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

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March 27, 2024, 12:55:24 pm Mark says: Shocked Shocked Shocked Shocked  When Hamas spokesman Abu Ubaida began a speech marking the 100th day of the war in Gaza, one confounding yet eye-opening proclamation escaped the headlines. Listing the motives for the Palestinian militant group's Oct. 7 massacre in Israel, he accused Jews of "bringing red cows" to the Holy Land.
December 31, 2022, 10:08:58 am NilsFor1611 says: blessings
August 08, 2018, 02:38:10 am suzytr says: Hello, any good churches in the Sacto, CA area, also looking in Reno NV, thanks in advance and God Bless you Smiley
January 29, 2018, 01:21:57 am Christian40 says: It will be interesting to see what happens this year Israel being 70 years as a modern nation may 14 2018
October 17, 2017, 01:25:20 am Christian40 says: It is good to type Mark is here again!  Smiley
October 16, 2017, 03:28:18 am Christian40 says: anyone else thinking that time is accelerating now? it seems im doing days in shorter time now is time being affected in some way?
September 24, 2017, 10:45:16 pm Psalm 51:17 says: The specific rule pertaining to the national anthem is found on pages A62-63 of the league rulebook. It states: “The National Anthem must be played prior to every NFL game, and all players must be on the sideline for the National Anthem. “During the National Anthem, players on the field and bench area should stand at attention, face the flag, hold helmets in their left hand, and refrain from talking. The home team should ensure that the American flag is in good condition. It should be pointed out to players and coaches that we continue to be judged by the public in this area of respect for the flag and our country. Failure to be on the field by the start of the National Anthem may result in discipline, such as fines, suspensions, and/or the forfeiture of draft choice(s) for violations of the above, including first offenses.”
September 20, 2017, 04:32:32 am Christian40 says: "The most popular Hepatitis B vaccine is nothing short of a witch’s brew including aluminum, formaldehyde, yeast, amino acids, and soy. Aluminum is a known neurotoxin that destroys cellular metabolism and function. Hundreds of studies link to the ravaging effects of aluminum. The other proteins and formaldehyde serve to activate the immune system and open up the blood-brain barrier. This is NOT a good thing."
http://www.naturalnews.com/2017-08-11-new-fda-approved-hepatitis-b-vaccine-found-to-increase-heart-attack-risk-by-700.html
September 19, 2017, 03:59:21 am Christian40 says: bbc international did a video about there street preaching they are good witnesses
September 14, 2017, 08:06:04 am Psalm 51:17 says: bro Mark Hunter on YT has some good, edifying stuff too.
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« Reply #30 on: June 20, 2014, 02:26:56 pm »

Doctors Without Borders: Ebola 'out of control'

The Ebola outbreak ravaging West Africa is "totally out of control," according to a senior official for Doctors Without Borders, who says the medical group is stretched to the limit in its capacity to respond.

The current outbreak has caused more deaths than any other on record, said another official with the medical charity. Ebola has been linked to more than 330 deaths in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, according to the latest numbers from the World Health Organization.

International organizations and the governments involved need to send in more health experts and increase public education messages about how to stop the spread of the disease, Bart Janssens, the director of operations for the group in Brussels, told The Associated Press on Friday.

"The reality is clear that the epidemic is now in a second wave," Janssens said. "And, for me, it is totally out of control."

The outbreak, which began in Guinea either late last year or early this year, had appeared to slow before picking up pace again in recent weeks, including spreading to the Liberian capital for the first time.

"This is the highest outbreak on record and has the highest number of deaths, so this is unprecedented so far," said Armand Sprecher, a public health specialist with Doctors Without Borders.

According to a World Health Organization list, the highest previous death toll was in the first recorded Ebola outbreak in Congo in 1976, when 280 deaths were reported. Because Ebola often touches remote areas and the first cases sometimes go unrecognized, it is likely that there are deaths that go uncounted, both in this outbreak and previous ones.

The multiple locations of the current outbreak and its movement across borders make it one of the "most challenging Ebola outbreaks ever," Fadela Chaib, a spokeswoman for the World Health Organization, said earlier in the week.

The outbreak shows no sign of abating and that governments and international organizations were "far from winning this battle," Unni Krishnan, head of disaster preparedness and response for Plan International, said Friday.

But Janssens' description of the Ebola outbreak was even more alarming, and he warned that the governments affected had not recognized the gravity of the situation. He criticized the World Health Organization for not doing enough to prod leaders and said that it needs to bring in more experts to do the vital work of tracing all of the people who have been in contact with the sick.

"There needs to be a real political commitment that this is a very big emergency," he said. "Otherwise, it will continue to spread, and for sure it will spread to more countries."

The World Health Organization did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

But Tolbert Nyenswah, Liberia's deputy minister of health, said that people in the highest levels of government are working to contain the outbreak as proved by the fact that that Liberia had a long period with no new cases before this second wave.

The governments involved and international agencies are definitely struggling to keep up with the severity of the outbreak, said Krishnan of Plan, which is providing equipment to the three affected countries and spreading information about how people can protect themselves against the disease. But he noted that the disease is striking in one of the world's poorest regions, where public health systems are already fragile.

"The affected countries are at the bottom of the human development index," he said in an emailed statement. "Ebola is seriously crippling their capacities to respond effectively in containing the spread."

The situation requires a more effective response, said Janssens of Doctors Without Borders. With more than 40 international staff currently on the ground and four treatment centers, Doctors Without Borders has reached its limit to respond, he said.

"It's the first time in an Ebola epidemic where (Doctors Without Borders) teams cannot cover all the needs, at least for treatment centers," he said.

It is unclear, for instance, if the group will be able to set up a treatment center in Liberia, like the ones it is running in in Guinea and Sierra Leone, he said. For one thing, Janssens said, the group doesn't have any more experienced people in its network to call on. As it is, some of its people have already done three tours on the ground.

Janssens said this outbreak is particularly challenging because it began in an area where people are very mobile and has spread to even more densely populated areas, like the capitals of Guinea and Liberia. The disease typically strikes sparsely populated areas in central or eastern Africa, where it spreads less easily, he said.

By contrast, the epicenter of this outbreak is near a major regional transport hub, the Guinean city of Gueckedou.

He said the only way to stop the disease's spread is to persuade people to come forward when symptoms occur and to avoid touching the sick and dead.

"There is still not a real change of behavior of the people," he said. "So a lot of sick people still remain in hiding or continue to travel. And there is still news that burial practices are remaining dangerous."

VIDEO: http://www.breitbart.com/system/wire/ap_993adaed87fa4dd1ab4186311a8d31af
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« Reply #31 on: June 23, 2014, 11:11:57 am »

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/current-ebola-outbreak-now-worst-145726380.html
Current Ebola Outbreak Is Now The Worst In History And 'Totally Out Of Control'
6/23/14

Healthcare workers from the Doctors Without Borders prepare isolation and treatment areas for their Ebola, hemorrhagic fever operations, in Gueckedou, Guinea.

An outbreak of the terrifying Ebola virus emerged in the West African nation of Guinea in February and has been spreading ever since, infecting people in Sierra Leonne and Liberia as well. It is now the biggest and deadliest outbreak of Ebola since the virus was identified in 1976.

The disease's spread seemed to slow down for a while, but has picked up in recent weeks. An estimated 528 people have been infected, and 337 have died in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia. While it's likely that many cases go uncounted, the Associated Press notes that previously, the largest reported death toll was in the Congo in 1976, when 280 people died. (The most widespread outbreak infected 425 people in Uganda in 2000, killing 224.)

"The epidemic is now in a second wave," Bart Janssens, the director of operations for Doctors Without Borders told the Associated Press. "It is totally out of control."

The World Health Organization has planned a meeting between the three countries affected by this latest outbreak for June 23.

"There needs to be a real political commitment that this is a very big emergency," Janssens added. "Otherwise, it will continue to spread, and for sure it will spread to more countries."

This outbreak is unique because it has struck densely populated areas like Monrovia, the capital city of Liberia, and Conakry, the capital city of Guinea. Ebola usually emerges in sparsely populated rural regions, where fewer people pass through.

In an interview with NBC News, Robert Garry, a microbiology professor at the Tulane University School of Medicine, warned that the outbreak so far is just "the tip of the iceberg."

Ebola is one of the deadliest viruses ever known, with the most fatal strains killing up to 90% of people infected. The current strain is killing about 60% of people infected, NBC News reports.

Ebola begins as fever, weakness, muscle pain, headache, and sore throat, but soon progresses to vomiting, diarrhea, rash, and impaired organ function. A large proportion of those infected also bleed profusely, both internally and externally. It's considered highly contagious, though it isn't transmitted through the air — instead it's spread by bodily fluids like blood and saliva which can be very hard to avoid when someone is bleeding heavily from every orifice.

Ebola first emerged in humans in 1976, and there have been more than 18 outbreaks since then. There is currently no vaccine and no cure.
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« Reply #32 on: June 23, 2014, 11:15:37 am »

Quote
Ebola first emerged in humans in 1976, and there have been more than 18 outbreaks since then. There is currently no vaccine and no cure.

Remember the 70's was the same decade when the NIV was put out into the market(and the 501c3 corporate "church" started embracing it) - it was also the same decade when abortion was legalized, and "Star Wars"/"Rocky"(movies with Gnostic influences) turned into franchises which bewitched generations of the world from thereon.

Pt being that every time God's word gets perverted(and the "church" embraces it), other abominations will follow it.
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« Reply #33 on: June 27, 2014, 10:10:51 pm »

http://news.yahoo.com/risk-ebola-spread-west-africa-warns-174741373.html
Risk of Ebola spread in west Africa, WHO warns
6/27/14

Geneva (AFP) - The World Health Organization has warned that Ebola could spread beyond hard-hit Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone to neighbouring nations, but insisted that travel bans were not the answer.

"We want other countries in west Africa to be ready," WHO Ebola specialist Pierre Formenty said on Friday. "I'm talking about bordering countries like Ivory Coast, Mali, Senegal, Guinea-Bissau."

Those countries are among 11 nations due to attend WHO-brokered talks on the crisis in Ghana next week.

To date, there have been 635 cases of haemorrhagic fever in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, most confirmed as Ebola. A total of 399 people have died, 280 of them in Guinea.

With the hardest-hit countries struggling to contain the outbreak, Sierra Leone announced on Friday that it was dedicating 1.3 million euros ($1.8 million) to a public education campaign on haemorrhagic fever.

Abubakarr Kamara, an official from the country's health ministry, said the funding would also help teams on the ground to carry out door-to-door health visits in the worst-affected areas.

Ebola, which is deadly in up to 90 percent of cases, is believed to be carried by animals hunted for meat, notably bats.

Speaking to reporters, Formenty said highways appeared to be key to the virus's spread from a forested region between the three most badly-affected nations.

"Of course there are some controls, but we all know that all these borders are quite porous," he said, adding that draconian measures on travel would not help.

"We are not recommending any travel or trade restrictions to be applied to Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone," he underlined.

"If we try to institute measures that are going to be seen as restrictive by the population, we are going in fact to fuel the outbreak," he said.

"We favour dialogue with the affected families, the affected villages, the affected districts, rather than trying to be a sort of sanitary police."

