EBOLA plague 2014-15-16-17...

[Psalm 51:17]

Nigeria confirms doctor as 2nd Ebola case
http://news.yahoo.com/nigeria-confirms-doctor-2nd-ebola-case-130256816.html;_ylt=AwrBJSAFi99T618ATEPQtDMD
8/4/14

ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — Nigerian authorities on Monday confirmed a second case of Ebola in Africa's most populous country, an alarming setback as officials across the region battle to stop the spread of a disease that has killed more than 700 people.

Nigerian Health Minister Onyebuchi Chukwu also said test samples were pending for three other people who had shown symptoms of Ebola.

The confirmed second case is a doctor who had helped treat Patrick Sawyer, the Liberian-American man who died July 25 days after arriving in Nigeria amid the unprecedented outbreak in West Africa.

"Three others who participated in that treatment who are currently symptomatic have had their samples taken and hopefully by the end of today we should have the results of their own test," Chukwu said.

The emergence of a second case raises serious concerns about the infection control practices that were used while Sawyer was in Nigeria, and also raise the specter that more cases could emerge. It can take up to 21 days after exposure to the virus for symptoms to appear. They include fever, sore throat, muscle pains and headaches. Often nausea, vomiting and diarrhea follow, along with bleeding.

Sawyer, who was traveling to Nigeria on business, became ill while aboard a flight and Nigerian authorities immediately took him into isolation. They did not quarantine his fellow passengers, and have insisted that the risk of additional cases was minimal.

Nigeria is the fourth country to report Ebola cases and at least 728 other people have died in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia.

Nigerian authorities said a total of 70 people are under surveillance and that they hoped to have eight people in quarantine by the end of Monday in an isolation ward in Lagos.

[Psalm 51:17]

http://7online.com/health/mount-sinai-patient-tested-for-ebola-virus/239663/
Mount Sinai patient tested for Ebola virus
8/4/14

UPPER EAST SIDE (WABC) --
Mount Sinai Hospital is performing tests on a patient who had recently traveled to a West African country where Ebola has been reported, the hospital says.

A male patient with high fever and gastrointestinal symptoms came to the hospital's emergency room on Monday morning, officials said.

The hospital says the patient has been placed in strict isolation and is undergoing medical screenings to determine the cause of his symptoms.

"All necessary steps are being taken to ensure the safety of all patients, visitors and staff. We will continue to work closely with federal, state and city health officials to address and monitor this case, keep the community informed and provide the best quality care to all of our patients," the hospital wrote in a statement.

Mt. Sinai is following what the Center for Disease Control recommended last week when they sent a Health Alert to doctors and hospitals.

Testing for Ebola is done at the CDC. According to a CDC spokesperson testing for Ebola takes 1-2 days after they receive the samples. The primary testing is PCR. This is performed on blood that has been treated to kill and live virus. So far CDC has tested samples from around 6 people who had symptoms consistent with Ebola and a travel history to the affected region.

ABC News' Dr. Richard Besser cautions, "Many things cause fever and gastrointestinal symptoms. The steps they are taking are wise given the travel history, but nothing about the symptoms is specific to Ebola."

The Ebola virus causes a hemorrhagic fever that has sickened more than 1,300 people in Africa, killing more than 700 mostly in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone. It is spread through direct contact with bodily fluids, such as blood or urine, unlike an airborne virus like influenza or the common cold. A person exposed to the virus can take up to 21 days to exhibit any symptoms, making it possible for infected travelers to enter the U.S. without knowing they have it.

Federal agents at U.S. airports are watching travelers from Africa for flu-like symptoms that could be tied to the recent Ebola outbreak, as delegations from some 50 countries arrive in the nation's capital for a leadership summit this week. Border patrol agents at Washington's Dulles International and New York's JFK airport in particular have been told to ask travelers about possible exposure to the virus and to be on the lookout for anyone with a fever, headache, achiness, sore throat, diarrhea, vomiting, stomach pain, rash or red eyes.

"There is a screening process that individuals have to go through when they board aircraft departing the countries where this outbreak has been reported. There is additional screening that occurs when individuals who started in that region of the world arrive in this country," White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest told reporters.

If a passenger is suspected of carrying the deadly virus, they would be quarantined immediately and evaluated by medical personnel, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which provided the additional training to local airports.

"There is always the possibility that someone with an infectious disease can enter the United States," CDC spokeswoman Barbara Reynolds said Monday. "The public health concern is whether it would spread, and, if so, how quickly.'"

While the CDC says it is not screening passengers boarding planes at African airports - the job of local authorities there - the center said it has encouraged vulnerable countries to follow certain precautions. Outbound passengers in the countries experiencing Ebola are being screened for fevers and with health questionnaires, Reynolds said.

Health officials say the threat to Americans remains relatively small, even with the uptick in travel this week between Africa and the United States. In the past decade, five people have entered the U.S. known to have a viral hemorrhagic fever, including a case last March of a Minnesota man diagnosed with Lassa Fever after traveling to West Africa.

[Psalm 51:17]

http://news.yahoo.com/bodies-dumped-streets-west-africa-struggles-curb-ebola-164345648--finance.html
Bodies dumped in streets as West Africa struggles to curb Ebola
8/5/14

 MONROVIA/DAKAR (Reuters) - Relatives of Ebola victims in Liberia defied government orders and dumped infected bodies in the streets as West African governments struggled to enforce tough measures to curb an outbreak of the virus that has killed 887 people.

In Nigeria, which recorded its first death from Ebola in late July, authorities in Lagos said eight people who came in contact with the deceased U.S. citizen Patrick Sawyer were showing signs of the deadly disease.

The outbreak was detected in March in the remote forest regions of Guinea, where the death toll is rising. In neighboring Sierra Leone and Liberia, where the outbreak is now spreading fastest, authorities deployed troops to quarantine the border areas where 70 percent of cases have been detected.

Those three countries announced a raft of tough measures last week to contain the disease, shutting schools and imposing quarantines on victim's homes, amid fears the incurable virus would overrun healthcare systems in one of the world's poorest regions.

In Liberia's ramshackle ocean-front capital Monrovia, still scarred by a 1989-2003 civil war, relatives of Ebola victims were dragging bodies onto the dirt streets rather than face quarantine, officials said.

Information Minister Lewis Brown said some people may be alarmed by regulations imposing the decontamination of victims' homes and the tracking of their friends and relatives. With less than half of those infected surviving the disease, many Africans regard Ebola isolation wards as death traps.

"They are therefore removing the bodies from their homes and are putting them out in the street. They're exposing themselves to the risk of being contaminated," Brown told Reuters. "We're asking people to please leave the bodies in their homes and we'll pick them up."

Brown said authorities had begun cremating bodies on Sunday, after local communities opposed burials in their neighborhoods, and had carried out 12 cremations on Monday. Meanwhile, in the border region of Lofa County, troops were deployed on Monday night to start isolating effected communities there.

"We hope it will not require excessive force, but we have to do whatever we can to restrict the movement of people out of affected areas," Brown said.

Finance minister Amara Konneh said the country's growth forecast for the year was no longer looking realistic as a result of the outbreak. Sierra Leone's foreign minister Samura Kamara also said that the virus had cost the government $10 million so far and was hampering efforts to stimulate growth.

British Airways said it was suspending flights to and from Liberia and Sierra Leone until the end of the month due to public health concerns.

Germany joined France and the United States in advising against travel to Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, saying there was still no end in sight to the spread of the disease.

MISSIONARY DUE BACK IN UNITED STATES

A second American aid worker stricken with Ebola in West Africa was wheeled on a stretcher in a white suit into an Atlanta hospital where doctors will try and save her and a fellow aid worker from the deadly virus.

The two saw their conditions improve by varying degrees in Liberia after they received an experimental drug developed by San Diego-based private biotech firm Mapp Biopharmaceutical Inc, said a representative for Samaritan's Purse, the charity they worked for.

A New York hospital is also testing a man with symptoms of the deadly disease, though a senior medical officer there said it was probably not the virus. Saudi Arabia was also testing a man for suspected Ebola infection after he returned recently from a business trip to Sierra Leone.

Concern grew over an outbreak in Lagos, Africa's largest city, after medical authorities there said they had quarantined 14 people who came into contact with Sawyer after he arrived on a regional flight from Liberia. The airline Asky has since been barred from Nigeria.

"Of the 14 who have had serious contact with the victim, eight have serious symptoms," Lagos Health Commissioner Jide Idris told a news conference. "Only one of those quarantined has tested positive ... The doctor who tested positive is now on the mainland under intensive care."

With healthcare systems in the West African nations overrun by the epidemic, the African Development Bank and World Bank said they would immediately disburse $260 million to the three countries worst affected - Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea.

In Monrovia, however, some health clinics were deserted as workers and patients stayed home, afraid of catching the disease.

"The health workers think that they are not protected, they don't have the requisite material to use to protect themselves against the Ebola disease," said Amos Richards, a physician's assistant.

The current outbreak of the highly contagious virus has so far killed around 55 percent of those known to have caught it, and experts expect the percentage to rise once more victims succumb and the data is tallied up.

[Psalm 51:17]

http://allafrica.com/stories/201408041541.html?aa_source=acrdn-f0
Liberian Dies in Morocco of Ebola - Internal Affairs Minister Discloses
8/1/14

The Minister of Internal Affairs, Mr. Morris Dukuly, has disclosed that a Liberian has died of the deadly Ebola virus in Morocco.

The Ebola virus, which has no cure, has killed at least 129 people here, and claimed more than 670 lives across the region. A top Liberian doctor working at Liberia's largest hospital died recently, and two American aid workers have fallen ill, underscoring the dangers facing those charged with bringing the outbreak under control.

Also recently, an official of the Ministry of Finance identified as Patrick Sawyer died of the disease at a Lagos hospital.

As a means of containing further spread of the disease, President Johnson-Sirleaf set up a taskforce to help in the fight of the disease and ordered the closure of the country's three land borders.

The Liberian leader also ordered that public gatherings be restricted and communities heavily affected by the Ebola outbreak be quarantined.

Making the disclosure at a news conference held at the Ministry on Wednesday, July 30, 2014, Minister Dukuly, who is also the Vice Chairman on the National Ebola Taskforce, further disclosed that the deceased left the country two days before his death.

Although Minister Dukuly did not disclose the name of the Liberian, who he said died of Ebola in Morocco, he averred that this means that there are many more people who are carrying the disease unknowingly.

Against this backdrop, the Internal Affairs Ministry boss called on traditional chiefs to help inform their local people on the threat of the deadly disease.

"You, traditional chiefs, are the owners of the land, and the land is under threat that I have not seen in my life before," said Minister Dukuly.

"Tell your people to stop running behind health workers. This may cause them to leave. For instance, Samaritan Purse, one of the partners, wanted to leave Lofa County due to threats they received from local people," he warned.

While urging the chiefs to adequately inform their people, he reminded them that Ebola is real and does not have to claim more lives before people get to believe it.

"We have a common challenge, which seems to be growing. This challenge is Ebola, and we need to fight it. Since the disease was discovered in March of this year," he noted.

He then lauded the Country Director of the World Health Organization (WHO) Dr. Nestor Ndayimirije for his care shown since the outbreak of the disease in March.

According to him, WHO through Dr. Ndayimirije has provided technical and other supports towards the fight of the disease in the country.

Speaking briefly, WHO Country boss, Dr. Ndayimirije said the disease can be prevented if people observe the necessary precautionary measures.

He disclosed that Ebola has killed 166 people since its outbreak.

Of this number, he said, over 20 health workers have died, while over 45 more are being affected by the disease.

Dr. Ndayimirije also disclosed that a total of 329 cases have been reported since the outbreak of the disease.

"You are the local leaders, tell your people to please support health workers and not to chase them. Samaritan Purse on yesterday said it will not continue because its workers were attacked and chased in Lofa with one of their staff wounded in the process in Foya. Please tell them to stop playing with dead bodies," he warned.

For his part, the Chairman of the National Traditional Council of Liberia (NTCL), Chief Zanzar Karwor, accepted the request from government and its partners to help in the campaign.

