outbreak of new Ebola strain

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Re: outbreak of new Ebola strain

Postby Elvis » Thu Aug 21, 2014 11:55 pm

I'm relating this anecdote because, naturally, it's true, and because it might mean something. A retired friend, who has more fancy-pants degrees in fields like medicine and microbiology than just about anyone alive, and was a top researcher at NIH and *other* places you've heard of, is worried. He lives on the East coast and is looking for property to buy somewhere in the most remote, least-populated areas of the US, to which he might evacuate in the event of a US Ebola outbreak. Which he thinks is kinda likely. He says there's no means to stop it, and if a means isn't found soon, "we're doomed." I haven't duct-taped my windows yet, and I probably won't even think about it much 'til it crosses the Mississippi.


:shrug:
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Re: outbreak of new Ebola strain

Postby Wombaticus Rex » Fri Aug 22, 2014 9:22 am

Microbiologists are an odd lot, innit?

I know two such cases here in Vermont, both brilliant, erudite, and paranoid on such a scorched-earth level I wonder if there's not another word for it.

Worth noting they've been "hiding out" in the woods here for decades because they knew that we were going to have a bioweapons outbreak in the United States.

Back when Reagan was president.

The Andromeda Strain does come to mind -- Nature does a far better job of adaptation than CDC labs -- but perhaps I'll be reminscing on this very post in another few months and reflecting on how nice everything was back when we could breathe without bleeding. Ah, the hubris of youth!
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Re: outbreak of new Ebola strain

Postby Col. Quisp » Sun Aug 24, 2014 4:44 pm

Just as I suspected - it's Ebola, despite WHO's emphatic denial. Also, this looks like two different strains, which could combine into a more easily spread virus. This is not good! Also, Congo has lots of borders, and lots of displaced people.

UPDATE 1-Congo declares Ebola outbreak in northern Equateur province
http://af.reuters.com/article/drcNews/idAFL5N0QU14820140824

KINSHASA Aug 24 (Reuters) - Democratic Republic of Congo declared an Ebola outbreak in its northern Equateur province on Sunday after two out of eight cases tested came back positive for the deadly virus, Health Minister Felix Kabange Numbi said.

A mysterious disease has killed dozens of people in Equateur in recent weeks but the World Health Organization had said on Thursday it was not Ebola.

"I declare an Ebola epidemic in the region of Djera, in the territory of Boende in the province of Equateur," Kabange Numbi told a news conference.

The region lies about 1,200 km (750 miles) north of the capital Kinshasa.

Numbi said that one of the two cases that tested positive was for the Sudanese strain of the disease, while the other was a mixture between the Sudanese and the Zaire strain -- the most lethal variety. The outbreak in West Africa that has killed at least 1,427 people in West Africa since March is the Zaire strain.

The World Health Organization said on Thursday that the disease which had killed at least 70 people in Equateur was a kind of hemorrhagic gastroenteritis.

A WHO spokesperson said the U.N. health agency could not confirm the results of the tests announced on Sunday, which were carried out by the Congolese authorities.


Can't trust anything WHO says.
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Re: outbreak of new Ebola strain

Postby stillrobertpaulsen » Mon Aug 25, 2014 4:13 pm

Just wanted to post the follow-up on that Sacramento case.

Sacramento Ebola test comes back negative
Kale Williams
Updated 8:40 am, Friday, August 22, 2014

(08-21) 20:55 PDT SACRAMENTO -- Health officials announced Thursday night that a patient in Sacramento who was thought to have been exposed to the Ebola virus after traveling to West Africa has tested negative and does not have the disease.

Dr. Ron Chapman, Director of the California Department of Public Health, said that a blood sample sent to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention came back free of the deadly virus, which has been ravishing West Africa over the last two months, killing more than 1,100 people.

The patient had recently traveled to the region, officials said.

"We are pleased with the negative outcome of the Ebola test," said Chapman. "The case in Sacramento County demonstrates that the system is working. This patient was quickly identified, appropriate infection control procedures were implemented, and public health authorities were notified."

The patient, whose identity was not released, was admitted to the hospital Tuesday and kept in a specially equipped negative-pressure room while the blood samples were tested.

Earlier this month, two U.S. aid workers who were infected with the deadly virus in Liberia were evacuated to Emory University hospital in Atlanta.

