bw
Fringe Ranger
Out of four siblings, one neutral response and three dead silence.
Of the others on the mailing - one definite interest.
HEALTH MAIN EBOLA DISCUSSION THREAD - WEEK OF 8/1/14 - 8/15/14
- Thread starter Dennis Olson
- Start date
- Status
Out of four siblings, one neutral response and three dead silence.
Of the others on the mailing - one definite interest.
RememberGoliad
Veteran Member
And if that is true, are they contagious throughout? And are they being kept isolated during this "recovery" period?
What gets me is, there's so much that even we lowly laymen can think to ask, and those who consider themselves authorities on the disease are giving categorical and definitive answers. And to top it off, I just can't be calmed by a categorical answer that contains the word "should"
bw
Fringe Ranger
TB2k is here everywhere. You'll get your best warning here.
Medical Maven
Deceased
Posted at the PFI Forum this morning.
Ebola nurse flees Lagos for Enugu
on August 14, 2014 / in Headlines 12:09 am
http://www.vanguardngr.com/2014/08/ebola-nurse-flees-lagos-enugu/
[snip]
While warning that government would prosecute anybody found spreading false rumours or unverified reports over the Ebola epidemic, Maku said government was expanding presence of health officers to strategic entry points in the country.
[snip]
Escapee nurse, husband arrested, returned to Lagos
There was anxiety among residents of Enugu, yesterday following reports that 21 persons have been quarantined in the city for having direct contact with a suspected Ebola patient who escaped from Lagos.
Officials of Enugu State Government claimed ignorance of the development but there were fears that the government might be keeping the information secret to prevent panic among residents.
The telephone line of the state Commissioner for Health, Dr. George Eze, remained switched off yesterday while another commissioner who was contacted said he was not aware of anybody being quarantined in Enugu.
But a medical consultant with the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital, UNTH, Enugu, told Vanguard that some officials of the National Centre for Disease Control, NCDC, in Lagos were in Enugu last week to pick the suspected female Ebola victim who escaped from a quarantine centre in Lagos.
The woman and her husband were picked up from their residence at Trans-Ekulu and were immediately taken to Lagos where they have been kept under surveillance.
The consultant said about 21 people believed to have had direct contact were being quarantined for close monitoring by officials of the state Ministry of Health, but he was not aware of the hospital.
MY COMMENT:"DIRECT CONTACT". How did this symptomatic infected New Ebola patient travel to Enugu? Plane? Taxi? Private car? Bus? Train? It has still not been divulged by the authorities or in news reports.
FG deploys mobile lab in Enugu, others
The Federal Government is to deploy a mobile laboratory to Enugu as well as establish laboratories with capacities to diagnose Ebola Virus disease in Jos and Kano State within the next few days.
Addressing State House correspondents after a meeting between President Jonathan, governors of the 36 states of the federation and their health commissioners, Minister of Health, Professor Onyebuchi Chukwu said the measures were meant to increase the capacity for early detection of possible infection and early action.
According to the minister, laboratories that can test for Ebola Virus Disease in the country include the Centre for Disease Control laboratories in the Lagos University Teaching Hospital and Abuja, and Redeemer’s University laboratory in Ogun State.
[snip]
Sawyer, a terrorist — Presidency
Meanwhile, the Presidency has tagged Sawyer a terrorist for importing the virus into Nigeria.
[snip]
“Mr President has taken the initiative to close down primary schools. This shows that our President means well for Nigerians. The Lagos State Government has also done a good job. As Nigerians, we need to assist government in assisting these people.”
[snip]
Why Patrick Sawyer travelled to Nigeria – Wife
Meanwhile, widow of late Patrick Sawyer, Decontee, has said her deceased husband travelled to Nigeria in a desperate search for possible cure. Disclosing this in an article published in the TMZ Liberia magazine, she explained that Sawyer had no trust in the healthcare system in Liberia and had possibly headed to Nigeria with the hope of receiving better treatment for his ailment. Her thoughts shared on her Facebook profile from which TMZ Liberia sourced it for publication, is reproduced below:
“I’ve read other reports in other papers (not the New York Times) about Patrick’s “recklessness.” I get where they’re coming from, and they certainly have the right to feel the way they do. However, as Patrick’s widow, I would like to shed some light on this from another perspective. One that only I, his wife, would know. I knew Patrick better than anybody else (including himself). He had told me many times in the past how much he didn’t trust the Liberian healthcare system. He would tell me about how a person would get checked in for one thing, and get misdiagnosed and get the wrong treatment as a result. On top of that, Patrick was a clean freak, and told me how filthy a lot of the hospitals were.
“He didn’t tell me this, but I know in my heart of hearts that Patrick was determined to get to Nigeria by all means because he felt that Nigeria would be a place of refuge. He has expressed to me many times in the past that he felt passionately about helping to be a part of strengthening Liberia’s healthcare system, but he knew it wasn’t there yet, and he wouldn’t want to take a chance with his life because a lot of people depended on him… Patrick had a passion for life, and he wouldn’t have wanted his to end. So, I bet anything that he was thinking, if I could only get to Nigeria, more developed country than Liberia, I would be able to get some help. How ironic.”
Scare at Lagos hospital over suspected patients
In a related development, activities at the Orile-Agege General Hospital, Agege Local Government, Lagos were disrupted for hours, yesterday, when a patient suspected to have contracted the Ebola Virus Disease was taken to the hospital. Health officials in the hospital absconded as the patient, who was brought into the hospital in the early hours of the day, was seen bleeding from some parts of his body. Our correspondent gathered that patients in the hospital scampered for safety leaving the hospital deserted.
Sources said that the reason for their action was to avoid contacting the deadly virus. A health official, who craved anonymity, said that such a case was reported at the hospital on Tuesday, in a case suspected to be Ebola. Vanguard learnt that authorities of the Orile-Agege General Hospital called the Ifako-Ijaiye General Hospital that they have a patient to refer to it as they did not have the wherewithal to handle the case. It was learnt that the Ifako-Ijaiye General Hospital declined and called the State Ministry of Health which ordered that nobody should touch the patient as government was coming to pick him up.
Officials of the Lagos State Government, our correspondent learnt, picked up the patient and the man who brought him to the hospital and took them away to be tested if the case was actually an Ebola one. Efforts to get the state Commissioner for Health, Dr. Jide Idris, to confirm the story proved abortive as he was said to have gone to Abuja with the state governor, Babatunde Fashola, to meet with President Goodluck Jonathan.
_________________
MY COMMENT:
It still has not been revealed how the infected, symptomatic nurse and her husband traveled to Enugu. That makes a big difference, and that is probably why it has not been divulged.
And as to Sawyer's wife. Well, Love is clearly Blind in this case. He may have been a good man in general, but one of the tragedies, (or conversely triumphs), of life is that your life can be defined by your last acts, especially if they be of such consequence that it involves society at large and has a lasting impact for good or ill.
Solon, the great Athenian lawmaker, said, "Count no man happy until he be dead".
______
Ebola nurse flees Lagos for Enugu
on August 14, 2014 / in Headlines 12:09 am
http://www.vanguardngr.com/2014/08/ebola-nurse-flees-lagos-enugu/
[snip]
While warning that government would prosecute anybody found spreading false rumours or unverified reports over the Ebola epidemic, Maku said government was expanding presence of health officers to strategic entry points in the country.
[snip]
Escapee nurse, husband arrested, returned to Lagos
There was anxiety among residents of Enugu, yesterday following reports that 21 persons have been quarantined in the city for having direct contact with a suspected Ebola patient who escaped from Lagos.
Officials of Enugu State Government claimed ignorance of the development but there were fears that the government might be keeping the information secret to prevent panic among residents.
The telephone line of the state Commissioner for Health, Dr. George Eze, remained switched off yesterday while another commissioner who was contacted said he was not aware of anybody being quarantined in Enugu.
But a medical consultant with the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital, UNTH, Enugu, told Vanguard that some officials of the National Centre for Disease Control, NCDC, in Lagos were in Enugu last week to pick the suspected female Ebola victim who escaped from a quarantine centre in Lagos.
The woman and her husband were picked up from their residence at Trans-Ekulu and were immediately taken to Lagos where they have been kept under surveillance.
The consultant said about 21 people believed to have had direct contact were being quarantined for close monitoring by officials of the state Ministry of Health, but he was not aware of the hospital.
MY COMMENT:"DIRECT CONTACT". How did this symptomatic infected New Ebola patient travel to Enugu? Plane? Taxi? Private car? Bus? Train? It has still not been divulged by the authorities or in news reports.
FG deploys mobile lab in Enugu, others
The Federal Government is to deploy a mobile laboratory to Enugu as well as establish laboratories with capacities to diagnose Ebola Virus disease in Jos and Kano State within the next few days.
Addressing State House correspondents after a meeting between President Jonathan, governors of the 36 states of the federation and their health commissioners, Minister of Health, Professor Onyebuchi Chukwu said the measures were meant to increase the capacity for early detection of possible infection and early action.
According to the minister, laboratories that can test for Ebola Virus Disease in the country include the Centre for Disease Control laboratories in the Lagos University Teaching Hospital and Abuja, and Redeemer’s University laboratory in Ogun State.
[snip]
Sawyer, a terrorist — Presidency
Meanwhile, the Presidency has tagged Sawyer a terrorist for importing the virus into Nigeria.
[snip]
“Mr President has taken the initiative to close down primary schools. This shows that our President means well for Nigerians. The Lagos State Government has also done a good job. As Nigerians, we need to assist government in assisting these people.”
[snip]
Why Patrick Sawyer travelled to Nigeria – Wife
Meanwhile, widow of late Patrick Sawyer, Decontee, has said her deceased husband travelled to Nigeria in a desperate search for possible cure. Disclosing this in an article published in the TMZ Liberia magazine, she explained that Sawyer had no trust in the healthcare system in Liberia and had possibly headed to Nigeria with the hope of receiving better treatment for his ailment. Her thoughts shared on her Facebook profile from which TMZ Liberia sourced it for publication, is reproduced below:
“I’ve read other reports in other papers (not the New York Times) about Patrick’s “recklessness.” I get where they’re coming from, and they certainly have the right to feel the way they do. However, as Patrick’s widow, I would like to shed some light on this from another perspective. One that only I, his wife, would know. I knew Patrick better than anybody else (including himself). He had told me many times in the past how much he didn’t trust the Liberian healthcare system. He would tell me about how a person would get checked in for one thing, and get misdiagnosed and get the wrong treatment as a result. On top of that, Patrick was a clean freak, and told me how filthy a lot of the hospitals were.
“He didn’t tell me this, but I know in my heart of hearts that Patrick was determined to get to Nigeria by all means because he felt that Nigeria would be a place of refuge. He has expressed to me many times in the past that he felt passionately about helping to be a part of strengthening Liberia’s healthcare system, but he knew it wasn’t there yet, and he wouldn’t want to take a chance with his life because a lot of people depended on him… Patrick had a passion for life, and he wouldn’t have wanted his to end. So, I bet anything that he was thinking, if I could only get to Nigeria, more developed country than Liberia, I would be able to get some help. How ironic.”
