EBOLA MAIN EBOLA DISCUSSION THREAD 1/15/2015 to 1/31/2015

[BREWER]

MAIN EBOLA DISCUSSION THREAD 1/15/2015 to 1/31/2015


MAIN EBOLA DISCUSSION THREAD 1/1/2015 to 1/15/2015
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...EBOLA-DISCUSSION-THREAD-1-1-2015-to-1-15-2015

MAIN EBOLA DISCUSSION THREAD 12/17/14 to 12/31/14
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showt...14-to-12-31-14


Greetings, everyone: Here we are in a new year 2015. The Ebola Czar Klain is resiging on March 1, 2015, and there are now some new articles starting to slip through the cracks. I'm reposting the "The Seven Stages Of Ebola Reporting" as a reminder that the MSM is still under a 'gag' from TPTB.

This thread will prove to be an important resource in the coming days, weeks, and months. Please keep abreast of the newest developments as something may break wide open at anytime. Please, everyone, feel free to post your comments and any articles that are related. Take care. BREWER

Posted for fair use and discussion.
http://raconteurreport.blogspot.com/

Tuesday, December 2, 2014
A Reminder: The Seven Stages Of Ebola Reporting

1. What Ebola?
2. EBOLA! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!
3. Don't Worry, the Government has TOP. MEN. on the case.
4. The TOP. MEN. Are Idiots! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!
5. Ebola is killing everyone handy in droves, but they're mostly "just Africans".
6. Continued Ebola Stories upset the editorial bias and the entrenched bureaucracy.
7. What Ebola?

Remember that governing paradigm as the stories on this outbreak wax and wane, while the number of infected and dead climbs inexorably, and right on track with any number of estimates.

There are only two or three pending milestones worthy of note:
1) Collapse of one or more of the three affected counties' governments;

2) Widespread outbreak outside the current 3 (or 4) affected countries;
(note that #1 leads inexorably to #2)
{nota bene that Mali is overripe for this, since their current mode is to assume that no one who dies or has died there anytime since September has Ebola until they're literally shitting their guts out, AND someone official deigns to take notice. Which worked out so well with Imam Ebola the Magnificent. :roll: }

3) Any cluster of multiple cases here (or elsewhere in the "first" world) >10 cases nearly simultaneously (because that's my ballpark guess on what would overwhelm anyone's management capability, unless they revert to the West African "no actual treatment" modality, in which case 80+% die) because that's the point when the previous rosy outlook all goes to shit, and reality probably starts to kick in at the level of the average person on the street.

Any one of those takes this up another DefCon level IMHO.

The rest is merely the outbreak continuing to chew its way to one of those eventualities.

Posted by Aesop at 3:49 PM 32 comments:
Labels: Ebola, Thought For The Day

 

[BREWER]

Posted for fair use and discussion.
http://www.anh-usa.org/you-could-be-quarantined-and-forced-to-take-toxic-drugs/

You Could Be Quarantined and Forced to Take Toxic Drugs
January 13, 2015
Print This Post Print This Post

A new federal executive order expands the list of illnesses for which you could be detained, isolated, and treated against your will if you are entering the US or traveling between states—even if you are completely healthy. Some states have similar or worse laws that would even allow entry into your home.

President Obama has signed an executive order expanding the list of illnesses that could result in forced detention, isolation, and quarantine for anyone exposed, even if they are not sick. It updates a Bush-era executive order, adding “severe acute respiratory syndromes” except for influenza to the list of detainable communicable diseases.

The Public Health Service Act allows the government to apprehend and detain individuals based on communicable diseases named in the Act, or named by presidential executive orders. Executive orders do not have to get congressional approval.

Not only can people with the disease be forcibly isolated, but the CDC also has the power to quarantine anyone who may have been exposed. The new executive order allows detentions for “diseases that are associated with fever and signs and symptoms of pneumonia or other respiratory illness…capable of being transmitted from person to person, and that either are causing, or have the potential to cause, a pandemic, or, upon infection, are highly likely to cause mortality or serious morbidity if not properly controlled” [italics ours]. In other words, if you have been exposed to one of the listed communicable diseases—even if you do not show symptoms—you may be forcibly detained and quarantined.

This is broad authority, as the CDC notes: “In addition to serving as medical functions, isolation and quarantine also are ‘police power’ functions, derived from the right of the state to take action affecting individuals for the benefit of society.” And since this is federal law, it covers people entering into the United States and people traveling between states as well.

Even worse, because of various draconian state laws, individuals can also be detained against their will within their state—which includes being forced from their home. Once in quarantine, a potentially toxic drug regimen is generally enforced. While detention authority and scope differs from state to state, some have excessively broad powers. For example

In Alabama, the governor or state board of health may proclaim a quarantine whenever it is deemed necessary. The board of health has full powers of enforcement, and may formulate any rules it believes necessary.
In Idaho, the state reserves the right to enter an individual’s home by force if an occupant may have been exposed.
Maine reserves the right to impose emergency regulations at the mere threat of an outbreak.
New York can also detain patients in a locked ward at Bellevue hospital.
In 2009 the Massachusetts Senate considered a bill allowing the police, during a declared public health emergency, to arrest people without a warrant if they have “probable cause” to think they’re not complying with orders (including verbal orders from the public health commissioner or local public health authority). Under this bill, citizens could have been detained for as long as necessary for the public authorities to “convey information to you regarding the disease.” Happily, because of grassroots activists like you and opposition from the Massachusetts House, the bill did not pass and was never reintroduced.

Of deep concern is that, in most instances, natural treatments will be denied in favor of state-mandated treatments. In New York, for example, a patient with tuberculosis was placed in mandatory isolation for two weeks—and now, even after being released from isolation, he still must take three powerful antibiotics every day and is monitored by health officials via smartphone from his home. In Arkansas, for those under mandated treatment for tuberculosis, “disorderly conduct” can be punished with confinement of up to six months. Does disorderly conduct include not accepting the state-mandated treatment? We don’t know for certain, but it seems likely.

Keep yourself healthy! Vitamin D is an excellent preventive treatment for influenza and other viral diseases, and is being studied as a powerful tool to treat and prevent tuberculosis and other communicable diseases and potential pandemics. For other viral treatments, see our recent article on the Ebola virus.

 

[BREWER]

Posted for fair use and discussion.
http://www.voanews.com/content/ebol...orests-environment-hiv-sars-mers/2599376.html

Ebola Virus Mutated From Forest Encroachment, Says Disease Specialist
Kim Lewis
Last updated on: January 15, 2015 8:43 AM

The Ebola virus has proven deadly to both people and animals.

The epidemic that started in 2014 has so far taken the lives of over eight thousand people in West Africa. The virus also killed an estimated 5,500 gorillas in the Lossi Sanctuary of the Republic of Congo in 2003. But scientists say the Ebola virus has been around far longer than the latest news headlines.

Dr. Robert Cohen is a preventive medicine physician at the U-S Army Public Health Command in Aberdeen, Maryland. In his studies of the origins of the virus, he found that the infectious disease and its strains have been around for millions of years. Key to its survival is its ability to mutate and transfer from primates to humans even as environmental conditions change, and populations grow.

So how does it spread?

“The short answer,” he said, “is that …it mutated into a strain that was able to jump into humans because of human encroachment into the forests [the natural reservoir of the virus], and the decline of other animal populations that might have shielded us from [it].”

Instead, Dr. Cohen highlighted humans have increasingly come into contact with bats, which carry Ebola.

“The continuous interactions and encroachments by humans into the forest,” he said, “has led to several instances of the spillover of this new strain of Ebola into humans.”

There are other diseases that mutate similarly to Ebola, whose genetic material includes an RNA [ribonucleic acid] virus. Its RNA is single-stranded, which scientists say makes it likely to spread more quickly than other viruses.

“RNA is the type that is Ebola, SARS, MERS, Avian flu etc. Single strand viruses tend to mutate faster than double stranded and almost all of the really bad pathogens that come from animals are single strand RNA viruses, just like Ebola,” said Dr. Cohen.

He said the worst of the viruses that jump from animals to humans is HIV, a disease that he says was very good in establishing itself in humans. So far, 40 million lives have been lost to HIV/AIDS and approximately 40 million people are living with the virus today.

“[In the] tropical rain forests of South America, Africa and southeast Asia, there is very high biodiversity, different types of animal species that harbor different types of viruses, and there are rarer viruses that the public is not aware of that the public health community is quite concerned about,” said Cohen, such as the Meepa virus in southeast Asia and bird flu.

“There is very good reason to believe that if the trends that are bringing this about are not abated quickly we will see an epidemiologic pattern of worse and new RNA viruses or worse outbreaks in the relatively near future,” warned Dr. Cohen.

 

[Oreally]

MSM says the outbreak is under control in Liberia - - - lies.

Just over the border,in only one sub-region of Sierra Leone they are burying 50 people a day. 350 a week.

http://news.sky.com/story/1407199/ebola-we-cant-dig-graves-quickly-enough

Armed soldiers and police stand guard at Sima village just outside Kerry Town to ensure no-one breaches the quarantine.

There is a thin red string that separates the people who could be carrying the deadly Ebola virus.