However, he urged that the government shows videos of patients and people who have died from the virus.

[Psalm 51:17]

Next Phase of the Ebola Crisis: Terrorism
http://www.infowars.com/next-phase-of-the-ebola-crisis-terrorism/
Frightening dimension to forever evolving war on terror

8/4/14

The Ebola scare may soon feed into the war on terror narrative.

On Sunday Breitbart covered a report produced by the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency stating that an increasing number of people apprehended on the border are infected with the Ebola virus.

“At least 71 individuals from the three nations affected by the current Ebola outbreak have either turned themselves in or been caught attempting to illegally enter the U.S. by U.S. authorities between January 2014 and July 2014,” Breitbart reported.

The report also noted a significant number of illegal immigrants caught crossing the border are from Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, countries where Islamic terrorists are active.

Texas Governor Rick Perry underscored this potential threat when he told CNN some illegal immigrants coming across the border are from countries with substantial terrorist ties.

The mention of possible terrorist infiltration and Ebola sets the stage for a scary prospect — a biological attack on America.

For the government this represents an opportunity to expand a terror narrative that has dominated domestic and foreign policy for over a decade.

Weaponized Ebola

In 2013 Global Policy, a journal produced by the London School of Economics, warned about the prospect of Ebola being used as a terrorist weapon.

“The increase in natural outbreaks in [Africa], coupled with a possibility of a terrorist group recruiting experts to acquire the virus and to prepare it to use as a bioweapon, should lead policymakers to consider the risk of a deliberate outbreak,” Amanda M. Teckman wrote for the journal.

Although weaponization of Ebola is complex and unlikely, experts in the field say transmission of the virus by air has occurred between animals. They believe “with advancing knowledge about how to manipulate viruses, the traits that make these [hemorrhagic fever virus agents] difficult to weaponize might be a diminishing barrier.” Additionally, a “reverse genetics system provides a way to produce highly virulent mutated viruses for the purpose of biological warfare or biological terrorism,” scientists believe, according to Teckman’s research.

It remains to be seen if a terrorist group like ISIS – which has demonstrated a willingness to engage in large scale mass murder, including the uninhibited murder of civilians – has the capability to produce a weaponized version of Ebola.

If ISIS manages to defeat the al-Assad regime in Syria it may come into possession of biological weapons. According to U.S. intelligence the Syrians have a biological weapon program run out of the Scientific Studies and Research Center (SSRC) in Damascus with labs in Aleppo and Homs.

“The SSRC is a huge complex, with wings and units designated for specific pathogen research. The labs are state of the art and, unlike chemical weapons, stockpiling biological weapons is obsolete. The infrastructure to support both clandestine and legitimate research is identical, making identification of the development of biological weapons exceptionally difficult,” the National Interest reported last September.

In October British experts at the Henry Jackson Society (HJS) “issued a stark warning over what they say is the ‘clear and present danger’ of Al Qaeda gaining possession of the Assad regime’s stockpile of biological weapons, claiming to have substantial evidence that Al Qaeda-linked groups may already have possession of toxic agents,” Israel National News reported.

“Unlike chemical weapons, maintained in military designated stockpiles which are generally identifiable and which Assad maintains command and control over, the structure of Syria’s biological warfare programs are latent, compartmentalized and spread across its remaining bio-pharmaceutical infrastructure. The programs are designed to be highly agile to allow swift production if required,” the HJS report explains.

“Worryingly, the report suggests that the Al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front may already have possession of ‘biological pathogens or weaponized agents either of which would pose a threat to the international community.’”

In June it was reported al-Nusra had merged with ISIS.

This does not mean Syria has developed weaponized Ebola, only that it likely has a sophisticated biological weapons program and, if the victory trajectory of ISIS continues, viral agents may fall into the hands of terrorists who would use the weapon in an attack in the United States or Europe.
Biological Terror Meme Part of U.S. Propaganda War

Despite the infeasibility of terrorists acquiring sophisticated biological weapons, the U.S. government has constructed a narrative portraying al-Qaeda as a terrorist group fully capable of launching a biological attack.

Key figures in the al-Qaeda constellation have professed a desire to use biological weapons. For instance, U.S.-born Anwar al-Awlaki, the al-Qaeda leader reportedly killed in a drone attack in 2011, called for the use of biological weapons. “The use of chemical and biological weapons against population centers is allowed and is strongly recommended,” he wrote for the al-Qaeda magazine, Inspire.

In 2001, less than three months after 9/11, the government pushed the meme that al-Qaeda had stockpiled anthrax spores in Afghanistan and planned to attack the United States. The theory arose following the September 18 anthrax attack which the Bush administration reflexively blamed on Osama bin Laden.

The fear al-Qaeda may eventually attack America with biological weapons is a central tenet of the terror narrative. From the death of 40 members of al-Qaeda in Algeria allegedly infected with Black Death when a biological program went wrong to the less than incontrovertible proof the al-Nusra used sarin gas in Syria, the threat of biological warfare by terrorist groups has dominated the war on terror storyline for more than a decade.

The fear of terrorists crossing the U.S.-Mexico border and the recent CBP reports of Ebola victims present in the growing influx adds a new and frightening dimension to the ever evolving war on terror.

It remains to be seen if terrorists are indeed crossing with tens of thousands of unaccompanied children and other illegal immigrants, or if there is an active terrorist plot in the works.

Despite the lack of evidence the government will opportunistically marry the fear of Ebola and terror together to advance its ongoing effort to forge a police state with a high-tech surveillance apparatus and a military and diplomatic component designed to put forward the foreign policy objectives of the global elite.

[Psalm 51:17]

http://news.yahoo.com/sierra-leone-deploys-troops-ebola-clinics-191237680.html
8/5/14
Sierra Leone deploys troops to guard Ebola clinics

Freetown (AFP) - Sierra Leone has deployed troops to guard quarantined Ebola patients as Saudi Arabia's first suspected case sparked fears of a possible global spread and British Airways cancelled flights to two west African countries.

A presidential aide in Sierra Leone told AFP the soldiers would "deter relatives and friends of Ebola patients from forcefully taking them from hospitals without medical consent".

Ebola, a deadly tropical virus that causes severe fever and, in the worst cases, unstoppable bleeding, has claimed the lives of almost 900 people in four west African nations since the start of the year.

Sierra Leone has seen 646 cases, the highest number of any nation, and 273 deaths.

But the fight against its spread has been hampered by distrustful relatives discharging highly contagious patients from hospitals and taking them back to die in their villages, where countless individuals may have contact with them.

Many indigenous people living in the forested border areas that straddle Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea believe the virus was introduced deliberately by outsiders, or is a hoax fabricated by the West, designed to subjugate them.

The presidency did not give exact numbers or locations for the army deployment, but most of the country's Ebola clinics are in Kailahun and Kenema, the eastern districts hit hardest by the outbreak.

The announcement came after British Airways said it had suspended flights to Liberia and Sierra Leone until the end of August "due to the deteriorating public health situation in both countries".

"The safety of our customers, crew and ground teams is always our top priority and we will keep the routes under constant review in the coming weeks," it said in a statement.

- US patient arrives home -

The threat of a spread outside of Africa was underlined as Saudi Arabia said doctors were testing a patient suspected of having contracted Ebola during a trip to Sierra Leone.

The health ministry said the Saudi man was admitted to hospital in the Red Sea city of Jeddah after showing Ebola-like symptoms upon his return.

Meanwhile an American woman infected with Ebola -- the second US patient evacuated from the growing outbreak in west Africa -- arrived Tuesday in the United States from Liberia for treatment.

After landing at a military air strip aboard a small medical evacuation plane, Nancy Writebol, 60, was transported by ambulance to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia.

Television crews followed the ambulance by helicopter, and images showed a patient wrapped in a white protective suit being transported on a stretcher to the hospital entrance.

The woman's colleague, missionary doctor Kent Brantly, 33, is also receiving care at a special containment unit at the same hospital.

Both Writebol and Brantly worked for Christian aid agencies in Liberia and were infected with Ebola while caring for patients in Monrovia.

Three foreign missionaries -- a Spaniard, a Congolese and an Equatorial Guinean -- have also tested positive for the virus in the Liberian capital Monrovia, the Spanish charity St John of God said Tuesday.

They were named as Spanish priest Miguel Pajares, 75, Chantal Pascaline Mutwamene of Congo and Paciencia Melgar of Equatorial Guinea.

Spain's defence ministry said it was sending an air force plane to Liberia to bring Pajares home for treatment.

- 'Stay at home' -

Also Tuesday, Sierra Leone's President Ernest Bai Koroma toured health facilities being set up to combat Ebola in the capital Freetown.

A 20-bed treatment centre and laboratory under construction in the western suburb of Lakka will be the first in the city of 1.2 million, which reported its first Ebola case nine days ago.

Business returned to normal in the capital after a "stay at home" day called to give the authorities breathing space to reorganise the response to the outbreak.

Many shops were screening customers' temperatures with high-tech gadgets at their entrances while others provided chlorinated water and soap for customers to wash their hands.

"No handshakes please," read a poster on display at a bank in the central business district.

Health officials have been forced to issue warnings over the danger of excessive use of chlorine, however, following reports of people sipping solutions of the poisonous chemical and washing with it.

"It is detrimental to the user's health and can cause serious internal injury," health ministry spokesman Yahya Tunis said in a public announcement broadcast on television and radio.

"People should return to the traditional hygiene practice of hand-washing with soap."

In Sierra Leone on Tuesday, a former youth and education minister, Lansana Nyallah, told state television he has lost nine members of his family to Ebola and warned: "To those who still believe that Ebola does not exist, please take heed."

[Psalm 51:17]

Breaking News: Saudi man dies in Jeddah, thought to have contracted Ebola on Sierra Leone trip @Yahoo News

[Psalm 51:17]

http://www.prisonplanet.com/ebola-victim-on-the-run-in-west-africa-capital.html
Ebola Victim On The Run In West Africa Capital
7/25/14

It’s gone from bad (Mapping Africa’s “Totally Out Of Control” Ebola Epidemic)  to worse, (Head Doctor Fighting Africa’s “Out Of Control” Ebola Epidemic Contracts The Virus), to much worse (Liberian Man Tested For Ebola In World’s Fourth Most Populous City), to having run out of comparatives – although we are leery of using a superlative just yet as we have a feeling Africa’s Ebola’s epidemic will deteriorate before it gets better. But the latest news is bad enough: as Reuters reported moments ago, Sierra Leone officials appealed for help on Friday to trace the first known resident in the capital with Ebola whose family forcibly removed her from a Freetown hospital after testing positive for the deadly disease.

How big is Sierra Leone’s capital Freetown: just around 1 million inhabitants, so yes, things are suddenly very much uncontained.

More:

    Radio stations in Freetown broadcast the appeal on Friday to locate a woman who tested positive for the disease that has killed 660 people across Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone since an outbreak was first identified in February.

    “Saudatu Koroma of 25 Old Railway Line, Brima Lane, Wellington,” the announcement said. “She is a positive case and her being out there is a risk to all. We need the public to help us locate her.”

    Koroma, 32, a resident of the densely populated Wellington neighborhood, had been admitted to an isolation ward while blood samples were tested for the virus, Health ministry spokesman Sidi Yahya Tunis. The results came back on Thursday.

    “The family of the patient stormed the hospital and forcefully removed her and took her away,” Tunis said. “We are searching for her.”

What is just as bad is that even without this latest shocking development, the death toll from the epidemic has already hit 660 according to the WHO, cited by AFP.

And now we await news out of the world’s fourth largest city, Nigeria’s capital Lagos, where a man collapsed at the airport and is now being tested whether he too had Ebola, and we are confused how the market is not trading at fresh all time highs following what is now a recreation of the plot of the movie Outbreak. Just consider how much GDP was created or not destroyed there.