- "Not out of hand" -

Last week, Formenty told AFP that a recent surge in cases was partly because efforts to contain the virus were relaxed too quickly after the outbreak appeared to lose pace in April.

"This failure of the system has created a clandestine chain of transmission that explains why we are where we are today," he said.

Medical charity Doctors Without Borders has warned the outbreak is out of control, although Formenty played that down.

"This is not out of hand," he said. "We have been able to control this outbreak in a number of places. In some other places it's been more difficult."

Ebola can fell victims within days, causing severe fever and muscle pain, vomiting and diarrhoea -- and in some cases, organ failure and unstoppable bleeding.

It spreads via bodily fluids including sweat, meaning you can get sick from simply touching an infected person, and with no vaccine, patients believed to have caught the virus have to be isolated to prevent further contagion.

Funeral rites involving touching corpses also pose a threat, but Formenty noted it had been difficult to spread that message, because the passing of a loved one was such a sensitive time.

"The only way we will succeed is when the people will understand clearly how dangerous it is for their lives to conduct unsafe burials during an outbreak of Ebola," he said.
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« Reply #34 on: June 28, 2014, 06:53:20 am »

Ebola outbreak spreading, World Health Organization calls for 'drastic action'

The World Health Organization said it was "gravely concerned" about the "further international spread" of the Ebola virus, already responsible for some 400 deaths. In a message released Thursday, the group called for "drastic action" to stymie the spread.

The outbreak began in the West African country of Guinea; the disease has since spread to neighboring nations Sierra Leone and Liberia. Officials remain worried that the virus could move elsewhere.

"There is an urgent need to intensify response efforts...this is the only way that the outbreak will be effectively addressed," WHO officials pleaded.

WHO has already sent 150 experts West Africa to try to slow the spread. But even though officials last week denied the virus was increasing its pace of infection, their recent statement acknowledged that: "there has been significant increase in the number of daily reported cases and deaths."

The state from WHO comes only days after the international aid group Doctors Without Borders claimed the outbreak was "out of control."

And though it's quickly become the single most deadly outbreak in Ebola's history, it could be worse. Previous outbreaks have featured mortality rates close to 95 percent. The current outbreak has killed roughly 60 percent of those infected.

No vaccine or cure currently exists for the flu-like virus, which causes fever with chills, joint pain, muscle pain and chest pain.

But even as international groups like WHO and other aid workers sound the alarms, experts say the chance Ebola making its way to the U.S. or Europe remains quite low -- most travel in the region is local.

http://www.breitbart.com/system/wire/upiUPI-20140626-182748-1476
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« Reply #35 on: July 02, 2014, 12:04:24 pm »

http://news.msn.com/world/wafrican-nations-in-crisis-talks-as-ebola-spreads
W.African nations in crisis talks as Ebola spreads
7/2/14

Health ministers from across western Africa will meet on Wednesday to plan "drastic action" against the deadliest ever Ebola epidemic as dozens of new cases continue to emerge.

There have been 759 confirmed or suspected cases of the haemorrhagic fever in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Tuesday, with 467 people dead.

"This makes the ongoing Ebola outbreak the largest in terms of the number of cases and deaths as well as geographical spread," the WHO said in a statement announcing a two-day conference in Ghana to be attended by 11 West African health ministers.

"Decisions taken at this meeting will be critical in addressing the current and future outbreaks," it said.

Since West Africa's first ever epidemic of the deadly and highly contagious fever broke out in Guinea in January, the WHO has sent in more than 150 experts to help tackle the regional crisis.

Despite the efforts of the UN agency and other health workers, there has been a "significant increase" in the rate of new cases and deaths in recent weeks, the WHO said.

Medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF)said last week that the spread of the virus, which has had a mortality rate of up to 90 percent in previous outbreaks, was "out of control", with more than 60 outbreak hotspots.

The Who’s latest figures confirm 129 additional cases of Ebola. There have been 22 new cases and 14 deaths in the past week.

The agency has warned that Ebola could spread to other countries, warning those hardest hit could struggle to contain the disease.

The agency's top Ebola specialist Pierre Formenti told AFP last month that the recent surge in cases had come in part because efforts to contain the virus had been relaxed too quickly after the outbreak appeared to slow down in April.

"One case can restart an entire epidemic," he warned, justifying the dramatic measures taken to contain Ebola, which is spread via bodily fluids including sweat, meaning just touching an infected person is enough to spread the virus.

Unstoppable bleeding

Ministers from Guinea, where 413 confirmed, suspected and probable cases have surfaced so far including 303 deaths, and Liberia, which has seen 107 cases and 65 deaths, will take part in the meeting.

Sierra Leone, which has recorded 239 cases and 99 deaths, will also be represented at the conference.

In addition, officials from Ivory Coast, Mali, Senegal, Gambia and Guinea-Bissau, along with Ghana and countries as far afield as Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo -- where Ebola was first detected nearly 40 years ago -- have been invited, the WHO said.

They will be joined by a host of UN agencies and other aid organisations including MSF and the Red Cross, as well as personnel from disease control centres in western Africa, the United States, Britain and the European Union.

The WHO has described the current Ebola epidemic as one of the most challenging since the virus was first identified in 1976 in what is now DR Congo.

That outbreak, the deadliest until this year, killed 280 people, according to WHO figures.

Ebola can fell its victims within days, causing severe fever and muscle pain, weakness, vomiting and diarrhoea -- in some cases shutting down organs and causing unstoppable bleeding.

No medicine or vaccine exists for Ebola, which is named after a small river in the DR Congo.
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« Reply #36 on: July 03, 2014, 01:56:57 pm »

http://news.yahoo.com/red-cross-suspends-ebola-operations-southeast-guinea-threats-120150113.html
Fear, cash shortages hinder fight against Ebola outbreak
7/2/14

 ACCRA (Reuters) - West African states lack the resources to battle the world's worst outbreak of Ebola and deep cultural suspicions about the disease remain a big obstacle to halting its spread, ministers said on Wednesday.

The outbreak has killed 467 people in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone since February, making it the largest and deadliest ever, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

West African health ministers meeting in Ghana to draw up a regional response mixed appeals for cash with warnings of the practices that have allowed the disease to spread across borders and into cities.

Abubakarr Fofanah, deputy health minister for Sierra Leone, a country with one of the world's weakest health systems, said cash was needed for drugs, basic protective gear and staff pay.

Sierra Leone announced on Wednesday that President Ernest Bai Koroma, his vice president and all cabinet ministers would donate half of their salaries to help fight the outbreak, though the total amount of the donations was not disclosed.

"In Liberia, our biggest challenge is denial, fear and panic. Our people are very much afraid of the disease," Bernice Dahn, Liberia's deputy health minister, told Reuters on the sidelines of the Accra meeting.

"People are afraid but do not believe that the disease exists and because of that people get sick and the community members hide them and bury them, against all the norms we have put in place," she said.

Authorities are trying to stop relatives of Ebola victims from giving them traditional funerals, which often involve the manual washing of the body, out of fear of spreading the infection. The dead are instead meant to be buried by health staff wearing protective gear.

Neighboring Sierra Leone faces many of the same problems, with dozens of those infected evading treatment, complicating efforts to trace cases.

RED CROSS STAFF THREATENED

The Red Cross in Guinea said it had been forced to temporarily suspend some operations in the country's southeast after staff working on Ebola were threatened.

"Locals wielding knives surrounded a marked Red Cross vehicle," a Red Cross official said, asking not to be named. The official said operations had been halted for safety reasons. The Red Cross later said only international staff were removed.

A Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) center in Guinea was attacked by youths in April after staff were accused of bringing the disease into the country.

Ebola causes fever, vomiting, bleeding and diarrhea and kills up to 90 percent of those it infects. Highly contagious, it is transmitted through contact with blood or other fluids.

WHO has flagged three main factors driving its spread: the burial of victims in accordance with tradition, the dense populations around the capital cities of Guinea and Liberia and the bustling cross-border trade across the region.

Health experts say the top priority must be containing Ebola with basic infection control measures such as vigilant handwashing and hygiene, and isolation of infected patients.

Jeremy Farrar, a professor of tropical medicine and director of The Wellcome Trust, an influential global health charity, said people at high risk should also be offered experimental medicines, despite the drugs not having been fully tested.

"We have more than 450 deaths so far, and not a single individual has been offered anything beyond tepid sponging and 'we'll bury you nicely'," Farrar told Reuters in an interview. "It's just unacceptable."

(Additional reporting by Misha Hussain in Dakar and Umaru Fofana in Freetown; Writing by David Lewis; Editing by Joe Bavier, Toni Reinhold)
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« Reply #37 on: July 08, 2014, 11:12:07 am »

http://news.yahoo.com/fifty-ebola-cases-25-deaths-west-africa-142505895.html
Fifty new Ebola cases and 25 deaths in West Africa: WHO
7/8/14

GENEVA (Reuters) - Fifty new cases of Ebola and 25 deaths have been reported in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea since July 3, as the deadly virus continues to spread in families, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday.

In a statement, the United Nations agency said that the latest figures from health ministries in the three countries showed a total of 844 cases including 518 deaths in the epidemic that began in February.

Guinea's ministry reported two deaths since July 3, but no new cases in the past week, the WHO said, calling the situation in the affected region of West Africa a "mixed picture".

Sierra Leone accounted for 34 of the new cases and 14 deaths, while Liberia reported 16 new cases and 9 deaths, it said, adding: "These numbers indicate that active viral transmission continues in the community."

WHO spokeswoman Fadela Chaib, speaking to a Geneva news briefing earlier on Tuesday, said: "This means that the two main modes of transmission are home care, people who care for their relative at home, and during funerals, are still ongoing.

"If we don't stop the transmission in the several hotspots in the three countries we will not be able to say that we control the outbreak," she said.

West African countries and international health organizations adopted a fresh strategy last Thursday to fight the world's deadliest Ebola epidemic to date. Measures include better surveillance to detect the virus and enhancing cross-border cooperation.
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« Reply #38 on: July 11, 2014, 10:32:29 am »

Ebola deaths surge in Sierra Leone and Liberia: WHO

Ebola continues to spread in Sierra Leone, Liberia and to a lesser extent in Guinea, with a combined 44 new cases and 21 deaths between July 6-8, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday. This brought the total in West Africa's first outbreak of the deadly viral disease to 888 cases including 539 deaths since February, the United Nations agency said.

http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-deaths-surge-sierra-leone-liberia-080720101.html;_ylt=A0LEV2E0479TmTcACVFXNyoA
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« Reply #39 on: July 15, 2014, 09:52:12 am »

http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-crisis-west-africa-deepens-500-dead-104712412.html
Ebola crisis in West Africa deepens; 500+ dead
7/14/14

DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — Deep in the forests of southern Guinea, the first victims fell ill with high fevers. People assumed it was the perennial killer malaria and had no reason to fear touching the bodies, as is the custom in traditional funerals.

Some desperate relatives brought their loved ones to the distant capital in search of better medical care, unknowingly spreading what ultimately was discovered to be Ebola, one of the world's most deadly diseases.

Ebola, a hemorrhagic fever that can cause its victims to bleed from the ears and nose, had never before been seen in this part of West Africa where medical clinics are few and far between. The disease has turned up in at least two other countries — Liberia and Sierra Leone — and 539 deaths have been attributed to the outbreak that is now the largest on record.

