Posted on 10/05/2014 4:45:31 PM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
PROVIDENCE , R.I. – The state health director appealed to a congregation of Liberian Americans Sunday to set aside their anger and mistrust of their home country’s faltering response to the Ebola outbreak to help stop an epidemic that has surely killed far more people than official estimates show.
“Ebola in Liberia isn’t a problem of a virus,” Dr. Michael Fine told about 150 members of the congregation of Christ Center of Praise. “It is a problem of poverty and mistrust.”
If members of Liberian enclaves around the United States, such as those in Rhode Island, Minneapolis and Dallas, call their West African relatives and share tips on preventing the spread of the disease, the effort could “save 1 million or 2 million lives,” he said.
Fine was invited to speak at the Pentecostal church on Prudence Street that serves many Rhode Island Liberians.
Fine said the number of Ebola cases in West Africa has been hugely underestimated. Part of the reason is because families don’t acknowledge their loved ones died of the incurable disease that kills half of those infected.
Last week the World Health Organization estimated that about 7,000 people in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea had contracted the disease and about 3,000 had died, said Fine. “We think the numbers are more like 15,000 infected and 7,000 deaths.”
In Liberia alone the WHO estimated last week that about 3,000 people had become infected since the outbreak and that half had died. But Fine said the “real numbers” are probably closer to 10,000 infections and 5,000 deaths. And those numbers double every 15 to 21 days, he said.
The risk of an Ebola outbreak here is “very small,” he said. Rhode Island Hospital is as prepared as it can be if a case of Ebola arises in the state. The biggest danger of the disease spreading here is if someone who has arrived recently from West Africa and is symptomatic doesn’t seek immediate treatment.
Therefore, it is very important, Fine said that people who come to the United States from West Africa and become ill and feverish within 21 days of their arrival immediately seek medical attention at an emergency room.
New York, Minnesota, Texas. Any other ‘enclaves’ reporting in?
Oh, oh. We're in deep doo doo here in America. There's a lot of that going around here in our "fundamentally transformed" country.
‘The People’s Republik of Madistan,’ has a ‘Liberian Assistance Program’ so one would THINK we have some ‘refugees’ or whatever they are, within our community.
They’re associated with a school named for 0bama and everything! *SPIT*
http://www.liberianassistanceprogram.org/
According to 0bama, so is Islamic terrorism
They should immediately return home to help!
“Any other ‘enclaves’ reporting in?”
Delaware
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3211703/posts
The virus isn’t the problem
Poverty and mistrust are?
Did I read that right?
The risk of an Ebola outbreak here is “very small,” he said. Rhode Island Hospital is as prepared as it can be if a case of Ebola arises in the state. The biggest danger of the disease spreading here is if someone who has arrived recently from West Africa and is symptomatic doesn’t seek immediate treatment.
Therefore, it is very important, Fine said that people who come to the United States from West Africa and become ill and feverish within 21 days of their arrival immediately seek medical attention at an emergency room.
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I hope that they are better prepared than the Dallas Hospital was. I have another idea different from his:
I would have stopped that first sentence a little sooner: The biggest danger of the disease spreading here is if someone who has arrived recently from West Africa.
The second sentence would be an entirely different conclusion: It is important to restrict travel of people from the impacted areas so that they don’t arrive in the USA.
Should they manage to dodge the quarantine, they should make sure that every one they talk to is informed that they are from West Africa where the Ebola outbreak is happening.
That’s just me, I tend to be cautious.
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