Nearly 50 people who lived here have already been taken to hospital with Ebola symptoms - 10 have died. Now their relatives, friends and everyone they came in contact with have effectively been put under house arrest for 21 days - the Ebola incubation period.

When we see them it is only day six of their quarantine and tempers are already fraying. They haven't been allowed to shop or farm - so they are hungry and angry.

An argument breaks out as some of the younger men behind the string barrier complain about being ignored.

"They haven't let us out for six days and if we complain they beat and shove us," one shouts to us. "We all feel fine."

As we are there, British aid arrives. There are huge bundles of food and provisions, including a water carrier, provided by Plan International but it's piled up in lines just beyond the red string as the distributors try to match names on their lists with the hoards of people behind the barrier.

After some delay, they begin handing it out to the visibly grateful people.

This community is just a few miles away from the Ebola unit in Kerry Town where the Scottish nurse Pauline Cafferkey worked and where she may have contracted the virus. Nurse Cafferkey is recovering in hospital thousands of miles away in London.

Teacher Moses Bangura tells Sky News: "Every day people are dying, my sister, my friends, even my two-year-old."

Twelve members of his family have died from the disease.

The next few weeks will be tortuous for this community as they wait to find out whether they too are going to succumb to Ebola.

The scale of this scourge is evident at the Kingtom burial site - run by the Irish charity Concern. They dig 50 graves a day and still often can't keep up with the demand. By the end of the day, all the graves will be filled.

Trevor Jessome from Concern says he's only been in Sierra Leone for two weeks. He points to rows and rows of graves.

"These burials here have all been done in the last two weeks," he says. "We average about 50 a day."

They can't clear this former dump quickly enough to cope with the dead. Unsafe burials of Ebola victims are believed to be responsible for up to 70% of new infections - so now every death is treated like an Ebola death. The authorities don't wait for confirmation.

The burial teams suit up to protect themselves but the danger is never far from their thoughts.

Every body the authorities retrieve is double wrapped and sealed in thick plastic bags with copious disinfectant used.

Sierra Leone hasn't resorted to cremations like neighbouring Liberia - they are disliked on cultural grounds - and people continue to prepare and bury their loved ones themselves - in secret - to avoid what they see as this indignity.

Alongside the graves, the burial teams disinfect, burn and then bury all their outer layers of protective clothing. They know with all their precautions the risk has been greatly reduced - but they go through this procedure about eight times a day and complacency could mean contamination.

It has taken just eight days for a huge number of tiny graves to build up that are all babies or toddlers. A stick represents a body and some graves have multiple sticks to one mound. The charity estimates there have been about 300 babies buried here in just over a week.

"When I first came here I was like, 'Wow, this is overwhelming,'" says Mr Jessome, "But now I am having to get used to it. You have to, to carry on in Sierra Leone."

 

[dogmanan]

It is really wild how you don't here a thing about it any more.

I know it's is here and is spreading, I whish they would say how many have it now.

I guess since it is not in the tens of thousands of people having it across the country it is not news worthy.

The problem is when they start talking about/ reporting on it again it will be to late for some.

 

[bw]

The problem is when they start talking about/ reporting on it again it will be to late for some.

It's possible it will never be reported, as in King's The Stand. You will hear of it through FOAF, or when your children catch it.

 

[Doomer Doug]

100,000 rotting corpses from one end of Africa to the other; 250,000 cases from one end of Africa to the other. The endless lies continue unabated, unchecked by the powers that be. This will continue until it is too big to cover up, which will be later this year.


http://readynutrition.com/resources...hundreds-of-people-a-week-in-africa_14012015/


Ebola Still Killing Hundreds of People a Week in Africa
Chris Carrington
Ready Nutrition



800px-Ebola_virus_virionAlthough it’s not making the headlines as it was when the epidemic started, Ebola is still killing hundreds of people a week in Africa. With the death toll now heading towards 9,000, and with sporadic cases occurring elsewhere in the world, complacency could literally be the death of us all.

British nurse Pauline Cafferkey, was diagnosed with the disease after returning from an aid mission is West Africa, she remains in isolation in the Royal Free Hospital, London. Today Infowars is reporting a soldier recently returned from a tour of duty in Liberia, was found dead in a pool of vomit outside his home. He was apparently self-monitoring in lieu of quarantine.

The World Health Organization has admitted it has fallen short of its January target of treating 100% of Ebola victims and providing a biologically safe and dignified burial for those that die of the condition. You can read the latest situation report from the WHO here. Since the report, dated January 7th, many more have died of the disease.

Sky News is reporting this morning that gravediggers can’t keep up with the rising toll of bodies they are expected to deal with and that the village of Sima, outside of Kerry town is ringed with rope and armed soldiers, the whole village placed in quarantine due to the large number of cases there.

Trevor Jessome from the Irish based charity Concern told Sky:

“When I first came here I was like, ‘Wow, this is overwhelming,'” says Mr Jessome, “But now I am having to get used to it. You have to, to carry on in Sierra Leone.”

He shows the team 300 graves, all of which contain the bodies of babies and toddlers who have died over the last eight days.

300 children in eight days, the adult deaths are currently running at around 50 a day according to the report. 600 people a week in this one small area of Sierra Leone. While admitting that they are seeing no downturn in cases in some areas, the official running tally of deaths does not seem to mirror what is happening on the ground in West Africa.

This epidemic is a long way from over and every day that it continues increases the chances of it escaping Africa and spreading around the globe.

Resources:

Ebola Survival Handbook: A Collection of Tips, Strategies, and Supply Lists From Some of the World’s Best Preparedness Professionals

Sealing Yourself In: Prepping for Bioterrorism, Chemical Disasters, and Pandemics (The NEW Survival Prepper Guides Book 3)

The Prepper’s Blueprint: The Step-By-Step Guide To Help You Through Any Disaster

When Should I Go Into a Full Pandemic Lockdown Mode And Self Quarantine?

Chris Carrington is a writer, researcher and lecturer with a background in science, technology and environmental studies.

This information has been made available by Ready Nutrition
Originally published January 14th, 2015
If you found this article useful, please Vote for Ready Nutrition as a top prepper web site.

 

[Oreally]

i had to make a dr's appt the other day.

at the end of the interview with the nurse, the nurse asked two final questions:

1. have you been in any of these countries in the last 21 says: sireea leone, guinea, liberia, mali, (i think there was another one?)

2. have you had contact with the body of someone who has recently died of ebola? ( i was like , oh yeah, for sure!).

 

[Oreally]

from the weekly UN situation report:

- In Forécariah, Kindia Prefecture, Guinea, following the lynching of two police officers and a driver by the local population on 10 January, tension remains high. Evaluation team for the campaign “Zero Ebola in 60 days” reported that several villages were currently inaccessible due to the heightened tension.

http://Freliefweb.int%2Ffiles%2Fresources%2F150115_-_unmeer_external_situation_report.pdf

 

[BREWER]

from the weekly UN situation report:

- In Forécariah, Kindia Prefecture, Guinea, following the lynching of two police officers and a driver by the local population on 10 January, tension remains high. Evaluation team for the campaign “Zero Ebola in 60 days” reported that several villages were currently inaccessible due to the heightened tension.

http://Freliefweb.int%2Ffiles%2Fresources%2F150115_-_unmeer_external_situation_report.pdf

Greetings, Oreally:Thanks for the update at the Dr's office. Interesting.

The link above doesn't work. Can you find an active one? Thanks. Take care. BREWER

 

[bw]

The link above doesn't work. Can you find an active one?

It appears to be this:

http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefwe...150115_-_unmeer_external_situation_report.pdf

 

[BREWER]

It appears to be this:

http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefwe...150115_-_unmeer_external_situation_report.pdf

Thanks, bw.

 

[Doomer Doug]

The latest lies from WHO et al.


http://fluboard.rhizalabs.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=13340

 

[Doomer Doug]

STARVATION IN WEST AFRICA

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/01/ebola-sierra-leone-hunger-farming/384515/


Ebola’s Hidden Costs
The number of people who die from the disease could be only a fraction of the number who go hungry from it.
Lisa M. Hamilton Jan 14 2015, 1:10 PM ET

A women in the Kambia district of Sierra Leone behind a pile of palm nuts (Rich Mallett)

On September 3, 2014, Agnes Ngekia learned by phone that her son was dead and that there would be no burial. He had died of Ebola. Ngekia is a nurse in the Kono district of Sierra Leone, and when her son had fallen ill she had diligently followed disease-prevention protocol and brought him to the local hospital. Nonetheless, not long after she learned of his death, police officers wearing blue protective gowns over their camouflage uniforms arrived at her family compound in the village of Borbodu and nailed a flimsy wooden bar across the entrance. For 21 days, Ngekia and 17 family members were quarantined inside.

Behind the barrier, Ngekia agonized over the immediate trauma; as she watched some of her other children get sick, she feared for their lives and her own. But she also worried about what would sustain the family should they survive. Rice is the staple food in Sierra Leone, and her eight acres of swampland needed to be planted with the crop before it was too late in the season. Though she and her family had the seed, they couldn’t leave the compound to put it in the ground. Normally other villagers would help, but people didn’t want to risk catching Ebola by working the quarantined family’s field. As is the case for most of Sierra Leone’s rural population—roughly 60 percent of the West African nation’s 6 million people—the food on Ngekia’s table is largely what is grown on her farm. If the crop wasn’t planted, what would her family eat?

