Posted on 08/05/2014 8:44:31 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
An Italian politician has suggested migrants who reach the Mediterranean country from northern Africa should be put under quarantine over the risk of Ebola contagion.
Fabio Rolfi, a councillor with the xenophobic, anti-immigration Northern League party, urged health authorities in Milan's Lombardy region to apply the preventive measure to the thousands of migrants who travel to the industrialised north of Italy after arriving in the south via boat.
The suggestion sparked widespread criticism and was labelled as "racist" and "useless" by other councillors.
Alessandro Alfieri, the regional secretary for the centre-left Democratic Party said the proposal was "a scaremongering proclaim based in racist assumptions," La Repubblica newspaper reported.
Claudio Pedrazzini, from the Centre-right Forza Italia party, accused his colleague of "unjustly spreading panic among citizens."
It is not the first time the Northern League has used fears of disease to attack the government by calling for stricter immigration policies.
In June, Northern League lawmaker Roberto Caon urged the government to scratch a large sea aid and rescue operation called Mare Nostrum (Latin for Our Sea) after eight navy officers tested positive for tuberculosis.
Mare Nostrum was launched in October last year to deal with the growing influx of rundown migrant boats trying to reach the Italian coast. The Italian Navy say the operation has saved tens of thousands of lives.
Critics, however, claim that it makes human traffickers' jobs easier and encourages further immigration.
Mario Mantovani, the councillor responsible for health policies in Lombardy, noted that migrants affected by Ebola were unlikely to embark on and survive the perilous boat crossing from northern Africa that has claimed hundreds of lives in recent years.
Ebola has killed at least 887 people across four West African countries - Senegal, Liberia, Guinea and Nigeria - since February.
The World Health Organisation has (WHO) described the current outbreak as the worst in the disease's history.
The disease is one of the deadliest in the world and does not yet have a known cure. The symptoms of the virus include fever, sore throat, diarrhoea and internal and external bleeding, with up to a 90% fatality rate (around 60% in the current outbreak).
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), the Ebola virus spreads through human-to-human transmission "with infection resulting from direct contact [through broken skin or mucous membranes] with the blood, secretions, organs or other bodily fluids of infected people, and indirect contact with environments contaminated with such fluids."
This is exactly why the regime here is trying to minimize Ebola.
Any rational human being would shut the borders and even air traffic from Africa.
Check this out:
It’s the deadliest strain, says the man who discovered Ebola
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/science/Its-the-deadliest-strain-says-the-man-who-discovered-Ebola/articleshow/39434060.cm
Two excerpts:
What according to you should Africa do to control this outbreak?
The classic ways to contain an Ebola outbreak are straightforward because the virus can only be transmitted in two ways: through close contact with someone who is ill from Ebola, and through contaminated needles and injections. Not reusing needles and syringes is something health officials in India should be very aware of. To control the spread, you should isolate patients, in what they call barrier nursing, so that healthcare workers don’t become infected. Also surveillance of all people who have had contact with Ebola patients should be carried out. And ensuring safe burial practices or safe preparation of the body for funeral is critical, as coming in to contact with the contaminated body of someone who has died from Ebola is how many people become infected. This all requires a strong community engagement, listening to people and making sure that local community leaders are involved in the response.
Should countries be worried about importing it? India has started checking passengers for Ebola symptoms in its airports. Is that a right move?
With ever growing mobility of people and travel, it’s not unlikely that people during the incubation period of Ebola - which is between 2 and 21 days after infection - may go to another country. Someone who has a full blown Ebola infection would not travel as they’d be too sick. The critical thing is to make sure that when you see a patient with the early symptoms of Ebola (like fever, headache, vomiting, diarrhoea, which are so common), is to ask ‘where have you been in the last month?’. This should be done by health officials in India. If the patient’s answer is that they’ve just come from an infected country, such as Sierra Leone, then you have to be really alert. That patient should be referred to specialised units where they can deal with highly contagious diseases. I don’t think checking passengers for fever and so on at airports has been proven to stop import of the virus. The most important thing that India can do is to make sure that all healthcare workers, from nurses to GPs to doctors, know about Ebola and take a patient’s travel history to check if they have been in an infected country in the last month.
Quarantined and then returned.
“a scaremongering proclaim based in racist assumptions,”
They pull this nonsense in other countries too? What tactics did politicians use before “racism” was considered bad and the race card was considered valid?
He’s just an ebolaphobe.
Ebolaphobes?
I like it.
“Any rational human being would shut the borders and even air traffic from Africa.”
This would be a good idea whether Ebola existed or not.
Bring Out Your Dead
Post to me or FReep mail to be on/off the Bring Out Your Dead ping list.
The purpose of the “Bring Out Your Dead” ping list (formerly the “Ebola” ping list) is very early warning of emerging pandemics, as such it has a high false positive rate.
So far the false positive rate is 100%.
At some point we may well have a high mortality pandemic, and likely as not the “Bring Out Your Dead” threads will miss the beginning entirely.
*sigh* Such is life, and death...
I guess that makes the FReeper-who-must-not-be-named an ebolaphile...
This guy is not aware that there is an incubation period (up to 3 weeks!)?
There won't be civilization, globally, unless people are not allowed to enter other countries illegally. What's needed is stability and self-sufficiency for individual countries, not the regime-changing madness the US and global elitist partners have created.
Ping...
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