[Psalm 51:17]

CDC Getting Dozens Of Calls ‘About People Who Are Ill After Traveling In Africa’
8/6/14
http://www.prisonplanet.com/cdc-getting-dozens-of-calls-about-people-who-are-ill-after-traveling-in-africa.html

Should we be alarmed that the CDC has received “several dozen calls” from hospitals around the country “about people who are ill after traveling in Africa”?  As you will read about below, a lot more Ebola testing has been going on around the nation than we have been hearing about in the mainstream media.  I can understand the need to keep people calm, but don’t we have a right to know what is really going on?  And the media has also been very quiet about the fact that Ebola is now potentially spreading to even more countries.  As you will read about below, a Liberian man just died from Ebola in Morocco, and a man that traveled to Saudi Arabia from Sierra Leone on Sunday night is being tested for Ebola after exhibiting “symptoms of the viral hemorrhagic fever”.  Top officials in the U.S. keep assuring us that everything is going to be just fine, but the truth is that this is a crisis that is beginning to spiral out of control. On Tuesday, the CDC told Time Magazine that it had received dozens of calls from all over the United States about people that had gotten sick after traveling to Africa…

    The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told TIME on Tuesday that it’s received several dozen calls from states and hospitals about people who are ill after traveling in Africa. “We’ve triaged those calls and about half-dozen or so resulted in specimen coming to CDC for testing and all have been negative for Ebola,” CDC spokesman Tom Skinner said, adding that the agency is expecting still more calls to come in.

Let’s certainly hope that there is nothing to be concerned about in any of those calls.  As I pointed out yesterday, the consequences of having a major Ebola outbreak in the United States could potentially be absolutely catastrophic. Meanwhile, there is a case in Saudi Arabia that has health officials over there extremely concerned.  A man that traveled to the country on Sunday night is being tested for the virus after showing symptoms of “viral hemorrhagic fever”…

    Saudi Arabia said Tuesday it is testing a man for the Ebola virus after he showed symptoms of the viral hemorrhagic fever following a recent trip to Sierra Leone. The Health Ministry said the symptoms appeared in the 40-year-old Saudi man at a hospital in the western city of Jiddah. He is in critical condition and being treated in a unit with advanced isolation and infection-control capabilities. Different types of viral hemorrhagic fevers have been found in the kingdom, but no case of Ebola has ever been detected there, according to the ministry.

In addition, it is being reported by international media sources that a Liberian has died of the Ebola virus in Morocco. If that is true, that is extremely troubling.  That would mean that we now have confirmed Ebola cases in five different countries. And remember, the Ebola virus can have an incubation period of up to three weeks, and Ebola victims can “look quite fit and healthy and can be walking around until shortly before their deaths“. Because of this, hospitals across America are being extremely cautions right now.  The following is from a recent NPR report…

    If you show up at a hospital emergency department with a high fever and you just happen to have been traveling in Africa, don’t be surprised if you get a lot of attention. Hospitals are on the lookout for people with symptoms such as a high fever, vomiting and diarrhea who had been traveling in parts of West Africa affected by Ebola, following instructions from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

And there have been some high profile cases that have gotten a lot of attention in recent days. The woman that was being tested for Ebola in Ohio got a lot of media attention, but it turns out that she does not have the disease. We are still waiting to hear about the man that was admitted to Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York.  Officials say that he “probably does not have Ebola“, but the test results have not been released yet. In addition, Paul Joseph Watson has pointed out that CNN’s Sanjay Gupta has publicly revealed that there have actually been “about half a dozen patients” that have been tested for the virus in recent days…

    During a segment concerning the admission of a potential Ebola victim at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City, CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta revealed that there have been at least six cases at the hospital which prompted doctors to test for Ebola but that the details were not divulged publicly. “There have been about a half a dozen patients who have had their blood tested because of concern, those particular patients their stories were not made public,” said Gupta, adding, “I’m not sure if that’s because of heightened concern by the hospital or what that means exactly.”

What else is going on around the nation that we have not heard about? Like I keep saying, let us hope and pray that Ebola does not start spreading here, because it can rapidly become a nightmare.  Over in Africa, nearly 900 people have already died, but one doctor told CBS News that the true number is actually significantly higher because “many cases are going unreported”…

    Already, the World Health Organization says 887 people have died, but a top doctor working at the heart of the outbreak in West Africa says many cases are going unreported. The senior doctor, who works for a leading medical organization in Liberia, explained to CBS News’ Debora Patta that what has helped set this outbreak apart from previous ones is the virus’ spread in urban areas. One of the epicenters of the disease is the Liberian capital of Monrovia, home to about a million people, or almost a quarter of the country’s population. The doctor, who spoke to CBS News on condition of confidentiality, said the disease is spinning out of control in Africa partly because it is extremely difficult to contain it in a sprawling, congested city center.

And it certainly does not help that infected bodies are being dumped into the streets over in Liberia.  If that continues to happen, this epidemic could very rapidly turn into a raging inferno over there. There have been health scares in the past, but this one is very different.  If you get Ebola, you are probably going to die.  And right now the number of Ebola cases is growing at an exponential rate.  If this outbreak is not brought under control soon, we could be facing the worst health crisis that we have seen in any of our lifetimes.

[Psalm 51:17]

Report: Ebola Virus Spread Because of Lax Quarantine Enforcement
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2014/08/05/Report-Ebola-Virus-Spread-Because-of-Lax-Quarantine-Enforcement?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
8/5/14

According to a report in The New York Times, the Ebola virus has been spreading because African governments did not take quarantine efforts seriously, especially in regions where it is customary to touch dead bodies before the funeral. Those who came in contact with Ebola victims were not ordered to be quarantined; some who handled dead bodies of Ebola victims were allowed to even potentially contaminate communal water supplies.

Not surprisingly, the virus spread.

The New York Times notes that the Ebola outbreak was "first identified in March in Guinea’s remote Forest Region:"

    Since then, it has spread with a deadly swiftness, spilling over porous borders in one of the poorest parts of Africa. The epidemic also leapfrogged by air after an American working in Liberia flew to Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, and died there last week. On Monday, Nigerian news media reported that a doctor who treated him had contracted the disease as well.

Read more at The New York Times.

[Psalm 51:17]

http://www.naturalnews.com/046331_Ebola_government_propaganda_medical_questions.html
Twenty-one questions about Ebola: government propaganda, medical corruption and bioweapons experiments
8/5/14

(NaturalNews) Something's fishy about the official stories we're being told on Ebola. Things don't add up, which is why I'm posing these twenty-one important questions we should all be considering:

#1) How can U.S. health authorities claim there is zero risk from Ebola patients being treated in U.S. hospitals when those same hospitals can't control superbug infections? "Many hospitals are poorly prepared to contain any pathogen. That’s why at least 75,000 people a year die from hospital infections. If hospitals can’t stop common infections like MRSA, C. diff and VRE, they can’t handle Ebola." - Fox News (1)

#2) Why should we trust the CDC's handling of Ebola when the agency can't even keep track of its anthrax, avian flu and smallpox samples?

#3) Why were Ebola victims transported to cities in the USA when they could be given state-of-the-art medical care overseas? "Now, they are bringing in highly infectious patients into this nation that is Ebola-free. In doing so, they are violating the primary rule of contagion: isolation." - Radio host Michael Savage (2)

#4) Why is the company working on Ebola vaccines -- Tekmira -- receiving money from Monsanto and considers Monsanto to be one of its important business partners? (3)

#5) If Ebola is "not a threat" to U.S. citizens as government authorities keep claiming, then why did the U.S. Department of Defense spend $140 million on an Ebola-related contract with the Tekmira company?

#6) If Ebola is not a threat to the U.S., then why did the Department of Defense deploy Ebola detection equipment to all 50 states? (4)

#7) Why did President Obama just sign a new executive order authorizing the government arrest and quarantine of Americans who show symptoms of respiratory infections? (5)

The language of his new executive order states that government officials may forcibly detain and quarantine people with:

...diseases that are associated with fever and signs and symptoms of pneumonia or other respiratory illness, are capable of being transmitted from person to person, and that either are causing, or have the potential to cause, a pandemic, or, upon infection, are highly likely to cause mortality or serious morbidity if not properly controlled.

#8) How can we trust a government to tell us the truth about Ebola when that same government repeatedly lies about Swine Flu, influenza, Fukushima radiation, weather control technology, the security of the border and seemingly everything else?

#9) If U.S. doctors claim to be so incredibly careful around Ebola that the virus could not possibly escape from the containment rooms at Emory University, then how did the American doctors being treated there contract Ebola in the first place? Weren't they also being careful?

#10) How are U.S. doctors and health workers supposed to even identify people with Ebola when they appear "fit and healthy" right until the very end? "What's shocking is how healthy the patients look before they die and how quickly they decline. A number of the Ebola patients I've seen look quite fit and healthy and can be walking around until shortly before their deaths." - Dr. Oliver Johnson (6)

#11) If Ebola is not spread through the air as some claim, then why do doctors who treat Ebola patients always wear masks?

#12) If hospitals are good at infection control, then why did so many SARS victims contract the infection while sitting in waiting rooms at hospitals? "A government report later concluded that for the hospital overcome by SARS, 'infection control was not a high priority.' Eventually, 77% of the people who contracted SARS there got it while working, visiting or being treated in a hospital." - Fox News (7)

#13) If Ebola escapes from patients at Emory University and begins to infect the public, do you think we would ever be told the truth about it? Or instead, would the official story claim that "Ebola terrorists" let it loose?

#14) WHO BENEFITS FROM AN EBOLA OUTBREAK in the USA? This is a key question to ask, and the answers are obvious: the CDC, vaccine manufacturers and pharma companies, and anyone in government who wants to declare a police state and start rounding people up for quarantine in a medical emergency.

#15) We already know there are powerful people who openly promote population reduction (Bill Gates, Ted Turner, etc.) Is a staged Ebola outbreak possibly a deliberate population reduction plan by some group that doesn't value human life and wants to rapidly reduce the population?

#16) Why are U.S. health authorities intentionally concealing from the public the true number of possible Ebola victims in U.S. hospitals who are being tested for Ebola right now? "In an apparent attempt to avoid hysteria, U.S. health authorities are withholding details about a number of suspected Ebola victims from the public." - Paul Joseph Watson, Infowars (

#17) If Ebola infections are so easy to control (as is claimed by U.S. health authorities), then why are Ebola victim bodies being openly dumped in the streets in West Africa? "Relatives of Ebola victims in Liberia defied government quarantine orders and dumped infected bodies in the streets as West African governments struggled to enforce tough measures to curb an outbreak..." - Reuters (9)

#18) Why do many locals in Sierra Leone truly believe the recent Ebola outbreak was deliberately caused by government officials? "Ebola is a new disease in Sierra Leone and when the first cases emerged, many people thought it might be a government conspiracy to undermine certain tribal groups, steal organs or get money from international donors..." - The Daily Mail (6)

#19) Given that the U.S. government has already funded outrageous medical experiments on Americans and foreigners (see the NIH-funded Guatemalan medical experiments), why should we not believe the government is capable of deploying Ebola in bioweapons experiments in West Africa?

#20) Given that many vaccines accidentally cause the disease they claim to prevent (due to weakened viruses still remaining active in a small number of vaccine vials), isn't it likely that Ebola vaccines might actually cause Ebola infections in some percentage of those receiving them? How can we trust any vaccines when vaccine manufacturers have been granted absolute legal immunity from faulty products or failures in quality control?

#21) How can we trust a medical system that continues to put mercury in flu shots, refuses to recommend vitamin D to cancer patients and has been criminally corrupted to the point where drug companies are routinely charged with felony crimes for bribery and price fixing?

[Psalm 51:17]

Saudi Arabian man being tested for Ebola virus dies
8/6/14
http://news.yahoo.com/saudi-arabian-man-being-tested-ebola-virus-dies-115215843.html

RIYADH (Reuters) - A Saudi Arabian man suspected of having contracted the Ebola virus during a recent business trip to Sierra Leone died early on Wednesday in Jeddah, the Health Ministry said.

Saudi authorities and international laboratories certified by the World Health Organization are testing samples from the man for Ebola and other diseases after he showed symptoms of viral hemorrhagic fever, the ministry said in a statement.