The key to halting Ebola is isolating the sick, but fear and panic have sent some patients into hiding, complicating efforts to stop its spread. Ebola has reached the capitals of all three countries, and the World Health Organization reported 44 new cases including 21 deaths on Friday.

There has been "a gross misjudgment across the board in gauging the severity and scale of damage the current Ebola outbreak can unleash," the aid group Plan International warned earlier this month.

"There are no cases from outside Africa to date. The threat of it spreading though is very much there," said Dr. Unni Krishnan, head of disaster preparedness and response for the aid group.

Preachers are calling for divine intervention, and panicked residents in remote areas have on multiple occasions attacked the very health workers sent to help them. In one town in Sierra Leone, residents partially burned down a treatment center over fears that the drugs given to victims were actually causing the disease.

Activists are trying to spread awareness in the countryside where literacy is low, even through a song penned about Ebola.

"It has no cure, but it can be prevented; let us fight it together. Let's protect ourselves, our families and our nation," sings the chorus.

"Do not touch people with the signs of Ebola," sings musician and activist Juli Endee. "Don't eat bush meat. Don't play with monkey and baboons. Plums that bats have bitten or half-eaten, don't eat them."

Guinea first notified WHO about the emergence of Ebola in March and soon after cases were reported in neighboring Liberia. Two months later there were hopes that the outbreak was waning, but then people began falling ill in Sierra Leone.

Doctors Without Borders says it fears the number of patients now being treated in Sierra Leone could be "just the tip of the iceberg." Nearly 40 were reported in a single village in the country's east.

"We're under massive time pressure: The longer it takes to find and follow up with people who have come in contact with sick people, the more difficult it will be to control the outbreak," said Anja Wolz, emergency coordinator for the group, also referred to by its French name Medecins Sans Frontieres.

This Ebola virus is a new strain and did not spread to West Africa from previous outbreaks in Uganda and Congo, researchers say. Many believe it is linked to the human consumption of bats carrying the virus. Many of those who have fallen ill in the current outbreak are family members of victims and the health workers who treated them.

There is no cure and no vaccine for Ebola, and those who have survived managed to do so only by receiving rehydration and other supportive treatment. Ebola's high fatality rate means many of those brought to health clinics have been merely kept as comfortable as possible in quarantine as they await death. As a result, some families have been afraid to take sick loved ones to the clinics.

"Let this warning go out: Anyone found or reported to be holding suspected Ebola cases in homes or prayer houses can be prosecuted under the law of Liberia," President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf stated recently.

Her comments came just days after Sierra Leone issued a similar warning, saying some patients had discharged themselves from the hospital and had gone into hiding.

At the airport in Guinea's capital, departing passengers must undergo temperature screening, and those with a fever are pulled aside for further evaluation. Still, the stigma of Ebola follows Guineans well outside the region.

"The police treated us like we were aliens. They said they didn't want us in their country because of the disease affecting Guinea," says Tafsir Sow, a businessman who was briefly detained at the airport in Casablanca, Morocco before continuing on to Paris. "I had tears in my eyes."

Still, WHO health officials are hopeful they will be able to get the situation under control in the next several weeks. A recent conference in the capital of Ghana brought together health authorities from across the affected areas, and the countries agreed on a common approach to fight Ebola.

"When you have it spread, of course it's moving in the wrong direction," said Dr. Keiji Fukuda, WHO's assistant director-general for health security and environment. "You want to see the number of infections going down. So we really have to redouble our efforts. But saying that it's out of control makes it sound like there are no solutions. This is a virus for which there are very clear solutions."

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« Reply #40 on: July 26, 2014, 04:41:46 pm »

http://news.msn.com/world/ebola-outbreak-spreads-to-4th-west-african-country
Ebola outbreak spreads to 4th West African country
7/26/14

ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — An Ebola outbreak that has left more than 660 people dead across West Africa has spread to the continent's most populous nation after a Liberian man with a high fever vomited aboard an airplane to Nigeria and then died there, officials said Friday.

The 40-year-old man had recently lost his sister to Ebola in Liberia, health officials there said. It was not immediately clear how he managed to board a flight, but he was moved into an isolation ward upon arrival in Nigeria on Tuesday and died on Friday.

Nigerian Health Minister Onyebuchi Chukwu said it was the first case of Ebola to be confirmed in Nigeria since the current outbreak emerged this year. The disease already has hit Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

"All ports of entry into Nigeria, including airports, seaports and land borders, are placed on red alert," he said. "Ministry of Health specialists have been positioned in all entry points. Active surveillance has also been stepped up."

Authorities are investigating anyone who may have come into contact with the deceased, Chukwu said.

"We have already gotten in touch with all the passengers," he said. "We are monitoring and investigating."

Liberia's Chief Medical Officer Bernice Dahn identified the Ebola victim as a government official with the finance ministry.

"When his sister died, his workmates were kind of afraid for him to be around," she said. "We received several calls from workmates on whether it was advisable for him to go to work."

The man told health officials that he had not had any physical contact with his sister, and based on his explanation, he initially was told to report back to work but was advised not to travel. He later was asked to stay home for 21 days but apparently continued working.

He flew to Nigeria to attend an international conference. Blood tests for Ebola returned positive from the Lagos University Teaching Hospital later Tuesday.

Ebola, one of the world's most deadly and contagious diseases, has now infected at least 1,093 people in Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea, and now Nigeria, according to the World Health Organization.
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« Reply #41 on: July 27, 2014, 10:38:52 pm »

FYI - Samaritan's Purse is runned by Franklin Graham...

http://www.cnn.com/2014/07/27/world/africa/ebola-american-doctor-infected/index.html
7/27/14
Second American infected with Ebola

(CNN) -- A second American aid worker in Liberia has tested positive for Ebola, according to the Christian humanitarian group she works for.

Nancy Writebol is employed by Serving in Mission, or SIM, in Liberia and was helping the joint SIM/Samaritan's Purse team that is treating Ebola patients in Monrovia, according to a Samaritan's Purse statement.

Writebol, who serves as SIM's personnel coordinator, has been living in Monrovia with her husband, David, according to SIM's website. The Charlotte, North Carolina, residents have been in Liberia since August 2013, according to the blog Writebols2Liberia. They have two adult children.

On Saturday, Samaritan's Purse announced that American doctor Kent Brantly had become infected. The 33-year-old former Indianapolis resident had been treating Ebola patients in Monrovia and started feeling ill, spokeswoman Melissa Strickland said. Once he started noticing the symptoms last week, Brantly isolated himself.

Brantly, the medical director for Samaritan Purse's Ebola Consolidated Case Management Center in Monrovia, has been in the country since October, Strickland said.

"When the Ebola outbreak hit, he took on responsibilities with our Ebola direct clinical treatment response, but he was serving in a missionary hospital in Liberia prior to his work with Ebola patients," she said.

Deadliest Ebola outbreak

Health officials say the Ebola outbreak, centered in West Africa, is the deadliest ever.

As of July 20, some 1,093 people in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia are thought to have been infected by Ebola since its symptoms were first observed four months ago, according to the World Health Organization.

Testing confirmed the Ebola virus in 786 of those cases; 442 of those people died.

Of the 1,093 confirmed, probable and suspected cases, 660 people have died.

There also are fears the virus could spread to Africa's most populous country, Nigeria.

Last week, a Liberian man hospitalized with Ebola in Lagos died, Nigerian Health Minister Onyebuchi Chukwu said.

Lagos, the largest city in Nigeria, has a population of more than 20 million.

The man arrived at Lagos airport on July 20 and was isolated in a local hospital after showing symptoms associated with the virus. He told officials he had no direct contact with anyone with the virus nor had he attended the burial of anyone who died of Ebola.

Another doctor infected

Confirmation of the death in Lagos came after news that a doctor who has played a key role in fighting the Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone is infected with the disease, according to that country's Ministry of Health.

Dr. Sheik Humarr Khan is being treated by the French aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres -- also known as Doctors Without Borders -- in Kailahun, Sierra Leone, agency spokesman Tim Shenk said.

Before falling ill, Khan had been overseeing Ebola treatment and isolation units at Kenema Government Hospital, about 185 miles east of the capital, Freetown.

Ebola typically kills 90% of those infected, but the death rate in this outbreak has dropped to roughly 60% because of early treatment.

What is Ebola, and why does it kill?

Spread by bodily fluids

Officials believe the Ebola outbreak has taken such a strong hold in West Africa because of the proximity of the jungle -- where the virus originated -- to Conakry, Guinea, which has a population of 2 million.

Because symptoms don't immediately appear, the virus can easily spread as people travel around the region. Once infected with the virus, many people die in an average of 10 days as the blood fails to clot and hemorrhaging occurs.

The disease isn't contagious until symptoms appear. Symptoms include fever, headache and fatigue. At that point, the Ebola virus is spread via bodily fluids.

Get the fast facts on Ebola

Health workers are at especially high risk, because they are in close contact with infected people and their bodily fluids. Adding to the danger, doctors may mistake the initial stages of an Ebola infection for another, milder illness.
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« Reply #42 on: July 28, 2014, 05:41:35 pm »

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/07/28/us-health-ebola-nigeria-idUSKBN0FX15420140728
7/28/14
Nigeria isolates Lagos hospital where Ebola victim died

(Reuters) - The Nigerian city of Lagos shut down and quarantined on Monday a hospital where a man died of Ebola, the first recorded case of the highly infectious disease in Africa's most populous country.

Patrick Sawyer, a consultant for the Liberian finance ministry aged in his 40s, collapsed on arrival at Lagos airport on July 20. He was put in isolation at the First Consultants Hospital in Obalende, one of the most crowded parts of a city that is home to 21 million people, and died on Friday.

"The private hospital was demobilized (evacuated) and the primary source of infection eliminated. The decontamination process in all the affected areas has commenced," Lagos state health commissioner Jide Idris told a news conference.

Some hospital staff who were in close contact with the victim have been isolated. The hospital will be shut for a week and all staff closely monitored, Idris added.

Authorities are monitoring a total of 59 people who were in contact with Sawyer, including airport contacts, the Lagos state health ministry said. But the airline he flew in with has yet to provide a passenger list for the flights he used, it added.

Ebola has killed 672 people across Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone since it was first diagnosed in February.

The fatality rate of the current outbreak is around 60 percent although the disease can kill up to 90 percent of those who catch it. Highly contagious, its symptoms include vomiting, diarrhea and internal and external bleeding.

Derek Gatherer, a virologist at Britain’s University of Lancaster, said anyone on the plane near Sawyer could be in "pretty serious danger", but that relatively wealthy Nigeria was better placed to tackle the outbreak than poorer neighbors.

"Nigerians have deep pockets and they can do as much as any Western country could do if they have the motivation and organization to get it done," he said.

Nigeria's largest air carrier Arik Air has suspended flights to Liberia and Sierra Leone because of the risk of Ebola, Arik spokesman Ola Adebanji said in emailed response on Monday.

"RED ALERT"

David Heymann, head of the Centre on Global Health Security at London's Chatham House, said every person who had been on the plane to Lagos with Sawyer would need to be traced and told to monitor their temperature twice a day for 21 days.

The World Health Organization said in a statement that Sawyer's flight had stopped in Lome in Togo on its way to Lagos.

