The Ebola News Digest

[Godwit]

zerohedge ‏@zerohedge 58m
NIGERIA CONFIRMS TWO NEW CASES OF EBOLA, BOTH CAUGHT IT FROM PRIMARY CONTACTS OF THE LIBERIAN WHO FIRST BROUGHT IT TO LAGOS: RTRS


BBC Africa ‏@BBCAfrica 52m
#Nigeria has recorded two new #Ebola cases, the Health Minister has said. So far five people have died out of fourteen confirmed cases.


Crawford Kilian ‏@Crof 11h
Chad to close borders with Nigeria in bid to stop #Ebola
http://bit.ly/1tqyMRj


kim yi dionne ‏@dadakim 5m
BREAKING: #Nigeria records new #Ebola cases
http://bit.ly/VHO8Vc
"new cases are spouses of the primary contacts of the index case"

[Blacknarwhal]

Ebola Test Comes Back Negative for Patient in California

A California patient who recently returned from West Africa has tested negative for the Ebola virus, the state Health Department announced Thursday night, reassuring residents that there are no confirmed cases of the virulent virus in the state.
Read more here.

NOTHING TO SEE HERE! PLEASE DISPERSE!

[Godwit]

Crawford Kilian ‏@Crof 2m
Ireland: Donegal man tests negative for #Ebola
http://bit.ly/1tsiSFT

makoto ‏@makoto_au_japon 1h
#Ireland: Tests for #Ebola on #Donegal man are negative
http://www.rte.ie/news/2014/0822/638696-ebola/ … #Africa #SierraLeone #HSE


As reported earlier by Grower --

Laura Garcia Cannon ‏@LauraGarciaCann 1h
#Ebola update: After 70 blood tests the person quarantined in the #Sacramento area does not have the potentially deadly virus.


Marcos Breton ‏@MarcosBreton 10h
Suspected patient in #Sacramento DOES NOT have Ebola
http://www.sacbee.com/2014/08/21/6646126/sacramento-patient-tests-negative.html …

Jared Keller ‏@jaredbkeller 24m
The American Ebola patients were just released ... so can they have sex now?
http://mic.cm/1v5tuh2 by @aetiology

I've already noted that Ebola can be spread by body fluids — blood, vomit, feces. Studies have also shown that, at least in theory, the virus could also be spread by infectious semen and vaginal fluids. In one paper, live Ebola virus was isolated from semen 40 days after the patient first became ill. Others found similar results using molecular methods: Semen was positive for molecular markers of Ebola as long as 91 days after symptoms appeared in one publication, while others found that semen could be positive for as long as 101 days and vaginal fluids for 33 days.

Theory is one thing, but is there any epidemiological evidence to suggest that Ebola has ever been spread this way?

[hunybee]

Laura Garcia Cannon ‏@LauraGarciaCann 1h
#Ebola update: After 70 blood tests the person quarantined in the #Sacramento area does not have the potentially deadly virus.

that made me laugh. not sure if they meant it that way, but it comes off like "after 70 blood tests, they finally got one that was negative"

[Shacknasty Shagrat]

'Crawford Kilian ‏@Crof 7h
#Ebola in Liberia: Calm returns to West Point
http://bit.ly/YGQlSE'
Birds are singing, the sun is shining, people are singing and dancing, peace abounding.
So much for any credibility of that tweeter.
SS

[SheWoff]

IF true (and I sure would like to know how they know this- studies? Actual cases?), then a vaccine isn't possible, either.

Summerthyme

All this makes me wonder instead of them saying folks were "cured" or "got well" if maybe they weren't still sick and didn't realize it? Are the tests they are using strong enough to detect a smaller amount of viri in the body yet? Since they say they have the ZMapp for a vaccine, or is it? Leaves wayyy to many ? unanswered and brings up a host of others too. Something there is just way to fishy and I can smell it from here....

She

[Al Swearengen]

Ebola Test Comes Back Negative for Patient in California

A California patient who recently returned from West Africa has tested negative for the Ebola virus, the state Health Department announced Thursday night, reassuring residents that there are no confirmed cases of the virulent virus in the state.
Read more here.

Ahhh...a day earlier than they stated at the newscast. Hmmm.

[SheWoff]

Senegal shuts border to Guinea amid Ebola spread

Senegal has closed its border with Guinea and imposed controls for boats and ships hailing from Ebola-hit countries Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia. South Africa has imposed similar measures for travelers. The Interior Ministry in Dakar announced late on Thursday that it would seek to shut off access to Guinea, which borders the southeast of Senegal.
Several African governments have taken measures aiming to stop the spread of the Ebola virus, known to have killed 1,350 people since March in Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone. South Africa issued a travel ban for travelers from Ebola-hit countries, saying South African citizens returning from these countries would be questioned, and screened if necessary.
Liberia in particular has struggled in recent days with a surge in cases. The World Health Organization (WHO) has counted 972 confirmed cases and 576 deaths in the country, warning that many more cases might remain undiagnosed. The UN's new pointman on the epidemic, David Nabarro, said Thursday on arrival in the region that the outbreak's spread was difficult to predict.
"We're either close to a plateau, but then we'll drop; or we're in a phase - an inflection point - where it is going to increase, and I absolutely cannot tell," Nabarro told the AFP news agency on a stopover at Conakry airport en route to Monrovia. Nabarro said he was determined to "ensure that every piece of our apparatus is at its optimum so it could deal possibly with a flare-up, if that's necessary." The British physician Nabarro, appointed by the UN last week to coordinate the international response to Ebola, was due to visit Freetown, Sierra Leone; Conakry, Guinea; and Abuja, Nigeria during his trip to the region. After visiting the affected countries, Nabarro will return to Geneva and New York to report on his findings. The virus' spread has severely tested medical infrastructure and staff in West Africa. The Red Cross' Liberian office, for instance, warned that the crematorium in Monrovia was struggling to deal with the bodies being brought in each day. Cremation is an important step in efforts to contain the spread of the infectious disease, passed on via contact with bodily fluids.
President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf imposed a curfew and ordered a quarantine zone for the capital Monrovia's West Point slum earlier in the week, prompting protests in the district of around 75,000 people.
There is not currently a vaccine or accepted treatment for Ebola, but the WHO intends to debate the safety and efficacy of experimental medications at a meeting in Geneva next month. Two US missionaries who contracted Ebola while treating patients in Liberia, Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol, have left hospital after making a full recovery. Both received an experimental drug called ZMapp during treatment, but it is not yet clear whether the medication contributed to their recovery.