The ministry said it was working to trace the man's route of travel and identify people he was in contact with.

Ebola is one of the deadliest diseases known in humans with a fatality rate of up to 90 percent. The death rate in the current outbreak in West Africa, which has killed close to 900, is around 60 percent.

The kingdom has suspended pilgrimage visas from West African countries to counter the further possible spread of the disease.

[Psalm 51:17]

http://www.naturalnews.com/046259_Ebola_outbreak_drug_treatments_Monsanto.html
Ebola outbreak may already be uncontrollable; Monsanto invests in Ebola treatment drug company as pandemic spreads
7/31/14

(NaturalNews) A global outbreak of deadly Ebola is underway and has crossed national borders. One infected victim of the horrifying disease flew on international flights, vomiting on board and exposing hundreds of people to the deadly virus which can be transmitted through airborne particles. Ebola has an 8-10 day incubation period, meaning thousands of people could be carrying it right now and spreading it across the cities of the world without even knowing it.

Passengers in Hong Kong and the UK have already shown symptoms of the disease and are being tested, reports USA Today. (2) The Peace Corps has evacuated its volunteers from the region after two were exposed to Ebola. (3)

"Expert claims panic over death of U.S. man in Nigeria is 'justified'" reports the Daily Mail. (1) "He warned the spread of Ebola could become a global pandemic."

Ebola is the closest thing to real-life zombie infections
With apologies to those victims who have suffered the horrible fate of Ebola, I'm offering a medically accurate description here as a warning to everybody else. Believe me when I say you do NOT want to contract Ebola. Warning: Graphic language below.

Ebola is a gruesome disease that causes cells in the body to self-destruct, resulting in massive internal and external bleeding. In its late stages, Ebola can cause the victim to experience convulsions, vomiting and bleeding from the eyes and ears while convulsing, flinging blood all over the room and anyone standing nearby, thereby infecting those people as well. This gruesome ending is the reason Ebola spreads so effectively. The virus "weaponizes" the blood, then causes the victim to fling it around on everyone else almost like you might see depicted in some horror zombie flick.

"Haemorrhaging symptoms begin 4 - 5 days after onset, which includes hemorrhagic conjunctivitis, pharyngitis, bleeding gums, oral/lip ulceration, hematemesis, melena, hematuria, epistaxis, and vaginal bleeding," reports the Pathogen Safety Data Sheet from the Public Health Agency of Canada. ( That same publication also explains, "There are no known antiviral treatments available for human infections."

Read that again: There are NO KNOWN TREATMENTS for human infections.

Sierra Leone's top Ebola doctor tragically died yesterday from an Ebola infection. Although well trained in infectious disease, even he underestimated the ability of this insidious killer to leap from person to person. Around half of those infected with Ebola die, making it one of the most fatal diseases known to modern medical science. And yet medical staff around the world still aren't exercising sufficient precautions when interfacing with infected patients.

Monsanto and Dept. of Defense help fund pharma company that could earn billions from Ebola treatment
There are some experimental drugs under development by pharma companies that show some promise, but nothing is commercialized yet. (9)

One fascinating development worth investigating further is that TEKMIRA Pharmaceuticals, a company working on an anti-Ebola drug, just received a $1.5 million cash infusion from none other than Monsanto. Click here to read the press release, which states "Tekmira Pharmaceuticals Corporation is a biopharmaceutical company focused on advancing novel RNAi therapeutics and providing its leading lipid nanoparticle (LNP) delivery technology to pharmaceutical partners."

The money from Monsanto is reportedly related to the company's developed of RNAi technology used in agriculture. The deal is valued at up to $86.2 million, according to the WSJ. (11)

Another press release about Tekmira reveals a $140 million contract with the U.S. military for Ebola treatment drugs:

TKM-Ebola, an anti-Ebola virus RNAi therapeutic, is being developed under a $140 million contract with the U.S. Department of Defense's Medical Countermeasure Systems BioDefense Therapeutics (MCS-BDTX) Joint Product Management Office.

Additional Tekmira partnership are listed at this Tekmira web page.

Not to invoke any charges of collusion or conspiracy here, but a whole lot of people are going to have raised eyebrows over the fact that Monsanto just happened to be giving a cash infusion to a key pharma company working on an Ebola cure right in the middle of a highly-publicized Ebola outbreak which could create huge market demand for the drugs. The fact that the U.S. Department of Defense is also involved with all this is going to have alternative news websites digging hard for additional links.

Sadly, the history of medicine reveals that drug companies, the CDC and the WHO have repeatedly played up the severity of disease outbreaks in order to promote sales of treatment drugs. I'm not saying this outbreak isn't very real and very alarming, of course. It is real. But we always have to be suspicious when windfalls profits just happen to line up for certain corporations following global outbreaks of infectious disease. Vaccine manufacturers, remember, made billions off the false swine flu scare, and tens of millions of dollars in stockpiled swine flu vaccines later had to be destroyed by the governments that panicked and purchased them.

Has air travel doomed humanity to a pandemic outbreak?
Air travel creates the "perfect storm" for Ebola to devastate humanity. It all starts with these irrefutable facts about air travel:

1) All passengers are confined to the same enclosed space.

2) All passengers are breathing THE SAME AIR.

3) Ebola can become airborne via very small particles in the air, and just a single Ebola virus riding on a dust particle is sufficient to infect a human being (see below).

4) Following the flight, infected passengers then intermingle with thousands of other people at the airport, each doing to a different unique destination somewhere else across the country or around the world.

5) The speed of air travel vastly out-paces the speed of governments being able to deploy infectious disease prevention teams.

A global pandemic wipeout from Ebola, in other words, could originate from a single person on a single international flight. And it could circle the globe in less than 48 hours.

Just one organism is sufficient to infect a new host
Just how much Ebola virus does it take to infect someone? Alarmingly, as the Public Health Agency of Canada explains, "1 - 10 aerosolized organisms are sufficient to cause infection in humans." (

Read that again: it takes just ONE aerosolized organism (a microscopic virus riding on a dust particle) to cause a full-blown infection in humans. This is why one man vomiting on an international flight can infect dozens or hundreds of other people all at once.

Some experts fear that has already happened. As the Daily Mail reports: (1)

Nigerian health officials are in the process of trying to trace 30,000 people, believed to be at risk of contracting the highly-infectious virus, following the death of Patrick Sawyer in Lagos. It comes as Nigerian actor Jim Lyke sparked outrage, posting a picture of himself wearing an Ebola mask while sitting in a first class airport lounge as he fled Liberia.

Dave Hodges of The Commonsense Show reports: (7)

A desperate search is on to find the hundreds of passengers who flew on the same jets as Sawyer. A total of 59 passengers and crew are estimated to have come into contact with Sawyer and effort is being made to track each individual down. There is an inherent problem with this "track down". Presumably, some of the passengers connected to other flights, which known to be the case. Let's just say for the sake of argument that only 20 people, a low estimate given the nature of the airports that Sawyer was traveling in, were connecting to other flights, the spread of the virus would quickly expand beyond any possibility of containment because in less than a half a day, nearly a half a million people would be potentially exposed. Within a matter of a couple of hours, Sawyer's infected fellow travelers would each have made contact with 200 other passengers and crew. Hours later, these flights would land and these people would go home to the friends, families and coworkers across several continents.

CBS News adds: (4)

"Witnesses say Sawyer, a 40-year-old Liberian Finance Ministry employee en route to a conference in Nigeria, was vomiting and had diarrhea aboard at least one of his flights with some 50 other passengers aboard. Ebola can be contracted from traces of feces or vomit, experts say."

American family members quarantined in Texas
A U.S. doctor named Dr. Kent Brantly has reportedly contracted Ebola. "Brantly and the couple's 3- and 5-year-old children left Liberia for a scheduled visit to the United States on July 20. Days later, Kent Brantly quarantined himself in the isolation ward of a hospital where he had been treating Ebola patients after testing positive for the disease," reports CBS News. (3)

That same story goes on to say, "Amber Brantly and the children are in Abilene, Texas, under a 21-day fever watch," which is essentially a quarantine. This means the necessary quarantine of American citizens on U.S. soil has already begun.

Nobody is yet talking about what all this might mean if a large U.S. city shows an outbreak of infections. Will the federal government use the military to quarantine an entire city? Ultimately, it must! And make no mistake: this possibility is already written up and on the books for national emergencies. One declaration of martial law is all that's required to seal off an entire U.S. city at gunpoint.

Another CBS News article reports: (4)

"If it gets into a big city, that's everybody's worse nightmare," said Dr. Tim Geisbert, a professor of microbiology and immunology at University of Texas Medical Branch, in an interview with CBS News. "It gets harder to control then. How do you quarantine a big city?"

The answer, by the way, is by deploying America's armed forces against its own citizens in a domestic national emergency scenario. Everybody in the federal government already knows that. It's only the mainstream media that pretends such plans don't already exist.

Ebola detection kits deployed to all 50 U.S. states
Although the federal government's official reaction to all this is low-key, in truth the U.S. government is rapidly preparing for the possibility of an Ebola outbreak reaching the continental USA.

As reported above, the U.S. Department of Defense already has a $140 million contract awarded to Tekmira for its Ebola treatment drugs.

Additionally, as SHTFplan.com reports: (5)

The Department of Defense informed Congress that it has deployed biological diagnostic systems to National Guard support teams in all 50 states, according to a report published by the Committee on Armed Services. Some 340 Joint Biological Agent Identification and Diagnostic System (JBAIDS) units have thus far been given to emergency response personnel. The systems are "rapid, reliable, and [provide] simultaneous identification of specific biological agents and pathogens."

On one hand, we might all applaud the government's preparedness actions in all this. It's smart to have diagnostic systems deployed nationwide, of course. But it begs the question: When was the government planning on telling the public about all this? Probably never. There's no sense in causing a panic when half the people won't survive an outbreak anyway, they figure.

The perfect bioweapon against humanity?
I also need to make you urgently aware that Ebola is a "perfect" bioweapon. Because of its ability to survive storage and still function many days, weeks or years later, it could be very easily harvested from infected victims and then preserved using nothing more than a common food dehydrator.

As the Public Health Agency of Canada explains: (

The virus can survive in liquid or dried material for a number of days (23). Infectivity is found to be stable at room temperature or at 4 (C) for several days, and indefinitely stable at -70 C.

To translate this into laymen's terms, this means the Ebola virus can be:

• Stored in a liquid vial and easily smuggled across international borders.

• Dehydrated and stored in a dried state, then easily smuggled.

• Frozen at very low temperatures where it remains viable indefinitely.

Once dried, contained or frozen, Ebola pathogens can be smuggled into target countries with ridiculous ease. In the United States, for example, people can literally walk right through our Southern open borders with zero security whatsoever.

Open borders is an open invitation for bioweapons terrorism
Once inside the target country, a bioweapons terrorist could then easily infect people in public transit hubs such as subway stations, airports, bus stations and so on. Unfortunately, spraying a few Ebola particles into people's faces is ridiculously easy, especially if the terrorist carrying out the activities decides he is on a suicide mission and doesn't care about self-exposure.

An outbreak of Ebola in a major U.S. city would quite literally threaten the public health of the entire nation. That's why an "open borders" policy in the middle of a global Ebola outbreak is unconscionable from the point of view of public health. CDC officials must be tearing their hair out over this issue.

Think about it: America is a country where public health officials freak out and go crazy when two children acquire whooping cough in a public school in Maryland. But when tens of thousands of people are streaming into the country, unbounded, with near-zero medical scrutiny in the middle of an international Ebola outbreak, federal officials do almost nothing at all. If there is an Ebola outbreak in the U.S., this is most likely how it will arrive.

[Psalm 51:17]

CDC issues emergency 'all-hands' call for Ebola response
http://news.yahoo.com/cdc-issues-emergency-hands-call-ebola-response-222611995.html
8/6/14

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Wednesday issued its highest alert for an all-hands on deck response to the Ebola crisis in West Africa.