"WHO is sending teams to both Nigeria and Togo to do follow-up work in relation to contact tracing, in particular to contacts he may have had on board the flight," spokesman Paul Garwood said.

Liberia closed most of its border crossings and introduced stringent health measures on Sunday, a day after a 33-year-old American doctor working in Liberia for the relief organization Samaritan's Purse tested positive for Ebola. The group said he had followed strict safety protocols when treating patients.

Nigeria's airports, seaports and land borders have been on "red alert" since Friday over the disease.

Exacerbating the difficulty of containing its spread, Nigerian doctors are on strike over conditions and pay. The chairman of the Nigerian Medical Association, Tope Ojo, was quoted by local media on Saturday as saying the strike would not be called off because of the Ebola threat.


The WHO said that in the past week, its regional director for Africa, Luis Sambo, had been on a fact-finding mission to Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, which have 1,201 confirmed, suspected and probable cases between them.

"He observed that the outbreak is beyond each national health sector alone and urged the governments of the affected countries to mobilize and involve all sectors, including civil society and communities, in the response," the WHO said.

A relative surge in cases in Guinea after weeks of low viral activity showed that "undetected chains of transmission existed in the community", the WHO said, calling for containment measures and contact tracing to be stepped up in Guinea.
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« Reply #43 on: July 29, 2014, 06:47:33 pm »

http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-virus-victim-american-patrick-sawyer-135554312.html

Ebola victim planned to fly to Minnesota in August, wife says
'Patrick was coming here. What if he still wasn't displaying symptoms yet and came?'

7/29/14

A former Minnesota resident infected with the Ebola virus who traveled from Liberia to Nigeria before he died from the disease had planned to visit family back in the United States next month.

Patrick Sawyer, a 40-year-old father of three, sparked a global health scare when it was discovered that he had transported the virus across borders in Africa, and news of his plans to travel back to the Minnesota town where his wife and children still live ratcheted up fears that the virus could spread to North America.

"Patrick could've easily come home with Ebola," Decontee Sawyer, his wife, told KSTP-TV. She lives in Coon Rapids, Minn., with the couple's three daughters. "Easy. Easy. It's close; it's at our front door. It knocked down my front door."

Patrick Sawyer, a Liberian national who moved from Minnesota to Liberia to work for the country's ministry of finance, collapsed in an airport in Lagos last week after showing symptoms of the disease. He died Friday in what health officials determined to be the first probable case of the Ebola virus in Nigeria.

Sawyer's death has rocked the West African community in Minnesota, home to the largest Liberian immigrant population in the United States.

"Everyone knows Patrick," Decontee Sawyer told KARE-TV. "It's hit everyone's front door, and they feel like they've lost a best friend and brother, and they are awake now."

Decontee said Patrick had been caring for his sister, who had fallen ill with what later turned out to be Ebola.

There have been 1,201 reported cases and 672 deaths from the virus in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone since the recent Ebola outbreak began in March, according to the World Health Organization.

According to Decontee Sawyer, her husband was scheduled to travel to Minnesota in mid-August for two of his daughters' birthdays.

Minnesota health officials met with community members Monday. Coon Rapids is home to a large West African community, and officials have warned residents to be on extra alert since Sawyer's death. A memorial service for Sawyer is scheduled on Sept. 14 in Coon Rapids.

"This can't happen anymore," Decontee Sawyer told KSTP-TV. "I don't want any more families going through what I'm going through. So I pray, and then I'm ready to fight."

The 34-year-old widow says she is working to raise awareness about the dangers of an Ebola outbreak in the United States.

"Patrick was coming here. What if he still wasn't displaying symptoms yet and came?" Sawyer told the Pioneer Press. "He could have brought Ebola here. Someone else could bring Ebola here.

"I don't want all of this to be for nothing," she said. "I have three girls who will never get to know their father."
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« Reply #44 on: July 31, 2014, 09:48:26 am »

http://news.yahoo.com/leone-declares-health-emergency-amid-ebola-103228593.html
W. Africa Ebola outbreak tops 700 deaths
7/31/14

DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — The deadliest recorded Ebola outbreak surpassed 700 deaths across West Africa on Thursday as the World Health Organization announced dozens of new deaths reported in the last several days.

In Sierra Leone, President Ernest Bai Koroma vowed to quarantine sick patients at home and have authorities conduct house-to-house searches for others who may have been exposed as the country struggles with families resisting treatment at isolation centers. Some have kept loved ones at home given the high death rates at clinics where Ebola patients are quarantined.

His announcement late Wednesday came as neighboring Liberia also ramped up its efforts to slow the virulent disease's spread, shutting down schools and ordering most public servants to stay home from work.

The U.S. Peace Corps also was evacuating hundreds of its volunteers in the affected countries. Two Peace Corps workers are under isolation outside the U.S. after having contact with a person who later died of the Ebola virus, a State Department official said.

Ebola now has been blamed for 729 deaths in four West African countries this year, and has shown no signs of slowing down particularly in Liberia and Sierra Leone. On Thursday, the WHO announced 57 new deaths — 27 in Liberia, 20 in Guinea, nine in Sierra Leone and one in Nigeria.

Among the dead was the chief doctor treating Ebola in Sierra Leone, who was to be buried Thursday.

The government said Dr. Sheik Humarr Khan's death was "an irreparable loss of this son of the soil." The 39-year-old was a leading doctor on hemorrhagic fevers in a nation with very few medical resources.

Ebola cases first emerged in the nation of Guinea back in March, and later spread across the borders to Liberia and Sierra Leone. The outbreak is now the largest recorded in world history, and has infected three African capitals with international airports. Officials are trying to step up screening of passengers, though an American man was able to fly from Liberia to Nigeria, where authorities say he died days later from Ebola.

Ebola has no vaccine and no specific treatment, with a fatality rate of about 60 percent in this particular outbreak. But experts say the risk of travelers contracting it is considered low because it requires direct contact with bodily fluids or secretions such as urine, blood, sweat or saliva. Ebola can't be spread like flu through casual contact or breathing in the same air.

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

In Liberia, authorities say 28 out of the 45 health workers who have contracted the disease so far have died. Two American health workers sick with the virus remain in isolation.
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« Reply #45 on: July 31, 2014, 09:56:52 am »

http://www.inquisitr.com/1383702/ebola-outbreak-30000/
Ebola Outbreak: 30,000 In Nigeria Believed Exposed To Virus, And No One Knows Who They Are
7/31/14

The catastrophic Ebola outbreak in West Africa may be spreading faster than health experts previously believed. Yesterday, officials in Nigeria said that they were looking for up to 59 people who may have been exposed to the lethal virus by flying on a plane with Liberian-American Patrick Sawyer, who died soon after getting off a flight in Lagos.

On Wednesday, the health authorities there said that they have expanded their search from 59 people — to 30,000.

And those 30,000 people could be anywhere, with most of them not even realizing they have been exposed to Ebola.

The staggering figure of 30,000 possible Ebola virus carriers was arrived at because officials now say that not only the people who flew on the same plane as Sawyer could have been exposed, but anyone in any of the four airports where the 40-year-old dad of three stopped on his journey from Monrovia, Liberia, to Lagos is believed to be at risk.

The number also includes anyone who came into contact with Sawyer when he got off of his ASKY Airlines flight in the 21-million-population city of Lagos, the most populous city on the African continent and a major international trade and travel hub.

‘We’re actually looking at contacting over 30,000 people in this very scenario. Because any and everybody that has contacted this person is going to be treated as a suspect,” Yewande Adeshina, a Nigerian health adviser, told the Voice of America News.

“This is the worst Ebola outbreak the world has ever seen,” Mike Noyes of the international charity group ActionAid told Britain’s Mirror newspaper. “If anyone could answer the question ‘Why?’we might be able to stop it. Instead, the reach of the spider web of infection is growing.”

In Liberia, along with Guinea and Sierra Leone one of the three African countries hit hardest by the Ebola outbreak, the government announced that it will begin closing schools and possibly placing whole towns under quarantine in a desperate attempt to check the alarming spread of the virus, which so far has claimed 672 lives.

But quarantining entire communities will require the use of Liberia’s security force against the country’s own population, which threatens to create an entirely new level of problems.

“This is a major public health emergency. It’s fierce, deadly and many of our countrymen are dying, and we need to act to stop the spread,” said Liberian Information Minister Lewis Brown, in an interview with the news agency Reuters. “We are hoping there will be a level of understanding and that there will not be a need for exceptional force.”


The global health group Doctors Without Borders has characterized the Ebola outbreak as “absolutely out of control,” and the group’s director of operations, Bart Jannsens said that the outbreak “can only get worse.”
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« Reply #46 on: August 01, 2014, 08:24:07 am »

http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-patient-coming-u-aid-workers-health-worsens-010039625.html
Ebola patient coming to U.S. as aid workers' health worsens
8/1/14

 CHICAGO/WINSTON-SALEM N.C. (Reuters) - A U.S. aid worker who was infected with the deadly Ebola virus while working in West Africa will be flown to the United States to be treated in a high-security ward at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, hospital officials said on Thursday. The aid worker, whose name has not been released, will be moved in the next several days to a special isolation unit at Emory. The unit was set up in collaboration with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

CDC spokeswoman Barbara Reynolds said her agency was working with the U.S. State Department to facilitate the transfer.

Reynolds said the CDC was not aware of any Ebola patient ever being treated in the United States, but five people in the past decade have entered the country with either Lassa Fever or Marburg Fever, hemorrhagic fevers similar to Ebola.

News of the transfer follows reports of the declining health of two infected U.S. aid workers, Dr. Kent Brantly and missionary Nancy Writebol, who contracted Ebola while working in Liberia on behalf of North Carolina-based Christian relief groups Samaritan's Purse and SIM.

CNN and ABC News reported that a second American infected with Ebola was to be flown to the United States. CNN identified the U.S.-bound patients as Brantly and Writebol. Reuters could not independently confirm the reports.

Amber Brantly, the wife of Dr. Brantly, said in a statement: "I remain hopeful and believing that Kent will be healed from this dreadful disease."

Earlier on Thursday, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the State Department was working with the CDC on medical evacuations of infected American humanitarian aid workers.

The outbreak in West Africa is the worst in history, having killed more than 700 people since February. On Thursday, the CDC issued a travel advisory urging people to avoid all non-essential travel to Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, the epicenter of the outbreak.

Brantly and Writebol "were in stable but grave" condition as of early Thursday morning, the relief organizations said. A spokeswoman for the groups could not confirm whether the patient being transferred to Emory was one of their aid workers.

CDC Director Dr. Thomas Frieden said in a conference call that transferring gravely ill patients has the potential to do more harm than good.

Meanwhile, the National Institutes of Health plans in mid-September to begin testing an experimental Ebola vaccine on people after seeing encouraging results in pre-clinical trials on monkeys, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the NIH's allergy and infectious diseases unit, said in an email.

In its final stages, Ebola causes external and internal bleeding, vomiting and diarrhea. About 60 percent of people infected in the current outbreak are dying from the illness.

Writebol, 59, received an experimental drug doctors hope will improve her health, SIM said. Brantly, 33, received a unit of blood from a 14-year-old boy who survived Ebola with the help of Brantly's medical care, said Franklin Graham, president of Samaritan's Purse.

