Posted on 08/04/2012 5:04:42 PM PDT by Mother Abigail
It’s red alert over possible Ebola case Sunday, 05 August 2012 02:42
By Joas Kaijage, The Citizen Correspondent
Bukoba. A state of alert has been imposed along the Tanzania border with Uganda following fears over a suspected outbreak of Ebola in Kagera Region.
However, medical personnel said the case was yet to be confirmed until samples from a six-year-old boy admitted to Nyakahanga hospital in Karagwe will be sent for further laboratory tests in Uganda.
In an exclusive interview with The Citizen on Sunday, the Karagwe District medical officer, Dr Elias Mayala, said the patient from Nyakatuntu Village has been under quarantine in an isolated room at Nyakahanga hospital awaiting confirmation of the tests.
In the interim, Dr Mayala said, district authorities had mounted a strict surveillance of the Mutukula and Murongo border posts. This includes deployment of medical personnel to stop the disease from spreading to Tanzania.
He said among other routines, the medical personnel at the border posts were responsible for holding awareness raising meetings on the deadly disease. They were also ensuring that they detect early enough possible cases among visitors crossing to the other side.
He said along with the efforts, local FM radio stations in the area have been engaged in disseminating messages on prevention. They are especially used to create awareness of its symptoms and how it spreads among border communities.
“In fact, it is not correct to say there is an outbreak of Ebola following this particular suspicion, but strict measures are inevitable to stop the disease from spreading to our side,” said Dr Mayala. Since the reported incident, authorities in Karagwe have also been carrying out investigations to uncover more information. They wish to know whether there is any other related cases near the village in Kieran District where the victim allegedly comes from.
An employee at the Nyakahanga hospital, who declined to be named because he was not the spokesperson, said the admitted Ebola- suspected child was placed under quarantine along with his mother. The employee said the child had clear signs of Ebola, including bleeding profusely through his ears and nose when relatives brought him to the Karagwe District Designated Hospital.
However, Kagera Regional Commissioner Fabian Massawe told The Citizen on Sunday in a telephone interview that reports of a possible outbreak of the life threatening disease in the region were shocking. He said Karagwe District was among the most vulnerable districts in the region following its closeness to Mbarara District in Uganda where the deadly disease has allegedly wreaked havoc in the recent past.
Last month, an outbreak of Ebola killed at least 14 people in mid-western Uganda. A team of health experts from the Centre for Disease Control (CDC), World Health Organisation and Uganda was immediately deployed to the area to begin emergency response measures, according to a statement released by the Uganda government.
The total number of people suspected to have caught the virus was 20. A clinical officer who treated the first case fell ill and died soon afterwards. Her four-month old baby who was admitted for treatment also died four days later. The virus which manifests itself as a hemorrhagic fever has in recent years killed at a rate of above 70 per cent of those infected and has been identified as Ebola Sudan. In 2000 it killed 224 people in Uganda after an outbreak.
Ebola was first reported in 1976 in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo and is named after the river where it was recognised, according to the CDC. Of the first 318 cases, 280 died soon after its outbreak. In that year, a total of 284 people in Sudan were also infected with the virus and 156 died.
According to clinical officers, the virus spreads through the blood, multiplying in many organs. It causes severe damage to the liver, lymphatic system, kidneys, ovaries and testes. Internal bleeding results in shock and acute respiratory distress, leading to death.
Once a patient is infected with Ebola, the incubation period is four to 16 days. The onset of the disease is sudden, with fever, chills, headache, anorexia and muscle pain. Bleeding occurs from multiple sites, including the digestive tract, lungs as well as gums and death occurs within seven to 16 days.
There is neither cure nor vaccine for the virus. The most effective way to reduce or prevent transmission in an outbreak is through the proper use of barrier protection for doctors and nurses. The reason is that people do not carry the virus for once sick their infected blood and bodily fluids infect others
Thank you for the ping.
You’re Welcome, Alamo-Girl!
You’re Welcome, Liberty Rocks!
You’re Welcome, blam! (more bumping!)