"Ops Center moved to Level 1 response to given the extension to Nigeria & potential to affect many lives," CDC chief Tom Frieden said on Twitter.

Level 1 is the highest on a 1-6 scale and signals that increased staff and resources will be devoted to the outbreak.

"Basically this activation allows us to pull resources from throughout the agency to respond to this," said CDC spokesman Tom Skinner.

He said it was the first time since 2009 that the Level 1 alert had been issued. Back then it was in response to the outbreak of H1N1 flu.

West Africa is experiencing the largest outbreak of the hemorrhagic fever in history.

A total of 932 people have died since March in Sierra Leone, Guinea, Liberia and Nigeria.

Ebola is spread through direct contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person.

Symptoms include fever, muscle aches, red eyes, diarrhea, vomiting and bleeding.

[Mark]

Expert Panel to Consult on Ebola

crambling to catch up with the worst outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus, the World Health Organization announced Wednesday that it was considering the declaration of an international public health emergency and would convene a panel of experts in coming days to explore the use of experimental treatments for the incurable disease.

The announcements came as fears spread that a Saudi citizen might have taken the Ebola virus home to Saudi Arabia, which is still reeling from a mismanaged epidemic of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome that has killed nearly 300 people in the last two years. Saudi news media said that the citizen, a businessman in his 40s, died on Wednesday at King Fahd Hospital in Jidda after exhibiting Ebola-like symptoms, and that Saudi health officials had submitted biological samples from the patient to laboratories in the United States and Germany.

The Saudi accounts emphasized that the illness had not yet been identified. Gregory Hartl, a spokesman for the World Health Organization in Geneva, said in an email that the patient appeared to have visited affected areas in Sierra Leone.

The organization also announced 108 new Ebola cases recorded from Saturday to Monday, bringing the total to 1,711, with 932 deaths. Nearly all are in the West African countries afflicted by the outbreak: Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Late Wednesday, Liberia’s president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, declared a state of emergency, saying that some civil rights might be suspended to help slow the spread of the disease.

But in a sign of the spread of the disease internationally, the organization listed five new cases in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, bringing the Nigerian total to nine. The virus was discovered to have leapfrogged there by plane last week, carried by an American who had been working in Liberia and died in a Nigerian hospital.

A patient at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, however, was found not to have the virus, officials said Wednesday, and was improving.

The health organization said an emergency committee of international experts was evaluating whether the Ebola outbreak constituted a “Public Health Emergency of International Concern,” a classification that has only rarely been invoked to combat deadly contagions. The classification gives health authorities greater powers that include quarantining people in affected areas. The committee’s recommendations are expected by Friday.

In a separate announcement, the organization said it was convening a panel of medical ethicists to explore the use of experimental treatments for Ebola, which has a mortality rate as high as 90 percent. The virus causes high fevers, aches and severe internal bleeding.

“We are in an unusual situation in this outbreak,” Dr. Marie-Paule Kieny, the W.H.O.'s assistant director general, said in the announcement. “We need to ask the medical ethicists to give us guidance on what the responsible thing to do is.”

Several experimental options are under development, including a drug administered to two Americans who had been working with Ebola patients in Liberia through Christian relief groups. Both were flown to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta and have shown improvement, causing an international debate over why Americans were given the drug when hundreds of Africans have died without access to it.

The W.H.O.'s announcement also cited the relief group workers’ apparent response to the drug, saying it had “raised questions about whether medicine that has never been tested and shown to be safe in people should be used in the outbreak and, given the extremely limited amount of medicine available, if it is used, who should receive it.”

Asked about such treatments, President Obama told a news conference in Washington it was premature for him to say, but he did not rule it out. “We’ve got to let the science guide us,” he said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/07/world/africa/who-weighing-emergency-decree-on-ebola.html?_r=0

[Mark]

‘God is angry with Liberia,’ local religious leaders say, blaming Ebola on ‘homosexualism’

Amid the reports emerging out of Liberia, it’s difficult to discern what is true and what isn’t. But the fear they carry is undeniable: Fear of the disease, fear of dead bodies, fear that God himself has sent down a terrible plague to blight the people of Liberia for their transgressions.

There are local reports that “armed men” are allegedly trying to poison wells “to kill in the name of Ebola.” There are reports that the government is dumping bodies by the truckload at a mass grave on the west bank of a river and nearby residents fret over water contamination. And there are Reuters reports of bodies lying in the streets of Liberia’s capital Monrovia for days.
In this 2014 photo provided by the Samaritan's Purse aid organization, Dr. Kent Brantly, left, treats an Ebola patient at the Samaritan's Purse Ebola Case Management Center in Monrovia, Liberia. On Saturday, July 26, 2014, the North Carolina-based aid organization said Brantly tested positive for the disease and was being treated at a hospital in Monrovia. (AP Photo/Samaritan's Purse)
Kent Brantly, left, treats an Ebola patient at the Samaritan’s Purse Ebola Case Management Center in Monrovia, Liberia. (AP Photo/Samaritan’s Purse)

The Ebola pandemic — which has killed 887 in West Africa including 255 in Liberia — has terrified people so much that some local leaders discern divine meaning in it. According to Front Page Africa and the Daily Observer, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf called on Tuesday for all residents to fast for three days and pray for forgiveness.

“Relying on His divine guidance for our survival as a nation,” she announced, “I call on all Liberians to observe three days of national fast and prayer to seek God’s face to have mercy on us and forgive our sins and heal our land, Liberia, as we continue to fight against the deadly Ebola virus.”

That followed a recent recommendation by the Liberian Council of Churches, which said in a statement last week the outbreak has Biblical implications. “God is angry with Liberia,” the religious leaders said, according to the Daily Observer. “Ebola is a plague. Liberians have to pray and seek God’s forgiveness over the corruption and immoral acts (such as homosexualism, etc.) that continue to penetrate our society. As Christians, we must repent and seek God’s forgiveness.”
epa04339118 Liberian military police are deployed at the burial site for victims of the Ebola virus in Johnsonville outside Monrovia, Liberia 02 August 2014. The military police were called in to control youths from the Johnsonville community who staged a protest against the governments decision to bury Ebola victims in Johnsonville. World Health Organization head Margaret Chan told leaders of West African nations affected by the Ebola outbreak who meet in Guinea 01 August 2014 to launch a 75 million euro response plan that the outbreak is spreading faster than efforts to control it. Over 729 people have died of Ebola in West Africa in 2014 making it the world's deadliest outbreak to date according to statistics from the United Nations. EPA/AHMED JALLANZO
Liberian military police are deployed at the burial site for victims of the Ebola virus in Johnsonville outside Monrovia, Liberia, on Aug. 2, 2014. (AHMED JALLANZO/EPA)

The statement then urged people to stay home. But while it would seem an intuitive method of controlling the disease, the act of staying put, according to Reuters, can mean medical workers and patients fail to show up at clinics, frustrating overtaxed government agencies with few resources to combat what’s now a full-blown pandemic. Many Liberians remain deeply distrustful of Western medicine, and don’t want to go to the hospital if they start feeling unwell, reported Reuters’s Clair MacDougall and Daniel Flynn.

Some sick villagers in Paynesville outside Monrovia, for instance, forbid government aid workers entry to their house, the Daily Observer reported. “Family members there refused to talk to them,” one villager said. “They even claimed that the team was there because they wanted to remove the kidneys of [the sick] if they followed the team to a nearby health facility for testing.”

As a result of such misgivings, the bodies are piling up in Monrovia: in the rivers, in front of houses, in streets. As seen in video captured by France 24, one suspected Ebola victim died underneath a tree, on top of stones, in a red skirt. Concerned neighbors viewed her corpse from afar as health workers draped her in a white sheet.

Two more bodies, cloaked in white body bags, bobbed in a city lake off a main thoroughfare, according to a lengthy Front Page Africa report. Motorists said they contacted the health ministry, but no one showed up, so the bodies remained in the lake, floating. “There are dead bodies all over the place and they now know that it’s real,” Agence France-Presse recently quoted the Liberian president saying. “This is very, very serious; it’s very nearing a catastrophe.”

In another section of Monrovia, Reuters reported, two men who had shown symptoms of Ebola died in the streets — and then lay there undisturbed for four days before government workers picked them up. “They both gave up and dropped dead on the ground on the street of Clara Town,” one resident told the news organization.

Other relatives of the dead were seen dragging corpses onto the street and leaving them there. “They are therefore removing the bodies from their homes and are putting them out in the street,” Information Minister Lewis Brown told Reuters. “They’re exposing themselves to the risk of being contaminated. We’re asking people to please leave the bodies in their homes and we’ll pick them up.”

The issue of what to do with the bodies, once collected, has confounded local officials who have struggled with whether to cremate them or bury them — and where. Few communities want to take the bodies, according to the Daily Observer. One man told the paper that bodies had been disposed of on his private land.

“I’m not asking them to pay me for my land,” he told the paper. “I’m going to take the authorities to task for illegally using my land to bury dead bodies.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/08/06/god-is-angry-with-liberia-ebola-is-a-plague/

[Mark]

Senegal President: Ebola Outbreak Is ‘A Threat Against Humanity’

The president of Senegal is warning that the Ebola outbreak in West Africa is a “threat against humanity.”

Speaking during a panel at the U.S.-Africa Summit Tuesday, President Macky Sall stated this his nation is “in the eye of the cyclone” with his neighboring countries dealing with the outbreak.

“I will tell the international community that Ebola is a devastating virus. It is not an African disease,” Sall said on the panel, according to Breitbart News. “You have to see this virus as a threat against humanity. It is a threat against humanity because with intercontinental flights, all you need is a flight to the U.S. or Europe so that you have a world crisis.”

Sall’s comments came as Nigerian health authorities acknowledged Tuesday that they did not immediately quarantine a sick airline passenger who later died of Ebola, announcing that eight health workers who had direct contact with him were now in isolation with symptoms of the disease.

Ebola, which can cause victims to bleed from the eyes and mouths before a grisly death, has killed nearly 900 people across four countries in West Africa.

The outbreak, which emerged in March, spread to Nigeria in late July when Patrick Sawyer, a 40-year-old American of Liberian descent, flew from Liberia’s capital to the megacity of Lagos. The announcement that Sawyer was not immediately quarantined underscores concerns that West Africa is ill-equipped to contain such a disease.

By contrast, two American aid workers who were infected with Ebola in Liberia received an experimental drug and were flown in a chartered jet to Atlanta, where they are being treated in a hospital isolation unit. Ebola concerns in the U.S. have led some worried people to hospital emergency rooms, and prompted Ebola testing of at least six patients, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The tests that have completed have all been negative, the federal agency said Tuesday.

Experts say people infected with Ebola can spread the disease only through their bodily fluids and after they show symptoms. Since the incubation period can last up to three weeks, some of the Nigerians who treated Sawyer are only now showing signs of illness that can mimic many common tropical illnesses — fever, muscle aches and vomiting.

Initially authorities told reporters that the risk of any exposure to others was minimal because Sawyer was whisked into isolation after arriving at the airport with symptoms of Ebola.

But Lagos state health commissioner Jide Idris said Tuesday that the nature of his disease “was not known” the first day, and only after further investigation did they suspect Ebola. Sawyer’s sister had died in Liberia from the disease, which has no proven cure or treatment.

“They went back to the history and they were like ‘Oh, this is Liberia,’ and that’s why he was put into isolation,” he told reporters. “So even in that window period it was possible that some of these people got infected.”

A doctor who cared for Sawyer has tested positive for the disease, and seven other health workers are now showing symptoms so have been placed in isolation. They are among 14 people who had “serious direct contact” with Sawyer, most of them at the hospital, Idris said. Authorities say they are also following the conditions of 56 other people who had “primary contact” with Sawyer — presumably less at risk than those in the first group.

Ben Neuman, a virologist and Ebola expert at Britain’s University of Reading, said doctors during an outbreak save lives “by responding bravely and quickly when someone is sick.” That involves a measure of risk, as is seen now by the exposure in Nigeria.

“The thing to watch going forward is how this changes infection control practices in Nigeria and around the world if a situation like this occurs again,” he said.