Even as Ebola infection rates appear to be leveling off in the country, the disease’s less visible but long-term impacts on communities and the economy are taking shape. On December 17, the UN Food & Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Food Program estimated that 120,000 Sierra Leoneans have become “food insecure” as a result of Ebola, meaning they neither have the food they need nor are able to buy it. By March, the report predicted, the number will rise to 280,000. In other words, the number of people in Sierra Leone who have died from Ebola—just over 3,000, to date—will be only a fraction of the number who will go hungry from it.
Related Story

The Danger in Losing Sight of Ebola Victims' Humanity

This is in large part because Ebola poses an almost impossible quandary in Sierra Leone, where the outbreak has taken the greatest human toll. Prevention of the disease requires people to distance themselves from one another. But agriculture, the country’s lifeblood, relies on people coming together. If the quintessential image of American farming is a lone figure riding a tractor or a combine, the picture in Sierra Leone is instead dozens of men and women using machetes, shovels, and their bare hands. As they touch, talk, and sweat their way across a field, the work they do is inherently connective.

“Farming unites us,” explained Bondu Lebbe, the president of the Kono Women’s Cooperative, a marketing collective whose aim is to empower its 5,000 female members. (Ngekia is a chairwoman.) Before Ebola, the cooperative would normally assemble 100 or 200 people at a time to work in members’ fields. “It’s not like in Europe,” she told me. “When we go to the farm, we come together. We talk about our families. We solve our problems. We give courage to each other.”

Over the past year, farming in much of Sierra Leone has been hindered by the disconnection Ebola demands and the distrust that disconnection breeds. In telephone interviews, farmers and agricultural officials described the same scenarios repeatedly. Many farmers are afraid to hire the additional hands they need for planting, weeding, and harvesting, thinking outsiders might bear the disease. Many workers fear farmers, like Ngekia, whom they suspect of having some link to Ebola. And the seasonal migration of laborers has been obstructed by lockdowns that force people to stay in one place and blockades that impede movement when migration is allowed.

Even when manpower is available, critical mass is hard to achieve. In most cases, the government has prohibited gatherings of more than five people. Lebbe said that her planting crews are now small, and in the field people keep their distance from one another. But that is better than nothing at all. In the areas hardest hit by Ebola, an uncounted number of farms lie fallow—because farmers died, because farm families were shattered by death, or because people simply abandoned their land, having run away to escape the threat of disease or the pain of losing loved ones to it. Rice has gone unplanted in some places and unharvested in others. Where labor was in short supply to defend against weeds, rodents, and birds, yields have suffered. Some areas unscathed by Ebola have still struggled: Even as farmers have harvested good crops of rice and other foods, they have been challenged to sell them because markets are closed and roads are blocked.
People in a river boat in northern Sierra Leone transport meat, fish, and other goods (Rich Mallet)

This shortfall in agricultural production and income is not the isolated concern of the farming sector, as it might be in the United States. That’s because Sierra Leone’s farming sector is, in effect, the country: It employs two-thirds of the population and produces 46 percent of GDP, more than any other sector. Most importantly, agriculture constitutes the nation’s primary food source, much of it delivered directly from field to table. When a rice crop fails, the impact is often hunger.

Liberia and Guinea are in similar predicaments, and the FAO/WFP report predicted that by March 2015, the three countries may have 1 million people who are food insecure as a result of Ebola. But the suffering is not yet obvious, said Vincent Martin, head of the FAO’s Subregional Hub for Resilience and Emergency in Dakar. “People in rural areas have coping strategies,” he explained. “So people will last for some time, up to the point where they will take all the reserves they have. Seeds they were supposed to use for planting next season, they will eat them.”

Martin and others at the FAO believe that a hunger epidemic can be avoided through a series of preventive measures. Supplementary food imports can be purchased and micro-loans granted to farmers whose harvests allowed them only enough to eat, not enough to sell for income. Extension workers, who provide agricultural education to the public, can help people plant fast-producing vegetables and supply chickens for eggs. Already, the FAO’s office in Sierra Leone is planning to buy and distribute seed rice to farmers who have none.

The challenge is that all of this requires money, which the nation’s devastated economy cannot provide. International donors have mobilized to fight Ebola, but raising money for preventive measures is much harder.

“You don’t wait for a crisis to come!” Joseph Sesay, Sierra Leone’s minister of agriculture, told me with a note of exasperation. “People only become sympathetic when a crisis itself is here, but we are trying to explain to donors that they shouldn’t wait until Ebola is over to provide funds for agriculture. Otherwise, the next crisis will be a food crisis.”
“People will not think life is normal until agriculture is normal.”

And yet Sierra Leone’s fate is not entirely in the hands of these donors. As Sesay explained, international aid is meant to temporarily fill gaps in the harvest and bolster an agricultural system weakened by disease. The solution in the long term must come from within the country. “People will not think life is normal,” Sesay said, “until agriculture is normal.”

Some hope lies in the story of Ngekia. While she and her family were quarantined, Lebbe and other leaders of the Kono Women’s Cooperative brought them food to supplement the spartan rations the government had supplied. They gave Ngekia mobile-phone credit and, from across the barrier, offered comfort and encouragement. “Bondu behaved to me like a mother, and all the other women treated me like a sister,” Ngekia said. “They were always by my side.”

But perhaps the most valuable support they gave was going to Ngekia’s rice farm when no one else would. The women organized themselves into small groups that worked on successive days. By phone, Ngekia reminded them to stay clear of one another in the field and wash their hands with chlorine. One cooperative member recalled that instead of talking and singing, the women quietly prayed for Ngekia. Some villagers overcame their fear and joined the effort. When the group was finished, all eight acres had been planted with short-season red rice.

In the months that followed, Ebola surged through Kono district. In early December, the World Health Organization found the local hospital overwhelmed by infections and death. The entire district was quarantined for three weeks. By New Year’s, the International Red Cross was calling Kono a new hotspot for the disease. So when the women gather in January to harvest this rice by hand, it will be more than hard work; it will be an act of courage and resolve. They are buoyed, in part, by the fact that Ngekia will be there in the field alongside them.

After quarantine, Ngekia’s entire family tested negative for Ebola. They still carry some stigma, as if somehow the virus were following them, but Ngekia has returned to her life as best she can. As a nurse, she is leading education campaigns about Ebola prevention. As a farmer, she is preparing for harvest.

She said the swampland’s crop looks healthy, but predicts the yields this month will be low; even though the women were able to plant, there was simply not enough help to cultivate the field properly and scare away birds. But at least when Ngekia goes out to the field, there will no longer be a need for others to pray for her. Instead, the familiar work of cutting, bundling, and threshing will become a prayer itself: for the survival of her family, the strength of her community, and the healing of her nation.
Jump to Comments (22)

 

[BREWER]

Originally Posted by It'sJustMe View
Posted for fair use and discussion.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/hazmat-t...-dead-in-yard/

Ebola tests negative for Texas soldier found dead in yard



Last Updated Jan 13, 2015 11:26 PM EST

KILLEEN, Texas -- Officials are investigating the death of a Fort Hood soldier who was found outside an off-base apartment after he returned from deployment in West Africa.

A Fort Hood statement says two tests on the 24-year-old soldier Tuesday showed no signs of Ebola, and that there is "no evidence of a public health threat."

Killeen police, a hazmat team and several ambulances responded to the soldier's home Tuesday morning after a report came in of a man's body being found outside, reports CBS affiliate KWTX in Waco.

A neighbor told KWTX that he saw the body at about 7:30 a.m. Tuesday.

 

[Broccoli]

The Super-Creepy, Super-Dangerous Link Between Islam and Ebola

http://instigatornews.com/super-creepy-super-dangerous-link-islam-ebola/

By Paul Sperry, Investor’s Business Daily and via Shoebat Foundation

Just when you thought Ebola and Islam were two separate news stories, it’s being reported that Sharia law is actually facilitating the spread of the deadly virus. The burial rituals and practices in Sharia constitutes a toxic brew when the deceased died of Ebola. In fact, Ebola is even more contagious when handling corpses of people with it.

There is a significant Muslim population in all of the west African countries where Ebola is metastasizing with two of those countries having a super majority Muslim population.

Islam isn’t just at the heart of the terror threat posed by the Islamic State. The religion is also contributing to the other major crisis plaguing the globe: the spread of Ebola.

Washington and its media stenographers won’t tell you this, lest they look intolerant, but Islamic burial rituals are a key reason why health officials can’t contain the spread of the deadly disease in West Africa.

Many of the victims of Ebola in the three hot-spot nations there — Sierra Leone and Guinea, as well as neighboring Liberia — are Muslim. Roughly 73% of Sierra Leone’s and about 85% of Guinea’s people are Muslim. Islam, moreover, is practiced by more than 13% of Liberians.

When Muslims die, family members don’t turn to a funeral home or crematorium to take care of the body. In Islam, death is handled much differently.

Relatives personally wash the corpses of loved ones from head to toe. Often, several family members participate in this posthumous bathing ritual, known as Ghusl.

