Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Ebola Loose in Boston

Boston hospitals say they’re ready for Ebola cases

Related: Ebola Now in Nigeria

"Ebola kills prominent doctor in Liberia as outbreak spreads; Two Americans being treated for deadly virus" by Jonathan Paye-Layleh | Associated Press   July 28, 2014

MONROVIA, Liberia — One of Liberia’s highest profile doctors has died of Ebola, officials said Sunday, and an American physician was being treated for the deadly virus, highlighting the risks facing health workers trying to combat an outbreak that has killed more than 670 people in West Africa, the largest ever recorded.

A second American, a missionary working in the Liberian capital, was also taken ill and was being treated in isolation there, said the pastor of a North Carolina church that sponsored her work.

Dr. Samuel Brisbane was treating Ebola patients at the country’s largest hospital, John F. Kennedy Memorial Medical Center in Monrovia, when he fell ill. He died Saturday, said Tolbert Nyenswah, an assistant health minister. A Ugandan doctor died earlier this month.

The American, 33-year-old Dr. Kent Brantly, was in Liberia helping to respond to the outbreak that has killed 129 people nationwide when he fell ill, according to the North Carolina-based medical charity, Samantha’s Purse.

Brantly, from Fort Worth, Texas, is the medical director of the aid group. He is in stable condition, receiving intensive care in a Monrovia hospital, according to a spokeswoman for the aid group, Melissa Strickland.

‘‘We are hopeful, but he is certainly not out of the woods yet,’’ she said.

Early treatment improves a patient’s chances of survival, and Strickland said Brantly recognized his symptoms and began receiving care immediately.

There is no known cure for the highly contagious virus, which is one of the world’s deadliest. At least 1,201 people have been infected in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea, according to the World Health Organization, and 672 have died, not including a death in Nigeria reported last week.

Besides the Liberian fatalities, 319 people have died in Guinea and 224 in Sierra Leone. The Nigerian death was the first in that country. Nigerian authorities said Friday that a Liberian man died of Ebola after flying from Monrovia to Lagos via Lome, Togo.

The Nigerian case underscored the difficulty of preventing Ebola victims from traveling given weak screening systems and the fact that the initial symptoms of the disease, including fever and sore throat, resemble many other illnesses. The disease escalates to vomiting, diarrhea, and internal and external bleeding.

Health workers are among those at greatest risk of contracting the disease, which spreads through contact with bodily fluids. The WHO says the disease is not contagious until a person begins to show symptoms.

Besides Brantly and the two doctors in Liberia, Sierra Leone’s top Ebola doctor and a doctor in Liberia’s central Bong County have also fallen ill.

Brantly’s wife and children had been living with him in Liberia but flew home to the United States about a week ago, before the doctor started showing any signs of illness, Strickland said. 

Have they been screened?

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"Liberia president orders new anti-Ebola measures" by Jonathan Paye-Layleh | Associated Press   July 29, 2014

MONROVIA, Liberia — Liberia’s president has closed all but three land border crossings, restricted public gatherings, and quarantined communities heavily affected by the Ebola outbreak in the West African nation.

President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf described the measures late Sunday after the first meeting of a taskforce she created to contain the disease, which has killed 129 people in the country and more than 670 across the region.

A top Liberian doctor working at Liberia’s largest hospital died on Saturday, and two American aid workers have fallen ill, underscoring the dangers facing those charged with bringing the outbreak under control.

Last week a Liberian official flew to Nigeria via Lome, Togo, and died of the disease at a Lagos hospital. The fact that the official, Patrick Sawyer, was able to board an international flight despite being ill raised fears that the disease could spread beyond the three other countries already affected — Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone.

There is no known cure for Ebola, which begins with symptoms including fever and sore throat and escalates to vomiting, diarrhea, and internal bleeding.

The disease spreads through direct contact with blood and other bodily fluids as well as indirect contact with ‘‘environments contaminated with such fluids,’’ according to the World Health Organization.