Scare at Lagos hospital over suspected patients
In a related development, activities at the Orile-Agege General Hospital, Agege Local Government, Lagos were disrupted for hours, yesterday, when a patient suspected to have contracted the Ebola Virus Disease was taken to the hospital. Health officials in the hospital absconded as the patient, who was brought into the hospital in the early hours of the day, was seen bleeding from some parts of his body. Our correspondent gathered that patients in the hospital scampered for safety leaving the hospital deserted.
Sources said that the reason for their action was to avoid contacting the deadly virus. A health official, who craved anonymity, said that such a case was reported at the hospital on Tuesday, in a case suspected to be Ebola. Vanguard learnt that authorities of the Orile-Agege General Hospital called the Ifako-Ijaiye General Hospital that they have a patient to refer to it as they did not have the wherewithal to handle the case. It was learnt that the Ifako-Ijaiye General Hospital declined and called the State Ministry of Health which ordered that nobody should touch the patient as government was coming to pick him up.
Officials of the Lagos State Government, our correspondent learnt, picked up the patient and the man who brought him to the hospital and took them away to be tested if the case was actually an Ebola one. Efforts to get the state Commissioner for Health, Dr. Jide Idris, to confirm the story proved abortive as he was said to have gone to Abuja with the state governor, Babatunde Fashola, to meet with President Goodluck Jonathan.
_________________
MY COMMENT:
It still has not been revealed how the infected, symptomatic nurse and her husband traveled to Enugu. That makes a big difference, and that is probably why it has not been divulged.
And as to Sawyer's wife. Well, Love is clearly Blind in this case. He may have been a good man in general, but one of the tragedies, (or conversely triumphs), of life is that your life can be defined by your last acts, especially if they be of such consequence that it involves society at large and has a lasting impact for good or ill.
Solon, the great Athenian lawmaker, said, "Count no man happy until he be dead".
______
We maintain the "official" reported number from WHO on a daily basis (WHO sometimes skips a day or two of reporting however) on the Ebola Tracking thread that is stickied to the top of this forum.
This is not new news. The same thing was said in last Friday's testimony before Congress when the Samaritan's Purse fellow stated that "the official count is only 25% to 50% of the actual count".
bassaholic
Veteran Member
Just talked to a missionary I know in South Africa. He says he has not heard of any cases there and in fact no one is really even talking about ebola.
I think doomers and profiteers are blowing this crap out of proportion. TPTB may even be doing this to use as an excuse to move forth with their agenda.
I think doomers and profiteers are blowing this crap out of proportion. TPTB may even be doing this to use as an excuse to move forth with their agenda.
With all due respect, if the profiteers were trying to zoom this to take advantage, the number of people I've run into since this started who didn't know anything about it, including a couple of EMTs, wouldn't be ignorant of it at all. The "true" doomers (not the narcissists that have been actively outing themselves for "reality TV") would be in "grey" mode in preparation for the balloon to go up.
Medical Maven
Deceased
All I can say is that you need to keep your mind open to the possibility. And pay attention to the pros who are NOT in the government's pay, who have always been very critical of the agencies. You dismiss and ignore this developing situation at your peril. But if you have decided to do nothing, regardless of what facts arise, then I can understand your stance. There are many in your camp.
Part of the problem is that many people are not steeped in the unforgiving nature of infectious diseases, that once certain capabilities have been shown to be evident for any given virus/bacteria, then one ineluctably comes to almost certain conclusions as to its capabilities and possibilities.
And to reject that calculus out of hand is to let your emotions and lack of rigor override logic and science.
Medical Maven
Deceased
Posted at the PFI Forum this morning. MY COMMENT: WHO is still playing it both ways by warning here that the area needs to be sealed off, while still discouraging the cancellation of airline flights. Also, the means of contracting the disease continues to be played down.
More than one million people affected by Ebola outbreak: WHO
http://www.tribuneindia.com/2014/20140814/latest-news.htm
UNITED NATIONS: With more than one million people affected by the current Ebola outbreak in West Africa, the WHO has warned that there is "no early end in sight" to the severe health crisis and called for "extraordinary measures" to stop the transmission of the disease.
According to the latest update issued by the World Health Organisation (WHO), 128 new cases of Ebola virus disease, as well as 56 deaths, were reported from Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone between August 10 and 11, bringing the total number of cases to 1,975 and deaths to 1,069.
WHO Director-General Margaret Chan said more than one million people are affected by the disease and these people need daily material support, including food.
The infected people are in the "hot zone of disease transmission" on the borders of the three countries most impacted by the disease.
"There is no early end (to the outbreak) in sight. This is an extraordinary outbreak that requires extraordinary measures for containment. This is a severe health crisis, and it can rapidly become a humanitarian crisis if we do not do more to stop transmission," Chan said during a briefing in Geneva yesterday.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon chaired a UN system-wide coordination on Ebola and stressed the need for the entire UN system to support the WHO's efforts in combatting the outbreak.
Chan said the outbreak has placed every city with an international airport at risk of an imported case.
"Decisions to seal off the hot zone of disease transmission, that is, the area where the borders of Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone intersect, are critical for stopping the reinfection of areas via the cross-border movement of people," she said.
Chan said that the isolation of the zone most affected by the outbreak has made it even more difficult for agencies, like MSF (Doctors without Borders), to bring in staff and supplies.
"The outbreak is unprecedented in its size, severity, and complexity. Cases are occurring in remote rural areas that are difficult to access, but also in capital cities," she said.
She also expressed concern over the "unprecedented" number of health-care workers who have been infected by the virus.
So far, nearly 170 health-care workers have been infected and more than 80 have died. The outbreak is also having serious economic consequences on the countries in the region, threatening to push these countries backwards as airlines are cancelling flights and companies are moving their staff out of the region.
"Six months into the outbreak, fear is proving to be the most difficult barrier to overcome... Fear, and the hostility it can provoke, have threatened the security of national and international response teams," Chan said.
Ban appointed David Nabarro as Senior United Nations System Coordinator for Ebola, in support of the work done by Chan and her team to counter the outbreak, which the agency has designated a "public health emergency of international concern." Nabarro would be responsible for ensuring that the UN system makes an effective and coordinated contribution to the global effort to control the outbreak.
Meanwhile, a 12-member ethics panel convened by WHO said it is ethical to treat Ebola patients with experimental drugs to counter the largest, most severe and most complex outbreak of the disease in history.
On the operational side, WHO said it is finalising its strategic operations response plan and expects to share it with countries and partners in the coming days.
The UN health agency said that standard measures, like early detection and isolation of cases, contact tracing and monitoring, and rigorous procedures for infection control, have stopped previous Ebola outbreaks including those in Uganda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, as well as Gabon.
The Ebola virus is highly contagious, but is not airborne.
Transmission requires close contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person, as can occur during health-care procedures, home care, or traditional burial practices, which involve the close contact of family members and friends with bodies.
__
More than one million people affected by Ebola outbreak: WHO
http://www.tribuneindia.com/2014/20140814/latest-news.htm
UNITED NATIONS: With more than one million people affected by the current Ebola outbreak in West Africa, the WHO has warned that there is "no early end in sight" to the severe health crisis and called for "extraordinary measures" to stop the transmission of the disease.
According to the latest update issued by the World Health Organisation (WHO), 128 new cases of Ebola virus disease, as well as 56 deaths, were reported from Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone between August 10 and 11, bringing the total number of cases to 1,975 and deaths to 1,069.
WHO Director-General Margaret Chan said more than one million people are affected by the disease and these people need daily material support, including food.
The infected people are in the "hot zone of disease transmission" on the borders of the three countries most impacted by the disease.
"There is no early end (to the outbreak) in sight. This is an extraordinary outbreak that requires extraordinary measures for containment. This is a severe health crisis, and it can rapidly become a humanitarian crisis if we do not do more to stop transmission," Chan said during a briefing in Geneva yesterday.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon chaired a UN system-wide coordination on Ebola and stressed the need for the entire UN system to support the WHO's efforts in combatting the outbreak.
Chan said the outbreak has placed every city with an international airport at risk of an imported case.
"Decisions to seal off the hot zone of disease transmission, that is, the area where the borders of Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone intersect, are critical for stopping the reinfection of areas via the cross-border movement of people," she said.
Chan said that the isolation of the zone most affected by the outbreak has made it even more difficult for agencies, like MSF (Doctors without Borders), to bring in staff and supplies.
"The outbreak is unprecedented in its size, severity, and complexity. Cases are occurring in remote rural areas that are difficult to access, but also in capital cities," she said.
She also expressed concern over the "unprecedented" number of health-care workers who have been infected by the virus.
So far, nearly 170 health-care workers have been infected and more than 80 have died. The outbreak is also having serious economic consequences on the countries in the region, threatening to push these countries backwards as airlines are cancelling flights and companies are moving their staff out of the region.
"Six months into the outbreak, fear is proving to be the most difficult barrier to overcome... Fear, and the hostility it can provoke, have threatened the security of national and international response teams," Chan said.
Ban appointed David Nabarro as Senior United Nations System Coordinator for Ebola, in support of the work done by Chan and her team to counter the outbreak, which the agency has designated a "public health emergency of international concern." Nabarro would be responsible for ensuring that the UN system makes an effective and coordinated contribution to the global effort to control the outbreak.
Meanwhile, a 12-member ethics panel convened by WHO said it is ethical to treat Ebola patients with experimental drugs to counter the largest, most severe and most complex outbreak of the disease in history.
On the operational side, WHO said it is finalising its strategic operations response plan and expects to share it with countries and partners in the coming days.
The UN health agency said that standard measures, like early detection and isolation of cases, contact tracing and monitoring, and rigorous procedures for infection control, have stopped previous Ebola outbreaks including those in Uganda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, as well as Gabon.
The Ebola virus is highly contagious, but is not airborne.
Transmission requires close contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person, as can occur during health-care procedures, home care, or traditional burial practices, which involve the close contact of family members and friends with bodies.
__
Medical Maven
Deceased
Posted at the PFI Forum this morning. MY COMMENT: Corporations don't generally willingly turn away business. My guess is that they received very heavy pressure from the S. Korean government to do so. And what conclusions have the health and intelligence agencies in S. Korea come to? I think we now know.
Korean Air suspends flights to Kenya over Ebola worries
http://af.reuters.com/article/topNews/idAFKBN0GE0KX20140814
Aug 14, 2014
Korean Air Lines Co Ltd said on Thursday it will suspend flights to and from Nairobi from Aug. 20 to prevent the spread of the deadly Ebola virus.
Korean Air said it had been operating three return flights from Incheon, South Korea, to the capital of Kenya a week.
The company said it would determine whether to resume the flights based on a change in conditions. It did not elaborate.
FURTHER COMMENT: Margaret Chan was probably not happy about this move. Or maybe she was, as China is next door? Maybe the Chinese are sharing information through the backdoor to the S. Korean intelligence agencies?
Korean Air suspends flights to Kenya over Ebola worries
http://af.reuters.com/article/topNews/idAFKBN0GE0KX20140814
Aug 14, 2014
Korean Air Lines Co Ltd said on Thursday it will suspend flights to and from Nairobi from Aug. 20 to prevent the spread of the deadly Ebola virus.
Korean Air said it had been operating three return flights from Incheon, South Korea, to the capital of Kenya a week.
The company said it would determine whether to resume the flights based on a change in conditions. It did not elaborate.