Before scrubbing the skin with soap and water, family members press down on the abdomen to excrete fluids still in the body. A mixture of camphor and water is used for a final washing. Then, family members dry off the body and shroud it in white linens.

Again, washing the bodies of the dead in this way is considered a collective duty for Muslims, especially in Muslim nations. Failure to do so is believed to leave the deceased “impure” and jeopardizes the faithful’s ascension into Paradise (unless he died in jihad; then no Ghusl is required).

Before the body is buried, Muslims attending the funeral typically pass a common bowl for use in ablution or washing of the face, feet and hands, compounding the risk of infection.

Though these customs are prescribed by Shariah law, they’re extremely dangerous and should be suspended. Mosque leaders must step in to educate village Muslims about the dangers of interacting with corpses.

Ebola victims can be more contagious dead than alive. Their bodies are covered in rashes, blood and other fluids containing the virus.

“Funerals and washing dead bodies in West African countries have led, to a great extent, to spread the disease,” a World Health Organization spokeswoman recently warned.

WHO has issued an advisory to Red Cross and other relief workers in African Muslim nations to “be aware of the family’s cultural practices and religious beliefs. Help the family understand why some practices cannot be done because they place the family or others at risk for exposure.”

The document added: “Identify a family member who has influence with the rest of the family and who can make sure family members avoid dangerous practices such as washing or touching the body.”

The warning appears to be falling on deaf ears, however.

Last month, Red Cross workers in Guinea were attacked by family members while trying to bury Ebola dead safely. In Sierra Leone, moreover, a family took Ebola-ridden bodies secured in body bags from the Red Cross, opened them up and exposed all members of the family to Ebola. They all contracted the disease.

The UN warns that if the spread of Ebola can’t be contained within 60 days, it could turn into a global plague. The West African infection rate is expected to jump from 1,000 a week to 10,000 a week.

President Obama argues that suspending travel with these West African nations would do more harm than good.

But the practice of these religious customs is even more reason to do so.

Even Saudi Arabia, the center of Islam, is now barring pilgrims from Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea from traveling to Mecca for fear of them bringing the virus into the kingdom.

So what’s stopping us from barring travelers from those countries?


Read more at http://instigatornews.com/super-creepy-super-dangerous-link-islam-ebola/#03ERxuq70ueIoBd9.99

 

[Oreally]

unbelievable.

 

[Doomer Doug]

The disconnect between reality and the fantasy proclaimed by WHO gets even bigger.


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...-Leones-apocalyptic-overflowing-cemetery.html


Ebola Ground Zero: Sierra Leone's apocalyptic overflowing cemetery
Dispatch: Not since the brutal civil war of the 1990s has Sierra Leone witnessed such apocalyptic scenes as the King Tom cemetery struggles to bury the country's Ebola victims – including an increasing number of children




Exactly how many of the 4,400 corpses laid to rest here since August are victims of Ebola is impossible to say, as the city's overwhelmed authorities lack the time to analyse every death. But the ministry of health "burial squads" that now act as roving undertakers in Freetown take no chances. Each body arrives in a hermetically sealed white plastic bag, which the squads then stagger with across the cemetery's uneven ground, laying them in one of dozens of newly dug pits.

A grave digger walks through the King Tom Hospital in Freetown Sierra Leone, having finished for the day (Will Wintercross/The Telegraph)

The most unsettling sight of all, however, is the bags that require hardly any effort to carry at all. When The Telegraph visited the cemetery last week, a procession of three burial workers picked their way through the graves, each with a tiny, knapsack-sized bag cradled in their arms. Edward Conteh, aged 3, Amna Kabbah Dumbaya, aged four months, and Mamayo Sesay, aged two weeks, were buried in a section specially set aside for children. It is also by far the fastest-growing section.

In the first five days of January alone, 156 children under five were buried there, according to Fiona McLysaght, country director for the charity Concern Worldwide, which is supervising the burial operation.

"The number of children we are burying every week is absolutely staggering," said Ms McLysaght, whose charity's work is being funded by Britain's £232.5 million Ebola aid package to Sierra Leone. "It is an appalling situation, although we believe they are mainly non-Ebola cases that are related to the secondary health-care crisis."

The "secondary health care crisis" is aid agency-speak for how the virus has also crippled the country's war-ravaged health service, killing at least 110 medics and forcing many hospitals to shut. Malaria-ridden Sierra Leone already had one of the world's highest infant mortality rates anyway. Now, even more newborns than before will never see a first birthday, let alone a fifth.

Among the charities addressing this wider tragedy is the Masanga Mentor Ebola Initiative, one of charities supported by The Telegraph's Christmas Charity Appeal which runs to the end of the month. Its work includes training community health workers in basic – and infection-free – surgical techniques so they can step in where doctors are not available.

A glance at the cemetery's handwritten registry book, which is kept on a table underneath a mango tree, shows how the very young are suffering disproportionately. Of the day's 37 entries so far, 22 were aged 10 or under. Among them were five entries in a row marked "stillborn". In the early days of the outbreak, burying so many youngsters at once used to make the chief gravedigger cry. Now it is routine.

Once the undertakers have finished their rounds for the day, they put all their bio hazard suits into a burn pit (Will Wintercross/The Telegraph)

Not since the brutal civil war of the 1990s has Sierra Leone witnessed such apocalyptic scenes, to which the graveyard, which resembles a tropical version of Highgate Cemetery, offers a suitably eerie backdrop. Crumbling statues of angels, half-swallowed by bush, stare out over the new arrivals. Palls of black smoke rise up from bonfires of the burial teams' disposable uniforms.

At one end, a giant, leafless cotton tree sticks bare grey fingers up at the sky. At the other, where the rubbish dump is being cleared back, a mass grave containing the bodies of 70 civil war victims was found recently under a pile of refuse. Not surprisingly in a country where belief in witchcraft still abounds, the place gives many locals the spooks.

One man who is not in the least intimidated, however, is Andrew Kondoh, a burly, jovial 34-year-old who works as its "Burial Welfare Supervisor". When interviewed for the post a few months ago, his employers warned him that the job would need someone who was "comfortable around dead bodies". Given his experiences during the civil war, they could not have picked a better candidate.

During that time, Mr Kondoh was living in the eastern city of Kenema, which became a major battleground because of its rich diamond deposits. The alley next to his family home adjoined an abandoned mortuary, outside which scores of people murdered and mutilated by militiamen from the Revolutionary United Front were routinely dumped. Knowing there was no way the mortuary would reopen, he took it on himself to fence the piles off and stop them becoming a public health hazard.

"It wasn't easy – the smell was dreadful, and when I tried to stop people using the alleyway as a shortcut, they would abuse me," said Mr Kondoh. "Even my father gave me several strokes of the cane, because he couldn't understand why I was doing it if the government didn't pay me. But someone had to volunteer, and I am not squeamish.

An undertaker carries the body of 2 week old Mamayo Cesay through the King Tom Hospital in Freetown Sierra Leone. She was buried next to other infants and children. (Will Wintercross/The Telegraph)

"I hoped never to see dead bodies like this in Sierra Leone again, but at least this time you don't see their faces, as they come already sealed in the plastic bags."

Still, aspects of the job are very tough. Because of the fear of infection, Mr Kondoh no longer sleeps in the same bed as his wife, who has also sent their children off to live with her sister. For the same reason, some of the gravediggers and burial workers have been threatened with eviction from their homes by anxious landlords.

Tensions also run high when the burial teams turn up at houses to take away bodies. For many Sierra Leoneans, the corpses of the recently departed are seen as a means of getting in touch with the souls of long-dead relatives, and are of immense spiritual value.

When things occasionally turn nasty – vehicles are sometimes pelted with rocks or chased by angry mobs – it is Mr Kondoh's job to soothe things over. He comforts the bereaved by telling them that the bodies are at least being laid to rest in a respectful fashion, and that they can observe the burial if they wish, albeit from a distance.

In a sense, they are lucky to have a burial all. Such is the risk from infected corpses that in neighbouring Liberia, they are now routinely cremated. Sierra Leone has chosen not to for fear of alienating the public even further. As Sidi Yayah Tunis, a government spokesman, told The Telegraph: "Do you want a riot on your hands?"

Nonetheless, such is the paranoia that still surrounds Ebola that being buried in King Tom's carries as much social stigma as ending up in a pauper's grave. While public health officials politely refer to it as the "medical cemetery", everyone around Freetown now knows it simply as the "Ebola Graveyard".

"Recently the family of a prominent person had a big row with us because they didn't want their loved one being buried here," said Mr Kondoh. "We had tell them that rules were rules."

Others, he said, complain that the densely-packed graves are too close to each other together, which meant that "angels have no space to sit at the deceased's graveside". Worst of all, some turn up to find their loved ones have simply vanished in the system. A number of the grave sticks are simply marked "Unknown".

Sierra Leone is now the worst-infected of all the West African nations hit by the Ebola epidemic, with 3,062 of the 8,429 deaths across west Africa so far. Yet while the death rate is slowing, the superstitions that allowed Ebola to thrive in the first place continue.