http://www.dw.de/senegal-shuts-borde...ead/a-17871024

[SheWoff]

Good article about how bushmeat is smuggled into the US. Had too hard a time trying to c/p it here. Very interesting. I had no idea they did this and like newsweek said, it could bring ebola into the US by doing this!

http://www.newsweek.com/2014/08/29/s...ca-265668.html

Smuggled Bushmeat Is Ebola's Back Door to America

[SheWoff]

1,400 Are Dead From Ebola and We Need Help, Says Doctors Without Borders President


The epidemic won't be contained without more treatment centers, coordinated action, logistical assets and health workers

Entire families are being wiped out. Health workers are dying by the dozens. The Ebola outbreak raging in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone has already killed more people than any other in history, and it continues to spread unabated. And the death toll is being exacerbated by an emergency unfolding within an emergency. People are also dying from easily preventable and treatable diseases like malaria and diarrhea because fear of contamination has closed medical facilities, leading to the effective collapse of health systems. While I was in Liberia last week, six pregnant women lost their babies over the course of a single day for lack of a hospital to admit them and manage their complications.

Over the past two weeks, there have been some welcome signs but not enough action: the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the outbreak a “Public Health Emergency of International Concern” and announced additional funds to fight the disease; the World Bank announced a $200 million emergency fund; and the UN Secretary General appointed a special envoy for Ebola. But 1,350 lives have already been lost. To prevent more deaths, these funding and political initiatives must be translated into immediate, effective action on the ground.

We need medical and emergency relief workers to trace those who may be infected, to educate people about protection measures and to work in treatment centers. Many more people are needed in the field, right now.

Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) medical teams have treated more than 900 patients in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia. We have 1,086 staff operating in these countries and we have just opened a 120-bed treatment center in Liberia’s capital, Monrovia, making it by far the largest Ebola center in history. But it is already overwhelmed with patients and we simply do not have additional response capacity. Others must enter the breach.

In Kailahun, Sierra Leone, 2,000 people who came into contact with Ebola patients must be urgently followed up. But we have only been able to trace about 200 of them.

Health promotion campaigns and body collections are stalled for lack of vehicles or fuel. Epidemiologists are unable to work because of a lack of logistical support. And pervasive fears among communities that had never encountered Ebola have provoked riots against health workers.

The epidemic will not be contained without a massive deployment on the ground. WHO in particular must step up to the challenge. And governments with the necessary medical and logistical resources must go beyond funding pledges and immediately dispatch infectious disease experts and disaster relief assets to the region.

Additional resources are needed to properly map the epidemic, implement efficient general hygiene measures in all medical and public places, run safe treatment centers, trace suspected cases, train health workers, set up functioning alert and referral systems and, crucially, spread accurate information about how people can protect themselves from infection.

Equally important is fighting fear. Quarantines and curfews will only breed more of it. People need to have access to information, otherwise distrust of health workers will only increase and provoke further violence. Communities and governments need to work together to control the epidemic and care for the sick.

Some measure of humanity must also be restored in the fight against Ebola.

As doctors, we have been forced to provide little more than palliative care because of the sheer number of infected people and lack of an available cure. The extreme measures needed to protect health workers, including wearing stifling protective suits, also means we cannot remain bedside with patients to ease their suffering, or allow family members to do so. In their final hours, many people are dying alone.

While we try to find creative solutions to enable families to communicate with their sick relatives, they should at minimum be supported to participate safely in the burials of loved ones. This would also help rebuild trust between communities and those trying to contain the epidemic.

At the same time, additional support is needed to prevent health systems in Liberia and Sierra Leone from further collapse. After years of civil war, these countries already struggle to meet the basic health needs of their people, let alone cope with a public health emergency of this magnitude. Sierra Leone and Liberia, for instance, have just 0.2 and 0.1 doctors per 10,000 people, respectively (a rate 240 times less than in the United States).

Last week, all of Monrovia’s hospitals were at one point closed. There is no surgical care available in the entire country right now. Pregnant women cannot receive emergency C-sections. Health facilities must be re-opened or established to treat common illnesses. We will otherwise face a second wave of this health catastrophe.

Slowing and then halting this outbreak requires much more than money and statements. The only way to contain the epidemic is to increase the response capacity in affected areas, not by closing borders and suspending air travel.

Meaningful and coordinated action is needed on the ground today if we don’t want to be reduced to counting the dead for many weeks to come, whether from Ebola or other far less sinister diseases.

Dr. Joanne Liu is the international president of Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).

http://time.com/3154326/1400-are-dea...ers-president/