Both patients were treated with ZMapp, an experimental drug being developed by Mapp Biopharmaceutical for use with people infected with Ebola virus and were released after being cured of the disease within the last few days.
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Re: outbreak of new Ebola strain

Postby Col. Quisp » Fri Aug 29, 2014 5:08 pm

For those who like charts, graphs, and maps, this fact sheet is fascinating (from WHO):

http://www.who.int/csr/disease/ebola/si ... 4.pdf?ua=1
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Re: outbreak of new Ebola strain

Postby Nordic » Sat Aug 30, 2014 10:48 pm

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nati ... /14793487/

Experimental Ebola drug cured 100% of monkeys tested

Liz Szabo, USA TODAY


Dr. Frank Thieme, manager of development at Icon Genetics, holds a vial more
In what scientists are calling a "monumental achievement," an experimental medication called ZMapp — given on a compassionate basis to a handful of Ebola victims in the current outbreak — cured 100% of monkeys treated in a Canadian study, researchers announced Friday.

ZMapp, made by Mapp Biopharmaceuticals of San Diego, is in the early stage of development and has never been formally tested in humans. In a study published Friday in the journal Nature, however, the drug allowed all 18 rhesus macaques infected with a lethal dose of Ebola to recover. The drug worked even when given five days after infection. The monkeys received three doses of ZMapp, administered three days apart, according to the study, which was conducted by the Public Health Agency of Canada.


What remarkable timing! That an "experimental" treatment for this truly frightening disease appears at the exact same time as an outbreak of it!
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Re: outbreak of new Ebola strain

Postby Col. Quisp » Tue Sep 02, 2014 7:46 pm

ttp://currents.plos.org/outbreaks/article/assessing-the-international-spreading-risk-associated-with-the-2014-west-african-ebola-outbreak/

Assessing the International Spreading Risk Associated with the 2014 West African Ebola Outbreak
September 2, 2014 · Research

Authors

Marcelo F. C. Gomes
Ana Pastore y Piontti
Luca Rossi
Dennis Chao
Ira Longini
M. Elizabeth Halloran
Alessandro Vespignani

Abstract

Background: The 2014 West African Ebola Outbreak is so far the largest and deadliest recorded in history. The affected countries, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Liberia, and Nigeria, have been struggling to contain and to mitigate the outbreak. The ongoing rise in confirmed and suspected cases, 2615 as of 20 August 2014, is considered to increase the risk of international dissemination, especially because the epidemic is now affecting cities with major commercial airports.

Method: We use the Global Epidemic and Mobility Model to generate stochastic, individual based simulations of epidemic spread worldwide, yielding, among other measures, the incidence and seeding events at a daily resolution for 3,362 subpopulations in 220 countries. The mobility model integrates daily airline passenger traffic worldwide and the disease model includes the community, hospital, and burial transmission dynamic. We use a multimodel inference approach calibrated on data from 6 July to the date of 9 August 2014. The estimates obtained were used to generate a 3-month ensemble forecast that provides quantitative estimates of the local transmission of Ebola virus disease in West Africa and the probability of international spread if the containment measures are not successful at curtailing the outbreak.

Results: We model the short-term growth rate of the disease in the affected West African countries and estimate the basic reproductive number to be in the range 1.5 − 2.0 (interval at the 1/10 relative likelihood). We simulated the international spreading of the outbreak and provide the estimate for the probability of Ebola virus disease case importation in countries across the world. Results indicate that the short-term (3 and 6 weeks) probability of international spread outside the African region is small, but not negligible. The extension of the outbreak is more likely occurring in African countries, increasing the risk of international dissemination on a longer time scale.

snip


Conclusions

We show by a modeling effort informed by data available on the 2014WA EVD outbreak that the risk of international spread of the Ebola virus is still moderate for most of the countries. The current analysis however shows that if the outbreak is not contained, the probability of international spread is going to increase consistently, especially if other countries are affected and are not able to contain the epidemic. It is important to stress that the presented modeling analysis has been motivated by the need for a rapid assessment of the EVD outbreak trends and contains assumptions and approximations unavoidable with the current lack of data from the region. The results may change as more information becomes available from the EVD affected region and more refined sensitivity analysis can be implemented computationally. Furthermore, the modeling approach does not include scenarios for the identification and isolation of cases, the quarantine of contacts, and the proper precautions in hospital and funeral preparation that would be relevant in discussing optimal containment strategies. Such a modeling effort however calls for better and more detailed data not available at the moment.

