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Ebola

ramonmercado said:
monops said:
:( I do wish they hadn't included that last sentence. Fruit bats have got enough problems without being slaughtered by people who think they're responsible for the outbreak.
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They eat enough fruit ye know. Many a time I've been peeved to find that a fruit bat has eaten the last kiwi.
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Ah, you're obviously lingering too long between fruit bowl and mouth...

http://justgif.com/195379/don-039-t...at-chips-amp-bat-flies-in-your-face?id=195379
 
Now for some good news.

Ebola can be turned into bioweapon, Russian & UK experts warn

Concerns that the deadly Ebola virus, which has claimed nearly a 1,000 lives in West Africa in recent months, can be used by as biological weapon are far from being groundless, Russia’s Federal Medical-Biological Agency (FMBA) said.

“Such possibility exists,” Vladimir Nikiforov, who heads the Department of Infectious Diseases at the FMBA’s Institution of Advanced Training, acknowledged at a press conference in Moscow.

“Actually, this virus can be used in the form of a spray, which can lead to very big trouble,” the disease expert is cited as saying by the RIA-Novosti news agency.

It’s very hard to track down efforts to create bioweapons, despite the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention in place since 1972, he said.

“Biological weapons are nothing like a nuclear bomb… In order to make a nuclear bomb, one would require a uranium mine, a nuclear power plant and so on,” but biological weapons “are made in a small laboratory, which can be easily camouflaged,” Nikiforov said.

“You know that there are rogue states. And here's the thing, I can’t guarantee that some country isn’t preparing something of the kind,” he added.

AFP Photo/Leon NealAFP Photo/Leon Neal

Nikiforov words are echoed by his counterpart from Cambridge University, Dr Peter Walsh, who warned the UK public that a terrorist could use the Ebola virus to create a dirty bomb.

The biological anthropologist told the Sun newspaper that he fears “large number of horrific deaths” if “a group manages to harness the virus as a power then explodes it as a bomb in a highly populated public area.”

According to Walsh, there are just a few labs in the world, which possess the Ebola virus, and they are extremely well-protected.

“So the risk is that a terrorist group may seek to obtain the virus out in West Africa,” he said. ...

http://rt.com/news/178992-ebola-biologi ... errorists/
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This Guy Sent Sierra Leone 4,000 Bottles of Holy Water to Cure Ebola

The Nigerian minister who claims his holy water can cure Ebola also claims he predicted the MH370 plane crash and Boston bombings. Seems legit

Sierra Leone just got a big gift from a strange man.

To help the West African country fight the escalating Ebola crisis, Nigerian Christian preacher Temitope Joshua says he has sent the Sierra Leone government 4,000 bottles of his patented holy anointed water and $50,000 in cash in a private jet, which also cost $50,000 to charter.

Sierra Leone will, one would assume, take every penny it can get to stem the Ebola outbreak, which has claimed more than 1,000 lives worldwide, with the majority of the victims in West African countries. Such odd largess does certainly beg the question, though: Who the hell is this guy? ...

http://www.vocativ.com/world/nigeria-wo ... 4/#!bEDfHA
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Report: Armed men attack Liberia Ebola clinic, freeing patients

MONROVIA, Liberia - Armed men attacked an Ebola clinic in Monrovia, local witnesses told Agence France Presse.

As many as 29 potentially Ebola-infected patients fled, the news agency reported.

"They broke down the doors and looted the place. The patients all fled," said Rebecca Wesseh, who witnessed the attack and whose report was confirmed by residents and the head of Health Workers Association of Liberian, George Williams.

The attack comes just one day after a report of a crowd of several hundred local residents, chanting, 'No Ebola in West Point,' drove away a burial team and their police escort that had come to collect the bodies of suspected Ebola victims in a slum in the capital, Reuters reports. The mob then forced open an Ebola isolation ward and took several patients out, many saying that the Ebola epidemic is a hoax.

The isolation center, a closed primary school originally built by USAID, was being used by the Liberian health ministry to temporarily isolate people suspected of carrying the virus, Reuters reports. Some 10 patients had "escaped" the building the night before, according to a nurse, as the center had no medicine to treat them.

While the armed attack is likely the most brazen attack on health workers trying to contain the deadly outbreak, it is far from the first in the region worst-hit by it.

There have been numerous reports of locals attacking those trying to stop the disease by throwing stones at aid workers, blocking aid convoys and forcibly removing patients from clinics. Many locals blame foreigners for bringing the disease, saying it had never been there before they arrived. ...

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/report-arme ... -patients/
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Oh, wonderful! Now they'll be spreading it far and wide.
The level of ignorance is just staggering.
 
