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In the span of four months, at least 94 children in 33 U.S. states have developed a devastating form of paralysis with symptoms similar to polio. Some require a ventilator to breathe. And some of the greatest government health minds in the country say they have no idea what’s causing it. At the same time, during the past four months, at least 12 children have died after falling ill with a respiratory virus called Enterovirus D-68 (EV-D68). Again, federal health officials are at a loss to explain the origin of the epidemic. Are the mysterious outbreaks linked? The Centers for...

Tyler Durden 11/06/2014 The recent spread of Ebola has led to a tragic loss of human lives and stands to devastate West African economies. As the situation has evolved, and despite the equity market's apparent belief that it's all over, Goldman has examined the global economic and market implications of the outbreak. It would appear Ebola is a thing of the past... But implications remain as Goldman Sachs explains, We survey our economists and equity analysts to provide a sector-by-sector breakdown of the disease’s impacts to date and, drawing on past episodes of pandemic threats, its potential effects. We find...

The number of people infected with the Ebola virus in Sierra Leone each day is nine times higher than it was two months ago, according to new data. The rate appears to be accelerating particularly in the rural areas surrounding the capital Freetown, the London Times reports. Compared with an average of 1.3 Ebola cases a day at the start of September, there were 12 new cases a day in late October, says the Africa Governance Initiative (AGI), an organization set up by former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

The World Health Organization says the number of reported Ebola cases has surpassed 13,700, a jump of more than 30 percent since the last numbers were released four days ago. Dr. Bruce Aylward, assistant director-general of the WHO, said the big jump in cases is likely due to previous under-reporting. As of Wednesday, there have been 13,703 reported cases of Ebola, the organization tweeted, with 13,676 of those in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, the three most affected countries in this outbreak. The fatality rate in those countries has remained consistently around 70 percent, Aylward said. Speaking to reporters in...

Kaci Hickox was a “disease detective” for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), according to a widely overlooked part of her op-ed for the Dallas Morning News. While Hickox did not fail to disclose this information to readers — or rather, the Dallas Morning News didn’t — Conservative news sites have recently taken notice and commenced calling her out on the connection. Hickox has received much criticism from the Right and the Left for her defiance of a mandatory quarantine order. A Maine judge recently upheld that defiance, allowing her to come and go as she pleases for...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)PORT CANAVERAL, Fla. (WOFL FOX 35 ORLANDO) - The EOT Spar is a 300-foot-long cargo ship due in Port Canaveral just 17 days after leaving the port of Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone in West Africa. The country has documented 5,235 Ebola cases so far, according to the World Health Organization. The U.S. Coast Guard says federal requirements already in place, as well as self-monitoring by the crew is enough to reduce risk to Central Floridians. The Coast Guard says it is in close communication with the EOT Spar, an American-flagged cargo ship out of Annapolis, Maryland. It's scheduled...

Hickox isn't backing away from challenging the home quarantine that's been forced on her in Maine. Meanwhile, Gov. Cuomo won't reveal the number of health care workers who have been subjected to the policy upon their arrival from West Africa.Civil rights lawyer Norman Siegel has defended countless victims of government abuse over the years, including people swept up in another hysterical call for health quarantines during the early days of the AIDS epidemic. But even the grizzled Siegel has been struck by the bravery and eloquence of Kaci Hickox, the 33-year-old nurse who telephoned him Saturday from a makeshift tent...

I thought the end of October would be a good time to publish some new projections. Here's an overview of the method I used. To project the number of future cases I calculated the daily rate of increase over the last 21 days for each of the three major countries and used that rate to make individual projections into the future at various intervals. I then added them up. I chose to use the last 21 days because that is the incubation period of the disease, and to my way of thinking, represents how fast the epidemic is growing now....

The critical reckoning over forced quarantines is still to come. Consider this scenario. Sometime in January or February – as the Ebola epidemic explodes out of West Africa – we’ll start experiencing larger, more frequent outbreaks in American cities. With the flu as a background to confound suspected cases of Ebola, public health departments will be hard pressed to “track and trace” all of the potential “contacts” when perhaps dozens of Ebola cases pop up in their cities. Unable to pinpoint who might have come in close contact with Ebola, and be at risk of contracting the virus, they will...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK) A memo obtained by Fox News indicates the Obama administration has been considering allowing non-American Ebola patients into the U.S. for treatment – though a State Department official on Tuesday denied any such plans. The document was obtained by Fox News from a Capitol Hill source, who said it is a memo prepared by the State Department. The top of the document is marked “sensitive but unclassified – predesicional (sic).” CLICK TO READ THE MEMO The “purpose” of the memo states: “Come to an agreed State Department position on the extent to which non-U.S. citizens will be admitted to...