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Re: outbreak of new Ebola strain

Postby seemslikeadream » Tue Sep 02, 2014 7:48 pm

Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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Re: outbreak of new Ebola strain

Postby Col. Quisp » Tue Sep 02, 2014 9:15 pm

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/sep/02/ebola-outbreak-call-send-military-curb-epidemic
Ebola outbreak: call to send in military to west Africa to help curb epidemic
Head of Médecins sans Frontières urges UN to dispatch disaster response teams as cases and deaths continue to surge

Sarah Boseley, health editor
The Guardian, Tuesday 2 September 2014 10.23 EDT

Military teams should be sent to west Africa immediately if there is to be any hope of controlling the Ebola epidemic, doctors on the frontline told the United Nations on Tuesday, painting a stark picture of health workers dying, patients left without care and infectious bodies lying in the streets.

The international president of Médecins sans Frontières (MSF), Dr Joanne Liu, told member states that although alarm bells had been ringing for six months, the response had been too little, too late and no amount of vaccinations and new drugs would be able to prevent the escalating disaster.

"In west Africa, cases and deaths continue to surge," she said. "Riots are breaking out. Isolation centres are overwhelmed. Health workers on the frontline are becoming infected and are dying in shocking numbers.

"Others have fled in fear, leaving people without care for even the most common illnesses. Entire health systems have crumbled."

She said Ebola treatment centres had been reduced to places where people went to die alone.

"It is impossible to keep up with the sheer number of infected people pouring into facilities. In Sierra Leone, infectious bodies are rotting in the streets," she said. "Rather than building new Ebola care centres in Liberia, we are forced to build crematoria."

The World Health Organisation estimated last week that 20,000 people in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone have been infected over three months. Médecins sans Frontières has doubled its staff of volunteer doctors in the region but is unable to cope.

COMMENT: NOT SURE IF THAT FIGURE IS CORRECT!

The epidemic can be stopped, said Liu, but only if governments send in biohazard teams and equipment.

"Many of the member states represented here today have invested heavily in biological threat response," she said at the UN. "You have a political and humanitarian responsibility to immediately utilise these capabilities in Ebola-affected countries.

"To curb the epidemic, it is imperative that states immediately deploy civilian and military assets with expertise in biohazard containment. I call upon you to dispatch your disaster response teams, backed by the full weight of your logistical capabilities. This should be done in close collaboration with the affected countries. Without this deployment, we will never get the epidemic under control."

Money is no longer the main issue, according to MSF, and voluntary help is not enough. Skilled and well equipped teams are needed on the ground.

Governments should send in military and civilian experts who can increase the number of isolation centres and deploy mobile laboratories that can be used to diagnose more cases.

Military-style operations are required to establish dedicated air bridges to move personnel and equipment around west Africa and a regional network of field hospitals must be built to treat medical staff who are infected or suspected of being infected. About a tenth of the deaths have been among health workers.

"We must also address the collapse of state infrastructure," Liu said. "The health system in Liberia has collapsed. Pregnant women experiencing complications have nowhere to turn.

"Malaria and diarrhoea, easily preventable and treatable diseases, are killing people. Hospitals need to be reopened and newly created."

Lastly, she said, there must be a change of approach by affected countries. "Coercive measures, such as laws criminalising the failure to report suspected cases, and forced quarantines, are driving people underground.

"This is leading to the concealment of cases, and is pushing the sick away from health systems. These measures have only served to breed fear and unrest, rather than contain the virus."

Liu was speaking as nurses in Liberia went on strike for better pay and equipment to protect themselves from Ebola.

John Tugbeh, spokesman for the strikers at John F Kennedy hospital in Monrovia, said the nurses would not return to work until they are supplied with "personal protective equipment (PPEs)", the clothing that guards against infectious diseases.

"From the beginning of the Ebola outbreak we have not had any protective equipment to work with. As a result, so many doctors got infected by the virus. We have to stay home until we get the PPEs," he said.

The surgical section at John F Kennedy hospital is the only trauma referral centre in Liberia. The hospital closed temporarily in July owing to the infections and deaths of an unspecified number of health workers who had been treating Ebola patients.

"We need proper equipment to work with [and] we need better pay because we are going to risk our lives," Tugbeh said.

The UN has also warned of serious food shortages as a result of restrictions on movement in the Ebola-hit countries. "Access to food has become a pressing concern for many people in the three affected countries and their neighbours," said Bukar Tijani, the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation regional representative for Africa.