FURTHER COMMENT: Margaret Chan was probably not happy about this move. Or maybe she was, as China is next door? Maybe the Chinese are sharing information through the backdoor to the S. Korean intelligence agencies?
bw
Fringe Ranger
Well over six months in, and they're working on a response plan? You'd think they'd have these things in the can, ready to pull out.
naturallysweet
Has No Life - Lives on TB
And if that is true, are they contagious throughout? And are they being kept isolated during this "recovery" period?
What gets me is, there's so much that even we lowly laymen can think to ask, and those who consider themselves authorities on the disease are giving categorical and definitive answers. And to top it off, I just can't be calmed by a categorical answer that contains the word "should"
People continue to be contagious weeks after they recover. (actually up to two months)
Be Well
may all be well
Twitter link and a few recents ones from Ken Isaacs, here is his profile, he comments about other situations as well.
https://twitter.com/KenIsaacs1
Ken Isaacs @KenIsaacs1 · 12h
#EbolaOutbreak Nigeria 3 dead and 12 cases. Even w wrkrs from other grps n countries, containing this in a city of +20 mil hard.More needed
(Audio news with the above comment and some snips from Isaacs' testimony in Congress but I can't embed it here.)
Joseph Slife @JosephSlife · Aug 11
Today on @TWERadio — A sobering update on West Africa’s #Ebola outbreak http://worldrad.io/1lOY7Pj @KenIsaacs1
https://twitter.com/KenIsaacs1
Ken Isaacs @KenIsaacs1 · 12h
#EbolaOutbreak Nigeria 3 dead and 12 cases. Even w wrkrs from other grps n countries, containing this in a city of +20 mil hard.More needed
(Audio news with the above comment and some snips from Isaacs' testimony in Congress but I can't embed it here.)
Joseph Slife @JosephSlife · Aug 11
Today on @TWERadio — A sobering update on West Africa’s #Ebola outbreak http://worldrad.io/1lOY7Pj @KenIsaacs1
jed turtle
a brother in the Lord
don't mean to be alarmist? Holy Mother of God! this disease is about to take out at least 1/3 of the entire globe (perhaps by intention?) and we're worried about being alarmist?
maybe it's time to form the "Timebomb 2000 Association of Concerned Victims" and issue a "News statement" calling for shutting down the airlines, demanding quarantining of all who approach a hospital, all who have come into the country in the last 21 days (including those from the "southern border", and - oh yeah - the arrest and conviction of the Commander in Chief for failure to execute their Constitutional Duty to protect the country from invasion by "undocumented" illegal people and viruses.
gads, i may have to just go into isolation just to quarantine myself from the sheer magnitude of the ineptitude and criminal malfeasance in our leaders and the stupidity of our "fellow citizens".
Doomer Doug
TB Fanatic
Epidemics and pandemics have cycles, waves and phases to them. Nigeria is now showing CLASSIC DISEASE EPIDEMIC STATUS. Doomer Doug said a while back that "if" we got a local Nigerian epidemic, it "could" lead to a global pandemic based on global air travel. Nigeria is now clearly showing signs of an internal Ebola epidemic based on local travel patterns by exposed, infected and openly infectious people.
The question as to where these new people, running around Nigeria infecting still others, came from is clear. THE NUMBERS OF PEOPLE INFECTED BY MR. PATRICK SAWYER ON JULY 2OTH WAS MUCH MORE THAN THE FIFTEEN NIGERIAN AUTHORITIES "DEALT WITH." We now have a secondary Ebola infection cycle, based on the people originally exposed and infected, from July 20th to July 25th, by Mr. Sawyer at the Lagos airport and hospital. Those infected people then exposed still more to the virus, who then exposed the third wave. In fact, we may now very well be in the FOURTH EBOLA INFECTION CYCLE.
We KNOW Mr. Sawyer was "patient zero" for Nigeria. We know he infected others on July 20th, 2014. We KNOW the newly exposed and infected spread the Ebola virus still more. WE KNOW the disease is spreading widely in Lagos, Nigeria based on several credible reports of patients being turned away from hospitals. We KNOW at least TWO NURSES were infected with Ebola, infected other people, as well as either flying or driving by bus to the eastern city in the one case. DOOMER DOUG IS TELLING EVERYBODY THAT THIS ONE CASE OF THE INFECTED NURSE GOING TO THE EASTERN CITY, BY AIR OR BY BUS, NOW MEANS THE FOURTH INFECTION WAVE WILL BE BASED ON THE EASTERN NIGERIAN CITY. After that, the deluge to quote the French King.
As I write this on August 14, Year of Our Lord, 2014 several FACTS are now clear.
FACT ONE. Liberia is now a failed state heading towards social anarchy and collapse at all levels of Liberian society. Liberia is now a place where ROTTING, EBOLA INFECTED CORPSES, are scattered around the capital city being fed on by vermin. Rotting corpses are scattered in the rural areas, complete with abandoned villages, hysterical survivors and total chaos. Behold, this is the future for West Africa as Ebola continues to spread.
FACT TWO. Nigeria is entering the early phases of an Ebola epidemic based in Lagos, and now the eastern city. The social anarchy is also in the early phases, but the chaos in the hospitals shows it is perking right along. Nigeria will see a faster collapse in its health care system as the medical people have had almost a month to watch Liberian medical people die off in droves. The Nigerian collapse will be faster, more intense, as well as have global implications.
FACT THREE. The official numbers regarding both deaths and infected people, as well as the famous 1.86 infection spread are, in DOOMER DOUG'S OPINION, LESS THAN TEN PERCENT, REPEAT TEN PERCENT OF THE ACTUAL TOTALS.
FACT FOUR. For a lot of political reasons, related to the Political Correct mindset that has infected the West, the kinds of medical steps needed to prevent an epidemic, much less a global pandemic, have not, and will not be taken to limit Ebola spreading into the West.
FACT FIVE. We don't have to wait till Labor Day in Nigeria. I am calling an Ebola epidemic for Nigeria, based in Lagos, the Eastern city, and now the northern city. The Lagos airport is spewing Ebola infected people at a regular rate since July 20th.
At this point, the social collapse of Liberia is a done deal. Nigeria is now enduring the early phases of an Ebola epidemic, followed by a social collapse with profound implications for the rest of the world.
It is a theory of Doomer Doug regarding history that ONE person can have a profound historical impact. For instance, if the moron officer in charge at Pearl Harbor had bothered to scramble a few P-40E fighters to investigate the radar reports, things would have gone differently. If any of the dozens of government and health authorities in either Liberia or Nigeria had shown the most basic of actions regarding Mr. Patrick Sawyer and what I will call the "Flight of Death" to Nigeria on July 20th, things wouldn't be so bad. They didn't, so we are going to pay in buckets of blood for that failure.
Liberia is gone into the abyss. Nigeria is headed that way. The only issue now is not how bad it will get in Nigeria: the answer to that is Black Death 1348 level. The issue is whether the total failure in West Africa to deal with Ebola, combined with the dismal failure of the West to provide logistical support will guarantee a global pandemic of Ebola. The answer is still unknown, not in the Nigerian epidemic mode, but in the global pandemic mode.
I am seeing every indication of what I said would happen; namely, one person here, and two people there flying out and starting the global pandemic process one country at a time.
We shall see on the global pandemic mode. The regional, West African epidemic mode is well underway. One year from now there will likely be multiple MILLIONS less West Africans than there are living today.
The question as to where these new people, running around Nigeria infecting still others, came from is clear. THE NUMBERS OF PEOPLE INFECTED BY MR. PATRICK SAWYER ON JULY 2OTH WAS MUCH MORE THAN THE FIFTEEN NIGERIAN AUTHORITIES "DEALT WITH." We now have a secondary Ebola infection cycle, based on the people originally exposed and infected, from July 20th to July 25th, by Mr. Sawyer at the Lagos airport and hospital. Those infected people then exposed still more to the virus, who then exposed the third wave. In fact, we may now very well be in the FOURTH EBOLA INFECTION CYCLE.
We KNOW Mr. Sawyer was "patient zero" for Nigeria. We know he infected others on July 20th, 2014. We KNOW the newly exposed and infected spread the Ebola virus still more. WE KNOW the disease is spreading widely in Lagos, Nigeria based on several credible reports of patients being turned away from hospitals. We KNOW at least TWO NURSES were infected with Ebola, infected other people, as well as either flying or driving by bus to the eastern city in the one case. DOOMER DOUG IS TELLING EVERYBODY THAT THIS ONE CASE OF THE INFECTED NURSE GOING TO THE EASTERN CITY, BY AIR OR BY BUS, NOW MEANS THE FOURTH INFECTION WAVE WILL BE BASED ON THE EASTERN NIGERIAN CITY. After that, the deluge to quote the French King.
As I write this on August 14, Year of Our Lord, 2014 several FACTS are now clear.
FACT ONE. Liberia is now a failed state heading towards social anarchy and collapse at all levels of Liberian society. Liberia is now a place where ROTTING, EBOLA INFECTED CORPSES, are scattered around the capital city being fed on by vermin. Rotting corpses are scattered in the rural areas, complete with abandoned villages, hysterical survivors and total chaos. Behold, this is the future for West Africa as Ebola continues to spread.
FACT TWO. Nigeria is entering the early phases of an Ebola epidemic based in Lagos, and now the eastern city. The social anarchy is also in the early phases, but the chaos in the hospitals shows it is perking right along. Nigeria will see a faster collapse in its health care system as the medical people have had almost a month to watch Liberian medical people die off in droves. The Nigerian collapse will be faster, more intense, as well as have global implications.
FACT THREE. The official numbers regarding both deaths and infected people, as well as the famous 1.86 infection spread are, in DOOMER DOUG'S OPINION, LESS THAN TEN PERCENT, REPEAT TEN PERCENT OF THE ACTUAL TOTALS.
FACT FOUR. For a lot of political reasons, related to the Political Correct mindset that has infected the West, the kinds of medical steps needed to prevent an epidemic, much less a global pandemic, have not, and will not be taken to limit Ebola spreading into the West.
FACT FIVE. We don't have to wait till Labor Day in Nigeria. I am calling an Ebola epidemic for Nigeria, based in Lagos, the Eastern city, and now the northern city. The Lagos airport is spewing Ebola infected people at a regular rate since July 20th.
At this point, the social collapse of Liberia is a done deal. Nigeria is now enduring the early phases of an Ebola epidemic, followed by a social collapse with profound implications for the rest of the world.
It is a theory of Doomer Doug regarding history that ONE person can have a profound historical impact. For instance, if the moron officer in charge at Pearl Harbor had bothered to scramble a few P-40E fighters to investigate the radar reports, things would have gone differently. If any of the dozens of government and health authorities in either Liberia or Nigeria had shown the most basic of actions regarding Mr. Patrick Sawyer and what I will call the "Flight of Death" to Nigeria on July 20th, things wouldn't be so bad. They didn't, so we are going to pay in buckets of blood for that failure.
Liberia is gone into the abyss. Nigeria is headed that way. The only issue now is not how bad it will get in Nigeria: the answer to that is Black Death 1348 level. The issue is whether the total failure in West Africa to deal with Ebola, combined with the dismal failure of the West to provide logistical support will guarantee a global pandemic of Ebola. The answer is still unknown, not in the Nigerian epidemic mode, but in the global pandemic mode.