One of these years something like this is gonna run wild across the globe.
That’s Mother Abigail’s thesis in this interview (in case you haven’t seen it):
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2820204/posts
THE COMING WAVE
(An Interview With Mother Abigail)
Ebola fear hits Kagera
BY EMMANUEL ONYANGO
5th August 2012
A team of medical experts from Dar es Salaam was yesterday dispatched to Kagera region to further examine the two patients believed to be suffering from the Ebola hemorrhagic fever.
But as the team of medical experts was sent to Kagera region, the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare subsequently confirmed the outbreak of the deadly fever in the western part of the country.
Confirming the reports, the Deputy Minister for Health and Social Welfare, Dr Seif Seleman Rashid, also said that a team of medical experts was still diagnosing a patient in efforts to establish the symptoms.
In the meantime, reports from Nyakahanga designated hospital in Karagwe district, Kagera region indicate that there were two patients including a child, suspected to be suffering from the deadly fever that has rocked neighbouring Uganda.
According to one of the doctors who diagnosed the patient at Karagwe’s Nyakahanga hospital, preliminary findings show that the victim might have contacted the Ebola virus.
However, the doctor who requested anonymity told the Guardian on Sunday that ‘further medical examination’ would be conducted to gather more evidence about the possible outbreak of Ebola, adding that the patient had since been quarantined pending final results.
According to the doctor, the ‘Ebola patient’ was brought to the hospital on Friday morning and, upon diagnosis, it was established that the patient had suffered from Ebola. The patient who is a six-year-old child was brought to the Mulongo hospital by his mother from a village close to the Uganda-Tanzania boarder after the child developed severe symptoms.
“We are doing further medical examination on a patient … we will tell the general public once it is confirmed that we are dealing with Ebola virus infections,” the doctor said, adding that currently the patient alleged to have been infected was admitted in a separate room and now lives in isolation from other patients at the hospital.
He said preliminary check-ups found out that the diagnosis had all signs showed clear symptoms of Ebola – after which he ordered the patient to be admitted for closer monitoring locally, and further medical examination by medical experts from the ministry headquarters.
He added that the patient had since been placed in a special intensive care room which is out of bounds for all other people — apart from his mother who is taking care of the patient. However, he said, this was a medical rule aimed at avoiding quick spread of the deadly disease
Another patient also believed to have crossed the boarder from Uganda was admitted at the hospital as well, but medical investigations of his deteriorating health conditions were still not completed by Saturday evening.
As a precaution, the doctor said his hospital team and the district health workers had since started warning people in surrounding villages to take immediate measures whenever they come across such patients. He has also warned the people living closer to the border with Uganda to be careful not to come into contact with any person whom they see vomiting or bleeding – clear signs of someone suffering from Ebola.
On Wednesday this week, Dr. Mwinyi told visibly alarmed legislators in Dodoma that a team of medical experts had been dispatched to the border with Uganda, fully equipped with protective gear and medical supplies.
The minister advised the general public especially those living in the northern regions of Kagera, Mara, Mwanza and Kigoma — some of which share the border crossings with Uganda — to take precautions because the disease was highly contagious.
Earlier, the World Health Organization (WHO) had alerted Tanzania on the Ebola threat, prompting the ministry to issue a press statement elaborating that Ebola
(Ebola HF) was a severe, often-fatal disease in humans and nonhuman primates (monkeys, gorillas, and chimpanzees) that has appeared sporadically since its initial recognition in 1976.
The disease is caused by infection with Ebola virus, named after a river in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire), where it was first recognized.
The virus is one of two members of a family of RNA viruses called the Filoviridae; there are five identified subtypes of the Ebola virus — four of which have been known to cause disease in humans: Ebola-Zaire, Ebola-Sudan, Ebola-Ivory Coast and Ebola-Bundibugyo. The fifth, Ebola-Reston, has caused disease in nonhuman primates, but not in humans.
