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Posted on 05/04/2005 12:42:04 AM PDT by Judith Anne
Welcome to the Marburg Surveillance Project.
This thread will be used for all of the latest Marburg Outbreak News and comments. This is the place to post all comments about the Marburg outbreak, all articles and links to articles about the Marburg outbreak.
We're going to use just one thread instead of having to go from article to article as we have in the past. We'll use this thread as long as we can.
These are the same numbers as yesterday. Indeed, the total cases has now gone down to 308 from 313.
Betcha 5 died.
Betcha they weren't Marburg too.
bump
I'm not sure why we're worried about cluttering up the forum with individual threads. Are we just leaving more room for the dozens of threads about an Ann Coulter heckler? In the overall scheme of things, which issue is more important?
It's a slow news day,not much else to quibble about--except the Angolan Health Minister is apparently went to the same school of public speaking as the Iraqi Minister of Information... ;-)
Good point, maybe Judith Anne could ping if there is a major news story (e.g. a WHO or MSF update)?
My problem w/ multiple threads is that yesterday, I lost track of stuff on the other Marburg thread.
That can certainly happen if a thread is posted without Marburg in the title or as a keyword.
I can see your point. There are several benefits, for me, that outweigh the difficulties.
First of all, multiple threads were difficult--making sure that all the information available each particular day got to all the threads was confusing for me, and people would tend to congregate on one thread or the other, so they wouldn't get the day's total information. Often, points would come up on one that were answered on the other.
Second, the ping list--there are three of us keeping a master ping list: bitt, 2ndreconmarine, and me. Each of us gets requests to be put on or taken off the list, and each of us notifies the other two. Maintenance hasn't been too heavy, but when there is more than one article to ping people to, plus a few to take on, and take off, etc., well, I only have a limited amount of time-
Third, we can use the ping list for new articles posted on this thread. That way, you can be assured of getting a ping to a new article. If the poster of the article lets one of the three of us know, we can ping. We were doing that anyway on multiple threads.
Fourth, there's a database of earlier articles here, on post 15 and post 22--having them all in one place to refer back to is priceless.
The main drawback I see is having to check each day. I used to solve that problem on the Threat Matrix threads by pinging myself where I left off reading.
One important question I have in my own mind is this: The information on this thread is, so far, dense and convenient. Sliding into chat could be a problem. I recommend we don't, but that's impossible to predict or prevent.
I do hope you'll take advantage of this thread. I suspect we'll know very quickly if it is or isn't going to work well for most people. If it doesn't work, we can always go back to the old way, we haven't lost anything and we have a good resource.
Is that helpful?
I will, and I'll give the post # too.
A minor objection I have to it is that extended threads become a club. New readers are rarely attracted to a thread that's 1000 posts old and they've seen scroll past on Latest Posts for days. A big development, like an outbreak in Luanda, might pass unnoticed for them. We may be doing them a disservice. "Marsburg Surveillance Project" is accurate but it doesn't sound like something new, breaking, or fresh.
So, I dunno. There are pros and cons to each approach. Fresh pings will work for me, but will they attract new talent that signs up at this forum who might help us better understand this outbreak? Or alert current members to important developments?
Maybe the solution is to go with the ping thing, but also create a duplicate fresh thread if there's a major development. By major, I mean something that ought to make the average Freeper concerned, and that's a high threshold. Most Freepers think that a virus in a remote province of Africa is not a concern.
Bookmark.
I read everything I can find on FR about Marburg, although I add nothing since I know nothing. I just absorb.
Thanks to you, and everyone else, for you efforts to find out and inform.
I agree with your points. And a separate thread if there's major news is a good idea--anyone could post one of those, and ping me or bitt or 2ndreconmarine. It could be discussed on the forum, and then a link plus text posted on the Marburg thread also.
It's an idea. We don't know if it will work--or if it will be more trouble than the old way, or a convenient new way, or whatever.
But it might, and I'm willing to try.
No one of us ever knows when they will have a piece of the puzzle, or when something will fall into place that was odd before...
If you find something that we haven't found, please post it on this thread. News is slim...
MSF has a Q&A with a doctor back from Angola. Nothing really new except that the 2 male nurses died in Songo Town not Uige Town (both in Uige Province of course).
I used google to translate the site.
http://www.paris.msf.org/site/actu.nsf/complements/marburg030505c2?OpenDocument&loc=au
We really know nothing about the survivor, nothing at all.
