Sep 2 2014

U.S. PREPS FOR EBOLA OUTBREAK: CASES MAY EXCEED 100,000 BY DECEMBER: “THE NUMBERS ARE REALLY SCARY”

This is our number one problem and we’ll know this month as the 3 week incubation period take hold from those exposed and who left the area.

Sep 1 2014

CDC warns of Ebola ‘catastrophe’ in Sierra Leone

With everything else going on don’t forget Ebola its still out there and growing.

Aug 28 2014

Ebola claims lives of prominent doctors

It just keeps getting bigger and bigger!

Aug 27 2014

WHO Worker Ebola Infections Mount: Sierra Leone Lab Shut, Senegal Doctor Flown To Hamburg

Re-Post from ZERO HEDGE

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 08/27/2014 08:54 -0400

There is reason to be concerned “about whether the proposed resources would be adequate,” warns a Harvard professor as the World Health Organization ‘battle strategy’ draft calls for more than $430 million to bring the worst Ebola outbreak on record under control. This morning we hear of yet another health worker infected – and being flown home to Hamburg for treatment from Sengal and the WHO has shut a lab in Sierra Leone after health workers became infected. A glimpse at the following 3 charts should have the entire world throwing money at at them…

As Bloomberg reports,

More than $430 million will be needed to bring the worst Ebola outbreak on record under control, according to a draft document laying out the World Health Organization’s battle strategy.

The plan sets a goal of reversing the trend in new cases within two months, and stopping all transmission in six to nine months. It requires funding by governments, development banks, the private sector and in-kind contributions, according to the document obtained by Bloomberg News.

There is reason to be concerned “about whether the proposed resources would be adequate,” said Barry Bloom, a public health professor at Harvard University who also questioned whether the funds would be made available fast enough, and whether the organization’s latest plan “would ensure the expertise from WHO that is needed.”

The WHO plans to publish the plan by the end of this week at the earliest and details may change, said Fadela Chaib, a spokeswoman for the Geneva-based agency. United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon this month appointed health crisis expert David Nabarro to coordinate the UN response.

Previous outbreaks pale in significance…

and it is getting worse very fast…

Charts: Bloomberg, WHO, and Ecologically Oriented

* * *

And it gets worse – WHO shuts Sierra Leone Lab…

The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday it had shut a laboratory in Sierra Leone after a health worker there was infected with Ebola, a move that may hamper efforts to boost the global response to the worst ever outbreak of the disease

The WHO said it had withdrawn staff from the laboratory testing for Ebola at Kailahun — one of only two in Sierra Leone — after a Senegalese epidemiologist was infected with Ebola.

“It’s a temporary measure to take care of the welfare of our remaining workers,” WHO spokesperson Christy Feig said, without specifying how long the measure would last. “After our assessment, they will return.”

And another WHO health worker is sick (and being flown home to Hamburg)

An employee of the World Health Organization (WHO) who contracted Ebola in Sierra Leone will be flown to the German city of Hamburg for treatment, a spokesman for the city said.

Rico Schmidt, spokesman for the Hamburg Health Senate, said the patient would arrive later on Wednesday and be treated at Hamburg university clinic’s tropical medicine institute. The WHO in Geneva said the patient was a Senegalese epidemiologist.

One of the deadliest diseases known to man, Ebola is transmitted by contact with body fluids and the current outbreak has killed at least 120 healthcare workers.

* *

We leave it to the WHO to conclude:

It’s not “a question of incompetence or complacency,” according to Morrison, who said the WHO should be able to raise the money needed. “It’s the fact we’re catching up with the unknown, and it’s way ahead of us.”

Aug 26 2014

A second and different Ebola outbreak hits Congo, the fifth infected African country

Re-Post from The Washington Post By Terrence McCoy August 25

That makes five. The first was Guinea. Then, three days later on March 27, the World Health Organization reported that there were “suspected” cases of Ebola in Liberia and Sierra Leone. Months passed before the disease, which has now killed 1,427 people across West Africa, reached Nigeria in early August.

“I declare an Ebola epidemic in the region of Djera, in the territory of Boende in the province of Equateur,” Reuters quotes Congo health minister Kabange Numbi saying on Sunday. But, he said, it appeared to be a different strain from the West African variety, which has hopped borders, forced quarantines from rural villages to overpopulated slums, and terrified a continent. “The epidemic has nothing to do with the one in West Africa,” the minister added.

The World Health Organization couldn’t confirm Sunday whether the two outbreaks were different strains and expected more answers on Monday. “Need to wait for confirmatory tests,” WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl said on Twitter. “But yes there could be two different strains here, meaning two different events/outbreaks.”

A second Ebola front will further complicate international efforts to combat what has become an out-of-control outbreak in West Africa. On Sunday, it was unclear how many had died of Ebola in the northwestern province of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
In the last several weeks, a mysterious disease had reportedly riddled 592 victims with symptoms similar to Ebola, killing 70 of them. The WHO originally said the outbreak wasn’t related to Ebola. “This is not Ebola,” one WHO representative initially told Reuters late last week. But that assessment, following the analysis of eight samples, now appears shaky. Two of those samples tested by Congolese health workers had tested positive for the virus. Officials now contend 13 people had died of Ebola, including five health workers.

WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl told the Associated Press the initial information had been the result of “miscommunication from the field.” He added on Twitter: “I was given premature information from the field.”

Either way, Congolese Health Minister Kabange Numbi expressed confidence. “The experience acquired during the six previous epidemics of Ebola will contribute to the containing of this illness,” he said.