Frieden could not comment on the specifics of either treatment but said: "We have reviewed the evidence of the treatments out there and don't find any treatment that has proven effectiveness against Ebola."
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« Reply #47 on: August 01, 2014, 10:14:08 am »

http://news.yahoo.com/uk-holds-emergency-talks-growing-ebola-threat-084704564.html
World Ebola fears grow with Europe and Asia on alert
7/31/14

London (AFP) - Fears that the west African Ebola outbreak could spread to other continents grew with European and Asian countries on alert and a leading medical charity warning the epidemic was out of control.

Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said the crisis gripping Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone would only get worse and warned there was no overarching strategy to handle the world's worst outbreak of the disease.

US Christian charity Samaritan's Purse was temporarily withdrawing its non-essential staff from Liberia, it said, citing regional "instability and ongoing security issues".

Hong Kong announced quarantine measures for suspected cases, although one woman arriving from Africa with possible symptoms tested negative, while the EU said it was ready to deal with the threat.


The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) has held talks with global health officials on potential measures to halt the spread of the disease.

In Britain, where one person has tested negative for the disease, Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said it was regarded as "a very serious threat".

An emergency meeting had decided that the best approach was to provide "additional resources to deal with the disease at source" in West Africa, he added.

Ebola can kill victims within days, causing severe fever and muscle pain, vomiting, diarrhoea and, in some cases, organ failure and unstoppable bleeding.

Since March, there have been 1,201 cases of Ebola and 672 deaths in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

The US Peace Corps announced Wednesday it was pulling hundreds of volunteers from the three countries.

There are currently 102 Peace Corps volunteers in Guinea working on agriculture, education and health, 108 in Liberia and 130 in Sierra Leone.

- EU 'equipped and ready' -

The European Union is equipped and ready to treat victims should the deadly virus be found in its 28 member states, an EU source said in Brussels.


"We cannot rule out the possibility that an infected person arrives in Europe but the EU has the means to track and contain any outbreak rapidly," the source said.

The isolation and negative testing of a suspected case in Valencia in Spain showed that the "system worked", added the source.

"The level of contamination on the ground is extremely worrying and we need to scale up our action before many more lives are lost," said EU Humanitarian Aid Commissioner Kristalina Georgieva.

In Hong Kong, a densely populated city previously scarred by disease outbreaks such as the 2003 SARS epidemic, health officials confirmed they would quarantine as a precautionary measure any visitors from Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia who showed fever symptoms.

One woman arriving in the southern Chinese city from Africa, who showed symptoms including fever and vomiting, has tested negative for Ebola.

Australia said Thursday it was well prepared in the unlikely event that the Ebola virus reached its shores. Australia has already warned against travel to Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

On Tuesday a meeting of the Communicable Diseases Network of Australia was convened, including key infectious diseases doctors and state and federal health authorities, to discuss ways to respond if Ebola was detected.

"While the possibility of Ebola coming to Australia is very low, we are closely monitoring the overseas outbreak and Australia's domestic response," chief medical officer Chris Baggoley said.

All border protection agencies were on alert for possible Ebola symptoms in people arriving by air or sea, Baggoley confirmed.

Meanwhile, Thai health authorities said they had ordered all hospitals to monitor patients for any symptoms, particularly nationals or foreign tourists who had been in the outbreak area.

- Epidemic 'out of control' -

Bart Janssens, MSF's director of operations, warned that governments and global bodies had no "overarching view" of how to tackle the outbreak.

"This epidemic is unprecedented, absolutely out of control and the situation can only get worse, because it is still spreading, above all in Liberia and Sierra Leone, in some very important hotspots," he said.

"If the situation does not improve fairly quickly, there is a real risk of new countries being affected," he told La Libre Belgique newspaper.

A British doctor volunteering in Sierra Leone treating Ebola patients told Metro newspaper that medical staff were swamped.

"The main challenge here, though, is that the health authorities just don't have the infrastructure to cope. They're overwhelmed," Benjamin Black said.

A top doctor in charge of a Sierra Leone treatment centre died of the virus earlier this week.

In Canada, local media reported that a Canadian doctor had put himself in quarantine as a precaution after spending weeks in west Africa treating patients with the virus alongside an American doctor, who is now infected.

A spokesman for the French foreign ministry said they were offering technical support and expertise on the ground in west Africa.

And Liberia announced it was shutting all schools and placing "non-essential" government workers on 30 days' leave.

Togo-based pan-African airline ASKY, which serves 20 destinations, on Tuesday halted all flights to and from Liberia and Sierra Leone following the death of a passenger from the virus.

The 40-year-old man, who travelled from Liberia, died in Lagos on Friday in Nigeria's first confirmed death from Ebola.

The virus crossing borders for the first time by plane could lead to new flight restrictions aimed at containing outbreaks, the world aviation agency said.

"Until now (the virus) had not impacted commercial aviation, but now we're affected," ICAO secretary general Raymond Benjamin said.

"We will have to act quickly."
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« Reply #48 on: August 01, 2014, 10:28:55 am »

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/07/30/what-ebola-on-a-plane-means-for-the-us.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+thedailybeast%2Farticles+%28The+Daily+Beast+-+Latest+Articles%29
7/30/14

What Ebola on a Plane Means for the U.S.
Usually Ebola victims get too sick, too quickly to travel—so the disease stays relatively contained. But now that an infected man was able to fly from Liberia to Nigeria, the game has changed.


The unrelenting Ebola virus outbreak in West Africa became decidedly scarier for Americans this week when someone who had flown the 1,000 miles from Liberia, where the epidemic is ongoing, to Lagos, Nigeria, where no cases had occurred, died of the infection.

According to The Daily Beast, naturalized American citizen Patrick Sawyer became ill on the plane after it left Liberia; once he landed, he went directly to the hospital, was isolated, and died soon thereafter. In response, the West African airline carrier he had used, ASKY, headquartered in nearby Togo, has suspended all flights into and out of Liberia and Guinea as well as Sierra Leone. Until Mr. Sawyer’s death, all 1,201 cases reported to the WHO through July 27, including the 672 deaths, had occurred in one of these three adjacent West Africa countries.

The single case ups the fear factor for one simple reason.  The working hypothesis till now had been that Ebola would more or less stay put, spreading town-to-town, affecting only neighboring countries, exactly because it is so fierce.  The time from infection to severe illness is typically so fast that it is unlikely that a person would be able to get it together enough to go to the airport while contagious—or else, would be so obviously unwell as to draw attention to himself.

Sawyer’s 1,000-mile flight changes this. The epidemic had been slowly expanding over five months, demonstrating that—despite headlines suggesting otherwise—it is not that contagious, except for those in sustained intimate contact. In contrast, the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic infected 60 million Americans in just about the same five-month period of time. But now, Ebola has moved beyond its standard slow motion, person-to-person transmission. Rather than inching along, it has hopped.


Stated another way, geographic distance is a critical advantage in the world of epidemics, as well as in war. In WWI, Georges Clemenceau wrote to President Wilson and David Lloyd George, the English prime minister: “America is far away, protected by the ocean… You are both sheltered; we [the French] are not.” The same geographic barrier had seemed Ebola-proof, until now.

To add to the gloom, several high profile Ebola cases have occurred in health-care workers treating patients with the disease. Both Samuel Brisbane, a Liberian physician and Ebola specialist, and Sheikh Umar Khan, the lead Ebola expert in Sierra Leone, have died in recent days. In addition, two American health-care workers dedicated to working in Liberia and treating patients with Ebola, Dr. Kent Brantly and nurse Nancy Writebol, are hospitalized in isolation in Liberia. Their condition remains extremely serious.

The CDC, which has been active in supporting work in West Africa but calm about prospects for cases in the U.S., issued a faintly alarming statement in a Health Advisory released Monday. They wrote that, “while the possibility of infected persons entering the U.S. remains low, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) advises that healthcare providers in the U.S. should consider EVD [Ebola virus disease] in the differential diagnosis of febrile illness, with compatible symptoms, in any person with recent (within 21 days) travel history in the affected countries and consider isolation of those patients meeting these criteria, pending diagnostic testing.” In CDC-speak this is mostly caution and not fear—but it is the first time they have moved this tone into the first paragraph of an Ebola advisory, and the first time they have carpet-bombed practitioners nationwide with emails and faxes.

Despite the rising gloom, the future for the public’s health actually is only slightly more grim than it has been until now. This does not mean that the tragedy is near an end—there surely will be more cases and more deaths in the weeks to come, as occurs with any epidemic. But the Sawyer case, combined with the heartless parsimony of all lethal outbreaks, means that the truth will out and soon. Much of the understanding of just how bad it's going to be rests on the fate of the hundreds of passengers and flight attendants who shared the ASKY flight with Patrick Sawyer.

If, as is likely, none of them become ill, this will prove that the disease is, as suspected, very difficult to transmit unless one comes into close contact with blood or urine or stool. If however a few passengers do develop Ebola, then the ocean may indeed no longer protect the United States.

Given the incubation period of the virus, we should know by the end of the week. My guess is this will remain an African tragedy and not threaten larger geographic swathes. But the deeper tragedy is that it seems to have taken the Stewart death and the harsh fates of Dr. Brantly and Ms. Writebol to finally alert people to this devastating epidemic of Ebola virus. In other words, we had to wait till we were scared senseless to pay attention; in the meantime many have died. Though the epidemics may change year to year, the point remains the same: Making decisions based on fearfulness is awful public policy.
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« Reply #49 on: August 01, 2014, 10:46:47 am »

Problem.

Reaction.

Solution.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/07/31/ebola-vaccine-trial/13404609/?siteID=je6NUbpObpQ-7fuF3vQ.oWvIF98l1JZ0uA
7/31/14
NIH to launch early Ebola vaccine trial in September

The USA will launch an early-stage trial in September of an experimental vaccine against Ebola, the deadly viral disease that has killed 729 people in the largest outbreak in history.

The National Institutes of Health has been developing an Ebola vaccine for several years that has had "encouraging results" in primates, says Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Fauci said he's working with the Food and Drug Administration to fast track the vaccine into a phase 1 clinical trial this fall. This type of trial is the earliest study in humans and aims to make sure that drugs are safe and show some efficacy.

Results from the study should be available by January, Fauci said. If the vaccine proves safe and effective, Fauci said he expects that it could be given to health workers in affected African countries sometime in 2015.

"We are starting to discuss some deals with pharmaceutical companies to help scale it up, so on an emergency basis, it might be available in 2015 for health workers who are putting themselves at extreme risk," Fauci said.

Ebola, which has a fatality rate of up to 90%, has infected more than 1,300 people in West Africa, including a number of health workers, according to the World Health Organization.

There are currently no effective treatments or vaccines for Ebola, which causes fever and headache in early stages but can lead to hemorrhaging, liver failure and kidney failure in later stages. But scientists have been working on four or five preventive vaccines that appear effective, said Thomas Geisbert, a professor at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston.

The only positive development to come from the epidemic is that it's attracted long-needed attention from drug makers, Fauci said.

"We have been working on our own Ebola vaccine, but we never could get any buy-in from the companies," he said.

The NIH recently gave Geisbert's lab a five-year, $26 million grant to research three of the most promising treatments for Ebola. These include a man-made antibody treatment; a promising Canadian drug from Tekmira Pharmaceuticals shown to protect monkeys from Ebola; and a vaccine that can be used both to prevent infection and also treat it.