The head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) today announced recommendations for some US healthcare workers who have battled Ebola in West Africa that stop just short of the outright 21-day quarantine instituted by several states. For asymptomatic clinicians who had a high risk for exposure to the virus in Sierra Leone, Liberia, or Guinea, perhaps because of a needle stick, "we are recommending voluntary at-home isolation" upon return to the United States, said CDC Director Tom Frieden, MD, MPH, in a news conference today. These clinicians should avoid public transportation, public places such as shopping centers,...

In a column ostensibly explaining why American moderates struggle in the Republican Party, Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen last year wrote: “People with conventional views must repress a gag reflex when considering the mayor-elect of New York – a white man married to a black woman and with two biracial children. (Should I mention that Bill de Blasio’s wife, Chirlane McCray, used to be a lesbian?) This family represents the cultural changes that have enveloped parts – but not all – of America.” If the thought of New York’s first family’s interracial marriage makes many Republicans (and apparently Cohen) gag,...

Submitted by Brandon Smith of Alt-Market.com, One of the most dangerous philosophical contentions even amongst liberty movement activists is the conundrum of government force and prevention during times of imminent pandemic. All of us at one time or another have had this debate. If a legitimate viral threat existed and threatened to infect and kill millions of Americans, is it then acceptable for the government to step in, remove civil liberties, enforce quarantines, and stop people from spreading the disease? After all, during a viral event, the decisions of each individual can truly have a positive or negative effect on...

At least 4,877 people have died in the world's worst recorded outbreak of Ebola, and at least 9,936 cases of the disease had been recorded as of Oct. 19, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday, but the true toll may be three times as much. The WHO has said real numbers of cases are believed to be much higher than reported: by a factor of 1.5 in Guinea, 2 in Sierra Leone and 2.5 in Liberia, while the death rate is thought to be about 70 percent of all cases. That would suggest a toll of almost 15,000.

I have spent a little time compiling links to threads about the Ebola outbreak in the interest of having all the links in one thread for future reference. Please add links to new threads and articles of interest as the situation develops. Thank You all for you participation.

The empirical evidence of an airborne Ebola Strain is overwhelming Hat Tip GWP - Patrick Sawyer was the American businessman, who contracted Ebola while working in Liberia, then collapsed after he got off a plane to Nigeria and died July 25. He was the first patient in Nigeria with the Ebola virus. The Nigerian authorities have refused to release the names of other passengers on the plane with Mr. Sawyer, or notify the media of their status.

U.S. Army warns of potential 'airborne' Ebola Virus could be transmitted by means other than contact NEW YORK – While Centers for Disease Control and World Health Organization officials continue to insist Ebola cannot be transmitted by air from one person to another, an Army manual clearly warns the virus could be an airborne threat in certain circumstances. The handbook published by the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, USAMRID, titled “USAMRID’s Medical Management of Biological Casualties Handbook,” is now in its seventh edition. The most recent edition was published in 2011, with more than 100,000 copies distributed...

Kevin LoriaOctober 6, 2014 The idea that Ebola could go airborne is terrifying. Once you are infected, few diseases are more likely to kill you — and death by hemorrhagic fever, diarrhea and vomiting often accompanied by bleeding and organ failure, sounds particularly awful. At present it's hard to get infected — healthcare workers and family members caring for victims are at highest risk — but that would change if the virus were to mutate so that it could be transmitted through the air while keeping its present lethality. That's a nightmare scenario. But it's more the stuff of bad...

Bloomberg - link and title only.

<p>Muslim burial practices are being blamed for the spread of Ebola.</p> <p>Remains of Secretary General of The Nigeria Supreme General for Islamic Affairs and Seriki of Egbaland, Alhaji Lateeef Adegbite at his burial in 2012.</p> <p>Islam requires family members to personally wash the corpses of loved ones from head to toe. This practise is putting more Africans at risk to catch the disease that is spread by body fluids.</p>