‘‘No doubt, the Ebola virus is a national health problem,’’ Sirleaf said. ‘‘And as we have also begun to see, it attacks our way of life, with serious economic and social consequences.’’

Sirleaf said all borders would be closed except for one that crosses into Sierra Leone, one that crosses into Guinea, and a third that crosses into both. Experts believe the outbreak originated in southeast Guinea as far back as January, though the first cases were not confirmed until March.

That country has recorded the most deaths, with 319. Sierra Leone has recorded more of the recent cases, however, and has seen 224 deaths in total.

Liberia will keep open Roberts International Airport outside Monrovia and James Spriggs Payne Airport, which is in the city.

Sirleaf said that ‘‘preventive and testing centers will be established’’ at the airports and open border crossings and that ‘‘stringent preventive measures to be announced will be scrupulously adhered to.’’

Other measures include restricting demonstrations and marches and requiring restaurants and other public venues to screen a five-minute film on Ebola.

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"Top doctor dies from Ebola after treating dozens" by Clarence Roy-Macaulay and Krista Larson | Associated Press   July 30, 2014

FREETOWN, Sierra Leone — A leading doctor who risked his own life to treat dozens of Ebola patients died Tuesday from the disease, officials said, as a major regional airline said it was suspending flights to the cities hardest hit by an outbreak that has killed more than 670 people.

Dr. Sheik Humarr Khan, who was praised as a national hero for treating the disease in Sierra Leone, was confirmed dead by health ministry officials there. He had been hospitalized in quarantine.

Health workers have been especially vulnerable to contracting Ebola, which is spread through bodily fluids such as saliva, sweat, blood, and urine. Two American health workers are currently hospitalized with Ebola in neighboring Liberia.

The Ebola outbreak is the largest in history with deaths blamed on the disease not only in Sierra Leone and Liberia, but also Guinea and Nigeria. The disease has no vaccine and no specific treatment, with a high fatality rate.

Binyah Kesselly, chairman of the Liberia Airport Authority board, said police are now present at the airport in Monrovia to enforce screening of passengers.

‘‘So if you have a flight and you are not complying with the rules, we will not allow you to board,’’ he said.

In a statement released Tuesday, airline ASKY said it was temporarily halting flights not only to Monrovia but also to Freetown, Sierra Leone. Flights will continue to the capital of the third major country where people have died — Guinea — though passengers departing from there will be ‘‘screened for signs of the virus.’’

Passengers at the airline’s hub in Lome, Togo, also will be screened by medical teams, it said. ‘‘ASKY is determined to keep its passengers and staff safe during this unsettling time,’’ the statement said.

The measures follow the death Friday of a 40-year-old American man of Liberian descent, who had taken several flights on ASKY, causing widespread fear at a time when the outbreak shows no signs of slowing in West Africa.

Patrick Sawyer, who worked for the West African nation’s Finance Ministry, took an ASKY Airlines flight from Liberia to Ghana, then on to Togo and eventually to Nigeria, where he was immediately taken into quarantine until his death.

His sister had died of Ebola, though he maintained he had not had close physical contact with her when she was sick. At the time, Liberian authorities said they had not been requiring health checks of departing passengers in Monrovia.

The World Health Organization says the risk of travelers contracting Ebola is considered low because it requires direct contact with bodily fluids or secretions such as urine, blood, sweat, or saliva. Ebola can’t be spread like flu through casual contact or breathing in the same air.

Patients are contagious only once the disease has progressed to the point they show symptoms, according to the WHO. And the most vulnerable are health care workers and relatives who come in much closer contact with the sick.

Still, the early symptoms of Ebola — fever, aches, and sore throat — mirror many other diseases including malaria and typhoid, experts say. Only in later stages of Ebola do patients sometimes experience severe internal bleeding and blood coming out of their mouth, eyes, or ears.