I am seeing every indication of what I said would happen; namely, one person here, and two people there flying out and starting the global pandemic process one country at a time.
We shall see on the global pandemic mode. The regional, West African epidemic mode is well underway. One year from now there will likely be multiple MILLIONS less West Africans than there are living today.
bw
Fringe Ranger
In the final analysis, that's what it will work out to. When it gets to your neighborhood, it will be due to a chain of malfeasance and stupid behavior.
bassaholic
Veteran Member
Mind is open or I wouldnt be here.
This could be big but its so small right now it does not deserve the attention its getting. People are making this sound like its certain death. Not just here but many places. Mainly online.
This hasn't killed anyone on our soil yet. Folks in South Africa aren't even talking about it. It hasn't even moved much from where its based from.
Im more concerned about the drought in CA which is effecting and going to effect everyone in the US as CA produces much of its food.
bw
Fringe Ranger
Forest fires in dry timber start small, but they deserve a lot of attention.
You don't need to worry yet, if you're reasonably prepared for self isolation later on. You can sit back and wait for developments. But if you're totally unprepared for a pandemic to sweep your town, then now is a great time to devote some attention to it.
It's clear that this is not certain death, and I've seen no comment anywhere on these threads that Ebola is certain death. Got a link? Best guess at this point is that it's killing over half.
Doomer Doug
TB Fanatic
"hasn't moved much from where it was based"?
Ebola was first discovered in 1976, nearly 40 years ago, in Zaire, or what used to be called the Belgian Congo.
It has spread from deep in the Central African rain forest all the way to Liberia hundreds of miles to the northwest. It has now spread to cover a large part of West Africa based on Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Ghanna. Due to Mr. Sawyer and air travel is jumped several hundred miles from Liberia to Lagos, Nigeria in a matter of two weeks.
Ebola has the potential to spread to any major city anywhere on Planet Earth due to global air travel.
Distance means absolutely nothing in an age of global air travel. You are like the Americans thinking in 1940 they didn't have to worry about World War Two since we had the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean moats to protect us.
The global travel and trade systems are directly tied into the global air and ship transport systems. There is no "over there" anymore. Overthere is now, potentially at least, overhere in less than 24 hours. You are assuming West Africa is too far away to infect the USA or Europe. Liberia and Sierra Leone may fit that category, but Nigeria does not. Lagos is a functional International Air Port with direct flights to London, Paris, New York City among others. There are now hundreds of thousands of Nigerians living abroad, visiting Nigeria on a regular basis, as well as being visited by relatives from Nigeria often.
London, England has thousands of Nigerians living there alone. I have heard that 2 million, out of London's total 8 million people, are black people from Africa or the West Indies.
We are in the earliest phases of this epidemic. We are now seeing clear indications of Ebola spreading in Nigeria only three weeks after Mr. Sawyer's flight of death. Once the full panic expresses itself, we will see plane after plane fly out of Lagos International Airport carrying fleeing people. Be patient.
Ebola was first discovered in 1976, nearly 40 years ago, in Zaire, or what used to be called the Belgian Congo.
It has spread from deep in the Central African rain forest all the way to Liberia hundreds of miles to the northwest. It has now spread to cover a large part of West Africa based on Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Ghanna. Due to Mr. Sawyer and air travel is jumped several hundred miles from Liberia to Lagos, Nigeria in a matter of two weeks.
Ebola has the potential to spread to any major city anywhere on Planet Earth due to global air travel.
Distance means absolutely nothing in an age of global air travel. You are like the Americans thinking in 1940 they didn't have to worry about World War Two since we had the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean moats to protect us.
The global travel and trade systems are directly tied into the global air and ship transport systems. There is no "over there" anymore. Overthere is now, potentially at least, overhere in less than 24 hours. You are assuming West Africa is too far away to infect the USA or Europe. Liberia and Sierra Leone may fit that category, but Nigeria does not. Lagos is a functional International Air Port with direct flights to London, Paris, New York City among others. There are now hundreds of thousands of Nigerians living abroad, visiting Nigeria on a regular basis, as well as being visited by relatives from Nigeria often.
London, England has thousands of Nigerians living there alone. I have heard that 2 million, out of London's total 8 million people, are black people from Africa or the West Indies.
We are in the earliest phases of this epidemic. We are now seeing clear indications of Ebola spreading in Nigeria only three weeks after Mr. Sawyer's flight of death. Once the full panic expresses itself, we will see plane after plane fly out of Lagos International Airport carrying fleeing people. Be patient.
Hansa44
Justine Case
Here is letter sent to George Ure by a doctor talking about Ebola. VERY SCARY!
http://urbansurvival.com/coping-a-doctors-ebola-note/
Coping: A Doctor’s Ebola Note
Posted on August 14, 2014 by George Ure
As we head out this morning on our latest/next adventure, I wanted to pass along a note from a doctor/read of ours.
He sent in a marvelous note after reading one of our missives earlier this month. I would have posted it sooner, but it got stuck under a pile of other emails – my bad.
George, thank you for your column today, especially the prepping notes, it was worth the annual fee just for todays information. (for my friends, see http://urbansurvival.com/coping-prepping-for-a-ebola/ )
However, there is some information on Ebola that you need to know and to disseminate. If people don’t read anything else that I have written here, please understand that IF YOU TREAT A PATIENT WITH EBOLA OR GET NEAR THEM YOU WILL PROBABLY DIE. You have no idea what it is like to take care of someone with this disease.
Basically it is impossible without knowing a tremendous amount about disease transmission. Even the doctors with all their disease transmission gear don’t have a clue.
And toilet paper needs for someone with this disease? You must be kidding George. How about towels and towels and new mattresses? How about lime and burning all used articles of clothing? Is anyone prepared for that?
These people infected are literally DISSOLVING from the inside. Just to show you what you don’t understand, put some poop (your own or any animal, mix it with some blood (I don’t know where you’re going to get that lol…. local butcher? I don’t know), put them in a bucket outside in temperatures over 90 degrees (the body is around 100 degrees), let it sit for about 5 hours, and go smell of it for at least a few minutes. The odor is so overpowering you have no idea.
Now imagine you have to be around that, and that the smell brings with it an infectious agent that will kill you in the same way. Ebola is almost certain death. The only people who have survived have access to high intensity care, usually hospital intensive care type care, and even then their odds are low of survival. Now imagine hundreds if not thousands or tens of thousands of people infected. Imagine your child infected, are you not going to try and take care of them?
This is the problem, most parents and loved ones wont be able to stay away, and they will become infected and spread it on to others. I have tried for years to break diagnosis of this disease down into a nutshell, how to recognize, and be concerned that someone might have Ebola, and I came up with the following, if you see someone bleeding from the eyes and the nose, turn around and go the other way, 20 feet is minimum distance, otherwise you are at very high risk of becoming infected. This is actual BLEEDING (not just red eyes). Don’t touch anything they have touched, don’t stay in the area. Whole villages have disappeared for not understanding these simple facts.
That’s it, for more at length, my qualifications are 30+ years of “practicing” medicine, I have participated in research at major research institutions (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Tufts New England Medical Center in Boston Mass.), have practiced in emergency rooms and urgent care centers, and I have a wide interest in socio-economics, politics, epidemiology, and the world in general. I have logged over 250,000 patient encounters in my career.
Ebola breaks down into 5 or 6 strains. The most worrisome problem, detailed in the non-fiction book, “The Hot Zone: The Terrifying True Story of the Origins of the Ebola Virus” which details the “Reston” strain, which became air-borne in a research facility, infected humans, but apparently was only lethal to the monkeys, which died or were put down.
Stephen King said, at the time, that it was the scariest book he had ever read. In other words, imagine a flu that is circulating that is 90% fatal.
Currently, and apparently (there are multiple reports going about the current Ebola might be respiratory spread, although I do not see any hard evidence that that is the case), this Ebola strain is not spread by respiratory secretions. Remember though, that a person with Ebola, is shedding billions (Billions with a B) of viral particles all the time in “body” fluids. Vomit, diarrhea, sweat(?), saliva, nasal secretions (?) etc. It possibly only takes one viral particle to infect you.
Current fatality rates appear to be in the 60-90% range. There is some concerns though about the “mixing” of the current Ebola strains, and just like the flu, possibly a renegade new strain appearing, that may be spread like the flu, easily, through respiratory secretions.
The Reston strain (the Ebola strain that is spread like the flu through respiratory secretions…… it was found in at least one of the human researchers, but it caused no disease in the humans, but killed the monkeys) has been found in pigs (a known “incubator” for new flu infections that are then transmitted to humans) in the Phillipines, http://www.who.int/csr/don/2009_02_03/en/ , and more on that here, http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvrd/spb/outbreaks/qaEbolaRestonPhilippines.htm .
For a general big grouping on viruses look here (Ebola is under Filoviridae, with Marburg Virus), http://virology.net/big_virology/bvfamilygroup.html .
It is clear that the Ebola virus is evolving, see http://www.recombinomics.com/News/07291401/Ebola_Zaire_Guinea_SL.html .
I’m neither a virologist nor an epidemiologist, but it is clear from above that this virus does have the ability to spread, and rather rapidly at that.
Everyone should take the precautions you mentioned in your newsletter, learn to recognize the very simple signs of possible Ebola I mentioned above (bleeding eyes, bleeding nose), and take care to stay away from any such individual.
And to be clear, when I say bleeding eyes, I mean some droplets of blood coming from the eyes, instead of clear tears. This is by NO MEANS an absolute positive sign of Ebola, or any other disease, or the only symptoms that might occur in someone with Ebola (early signs of Ebola can include fever and body aches, which can occur in about a thousand other diseases as well including common cold), but is meant to be a sign that might enable someone to live through this epidemic.
Another tidbit, Ebola virus has been found in semen 61 days after infection and transmission can occur in this manner, http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs103/en/,
more information here, http://www.who.int/csr/disease/ebola/faq-ebola/en/
and other Ebola reading if one wants it.. http://govtslaves.info/ebola-virus-released-atlanta-sewage-treatment-plant/
…. I do not vouch for any of the above links. Read it and gather information as you will. One thing is clear, this disease is evolving as many viral diseases do, have some common sense, and prepare as you are able, but have no fear, which disables us all.
I apologize for the length. Keep up the good work.
Dr R.
As we take off on our trip, we appreciate the risks, and more so, the idea that over time, if Ebola spread continues to ramp up, we may not be doing much travel in the future.
http://urbansurvival.com/coping-a-doctors-ebola-note/
Coping: A Doctor’s Ebola Note
Posted on August 14, 2014 by George Ure
As we head out this morning on our latest/next adventure, I wanted to pass along a note from a doctor/read of ours.
He sent in a marvelous note after reading one of our missives earlier this month. I would have posted it sooner, but it got stuck under a pile of other emails – my bad.
George, thank you for your column today, especially the prepping notes, it was worth the annual fee just for todays information. (for my friends, see http://urbansurvival.com/coping-prepping-for-a-ebola/ )
However, there is some information on Ebola that you need to know and to disseminate. If people don’t read anything else that I have written here, please understand that IF YOU TREAT A PATIENT WITH EBOLA OR GET NEAR THEM YOU WILL PROBABLY DIE. You have no idea what it is like to take care of someone with this disease.