"One of our goals is to start combining these treatments, like we do with AIDS medications," Geisbert said.

He said there are a number of obstacles to bringing these drugs to the clinic.

"It's a very fast-moving disease, and you often don't have a lot of time to intervene," Geisbert said. "If someone has full-blown Ebola hemorrhagic virus, there is no drug on the planet that is going to protect them. But in the monkey model, we do have drugs where, if you have an early stage of infection and an early stage of illness, some of them are pretty successful."

Developing effective treatments is growing more important by the day, as the West African outbreak grows. In the past, public health officials were able to get control of Ebola outbreaks by quarantining the small, remote towns and villages where they occurred, he said.

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« Reply #50 on: August 01, 2014, 10:53:32 am »

http://www.inquisitr.com/1383702/ebola-outbreak-30000/

07/31/14

Yesterday, officials in Nigeria said that they were looking for up to 59 people who may have been exposed to the lethal virus by flying on a plane with Liberian-American Patrick Sawyer, who died soon after getting off a flight in Lagos.

On Wednesday, the health authorities there said that they have expanded their search from 59 people — to 30,000.

And those 30,000 people could be anywhere, with most of them not even realizing they have been exposed to Ebola.

UPDATE: July 31 — The World Health Organization announced today that the death toll from the Ebola outbreak now stands at 729. The WHO, according to a CBS News report, confirmed 57 more Ebola deaths, including 27 in Liberia, 20 in Guinea and nine in Sierra Leone, in addition to the single death so far in Nigeria.

The staggering figure of 30,000 possible Ebola virus carriers was arrived at because officials now say that not only the people who flew on the same plane as Sawyer could have been exposed, but anyone in any of the four airports where the 40-year-old dad of three stopped on his journey from Monrovia, Liberia, to Lagos is believed to be at risk.

The number also includes anyone who came into contact with Sawyer when he got off of his ASKY Airlines flight in the 21-million-population city of Lagos, the most populous city on the African continent and a major international trade and travel hub.


‘We’re actually looking at contacting over 30,000 people in this very scenario. Because any and everybody that has contacted this person is going to be treated as a suspect,” Yewande Adeshina, a Nigerian health adviser, told the Voice of America News.

“This is the worst Ebola outbreak the world has ever seen,” Mike Noyes of the international charity group ActionAid told Britain’s Mirror newspaper. “If anyone could answer the question ‘Why?’we might be able to stop it. Instead, the reach of the spider web of infection is growing.”

In Liberia, along with Guinea and Sierra Leone one of the three African countries hit hardest by the Ebola outbreak, the government announced that it will begin closing schools and possibly placing whole towns under quarantine in a desperate attempt to check the alarming spread of the virus.

But quarantining entire communities will require the use of Liberia’s security force against the country’s own population, which threatens to create an entirely new level of problems.

“This is a major public health emergency. It’s fierce, deadly and many of our countrymen are dying, and we need to act to stop the spread,” said Liberian Information Minister Lewis Brown, in an interview with the news agency Reuters. “We are hoping there will be a level of understanding and that there will not be a need for exceptional force.”

The global health group Doctors Without Borders has characterized the Ebola outbreak as “absolutely out of control,” and the group’s director of operations, Bart Jannsens said that the outbreak “can only get worse.”
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« Reply #51 on: August 01, 2014, 12:34:25 pm »

http://news.msn.com/world/who-ebola-moving-faster-than-control-efforts
WHO: Ebola moving faster than control efforts
8/1/14

CONAKRY, Guinea (AP) — An Ebola outbreak that has killed more than 700 people in West Africa is moving faster than the efforts to control the disease, the head of the World Health Organization warned as presidents from the affected countries met Friday in Guinea's capital.

Dr. Margaret Chan, director-general of the World Health Organization, said the meeting in Conakry "must be a turning point" in the battle against Ebola, which is now sickening people in three African capitals for the first time in history.

"If the situation continues to deteriorate, the consequences can be catastrophic in terms of lost lives but also severe socio-economic disruption and a high risk of spread to other countries," she said.

At least 729 people in four countries — Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Nigeria — have died since cases first emerged back in March. While health officials say the virus is transmitted through direct contact with bodily fluids, many sick patients have refused to go to isolation centers.

The fatality rate has been about 60 percent, and the scenes of patients bleeding from the eyes, mouth and ears has led many relatives to keep their sick family members at home instead. Sierra Leone is now sending teams door-to-door in search of Ebola patients and others who have been exposed to the disease.

Chan emphasized Friday that the general public "is not at high risk of infection," but also said the Ebola virus should not be allowed to circulate widely.

"Constant mutation and adaptation are the survival mechanisms of viruses and other microbes," she said. "We must not give this virus opportunities to deliver more surprises."

WHO has said it plans to launch a $100 million response plan that would include funding the deployment of hundreds more health care workers to the affected countries.
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« Reply #52 on: August 01, 2014, 03:14:30 pm »

http://news.yahoo.com/plane-en-route-to-rescue-americans-with-ebola-171609039.html
Plane arrives in W. Africa to evacuate Americans infected with Ebola
8/1/14

A U.S. medical rescue team has arrived in West Africa to evacuate two Americans seriously ill with the deadly Ebola virus, doctors with Emory University Hospital said on Friday.

Medics from the air ambulance have deemed Dr. Kent Brantly and missionary Nancy Writebol stable enough to transport. The small private jet can carry only one patient at a time. It was undetermined on Friday who would come back first.

Both patients will be treated in a secure isolation unit at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta. Officials expect them to arrive by early next week.

The medical evacuations were arranged by the faith-based humanitarian group Samaritan's Purse, but are being facilitated by the State Department and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

It will mark the first time that an Ebola patient has been known to be treated in the United States.

“The safety and security of U.S. citizens is our paramount concern,” Marie Harf, a State Department spokesperson, said in a statement. “Every precaution is being taken to move the patients safely and securely, to provide critical care en route on a non-commercial aircraft, and to maintain strict isolation upon arrival in the United States.”

Officials say the air ambulance is outfitted with a portable tent designed for transporting patients with highly infectious diseases.

“CDC protocols and equipment are used for these kinds of medical evacuations so that they are carried out safely, thereby protecting the patient and the American public, as has been done with similar medical evacuations in the past,” Harf said in the statement.

Samaritan’s Purse, one of two faith-based groups sponsoring the missionaries, said it expects the evacuations to be complete by early next week. A spokesperson declined to answer specific questions.

Brantly, 33, and Writebol, 60, were among a team of Americans working at a local hospital in Monrovia, where they have been taking in scores of Liberia’s Ebola patients for months.

Sixty nonessential American personnel and their dependents associated with Samaritan’s Purse’s and SIM will return to the U.S. by Sunday, according to Samaritan’s Purse.

The humanitarian organization said the other evacuees are healthy. A spokesperson for Samaritan’s Purse declined to say if the group would be required to stay together or be medically monitored in the U.S.

“Although nonessential SIM personnel are leaving the country, SIM is sending in another of its doctors to help with the treatment of Ebola patients at its ELWA treatment center in Monrovia,” the organization said in a statement. “SIM currently has two doctors caring for Writebol and Brantly, and its Liberian staff is still engaged in the region.”

Ebola, which is spread through contact with bodily fluids, is highly contagious and deadly.

The Atlanta hospital said it will have proper protocols in place.

“For this specially trained staff, these procedures are practiced on a regular basis throughout the year so we are fully prepared for this type of situation,” the hospital said in the statement.

The hospital’s isolation unit, one of four of its kind in the country, was built in collaboration with the CDC.

Amber Brantly, a nurse, was in Liberia with her husband and their children Ruby, 5, and Stephen, 3, until recently, leaving to visit family in Texas. Dr. Brantly was due to join them this week until he became ill.

“Many people have been asking how I am doing,” Amber said in a written statement late Thursday. “The children and I are physically fine. We had left Liberia prior to Kent’s exposure to the virus.”

She asked for continued prayers for her husband and the estimated 1,300 others in West Africa who have been diagnosed with the virus. The outbreak, the worst since the disease first emerged in Africa nearly 40 years ago, has killed more than 700 people this year.

“I remain hopeful and believing that Kent will be healed from this dreadful disease,” Amber said in the statement. “I am grateful for the daily reports I receive from his doctors on the ground. He is strong and peaceful and confident in the love of Jesus Christ, which is his sustenance right now.”
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« Reply #53 on: August 02, 2014, 08:42:24 am »

Obamacare for Ebola?
8/2/14
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2014/08/obamacare_for_ebola.html

On August 1, 2014, President Barack Obama held a combination press conference and filibuster.  Among other things, he stated:

    Keep in mind that Ebola is not something that is easily transmitted.  That’s why, generally, outbreaks dissipate.

Contrary to Obama’s statement, Ebola is easily transmitted.  Moreover, past outbreaks have dissipated because the infected people died so quickly that the opportunity to infect other people was reduced.

According to an opinion piece in the New York Times by David Quammen, author of the book “Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic,” Ebola:

    ... is transmissible from human to human through direct contact with bodily fluids, but can be stopped by preventing such contact.  Furthermore, Ebola burns so hotly in its victims, incapacitating and killing so quickly, that it is poorly adapted to achieve global dispersal.

An article from July of this year in Great Britain’s The Independent entitled “Ebola Outbreak: Why Has a Disease That's Only Ever Killed 2,000 People Captivated the Darkest Side of Our Imagination?” makes the same point:

    People who are infected with Ebola, after all, aren't out running around spreading the disease for long before they're too sick to leave the bed.

    The virus is too hot – choke the supply of new hosts and it smothers itself.

The World Health Organization (WHO) states the following about the transmissibility of Ebola:

    Once a person comes into contact with an animal that has Ebola, it can spread within the community from human to human.  Infection occurs from direct contact (through broken skin or mucous membranes) with the blood, or other bodily fluids or secretions (stool, urine, saliva, semen) of infected people.  Infection can also occur if broken skin or mucous membranes of a healthy person come into contact with environments that have become contaminated with an Ebola patient’s infectious fluids such as soiled clothing, bed linen, or used needles.

    Health workers have frequently been exposed to the virus when caring for Ebola patients.  This happens because they are not wearing personal protection equipment, such as gloves, when caring for the patients.  Health care providers at all levels of the health system – hospitals, clinics and health posts – should be briefed on the nature of the disease and how it is transmitted, and strictly follow recommended infection control precautions.

    Burial ceremonies in which mourners have direct contact with the body of the deceased person can also play a role in the transmission of Ebola.  Persons who have died of Ebola must be handled using strong protective clothing and gloves, and be buried immediately.

    People are infectious as long as their blood and secretions contain the virus.  For this reason, infected patients receive close monitoring from medical professionals and receive laboratory tests to ensure the virus is no longer circulating in their systems before they return home.  When the medical professionals determine it is okay for the patient to return home, they are no longer infectious and cannot infect anyone else in their communities.

    Men who have recovered from the illness can still spread the virus to their partner through their semen for up to 7 weeks after recovery.  For this reason, it is important for men to avoid sexual intercourse for at least 7 weeks after recovery or to wear condoms if having sexual intercourse during 7 weeks after recovery.

