Posted by Jack
Excerpts from the Washington Post 15 Oct 2014
“It is impossible to keep up with the sheer number of infected people pouring into facilities. In Sierra Leone, infectious bodies are rotting in the streets.” – Dr. Joanne Liu, the international president of Doctors Without Borders. The reason Ebola has exploded beyond containment in West Africa is because governments there are utterly unable to contain it.
“What is not getting said publicly, despite briefings and discussions in the inner circles of the world’s public health agencies, is that we are in totally uncharted waters and that Mother Nature is the only force in charge of the crisis at this time.” – Michael T. Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, printed in the New York Times on Sep. 11, 2014
Even with the help of western governments and the United Nations, areas that authorities once announced were “eradicated” have now flared back up with new infections.
“Liberia is facing a serious threat to its national existence,” Samukai told the U.N. Security Council. “The deadly Ebola virus has caused a disruption of the normal functioning of our state.”
Ebola, he added, “is now spreading like wildfire, devouring everything in its path. The already weak health infrastructure of the country has been overwhelmed.”
On Monday, the World Health Organization declared that cases are “increasing exponentially” in the Ebola-ravaged West African country, which is home to more than 4 million people.
Before the Ebola outbreak began, Liberia — a country with a population roughly equal to Kentucky’s, about 4.4 million — had just one doctor per 100,000 people. The USA has about 238 per 100K. Desperate people would love to escape Western Africa and come to America for life saving medical care. Some that can afford will certainly try to come. -PS
a London epidemiologist who is studying Ebola’s spread in Monrovia has said that the rapidly spreading virus has the potential to infect the majority of Liberia’s population, according to Britain’s Channel 4 News.
“We are overwhelmed,” Sophie Jane, a spokeswoman for Doctors Without Borders, told AFP on Wednesday at an Ebola unit in Monrovia. “The patients keep coming in (huge) numbers.”
A new model by Oxford University, published in the journal eLife, takes a look at the most likely explanation — that Ebola’s animal reservoir, fruit bats, could spread the disease in the animal kingdom and to humans through the dense forest that spans 22 countries.
Several species of fruit bats are suspected — though not confirmed — to carry Ebola without showing symptoms. Unlike humans and other animals who are likely to die from an Ebola infection, bats can carry the disease and infect other bats and animals, such as monkeys and rodents through migratory activities.
Medical Update: A 21 day quarantine, after being infected with the Ebola virus, has become the standard quarantine recommendation for avoiding the spread of the virus. That’s not long enough to eliminate the risk, suggested a new study published yesterday in PLOS Currents: Outbreaks.
By looking at data from past Ebola outbreaks, as well as the first nine months of the current Ebola outbreak, Drexel University environmental engineering professor Dr. Charles Haas pointed out that between 0.1 and 12 percent of the time, the incubation period for someone infected with Ebola was longer than 21 days. The 0.1 figure comes from the 1976 Ebola outbreak in Zaire, which had far fewer cases analyzed than the other Ebola outbreaks looked at in this study that have had a higher number of cases with longer incubation periods, such as the Ebola outbreak in Congo in 1995 and the current outbreak in West Africa.
“While the 21-day quarantine value, currently used, may have arisen from reasonable interpretation of early outbreak data, this work suggests reconsideration is in order and that 21 days might not be sufficiently protective of public health,” wrote Haas in the study.
How Ebola kills: The worm like virus attacks cells, first attaching itself to the outside and then invading to replicate itself. Then it causes the cells to explode, sending infectious particles everywhere in the body. This promotes terrible swelling and mass infections. It literally attacks every organ of the body and causes them to dissolve and fail. It moves very fast and can kill within 10-14 days. With the best medical treatment Ebola is about 60% fatal.
A Texas hospital lab supervisor who may have handled fluid samples from Ebola victim Thomas Eric Duncan is on a Carnival cruise ship in the Caribbean and has been quarantined on board, officials said Friday. The Texas Health Presbyterian hospital employee, who set sail from Galveston on Oct. 12, did not have “direct contact” with Duncan and “has not had a fever or demonstrated any symptoms of illness,” State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in a statement. Two nurses at the hospital, where Duncan died Oct. 8, have been infected by the virus – including one whose travel on a commercial flight to Cleveland prompted concerns over authorities’ handling of the outbreak in the United States.
The Carnival Magic was being held off the coast of Belize Friday until the lab worker could be removed and taken back to the U.S. “At this time, the guest remains in isolation on board the ship and is not deemed to be a risk to any guests or crew,” Carnival said in a statement. “It is important to reiterate that the individual has no symptoms and has been isolated in an extreme abundance of caution.” The Belize Government confirmed it was in touch with U.S. authorities.
Psaki’s statement noted that the worker had set sea before the Center for Disease Control stepped up its monitoring program. “It has been 19 days since the passenger may have processed the since-deceased patient’s fluid samples,” the statement said.
Once more, lacking immediate and effectual direction from the WH or Obamas appointees at the CDC, which has even been reported by the liberal media, the public is being exposed to a virus with deadly consequences.
Why are trained professionals who actions are thoughtless to others being allowed to move freely using public transportation as a “petri dish” and allowed to expose us needlessly?
I feel this WH self interest of wants might be the only protocol taught by Obama and/or his appointees.
And in a false attempt to save face,I would expect that acting director Dr. Tom Frieden be the next head to roll as the WH looks to point a finger somewhere/anywhere, while they look to save face prior to the November elections.
101st Airborne Won’t Get Full Protective Hazmat Suits for Ebola Mission in West Africa.
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2014/10/101st-airborne-wont-get-full-protective-hazmat-suits-for-ebola-mission-in-west-africa/
Famous last words: “The administration says they won’t need them.”
And EBOLA would not reach American shores.
What’s with the you can give someone EBOLA on a bus but you can’t get EBOLA on a bus? I’ve been otherwise occupied of late.