Basically it is impossible without knowing a tremendous amount about disease transmission. Even the doctors with all their disease transmission gear don’t have a clue.
And toilet paper needs for someone with this disease? You must be kidding George. How about towels and towels and new mattresses? How about lime and burning all used articles of clothing? Is anyone prepared for that?
These people infected are literally DISSOLVING from the inside. Just to show you what you don’t understand, put some poop (your own or any animal, mix it with some blood (I don’t know where you’re going to get that lol…. local butcher? I don’t know), put them in a bucket outside in temperatures over 90 degrees (the body is around 100 degrees), let it sit for about 5 hours, and go smell of it for at least a few minutes. The odor is so overpowering you have no idea.
Now imagine you have to be around that, and that the smell brings with it an infectious agent that will kill you in the same way. Ebola is almost certain death. The only people who have survived have access to high intensity care, usually hospital intensive care type care, and even then their odds are low of survival. Now imagine hundreds if not thousands or tens of thousands of people infected. Imagine your child infected, are you not going to try and take care of them?
This is the problem, most parents and loved ones wont be able to stay away, and they will become infected and spread it on to others. I have tried for years to break diagnosis of this disease down into a nutshell, how to recognize, and be concerned that someone might have Ebola, and I came up with the following, if you see someone bleeding from the eyes and the nose, turn around and go the other way, 20 feet is minimum distance, otherwise you are at very high risk of becoming infected. This is actual BLEEDING (not just red eyes). Don’t touch anything they have touched, don’t stay in the area. Whole villages have disappeared for not understanding these simple facts.
That’s it, for more at length, my qualifications are 30+ years of “practicing” medicine, I have participated in research at major research institutions (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Tufts New England Medical Center in Boston Mass.), have practiced in emergency rooms and urgent care centers, and I have a wide interest in socio-economics, politics, epidemiology, and the world in general. I have logged over 250,000 patient encounters in my career.
Ebola breaks down into 5 or 6 strains. The most worrisome problem, detailed in the non-fiction book, “The Hot Zone: The Terrifying True Story of the Origins of the Ebola Virus” which details the “Reston” strain, which became air-borne in a research facility, infected humans, but apparently was only lethal to the monkeys, which died or were put down.
Stephen King said, at the time, that it was the scariest book he had ever read. In other words, imagine a flu that is circulating that is 90% fatal.
Currently, and apparently (there are multiple reports going about the current Ebola might be respiratory spread, although I do not see any hard evidence that that is the case), this Ebola strain is not spread by respiratory secretions. Remember though, that a person with Ebola, is shedding billions (Billions with a B) of viral particles all the time in “body” fluids. Vomit, diarrhea, sweat(?), saliva, nasal secretions (?) etc. It possibly only takes one viral particle to infect you.
Current fatality rates appear to be in the 60-90% range. There is some concerns though about the “mixing” of the current Ebola strains, and just like the flu, possibly a renegade new strain appearing, that may be spread like the flu, easily, through respiratory secretions.
The Reston strain (the Ebola strain that is spread like the flu through respiratory secretions…… it was found in at least one of the human researchers, but it caused no disease in the humans, but killed the monkeys) has been found in pigs (a known “incubator” for new flu infections that are then transmitted to humans) in the Phillipines, http://www.who.int/csr/don/2009_02_03/en/ , and more on that here, http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvrd/spb/outbreaks/qaEbolaRestonPhilippines.htm .
For a general big grouping on viruses look here (Ebola is under Filoviridae, with Marburg Virus), http://virology.net/big_virology/bvfamilygroup.html .
It is clear that the Ebola virus is evolving, see http://www.recombinomics.com/News/07291401/Ebola_Zaire_Guinea_SL.html .
I’m neither a virologist nor an epidemiologist, but it is clear from above that this virus does have the ability to spread, and rather rapidly at that.
Everyone should take the precautions you mentioned in your newsletter, learn to recognize the very simple signs of possible Ebola I mentioned above (bleeding eyes, bleeding nose), and take care to stay away from any such individual.
And to be clear, when I say bleeding eyes, I mean some droplets of blood coming from the eyes, instead of clear tears. This is by NO MEANS an absolute positive sign of Ebola, or any other disease, or the only symptoms that might occur in someone with Ebola (early signs of Ebola can include fever and body aches, which can occur in about a thousand other diseases as well including common cold), but is meant to be a sign that might enable someone to live through this epidemic.
Another tidbit, Ebola virus has been found in semen 61 days after infection and transmission can occur in this manner, http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs103/en/,
more information here, http://www.who.int/csr/disease/ebola/faq-ebola/en/
and other Ebola reading if one wants it.. http://govtslaves.info/ebola-virus-released-atlanta-sewage-treatment-plant/
…. I do not vouch for any of the above links. Read it and gather information as you will. One thing is clear, this disease is evolving as many viral diseases do, have some common sense, and prepare as you are able, but have no fear, which disables us all.
I apologize for the length. Keep up the good work.
Dr R.
As we take off on our trip, we appreciate the risks, and more so, the idea that over time, if Ebola spread continues to ramp up, we may not be doing much travel in the future.
ainitfunny
Saved, to glorify God.
BECAUSE THE BLACK AMERICAN COMMUNITIES, (inner city ghettos )EVEN IF IF NOT INITIALLY, THEN EVENTUALLY WILL BE THE HARDEST HIT, IF NOT COMPLETELY WIPED OUT BY EBOLA, WHEN IT HITS AMERICA......
It is TIME FOR AMERICAN BLACKS to raise their voices to demand that Obama defend America and be more protective of American Citizens,
CLOSING THE BORDERS AGAINST ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS,
SCREENING/isolating all TRAVELERS FROM nations now having uncontrolled spread of Ebola cases!
Blacks visiting relatives in Africa, becoming infected and bring the disease back to Black communities, their families, co-workers, friends, local schools, buses, restaurants, gathering places will be the first and hardest hit, if not completely eradicated.
It is TIME FOR AMERICAN BLACKS to raise their voices to demand that Obama defend America and be more protective of American Citizens,
CLOSING THE BORDERS AGAINST ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS,
SCREENING/isolating all TRAVELERS FROM nations now having uncontrolled spread of Ebola cases!
Blacks visiting relatives in Africa, becoming infected and bring the disease back to Black communities, their families, co-workers, friends, local schools, buses, restaurants, gathering places will be the first and hardest hit, if not completely eradicated.
Last edited:
Intestinal Fortitude
Have Faith
Think of it as an ant colony.
All of the new queens have their wings and are about to fly off to establish
colonies of their own.
All of the new queens have their wings and are about to fly off to establish
colonies of their own.
TxGal
Day by day
Question for Medical Maven, and others, about Dr. Fauci's comments in the New England Journal of Medicine article - http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1409494?query=featured_home&
Here's a snippet, please note the sentence I italicized and underscored:
"It is essential to obtain a careful and prompt travel history. The incubation period typically lasts 5 to 7 days, although it can be as short as 2 days and as long as 21 days. Blood specimens usually begin to test positive on polymerase-chain-reaction–based diagnostics 1 day before symptoms appear. "
If the incubation period can be from 2 to 21 days, and blood tests are positive only a day before symptoms appear, does this seem to indicate that many of those negative test results could be simply that they were taken too early in the incubation period? And if so, that a number of those negatives could be infective even though they are not showing any obvious symptoms yet? Not sure if I'm reading too much into this.
Here's a snippet, please note the sentence I italicized and underscored:
"It is essential to obtain a careful and prompt travel history. The incubation period typically lasts 5 to 7 days, although it can be as short as 2 days and as long as 21 days. Blood specimens usually begin to test positive on polymerase-chain-reaction–based diagnostics 1 day before symptoms appear. "
If the incubation period can be from 2 to 21 days, and blood tests are positive only a day before symptoms appear, does this seem to indicate that many of those negative test results could be simply that they were taken too early in the incubation period? And if so, that a number of those negatives could be infective even though they are not showing any obvious symptoms yet? Not sure if I'm reading too much into this.
No offense to George Ure, whom I read for years back when I liked being scared silly every day, but if this guy is a doctor, then I'm a duck.
There's enough about this situation to cause nightmares without this kind of reprehensible mixture of truth and fiction.
(sorry for being harsh, no offense meant to you, Hansa44)
Be Well
may all be well
People can test negative even with some symptoms and test positive later in the course of disease or after death. Niman has a thread about this.
As far as when people are actually infectious, there is no hard evidence about thi.
Medical Maven
Deceased
Here is another excellent commentary by Pixie, one of the two main moderators at the PFI Forum.
PIXIE'S COMMENT:
Seriously, what is the R0 of the strain of New Ebola that infected Patrick Sawyer and his sister Princess? Look at the destruction it has caused.
It's got an R0 of between 8 & 12 based on the transmissions that we know about from the Sawyer family clusters.
And now it's in Lagos. It's probably in Enugu and in Kwara, too.
And it has the same R0.
It's the same virus.
It's the same virus. It's not going to behave any differently.
Does our military understand this situation?
Meanwhile, Frieden and Fauci are reassuring everyone that American hospitals can handle this pathogen and that normal infection protocols and the basic kit of personal protective equipment are adequate to protect medical workers caring for any potential New Ebola patients here.
Any Hollywood producer worth his salt would reject this narrative out of hand, having had it presented by a screen writer, on the grounds that it is entirely lacking in believability.
__
PIXIE'S COMMENT:
Seriously, what is the R0 of the strain of New Ebola that infected Patrick Sawyer and his sister Princess? Look at the destruction it has caused.
It's got an R0 of between 8 & 12 based on the transmissions that we know about from the Sawyer family clusters.
And now it's in Lagos. It's probably in Enugu and in Kwara, too.
And it has the same R0.
It's the same virus.
It's the same virus. It's not going to behave any differently.
Does our military understand this situation?
Meanwhile, Frieden and Fauci are reassuring everyone that American hospitals can handle this pathogen and that normal infection protocols and the basic kit of personal protective equipment are adequate to protect medical workers caring for any potential New Ebola patients here.
Any Hollywood producer worth his salt would reject this narrative out of hand, having had it presented by a screen writer, on the grounds that it is entirely lacking in believability.
__
Be Well
may all be well
There is a lot of misinformation around, often mixed with some truth, so that makes it sound reasonable unless a person has seriously done homework by reading a lot.
Half the truth is often a great lie. - Benjamin Franklin
Medical Maven
Deceased
The underbelly of Europe is feeling the heat, as predicted. Don't know how many of these suspected cases crossed the Mediterranean in rickety boats. Just posted at the PFI Forum by AndyM.
AndyM's COMMENT:
Another 3 countries join the party with suspected cases.
Five Illegal Immigrants Detained in Albania With Ebola Symptoms
http://www.newsweek.com/five-illegal-immigrants-detained-albania-ebola-symptoms-264605
Albanian police have detained 40 illegal immigrants from Africa today, five of whom are currently under quarantine after exhibiting symptoms of Ebola, Macedonian newspaper Vecer has reported.
Police suspect the five are of Eritrean origin, having arrived illegally in Europe via Greece. They are currently being tested for carrying the Ebola virus in hospital in the Albanian city of of Vlore, less than 86 miles from Italy’s closest port.