Ebola outbreak: Nigeria closes all schools until October

All schools in Nigeria have been ordered to remain shut until 13 October as part of measures to prevent the spread of the deadly Ebola virus.

The new academic year was due to start on Monday.

But the education minister ordered the closures to allow staff to be trained on how to handle suspected Ebola cases.

Five people have died of Ebola in Nigeria. The West Africa outbreak has centred on Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, killing more than 1,400 people.

It is the largest ever outbreak and has infected an estimated 2,615 people. About half of those infected have died.

It spread to Nigeria - Africa's most populous country - in July, when a man infected with Ebola flew from Liberia to Lagos. ...

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-28950347
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Speculators and hoarders are obviously taking advantage of the situation.

Ebola crisis raises food prices

Food in countries hit by ebola is getting more expensive and will become scarcer because many farmers will not be able to access fields, a UN food agency has warned.

An ebola outbreak in West Africa has killed more than 1,500 people, and authorities have cordoned off entire towns in an effort to halt the spread of the virus.

Surrounding countries have closed land borders, many airlines have suspended flights to and from the affected countries, and seaports are seeing reduced traffic, restricting food imports to the hardest-hit countries.

Those countries — Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone — all rely on grain from abroad to feed their people, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation.

In one market in the Liberian capital of Monrovia, the price of cassava root, a staple in many West African diets, was up 150%.

The UN has said 1.3m people in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone will need help feeding themselves in coming months.

http://www.irishexaminer.com/world/ebol ... 84591.html
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Ebola-infected patient in Liberia escapes quarantine, enters crowded market

A video has emerged that an Ebola-infected patient has escaped a quarantine zone in Liberian hospital and went to a local crowded market in search of food. He was then pursued by medical staff and returned to hospital.

The man left Elwa hospital facility in Liberia’s capital, Monrovia, which is full of Ebola patients. Wearing a tag which indicated that he had tested positive with Ebola, he arrived at a local crowded market in the Paynesville neighborhood, the busiest part of the city.

The crowd is fleeing in fear and shouting angrily at a man wearing red clothes, as shown in the video released on YouTube. When medical staff arrived, the patient began to run and then took a stick and tried to keep them at bay. However, the doctors managed to take him to the ambulance.

Fear & loathing in Liberia as Ebola ‘plague villages’ pop up in countryside

A local resident told the media that it is the fifth case in which a patient has escaped the quarantine zone.

"We told the Liberian government from the beginning that we do not want an Ebola camp here. Today makes it the fifth Ebola patient coming outside vomiting," a man who watched the scene, told Reuters.

On August 18, at least 17 suspected Ebola carriers fled the same hospital in Monrovia after a quarantine center was attacked by a rock-throwing crowd. They were then successfully returned to the facility. ...
http://rt.com/news/184660-ebola-patient ... s-liberia/
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Watch As Ebola Patient Escapes Quarantine Center In Search Of Food
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfCyWSgMdRU
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Looking grim for Liberia.

Ebola is spreading exponentially in Liberia, with thousands of new cases expected in the next three weeks, the World Health Organization (WHO) says. Conventional methods to control the outbreak were "not having an adequate impact", the UN's health agency added.

At least 2,100 people infected with Ebola have died so far in the West African states of Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria this year. The WHO says 79 health workers have been killed by the virus. Organisations combating the outbreak needed to scale-up efforts "three-to-four fold", the WHO said.

It highlighted Liberia's Montserrado county, where 1,000 beds were needed for infected Ebola patients but only 240 were available, leading to people being turned away from treatment centres. Transmission of the virus in Liberia was "already intense", and taxis being used to transport infected patients appeared to be "a hot source of potential virus transmission", the WHO said. ...

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-29115298
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Fourth doctor dies of Ebola after failed transfer bid

A fourth doctor has died of Ebola in Sierra Leone after a failed bid to transfer her abroad for treatment.

Chief Medical Officer Dr Brima Kargbo confirmed that Dr Olivet Buck has died.

Sierra Leone had requested funds from the World Health Organisation to evacuate the doctor to Germany on Friday.

WHO said it could not meet the request but instead would work to give Buck "the best care possible" in Sierra Leone, including access to experimental drugs.

More than 300 health workers have become infected with Ebola in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. According to WHO, nearly half of them have died. ...
- See more at: http://www.independent.ie/world-news/af ... axqHF.dpuf
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The Ebola outbreak could have a catastrophic impact on the economies of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, the World Bank says. The organisation says the economic impact of the virus could "grow eight-fold" in the "already fragile states". However, it says the cost can be limited if the epidemic - and the accompanying fear - is contained by a fast global response.

