Posted on 08/09/2014 3:23:21 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Canadian health officials said a patient who returned from Nigeria has been put in isolation in a hospital in a suburb of Toronto.
The patient showed symptoms of fever and flu, possible signs of the deadly Ebola virus.
Nigeria is one of several countries in West Africa that has had confirmed cases of Ebola, in the world's largest ever outbreak of the deadly hemorrhagic fever.
961 people have died following the outbreak and nearly 1,800 people have been infected since the beginning of the year.
The unnamed male patient was being treated at the William Osler Health System's Brampton Civic Hospital.
Earlier, Nigeria confirmed two new cases of Ebola, bringing the total number of infections in the country to nine, including two deaths.
"We have an additional two confirmed cases. So the total now, we have nine confirmed cases (including two deaths). The same two we told you about: the index case and the health worker," Health Minister Onyebuchi Chukwu said.
It comes after President Goodluck Jonathan declared a national emergency over the deadly virus.
Nigeria currently has six suspected cases that are under investigation and a total of 139 people have been placed under surveillance, the minister said during a visit to Lagos.
"As we talk, we do have six suspected cases currently under investigation ... Now altogether, all those we have placed under surveillance stand at 139," he added.
An American-Liberian, who flew into the country from Monrovia, and a Nigerian nurse are the two people who have died of Ebola virus in Lagos in the last two weeks.
The minister said that the government had approved life insurance policy for all those taking care of Ebola virus patients and involved in contact-tracing.
The president earlier called on the population to avoid large gatherings in order to prevent the spread of the virus.
"Religious and political groups, spiritual healing centres, families, associations and other bodies should ... discourage gatherings and activities that may unwittingly promote close contact with infected persons or place others at risk," said a statement issued by the presidency.
President Jonathan also approved the immediate release of 1.9 billion naira (€8.7) to fund measures against the spread of the virus.
Measures to be taken include the setting up of additional isolation centres, screening at borders and contact-tracing.
In addition, the president warned against any movement of corpses to other parts of the country as well as spreading false information about the virus.
World Health Organisation chief Margaret Chan said in Geneva yesterday that the epidemic in west Africa which has killed nearly 1,000 people in Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria was the worst of its kind in four decades.
Ping...
Now the question is, if this patient is infected, how many have been infected by this patient?
the first Nigerian case was Dr. Sawyer. I wonder how this patient fits into the picture?
There is a little girl in my daughter’s daycare who went to Africa for the summer, now I am worried about her and what she might come back with...
Not counting all those who didn't show up to have their names officially put on the list. My, my how we've come in mere hours from no way, no how it's going to come this way to it is inevitable.
There are hundreds of arrivals from West Africa and Central Africa a week with fever.
I agree that they all will need to be screened. I will tell you that the capacity to “rule out” Ebola is very, very limited.
The need to test hundreds of people (most of whom or all of whom don’t have it) is going to cause major dislocations, fairly soon.
Post to me or FReep mail to be on/off the Bring Out Your Dead ping list.
The purpose of the “Bring Out Your Dead” ping list (formerly the “Ebola” ping list) is very early warning of emerging pandemics, as such it has a high false positive rate.
So far the false positive rate is 100%.
At some point we may well have a high mortality pandemic, and likely as not the “Bring Out Your Dead” threads will miss the beginning entirely.
*sigh* Such is life, and death...
Along with WHO declaring this Ebola outbreak an International Medical Emergency this Friday, one news article included a past comment by MSF that there were already 60 outbreak hotspots. There was no reference to when MSF made this statement. That number verifies that the Ebola virus has outrun available medical help. Just not enough medical help available.
If each hot spot has a minimal medical team of 2 doctors, say 4 nurses, 4 or 5 burial/clean up personel, that's about 600 total right there. That raises the question of who exactly is monitoring all the arrivals. The photos of airport screens pointing digital thermometers at passengers does not inspire confidence. I've also noticed in some photos that some screeners have mouth and nasal filter masks, plastic film gloves, sort of wife beater film bibs, but their forearms are bare. There are photos of public chlorine solution buckets for hand washing. The problem is they have turn faucets making the whole excercise seemingly futile.
Seems to me that draconian responses are inevitable given the current state of affairs.
Every simulation that's been run using real live politicians as actors (as well as the history of diseases like smallpox) demonstrate that, before a politician will make the CORRECT decision, the consequences of NOT MAKING that decision must have already occurred.
The airports in Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Liberia, and Ivory Coast should have been closed a week ago. If it were up to me, I would close Ghana/Togo/Benin/Burkina Faso and Bamako in Mali as well.
Why this has not been done is clear.
It is also clear that this will be done, but not until there are clusters in Arabia, Europe, and possibly South America with proof beyond a reasonable doubt of West African origin and dissemination by air travel.
Politicians JUST WILL NOT do the right thing until they are exposed by reality.
Two anecdotes from my career:
1) I was involved in a smallpox bioterrorism planning exercise in 2002. The politicians were debating about whether or not we needed judges on-call to sign isolation/quarantine orders after 4:30pm and on weekends. I told them I would need the army more than judges. When they asked why, I said, "To shoot exposed people who break the cordon". They thought it was a joke. It wasn't.
2) As part of the same exercise, I was doing logistics for mass vaccination AFTER an attack and confirmed spread. The then-governor was one of those "Because I can run a business, I can run the state" people. I had identified a local mall as the obvious mass vaccination site, but he wouldn't sign the (simulated) requisition orders. Why not? "Because we need people to keep shopping". Yes. Shopping. While smallpox was spreading explosively.
The modern world is not designed for epidemics of infectious disease. Things that would have been common-sense as recently as 1950 are now unthinkable.
Why in heaven’s name are countries not barring flights from locations where this disease is known to be running rampant?
Daycare is a great place to expose your precious children to all sorts of illnesses.
The need to test hundreds of people (most of whom or all of whom don’t have it) is going to cause major dislocations, fairly soon.
***
Playing into the progressives’ plans of disrupting our society.
Glad you asked.
Obama's CDC chief: "We’re not going to hermetically seal the borders of the US. We’re reliant and interdependent with the world for travel, for trade, for the economy, for our families and communities."
Bush's CDC Chief (regarding SARS): "It's very important to move away from the understanding of quarantine that we had a century ago, which was really something that was often very unfair and very difficult for the people who were involved in it. That is not the kind of quarantine that we're talking about in the 21st century,".
Army COS, after the Fort Hood massacre: “Our diversity, not only in our Army, but in our country, is a strength. And as horrific as this tragedy was, if our diversity becomes a casualty, I think that’s worse,” .
They all think alike, they all hold the same values. And they're all nuts.
Re: your point 1
And yet the public has been exposed to sci-fi thrillers since the fifties wherein the army was called out to stop space aliens, giant monsters, and deadly viruses. Seems to me that several generations have watched these and are conditioned at a deep level ready to accept that armed, locked and loaded troops means, “This S**t is SERIOUS”. And yet...
At the end of these simulations was there ever a finding that upon “expert consensus” , such as NEST teams had over riding emergency powers?
<Sarc. I mean at least as powerful as the EPA and IRS /sarc
Thanks for the reminder of the mindset of the idiots who will complete the destruction of our country and our culture — some willingly and some unwittingly.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.