The news comes after one person was quarantined in Montenegro earlier today under suspicion they may be infected with Ebola. The possible victim entered Montenegro from a West African country with an epidemic of the disease, according to the public health institute.
In an attempt to prevent the spread of Ebola, Serbian authorities have currently put 14 people under medical surveillance, each hailing from either Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea or Nigeria, Bulgarian newspaper Standart reported.
They will remain under watch for the 21-day incubation period of the Ebola virus.
If confirmed, the cases would constitute the first uncontrolled instances of Ebola in Europe. A Spanish priest became the first European victim of the disease on Tuesday after contracting the disease in Liberia after being flown to a hospital in Madrid.
MY COMMENT: One of these days one of these runaways is going to be reported positive. It is inevitable.
AndyM's COMMENT:
Another 3 countries join the party with suspected cases.
Five Illegal Immigrants Detained in Albania With Ebola Symptoms
http://www.newsweek.com/five-illegal-immigrants-detained-albania-ebola-symptoms-264605
Albanian police have detained 40 illegal immigrants from Africa today, five of whom are currently under quarantine after exhibiting symptoms of Ebola, Macedonian newspaper Vecer has reported.
Police suspect the five are of Eritrean origin, having arrived illegally in Europe via Greece. They are currently being tested for carrying the Ebola virus in hospital in the Albanian city of of Vlore, less than 86 miles from Italy’s closest port.
The news comes after one person was quarantined in Montenegro earlier today under suspicion they may be infected with Ebola. The possible victim entered Montenegro from a West African country with an epidemic of the disease, according to the public health institute.
In an attempt to prevent the spread of Ebola, Serbian authorities have currently put 14 people under medical surveillance, each hailing from either Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea or Nigeria, Bulgarian newspaper Standart reported.
They will remain under watch for the 21-day incubation period of the Ebola virus.
If confirmed, the cases would constitute the first uncontrolled instances of Ebola in Europe. A Spanish priest became the first European victim of the disease on Tuesday after contracting the disease in Liberia after being flown to a hospital in Madrid.
MY COMMENT: One of these days one of these runaways is going to be reported positive. It is inevitable.
Be Well
may all be well
There are many worthy articles on PFI and I don't have time to post much but here are a few. I recommend reading carefully.
Second Lagos nurse dies of Ebola, says FG
http://www.punchng.com/news/second-lagos-nurse-dies-of-ebola-says-fg/
The Federal Government has confirmed the death of another nurse who had primary contact with the late American- Liberian, Patrick Sawyer, on Thursday.
A statement issued by the Minister of Health, Prof.Chukwu Onyebuchi, in Abuja on Thursday, noted that the nurse is the fourth person to have died of the Ebola Virus Disease in the country.
Chukwu noted that she was one of the health workers that had primary contact with Sawyer at the First Consultants Hospital in Obalende, Lagos.
He said, “The fourth death recorded today was a Nigerian nurse who participated in the initial management of the index case. We have now recorded 10 confirmed cases of Ebola Virus Disease. Out of these, four have died and eight are currently under treatment.”
The minister also apologised for the error in the number of confirmed cases given to journalists at a press briefing organised by the Federal Ministry of Health in Abuja earlier in the day.
Chukwu noted, “It is important to note that the number of confirmed cases remains 10 as at today and not 11 as earlier announced this morning. We regret the error which arose from double counting in the process of communicating the additional death from the operational centre in Lagos to the Federal Ministry of Health.”
One of the doctors on the team of experts managing confirmed cases at the Ebola Ward of the Mainland hospital, Lagos, had earlier confirmed that the nurse had died due to the exposure she had with Sawyer when he was admitted at the private hospital in Lagos.
The reliable source said, “We lost her in the early hours of today after much effort. She was one of the people that helped him when he was vomiting and stooling. That was when she contracted it.”
The doctor also disclosed that two other health workers that have now been quarantined are in critical condition.
Here is the first nurse who died:
25 year old Nurse who attended to Patrick Sawyer dies
Posted on August 14, 2014 by Emmy
A nurse that attended to late Liberian Patrick Sawyer while he was ill at the First Consultant hospital in Lagos, has died.
25 year old Justina was one of the primary contacts with Patrick Sawyer at a Lagos Hospital where he received treatment after he was rushed from the Murtala Muhammed Airport in Lagos. Justina, who shared her story and experience with Patrick Sawyer at the weekend, died a few hours ago in a quarantine facility in Lagos.
Ms. Ejelonu was very vocal in the campaign for the release of the ZMapp experimental drug to Nigerian Ebola disease patients. Her relatives confirmed the news. May her soul rest.
- See more at: http://www.nigeriannewsinfo.com/25-...-to-patrick-sawyer-dies/#sthash.oTMmu5MB.dpuf
Quote from Pixie:
And a reminder. Obi Justina Ejelonu has passed away but hopefully her words will inform the future approach to this virus and will help protect other medical workers.
Nurse who ran away from quarantine with her husband has now died:
Nigerian nurse infected with Ebola dies after going to Enugu
http://www.digitaljournal.com/life/...bola-dies-after-going-to-enugu/article/397072
Lagos - Nigerian Information Minister, Labaran Maku, revealed yesterday that Nigeria now has 10 confirmed Ebola virus cases, all stemming from contact with American-Liberian Patrick Sawyer, who died of the disease in Lagos.
One of the primary contacts with Mr. Sawyer, a nurse who has died, ignored medical instructions to remain in the city because she was infected with the Ebola virus, and traveled with her husband to Enugu to visit her family. Enugu is over 300 km from Lagos, and is the capital of the state of Enugu.
Mr. Maku said on Wednesday that despite the deaths of three people, including the nurse, who had come into direct contact with Patrick Sawyer, the Ebola virus disease is not a threat to the country. He stated that 10 people out of 198 primary and secondary contacts with Mr. Sawyer have tested positive for Ebola.
Second Lagos nurse dies of Ebola, says FG
http://www.punchng.com/news/second-lagos-nurse-dies-of-ebola-says-fg/
The Federal Government has confirmed the death of another nurse who had primary contact with the late American- Liberian, Patrick Sawyer, on Thursday.
A statement issued by the Minister of Health, Prof.Chukwu Onyebuchi, in Abuja on Thursday, noted that the nurse is the fourth person to have died of the Ebola Virus Disease in the country.
Chukwu noted that she was one of the health workers that had primary contact with Sawyer at the First Consultants Hospital in Obalende, Lagos.
He said, “The fourth death recorded today was a Nigerian nurse who participated in the initial management of the index case. We have now recorded 10 confirmed cases of Ebola Virus Disease. Out of these, four have died and eight are currently under treatment.”
The minister also apologised for the error in the number of confirmed cases given to journalists at a press briefing organised by the Federal Ministry of Health in Abuja earlier in the day.
Chukwu noted, “It is important to note that the number of confirmed cases remains 10 as at today and not 11 as earlier announced this morning. We regret the error which arose from double counting in the process of communicating the additional death from the operational centre in Lagos to the Federal Ministry of Health.”
One of the doctors on the team of experts managing confirmed cases at the Ebola Ward of the Mainland hospital, Lagos, had earlier confirmed that the nurse had died due to the exposure she had with Sawyer when he was admitted at the private hospital in Lagos.
The reliable source said, “We lost her in the early hours of today after much effort. She was one of the people that helped him when he was vomiting and stooling. That was when she contracted it.”
The doctor also disclosed that two other health workers that have now been quarantined are in critical condition.
Here is the first nurse who died:
25 year old Nurse who attended to Patrick Sawyer dies
Posted on August 14, 2014 by Emmy
A nurse that attended to late Liberian Patrick Sawyer while he was ill at the First Consultant hospital in Lagos, has died.
25 year old Justina was one of the primary contacts with Patrick Sawyer at a Lagos Hospital where he received treatment after he was rushed from the Murtala Muhammed Airport in Lagos. Justina, who shared her story and experience with Patrick Sawyer at the weekend, died a few hours ago in a quarantine facility in Lagos.
Ms. Ejelonu was very vocal in the campaign for the release of the ZMapp experimental drug to Nigerian Ebola disease patients. Her relatives confirmed the news. May her soul rest.
- See more at: http://www.nigeriannewsinfo.com/25-...-to-patrick-sawyer-dies/#sthash.oTMmu5MB.dpuf
Quote from Pixie:
And a reminder. Obi Justina Ejelonu has passed away but hopefully her words will inform the future approach to this virus and will help protect other medical workers.
Nurse who ran away from quarantine with her husband has now died:
Nigerian nurse infected with Ebola dies after going to Enugu
http://www.digitaljournal.com/life/...bola-dies-after-going-to-enugu/article/397072
Lagos - Nigerian Information Minister, Labaran Maku, revealed yesterday that Nigeria now has 10 confirmed Ebola virus cases, all stemming from contact with American-Liberian Patrick Sawyer, who died of the disease in Lagos.
One of the primary contacts with Mr. Sawyer, a nurse who has died, ignored medical instructions to remain in the city because she was infected with the Ebola virus, and traveled with her husband to Enugu to visit her family. Enugu is over 300 km from Lagos, and is the capital of the state of Enugu.
Mr. Maku said on Wednesday that despite the deaths of three people, including the nurse, who had come into direct contact with Patrick Sawyer, the Ebola virus disease is not a threat to the country. He stated that 10 people out of 198 primary and secondary contacts with Mr. Sawyer have tested positive for Ebola.
Intestinal Fortitude
Have Faith
Soon the ability to gather and disperse first hand info will be gone.
Be Well
may all be well
Pixie's comments:
How Bureaucrats Let Ebola Spread to Nigeria
Michael Daly
08.14.14
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/08/14/how-bureaucrats-let-ebola-spread-to-nigeria.html?
After Patrick Sawyer’s sister died of the virus, Liberia’s Ministry of Health instructed him not to travel. But he was allowed to fly to Lagos. Now he’s dead—and 10 more are infected.
From the hot zone come more chilling reports about the U.S. citizen who brought Ebola from his native Liberia to Nigeria and might well have brought it to America if he had been able to return to his wife and children in Minnesota this month as he planned.
We now learn that 42-year-old Patrick Sawyer was traveling to an economic conference as a representative of the Liberian Ministry of Finance even though the Liberian Ministry of Heath had instructed him not to travel because he might be infected with Ebola.
“I can confirm to you that he was advised by the Chief Medical Officer at the Ministry of Health not to leave the country because he was under observation,” a Liberian government spokesman was quoted telling a Lagos newspaper. “It was regrettable that he left the country while being observed.”
Ministry of Health protocols called for Sawyer to be to be monitored daily for 21 days. But as an official with the Ministry of Finance, Sawyer went ahead with plans to attend an economic development conference in Nigeria. The man who authorized the trip, then-Deputy Minister for the Budget Sebastian Muah, at first said he had authorized the trip and excused the decision by pleading a lack of medical expertise.
“I am a medical doctor?” he asked in an online posting. “Take me to the international court since I am guilty of approving a travel.”
On Wednesday, Muah suddenly denied all responsibility, telling the Liberian website FrontPageAfrica that Sawyer never got government approval for the trip and secured his ticket through the organization that sponsored the conference.