Ebola has killed 2,461 people in West Africa - the largest ever outbreak ...

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-29239604
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The medical teams require serious protection.

Officials in Guinea say a team of health workers and journalists who were trying to raise awareness about Ebola may have been kidnapped. The team of six went missing after being attacked on Tuesday in a village near the southern city of Nzerekore. ...

Last month, riots erupted in the area of Guinea where the health team went missing - near where the outbreak was first recorded - after rumours that medics who were disinfecting a market were contaminating people.

The three doctors and three journalists went missing on Tuesday after residents in the village of Wome pelted them with stones as they visited the village. One of the journalists managed to escape and told reporters that she could hear the villagers looking for them while she was hiding.

The governor of Nzerekore told the BBC that the group were being held captive, although it remains unclear why. ...

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-29256443
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This is beginning to look like an apocalyptic film.

Ebola outbreak: Guinea health team killed

Eight members of a team trying to raise awareness about Ebola have been killed by villagers using machetes and clubs in Guinea, officials say. Some of the bodies - of health workers, local officials and journalists - were found in a septic tank in a village school near the city of Nzerekore.

Correspondents say many villagers are suspicious of official attempts to combat the disease. ...

On Thursday night, government spokesman Albert Damantang Camara said the victims had been "killed in cold blood by the villagers". The bodies showed signs of being attacked with machetes and clubs, officials say. Six people have been arrested and the village is now reportedly deserted.

The motive for the killings has not been confirmed, but the BBC's Makeme Bamba in Guinea's capital, Conakry, says many villagers accuse the health workers of spreading the disease ...

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-29256443
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The solution is to pull out all the Ebola teams and let nature run its course.

Or nuke the site from orbit, to be sure.
 
Possible 6,800 new Ebola cases this month, research predicts

Date: September 19, 2014
Source: Arizona State University

Summary:
A possible 6,800 new Ebola cases this are predicted this month, as suggested by researchers who used modelling analysis to come up with their figures. The rate of new cases significantly increased in August in Liberia and Guinea, around the time that a mass quarantine was put in place, indicating that the mass quarantine efforts may have made the outbreak worse than it would have been otherwise.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 140854.htm
 
A second detachment of US forces set to battle the deadly Ebola virus have arrived in Liberia. They land as a weekend lockdown in Sierra Leone to confine the outbreak resulted in finding at least 200 people infected or dead.

The second deployment of 3,000 troops is set to train local employees and establish institutions to help Liberia and other African nations deal with the epidemic that has already left 2,600 people dead in West Africa alone.

"Some American troops came soon [sic] this morning. They arrived with tactical jeeps," a source at Roberts International Airport, near Monrovia, told AFP, without giving more precise data on the number of soldiers.

However, the US announced on Friday that it was scheduling 45 troops to arrive over the weekend.

The operation is being carried out in several stages: first, on Thursday, a plane with equipment and seven soldiers landed in Liberia. Two more cargo planes are to follow. The teams are to set up a center for Major General Darryl Williams, who will oversee the US mission, training locals and establishing new medical facilities ...

http://rt.com/news/189556-ebola-liberia-mission-health/
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Fighting Ebola on the front line – Talk

Fighting Ebola on the front line – Talk

Dr. Gabriel Fitzpatrick, Chairperson of Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) will give a talk about his recent experience in Sierra Leone.

The talk will take place on Thursday 25th September at the Royal College of Physicians Ireland, 6 Kildare Street, Dublin 2. Doors open at 6.30pm and the talk will commence promptly at 7pm.

Dr. Fitzpatrick will describe his experience working as a doctor in MSF’s Ebola Treatment Centre and as an epidemiologist travelling to remote villages to trace new cases of the disease.

This is a free event but seats are limited and must be reserved in advance by emailing [email protected]

http://www.msf.ie/event/fighting-ebola-front-line
 
This story almost belong to the Zombie Apocalypse thread.

Liberia: Dead Ebola Patients Resurrect?

By Franklin Doloquee

Two Ebola patients, who died of the virus in separate communities in Nimba County have reportedly resurrected in the county. The victims, both females, believed to be in their 60s and 40s respectively, died of the Ebola virus recently in Hope Village Community and the Catholic Community in Ganta, Nimba.

But to the amazement of residents and onlookers on Monday, the deceased reportedly regained life in total disbelief. The NewDawn Nimba County correspondent said the late Dorris Quoi of Hope Village Community and the second victim only identified as Ma Kebeh, said to be in her late 60s, were about to be taken for burial when they resurrected.