Would you please put the google-translated article up? I'll use the ping list on it.
TESTIMONY
Sophie Duterme, doctor, tell her mission in the province of Uige
Put on line on May 3, 2005
Sophie Duterme, young Belgian doctor, is back of Angola, where it took part in the emergency intervention of MSF against the hemorrhagic epidemic of fever of Marburg in the province of Uige. Sophie worked in Songo, in the North-East of the town of Uige, where about fifteen people already died of fever of Marburg. Maintenance.
" SOPHIE, CAN YOU BRIEFLY TELL YOUR ARRIVAL WITH SONGO?
I landed on April 8 with Luanda, the capital, and I arrived at Songo Sunday 10. At the beginning, we were three: a nurse coordinatrice of the project, a specialist in hygiene and cleansing, and myself. One asked me to leave for Angola because I had already worked within the framework of the epidemic of Ebola (note: a disease very close to the fever of Marburg) in democratic Republic of Congo (RDC) in 1998 and which I laid out of a certain experiment.
On our arrival at the hospital, the members of the personnel of health rather calm, were not panicked. They had already received a formation and material of protection. None of them had still fallen sick to the hospital. Perhaps moreover, the personnel had a false feeling of safety and did not take enough precautions. Thereafter, two male nurses died.
" WHICH A BE INITIAL REACTION OF LÉQUIPE OF MSF?
Initially, we evaluated the situation and prepared the installation of a unit of insulation within the hospital of the city. We also distributed material and trained the personnel of health with measurements of universal and specific precautions. We tried to make us a clearer image of the epidemic by investiguant the suspect, probable and confirmed cases of Marburg and by identifying the bonds existing between these cases.
" HOW YOUR WORK IS PERCEIVED BY THE POPULATION?
From the very start, work with the population was capital. If we want that our work has the least impact, it is necessary to explain what is the disease and of what our work consists. For example, it is very significant that we do not arrive as of the "cosmonauts" in combinations which come to carry the sick children. When we go in the villages in the search of suspect cases of Marburg, we are able initially into civil to inform us, discuss, explain. The next day, we return in "behaviour of surgeon" and, only when we approach a patient, we thread our protection equipement.
For the moment, people die mainly on their premises because they often refuse to be hospitalized to remain with their close relations. However, to isolate the patients is essential and it should well be explained. A person specialized in information and sensitizing left mid-April for Angola besides in order to inform the communities and to form of Angolais to this work of sensitizing and information.
" THE FEVER OF MARBURG EAST A FATAL DISEASE AND CONTAGIOUS FOR WHICH IT NEXISTE NO TREATMENT. HOW DOES ONE REACT TO CONTACT DUNE SUCH DISEASE?
Every evening, I remade film of the day and I thought of the least trick, with the least measurement of precaution than I had been able to forget. I remembered that somebody had sneezed in front of me. I wondered whether to me were not touched the face by removing the material of protection. It is perhaps exaggerated but one thinks of it. Then one speaks about it with the members about the team and one gives the things to their place. Sometimes it is more difficult still: one day, a male nurse angolais who had worked with us fell sick. Very quickly, its state was degraded. I really saw panic in his eyes because it knew that it was Marburg and that it was going to die. I could not even hold the hand to him to support it. In these cases there, it is very hard.
" WHICH ASSUMPTION OF RESPONSIBILITY CAN ONE OFFER TO THE PATIENTS?
As there is not curative treatment against the fever of Marburg, we give to the patients a treatment antibiotic and antipaludic because, in its initial phase, the disease can resemble paludism. We look after also the symptoms of the disease while managing with the patients of the anti-pains, by contributing them to réhydrater. We cannot make injections, because those present a high risk of contamination for the looking after personnel. It is a question above all of isolating the patients and of looking after them under human conditions.
" EC NEST NOT AN EASY SITUATION FOR A MÉDECIN&
Unfortunately, the patients with whom I was in contact were especially people deceased. In front of patients which one knows that they will die, one feels impotent. In spite of our imposing combinations of protection, one tries to show that us to them naps human, in their speaking or their making sign. It is significant to isolate the patients and to avoid the transmission of the disease. This logic is different from traditional medical logic because one does not cure. Then one clings to the fact that it is perhaps possible to avoid the propagation of the disease and that we can offer to the patients a human assumption of responsibility. With respect to the local community, it is a large difficulty because people do not see us curing our patients.
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