A grave digger walks through the King Tom Hospital in Freetown Sierra Leone (Will Wintercross/The Telegraph)

Wearing black bin liners to protect their feet, the sole group of mourners at King Tom during The Telegraph's visit were the family of Adama Faroh, 22, from the nearby town of Hastings. They brandished a certificate issued by an Ebola treatment centre, showing that she had been discharged just a few days earlier after testing negative for the virus. Their explanation of how she then died was rather less reassuring.

"When she came back from the centre she was covered in boils, and her feet were swollen," said her brother, Alvin Ahmed, 24. "We think a spell was put on her by a friend of hers, with whom she had an argument at a wedding a while back. When she finally died, she was shouting out that friend's name."

Like many young Sierra Leonean men, Mr Ahmed sports a fashionable haircut and clothes that would not be out of place in Hoxton or Hackney. Yet he mentions his faith in the ancient powers of witchcraft as matter-of-factly as he states his sister's age – a sign that health education campaigns here still have much to do. He did, however, declare himself satisfied with the burial arrangements. "People spoke politely to us and told us to have courage," he said.

Also impressed is Philip Du Toit, an expat businessman from Botswana, whose excavation firm has been hired to clear the rubbish dump. His bulldozers are normally used for his ventures in Sierra Leone's diamond business, a trade not known for attracting the sentimental. Yet he is nothing short of evangelical in his praise of Britain's charities and government for stopping a bad situation becoming even worse.

"Otherwise, we would be just dumping bodies anywhere," he said. "They have helped us deal with this very hard situation and give it a dignified end."

The plan now is to eventually rebuild the cemetery entirely, although so many new graves have been packed in that there will not be room for individual headstones. Instead, there will be long stone slabs with the names chiselled on, along with a central memorial to the great Ebola outbreak of 2014.

By the time it is built, the epidemic itself will also hopefully have been finally laid to rest. The question on everyone's minds is just how much bigger King Tom will have grown by then.

 

[Lilbitsnana]

Conflict News @rConflictNews · 47m 47 minutes ago

BREAKING: Mali government, UN declare country Ebola-free. AFP



Agence France-Presse @AFP · 17m 17 minutes ago

#UPDATE Mali government, UN declare country Ebola-free http://u.afp.com/DBa


Mali government, UN declare country Ebola-free
AFP
28 minutes ago

A man washes his hands on November 17, 2014, in the village of Kouremale, Mali, to prevent the spread of Ebola
.

View photo
A man washes his hands on November 17, 2014, in the village of Kouremale, Mali, to prevent the spread of Ebola (AFP Photo/Habibou Kouyate)


Bamako (AFP) - The Malian government and the United Nations on Sunday declared the country free of Ebola after registering 42 days without any new cases of the deadly virus.

"I declare this day... the end of the epidemic of the Ebola virus in Mali," Health Minister Ousmane Kone said.

Ibrahima Soce Fall, the head of the Malian office of the United Nations Mission for Ebola Emergency Response (UMEER), confirmed the country "had come out" of the epidemic.

http://news.yahoo.com/mali-governme...-221318115.html;_ylt=AwrBEiKNMrxUZkcApKrQtDMD

 

[BREWER]

Posted for fair use and discussion.
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2015-01-18/splinter-ebola-outbreaks-hinder-fight-against-virus-un

Splinter Ebola Outbreaks Hinder Fight Against Virus: UN

Jason Gale January 18, 2015

West Africa’s Ebola epidemic has morphed into several micro-outbreaks of varying intensity and with the potential to reignite more widespread contagion, a United Nations official said.

The pattern of spread has become more nuanced and complex, occurring over a wider area, David Nabarro, the UN Secretary-General’s special envoy on Ebola, said in a report by the Global Ebola Response Information Centre.

The 36-page publication, dated January 2015, outlines progress to date and changes in the global response needed to end the deadly scourge, which began in December 2013 in a remote area of Guinea, near the border with Liberia and Sierra Leone. Since then, Ebola has sickened more than 21,000 people in eight countries and killed 8,468, according to data compiled by the World Health Organization on Jan. 16.

“Ending the outbreak will not be easy because the disease is being transmitted in three countries with a collective land area greater than the United Kingdom,” Nabarro said. “Success can only be achieved if communities themselves understand the nature of the outbreak and act in ways that reduce their likelihood of becoming infected.”

The intensity of the epidemic has now reached a plateau and is starting to decline in some places, the report said.

The overall disease reproduction rate, which gauges the propensity for an infection to spread in the community, fell below 1.0 last month, from about 1.4 in September, the report said. At the peak of the epidemic in the third quarter of last year, new Ebola cases were doubling every three weeks in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, the three worst-affected countries.

‘Sustained Commitment’

“Reaching zero cases and enabling durable social and economic recovery will require sustained commitment from a global coalition of supporters throughout 2015,” UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in the foreword of the report, titled “Making a Difference - The Global Ebola Response: Outlook 2015.”

By mid-December, there were more than 2,000 beds in Ebola treatment centers, compared with fewer than 350 in mid-August, when patients were being turned away because of lack of capacity, Nabarro said. Available beds now exceed the number of Ebola patients recorded each week, though treatment capacity is unevenly distributed in all three most-affected countries.

“Many deaths are still unreported, and communities in some areas are still reluctant to adopt safe burial practices or seek treatment,” he said. “The virus is lurking close by and in coming months it may make a comeback if we become complacent and let down our guard.”

Local community involvement is crucial, said Sakoba Keita, head of Guinea’s Emergency Operations Centre.

‘Too Professional’

“We have not taken sufficient account of community involvement in the crisis, especially in the aspect of compliance with customs,” Keita said in the report. “At first it was too professional and actions were misinterpreted and led to violence. Now that we have corrected this, we are reducing the reluctance. If we had done that since the beginning, we would have taken much less time to make an impact.”

Ending the outbreak means establishing alert and response capacities in each local government area, ensuring timely and reliable disease surveillance and coordinating all responders, World Bank President Jim Yong Kim said.

Ebola’s economic devastation worsened in West Africa, the Washington-based World Bank said last month, predicting gross domestic product would shrink this year in Sierra Leone and Guinea. If Ebola continues to spread further in Africa, it could cost as much as $32.6 billion by the end of 2015, it estimated in October.

“We simply must find the resources required, no matter the cost, to get to zero cases as soon as possible,” Kim said in the report. “Defeating Ebola now will cost billions -- but it will spare the rest of the world from the spread of the virus, save lives in the countries, save money over the long term, and help the countries rebuild their economies.”

 

[Christian for Israel]

so, due to being low on savings i was forced to go back to work a couple of weeks ago. some here know i quit my job driving taxi because i believed ebola would be epidemic here by now and that, as we get people here from all over the world (i had a guy from Liberia in my car a week before i quit), having them in my car was overly dangerous. well i returned to the taxi job because the only alternatives were convenience and grocery stores which are equally exposed to the public and pay far less.

so i was at work yesterday and got a call to take a woman from one hotel across town to another. when i got there i noted she was black and spoke with a west african accent so i asked her, in conversation, where she was from..."Ghana", she said. she'd just arrived on saturday... just lovely.

i asked her how bad it really was there and she said hundreds are dying every day, the hospitals are overflowing but they're little more than dying wards and most people are simply staying home. she was here for her company (an international gold mining corp) and hoped to be able to remain until the disease burns out there. she didn't seem to be symptomatic but i sprayed the car down liberally with colloidal silver and soaked her money in hand sanitizer anyway.

this is crazy but i just don't know what else to do for work...i just keep thinking there are so many ways for this job to kill me.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://thebulletin.org/what-africa-...emerging-diseases-anti-corruption-efforts7928

Columnists

01/15/2015 - 12:32

What Africa really needs to fight Ebola and other emerging diseases: anti-corruption efforts

Laura H. Kahn
Comments 1

As Ebola’s death toll surpasses 8,000 people, well-intentioned individuals have been suggesting different strategies to contain the crisis. Many of these recommendations have included the use of modern technologies like cell phones, coupled with innovations such as a global rapid response team. But more than anything, what Africa really needs is simply more investment in its people and its basic health care infrastructure, along with reduced corruption—making sure that the money sent to lay the foundations of public health actually goes where it is supposed to.

This is not to say that the wonders of modern technology do not have their place. Some devices, such as cell phones, have proven their worth as tools for disease surveillance and control. In 2008, for example, after a major earthquake in Sichuan province disrupted the electronic disease monitoring system, China’s federal and local health care offices set up an emergency system that used cell phones to report any outbreaks of infectious disease. (Water-borne diseases such as cholera and leptospirosis are a potential byproduct of earthquakes, the result of contaminated drinking water, broken sewage systems, and crowded refugee camps with minimal sanitation, among other factors.) This improvised emergency system allowed health care agencies to rapidly detect and attend to these diseases before they could turn into epidemics in the earthquake-hit region.

But an easily overlooked aspect to this worthy approach is that China already had a well-developed public health infrastructure in place to take advantage of the technology. After all, any cell phone surveillance effort is only as good as the public health infrastructure using it. Such technology-heavy approaches do little good if the underlying public health systems don’t exist. And in contrast, sub-Saharan Africa suffers from a poorly developed infrastructure for public health, so any cell phone-based surveillance efforts there are small-scale and fragmented.