"With the main harvest now at risk and trade and movements of goods severely restricted, food insecurity is poised to intensify in the weeks and months to come."

A UK Government spokesman said: "Britain is working with agencies like the World Health Organisation and Médecins Sans Frontières to prevent the spread of this deadly disease. A wide range of further options are under discussion to contain this outbreak."

Dr Paul Cosford, director of health protection at Public Health England, said: "We will continue to offer every support to the international efforts to contain and manage the Ebola outbreak led by the World Health Organisation, working closely with government colleagues, and partners including MSF and UNICEF."
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Re: outbreak of new Ebola strain

Postby Col. Quisp » Fri Sep 05, 2014 5:15 pm

Health officials fear that a Nigerian woman admitted to a Jerusalem hospital on Friday afternoon, may be the first case of Ebola in Israel since a break-out of the disease in West Africa which has killed over 1,500 people.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4567944,00.html?
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Re: outbreak of new Ebola strain

Postby Col. Quisp » Fri Sep 05, 2014 5:18 pm

at 16:24 on September 05, 2014, EDT.

Ebola cases could grow by thousands per week if current spread continues: WHO

Helen Branswell, The Canadian Press

A Liberian health worker prepare his Ebola protective gear before removing the body of a man that they believe died from the Ebola virus in Monrovia, Liberia, on Aug. 29, 2014. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP, Abbas Dulleh"

TORONTO - The World Health Organization is warning that the speed of spread in West Africa's raging Ebola outbreak could escalate in the coming weeks, with thousands of new cases a week by early October.

With the current rate of growth in the hundreds of new cases per week and no easing of the rate of transmission, a jump into the quadruple digits seems to be where this unprecedented outbreak is heading, an epidemiologist working in the office of WHO Director General Margaret Chan said Friday.

"The story is looking quite bleak. There are signs that the numbers of cases are not just continuing to arise in most parts that are already infected in the three main countries, but they are continuing to increase week on week," Christopher Dye, director of strategy in Chan's office, said in an interview with The Canadian Press.

"If we make a simple projection on what has happened over the last, say, 10 weeks ... and make a projection forward, then what we're faced with is not hundreds of cases a week, which is what we see at the moment, but thousands of cases a week going into next month.

"And that would really be an awful scenario because ... health services are already very seriously stretched."

As of Aug. 31, the Geneva-based WHO estimated there had been 3,685 cases in this outbreak, with 1,841 deaths. Both the total cases and deaths figures are greater than the combined totals from all previous known Ebola outbreaks.

Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia are at the centre of the epidemic. But cases have also spilled into Nigeria and Senegal. Other neighbouring countries have been told to be on high alert for imported cases.

Dye, who has been seconded to the Ebola response team from the WHO's tuberculosis and HIV-AIDS work, said the agency isn't clear that the growth will hit that rate. There has never been an Ebola epidemic remotely this big, so disease experts are uncertain how long the outbreak will continue to expand.

He noted the three most affected countries are home to about 20 million people — many if not all of whom are likely to be susceptible to infection, if they are exposed to the virus.

"We just don't have a sense of what the maximum number of cases could be under these circumstances," Dye admitted.

Infectious diseases expert Michael Osterholm shared his concern.

"We're in uncharted territories," said Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Diseases Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.

In the past, Ebola outbreaks have mainly happened in remote areas of central Africa, where the virus's opportunity to spread was limited. But in this outbreak, cases are occurring in cities, creating an entirely different dynamic.

"Here, there's almost an endless source of new vulnerable contacts," Osterholm said.

Ebola is transmitted through contact with virus-laced bodily fluids. And the disease generates those en masse; victims experience profuse diarrhea and vomiting. In places where people live in densely crowded neighbourhoods, where they have little access to health care and no real means of isolating themselves when they get sick, the virus has ample opportunity to spread.

"Ebola is like a gun that makes its own bullets," Osterholm noted. "Add all those factors together and they begin to redefine the laws of infectious disease transmission."

snip
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Re: outbreak of new Ebola strain

Postby Col. Quisp » Fri Sep 05, 2014 5:27 pm

Patient With Ebola Virus Being Brought To The Nebraska Medical Center

The U.S. State Department has asked for assistance from The Nebraska Medical Center and University of Nebraska Medical Center in caring for an American doctor who was working in West Africa when he tested positive for the Ebola virus. Officials expect this patient to arrive in Omaha Friday morning and to begin treatment in the Biocontainment Patient Care Unit, located inside The Nebraska Medical Center.