SOURCE: GUARDIAN ON SUNDAY
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Ebola scare as patient shows signs
By MAURICE KALUOCH
Posted Sunday, August 5 2012 at 23:30
IN SUMMARY
Hospital held emergency meeting after a woman started oozing blood from her body openings, a symptom of the dreaded ailment
Homabay District Hospital has been placed on a high alert for Ebola after a middle-aged female patient presented symptoms similar to those of the dreaded disease.
The Hospital’s medical superintended, Dr Ojwang Ayoma, was forced to summon the hospital’s top medical team that included doctors, clinical officers and nurses for an emergency meeting to discuss the development in the face of a possible outbreak.
This, was after it was discovered that the patient had blood coming out through all her body openings.
The woman was rushed to the hospital by an elderly relative after allegedly developing high fever, a sore throat and general body weakness.
The patient’s condition was said to have deteriorated late in the night with blood oozing from her body’s openings .
Dr Ayoma said, they were forced to isolate the patient together with her relative who was however unable to give a proper account of the history of the ailing relative.
The elderly woman told the hospital’s authorities that her sister-in-law resides at Sori market of Nyatike area in Migori County.
Dr Ayoma said that it was still premature to conclude that the patient had caught the Ebola virus, but was quick to point out that given the symptoms she had presented, and coupled with the current threats caused by the emergence of the disease in the neighbouring Uganda, they could not take chances.
“We have already set up a tent for both the victim and her relative as their blood samples have been sent to KEMRI for urgent analysis,” said Dr Ayoma.
The incident in Homa Bay has come in the wake of fears among Kenyans residing in the Migingo island of contracting the deadly Ebola virus through the free mingling of Kenyans and Ugandans on Lake Victoria.
The Island currently has close to 2000 fishermen from the two countries.
On Friday, Kenyans living on the disputed Migingo have expressed fears of contracting the haemorrhagic disease.
The fishermen and traders said their Ugandan counterparts were trooping to the island in large numbers to fish but were not being screened due to lack of personnel and equipment on the island.
Some of the fishermen expressed fears that they could easily contract the disease because of their daily interactions with their Ugandan counterparts who arrive every day.
Are there other diseases that make a person bleed from every orifice?
Yellow fever is one of several infectious diseases that can cause a hemorrhagic fever, a fever with organ failure resulting in bleeding complications.
Other viruses that can mimic Ebola disease are lassa fever, and dengue fever.
Dengue fever is something Floridians worry about from time to time. It’s been out of the news for a while, I assume it not a problem now. Never knew it could mimic Ebola. Thanks for the information Mother Abigail.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Aug. 6, 2012 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Tekmira Pharmaceuticals Corporation (Nasdaq:TKMR) (TSX:TKM), a leading developer of RNA interference (RNAi) therapeutics, today announced that it has received a temporary stop-work order from the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) with respect to Tekmira’s TKM-Ebola program. Other contractors have received similar notices as the DoD is under recently imposed funding constraints.
The worst case for any disease with a mortality rate this high is airborne transmission.
There is a strain of Ebola named Ebola Reston. This strain had a kill rate of over 90 percent, and it was airborne transmitted. It wiped out an entire laboratory in Reston, VA back in the 90’s.
The only upside to this virus is that it only affected monkeys. It killed every monkey in the lab.
Nine people have died in an outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Health Minister Felix Kabangue said on Saturday.
The deaths were among 11 “probable or confirmed” cases detected in the town of Isiro in the north of the country, the minister was quoted as saying in a statement released by the World Health Organisation.
Teams of doctors from the health ministry, the WHO, aid group Doctors Without Borders and the US-based Centres for Disease Control and Prevention were treating those infected, the statement added.
In western Uganda, about 50 kilometres (30 miles) from the border with DR Congo, 16 people have died from the virus since the start of July, although authorities say the outbreak there has been brought under control.
Looks like it is still on simmer...
Bumping to current.
Bump bump bump!
Ebola sometimes confused with malaria
Like some other freeper said:
“I never thought I’d say it but thank God it’s only Malaria!”
I used to know someone who claimed to have had malaria.
He must have lied because what he described sure couldn’t have been confused with ebola
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