to build and supply 17 Ebola treatment units across the country but added that Liberian authorities would still be leading the effort.
"The (Armed Forces of Liberia) has a great capability. They are already out there ... and helping us, because they have this knowledge of the local area. So we are not doing anything by ourselves," he said.
At least 3,091 people have died from Ebola since the West African outbreak was first identified in Guinea six months ago.
Liberia has recorded 1,830 deaths, around three times as many as Guinea or Sierra Leone, the two other heavily affected countries.
The epidemic has overwhelmed regional health sectors still struggling to rebuild after years of civil war and turmoil. The disease has infected 375 healthcare workers across the region, killing 211 of them.
Bernice Dahn, Liberia's chief medical officer and deputy health minister, put herself in quarantine over the weekend as a precaution against Ebola after one of her assistants died from the disease.
"As destructive as the Liberian Civil War was, at least our people knew the warring factions and the frontlines," Liberia's Foreign Affairs Minister Augustine Kpehe Ngafuan told the U.N. General Assembly on Monday.
"With Ebola, the enemy is more insidious and there are no clear-cut frontlines because someone's child, someone's husband, someone's workmate could actually be the enemy and the frontline at the same time," he said.
The U.S. embassy in Morovia said on Monday that work to build a 25-bed unit to treat infected health workers, international and Liberian, had begun in Margibi Country in central Liberia. Construction is due to be completed in a few weeks.
"It is intended to provide a high standard of care, so that when they put themselves at risk they have someplace they can go to be treated," said Deborah Malac, U.S. ambassador to Liberia. "We will be sending approximately 65 medical personnel to staff that hospital."
After a slow initial response, foreign governments and international organizations are now pouring funds, supplies and personnel into West Africa.
U.S. President Barack Obama on Thursday called on more nations to help fight the outbreak, saying hundreds of thousands of lives were at stake.
Britain, France, China and Cuba have all pledged military and civilian personnel alongside cash and medical supplies.
(Writing by Joe Bavier; Additional reporting by Michelle Nichols at the United Nations; Editing by Steve Orlofsky, Bernard Orr)
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World must do more to battle Ebola in West Africa: Obama
Analysis & Opinion
Ebola’s spread brings host of other diseases in its wake
The worlds No. 3 arms exporter? Germany!
For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/09/29/us-health-ebola-liberia-idUSKCN0HO28420140929
U.S. military to quickly ramp up Ebola mission in Liberia
By James Giahyue
MONROVIA Mon Sep 29, 2014 6:40pm EDT
2 Comments
(Reuters) - The United States plans to quickly increase its presence in Liberia, where military personnel are deploying to help the West African nation halt the advance of the worst Ebola epidemic on record, the general in charge of the mission said on Monday.
Washington is sending some 3,000 soldiers to the region to build treatment centers and train local medics. Around half will be based in Liberia, with the rest providing logistical support outside the country.
"This is about urgency and speed. So what you're going to see here pretty soon is forces flown here," Major General Darryl Williams told journalists in the capital, Monrovia.
"I have 175 soldiers and I have another 30 that are in other countries that are beginning to set up the logistics hub to fly forces in here," he said.
Williams said the U.S. mission was planning to build and supply 17 Ebola treatment units across the country but added that Liberian authorities would still be leading the effort.
"The (Armed Forces of Liberia) has a great capability. They are already out there ... and helping us, because they have this knowledge of the local area. So we are not doing anything by ourselves," he said.
At least 3,091 people have died from Ebola since the West African outbreak was first identified in Guinea six months ago.
Liberia has recorded 1,830 deaths, around three times as many as Guinea or Sierra Leone, the two other heavily affected countries.
The epidemic has overwhelmed regional health sectors still struggling to rebuild after years of civil war and turmoil. The disease has infected 375 healthcare workers across the region, killing 211 of them.
Bernice Dahn, Liberia's chief medical officer and deputy health minister, put herself in quarantine over the weekend as a precaution against Ebola after one of her assistants died from the disease.
"As destructive as the Liberian Civil War was, at least our people knew the warring factions and the frontlines," Liberia's Foreign Affairs Minister Augustine Kpehe Ngafuan told the U.N. General Assembly on Monday.
"With Ebola, the enemy is more insidious and there are no clear-cut frontlines because someone's child, someone's husband, someone's workmate could actually be the enemy and the frontline at the same time," he said.
The U.S. embassy in Morovia said on Monday that work to build a 25-bed unit to treat infected health workers, international and Liberian, had begun in Margibi Country in central Liberia. Construction is due to be completed in a few weeks.
"It is intended to provide a high standard of care, so that when they put themselves at risk they have someplace they can go to be treated," said Deborah Malac, U.S. ambassador to Liberia. "We will be sending approximately 65 medical personnel to staff that hospital."
After a slow initial response, foreign governments and international organizations are now pouring funds, supplies and personnel into West Africa.
U.S. President Barack Obama on Thursday called on more nations to help fight the outbreak, saying hundreds of thousands of lives were at stake.
Britain, France, China and Cuba have all pledged military and civilian personnel alongside cash and medical supplies.
(Writing by Joe Bavier; Additional reporting by Michelle Nichols at the United Nations; Editing by Steve Orlofsky, Bernard Orr)
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