Posted on 08/10/2014 12:46:23 AM PDT by Smokin' Joe
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.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/ebola/
“How did the West Africa Ebola epidemic get out of control so fast?”
No mention of the small molecule treatments that China, Japan and South Korea plan to implement should it come to their shores. Just more of the same about the highly expensive and very scarce ZMapp and vaccination.
“Nigeria records another Ebola case in oil city, 16 cases in total”
“A third case in the oil city was a female patient in the same hospital as the doctor and caught the disease from him.”
Interesting in light of the wapo article above and the fact that the doctor in Port Harcourt knew he was dealing with ebola. Wonder if he was using the N95 masks and PPE that were previously recommended by the CDC at the beginning of this outbreak prior to their upgrading their recommendations for PPE later one. Or if he continued to treat patients after he become contagious but not so symptomatic that he was incapacitated. Which seems to be more common type of behavior with this outbreak.
“Scientists dig into Ebola’s deadly genes for clues”
“”You had this huge burst after it looked like the outbreak was starting to die down,” Gire said. “It sort of threw a wrench in the response.””
It would appear other people have noticed the inflection point that occurred in the case number graph in early May.
“Gire said it is mutating in the faster side of the normal range for viruses of its type. That becomes worrisome because as time goes on and the disease spreads, it gives the strain more opportunity to mutate into something even harder to fight, perhaps making it stronger or easier to spread, Sabeti said. It could also mutate to make it weaker.”
Let’s all hope weaker and less transmissible. Even 20% mortality would dwarf the 1918 flu consequences.
Nigeria to get Ebola drug from Japan
http://m.news24.com/news24/Africa/News/Nigeria-to-get-Ebola-drug-from-Japan-20140901
Nigeria to get Ebola drug from Japan
Abuja - Nigeria was set to receive the antiviral drug Favipiravir from Japan as a possible Ebola treatment, the Health Ministry said on Monday.
Favipiravir, developed by the Japanese pharmaceutical company Fujifilm Holdings, was available for immediate delivery, Health Minister Onyebuchi Chukwu said during an emergency meeting in the capital, Abuja.
The drug was approved to treat the flu by the Japanese health ministry in March. Fujifilm Holdings is in talks with the US Food and Drug Administration to begin clinical testing of Favipiravir as an Ebola treatment.
“It is shown to have strong antiviral property against the Ebola virus” in the lab and in patients, the minister said as the Ebola outbreak continues to accelerate in West Africa with the death toll now estimated at 1 552, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
The Geneva-based WHO said 3 069 suspected or confirmed cases had been reported in Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone.
Enough dosages of Favipiravir to treat about 20 000 patients were available.
Nigeria also applied for the experimental Ebola drug TKM-Ebola, Chukwu said.
TKM-Ebola was tested for safety in a small number of humans, but the trial was halted in January when one volunteer developed moderate gastrointestinal side effects.
Nigeria also offered to participate in clinical trials for two Ebola vaccines, the health minister said.
Success rate
In Liberia, two Ebola-infected health workers who were treated with the experimental drug ZMapp have recovered, the health ministry said on Monday.
A third physician treated there with ZMapp, Abraham Dorbor, died last week.
The two doctors who recovered, a Nigerian and a Ugandan working in Liberia, had received ZMapp treatment since 10 August, ministry spokesperson John Sumo said. They were discharged from a treatment centre in the capital, Monrovia, at the weekend.
Two US health workers, Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol, who had contracted Ebola in Liberia, were discharged in mid-August from a hospital in Atlanta, where they had been treated with ZMapp.
Spanish priest Miguel Pajares, however, died from Ebola in a Madrid hospital after his evacuation from Liberia despite also receiving ZMapp.
Ebola causes massive haemorrhaging and is transmitted through contact with blood and other bodily fluids. If left untreated, it has a fatality rate of up to 90%.
Now we’ll see if it works.
I’ve got my fingers crossed. It’s cheap per patient and doesn’t require months of growing/purification time.
And Japan already has enough for 20K patients stockpiled as part of their flu effort.