The official death toll for the worst-ever outbreak of Ebola now stands at 887, according to the World Health Organization. All but Sawyer have died in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, where government officials said hundreds of troops were being deployed across the country to enforce quarantines.

Three of six missionaries in isolation in a Liberian hospital have tested positive for the virus, including Spanish priest Miguel Pajares, according to Spain’s San Juan de Dios hospital order, a Catholic humanitarian group that runs hospitals around the world.

Health officials in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, worked to prevent the virus from spreading in Lagos, where millions of people live in densely crowded conditions. The Lagos state health commissioner acknowledged that state health authorities need volunteers to help track down the people who may have come into contact with the eight suspected cases in quarantine.

“You may have two family contacts, you may have many family contacts,” he said. “You need people who will go out and chase all these people.”

http://washington.cbslocal.com/2014/08/06/senegal-president-ebola-outbreak-is-a-threat-against-humanity/

[Mark]

   25 Critical Facts About This Ebola Outbreak That Every American Needs To Know

Ebola Nightmare - Public DomainWhat would a global pandemic look like for a disease that has no cure and that kills more than half of the people that it infects?  Let's hope that we don't get to find out, but what we do know is that more than 100 health workers that were on the front lines of fighting this disease have ended up getting it themselves.  The top health officials in the entire world are sounding the alarm and the phrase "out of control" is constantly being thrown around by professionals with decades of experience.  So should average Americans be concerned about Ebola?  If so, how bad could an Ebola outbreak in the U.S. potentially become?  The following are 25 critical facts about this Ebola outbreak that every American needs to know... (Read More....)
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/25-critical-facts-about-this-ebola-outbreak-that-every-american-needs-to-know


   What Will It Mean If The Potential Ebola Victim In New York City Actually Has The Virus?

Ebola In New York CityOn Monday, we learned that a "possible Ebola patient" was being treated at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City.  We are being told that this individual recently returned from a country in Africa where there have been confirmed cases of Ebola.  So that would narrow it down to Sierra Leone, Guinea, Liberia and Nigeria.  The patient is being described as a male "with high fever and gastrointestinal symptoms".  The hospital says that "necessary steps are being taken to ensure the safety of all patients, visitors and staff".  But could you imagine the panic that is going to be created if there actually is a confirmed case of Ebola in the heart of New York City?  There is nothing in the post-World War II era that would even be comparable.  Certainly 9/11 created fear for a short period of time, but a full-blown Ebola outbreak would create a panic that could potentially last for months or even years. (Read More....)
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/what-will-it-mean-if-the-potential-ebola-victim-in-new-york-city-actually-has-the-virus


   CDC Getting Dozens Of Calls ‘About People Who Are Ill After Traveling In Africa’

Telephone - Public DomainShould we be alarmed that the CDC has received "several dozen calls" from hospitals around the country "about people who are ill after traveling in Africa"?  As you will read about below, a lot more Ebola testing has been going on around the nation than we have been hearing about in the mainstream media.  I can understand the need to keep people calm, but don't we have a right to know what is really going on?  And the media has also been very quiet about the fact that Ebola is now potentially spreading to even more countries.  As you will read about below, a Liberian man just died from Ebola in Morocco, and a man that traveled to Saudi Arabia from Sierra Leone on Sunday night is being tested for Ebola after exhibiting "symptoms of the viral hemorrhagic fever".  Top officials in the U.S. keep assuring us that everything is going to be just fine, but the truth is that this is a crisis that is beginning to spiral out of control. On Tuesday, the CDC told Time Magazine that it had received dozens of calls from all over the United States about people that had gotten sick after traveling to Africa... (Read More....)
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/cdc-getting-dozens-of-calls-about-people-who-are-ill-after-traveling-in-africa


   It Is Becoming Clear – We Are NOT Prepared For An Ebola Pandemic

Ebola Symptoms - CDCThe United States is woefully unprepared for an Ebola outbreak.  If a pandemic were to erupt, the very limited number of hospital labs and isolation units that we currently have would be rapidly overwhelmed.  Yes, we may be able to provide "state of the art care" for a handful of people, but if thousands (or millions) of Americans get the virus you can forget about it.  Our health industry is already stretched incredibly thin, and we simply do not have the resources to handle a tsunami of high risk Ebola patients.  And of course conventional medicine does not have a cure for Ebola anyway.  The "experimental drug" that is being used on the two American health professionals with the disease seems to be helping them, but even if it does turn out to be safe and even if it is approved for the general public it will still be a long time before there is ever enough of the drug for everyone.  So let us hope that we do not see a full-blown Ebola pandemic in this country.  Because if we do, we could potentially see millions of people die. (Read More....)
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/it-is-becoming-clear-we-are-not-prepared-for-an-ebola-pandemic


   What Will You Do If They Make It Mandatory For All Americans To Take An Ebola Vaccine?

Ebola Vaccine - Public DomainAs the Ebola death toll rises and as images of bodies being abandoned in the streets of Liberia are broadcast around the globe, there has been a growing outcry for the scientific community to “do something” about this deadly virus.  And as luck would have it, there is an “experimental Ebola vaccine” that is ready to be tested on humans next month.  If Ebola starts to spread outside of Africa, and especially if it starts spreading inside the United States, people will be absolutely clamoring to get this vaccine.  But will it be safe?  And there will certainly be millions of people that do not want to take this vaccine under any circumstances.  If the outbreak gets bad enough, will it be made mandatory at some point?  If they do make it mandatory for all Americans to take an Ebola vaccine, what will you do? (Read More...)
http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/what-will-you-do-if-they-make-it-mandatory-for-all-americans-to-take-an-ebola-vaccine

[Mark]

Rare Recess Hearing to Deal with Ebola Threat

With Ebola claiming more than 900 lives and a handful people in America receiving tests for the deadly virus, the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa is convening a hearing Thursday to examine the threat.

“Around the country there is a heightened sense of concern. Hopefully we don’t go beyond the concern and containment is the key here,” Subcommittee Chairman Chris Smith (R-NJ) said during a C-SPAN interview Thursday morning.

“We’re going to be talking about all things, including some of the potentially powerful drugs that might be able to overcome this horrific disease that just has such a high mortality rate,” he said, going on to add that the epidemic “is not even close to being over.”

Thursday afternoon’s hearing will feature Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Tom Frieden, Assistant Administrator for Global Health at USAID Ariel Pablos-Méndez, and the State Department’s Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of African Affairs Bisa Williams.

A second panel will testify before the subcommittee following the government officials. The Vice President of Program and Government Relations for Samaritan’s Purse Ken Isaacs and missionary Frank Glover are both scheduled to appear before the congressional panel.

In announcing the hearing, Smith called the current situation “the worst outbreak of Ebola in history,” a sentiment echoed by one of the hearings witnesses this week.

"This is the biggest and most complex Ebola outbreak in history," CNN quoted Frieden Wednesday.

The most recent outbreak has been centered in the West African countries of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. To be sure, there have been Ebola scares in the United States, however to date there have been no confirmed cases of the disease in the U.S.

The CDC however, has declined to identify to Breitbart News what states have seen patients tested for the disease.

Wednesday, President Obama downplayed concerns somewhat after a U.S.-Africa Summit which saw two African leaders decline an invitation to Washington, D.C. in order to deal with the outbreaks.

“What we do know is that the Ebola virus, both currently and in the past, is controllable if you have a strong public health infrastructure in place,” Obama said at a post-summit press conference.

“Despite, obviously, the extraordinary pain and hardship of the families and persons who have been affected and despite the fact that we have to take this very seriously, it is important to remind ourselves this is not an airborne disease,” Obama added. “This is one that can be controlled and contained very effectively if we use the right protocols.”

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/08/07/Rare-Recess-Hearing-to-Deal-with-Ebola-Threat

[Psalm 51:17]

http://www.infowars.com/u-s-health-authorities-concealing-number-of-suspected-ebola-victims-from-public/

U.S. Health Authorities Concealing Number of Suspected Ebola Victims From Public
CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta: At least 6 tested for Ebola in NYC
8/5/14

In an apparent attempt to avoid hysteria, U.S. health authorities are withholding details about a number of suspected Ebola victims from the public.

During a segment concerning the admission of a potential Ebola victim at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City, CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta revealed that there have been at least six cases at the hospital which prompted doctors to test for Ebola but that the details were not divulged publicly.

“There have been about a half a dozen patients who have had their blood tested because of concern, those particular patients their stories were not made public,” said Gupta, adding, “I’m not sure if that’s because of heightened concern by the hospital or what that means exactly.”

Gupta also appeared to suggest that patients being tested for the Ebola virus were not being kept in isolation when he stated, “This isn’t the kind of thing that they worry about spreading to other patients in the hospital, spreading to people who are walking around the hospital. This is not an airborne virus.”

However, at least in the case of the patient who was made public yesterday, hospital officials said the individual was immediately put into isolation as a precaution.

As we reported yesterday, despite health authorities downplaying the likelihood of Ebola going airborne, studies by Canadian scientists suggest that this is in fact likely, at least to a limited degree.

The Public Health Agency of Canada’s official website also states that “airborne spread among humans is strongly suspected, although it has not yet been conclusively demonstrated.”

The CDC has urged airline staff to take steps to prevent the airborne spread of the virus, including giving suspected Ebola victims surgical masks as well as directing staff to “not use compressed air, which might spread infectious material through the air.”

[Psalm 51:17]

CDC director: Scale of Ebola crisis unprecedented
http://news.yahoo.com/cdc-director-scale-ebola-crisis-unprecedented-193229758--politics.html
8/7/14

WASHINGTON (AP) — The current Ebola crisis in West Africa is on pace to sicken more people than all other previous outbreaks of the disease combined, the health official leading the U.S. response said Thursday.

The next few weeks will be critical, said Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which is sending more workers into the affected countries to help.

"It will be a long and hard fight," Frieden told a congressional committee Thursday.

In his prepared testimony, he estimated it would take at least three to six months to end the outbreak, under what he called a best-case scenario.

Frieden said the outbreak, which began in March, is unprecedented in part because it's in a region of Africa that never has dealt with Ebola before and has particularly weak health systems. He said the outbreak's two main drivers are lack of infection control as both health workers and families care for the sick and risky burial practices.

More than 1,700 people have been sickened in the current outbreak, in Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria. Nearly 1,000 have died, according to the World Health Organization, or WHO.

On Thursday Frieden said there's no way to know exactly how accurate that count is, or whether some cases are going unreported.

"The data coming out is kind of a fog-of-war situation," he said.

A medical charity told the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee that the world was too slow to react to the crisis, until recent headlines about two American aid workers who became infected in Liberia and were flown to the U.S. for care.

"Ebola is out of control in West Africa, and we are starting to see panic now around the world," said Ken Isaacs, vice president at Samaritan's Purse.

The two American aid workers, who were flown to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, "seem to get a little better every day," Isaacs said.

Frieden didn't rule out the possibility that a traveler could arrive in the U.S. unknowingly infected with Ebola. But he said he is confident there will not be a large Ebola outbreak here. The CDC has put hospitals on alert for symptoms and to check whether people are recent travelers so that they can promptly isolate any suspected cases until proper testing can be done.

Frieden said it is possible to stop the outbreak in West Africa using tried-and-true public health measures: find and isolate all possible patients, track down everyone they could have exposed, educate the public about risks and ensure health workers follow proper infection control. The virus is spread through direct contact with the bodily fluids of someone who is sick.

Any case missed or exposed person lost to follow-up could keep the outbreak going.

"If you leave behind even a single burning ember, it's like a forest fire," he said. "It flares back up."

Isaacs of Samaritan's Purse said that a huge problem will be persuading African communities to abandon the traditional practice of washing the body and kissing the corpse immediately after death, when the body is most infectious. He said aid workers have been attacked when trying to intervene, and that some physicians in Liberia even mocked the existence of the Ebola virus, shunning protection around patients.

Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf declared a national state of emergency this week, and officials said Thursday that no one with a fever would be allowed in or out of the country. In the capital, there were reports of bodies abandoned in the streets. Relatives have been hiding feverish patients at home for fear that if they are brought to isolation centers and don't have Ebola, they will catch it.