What is beyond dispute is that a man who was officially under observation as a possible Ebola carrier was permitted to board a plane for Lagos on July 20 even though he was manifestly ill. He is said to have been in such physical distress that surveillance camera footage shows him at one point sprawling facedown in the airport waiting area.
The footage, which has not been released but has been viewed by a reporter for The New Dawn, also reportedly shows a downcast and sick-looking Sawyer seeming to avoid physical contact with others, at one point declining to shake the outstretched hand of an immigration official—a suggestion that he harbored at least a suspicion that he might be carrying an infectious disease.
Sawyer vomited repeatedly during the two-stop flight and collapsed upon arriving at the Lagos airport. He was taken to First Consultant Hospital, where he reportedly told the medical staff that he had malaria.
He tested positive for Ebola and is said to have been in such deep and desperate denial that he insisted the doctors were wrong. He is described by FrontPageAfrica as having become so angry he ripped the IV lines from his arms. He also apparently sought the help of high-ranking Liberian officials, who reportedly pressured the hospital to release him, initially so he could attend the conference, then simply so he could go home.
On July 25, five days after he landed in Lagos, Sawyer died. At least 10 Nigerians were infected as a result of his apparently officially sanctioned travel, including a nursing mother who had given birth at the hospital before he arrived but returned afterward for her newborn’s vaccinations. She apparently was infected by a nurse who had become infected while treating Sawyer.
Another nurse who was working when Sawyer was brought to the hospital from the airport went on Facebook and reasoned that she had not been exposed enough to have caught the dread disease:
“I never contacted his fluids. I checked his vitals, helped him with his food (he was too weak),” wrote the nurse, Obi Justina Ejelonu. “I basically touched where his hands touched and that’s the only contact. Not directly with his fluids. At a stage, he yanked off his infusion and we had blood everywhere on his bed…But the ward maids took care of that and changed his linens with great precaution.”
Ejelonu soon after tested positive and at last report was critically ill, deep in the horrors of Ebola. The chain of infection goes back to Sawyer’s 27-year-old sister, Princess Nyuennyue, who was bleeding heavily from her vagina when her husband brought her to St. Joseph’s Catholic Hospital in Monrovia in early July.
The medical staff were at first leery of treating her for fear of Ebola. The hospital’s chief administrator, Brother Patrick Nshamdze of the Hospitaller Order of Saint John of God, stepped in. He was from Cameroon and spoke French, as did the woman’s husband, who reportedly told him that she was suffering a miscarriage.
Nshamdze arranged for Sawyer’s sister to undergo a D&C and be admitted to a general ward. But she continued to bleed, and the staff became all the more alarmed. She was scheduled to be transferred to the isolation unit when her brother arrived.
Sawyer insisted that she be given a private room and plunked down $500 to secure it. He proceeded to personally change her gown and placed her in a wheelchair for the move. He was seen to get her blood on his own clothes as well as his shoes in the process. He is said to have been given a pair of slippers to wear.
On July 7, the sister died. Sawyer’s bloody shoes were still in the private room and were left there along with her belongings by hospital staff, who were fearful of the virus.
On July 9, Sawyer informed ArcelorMittal, a mining company where he worked as a part-time consultant, that his sister had died of Ebola. The company says it immediately notified the government.
“Having informed us of this news, Patrick was submitted to the Ministry of Health for a medical observation and isolation and requested not to return to work until he had passed through the incubation period,” a company newsletter reports.
The Ministry of Heath is said to have ordered Sawyer not to travel. The Ministry of Finance nonetheless apparently authorized him to attend the conference in Nigeria. Finance officials there might have been worried about the repercussions among the other participants if it became known that a prominent Liberian had canceled because he might be infected with Ebola. Or the officials might not have been aware of the medical cause for concern.
“It’s possible the health ministry was monitoring him, but the finance ministry did not know,” a Liberian government spokesman later said.
Sawyer’s widow has since suggested in a Facebook post that his real reason for going to Nigeria was to seek better health care than was available in Liberia. Decontee Sawyer wrote: “He has expressed to me many times in the past that he felt passionately about helping to be a part of strengthening Liberia’s healthcare system, but he knew it wasn’t there yet, and he wouldn’t want to take a chance with his life because a lot of people depended on him.”
She went on, “Patrick had a passion for life, and he wouldn’t have wanted his to end. So, I bet anything he was thinking, ‘If I could only get to Nigeria, a way more developed country than Liberia, I would be able to get some help.’”
Unfortunately, none of his reported behavior following his arrival in Nigeria supports those contentions. He seemed, if anything, to resist the efforts to help him. And if he really accepted his life might be at stake and truly was seeking superior medical care, he could have returned to his family in the United States a month early. The truth is likely closer to what the widow told The Daily Beast in late July.
“I think he might have been in a state of denial,” she said.
In the meantime, at St. Joseph’s Catholic Hospital in Liberia, Brother Patrick Nshamdze, the administrator who had assisted Sawyer’s sister, fell ill. A first test for Ebola was negative.
“Based on this result, the other sisters and brothers decided to nurse him back to health,” an Ebola control worker who is identified only as Mosoka wrote in a letter that was posted on Facebook. “Despite their treatment he progressively began to show signs and symptoms that were typical of Ebola. He decided that he would leave for his home country, but the airline recognizing the signs and symptoms ask for a repeat of the test. Behold! This came back positive.”
The other health-care workers were stunned. And terrified.
“Brother Patrick was kept in one room of the hospital for treatment,” the letter continues. “The confidence of the brothers and sisters in our Ebola response system was seriously corroded. Brother Patrick became weaker and weaker and others stop coming around as they pondered over their own status. Then Brother Patrick died. His body was among the 52 bodies that were buried in a mass grave.”
That was on August 7. Seven other staff members then fell ill.
“One of them, a Nigerian Medical doctor, was told he was negative,” the letter reports. “However, he told us that every symptom in his body indicated to him that he too had contacted the disease. We then ordered for a new result. We are awaiting this result, but he is getting sicker and sicker each day.”
Others who had become infected included a technician from the lab that had been returning mistaken results.
“I have investigated the laboratory procedure and I noted several sources for potential errors,” the letter by Mosoka reports. “There is a single team of laboratory technicians that are working over ten hours a day and seven days a week without any time to rest. This would lead to lapses and increased risk for errors. One of the technicians told me sadly that they worked these very long hours and no one provides them with food. They begged for food and were given a 100-pound bag of rice with no soup kind and no one to cook for them. Many of them had not being paid for three months. How could we trust our lives in the hands of people that are overworked, starved and not given their just compensation? Are we winning this war against Ebola?”
The infected staff also included a social worker who now fled rather than be transferred to an Ebola treatment center, the very same one where Americans Dr. Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol were working when they fell ill.
“Her daughter came and took her away, when she heard we were moving them to the treatment unit,” the letter reports. “This is worrisome as she could be a source of new transmissions in the community. Are we really winning this war against Ebola? I would say NO!!!”
Also among the ill was a 75-year-old Spanish priest, Father Miguel Pajares. He was evacuated to a hospital in Spain and given a dose of the experimental serum ZMapp that had been administered to the two American health-care workers. The Americans seem to be on the mend in Atlanta, but the priest died on Tuesday.
Back in Liberia, Mosoka was summoned when an emergency arose at an outpatient clinic.
“A man had started vomiting and toileting blood,” the letter reports. “I was called to intervene. I call the ambulance team but no one responded. I called those of my colleagues in authority at the Health Ministry, but they too were powerless as the system and the logistics were not in place to respond to such a call. The treatment unit was overflowing with sick people. They just could not pick any one up in the community because there were no beds available in the unit. Then the man died. His body stayed in the house for two days, while his poor wife and children slept in the open. No one wants to come closer to them. After two whole days of begging every authority I knew, they finally removed the body today.”
But the house had not been disinfected.
“The home was never spread. The poor woman and her children are again sleeping outside today. I have tried to call the guy on spraying but his phone is off. But, I will press on and will call again tomorrow.”
As the Ebola treatment center overflowed, St. Joseph’s Hospital, the oldest in Liberia, was shut down, it too waiting to be disinfected.
“The hospital is a ghost town,” Mosoka writes.
The letter closes with noble words of faith and hope from the hot zone where screw-ups are met each day with selfless courage.
“Maybe, as some of us fight each day to make some kind of difference, it will at least amend for all of our mistakes and failures in the Ebola Response. May God save our country and those countries affected!!!!”
My comments:
This is one of the most heartbreaking articles I have read to date. Everyone will do well to read the whole article carefully.
And has anyone checked the ward maids?? Lab technicians working ten hours a day seven days a week - with no pay, and no food?
Why are international agencies and/or governments not stepping in and at the very least bringing food and basic necessities for these suffering people?
How Bureaucrats Let Ebola Spread to Nigeria
Michael Daly
08.14.14
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/08/14/how-bureaucrats-let-ebola-spread-to-nigeria.html?
After Patrick Sawyer’s sister died of the virus, Liberia’s Ministry of Health instructed him not to travel. But he was allowed to fly to Lagos. Now he’s dead—and 10 more are infected.
From the hot zone come more chilling reports about the U.S. citizen who brought Ebola from his native Liberia to Nigeria and might well have brought it to America if he had been able to return to his wife and children in Minnesota this month as he planned.
We now learn that 42-year-old Patrick Sawyer was traveling to an economic conference as a representative of the Liberian Ministry of Finance even though the Liberian Ministry of Heath had instructed him not to travel because he might be infected with Ebola.
“I can confirm to you that he was advised by the Chief Medical Officer at the Ministry of Health not to leave the country because he was under observation,” a Liberian government spokesman was quoted telling a Lagos newspaper. “It was regrettable that he left the country while being observed.”
Ministry of Health protocols called for Sawyer to be to be monitored daily for 21 days. But as an official with the Ministry of Finance, Sawyer went ahead with plans to attend an economic development conference in Nigeria. The man who authorized the trip, then-Deputy Minister for the Budget Sebastian Muah, at first said he had authorized the trip and excused the decision by pleading a lack of medical expertise.
“I am a medical doctor?” he asked in an online posting. “Take me to the international court since I am guilty of approving a travel.”
On Wednesday, Muah suddenly denied all responsibility, telling the Liberian website FrontPageAfrica that Sawyer never got government approval for the trip and secured his ticket through the organization that sponsored the conference.
What is beyond dispute is that a man who was officially under observation as a possible Ebola carrier was permitted to board a plane for Lagos on July 20 even though he was manifestly ill. He is said to have been in such physical distress that surveillance camera footage shows him at one point sprawling facedown in the airport waiting area.
The footage, which has not been released but has been viewed by a reporter for The New Dawn, also reportedly shows a downcast and sick-looking Sawyer seeming to avoid physical contact with others, at one point declining to shake the outstretched hand of an immigration official—a suggestion that he harbored at least a suspicion that he might be carrying an infectious disease.
Sawyer vomited repeatedly during the two-stop flight and collapsed upon arriving at the Lagos airport. He was taken to First Consultant Hospital, where he reportedly told the medical staff that he had malaria.
He tested positive for Ebola and is said to have been in such deep and desperate denial that he insisted the doctors were wrong. He is described by FrontPageAfrica as having become so angry he ripped the IV lines from his arms. He also apparently sought the help of high-ranking Liberian officials, who reportedly pressured the hospital to release him, initially so he could attend the conference, then simply so he could go home.