Ebola crisis: Liberia extends stay-home order
http://m.news24.com/news24/Africa/News/Ebola-crisis-Liberia-extends-stay-home-order-20140901
Ebola crisis: Liberia extends stay-home order
Monrovia - Liberia’s president ordered most civil servants to stay home another month in an effort to stop the spread of the deadly Ebola virus, according to a statement released Monday.
President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf ordered non-essential workers not to come to work and promised that all government workers would still be paid.
Liberia’s schools are already closed in the effort to keep large numbers of people from gathering and potentially spreading the disease.
The World Health Organization says up to 20 000 people may contract the virus before it is put under control, and that it could take six months to do so.
More than 1 500 have died across West Africa from Ebola. Liberia has suffered the most deaths in the outbreak that has hit five West African countries. On Friday, Senegal announced its first case.
The WHO said a student from Guinea arrived in Dakar by road on 20 August and was staying with relatives “in the outskirts of the city”.
It said that on 23 August, he went to a medical facility seeking treatment for fever, diarrhoea and vomiting, all symptoms of Ebola.
He was treated for malaria and continued to stay with his relatives before turning up at the Dakar hospital on 26 August.
Tests show no sign of Ebola in Swedish man
http://m.news24.com/news24/World/News/Tests-show-no-sign-of-Ebola-in-Swedish-man-20140901
Tests show no sign of Ebola in Swedish man
Stockholm - Medical authorities in the Swedish capital said on Monday tests on a man brought into hospital over the weekend and suspected of potentially carrying Ebola showed no signs the deadly disease.
The Swedish man, whose name was not disclosed, had recently travelled to a “risk area” for the virus and had been taken to the Karolinska University Hospital in Stockholm suffering from a fever, sparking suspicions of Ebola.
Stockholm county council said in a statement the man would continue to be treated at the hospital to ascertain the cause of his symptoms.
More than 1 500 people have died in an Ebola outbreak in West Africa since March.
Ebola outbreak hits Thai rice exporters
http://m.news24.com/fin24/Companies/Agribusiness/Ebola-outbreak-hits-thai-rice-exporters-20140901
Ebola outbreak hits Thai rice exporters
Bangkok - The ebola outbreak in Sub-Saharan Africa is making its presence felt among Thai rice exporters, a report said on Monday.
Rice exporters in Thailand fear that the ebola pandemic will negatively affect rice prices as ships refuse to sail to ports in the afflicted countries.
“It’s now very difficult to find cargo ships to transport rice to Africa,” Vichai Sriprasert, president of the Thai Rice Exporters Association, told the Bangkok Post. “We are afraid this incident may put pressure on rice prices.”
Africa is one of the key destinations for Thai rice exports with over 3.75 million tons shipped to the continent last year.
Senegal Ebola case ‘a top priority emergency’ - WHO
http://m.news24.com/news24/Africa/News/Senegal-Ebola-case-a-top-priority-emergency-WHO-20140901
Dakar - The effort to contain Ebola in Senegal is “a top priority emergency,” the World Health Organisation said on Sunday, as the government continued tracing everyone who came in contact with a Guinean student who has tested positive for the deadly disease in the capital, Dakar.
Senegal faces an “urgent need” for support and supplies including hygiene kits and personal protective equipment for health workers, the WHO said in a statement on Sunday.
“These needs will be met with the fastest possible speed,” the WHO said.
The UN health agency provided new information on the movements of the 21-year-old student in the city before he was diagnosed with Ebola.
Senegal confirmed that the student had tested positive for Ebola on Friday, making the country the fifth in West Africa to be affected by an outbreak that has killed more than 1 500 people.
The student showed up at a hospital in Dakar on 26 August but did not reveal that he had been in contact with other Ebola victims, said Health Minister Awa Marie Coll Seck.
The next day, an epidemiological surveillance team in neighbouring Guinea alerted Senegalese authorities that it had lost track of a person it was monitoring three weeks earlier, and that the person may have crossed into Senegal.
