The Ebola News Digest

[Godwit]

Crawford Kilian ‏@Crof 1h
#Ebola survivors: 12 Liberians share how they pull through
http://bit.ly/1tl6jx6


Helen Branswell ‏@HelenBranswell 50m
.@WHO updates on use of #ZMapp in Liberia. 2 MDs & a nurse were treated. 2 showed marked improvement. #Ebola
http://who.int/mediacentre/news/ebol...ugust-2014/en/ …


WHO ‏@WHO 55m
On 4–5 September, WHO will host a consultation on potential #Ebola therapies & vaccines at its headquarters in Geneva
http://goo.gl/EOHZJ4


Laurie Garrett ‏@Laurie_Garrett 15m
In #Liberia 2 nurses & 1 MD w/ #Ebola received #ZMapp drug. Nurses seem to be recovering but MD in serious condition.
http://who.int/mediacentre/news/ebola/21-august-2014/en/ …

[Spike n Ree]

http://investmentwatchblog.com/augus...ood-in-or-out/

August 20 Ebola Spread: California, New Mexico, Germany, Austria, India, Myanmar, and more. Liberia Seals in 75,000 no docs, no food in or out

August 20th, 2014

[grower]

Crawford Kilian ‏@Crof 49s
Togo: Two suspected cases of #Ebola reported in Lome
http://bit.ly/1q2ygYf

Google translates for us --

After many false alarms, two cases of pathology of Ebola virus are reported in Lome. A 32 year old Filipino and a student Togolese nationality, are currently being monitored in isolation center located inside the University Hospital Tokoin in Lome.

The information has been confirmed by sources close to the administration of the CHU Tokoin this Wednesday, August 20, 2014.

Filipino arrived in Lome on board a ship whose final destination is Morocco. The ship arrived at the port of Lomé from Nigeria. According to early diagnosis of the patient who has attracted attention because of its incessant bleeding and vomiting, the owner suffers from chronic malaria ungroomed.

Crawford Kilian ‏@Crof 3m Togo: More on the suspected #Ebola cases
http://bit.ly/1q2yZc2

From Wikipedia:

Lomé, with a population of 837,437^[1] (metro population 1,570,283^[1]), is the capital and largest city of Togo. (Togo is a nation in West Africa.)

[grower]

New Mexico,

Common Ebola symptoms missing in UNMH case

By Elizabeth Alvarez Published: August 20, 2014, 8:12 am Updated: August 20, 2014, 8:21 am

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) – A New Mexico health official told KRQE News 13 the patient being tested for Ebola at UNM Hospital does not have all the symptoms doctors would expect someone with the virus to have. The 30-year-old Bernalillo County woman returned from teaching in Sierra Leone recently and checked herself into the hospital with flu-like symptoms.
KRQE News 13 was told she does not have the high fever often associated with the virus.
Her blood work has been sent to the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta for testing.
Results are expected later this week.
The patient’s name has not been released because of privacy issues.

[Spike n Ree]

Survivalist.com with George Shepherd is launching an "Ebola preparedness" live webinar in just a few hours. It starts at 7pm Eastern (today). Register here to listen for free:
http://www.NaturalNews.com/Survivalist-Ebola-Webinar.html

This live webinar will teach emergency medical preparedness for dealing with infectious diseases... Ebola and beyond.

[Godwit]

Paa George Appiah is from Ghana, but has been living in New York for 10 years. A former GNC employee, he sidesteps questions about his current work status, but is cheery and candid when it comes to bushmeat. “Akarnte is the best, my favorite,” he tells us. Akarnte, he explains, is a type of “grass-cutter.” His brief curbside mimicry of buckteeth suggests a large rabbit, but the grass-cutter is in fact a large rodent, more commonly called a “cane rat” in the U.S. Cane rats are similar in appearance to a guinea pig, prized as a source of protein throughout Ghana and other parts of West Africa, and officially unavailable anywhere in the United States.

Bushmeat, which can range from bat to monkey to lion, including a number of endangered species, is beloved by many African-born Americans, despite the fact that it is illegal in the U.S. In the Bronx, the high price (up to $100 for six or seven pounds, Appiah tells us) attached to bushmeat (or viande de brousse, as it is known in the French-speaking world) indicates a luxury indulgence in the same way illegally imported caviar might for Russian émigrés in Brooklyn.

Bushmeat may be a luxury, but it may also pose a deadly threat. A memo obtained by Newsweek that circulated among customs officers and agriculture specialists in 2007 noted that bushmeat is “a potential vector of diseases such as Monkeybox, Ebola Virus, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and other communicable diseases.”

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

[Babs]

Something doesn't seem right. I'm no scientist...not by a long shot, but if someone is shedding the virus in their semen for many weeks after they have recovered, how are they able to be re-infected. How would they not re-infect themselves?

[hunybee]

http://investmentwatchblog.com/augus...ood-in-or-out/

Liberia Seals in 75,000 no docs, no food in or out


August 20th, 2014

oh my goodness

[hunybee]

i haven't found any more info on the california case. what happened there?

[Godwit]

Something doesn't seem right. I'm no scientist...not by a long shot, but if someone is shedding the virus in their semen for many weeks after they have recovered, how are they able to be re-infected. How would they not re-infect themselves?

Ian M Mackay, PhD ‏@MackayIM 48m
#Ebola virus in semen is the real deal…. | Outbreak News Today
http://outbreaknewstoday.com/ebola-virus-in-semen-is-the-real-deal-52101/ …

Semen is therefore listed as one of the body fluids from which Ebola virus disease may be contracted.

While convalescent patients seem to be discharged before 7-weeks have elapsed, I presume the men are made very aware of this risk. This was specifically noted in one of the studies below. [8]

But I find it hard to just accept things.

As a scientist I’m used to looking for the little bracketed or superscripted numbers or perhaps “(Scientist et al)”, at the end of sentences. Then I can check out the information source for myself. So here, I thought I’d try and add those and pt it altogether in one place here – and you can do your own checking out if you feel the need.

Here are the research papers I’ve found for EBOV so far (there are also Marburg virus studies) – by all means send me any others I’ve missed and I’ll add them.

• Bausch and colleagues [5] were able to isolate, in cell culture in the laboratory,infectious Ebola virus (EBOV) from the semen of 1 of 2 samples from a single recovering patient who had EVD.
  
  • The samples was collected 40-days after disease onset; at 45-days he was no longer positive for EBOV
  • No acute phase (active infections) samples were tested.
  • 1 of 2 samples were also positive for EBOV RNA by RT-PCR (detecting a portion of the virus’s RNA genome)
  
  
• Rodriguez and colleagues [6] could isolate infectious EBOV from seminal fluid 82 days after disease (also RT-PCR positive then) and at 51-days after onset from a 27-year old male.
  
  • EBOV RNAin 3 other convalescent cases (33, 29 and 25-years of age) at times ranging from 57 to 101-days after disease onset.
  
  
• Rowe and colleagues [7] could detect EBOV RNA by RT-PCR from 4 convalescent cases (27, 25, 29 and 33-years of age) at times ranging from 47 to91-days after disease onset
  
  • No infectious virus could be isolated and no viral antigens were found
  
  
• Emond and colleagues [8] were able to isolate infectious EBOV from seminal fluid collected 39 and 61 days after disease onset
  
  • No EBOV was isolated 76, 92 or 110-days later
  
  

So if you are a man who has been diagnosed with an Ebola virus infection and survived, please, seriously, take extra care to practice safe sex. Use a condom. Or, even safer, just wait.