With this in mind, it was short-sighted for Jim Yong Kim, a physician and the president of the World Bank, to recommend that a global health reserve corps be set up to rapidly respond to outbreaks. While such an approach may sound good on paper, in countries such as Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, there is simply no medical or public health infrastructure to properly identify outbreaks of diseases such as Ebola, which means that the virus can propagate unrecognized for days or even weeks before the crisis is even properly identified. By then, it has spiraled far out of control. And waiting even the littlest bit longer for a global health reserve corps to be mobilized and parachute in would cause even further delays in response—unnecessarily costing additional lives.

A better solution is to invest in putting into place a public health care infrastructure in Africa. Unfortunately, there has been inadequate funding for basic public health in many African countries, as Oyewale Tomori, a veterinary virologist and president of the Nigerian Academy of Science, has observed. And while African scientists have the expertise and the cultural understanding to make them the best resources to refer to in order to solve Africa’s problems, African leaders continue to prefer to seek solutions from outside, Western experts—who all too often appear briefly during crises, make recommendations, then return home. In some cases, Western countries have been known to partially build high-tech laboratories, only to leave them uncompleted and useless—further hindering African scientists’ abilities to put their expertise to good use. It would be much better for African leaders to invest their countries’ money, time, and labor in building their own solid, reliable public health care infrastructures from the ground up in their native lands.

The hidden issue. But arguably, the worst problem that many African countries face is widespread corruption, defined by Transparency International as the abuse of entrusted power for private gain. Corruption can cripple efforts to provide basic health care and save lives, as detailed in a recent New York Times opinion piece that described the devastating effects of corruption on international efforts to contain Ebola.

As corruption goes up, sanitation and health go down, and according to Transparency International, sub-Saharan African countries are among the most corrupt in the world. Not surprisingly, life expectancy declines in such situations, because politicians and civil servants prefer to help themselves rather than the people they are meant to serve.

A case in point is Liberia, which has received billions of dollars in international aid for over a decade, with little to show for it. The country ranks near the bottom of the United Nation’s Human Development Index and near the bottom of Transparency International’s Global Corruption Barometer. And while international aid groups and non-governmental organizations such as Doctors Without Borders and the International Medical Corps provide important humanitarian assistance and medical care, they also inadvertently absolve African political leaders from developing medical and public health infrastructures. In fact, one could argue that such organizations perpetuate dependence, by never forcing African leaders to invest in their people, thus helping corruption continue.

So what can be done? As a starting point, the United Nations General Assembly passed Resolution 58/4, the UN Convention Against Corruption, which went into force on December 14, 2005. If nothing else, it at least identified corruption as a major problem, highlighted it in the public consciousness, and pointed the way towards preventing, criminalizing, and cooperating against corruption.

But to make these goals into a reality requires leadership, disincentives, transparency, and accountability.

Leadership. If the highest-level political leaders are corrupt, then everyone else will be too, down to the lowest traffic cop. (Police are reportedly the most corrupt government officials in Africa.) Instead, political leaders must bear in mind that they are role models and set the standards for how everyone acts. Paying bribes to receive government services should not be tolerated; individuals found to be corrupt should be fired, fined, and imprisoned.

Disincentives. Corruption needs to be criminalized; as long as people get away with this behavior, it will be tolerated and continued. Therefore, political leaders must pass laws implementing strong penalties, such as long prison terms and hefty fines for officials engaged in corruption. The challenge, of course, is to get political leaders to pass anti-corruption laws and accept the consequences if they themselves are found to be corrupt. Western countries could help tremendously by linking the disbursement of international aid to requirements for strict anti-corruption laws and enforcement.

Transparency. Publishing government information such as data on budgets and spending is an important first step in reducing corruption. A free press and engaged citizens are needed to keep watchful eyes on government activities and spending. The legal systems, including judges, need to be free from corruption. Governments must make anti-corruption efforts readily accessible and encourage reporting of officials engaged in taking bribes.

Accountability. External oversight committees that regularly monitor and publicize their findings would help to keep officials accountable to the public. Officials found to be corrupt should be required to return all stolen assets and be severely punished with fines and prison. International cooperation would be essential in returning assets sent abroad.

Countries with high levels of corruption remain heavily dependent on international humanitarian and health care aid, which gives the international community leverage over corrupt regimes. In the long run, international aid and health care merely provides Band-Aids that cover over the underlying problem behind much of human suffering: corruption, which takes away money that would otherwise be used on public health care infrastructure. True aid would focus on this problem and force political leaders to begin investing in their country, their people, and their people’s health—not in themselves.

 

[BREWER]

so, due to being low on savings i was forced to go back to work a couple of weeks ago. some here know i quit my job driving taxi because i believed ebola would be epidemic here by now and that, as we get people here from all over the world (i had a guy from Liberia in my car a week before i quit), having them in my car was overly dangerous. well i returned to the taxi job because the only alternatives were convenience and grocery stores which are equally exposed to the public and pay far less.

so i was at work yesterday and got a call to take a woman from one hotel across town to another. when i got there i noted she was black and spoke with a west african accent so i asked her, in conversation, where she was from..."Ghana", she said. she'd just arrived on saturday... just lovely.

i asked her how bad it really was there and she said hundreds are dying every day, the hospitals are overflowing but they're little more than dying wards and most people are simply staying home. she was here for her company (an international gold mining corp) and hoped to be able to remain until the disease burns out there. she didn't seem to be symptomatic but i sprayed the car down liberally with colloidal silver and soaked her money in hand sanitizer anyway.

this is crazy but i just don't know what else to do for work...i just keep thinking there are so many ways for this job to kill me.

Greetings, Christian for Israel: Thank you for sharing your situation and your concerns. You are definitely caught between a rock and a hard place.
Hopefully the CS will save you. God Bless and stay safe. Take care. BREWER

 

[Plain Jane]

Christian In Israel - months ago there was discussion of preventative measures. Vit. C on a daily basis might be wise. You probably already know this, I just like to remind people!

 

[BREWER]

Posted for fair use and discussion.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-landing-Newark-airport-affected-country.html

New Ebola scare in US: Health worker returning from Sierra Leone pulled off United flight at Newark after vomiting on the plane

The unnamed passenger is at Hackensack University Medical Center
She vomited and exhibited a high fever aboard the flight from Brussels to Newark on Monday afternoon
By the time she arrived at the hospital, the woman no longer had a fever

By Belinda Robinson For Mail Online and Michael Zennie

Published: 01:32 EST, 20 January 2015 | Updated: 20:23 EST, 20 January 2015

178 shares

32

View comments

A health care worker returning from Sierra Leone has sparked a new Ebola scare in the US after she was pulled off a United Airlines flight in Newark and rushed to the hospital on Monday.

The woman, whose name has not been released, reportedly vomited aboard United flight 45 from Brussels and suffered from a high fever - both early signs of the deadly disease.

She is currently at Hackensack University Medical Center, undergoing tests for Ebola - though doctors said she no longer had a fever when she arrived at the hospital and is no longer showing signs of infection.

Scroll down for video
Health workers in hazmat suits met the passenger on the plane at Newark Liberty International Airport on Monday afternoon

Health workers in hazmat suits met the passenger on the plane at Newark Liberty International Airport on Monday afternoon
The woman was taken off and sent to Hackensack University Medical Center, whe she was tested for Ebola and was being held on Tuesday

The woman was taken off and sent to Hackensack University Medical Center, whe she was tested for Ebola and was being held on Tuesday
The woman is reportedly a health worker who was returning from the Ebola-afflicted nation of Sierra Leone in West Africa

The woman is reportedly a health worker who was returning from the Ebola-afflicted nation of Sierra Leone in West Africa

She was being kept at the hospital on Tuesday 'in an abundance of caution.'

The Bergen County Record reports that the woman was returning to the US from Sierra Leone, a West African nation where health workers are still working to bring Ebola under control.

The virus has infected an estimated 10,000 people there and killed more than 3,000.

Passengers told the Record that healthcare workers in hazmat suits met the plane when it landed about 2pm on Monday.
RELATED ARTICLES

Previous
1
2
Next

Australian nurse who damaged her protective clothing while... Northampton General Hospital confirms female patient has...
'Doctors say I'm immune, but I don't plan to test that':...

Share this article
Share

E.E. Charlton-Trujillo, who was on the flight, said neither airline officials nor health authorities offered an explanation for what happened on the plane, but fear quickly spread through the cabin.

'Everyone’s thinking Ebola,' she told the Record.

They took the woman off the flight and then had the remaining 261 passengers and crew members fill out health care forms and gave them contact numbers for public health officials.

Authorities stressed that even if the woman tests positive for Ebola, it's highly unlikely that she would have infected anyone else aboard.
Doctors say the woman no longer had a fever when she arrived at Hackensack University Medical Center

Doctors say the woman no longer had a fever when she arrived at Hackensack University Medical Center
Passengers were given health forms to fill out and told the contact health officials if they experienced any symptoms of the virus

Passengers were given health forms to fill out and told the contact health officials if they experienced any symptoms of the virus

Flight: Luke Punzenberger, a spokesman for United said that a passenger had become ill on a flight that arrived in Newark from Brussels on Monday afternoon

Flight: Luke Punzenberger, a spokesman for United said that a passenger had become ill on a flight that arrived in Newark from Brussels on Monday afternoon

Luke Punzenberger, a spokesman for United said that a passenger had become ill on a flight that arrived in Newark from Brussels on Monday afternoon.