The student was tracked to the hospital in Dakar that same day and was immediately quarantined, and a test confirmed he had Ebola, Seck said.
House isolated
In Sunday’s statement, the WHO said the student arrived in Dakar by road on 20 August and was staying with relatives “in the outskirts of the city”.
It said that on 23 August, he went to a medical facility seeking treatment for fever, diarrhea and vomiting, all symptoms of Ebola.
He was treated for malaria, however, and continued to stay with his relatives before turning up at the Dakar hospital on 26 August.
“Though the investigation is in its early stages, he is not presently known to have travelled elsewhere,” said the WHO, which received its information from Senegal’s health ministry.
The presence of Ebola in Senegal, a tourist and transport hub, could complicate efforts to bring the outbreak under control.
The country has already closed its land border with Guinea, where the outbreak originated, and barred air and sea travel from Sierra Leone and Liberia in an attempt to keep the disease out.
In Dakar on Sunday, at least one pharmacy was limiting purchases of hand sanitizer to one small bottle per person because of rising demand - underscoring fears that the number of cases in the city could soon multiply.
Senegalese authorities have isolated the house where the Guinean student was staying as well as the medical facility where he sought treatment prior to visiting the Dakar hospital.
There is no cure or licensed treatment for Ebola, so health workers can only provide supportive care to patients such as keeping them hydrated.
The Guinean student “is doing very well,” a doctor monitoring his case in Dakar said on Sunday.
“This morning when I called the hospital, the doctor told me that the patient had no complaints and that his fever had disappeared,” said Dr Gallaye Ka in an interview with the private radio station RFM.
Health care workers are especially vulnerable to infection. The WHO says 240 health workers have contracted the disease during the current outbreak and more than half of those have died.
In Sierra Leone on Sunday, officials said they had avoided a strike threatened by workers at an Ebola treatment centre in the east of the country, the region hardest hit by the outbreak.
Protective equipment is being sent to the health workers and a “monthly incentive allowance” will be paid on Monday, health ministry spokesperson Sidie Yahya Tunis told The Associated Press.
Senegal Ebola case ‘a top priority emergency’ - WHO
Nigeria, however, has seen its hopes of containing the virus dashed with the outbreak in its oil-producing hub, 435 kilometres (270 miles) east of Lagos.
The city is home to a number of global oil and gas majors. Anglo-Dutch giant Shell and France's Total said this week that the arrival of Ebola has not affected operations.
Chevron said it, too, was closely monitoring developments and implementing "precautionary measures" for its work force.
http://news.yahoo.com/widow-nigerias-sixth-ebola-victim-virus-135345158.html
Ebola in Port Harcourt is Nigeria’s worst nightmare come true.
My dad worked out of Port Harcourt for years and we know people who still fly in/out of there via MMA in Lagos.
It has yet to be determined how forcefully the Nigerians handle this. They have the money for a police state and the ability to supply a quarantined area if they so choose. Unlike Liberia/SierraLeone/Guinea/Senegal/etc.
Thanks for all your effort on this thread.
Very welcome. We still have friends over there and more friends that still work out of there.
I saw reference to the Spanish potential case on social media last night.
Hopefully all these negatives really ARE negatives and this stuff stays away.
“Ebola: Late Doctor Enemuo’s Sister, Chinyere, Quarantined in Rivers”
““She is among the 50 high risk contacts in our list. We decided to take her to the isolation unit to make assurance surer. We are currently running a test on her and the result will be out by Tuesday, or thereabout. We chose to isolate her because we don’t want to go through the same experience we had with the diplomat, Olubukun Koye”.”
Sounds like they’ve learned their lesson with trusting potential runners. Especially one who has already run before...
Ebola: Six 'high risk' passengers quarantined at Delhi airport
New Delhi: Six people deemed "high risk" Ebola suspects were today admitted to a quarantine facility at Delhi airport, health ministry said on Monday.
The suspects were among 181 passengers who arrived in India from the affected western African countries.
As of today, the ministry said, as many as 816 passengers were being tracked by authorities under Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme.
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