Ma Kebeh had reportedly been in door for two nights without food and medication before her alleged death. Nimba County has had bazaar news of Ebola cases with a native doctor from the county, who claimed that he could cure infected victims, dying of the virus himself last week.

News of the resurrection of the two victims has reportedly created panic in residents of Hope Village Community and Ganta at large, with some citizens describing Dorris Quoi as a ghost, who shouldn't live among them. Since the Ebola outbreak in Nimba County, this is the first incident of dead victims resurrecting.

http://allafrica.com/stories/201409240829.html
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Ebola could infect 1.4m in worst-case scenario

US health officials laid out worst-case and best-case scenarios for the ebola epidemic in West Africa, warning that the number of infected people could explode to at least 1.4m by mid-January — or peak well below that, if efforts to control the outbreak are ramped up. The widely varying projections by the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention were based on conditions in late August and do not take into account a recent international surge in medical aid for the stricken region. That burst has given reason for some optimism.

“I’m confident the most dire projections are not going to come to pass,” CDC chief Dr Tom Frieden said in releasing the report.

About 5,800 illnesses and over 2,800 deaths have been counted since the first cases were reported six months ago. But international health authorities have warned that the crisis is probably far worse in reality, with many corpses and infected people hidden or unreported. ...

http://www.irishexaminer.com/world/ebol ... 88540.html
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Why we weren't ready for Ebola

29 September 2014 by Catherine de Lange
Magazine issue 2988.

Peter Piot co-discovered the deadly virus nearly 40 years ago, but says it wasn't thought a major public health threat – until now

You discovered the Ebola virus in 1976. How?

My lab received a blood sample from a Belgian nun who had died in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo). She was diagnosed with yellow fever, but when we isolated the virus, it didn't look like anything we knew. Under the electron microscope it looked like a worm.

Then we got news from the World Health Organization of a major epidemic with a very high mortality rate in Zaire. We were told to stop all investigations because our lab wasn't equipped to deal with dangerous viruses. So we sent the virus to the US Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta. They confirmed that it was a new virus. ...

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg2 ... CsGB_ldVsk
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What can they do, take everyone who has been in contact with the 1st patient into preventive custody? For how long, it can take weeks for symptoms to show?
 
dreeness said:
:(

Ebola virus in United States:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nati ... /16532837/

Health officials almost seem to be under-reacting, you would think they might be a bit more pro-active about this sort of thing.
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Probably just a question of time before Ebola spreads to emigrant districts in the large cities in Europe. After that it will reach the rest of the population. :shock:
 
Merged comments from WTF thread as well as a couple of smaller ebola related threads.

P_M
 
SameOldVardoger said:
dreeness said:
:(

Ebola virus in United States:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nati ... /16532837/

Health officials almost seem to be under-reacting, you would think they might be a bit more pro-active about this sort of thing.
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Probably just a question of time before Ebola spreads to emigrant districts in the large cities in Europe. After that it will reach the rest of the population. :shock:
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According to the US based WebMD site:

Ebola Virus: How Contagious?

Apparently, it's actually quite hard to contract. It's considered to be on a par with diseases like HIV or hepatitis, being spread through direct contact with blood or other bodily fluids. More chance of contracting airborne diseases, like measles, whooping cough, or diphtheria.

There's always, the chance of airborne contagion from drug resistant tuberculosis, if you really want to have something to worry about.
 
Budget Cuts "Eroded Our Ability to Respond" to Ebola, Says Top Health Official

On Tuesday, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed the first case of Ebola diagnosed in the United States; the infected patient was a man who traveled from Liberia to visit family in Texas. It's the latest development in the ever-worsening outbreak of the virus, which so far has sickened more than 6,500 people and killed more than 3,000. The United States government has pledged to send help to West Africa to help stop Ebola from spreading—but the main agencies tasked with this aid work say they're hamstrung by budget cuts from the 2013 sequester.

On September 16, the Senate Committees on Appropriations and Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions held a hearing to discuss the resources needed to address the outbreak. Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) asked NIH representative Anthony Fauci about sequestration's effect on the efforts.

"If even modest investments had been made…the current Ebola epidemic could have been detected earlier, and it could have been identified and contained."
"I have to tell you honestly it's been a significant impact on us," said Fauci. "It has both in an acute and a chronic, insidious way eroded our ability to respond in the way that I and my colleagues would like to see us be able to respond to these emerging threats. And in my institute particularly, that's responsible for responding on the dime to an emerging infectious disease threat, this is particularly damaging." Sequestration required the NIH to cut its budget by 5 percent, a total of $1.55 billion in 2013. Cuts were applied across all of its programs, affecting every area of medical research. ...

http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/ ... -sequester
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Time to find an isolated hideout.
 
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