Troops were deployed there and in Sierra Leone to stem movement of possibly infected people. According to the WHO, Liberia and Sierra Leone account for more than 60 percent of the deaths so far.

On Thursday, Frieden said Guinea was furthest along in responding to the outbreak although it is still spread there.

The World Bank Group on Monday pledged as much as $200 million in emergency funding to fight the outbreak, including paying for urgently needed medical supplies, medical staff salaries and lab networks. On Thursday, the U.S. Agency for International Development said it was sending tens of thousands of protective suits for health care workers.

At least one of the affected countries, Nigeria, has requested access to the experimental drug ZMapp, used on the two American aid workers. U.S. health officials have stressed that only extremely limited doses exist, the drug hasn't ever been tested in people and there's no proof it helped the two Americans. They have said it would take several months to make enough even for a small study.

"The plain fact is that we don't know whether that treatment is helpful, harmful or doesn't have any impact," Frieden told the congressional subcommittee. He added, "I don't want any false hopes out there."

[Mark]

CDC issues highest level alert amid Ebola outbreak

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has raised their emergency response to the Ebola outbreak to level 1.

This is the highest level of emergency response at the CDC and, according to an agency spokesperson, it has been activated because of the surge of personnel being sent into the affected countries. The CDC’s emergency operations center is now assisting the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases in Atlanta, which specializes in the study and research of Ebola.

As of Wednesday, there are 240 CDC staff members working on the Ebola response, with 30 in the affected regions and more en route.

According to the CDC, level 1 is “all hands on deck.” The CDC has only been to level 1 three times in the history of the emergency operations center, which opened in 2003. Previously, it was activated for Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the H1N1 influenza outbreak in 2009.

The Ebola outbreak in West Africa has killed at least 932 people, according to the World Health Organization.

http://www.foxnews.com/health/2014/08/07/cdc-issues-highest-level-alert-amid-ebola-outbreak/?cmpid=NL_fntop

[Psalm 51:17]

http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-TV/2014/08/07/CDC-Chief-Ebola-spread-to-United-States-inevitable
CDC Chief: Ebola's Spread to the United States 'Inevitable'
8/7/14

Thursday at the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health hearing titled, “Combating the Ebola Threat,” the head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Tom Frieden said "We are all connected and inevitably there will be travelers, American citizens" who will travel in the infected African countries and come "here with symptoms."

He added, "It is certainly possible that we could have ill people in the US who develop Ebola after having been exposed elsewhere."

The Associated Press reported "one man with dual US-Liberian citizenship has died from Ebola, after becoming sick on a plane from Monrovia to Lagos and exposing as many as seven other people in Nigeria."

Today the CDC, announced it has moved to a "level 1" alert to combat the Ebola outbreak in the African countries of Sierra Leone, Guinea, Nigeria and Liberia. According to the World Health Organization the virus has killed 932 people since March.

[Mark]

The Liberian slum where Ebola spreads death among killer virus 'deniers'

Blue crosses on houses in New Kru Town mark the few residences to have complied with the advice of visiting health officials, while countless others rely on prayer and witchcraft to fend off Ebola in Monrovia

 If ever there was a likely spot for an outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus, New Kru Town in Liberia is it. A sprawling slum of the country's war-ravaged capital, Monrovia, it is home to 50,000 people, and has next to no functioning lavatories, sinks or bathrooms.

Sewage runs openly through its maze of corrugated shacks, and in Liberia's wet season – at its height right now – tropical torrents turn it into one vast, warm, moist, breeding pool for germs.

It hardly feels surprising then, in the wake of several locals dying from Ebola, to see health teams daubing blue crosses on a number of shacks around town.

These, however, are not to identify those who have caught the disease, but to mark the relatively few New Kru Towners who have been visited by the teams and accepted their advice on how to avoid getting it. So far, only around 500 houses have been marked – and with health workers themselves accused of spreading the disease, some parts of New Kru Town remain decidedly hostile.

"This is a very poor neighbourhood where sanitation is lacking and people are not well educated in the principles of hygiene," said Tamba Bundor, leader of a team of hardy volunteers from local health charity Community Development Services, a Unicef partner, as he drove his car through wet, sandy backlanes.

REST: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/liberia/11020768/The-Liberian-slum-where-Ebola-spreads-death-among-killer-virus-deniers.html

[Psalm 51:17]

http://www.680news.com/2014/08/08/brampton-civic-hospital-treating-patient-from-africa-with-flu-like-symptoms/
8/8/14
Brampton Civic Hospital(Canada) treating patient from Africa with flu-like symptoms

A Brampton hospital is taking precautionary measures after a patient who recently travelled to Canada from Nigeria came down with a fever and other flu-like symptoms.

The patient arrived at the emergency department at William Osler Health System’s Brampton Civic Hospital on Friday.

“Osler sees and treats several patients a week with similar symptoms because of its proximity to the airport and over the last week, has put in heightened infection control protocols as a precautionary measure due to the emerging situation in West Africa,” the spokesperson said.

West Africa is currently dealing with an Ebola outbreak.

“Osler medical experts are working closely with Peel Public Health to confirm a diagnosis,” the hospital said.

On Saturday afternoon, the Ontario Ministry of Health said results of the testing were expected within 24 hours from samples sent to the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg.

Allison McGeer, Infectious Disease Consultant with Mount Sinai Hospital, told 680News that the likelihood that the person has Ebola is “very small,” but says hospitals must take necessary precautions and follow protocol when dealing with anyone who has a fever and has travelled to a high-risk area.

Dr. Eric Hoskins Minister of Health and Long-Term Care released the following statement on Friday night:

The health and safety of all Ontarians is my top priority. I have been closely monitoring the situation in West Africa since this outbreak began and I know that health professionals in Ontario have been alert to possible cases of Ebola in patients who have been traveling in affected regions.

I am aware that we are currently testing a patient who recently travelled from West Africa. Initial signs and symptoms of Ebola are similar to many more common diseases. One such disease relevant to African travel is malaria. There are currently no confirmed cases of Ebola in Ontario.

I am in close contact with our Chief Medical Officer of Health, and we are working with our health system partners to monitor and manage the situation. From the beginning of the outbreak in West Africa we have taken steps to ensure our health system is prepared should a returning traveler be suspected of having the disease. With the experience and lessons learned from the SARS epidemic, our hospitals have sophisticated infection control systems and procedures to protect health providers, patients, and all Ontarians, and are fully equipped to deal with any potential cases of Ebola.

As Minister of Health and Long-Term Care, and as a public health doctor with many years’ experience working with infectious diseases in Africa, I am confident that Ontario is prepared and ready to contain and treat any potential case of Ebola in our province.

I will continue to monitor the situation closely and will provide regular updates.

[Psalm 51:17]

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/08/07/ebola-experts-describe-atmosphere-in-west-africa-as-apocalyptic.html
8/7/14
Ebola Experts Warn of an African ‘Apocalypse’
At an emergency hearing Thursday, leaders of the fight against Ebola gave updates on the situation in Africa and the future of the deadly disease’s possible spread.

At an emergency hearing in Washington on Thursday afternoon, major players in the fight against Ebola in West Africa addressed the outbreak that has stolen the lives of more than 900. Leaders from health agencies and humanitarian efforts addressed the need for increased support, as one called the current state of affairs in West Africa “apocalyptic.”

Rep. Christopher Smith, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health, opened the hearing by urging the speakers to clear the air on a “grave issue” that has “gripped” the mass media for weeks. “We hope to gain a realistic understanding of what we’re up against while avoiding sensationalism,” he told the floor. Here are the takeaways:

The outbreak is getting worse.

It’s already an unprecedented outbreak, CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden says, and the number of infected and killed by Ebola will likely soon outnumber all other Ebola outbreaks in the past 32 years combined. According to the CDC, there have already been more than 1,700 suspected and confirmed cases of Ebola in West Africa, and more than 900 deaths—numbers that Frieden later called “too foggy” to be definitive. Ken Isaacs, the vice president of Program and Government Relations for Samaritan’s Purse, painted an even bleaker picture. According to the World Health Organization, West Africa has counted 1,711 diagnoses and 932 deaths, already, which could represent only a small fraction of the true number. “We believe that these numbers represent just 25 to 50 percent of what is happening,” said Isaacs.

The atmosphere in West Africa is “apocalyptic.”

In a six-hour meeting with the president of Liberia last week, Isaacs said workers from Samaritan’s Purse and SIM watched as the “somber” officials explained the gravity of the situation in their countries, where hundreds lie dead in the streets. “It has an atmosphere of apocalypse,” Isaacs said of the Liberia Ministry of Health’s status updates. “Bodies lying in the street…gangs threatening to burn down hospitals. I believe this disease has the potential to be a national security risk for many nations. Our response has been a failure.” Isaacs says that the epidemic is inciting panic worldwide that, in his opinion, may soon be warranted. “We have to fight it now here or we’re going to have to fight it somewhere else.”

It’s unclear how many “serums” are available in the U.S.

Frieden explained that the government is looking carefully into any possible treatment for the infection but stressed that because of “rapidly evolving” information, it is unclear how many of the potentially life-saving Ebola “serums” are available. “I can’t tell you definitively how many courses there are,” said Frieden. “I heard there are a handful—fewer than the fingers of one hand. Some manufacturers have reportedly said they can make some, but some companies are saying it could take months. I don’t have definitive information.” Frieden further reiterated that Dr. Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol are the first two humans to be given the treatment, suggesting that even if additional treatments were available, using them may not be ethical. “Whatever happens with these individuals…we still do not know from their experience whether these drugs work. Antibodies are only one part of our response to an illness—in other conditions antibodies can make a disease worse. It’s too soon to know.”

The international response has been disastrous.

Isaacs, head of the humanitarian agency for which Brantly worked, vehemently condemned the international community for a response that he considers both delayed and insufficient. “The disease is uncontained and out of control. The international response has been a failure,” he said. With three of the poorest nations in the world affected, West Africa is extremely ill-prepared for the disaster—a fact, Isaacs argued, that necessitates a stronger response. “The ministries of health in these countries do not have the capacity to handle this. If a mechanism is not found, the world will be effectively relegating the containment of this disease to three of the poorest nations in the world,” he said, adding later: “Is the world willing to let the public health of the world be in their hands?”

Writebol and Dr. Brantly are “getting better.”

When asked for an update on the current status of the two American workers being treated at Emory University in Atlanta after contracting the disease in Liberia, Isaacs said they were “getting better every day.” He was not able to confirm whether either can be classified as stable. “I don’t think [their recovery] will be fast,” he said. “I will say that they seem to have gotten better. We appreciate that they are getting good treatment—we pray that they will survive.”

But their introduction back to the U.S. will be painful.

In the days since the two American workers have returned to America, Samaritan’s Purse has heard widespread concern about their reintegration. “People are afraid to get around them—husbands, wives, no one knows if it’s safe,” he said. “We are doing everything we can to give them a safe place to be, but imagine how difficult it is for American citizens—and all citizens—to suffer from this,” he said. Some from the communities where the two Americans came from reportedly have expressed concern about them infecting other residents. “This is a nasty, bloody disease; I could give you descriptions of people dying that you cannot even believe.”

Doctors in the Ebola-infected countries are in desperate need of supplies.

Dr. Frank Glover, a missionary with SIM who also testified at the hearing, expressed frustration at the affected countries’ lack of personal protective gear (PPG), which he says is increasing the spread of infections significantly. Glover says the doctors and nurses in these areas, particularly Liberia, are “terrified” to enter the hospitals because of a lack of proper gloves, goggles, and gowns that are needed to protect them. “The No. 1 cause of infections in Liberia is lack of protective gear. It’s unconscionable that we’re asking them to take care of people without gloves. If we’re putting people on the line, we owe it to them to give them a fighting chance.”

The quarantined towns are in desperate need of other vital support systems.