He told CNN: 'After arriving at Newark airport from Brussels, medical personnel met a United flight to assist an ill passenger on board.

'Passengers and crew stayed on the plane until the medical personnel cleared the aircraft.'
EBOLA DEATHS AS OF JANUARY 16

As of this month, the World Health Organization says at least 8,594 people have died in the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.

In Liberia there were 3,587 deaths. Sierra Leone had 3,132 deaths and Guinea 1,875 deaths.

The current outbreak, which began about a year ago, has also claimed more than a dozen lives elsewhere.

The death toll from the current Ebola outbreak has reached 8,594 people with as many as 21,614 infected according to the World Health Organization.

It describes Ebola symptoms as the sudden onset of fever, intense weakness, muscle pain, headache and sore throat. This is followed by vomiting, diarrhea, rash, impaired kidney and liver function, and in some cases, both internal and external bleeding.

The infection is transmitted by direct contact with the blood, bodily fluids and tissues of infected animals or people.

And people remain infectious as long as their blood and secretions contain the virus.

There is no known cure or vaccine for the disease but the incubation period is two to 21 days.
A burial team from the Liberian health department removes the body of a woman suspected of dying of the Ebola virus, the African country has reported the highest numbers of deaths from the virus

A burial team from the Liberian health department removes the body of a woman suspected of dying of the Ebola virus, the African country has reported the highest numbers of deaths from the virus
Survivors: Pictured with Matt Lauer from left to right are Ebola survivors Amber Vinson, Dr. Kent Brantly, Nina Pham, Nancy Writebol, Dr. Rick Sacra, and Ashoka Mukpo as they appeared on the Today show

Survivors: Pictured with Matt Lauer from left to right are Ebola survivors Amber Vinson, Dr. Kent Brantly, Nina Pham, Nancy Writebol, Dr. Rick Sacra, and Ashoka Mukpo as they appeared on the Today show
What is ebola and where did it come from?

Most Ebola cases are in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone.

Liberia has had 3,587 deaths, Sierra Leone 3,132 deaths and Guinea 1,875 deaths.

However, there have also been cases reported in Mali, Nigeria, Senegal, Spain, Great Britain and the United States.

The current outbreak, which began about a year ago has claimed more than a dozen lives elsewhere.

In the U.S. at least 10 people, mostly health care workers have been treated and only two of those patients have died.

The American Ebola Survivors include: Amber Vinson, Dr. Kent Brantly, Nina Pham, Nancy Writebol, Dr. Rick Sacra, and Ashoka Mukpo.

Read more:

Plane passenger hospitalized after landing in Newark from 'Ebola-affected country' - CNN.com
Ill traveler who cared for Ebola patients taken to Hackensack University Medical Center - News - NorthJersey.com


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...k-airport-affected-country.html#ixzz3PQ9IE14A

 

[BREWER]

Posted for fair use and discussion.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-k-ebola-patient-makes-recovery-1422132317

U.K. Ebola Patient Makes Recovery
Scottish Nurse Diagnosed in Late December Is Discharged From Hospital
By ALEXIS FLYNNJan. 24, 2015 3:45 p.m. ET

LONDON—A Scottish nurse diagnosed with Ebola after returning from an aid mission to West Africa has made a full recovery, the hospital caring for her said Saturday.

Pauline Cafferkey became the U.K.’s first confirmed Ebola patient when she was diagnosed with the deadly disease on Dec. 29, just hours after arriving in the country from Sierra Leone, where she had worked as a volunteer helping fight the virus that has killed thousands of people in the region.

The case was the first serious test of Britain’s measures to protect the public from the virus. Since the summer, more than a thousand British doctors and nurses have volunteered in Sierra Leone, whose health system has been overwhelmed by the disease.

“I am just happy to be alive," said Ms. Cafferkey in a statement issued by the Royal Free Hospital, the North London hospital where she received more than three weeks of specialist care in a high-isolation unit.

Doctors treating Ms. Cafferkey administered a mixture of experimental treatments in a bid to save the life of the 39-year-old health-care worker, including plasma from recovered Ebola patients and an unnamed antiviral drug.

Her condition worsened soon after she was admitted to the hospital, and at one stage was described by clinicians as critical. However, by Jan. 12 Ms. Cafferkey’s health had taken a turn for the better. Twelve days later, she was well enough to be discharged.

Michael Jacobs, the infectious-diseases specialist who led the doctors and nurses that cared for Ms. Cafferkey, paid tribute to their part in her recovery.

“It is because of the skill and hard work of the entire team that she is now able to go home,” Mr. Jacobs said.

No Ebola drugs or vaccines have been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration or the European Medicines Agency for general use or sale. But doctors have given some patients experimental drugs that regulators haven’t yet approved for sale.

Some people have been treated successfully with an experimental drug called ZMapp, but supplies of that medication have been exhausted.

In the U.S., American missionary Richard Sacra —who was infected with Ebola in Liberia, and was treated with blood transfusions and an experimental drug called TKM-Ebola made by Tekmira Pharmaceuticals Corp. —was discharged from an Omaha, Neb., hospital in September.

Nearly 8,000 people have died since the most recent outbreak of Ebola began in Guinea in the spring of 2014 and spread to neighboring Liberia and Sierra Leone. Experts put the chances of survival at around 50%, though they stress that early diagnosis and treatment—in particular rehydration—can improve the chances of recovery.

 

[BREWER]

Posted for fair use and discussion.
http://www.omaha.com/news/world/who...cle_9ececad7-af86-5036-bce3-b251c849558f.html

WHO mulls reforms to repair reputation after bungling Ebola


GENEVA (AP) — The World Health Organization is debating how to reform itself after botching the response to the Ebola outbreak, a sluggish performance that experts say cost thousands of lives.

On Sunday, WHO's executive board planned to discuss proposals that could radically transform the United Nations health agency in response to sharp criticism over its handling of the West Africa epidemic.

"The Ebola outbreak points to the need for urgent change," said Dr. Margaret Chan, WHO's director-general. She acknowledged that WHO was too slow to grasp the significance of the Ebola outbreak, which is estimated to have killed more than 8,600 people, mainly in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Critics say the kinds of reform being debated are long overdue.

"The groundswell of dissatisfaction and lack of trust in WHO over Ebola has reached such a crescendo that unless there is fundamental reform, I think we might lose confidence in WHO for a generation," said Lawrence Gostin, director of the WHO Collaborating Center on Public Health Law and Human Rights at Georgetown University.

"Ebola revealed all of WHO's inherent weaknesses and the international community saw painfully what it was like to see WHO not being able to lead. That resulted in thousands of deaths that were completely avoidable," he said. "If that doesn't light a fire for reform, I don't know what will."

In reports issued to its 34-member board earlier this month, WHO identified major holes in its ability to stop outbreaks and "a culture that resists embracing operations, an essential element of emergency response."

A year before Ebola broke out in West Africa, WHO's outbreak department slashed its staff to save $6 million. In proposals to be discussed Sunday, WHO appears to be backtracking on that decision, saying it must develop operational expertise beyond its "skeleton complement" of logistics experts. The agency also conceded that, despite public expectations that it can respond quickly to health emergencies, it simply is not designed to do that.

WHO declared Ebola to be a global emergency in August. But it wasn't until Jan. 12 that Chan officially assigned Bruce Aylward, the agency's lead official on Ebola, to work full time on the outbreak, according to an internal memo sent to WHO staff.

Some experts expressed skepticism that the broad reforms being discussed by WHO would significantly change anything.

"If we try to reform everything, then nothing will be done," said Dr. Jean Clement Cabrol, a director of operations at Doctors Without Borders. He described certain parts of WHO — specifically its Africa office, which was blamed by Geneva officials for blundering the early response — as "dreadful."

Gostin said no other agency has a mandate to protect public health that could easily replace WHO.

"If we didn't have a WHO, we would need to create one," he said. "But we need to make them politically accountable for their failures and force them to be leaders."

 

[bw]

"If we didn't have a WHO, we would need to create one," he said. "But we need to make them politically accountable for their failures and force them to be leaders."

An agency or person who is told to be a leader is by definition a follower.

 

[bev]

I have read the reported stats, which actually differ based on the publication unfortunately. But how do those reported numbers compare to those that Kris had forecast way back in late summer, before the news blackout?

Kris' forecast was truly frightening, and I wonder how closely we're actually following that. Even using bogus numbers, is there a way to tell whether he was on track?

Thanks to everyone reporting here!

 

[bw]

I have read the reported stats, which actually differ based on the publication unfortunately. But how do those reported numbers compare to those that Kris had forecast way back in late summer, before the news blackout?

Kris' forecast was truly frightening, and I wonder how closely we're actually following that. Even using bogus numbers, is there a way to tell whether he was on track?

It's now a state secret. You will know when your child gets it, or your neighbor, or perhaps you. There are no longer any reported numbers. Officially, Ebola no longer exists.

 

[BREWER]

Posted for fair use and discussion. H/t TerriHaute
http://www.bbc.com/news/health-31019097

BBC News - Ebola outbreak: Virus mutating, scientists warn

Scientists tracking the Ebola outbreak in Guinea say the virus has mutated.