"This unit was specifically designed to care for patients of this nature and is staffed with infectious disease experts who have prepared for years for situations like this one," said Phil Smith, MD, medical director of the Biocontainment Unit. "The unit is sealed, guarded and secure. It's separate from other patient care areas, and just like the facility at Emory University, which successfully treated two Americans with Ebola last month, we are uniquely prepared to handle infectious diseases here."

Along with the Med Center's 10-bed Biocontainment Unit, there are only three other similar facilities in the United States. The list includes the unit at Emory University in Atlanta that is operated by the Centers for Disease Control, the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., and the Rocky Mountain Laboratory in Montana.

"We want everyone to know that every precaution is being taken in transporting this patient here and caring for them once they arrive," said Angela Hewlett, MD, associate medical director of the Biocontainment Unit. "This is one of the safest places in the country for this patient to be treated, both for the public and for the medical professionals providing care."

"There are strict guidelines in place to ensure staff members who work in the unit are protected," said Dr. Smith, a professor of infectious diseases at UNMC. "Staff members have drilled on a routine basis to prepare for something like this since the unit opened in 2005. The unit is equipped with a special air-handling system to ensure that microorganisms don't spread beyond the patient rooms, with high-level filtration for additional protection. A dunk tank for lab specimens and a pass-through autoclave help assure that hazardous materials are decontaminated before leaving the unit."

"We understand that some people might have questions about why this patient is coming here instead of Emory, where the first two patients were treated," added Dr. Hewlett, a UNMC assistant professor of infectious diseases. "We are doing this at the request of the U.S. State Department. The fact is, handling the Ebola outbreak is a marathon, not a sprint. We didn't request that a patient be brought here, but having the unique ability to care for this patient will only serve to build up our national resiliency in treating other similar patients in the future."

The unit has been activated once since it opened, for a potential case of Ebola that turned out to be malaria. However, it is frequently used for training and as additional space for patients during times when the hospital is near capacity.

http://www.nebraskamed.com/article/228/patient-with-ebola-virus-being-brought-to-the-nebraska-medical-center


They want every area to be ready? At least they are being proactive!
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Re: outbreak of new Ebola strain

Postby elfismiles » Fri Sep 12, 2014 8:27 pm

Besides 8bit's Ebola-EndTimes-Mashup thread...

SIS Unveiled, 17/777, Jonah's Tomb, Israel. AIDS/Ebola
by 8bitagent » 25 Jul 2014 02:37 in General Discussion
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=38281

... there are these others ...

Genocide via Airborn Ebola
by 4911 » 03 Apr 2006 15:23 in Health
viewtopic.php?f=20&t=2483

Ecologist advocates Ebola to exterminate 90% of population
by LoganSquare » 03 Apr 2006 01:01 in Health
viewtopic.php?f=20&t=2482

Reston Ebola Virus Found in Pigs, Philippines
by Penguin » 13 Jul 2009 09:53
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=24506


Now, check out this changed headline / article at http://www.DW.de

ORIGINAL: Virologist: Fight against Ebola in Sierra Leone and Liberia is lost
http://www.dw.de/virologist-fight-again ... a-17915090

... now redirects to ...

Ebola threatens to destroy Sierra Leone and Liberia
http://www.dw.de/ebola-threatens-to-des ... a-17915090

Virologist: Fight against Ebola in Sierra Leone and Liberia is lost

The killer virus is spreading like wildfire, Liberia's defense minister said on Tuesday and pleaded help from the UN. Now a German Ebola expert goes one step further and comes up with a shocking assertion.

Image
A security official in Liberia's capital, Monrovia

His statement might alarm many people.

But Jonas Schmidt-Chanasit of the Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine in Hamburg told DW that he and his colleagues are losing hope for Sierra Leone and Liberia, two of the countries worst hit by the recent Ebola epidemic.

"The right time to get this epidemic under control in these countries has been missed," he said. That time was May and June. "Now it is too late."

Schmidt-Chanasit expects the virus will "burn out itself" in this part of the world.

With other words: It will more or less infect everybody and half of the population - in total about five million people - could die.

Stop the virus from spilling over to other countries

Schmidt-Chanasit knows that it is a hard thing to say.