The World Health Organization agreed. “The Democratic Republic of the Congo has confirmed an outbreak of Ebola in the remote village of Boende,” the organization tweeted on Sunday. “…The country has extensive experience with Ebola outbreaks and immediately deployed a response team with WHO and other partners to the area. The country is organizing additional tests.”

Indeed, if any country has experience with Ebola, it’s Congo. It’s where it was first discovered in 1976 by a Belgian doctor named Peter Piot — in the same regional forests of the current Ebola outbreak. There, nearby the serpentine Ebola River, were signs that read, “Please stop, anybody who crosses here may die.”

Undeterred, Piot, now 65, says he charged into the village with the audacity of a young man. “When you are 27, you have all this confidence,” he recalled in an interview with the BBC. “We systematically went from village to village and if someone was ill, they would be put into quarantine. We would also quarantine anyone in direct contact with those infected and we would ensure everyone knew how to correctly bury those who had died from the virus.”

Now, nearly 40 years and many outbreaks later, the same problems are today bedeviling Ebola-ravaged communities. When someone dies of Ebola, their body is in fact more infections than it had been in life, as explained by The Washington Post’s Abby Ohlheiser. The WHO recommends following a procedures — body bags, bleach, protective clothes — before burying the dead underneath six feet of dirt.

That didn’t happen in Sierra Leone. And the outbreak there is believed to have begun at a single funeral of a woman who had claimed “to have powers to heal Ebola,” according to Agence France-Presse. She had tried her luck at saving some sick in nearby Guinea. But “she got infected and died,” one top medical official told the news agency. “During her funeral, women around the other towns got infected.” Afterward, the funeral’s observers spread throughout the Kissi tribal chiefdoms, “starting a chain reaction of infections, deaths funerals and more infections,” AFP reported.

And whether the current outbreak is a different strain or not — that’s exactly what experts don’t want to happen in the Congo.

Aug 25 2014

“Current Ebola Outbreak Is Different,” WHO Warns “Unprecedented” Number Of Medical Staff Infected

Re-Posted from ZEROHEDGE

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 08/25/2014 09:08 -0400

The outbreak of Ebola virus disease in west Africa is unprecedented in many ways, including the high proportion of doctors, nurses, and other health care workers who have been infected, warns the World Health Organization. Despite all precautions possible, more than 240 health care workers have developed the disease in Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone, and more than 120 have died. Simply put, they conclude, the current outbreak is different. The loss of so many doctors and nurses has made it difficult for WHO to secure support from sufficient numbers of foreign medical staff. Even WHO admits, if doctors and nurses are getting infected, what chance does the general public have?

Full WHO Statement:

The outbreak of Ebola virus disease in west Africa is unprecedented in many ways, including the high proportion of doctors, nurses, and other health care workers who have been infected.

To date, more than 240 health care workers have developed the disease in Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone, and more than 120 have died.

Ebola has taken the lives of prominent doctors in Sierra Leone and Liberia, depriving these countries not only of experienced and dedicated medical care but also of inspiring national heroes.

Several factors help explain the high proportion of infected medical staff. These factors include shortages of personal protective equipment or its improper use, far too few medical staff for such a large outbreak, and the compassion that causes medical staff to work in isolation wards far beyond the number of hours recommended as safe.

In the past, some Ebola outbreaks became visible only after transmission was amplified in a health care setting and doctors and nurses fell ill. However, once the Ebola virus was identified and proper protective measures were put in place, cases among medical staff dropped dramatically.

Moreover, many of the most recent Ebola outbreaks have occurred in remote areas, in a part of Africa that is more familiar with this disease, and with chains of transmission that were easier to track and break.

The current outbreak is different. Capital cities as well as remote rural areas are affected, vastly increasing opportunities for undiagnosed cases to have contact with hospital staff. Neither doctors nor the public are familiar with the disease. Intense fear rules entire villages and cities.

Several infectious diseases endemic in the region, like malaria, typhoid fever, and Lassa fever, mimic the initial symptoms of Ebola virus disease. Patients infected with these diseases will often need emergency care. Their doctors and nurses may see no reason to suspect Ebola and see no need to take protective measures.

Some documented infections have occurred when unprotected doctors rushed to aid a waiting patient who was visibly very ill. This is the first instinct of most doctors and nurses: aid the ailing.

In many cases, medical staff are at risk because no protective equipment is available – not even gloves and face masks. Even in dedicated Ebola wards, personal protective equipment is often scarce or not being properly used.

Training in proper use in absolutely essential, as are strict procedures for infection prevention and control.

In addition, personal protective equipment is hot and cumbersome, especially in a tropical climate, and this severely limits the time that doctors and nurses can work in an isolation ward. Some doctors work beyond their physical limits, trying to save lives in 12-hour shifts, every day of the week. Staff who are exhausted are more prone to make mistakes.

All personal protective equipment dispatched or approved by WHO meets the appropriate international safety standards.

The heavy toll on health care workers in this outbreak has a number of consequences that further impede control efforts.

It depletes one of the most vital assets during the control of any outbreak. WHO estimates that, in the three hardest-hit countries, only one to two doctors are available to treat 100,000 people, and these doctors are heavily concentrated in urban areas.

It can lead to the closing of health facilities, especially when staff refuse to come to work, fearing for their lives. When hospitals close, other common and urgent medical needs, such as safe childbirth and treatment for malaria, are neglected.

The fact that so many medical staff have developed the disease increases the level of anxiety: if doctors and nurses are getting infected, what chance does the general public have? In some areas, hospitals are regarded as incubators of infection and are shunned by patients with any kind of ailment, again reducing access to general health care.

The loss of so many doctors and nurses has made it difficult for WHO to secure support from sufficient numbers of foreign medical staff.

The African Union has launched an urgent initiative to recruit more health care workers from among its members.