Does this sound like something that is not easily transmitted?  WHO also states:

        In addition to standard health care precautions, health workers should strictly apply recommended infection control measures to avoid exposure to infected blood, fluids, or contaminated environments or objects – such as a patient’s soiled linen or used needles.
        They should use personal protection equipment such as individual gowns, gloves, masks and goggles or face shields.
        They should not reuse protective equipment or clothing unless they have been properly disinfected.
        They should change gloves between caring for each patient suspected of having Ebola.
        Invasive procedures that can expose medical doctors, nurses and others to infection should be carried out under strict, safe conditions.
        Infected patients should be kept separate from other patients and healthy people, as much as possible.

In an article entitled “Growing Concerns Over 'In the Air' Transmission of Ebola,” the British Broadcasting Corporation reported the following in November of 2012 about airborne transmissibility of Ebola:

    Canadian scientists have shown that the deadliest form of the ebola virus could be transmitted by air between species.

    In experiments, they demonstrated that the virus was transmitted from pigs to monkeys without any direct contact between them.

    The researchers say they believe that limited airborne transmission might be contributing to the spread of the disease in some parts of Africa.


    One possibility is that the monkeys became infected by inhaling large aerosol droplets produced from the respiratory tracts of the pigs.

    One of the scientists involved is Dr Gary Kobinger from the National Microbiology Laboratory at the Public Health Agency of Canada.  He told BBC News this was the most likely route of the infection.

    "What we suspect is happening is large droplets - they can stay in the air, but not long, they don't go far," he explained.

    "But they can be absorbed in the airway and this is how the infection starts, and this is what we think, because we saw a lot of evidence in the lungs of the non-human primates that the virus got in that way."

It looks like Obama’s medical advice is the first attempt to address the Ebola virus under Obamacare.
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« Reply #54 on: August 02, 2014, 10:10:19 am »

http://www.infowars.com/if-ebola-hits-u-s-even-healthy-americans-will-be-quarantined/

If Ebola Hits U.S., Even Healthy Americans Will be Quarantined
"Well persons" who "do not show symptoms" would be forcibly detained


7/30/14

With concerns growing over the deadly Ebola virus, which has killed 670 people in West Africa, preparations are already underway in the United States, where even healthy Americans will be subjected to forced quarantine in the event of an Ebola pandemic.

Western governments are now issuing alerts to doctors to be on the lookout for symptoms of the disease after an infected Liberian man was found to have traveled through a major transport hub in Nigeria. The World Health Organization has called the outbreak the worst on record, while Doctors Without Borders says the situation is “out of control.”

Back in April, the Department of Defense announced that it had deployed biological diagnostic systems to National Guard support teams across the U.S. in readiness for any potential Ebola outbreak.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has procedures in place to deal with such an outbreak backed by force of law.

The official CDC website details ‘Specific Laws and Regulations Governing the Control of Communicable Diseases’, under which even healthy citizens who show no symptoms of Ebola whatsoever would be forcibly quarantined at the behest of medical authorities.

“Quarantine is used to separate and restrict the movement of well persons who may have been exposed to a communicable disease to see if they become ill. These people may have been exposed to a disease and do not know it, or they may have the disease but do not show symptoms,” states the CDC (emphasis mine).

Such stringent regulations have led to fears that an outbreak of a dangerous communicable disease in the United States would lead to massive abuse of power by the federal government and the imposition of martial law.

The Common Sense Show’s Dave Hodges points out that the seriousness of the Ebola threat makes a mockery of the Obama administration’s current immigration policy.

“Even if there was not a present immigration crisis at the border, there is a significant outbreak of Ebola in a seven country region of West Africa,” writes Hodges. “With modern air travel, this government should be enacting protocols to limit the chances for Ebola from coming into the United States. Instead, President Obama is having ICE and DHS load up the busses and planes, at taxpayers expense to ship them throughout the United States without going through a minimum of a three week health screening period (i.e. Ebola’s incubation period).”

World Net Daily’s Drew Zahn highlights the fact that some of the individuals detained while trying to cross the U.S. border from Mexico were Africans.

“All it would take is one sick passenger or an illegal alien crossing our border to start a local outbreak in the United States,” warns the One Citizen Speaking blog, which calls on Obama to “impose travel restrictions on flights from and to the stricken area – unless they were humanitarian flights and closely monitored.”

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« Reply #55 on: August 02, 2014, 11:52:40 am »

Area Airports On Alert To Look For Passengers With Ebola Symptoms
http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2014/08/01/area-airports-on-alert-to-look-for-passengers-with-ebola-symptoms/
8/1/14

Plans Underway To Retrieve Americans Sick With Ebola From Africa

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) – Newark Liberty and John F. Kennedy airports are among 20 ports of entry locations in the U.S. with quarantine stations that have been staffed with health officials trained to look for symptoms of Ebola in passengers.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it will evaluate any travelers with signs of dangerous infectious diseases and isolate them when necessary.

U.S. health officials on Thursday warned Americans not to travel to the three West African countries hit by an outbreak of Ebola.

The advisory applies to nonessential travel to Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, where Ebola has killed more than 700 people this year.

“The bottom line is Ebola is worsening in West Africa,” said Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the CDC, who announced the travel warning. He called Ebola “a tragic, dreadful and merciless virus.”

The purpose of the travel warning is to not only protect U.S. travelers, but limit their use of overburdened clinics and hospitals for injuries or other illnesses, he said.

For more than a month, the CDC has advised travelers to simply take precautions when in the outbreak region.

Thursday’s alert is the highest-level. The World Health Organization, however, has not issued a similar travel warning for the West Africa region. The last time the CDC issued a high-level warning was in 2003 because of a SARS outbreak in Asia.


The current outbreak is the largest since the disease first emerged in Africa nearly 40 years ago.

“This virus, if not taken care of, will be a global pandemic,” said Liberia Deputy Chief Medical Officer Tolbert Nyenswah.

The virus is contagious and is spread by direct contact with blood or bodily fluids from a sick person. Ebola can’t be spread like flu through casual contact or breathing in the same air.

In Liberia, one American has died and two American aid workers are in serious condition.

The two American aid workers are Dr. Kent Brantly, who works for the group Samaritan’s Purse, and Nancy Writebol, a missionary with SIM.

Samaritan’s Purse said Friday that medical evacuation efforts are underway for both.

A small private jet based in Atlanta has been dispatched to Liberia. Officials said the jet is outfitted with a special, portable tent designed for transporting patients with highly infectious diseases.

The plane can only carry one patient and officials have not said who is to be picked up. Atlanta’s Emory University Hospital said it expects one of the patients to be transferred there “within the next several days.” The hospital has a special isolation unit.

The second patient is expected to arrive a few days after the first, CBS 2’s Sonia Rincon reported.

“We feel that we have the environment and expertise to care for these patients and offer them the maximum opportunity for recovery from these infections,” said Dr. Bruce Ribner, with the Emory Hospital Isolation Unit.

The hospital has put in place every precaution possible to protect staff and visitors the same way they would against hepatitis or HIV, Rincon reported.

There is no cure or vaccine for Ebola, so the doctors at Emory University Hospital said treatment will be as with any severe infection: supportive care to help the body’s immune system do its job.

At JFK Friday morning, there were mixed feelings from travelers about bringing Brantly and Writebol back to the U.S.

‘They’re Americans, they belong in their country,” one person said. “Who’s going to take care of them if we don’t?”

“How is that going to affect others? I also think the risk is going to be much greater if they come here than if they didn’t,” said travel Tony Bushell.

The CDC has said that the risk of a traveler bringing the Ebola virus to the United States remains small.

“We’re fairly comfortable that if a patient were identified here in the U.S., the normal kinds of barrier nursing precautions that would be in place would prevent spread, even before the person was confirmed to be a case of Ebola,” said the CDC’s Dr. Stephan Monroe.

On Monday, the agency sent a health alert to U.S. doctors, updating them about the outbreak. The alert stressed they should ask about foreign travel in patients who come down with Ebola-like symptoms, including fever, headache, vomiting and diarrhea.

Even if a traveler infected with Ebola came to the U.S., the risk of an outbreak is considered very low, Frieden said. Patients are contagious only when they show symptoms and U.S. hospitals are well equipped to isolate cases and control spread of the virus.

Frieden said a widespread Ebola outbreak in the United States “is not in the cards.”

Many travelers at Newark airport Friday morning weren’t too concerned.

“Travel as usual,” one man told 1010 WINS’ Glenn Schuck.

Others called the quarantine zones an excellent idea.

“Absolutely a good thing,” another man said. “We don’t need any viruses coming to the country by people who are contaminated.”


The World Health Organization is launching a $100 million response, which includes sending more medical personnel to the impacted region. The CDC plans to send 50 experts, aiming to stop the crisis.

President Obama said the CDC will be working closely with WHO and that there are steps in place to screen travelers from the affected countries on both ends, Rincon reported.

“We feel confident that the procedures we’ve put in place are appropriate,” Obama said.

U.S. companies are helping too. AmeriCares, based in Stamford, Conn., is sending three shipments of medical supplies.

“With over 1,300 people infected already and the virus spreading rapidly, there is virtually an endless demand for safety equipment,” AmeriCares Vice President of Emergency Response Garrett Ingoglia said in a statement on the group’s website. “If we don’t support the frontline health workers, there is no hope for controlling the epidemic.”
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« Reply #56 on: August 03, 2014, 03:31:16 pm »

West Africans Are Streaming Across the U.S. Southern Border Carrying the Ebola Virus
http://www.thecommonsenseshow.com/2014/08/03/west-africans-are-streaming-across-the-u-s-southern-border-carrying-the-ebola-virus/
8/3/14

Whether the title of this article is true today, or tomorrow, this is a factual report. Given our border situation, there is nothing that can be done to keep Ebola out of the United States, even if all planes were grounded immediately.

One of the most often asked questions that I am receiving today centers on how I know that West Africans are coming into the United States in significant numbers.  Although some people will not believe something is so unless they see it on CNN, I am unequivocally stating that the arrival of Ebola through our southern border has already happened or is imminent.

What I have learned over the past three weeks about the path of Ebola into the United States is frightening and it is not being discussed anywhere in the main stream media.

To those who have asked me about how we know that Ebola-exposed West Africans are coming into the country, this article will answer this question.

West Africans Are Coming Across Our Southern Border

While appearing on my talk show, Dr. Jane Orient, an internal medicine specialist and the Executive Director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS), clearly stated that Border Patrol informants told her that as many 100,000 West Africans are in Central America, have been taught to speak Spanish and are coming across our Southern border. Dr. Orient further stated that Ebola screening practices had not been implemented at the border with immigrants that were being detained. Please note that the incubation period for Ebola is up to 21 days.

In Arizona, state officials learned that Obama had ordered ICE to deliver unscreened illegal immigrants to bus terminals in Phoenix and Tucson AFTER their arrival. The same was true in several border state communities and there was no evidence that ANY health screening had taken place.

Dr. Orient had also learned that the Border Patrol has taken to laundering their own clothing at their work site because of the risk to their families.

As an aside, Dr. Orient had also learned that Halliburton type of organizations were springing up to construct FEMA camp type detention facilities for people with serious illnesses (i.e. Ebola, drug resistant TB).  Later, I published proof of contracts being offered in 2011, to corporations such as KBR, to be able to construct such a camp in 72 hours.