At the Finance Ministry where Sawyer worked, officials announced they were temporarily shutting down operations. All employees who came into contact with Sawyer before he left for Nigeria were being placed under surveillance, it said. In West Africa medical facilities are scarce and some affected communities have in panic attacked the international health workers trying to help them.

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Also seeEbola outbreak at a glance

‘He Could Have Brought Ebola Here’

"As Ebola races across Africa, it appears that the United States Government's attitude towards the crisis is rather lackadaisical at this point. Certainly it is being treated as a lower priority than sheltering the illegal immigrants flooding across the Mexican border (who given enough time, will bring Ebola with them), providing weapons and money to Israel, and trying to provoke a potentially nuclear war with Russia.

The US Government's inaction could be attributed to the fact that the politicians can;t really do anything about it, cannot get votes out of it, and so, like with Fukushima and the Gulf Oil Disaster, their plan is to ignore Ebola and pretend it just is not important.

But there may be another agenda at work; one that dates back to the Nixon Administration. In 1974, Henry Kissenger prepared a study for the President which suggested US Government policy should work for depopulation of the third world, in particular the resource-rich regions, to make those resources available to the US and to prevent the rise of a sufficiently large population able to resist US incursions.

Nixon adopted this policy, but his successor, Gerald Ford, alarmed by scandals involving covert sterilization under the guise of global vaccination programs, ended the policy. Whether it has been revived in secret is not known.

But there is no question that an Ebola epidemic, raging through the very nations the US AFRICOM is seeking ton control, plays right into that agenda of depopulation to reduce nations' ability to resist US control, and that may be the reason the US Government has done little more about the emerging Ebola crisis than flap their gums for the corporate media cameras!"-- whatreallyhappened.com

NEXT DAY UPDATES:

"Ebola forces Liberia schools to close" Associated Press   July 31, 2014

MONROVIA, Liberia — President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf issued an order Wednesday calling for the nation’s schools to shut down and most civil servants to stay home as an ebola outbreak that already has killed more than 130 people in the country deepened.

Meanwhile, the US Peace Corps said it was evacuating its volunteers from Liberia and neighboring Guinea and Sierra Leone as the regional death toll topped 670 people.

The ebola outbreak is now the largest recorded in history.

Sirleaf, who is skipping a summit of African leaders in Washington this week, also called for the closure of markets in an area near the borders with infected countries Guinea and Sierra Leone.

Ebola has no vaccine and no specific treatment, with a fatality rate of at least 60 percent.

But specialists say the risk of travelers contracting it is considered low because it requires direct contact with bodily fluids or secretions such as urine, blood, or sweat.

Patients are contagious only once the disease has progressed to the point they show symptoms, according to the World Health Organization.

It does amaze me that the same organization that screamed swine flu to get a needle in your arm is so blasé about this.

The most vulnerable are health care workers and relatives who come in much closer contact with the sick.

In a statement released Wednesday, the Peace Corps said that 340 volunteers in the three affected countries were being evacuated, and that ‘‘a determination on when volunteers can return will be made at a later date.’’

Reuters reported that two volunteers were isolated and under observation after being exposed to a person who later died of ebola.

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"33 die in Guinea concert stampede" Associated Press   July 31, 2014

CONAKRY, Guinea — Hundreds of people leaving a late-night rap concert on a beach in Guinea rushed to leave through a single exit, creating a stampede that killed at least 33 people, officials said Wednesday.

The victims included children as young as 10, and most bodies brought to an overflowing morgue in the capital were still dressed in bathing suits and swim trunks.

Some had bled from their mouths after their bodies were trampled, causing internal bleeding.

‘‘We are not used to seeing such a large number of bodies at the same time. It’s such a tragedy, these young victims killed in the prime of their life,’’ said an employee at Donka Hospital, where bodies awaited burial.

The hospital’s director, Dr. Fatou Sike Camara, announced the toll of 33 deaths.

President Alpha Conde went on national television to declare a week of national mourning and promised a full investigation.

The capital’s beaches also were ordered closed until further notice.

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Little out of tune with the rest of the articles, isn't it?