Free Republic

Ebola-hit Liberia has suspended its nationwide Senate polls after the election commission admitted it would not be able to stage the ballot safely, according to a government statement. Almost three million voters had been due in polling stations on Tuesday but organisers said there was no way a "mass movement, deployment and gathering of people" could go ahead without further endangering lives. President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf was exercising powers under a state of emergency announced in August "to suspend... any and all rights ordinarily exercised, enjoyed and guaranteed to citizens", the foreign office said in a statement issued late Wednesday,...

Liberian authorities say they plan to prosecute the man infected with Ebola who brought the disease to the United States, saying he lied on his airport health questionnaire. With an Ebola crisis raging in West Africa, passengers leaving Liberia are being screened for fever and are asked if they have had contact with anyone infected. On the questionnaire obtained by The Associated Press, Thomas Eric Duncan answered 'no' to those questions. Neighbors say Duncan had helped a sick pregnant woman who later died of the disease. Her illness at the time was believed to be pregnancy-related. Binyah Kesselly, chairman of...

DALLAS — The first Ebola patient diagnosed in the United States has local ties to the Charlotte region. Thomas Eric Duncan went to a Dallas emergency room late Thursday night and explained that he was visiting the U.S. from Liberia. He was sent home with antibiotics, according to his sister, Mai Wureh. He returned two days later, after his condition worsened, and was admitted to Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital. Duncan has family that lives in Kannapolis and they told NBC News they alerted the CDC of Duncan's condition. There is no threat locally, according to officials. "I called CDC to...

World Health Organization researchers issued a dire new forecast for the Ebola epidemic Tuesday, one that sees 20,000 cases by November, much sooner than previous estimates. And 70 percent of patients are dying. That's a big increase over the previous estimates of a 50 percent fatality rate. “These data indicate that without drastic improvements in control measures, the numbers of cases of and deaths from Ebola virus disease are expected to continue increasing from hundreds to thousands per week in the coming months,” the WHO Ebola Response Team, led by Dr. Christopher Dye, wrote in a report rushed into print...

As of September 14, 2014, a total of 4507 confirmed and probable cases of Ebola virus disease (EVD), as well as 2296 deaths from the virus, had been reported from five countries in West Africa — Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, Senegal, and Sierra Leone. In terms of reported morbidity and mortality, the current epidemic of EVD is far larger than all previous epidemics combined. The true numbers of cases and deaths are certainly higher. There are numerous reports of symptomatic persons evading diagnosis and treatment, of laboratory diagnoses that have not been included in national databases, and of persons with suspected...

The deadly Ebola outbreak sweeping across three countries in West Africa is likely to last 12 to 18 months more, much longer than anticipated, and could infect hundreds of thousands of people before it is brought under control, say scientists mapping its spread for the federal government. “We hope we’re wrong,” said Bryan Lewis, an epidemiologist at the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute at Virginia Tech. Both the time the model says it will take to control the epidemic and the number of cases it forecasts far exceed estimates by the World Health Organization, which said last month that it hoped to...

An Atlanta hospital is preparing to receive its third Ebola patient Tuesday after successfully treating two other American aid workers for the virus that has killed thousands in West Africa. Emory University Hospital said that the patient, whose name has not yet been released, was expected to arrive sometime Tuesday and would be treated in its isolation unit. Last month, Dr. Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol were released from the same hospital after recovering from Ebola. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT Air Force spokesman Lt. Col. James Wilson said the patient, as in the prior two cases, would be flown into Dobbins Air...

GENEVA, Sept 8 (Reuters) - The Ebola virus is spreading exponentially in Liberia, where many thousands of new cases expected over the coming three weeks, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Monday. In a statement, the WHO said that motorbike-taxis and regular taxis are "a hot source of potential virus transmission" in Liberia where conventional Ebola control interventions "are not having an adequate impact". The United Nations agency said that aid partners need to scale-up current efforts against Ebola by three-to-four fold in Liberia and elsewhere in West Africa. In Liberia it had killed 1,089 people among 1,871 cases,...

CHICAGO – Hummus is too fatty, pretzels are too salty. Even hard-boiled eggs and yogurt don’t make the cut. Those restrictions and others imposed on schools through the revamped “healthier” National School Lunch Program convinced officials in Illinois’ second largest school district to forfeit nearly $1 million in federal lunch aid to serve students food they want to eat, rather than what the government tells them to, CBS reports. “So far so good. The meals, as you’ve seen, look fantastic, and there’s a lot of excitement,” District 214 Associate Superintendent Cathy Johnson told the news station as officials recently unveiled...

(Reuters) - Crowds sang and danced in the streets of a seaside neighborhood in Liberia on Saturday as the government lifted quarantine measures designed to contain the spread of the deadly Ebola virus. Faced with the worst Ebola outbreak in history, West African governments have struggled to find an effective response. More than 1,550 people have died from the hemorrhagic fever since it was first detected in the forests of Guinea in March. Residents of the impoverished seaside district of West Point in Monrovia were forcibly cut off from the rest of the capital in mid-August after a crowd attacked...