Rep. Karen Bass, a standing member on Smith’s subcommittee who spoke with Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, says the quarantined areas in West Africa are in desperate need of basic supplies like food and water. “Health care is a human right. We must ensure these countries have what they need to fight for it,” she said. Both Isaacs and Glover also expressed concern over the lack of education in West Africa about both the symptoms and proper response that should be taken in the wake of an infection. “A poster on the wall saying ‘Ebola kills’ isn’t going to do it,” said Isaacs. “They need education.” Grover cited the 14-year civil war in Liberia, which left millions illiterate, as one of the main roadblocks in educating the country.

The U.S. may not be prepared to treat American relief workers should they get infected.

According to Isaacs, of the Samaritan’s Purse, the plane that flew Writebol and Brantly to safety in Atlanta is the sole vehicle of that kind in existence. “There is only one airplane in the world with one chamber to carry a Level 4 pathogenic victim. One—and it’s in the U.S,” said Isaacs. “There is no other aircraft in the world.” Isaacs says that unless the Department of Defense is secretly in possession of another aircraft, then the U.S. will not have the power to evacuate more than one American relief worker at a time, should they get infected. “If the U.S. is going to expect CDC people [to be in these nations], there has to be assurance that we can care for them when they are sick.”

The disease could spread to other countries.

Isaacs, whose warnings to Congress about the urgency for a better response prompted Thursday’s meeting, says he is gravely concerned about the future. After first observing the outbreak in April, he’s watched the disease spread furiously across West Africa with little to no effective international support. “I think we are going to see death tolls in numbers that we can’t imagine,” said Isaacs. “If we do not fight and contain this disease, we will be fighting this and containing this in multiple countries across the world. The cat is, most likely, already out of the bag.”

[Psalm 51:17]

http://www.turkishweekly.net/news/170078/benin-reports-two-ebola-cases.html
Benin reports two Ebola cases
8/8/14

Benin has reported two cases of the deadly Ebola virus in the west African country.

Health Ministry official Aboubacar Moufiliatou said that a man suspected to have contracted the virus had died.

"Fortunately, blood samples have been taken from the deceased patient to examine if his death was linked with Ebola," Moufililatou told the state television Thursday night.

He said another man has been quarantined after showing symptoms of the deadly virus after returning from the Nigerian city of Lagos.

"Blood tests from the suspected case will be conducted in laboratories approved by the World Health Organization (WHO) to confirm or deny the infection," he said.

The WHO has declared the Ebola outbreak in West Africa to be an "international public health emergency" as the virus reportedly continues to spread through the region in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria.

According to the latest WHO report, Ebola has killed 932 people in West Africa.

The Ebola virus, a contagious disease for which there is no known treatment or cure, can be transmitted to humans from wild animals and also spreads through contact with the body fluids of an infected person or someone who has died of the disease.

Medical doctors say common symptoms of Ebola include high fever and headaches, followed by bleeding from openings in the body.

[Psalm 51:17]

http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-starting-economic-toll-region-130641888.html
Ebola starting to take an economic toll in region
8/9/14

WASHINGTON (AP) — Caterpillar has evacuated a handful of employees from Liberia. Canadian Overseas Petroleum Ltd. has suspended a drilling project. British Airways has canceled flights to the region. ExxonMobil and Chevron are waiting to see whether health officials can contain the danger.

The Ebola outbreak, which has claimed nearly 1,000 lives, is disrupting business and inflicting economic damage in the three African countries at the center of the crisis: Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia. So far, analysts say the crisis doesn't threaten the broader African or global economies.

"We must make sure it is controlled and contained as quickly as possible," said Olusegun Aganga, trade minister in Nigeria, which has confirmed nine cases of Ebola. "Once that is done, I don't think it will have a lasting impact on the economy."

The World Health Organization on Friday declared the outbreak an international public health emergency. The WHO didn't recommend any travel or trade bans. But it cautioned anyone who had had close contact with Ebola patients to avoid international travel and urged exit screenings at international airports and border crossings.

"When you have a widespread outbreak of Ebola, you can end up with a panic," said John Campbell, senior fellow for Africa studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. "People won't go to work. Expatriates will leave. Economic activity will slow. Fields won't get planted."

The World Bank estimates that the outbreak will shrink economic growth in Guinea, where the crisis emerged in March, from 4.5 percent to 3.5 percent this year.

Ama Egyaba Baidu-Forson, an economist at IHS Global Insight who focuses on sub-Saharan Africa, is cutting her forecasts for growth this year in Liberia and Sierra Leone. She warned that prices would rise as food and other staples become scarce and that the region's already fragile governments would run up big budget deficits in fighting Ebola.

Baidu-Forson says the countries hit by Ebola ultimately could require financial help from the International Monetary Fund.

In the meantime, multinational companies that do business in the resource-rich region are scrambling to respond to the crisis. Among them:

— Heavy equipment manufacturer Caterpillar Inc., based in Peoria, Illinois, has "evacuated less than 10 people" from Liberia, company spokeswoman Barbara Cox said by email. In a statement, Caterpillar said: "The health and safety of our people is our top priority.... We will continue to monitor the situation closely."

— British Airways has announced that it's suspending flights to and from Liberia and Sierra Leone through Aug. 31 "due to the deteriorating public health situation in both countries."

— Tawana Resources, an Australian iron-ore company, said it had suspended "all non-essential field activities within Liberia" and sent all non-essential African workers, expatriates and contractors home.

— London-based mining company African Minerals has begun imposing health checks and travel restrictions on employees in the region.

— Canadian Overseas Petroleum, based in Calgary, has stopped drilling in Liberia. And some of its expatriate employees have left the country.

— ExxonMobil said in a statement that its offices remain open and that "we're taking precautions to ensure the health and safety of our employees." The company has offices in Liberia, Nigeria and several other African nations.

— Chevron, which has an office in the Liberian capital of Monrovia and is in the process of exploring for oil off Liberia's coast, said it's "closely monitoring the outbreak of Ebola virus in West Africa." But the company wouldn't say whether it was withdrawing any employees or taking any other steps as a result of the outbreak.

So far, the economic damage has not affected West Africa's biggest economy, Nigeria's, though the disease has already spread to that country.

"It's not stopped commerce; it's not stopped buying," said Danladi Verheijen, managing director of the investment firm Verod Capital. "The flights are still full going into Nigeria."

Timi Austen-Peters, chairman of the Nigerian engineering and manufacturing firm Dorman Long, met in Washington on Friday with investors who were interested in Africa. Ebola, he says, didn't come up in the discussion.

"We were having a good old-fashioned business meeting," he says. "They were not in any way spooked."

[Psalm 51:17]

Germany Quarantines Patient With Suspected Ebola
http://en.ria.ru/society/20140810/191881629/Germany-Quarantines-Patient-With-Suspected-Ebola.html
8/10/14

MOSCOW, August 10 (RIA Novosti) - German doctors have isolated a patient showing symptoms of the deadly Ebola virus, Bild newspaper writes Sunday.

A man who recently came from Sierra Leone, where the virus has already claimed 12 lives, sought medical help on Saturday due to high fever and nausea. He was admitted to the emergency room of a Hamburg hospital and isolated. He was later transferred to the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf accompanied by a convoy of six police cars. It remains unclear whether the patient had any contact with Ebola-infected people in Africa.

At the end of last month, Hamburg's Bernhard-Nocht-Institute agreed to accept Ebola patients for treatment as requested from the World Health Organization (WHO).

On Saturday, a Canadian patient showing symptoms of what could possibly be Ebola virus was quarantined near Toronto upon his arrival from Nigeria.

Ebola symptoms resemble those of flu, and include fever, weakness, muscle pain, headache, sore throat, vomiting, diarrhea, rash, and bleeding.

Sierra Leone, Liberia and Nigeria have declared the state of emergency due to the worst Ebola outbreak in history and the first to occur in West Africa. The virus has killed 961 people as of August 6, with 1,779 infected, according to the World Health Organization.

WHO announced the virus outbreak an emergency situation of international importance on Friday.

There is no licensed treatment or vaccine for the Ebola virus, which has a case fatality rate of up to 90 percent. Medical workers use rehydration fluid and antibiotics to fight infections. Some groups have called for new drugs to be rolled out in Africa after two US aid workers infected with the virus responded positively to an experimental treatment known as Zmapp.

[Psalm 51:17]

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/06/ebola-outbreak-nurse-nigeria-dies
8/6/14

Ebola outbreak: nurse who treated first victim in Nigeria dies
Nurse and five other people now battling the virus had helped care for Liberian-American Patrick Sawyer, who died from Ebola

A nurse who treated Nigeria's first Ebola victim has died of the virus in Lagos as five new cases of the highly lethal disease were confirmed in Africa's most populous country.

The nurse had helped care for Patrick Sawyer, a 40-year-old Liberian-American civil servant who last month visited from Liberia, one of three countries in the region hit by the world's biggest epidemic. The five new cases are believed to be other health workers who came into contact with Sawyer, who died within days of his arrival.

The total death toll from the Ebola outbreak has now risen to 932 after another 45 patients died between 2 and 4 August, the World Health Organisation said.

"Yesterday the first known Nigerian to die of Ebola was recorded. This was one of the nurses that attended to the Liberian. The other five [newly confirmed] cases are being treated at an isolation ward," the Nigerian health minister, Onyebuchi Chukwu, told reporters in the capital, Abuja, on Wednesday.

Officials initially downplayed the risk of exposure, saying Sawyer had been immediately isolated when he collapsed on arrival at Lagos's bustling main airport two weeks ago.

But on Tuesday the state health commissioner, Jide Idris, said Ebola was diagnosed only after Sawyer had been taken to hospital and had direct or indirect contact with at least 70 others. They include airline passengers, airport officials and health workers, and have all been placed under precautionary surveillance. Seven have been quarantined.

Officials told reporters they were compiling a list of secondary contacts, and appealed to those who believed they may be at risk to come forward. "This is a call for everyone to be vigilant, especially with regard to relating to people who are ill," Idris said.

The virus has an incubation period of up to 21 days, meaning symptoms do not necessarily show before then. Once transmitted through contact with the bodily fluids of infected persons, meat or surfaces, a fever quickly degenerates into internal and external bleeding, vomiting and diarrhoea, which all contain vast amounts of the pathogen.

A committee has been set up to deal with any potential escalation of the disease, although Nigerian officials admitted there was a shortage of doctors willing to work directly with confirmed cases. "Our doctors are worried about the danger it poses to their lives and the need to be reassured," said Tope Ojo, Lagos chairman of the Nigerian Medical Association.

Doctors and healthcare workers on the frontline have been the hardest hit during the outbreak, which has so far killed 887 people in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. Authorities said they were considering applying for an experimental drug used on two Americans to treat the doctor who headed Sawyer's team and is now battling the virus herself.

Other preventive measures have been unveiled across Nigeria. Lagos, a melting pot of 20 million people, has broadcast information on radios and through leaflets, distributed protective clothing to health workers and set up four isolation wards.

In the northern state of Kaduna, officials said corpses from outside the country would require special permission for burial. Two suspected Ebola-infected corpses in the southern states of Anambra and Akwa Ibom are believed to be victims flown in from Guinea. Authorities have sealed the morgues while samples are being tested.

This week, troops were deployed in Sierra Leone and Liberia to help protect medical workers and quarantine the villages at the centre of the epidemic.

The Spanish defence ministry said on Wednesday it had sent a medically equipped Airbus 310 to Liberia to repatriate a Spanish priest who has tested positive for the virus. The priest, Miguel Pajares, is one of three missionaries being kept in isolation at the San Jose de Monrovia hospital in Liberia. The other two infected aid workers were identified as Chantal Pascaline Mutwamene, of Congo, and Paciencia Melgar, from Equatorial Guinea.

Al-Arabiya reported on Wednesday that a Saudi man in hospital in Jeddah with suspected Ebola after a business trip to Sierra Leone had died.

In neighbouring Ivory Coast, a regional athletic contest due to be held this month has been cancelled. "There was really no benefit in holding the games until things are under control. We don't want to trigger hysteria," sports minister Alain Lobognon said.