He stresses that he doesn't want international help to stop. Quite the contrary: He demands "massive help".

For Sierra Leone and Liberia, though, he thinks "it is far from reality to bring enough help there to get a grip on the epidemic."

According to the virologist, the most important thing to do now is to prevent the virus from spreading to other countries, "and to help where it is still possible, in Nigeria and Senegal for example."

Moreover, much more money has to be put into evaluating suitable vaccines, he added.
Ebola in Liberia Photo: EPA/AHMED JALLANZO

In Liberia, the death toll has risen to over 1000.

Angry reactions

In the headquarters of Welthungerhilfe, a German non-governmental aid organization that is engaged in helping with the Ebola epidemic, Schmidt-Chanasit's statement causes much contempt.

Such declarations "are not very constructive," a spokeswoman said.

Jochen Moninger, Sierra Leone based coordinator of Welthungerhilfe, told DW, Schmidt-Chanasit's statement is "dangerous and moreover, not correct."

Moninger has been living in Sierra Leone for four years and has experienced the Ebola outbreak there from the beginning.

"The measures are beginning to show progress," he says. "The problem is solvable - the disease can be stemmed."

"If I had lost hope completely, I would pack my things and take my family out of here", Moninger adds. Instead, he and his family will stay.

In Sierra Leone, the government has ordered a quarantine of 21 days for every household in which an Ebola case occurred. Soldiers and police are guarding these houses preventing anyone who has come into contact with an Ebola patient from leaving.

According to Moninger, that is exactly the right thing to do: isolating sick people - should it be necessary, even with military force.
Ebola in Liberia Photo: EPA/AHMED JALLANZO

When Liberia's government quarantined the slum area of West Point, frustration led to protest.

Creating hopelessness doesn't help

Moninger says he doesn't know much about the situation in Liberia. But indeed, he got the impression that "there seems to be happening something that is not good at all."

He grants that Schmidt-Chanasit's statement "might point a little bit into the right direction" regarding Liberia.

Liberia has not taken on the same quarantine measures as Sierra Leone. According to a WOrld HEalth Organization (WHO) report, Ebola-infected people are crisscrossing the capital in shared taxis, looking for a treatment place and returning home after finding none. This way the virus spreads.

"Distributing hopelessness", though, Moninger said, "is dangerous", adding that there are many human lives at risk, and "statements like these make the situation even worse".

Disastrous, but not without hope

The WHO in Geneva refuses to comment on Schmidt-Chanasit's statement.

WHO spokeswoman Fadéla Chaib, though, says that there is "of course" still hope for both countries.

"We can bring the situation under control in 6 to 9 months," she told DW.
Ebola in Liberia Photo: EPA/AHMED JALLANZO

When protesting against government's decision to quarantine West Point, residents have been injured.

She admits, though, that the situation especially in Liberia is "very intense".

The government is completely outstripped and as soon as a new Ebola treatment center has opened, it is overflowed by patients, she says, adding that Liberia has the highest number of cases and deaths in West Africa with a 60 percent case-fatality rate.

The situation is getting worse after 80 health workers, doctors and nurses, have died after contracting the disease.

The WHO even expects thousands of new cases of Ebola in Liberia over the next few weeks.

Winning together

Not only neighboring countries but also Europe and the US will have to support the fight against the epidemic, WHO's Chaib demands.

Then it might be possible to win this fight.

The key to getting a grip on the epidemic is to stop the transmission of Ebola, especially in healthcare workers, she says.

Creating Ebola centers in the communities themselves will stop Ebola patients and their family members moving around and infecting other people.

"We will do everything we can to stop this Ebola outbreak. We will not let down West Africa."


http://web.archive.org/web/201409111830 ... a-17915090



And more scary news...

The Opinion Pages | Op-Ed Contributor
What We’re Afraid to Say About Ebola
By MICHAEL T. OSTERHOLMSEPT. 11, 2014
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/12/opini ... il0=y&_r=2

Unstoppable: is Ebola mutating with unknown consequences before our eyes?
US President Barack Obama says the Ebola virus, currently attacking western Africa, could mutate - making it even more dangerous. The virus has already changed its genome, with unknown consequences. (10.09.2014)
http://www.dw.de/unstoppable-is-ebola-m ... a-17912329
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Re: outbreak of new Ebola strain

Postby conniption » Fri Sep 19, 2014 2:43 am

reuters

Eight bodies found after attack on Guinea Ebola education team

Thu Sep 18, 2014

(Reuters) - Eight bodies, including those of three journalists, were found after an attack on a team trying to educate locals on the risks of the Ebola virus in a remote area of southeastern Guinea, a government spokesman said on Thursday.