A third top doctor has died from Ebola in Sierra Leone, a government official said Wednesday, as health workers tried to determine how a fourth scientist also contracted the disease before being evacuated to Europe. The announcements raised worries about Sierra Leone's fight against Ebola, which already has killed more than 1,400 people across West Africa. The World Health Organization said it was sending a team to investigate how the epidemiologist now undergoing treatment in Germany may have contracted the disease that kills more than half its victims. "The international surge of health workers is extremely important and if something...

The feds want to perform their own autopsy on Michael Brown, the unarmed teen shot dead by local police in Ferguson, Missouri, a week ago. "Due to the extraordinary circumstances involved in this case and at the request of the Brown family, Attorney General Holder has instructed Justice Department officials to arrange for an additional autopsy to be performed by a federal medical examiner," Justice Department spokesman Brian Fallon said in statement. "This independent examination will take place as soon as possible. Even after it is complete, Justice Department officials still plan to take the state-performed autopsy into account in...

Low risk exposures A low risk exposure includes any of the following •Household member or other casual contact1 with an EVD patient •Providing patient care or casual contact1 without high-risk exposure with EVD patients in health care facilities in EVD outbreak affected countries* 1 Casual contact is defined as a) being within approximately 3 feet (1 meter) or within the room or care area for a prolonged period of time (e.g., healthcare personnel, household members) while not wearing recommended personal protective equipment (i.e., droplet and contact precautions–see Infection Prevention and Control Recommendations); or b) having direct brief contact (e.g., shaking...

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- SIM Missionaries announced Sunday morning that some of its missionary staff in Liberia will be returning to Charlotte. Charlottean Nancy Writebol, a missionary with Charlotte-SIM, returned to U.S. soil last week after contracting the Ebola virus. Writebol returned just days after Samaritan's Purse's Doctor Kent Brantly, who also tested positive for the Ebola virus while working to stop the outbreak of the virus in West Africa. Writebol and Brantly were brought back to the U.S. one-at-a-time in a specialized plane. Both Writebol and Brantly are receiving treatment at Emory Hospital in Atlanta. SIM tells NBC Charlotte they're...

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Columbus Public Health confirms a person is undergoing testing and has been quarantined for the deadly Ebola virus. A spokesperson says they’re working with the CDC to learn the preliminary results of those tests. CPH says the person recently traveled to West Africa, where an outbreak has left nearly 900 people dead. The virus can be transmitted through close contact with the blood, secretions, organs or other bodily fluids of infected animals. According to the CDC, symptoms include sudden onset of fever, intense weakness, muscle pain, headache and sore throat. This is followed by vomiting, diarrhea, rash,...

Aug 05, 2014 13:17 By Antony Stone Voluntarily confined to their home, the individual is undergoing daily medical checks, say Public Health Wales Share Share Tweet +1 Email This photo provided by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows an Ebola virus A potential victim of the killer Ebola virus is being monitored on a daily basis at home in Wales after visiting west Africa. The individual has voluntarily confined themself to home, which is understood to be in Cardiff, and is undergoing daily medical checks on their condition. Doctors with Public Health Wales (PHW) are in daily contact with...

British Airways has temporarily suspended all flights to Sierra Leone and Liberia due to the Ebola outbreak. The airline confirmed all its flights to and from the respective capitals of Freetown and Monrovia have been suspended until August 31 because of the "deteriorating public health situation" in both countries. “The safety of our customers, crew and ground teams is always our top priority and we will keep the route under constant review in the coming weeks. Customers with tickets on those routes are being offered a range of options including a full refund and the ability to rebook their flights...

Saudi Arabia said Tuesday it is testing a man for the Ebola virus after he showed symptoms of the viral hemorrhagic fever following a recent trip to Sierra Leone. The Health Ministry said the symptoms appeared in the 40-year-old Saudi man at a hospital in the western city of Jiddah. He is in critical condition and being treated in a unit with advanced isolation and infection-control capabilities. Different types of viral hemorrhagic fevers have been found in the kingdom, but no case of Ebola has ever been detected there, according to the ministry. The cause of the Saudi man's sickness...

Nigeria’s Minister of Health Professor Oyebuchi Chukwu has confirmed new cases of Ebola virus infection among Nigerians. Particularly, the minister said the doctor who treated the Liberian Patrick Sawyer who died of the virus in Lagos last week. Sawyer suddenly took ill after arriving Lagos and was later diagnosed to have Ebola.He died later. Chukwu reportedly said out of 70 people who had contact with Sawyer, 8 have been quarantined. He added, specifically that two of those quarantined seem to have contracted the virus as they have been manifesting Ebola- like symptoms. Also the Federal government has inaugurated an Ebola...

Can't post here but for those interested, Preston's take on the outbreak. Not comforting. http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/08/11/outbreak