Researchers at the Institut Pasteur in France, which first identified the outbreak last March, are investigating whether it could have become more contagious. More than 22,000 people have been infected with Ebola and 8,795 have died in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia.

Scientists are starting to analyse hundreds of blood samples from Ebola patients in Guinea. They are tracking how the virus is changing and trying to establish whether it's able to jump more easily from person to person

"We know the virus is changing quite a lot," said human geneticist Dr Anavaj Sakuntabhai. "A virus can change itself to less deadly, but more contagious and that's something we are afraid of. That's important for diagnosing (new cases) and for treatment. We need to know how the virus (is changing) to keep up with our enemy."

It's not unusual for viruses to change over a period time. Ebola is an RNA virus - like HIV and influenza - which have a high rate of mutation. That makes the virus more able to adapt and raises the potential for it to become more contagious.

"We've now seen several cases that don't have any symptoms at all, asymptomatic cases," said Anavaj Sakuntabhai. "These people may be the people who can spread the virus better, but we still don't know that yet. A virus can change itself to less deadly, but more contagious and that's something we are afraid of."

But Professor Jonathan Ball, a virologist at the University of Nottingham, says it's still unclear whether more people are actually not showing symptoms in this outbreak compared with previous ones.

"We know asymptomatic infections occur… but whether we are seeing more of it in the current outbreak is difficult to ascertain." he said. "It could simply be a numbers game, that the more infection there is out in the wider population, then obviously the more asymptomatic infections we are going to see."

Another common concern is that while the virus has more time and more "hosts" to develop in, Ebola could mutate and eventually become airborne. There is no evidence to suggest that is happening. The virus is still only passed through direct contact with infected people's body fluids.

Infectious disease expert Professor David Heyman said, "No blood borne virus, for example HIV or Hepatitis B, has ever shown any indication of becoming airborne. The mutation would need to be major."

Virologist Noel Tordo is in the process of setting up a new from the Institut Pasteur in the Guinea capital Conakry. He said, "At the moment, not enough has been done in terms of the evolution of the virus both geographically and in the human body, so we have to learn more. But something has shown that there are mutations."

"For the moment the way of transmission is still the same. You just have to avoid contact (with a sick person). But as a scientist you can't predict it won't change. Maybe it will."

Researchers are using a method called genetic sequencing to track changes in the genetic make-up of the virus. So far they have analysed around 20 blood samples from Guinea. Another 600 samples are being sent to the labs in the coming months.

A previous similar study in Sierra Leone showed the Ebola virus mutated considerably in the first 24 days of the outbreak, according to the World Health Organization.

It said: "This certainly does raise a lot of scientific questions about transmissibility, response to vaccines and drugs, use of convalescent plasma. However, many gene mutations may not have any impact on how the virus responds to drugs or behaves in human populations."

'Global problem'

The research in Paris will also help give scientists a clearer insight into why some people survive Ebola, and others don't. The survival rate of the current outbreak is around 40%.

It's hoped this will help scientists developing vaccines to protect people against the virus.

Researchers at the Institut Pasteur are currently developing two vaccines which they hope will be in human trials by the end of the year.

One is a modification of the widely used measles vaccine, where people are given a weakened and harmless form of the virus which in turn triggers an immune response. That response fights and defeats the disease if someone comes into contact with it.

The idea, if it proves successful, would be that the vaccine would protect against both measles and Ebola.

"We've seen now this is a threat that can be quite large and can extend on a global scale," said Professor James Di Santo, and immunologist at the Institut. "We've learned this virus is not a problem of Africa, it's a problem for everyone."

He added: "This particular outbreak may wane and go away, but we're going to have another infectious outbreak at some point, because the places where the virus hides in nature, for example in small animals, is still a threat for humans in the future. The best type of response we can think of… is to have vaccination of global populations."

http://www.bbc.com/news/health-31019097

 

[parsonswife]

thanks for keeping up on this issue for TB2K.

 

[kittyluvr]

UC Davis Medical Center Treating Possible Ebola Patient
January 29, 2015 10:08 AM

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) – A UC Davis Medical Center official confirms they are treating a patient with a possible Ebola infection at the hospital Thursday morning.

Dignity Health officials said in a statement that the patient was first identified at Mercy General Hospital in Sacramento before being transferred to UC Davis.

“In coordination with the public health department and CDC, Dignity Health Mercy General Hospital has transferred a patient to UC Davis Medical Center, which is specifically equipped to care for patients suspected of having or diagnosed with Ebola as part of the public health department’s preparedness plan,” wrote Melissa Jue from Dignity Health.

UC Davis Medical Center officials wrote in a statement that the patient has “symptoms consistent with Ebola infection.” The hospital noted they are a “priority hospital” for treatment of confirmed Ebola patients.

“The hospital is coordinating its response with the Sacramento County Department of Public Health. Measures put in place to protect the health and safety of hospital workers and patients include extensive training on proper use of personal protective equipment and the establishment of a dedicated isolation room for treatment of suspected and confirmed Ebola patients,” the hospital wrote.

Authorities can be seen at both Mercy General and UC Davis in face masks.

Mercy General says they are not taking patients at their emergency department at this time and that the area is being cleaned. Both hospitals are operating as normal.

In August, a Sacramento resident who traveled to West Africa and was suspected of having the virus, but the test came back negative.

“The most important thing is for someone to think it could possibly happen here, so you can ask the appropriate questions to identify it,” said UC Davis Director of Infection Control Dr. Stuart Cohen.

Patients undergoing tests are likely in an isolation room that pipes in fresh air 12 times an hour and requires special clothing for doctors and nurses.

If the UC Davis patient is confirmed to have the disease, this would be the first case of Ebola in California.

More information to come. Stick with CBS13 for updates.

http://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2015/01/29/uc-davis-medical-center-treating-possible-ebola-patient/

 

[sierra don]

UC Davis Medical Center Treating Possible Ebola Patient
January 29, 2015 10:08 AM

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) – A UC Davis Medical Center official confirms they are treating a patient with a possible Ebola infection at the hospital Thursday morning.

Dignity Health officials said in a statement that the patient was first identified at Mercy General Hospital in Sacramento before being transferred to UC Davis.

“In coordination with the public health department and CDC, Dignity Health Mercy General Hospital has transferred a patient to UC Davis Medical Center, which is specifically equipped to care for patients suspected of having or diagnosed with Ebola as part of the public health department’s preparedness plan,” wrote Melissa Jue from Dignity Health.

UC Davis Medical Center officials wrote in a statement that the patient has “symptoms consistent with Ebola infection.” The hospital noted they are a “priority hospital” for treatment of confirmed Ebola patients.

“The hospital is coordinating its response with the Sacramento County Department of Public Health. Measures put in place to protect the health and safety of hospital workers and patients include extensive training on proper use of personal protective equipment and the establishment of a dedicated isolation room for treatment of suspected and confirmed Ebola patients,” the hospital wrote.

Authorities can be seen at both Mercy General and UC Davis in face masks.

Mercy General says they are not taking patients at their emergency department at this time and that the area is being cleaned. Both hospitals are operating as normal.

In August, a Sacramento resident who traveled to West Africa and was suspected of having the virus, but the test came back negative.

“The most important thing is for someone to think it could possibly happen here, so you can ask the appropriate questions to identify it,” said UC Davis Director of Infection Control Dr. Stuart Cohen.

Patients undergoing tests are likely in an isolation room that pipes in fresh air 12 times an hour and requires special clothing for doctors and nurses.

If the UC Davis patient is confirmed to have the disease, this would be the first case of Ebola in California.

More information to come. Stick with CBS13 for updates.

http://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2015/01/29/uc-davis-medical-center-treating-possible-ebola-patient/

Just heard this on the news when I was driving to the store, close to home, UC Davis is about 70 mile from where I live, down in the Sacramento valley..........wonderful, now the west coast gets it taste of ebola

 

[Oreally]

there is a lighter side of this i could get into, but i don't want get get a time out!

still, this is really concerning . . .

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/ebola-victim-still-not-free-of-virus/article6850024.ece

Ebola victim still not free of virus
Special Correspondent
Comment · print · T T
Tweet
inShare
TOPICS
health

A 26-year-old man, who tested positive for the Ebola virus in November, continues to remain in isolation as he is still carrying the deadly virus.

According to Health Ministry officials, the man had travelled from Liberia and reached Delhi on November 10. The virus was found in his semen and he has been in isolation since in the special health facility of the Delhi Airport Health Organisation.

The virus can remain in the semen for up to seven weeks after recovery.

“He was last tested on January 16. The tests are carried out every 15 days, so there will be another round of tests to determine if he is fit to go,” said an official. Health officials have noted that the virus has been in his body fluids much longer than is usually expected.

 

[bw]

According to Health Ministry officials, the man had travelled from Liberia and reached Delhi on November 10. The virus was found in his semen and he has been in isolation since in the special health facility of the Delhi Airport Health Organisation.

You have to produce a semen sample to get into India? Wow. The US doesn't even require documentation, much less body fluids.

 

[jed turtle]

You have to produce a semen sample to get into India? Wow. The US doesn't even require documentation, much less body fluids.

Bizarre world!