"The eight bodies were found in the village latrine. Three of them had their throats slit," Damantang Albert Camara told Reuters by telephone in Conakry.

However, Guinea's Prime Minister Mohamed Saïd Fofana, speaking in a television message that had been recorded earlier, said 7 bodies of 9 missing people had been found.

He said six people have been arrested following the incident, which took place on Tuesday in Wome, a village close to the town of Nzerekore, in Guinea's southeast, where Ebola was first identified in March.

Since then the virus has killed some 2,630 people and infected at least 5,357 people, according to World Health Organization (WHO), mostly in Guinea, neighboring Sierra Leone and Liberia. It has also spread to Senegal and Nigeria.

Authorities in the region are faced with widespread fears, misinformation and stigma among residents of the affected countries, complicating efforts to contain the highly contagious disease.

Fofana said the team that included local administrators, two medical officers, a preacher and three accompanying journalists, was attacked by a hostile stone-throwing crowd from the village when they tried to inform people about Ebola.

He said it was regrettable that the incident occurred as the international community was mobilizing to help countries struggling to contain the disease.

(Reporting by Saliou Samb; Writing by Bate Felix; Editing by Robin Pomeroy and Ken Wills)


~

RT

Throats slit: Ebola health team, journalists brutally killed in Guinea

Published time: September 19, 2014

The bodies of eight people – including three journalists – were found in Guinea after an Ebola health team came under attack two days ago, officials said. Meanwhile, the UN plans to deploy a special mission to fight the virus in the worst-hit countries.

The group, which included three doctors and three journalists, is said to have been attacked near Nzerekore, a city near Guinea’s southern tip. With the Ebola death toll now topping 2,600, the team was sent to the area to help raise awareness about the virus. They had been missing since Tuesday.

The six were found dead on Thursday. The identities of the other two bodies are currently unknown.

Government spokesman Damantang Albert Camara told Reuters that the workers and journalists were brutally beaten to death.

“The eight bodies were found in the village latrine. Three of them had their throats slit,” he said.

Earlier this week, the team members met with locals. A resident named Yves told the Guardian that there were no problems until after that assembly took place.

“The meeting started off well; the traditional chiefs welcomed the delegation with 10 kola nuts as a traditional greeting,” Yves said. “It was afterwards that some youths came out and started stoning them. They dragged some of them away, and damaged their vehicles.”

The dangers of Ebola have been difficult to communicate in some rural villages, where suspicion of health workers reigns. Last month in Nzerekore, riots erupted when workers reportedly “tried to spray the local market,” leading residents to believe they were actually spreading the virus themselves.

As the virus continues to tear through West Africa, the UN announced on Thursday that it is creating a special mission to fight the disease in Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone – the three countries where the virus has done the worst damage. The move came just as the UN Security Council called the outbreak “a threat to international peace and security.”

Co-sponsored by 131 nations, the plan will involve mobilizing money, personnel, and supplies to victims.

“This international mission...will have five priorities: stopping the outbreak, treating the infected, ensuring essential services, preserving stability and preventing further outbreaks,” UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said to the Security Council.

Other countries have also been stepping up aid to the region. The United States announced on Tuesday that it is sending 3,000 troops to West Africa, and that it will build 17 new treatment centers. France will install a military hospital in Guinea. Britain, China, and Cuba have promised to send health workers to the region.

Jackson Naimah, a health team leader in Liberia, told the Security Council that more help is desperately needed.

“We are trying to treat as many people as we can, but there are not nearly enough treatment centers and patient beds,” he said, according to Reuters. “People are sitting at the gates of our centers, literally begging for their lives. They rightly feel alone, neglected, denied – left to die a horrible, undignified death.”
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Re: outbreak of new Ebola strain

Postby nashvillebrook » Sat Sep 20, 2014 5:53 pm

Anytime journalists are killed it's worth asking why. Even though I understand how easy it must be to have distrust of any outsiders when your corner of the world is ground zero for the next plague, I question if journalist would be seen as threats. It's just a gut feeling, and probably due to my own good feelings toward people doing that work, but all the same. A non-rigorous intuition…I don't trust any news coming out of "the hot zone" right now.
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