On July 25, five days after he landed in Lagos, Sawyer died. At least 10 Nigerians were infected as a result of his apparently officially sanctioned travel, including a nursing mother who had given birth at the hospital before he arrived but returned afterward for her newborn’s vaccinations. She apparently was infected by a nurse who had become infected while treating Sawyer.
Another nurse who was working when Sawyer was brought to the hospital from the airport went on Facebook and reasoned that she had not been exposed enough to have caught the dread disease:
“I never contacted his fluids. I checked his vitals, helped him with his food (he was too weak),” wrote the nurse, Obi Justina Ejelonu. “I basically touched where his hands touched and that’s the only contact. Not directly with his fluids. At a stage, he yanked off his infusion and we had blood everywhere on his bed…But the ward maids took care of that and changed his linens with great precaution.”
Ejelonu soon after tested positive and at last report was critically ill, deep in the horrors of Ebola. The chain of infection goes back to Sawyer’s 27-year-old sister, Princess Nyuennyue, who was bleeding heavily from her vagina when her husband brought her to St. Joseph’s Catholic Hospital in Monrovia in early July.
The medical staff were at first leery of treating her for fear of Ebola. The hospital’s chief administrator, Brother Patrick Nshamdze of the Hospitaller Order of Saint John of God, stepped in. He was from Cameroon and spoke French, as did the woman’s husband, who reportedly told him that she was suffering a miscarriage.
Nshamdze arranged for Sawyer’s sister to undergo a D&C and be admitted to a general ward. But she continued to bleed, and the staff became all the more alarmed. She was scheduled to be transferred to the isolation unit when her brother arrived.
Sawyer insisted that she be given a private room and plunked down $500 to secure it. He proceeded to personally change her gown and placed her in a wheelchair for the move. He was seen to get her blood on his own clothes as well as his shoes in the process. He is said to have been given a pair of slippers to wear.
On July 7, the sister died. Sawyer’s bloody shoes were still in the private room and were left there along with her belongings by hospital staff, who were fearful of the virus.
On July 9, Sawyer informed ArcelorMittal, a mining company where he worked as a part-time consultant, that his sister had died of Ebola. The company says it immediately notified the government.
“Having informed us of this news, Patrick was submitted to the Ministry of Health for a medical observation and isolation and requested not to return to work until he had passed through the incubation period,” a company newsletter reports.
The Ministry of Heath is said to have ordered Sawyer not to travel. The Ministry of Finance nonetheless apparently authorized him to attend the conference in Nigeria. Finance officials there might have been worried about the repercussions among the other participants if it became known that a prominent Liberian had canceled because he might be infected with Ebola. Or the officials might not have been aware of the medical cause for concern.
“It’s possible the health ministry was monitoring him, but the finance ministry did not know,” a Liberian government spokesman later said.
Sawyer’s widow has since suggested in a Facebook post that his real reason for going to Nigeria was to seek better health care than was available in Liberia. Decontee Sawyer wrote: “He has expressed to me many times in the past that he felt passionately about helping to be a part of strengthening Liberia’s healthcare system, but he knew it wasn’t there yet, and he wouldn’t want to take a chance with his life because a lot of people depended on him.”
She went on, “Patrick had a passion for life, and he wouldn’t have wanted his to end. So, I bet anything he was thinking, ‘If I could only get to Nigeria, a way more developed country than Liberia, I would be able to get some help.’”
Unfortunately, none of his reported behavior following his arrival in Nigeria supports those contentions. He seemed, if anything, to resist the efforts to help him. And if he really accepted his life might be at stake and truly was seeking superior medical care, he could have returned to his family in the United States a month early. The truth is likely closer to what the widow told The Daily Beast in late July.
“I think he might have been in a state of denial,” she said.
In the meantime, at St. Joseph’s Catholic Hospital in Liberia, Brother Patrick Nshamdze, the administrator who had assisted Sawyer’s sister, fell ill. A first test for Ebola was negative.
“Based on this result, the other sisters and brothers decided to nurse him back to health,” an Ebola control worker who is identified only as Mosoka wrote in a letter that was posted on Facebook. “Despite their treatment he progressively began to show signs and symptoms that were typical of Ebola. He decided that he would leave for his home country, but the airline recognizing the signs and symptoms ask for a repeat of the test. Behold! This came back positive.”
The other health-care workers were stunned. And terrified.
“Brother Patrick was kept in one room of the hospital for treatment,” the letter continues. “The confidence of the brothers and sisters in our Ebola response system was seriously corroded. Brother Patrick became weaker and weaker and others stop coming around as they pondered over their own status. Then Brother Patrick died. His body was among the 52 bodies that were buried in a mass grave.”
That was on August 7. Seven other staff members then fell ill.
“One of them, a Nigerian Medical doctor, was told he was negative,” the letter reports. “However, he told us that every symptom in his body indicated to him that he too had contacted the disease. We then ordered for a new result. We are awaiting this result, but he is getting sicker and sicker each day.”
Others who had become infected included a technician from the lab that had been returning mistaken results.
“I have investigated the laboratory procedure and I noted several sources for potential errors,” the letter by Mosoka reports. “There is a single team of laboratory technicians that are working over ten hours a day and seven days a week without any time to rest. This would lead to lapses and increased risk for errors. One of the technicians told me sadly that they worked these very long hours and no one provides them with food. They begged for food and were given a 100-pound bag of rice with no soup kind and no one to cook for them. Many of them had not being paid for three months. How could we trust our lives in the hands of people that are overworked, starved and not given their just compensation? Are we winning this war against Ebola?”
The infected staff also included a social worker who now fled rather than be transferred to an Ebola treatment center, the very same one where Americans Dr. Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol were working when they fell ill.
“Her daughter came and took her away, when she heard we were moving them to the treatment unit,” the letter reports. “This is worrisome as she could be a source of new transmissions in the community. Are we really winning this war against Ebola? I would say NO!!!”
Also among the ill was a 75-year-old Spanish priest, Father Miguel Pajares. He was evacuated to a hospital in Spain and given a dose of the experimental serum ZMapp that had been administered to the two American health-care workers. The Americans seem to be on the mend in Atlanta, but the priest died on Tuesday.
Back in Liberia, Mosoka was summoned when an emergency arose at an outpatient clinic.
“A man had started vomiting and toileting blood,” the letter reports. “I was called to intervene. I call the ambulance team but no one responded. I called those of my colleagues in authority at the Health Ministry, but they too were powerless as the system and the logistics were not in place to respond to such a call. The treatment unit was overflowing with sick people. They just could not pick any one up in the community because there were no beds available in the unit. Then the man died. His body stayed in the house for two days, while his poor wife and children slept in the open. No one wants to come closer to them. After two whole days of begging every authority I knew, they finally removed the body today.”
But the house had not been disinfected.
“The home was never spread. The poor woman and her children are again sleeping outside today. I have tried to call the guy on spraying but his phone is off. But, I will press on and will call again tomorrow.”
As the Ebola treatment center overflowed, St. Joseph’s Hospital, the oldest in Liberia, was shut down, it too waiting to be disinfected.
“The hospital is a ghost town,” Mosoka writes.
The letter closes with noble words of faith and hope from the hot zone where screw-ups are met each day with selfless courage.
“Maybe, as some of us fight each day to make some kind of difference, it will at least amend for all of our mistakes and failures in the Ebola Response. May God save our country and those countries affected!!!!”
My comments:
This is one of the most heartbreaking articles I have read to date. Everyone will do well to read the whole article carefully.
And has anyone checked the ward maids?? Lab technicians working ten hours a day seven days a week - with no pay, and no food?
Why are international agencies and/or governments not stepping in and at the very least bringing food and basic necessities for these suffering people?
Medical Maven
Deceased
Duplicate of BeWell's post.
You're absolutely right, Be Well. I should have corrected the errors with what knowledge I have. I'll do that now regarding George Ure:
The doctor who wrote to George said that a key indicator that someone has ebola is bleeding from eyes/ears/nose. He indicates that if you see these signs and respond by moving away, it just might save your life.
The truth is that these signs usually occur at a much later stage of the infection, and apparently less than 50% of people show these signs at all. Initial signs look like the flu: headache, achy joints, sore throat, tiredness.
So, while he is correct that we should avoid folks with these symptoms, I believe he's giving false indicators that could actually take your life. A more accurate statement might have been:
If ebola comes to the US, it will be difficult telling who has the virus since it is very possible people are contagious before they display obvious symptoms and the early signs look a lot like the flu. Therefore, it would be wise to limit social contact as much as possible.
Medical Maven
Deceased
If New Ebola gets here in a significant way, discussions like this one on the internet, open for all to see, will be banned. The necessary Executive Orders to enforce such bans are already in effect. Or there will be a "denial of service" type attack that will achieve the same thing. And one will be left wondering if the excessive traffic that froze the site was real or otherwise.
ainitfunny
Saved, to glorify God.
CONSIDER THIS!:
Right now, anyone who tends to frequently get innocent NOSEBLEEDS BEST FIGURE OUT how to SELF-ISOLATE AT HOME, NOT bring attention to themselves, NOT seek medical help, and stay ISOLATED SHOULD EBOLA HIT IN America!
BECAUSE Nobody will, during an ebola epidemic THEN give you the benefit of a doubt if they see you bleeding from the nose, and you will instantly find yourself forcibly LOCKED UP, IN "isolation" WITH PEOPLE WHO ACTUALLY, PROBABLY DO HAVE EBOLA!!!
LIKEWISE be aware women having a PERIOD who ACCIDENTALLY SHOWING BLOOD on their outer clothing may also be feared to be infected and isolated as a precaution! Likewise persons with bleeding hemorrhoids, or others with un-contagious, explainable reasons for bleeding should avoid getting swept up in the zeal to "contain" any perceived outbreak here, lest they CATCH IT FOM OTHERS IN ISOLATION!
Right now, anyone who tends to frequently get innocent NOSEBLEEDS BEST FIGURE OUT how to SELF-ISOLATE AT HOME, NOT bring attention to themselves, NOT seek medical help, and stay ISOLATED SHOULD EBOLA HIT IN America!
BECAUSE Nobody will, during an ebola epidemic THEN give you the benefit of a doubt if they see you bleeding from the nose, and you will instantly find yourself forcibly LOCKED UP, IN "isolation" WITH PEOPLE WHO ACTUALLY, PROBABLY DO HAVE EBOLA!!!
LIKEWISE be aware women having a PERIOD who ACCIDENTALLY SHOWING BLOOD on their outer clothing may also be feared to be infected and isolated as a precaution! Likewise persons with bleeding hemorrhoids, or others with un-contagious, explainable reasons for bleeding should avoid getting swept up in the zeal to "contain" any perceived outbreak here, lest they CATCH IT FOM OTHERS IN ISOLATION!
NamasteMama
Senior Member
South Africa might as well be on a different Continent. Its a completely different world there.
Intestinal Fortitude
Have Faith
Yes.
...and I was only referring to the infrastructure collapse of Nigeria et al.
There will be no one to put out a local paper, radio report, tv news.
All will be quiet.
Waiting for the Chinese workers to flee back to China and Singapore.
If Singapore, then Indonesia and Oceania.
- Status