A week after the Dr. Orient interview, I was traveling to San Diego for vacation and had a chance encounter with a Border Patrol agent in a convenience store in Yuma, AZ. I approached him, gave him my business card, promised not to use his name and proceeded to ask him questions about the border. In a short five minute conversation, he told me that Border Patrol officials are contracting drug resistant TB, Scabies and bacteriological pneumonia. When I told him of Dr. Orient’s claim that Border Patrol officials had told her that they were concerned over West Africans who were crossing our border, he said he was indeed aware that West Africans were crossing our border but he did not know in what numbers.

Nearly 10 days later, the Border Patrol Agent contacted me at the number on my business card and this time he had a partner on the phone. Both agents confirmed that the number of West Africans crossing our border matched Dr. Orient’s revelation. Further, they confirmed the presence of UN and World Health Organization officials at the detention center that they were assigned to after they were taken off of actual field duty and assigned clerical duties.

This is called double sourcing the information originally presented by Dr. Orient. But wait, there are more confirmations.

Retired Border Patrol Head Speaks Out

Adding fuel to this fire is a statement that comes from the chairman of the National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers (NAFBPO), Zack Taylor, who states that West African illegal immigrants are presently coming into the U.S. through Mexico. These West Africans have been apprehended in the Rio Grande Valley sector in the last few years. Some of these West African groups have been taught to speak Spanish in order to infiltrate into the United States posing as Central American immigrants. This speaks to planning and collusion that some of these groups were taught to speak Spanish so they will “blend in” with other illegal immigrant groups. This is another piece of evidence that the coming series of pandemics has some governmental agency fingerprints on this invasion. Smart money would say that the CIA is involved.

Confirmation From a DEA Source

Zack Taylor’s revelation is confirmed by one of my DEA sources, through the revelation of circumstantial evidence. My insider DEA source has confirmed that the Sinoloa and Los Zetas Mexican drug cartels receive their weapons and drugs in  Peru from a drug cartel known as the SANCHEZ-Peredes. This cartel has been around since 1976 and is protected by the Peruvian army. The SANCHEZ-Peredes have strong ties to Hamas and other terror organizations including the drug trafficking corridor coming out of West Africa. The West African drug operatives are often used as couriers for guns and drugs. The SANCHEZ-Peredes also use the West Africans to transport drugs into the United States. This latter fact clearly explains why the West Africans are being taught to speak Spanish. This is why I would submit that this is an Iran-Contra style affair being conducted by the CIA.

Solely based upon these revelations, I agree with Dr. Orient’s assertion that it is not just a matter of if, but when, Ebola comes across our Southern border with Mexico.

Ominous Connections

The drug trade in West Africa is tied to Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, al-Qaeda and now probably ISIS. This is an ominous discovery because it now opens the possibility that Ebola could be purposely sent to the United States with West African drug couriers. An organization, such as Hamas, could arrange to have a number of West Africans to become exposed to the virus and then fast track them across the southern border under the guise of trafficking in drugs.

In late June of this year, The London Guardian described the West Africans’ role in trafficking drugs into Europe and South America (i.e. SANCHEZ-Peredes cartel). Therefore, this pathway has been established in the media.

Amidst the cries of “conspiracy theorist”, I suppose we should never believe that Hamas or the Muslim Brotherhood would do such a thing. On the contrary, it is likely that this has already happened.

Revelations from Our Government

On Senator Dianne Feinstein’s Senatorial website contains the copy of a 113 page senate report entitled “Eight Steps to Counter the Drug Trade in West Africa“.  The report details how prevalent West Africa is both in terms of the United States but also into Europe, transporting drugs into both continents. The Senate report also discusses the terrorist connections between the West African drug trade and known terrorist organizations.

Conclusion

While the country remains fixated on the delivery of Ebola patients to Emory hospital in Atlanta, we are still ignoring the spread of Ebola through air travel as evidenced by the fact that our government is doing next to nothing. Further, when one considers the growing body of evidence which shows that drug couriers coming from  West Africa into the United States as part of the drug trade, how could people like Dr. Orient conclude that it is not a matter of if, but when Ebola has a foothold on our country?

The government is fully aware of the threat whether they choose to make press releases to Wolf Blitzer or not!
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« Reply #57 on: August 03, 2014, 08:36:46 pm »

Ebola terror at Gatwick as passenger collapses and dies getting off Sierra Leone flight
8/3/14
Staff tell of fears as jet from Africa is quarantined after the death of passenger who was 'sweating and vomiting' before she collapsed

Airport staff tonight told of their fears of an Ebola outbreak after a passenger from Sierra Leone collapsed and died as she got off a plane at Gatwick.

Workers said they were terrified the virus could spread globally through the busy international hub from the West African country which is in the grip of the deadly epidemic.

The woman, said to be 72, became ill on the gangway after she left a Gambia Bird jet with 128 passengers on board.

She died in hospital on Saturday.

Ebola has killed 256 people in Sierra Leone.

A total of 826 have died in West Africa since the outbreak began in February.

Tests were carried out to see if the woman had the disease.

The plane was quarantined as ­officials desperately tried to trace everyone who had been in contact with the woman.

Airport workers faced an anxious wait to see if the woman had Ebola. One said: “Everyone’s just ­petrified.

“We’ve all seen how many people have died from Ebola, especially in Sierra Leone, and it’s terrifying.”



Speaking of the horrific moment the passenger collapsed, the shocked staff member added: “The woman was sweating buckets and vomiting.

“Paramedics arrived to try and help her. The next thing everybody was there… emergency crews, airfield operations, even immigration.

“They closed down the jet bridge and put the aircraft into quarantine.

“They took everyone’s details, even the guy who fuels the aircraft.”

The plane carrying the woman came from Freetown in Sierra Leone – a country with the highest number of victims from the disease.

It stopped at Banjul in The Gambia before landing in Gatwick at 8.15am on Saturday after a five-hour flight.

Public Health England tried to allay fears of an Ebola ­breakout in Britain.

It said the woman showed no ­symptoms during the flight.

One ­official added: “Public Health England is aware a passenger arriving on a flight from The Gambia that landed at Gatwick airport on Saturday fell ill shortly after disembarking.

"The passenger was taken to hospital and sadly died.

“In line with standard ­procedures, tests are being undertaken to determine the cause of death.

“The patient’s symptoms suggest that Ebola is very unlikely but as a precaution this is one of the tests being undertaken.

"The patient was not symptomatic on the plane and therefore there is no risk of Ebola being passed on to either flight crew or other passengers.

“England has world class health care and disease control systems which are active permanently, ­regularly tested and proven to be effective.

“As such, if the UK does see a case of imported Ebola, this will not result in an outbreak in this country.”

South East Ambulance Service confirmed it had dealt with the sick woman at the airport.

Communications chief Janine Compton said: “We attended Gatwick airport at 8.30am on Saturday to attend an adult female patient who was seriously ill.

"She was taken to East Surrey Hospital in Redhill where she subsequently died.”

A Gatwick airport spokeswoman added: “A passenger collapsed after disembarking a flight from the Gambia.

"She was treated by airport medical staff at the scene but died later in hospital. The cause of death is yet to be confirmed.”

At around 11pm on Sunday, the Department of Health said that tests for the deadly Ebola virus on the woman who died at Gatwick had proved negative.

There is no cure for Ebola.

Symptoms in the later stages include external and internal bleeding, vomiting and diarrhoea.

At this point the disease is highly contagious.

Victims have a 90% chance of dying, although doctors said in this epidemic the rate is 60%.

The outbreak began in the forests of eastern Guinea in February.

It quickly spread to Liberia and Sierra Leone.

A jump in the number of cases and the death toll has raised international concern and placed under-resourced health facilities in the West African nations under strain.

Last week, the Ebola crisis was described as out of control by World Health Organisation chief Margaret Chan and could be ­“catastrophic”.

At the same time, Sierra Leone declared a state of emergency and called in troops to quarantine victims.

Liberia also imposed controls.

Ms Chan revealed 60 doctors, nurses and health care workers had now lost their lives trying to save others.

She said: “This outbreak is moving faster than our efforts to control it.

“If the situation continues to ­deteriorate, the consequences can be catastrophic in terms of lost lives but also severe socio-economic disruption as well as a high risk of spread to other countries.”

Ms Chan met the presidents of Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Ivory Coast.

She told them: “This meeting must mark a turning point in the outbreak response.”
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« Reply #58 on: August 03, 2014, 08:51:12 pm »

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-28634903
Ebola test carried out after air passenger death in UK
8/3/14

A test for Ebola has been carried out on a female passenger who died after arriving in the UK from The Gambia.

The Department for Health said the test on the elderly woman, who landed at Gatwick Airport, came back negative on Sunday afternoon.

Some 728 people have died of Ebola in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone this year, in the worst-ever outbreak of the disease.

Public Health England says the risk to the UK remains very low.

The Ebola virus spreads through human contact with a sufferer's bodily fluids.

Initial flu-like symptoms can lead to external haemorrhaging from areas like eyes and gums, and internal bleeding which can lead to organ failure. The current mortality rate is about 55%.

'No public health risk'

The woman, believed to be in her early 70s, had been a passenger on a Gambia Bird flight that arrived at Gatwick on Saturday morning.

She collapsed at the airport and was later pronounced dead in hospital.

A Department of Health spokeswoman said the passenger's symptoms had not suggested she was an Ebola victim but the test was carried out because she had travelled from West Africa.

Dr Brian McCloskey, director of global public health at Public Health England (PHE), said: "There was no health risk to other passengers or crew, as the passenger did not have symptoms during the flight.

"It was considered very unlikely to be a case of Ebola but testing was done as a precaution, and was negative.

"The correct procedures were followed to confirm there was no reason to quarantine the airplane, the passengers or staff. PHE can confirm there was no public health risk around the sad death of this individual."

A Gatwick spokeswoman said the aircraft, as well as some airline and airport staff, were isolated "as a precaution" but that the plane was later cleared for its return journey.

Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond has said the government is taking the outbreak, and the threat to the UK, "very seriously".

Ministers have discussed what precautionary measures could be taken if any UK nationals in West Africa become infected with Ebola.

Public Health England has advised UK medical staff to watch out for unexplained illnesses in patients who have visited West Africa.

It said no cases of imported Ebola have ever been reported in the UK.

The US is to send at least 50 public health experts to the region to help fight the disease. They are expected to arrive in the next month.

Meanwhile, American Ebola patient Dr Kent Brantly is improving in hospital after returning to the US from Liberia. Another infected US citizen, aid worker Nancy Writebol, is expected to arrive in the US soon.
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« Reply #59 on: August 04, 2014, 08:03:12 am »

http://english.cntv.cn/2014/08/02/VIDE1406955241574888.shtml
8/2/14
Phillippines reports possible Ebola cases

The Phillipines has reported the country's first suspected cases of the Ebola virus. According to the country's health officials, seven workers who returned to the Phillipines from Sierra Leone are showing symptoms symilar to that of the tropical virus.

There are currently over 1,300 suspected cases worldwide. The World Health Organization says there is little risk of the virus spreading outside of West Africa, but countries outside of the affected region are still taking precautions to prevent a spread.

The outbreak is the biggest since Ebola first emerged in Africa nearly 40 years ago. So far, more than 700 people have died in West Africa.
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