HEALTH MAIN EBOLA DISCUSSION THREAD - WEEK OF 8/16/14 - 8/31/14

[Medical Maven]

Posted by Dr. Niman at this rhizalabs forum.

•50 people identified as high risk cases

•Amaechi to meet with church leaders, traditional rulers

Rivers State government has said that three persons have been identified and quarantined as in-house patients at the Ebola Isolation Unit, at Oduoha, in Emohua Local Government Area of the state.

This was disclosed yesterday, by the state Commissioner for Health, Dr. Samson Parker, while briefing journalists in Port Harcourt.

Dr. Parker stated that the three persons were out of the 50 persons that the State government classified as high risk contact, and currently placed under observation through its Contact Tracing Committee.

According to him, the three persons were a doctor and pharmacist, who work at Samstel Clinic, as well as a female patient that was treated at the Clinic.

Speaking further, the Health commissioner disclosed that 50 out of about 200 people under surveillance, were categorized as high risk because of their primary contact with the late Dr. Iyke Samuel Enemuo.

Also, Dr. Parker stated that about 60 people, who had secondary contact with the late Dr. Enemuo have not been located and appealed to them to submit themselves to the Rivers State government’s medical team as quickly as possible.

“Let me explain why: because of the stigma associated with the virus most people are reluctant to present themselves to our medical team. Although, we have identified about 200 people, we are still to be in touch with about 60 of them. But, 50 high risk contacts have been identified.

“These persons are not coming up because of the stigma, but we are still on them. For now, we are concentrating on these names that we have found, while work is going on to locate new persons that may have had secondary contacts with Dr. Enemuo. We are currently tracing them, so that we can capture them”.

Meanwhile, Dr. Parker had informed that Governor Chibuike Amaechi would meet with church and traditional leaders on Monday and Tuesday respectively.

The meeting would likely be in connection with the Ebola outbreak in the state.

http://sunnewsonline.com/new/?p=79643

______

MY COMMENT: Good luck on finding (and corralling) that "herd of cats". They be RUNNERS and HIDERS.

 

[Medical Maven]

Posted by Dr. Niman at the rhizalabs forum.

MY COMMENT: And what about the tracing of all of the contacts that this diplomat made as he skedaddled from Lagos to Port Harcourt while he was symptomatic? There was his transport to the airport, the airport itself in Lagos, the plane he flew in, the airport in Port Harcourt, and finally his transport to that hotel where he was treated by the now dead doctor. And did the diplomat stop anywhere on the way to and from either airport?




The official of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) who took Ebola to Port Harcourt has been identified as Olu-Ibukun Koye. Koye made contact with index case, Patrick Sawyer but later fled quarantine despite showing symptoms of the disease.

He travelled to Port Harcourt where he hired Dr. Iyke Samuel Enemuo to treat him at Mandate Hotel. Koye recovered from the disease and returned to Lagos where he was given a clean bill of health but Dr. Enemuo died on Friday, August 22, 2014.

The truth only came out when the diplomat heard of the doctor’s demise and then confessed that he had travelled to Port Harcourt.Enemuo’s wife and child have been quarantined and about 200 people have also been placed under observation.Reports have it that Koye might face charges of manslaughter for his actions which led to Enemuo’s death.

http://www.24dailygist.com/2014/08/...mpaign=meet-diplomat-took-ebola-port-harcourt

 

[Medical Maven]

Posted by Monotreme at the PFI Forum.

MY COMMENT: Okay here is grist for the mill for you modelers out there on TB2. Oh, it does not look good.


Disease modelers project a rapidly rising toll from Ebola
http://news.sciencemag.org/health/2014/08/disease-modelers-project-rapidly-rising-toll-ebola
Kai Kupferschmidt 31 August 2014

Alessandro Vespignani hopes that his latest work will turn out to be wrong. In July, the physicist from Northeastern University in Boston started modeling how the deadly Ebola virus may spread in West Africa. Extrapolating existing trends, the number of the sick and dying mounts rapidly from the current toll—more than 3000 cases and 1500 deaths—to around 10,000 cases by September 24, and hundreds of thousands in the months after that. “The numbers are really scary,” he says—although he stresses that the model assumes control efforts aren't stepped up. "We all hope to see this NOT happening," Vespigani writes in an e-mail.

Vespignani is not the only one trying to predict how the unprecedented outbreak will progress. Last week, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that the number of cases could ultimately exceed 20,000. And scientists across the world are scrambling to create computer models that accurately describe the spread of the deadly virus. Not all of them look quite as bleak as Vespignani's. But the modelers all agree that current efforts to control the epidemic are not enough to stop the deadly pathogen in its tracks.

Computer models “are incredibly helpful” in curbing an outbreak, says infectious disease researcher Jeremy Farrar, who heads the Wellcome Trust research charity in London. They can help agencies such as WHO predict the medical supplies and personnel they will need—and can indicate which interventions will best stem the outbreak. Mathematical epidemiologist Christian Althaus of the University of Bern, who is also building Ebola models, says both WHO and Samaritan's Purse, a relief organization fighting Ebola, have contacted him to learn about his projections.

But the modelers are hampered by the paucity of data on the current outbreak and lack of knowledge about how Ebola spreads. Funerals of Ebola victims are known to spread the virus, for example—but how many people are infected that way is not known. “Before this we have never had that much Ebola, so the epidemiology was never well developed,” says Ira Longini, a biostatistician at the University of Florida in Gainesville. “We are caught with our pants down.”

To a mathematician, combating any outbreak is at its core a fight to reduce one number: Re, the pathogen’s effective reproductive rate, the number of people that an infected person in turn infects on average. An Re above 1, and the disease spreads. Below 1, an outbreak will stall.

Outbreak models typically assume that there are four groups of people: those who are susceptible, those who have been infected but are not contagious yet, those who are sick and can transmit the virus, and those who have recovered. A model, in essence, describes the rates at which people move from one group to the next. From those, Re can be calculated.

If the disease keeps spreading as it has, most of the modelers Science talked to say WHO’s estimate will turn out to be conservative. “If the epidemic in Liberia were to continue in this way until the 1st of December, the cumulative number of cases would exceed 100,000,” predicts Althaus. Such long-term forecasts are error-prone, he acknowledges. But other modelers aren’t much more encouraging. Caitlin Rivers of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg expects roughly 1000 new cases in Liberia in the next 2 weeks and a similar number in Sierra Leone.

Vespignani has analyzed the likelihood that Ebola will spread to other countries. Using data on millions of air travelers and commuters, as well as mobility patterns based on data from censuses and mobile devices, he has built a model of the world, into which he can introduce Ebola and then run hundreds of thousands of simulations. In general, the chance of further spread beyond West Africa is small, Vespignani says, but the risk grows with the scale of the epidemic. Ghana, the United Kingdom, and the United States are among the countries most likely to have an introduced case, according to the model. (Senegal, which reported its first Ebola case last week, was in his top ten countries, too.)

The models are only as good as the data fed to them; up to three-quarters of Ebola cases may go unreported. The modelers are also assuming that key parameters, such as the virus’s incubation time, are the same as in earlier outbreaks. “We might be missing the boat and we have no signal to indicate that,” says Martin Meltzer of the U.S. Centers for Disease Prevention and Control in Atlanta.

The biggest uncertainty is how much doctors, nurses, and others can slow the virus. There are many ways of pushing down Re, Farrar says—washing hands, wearing masks, or quarantining people, for example. “But given the complexity of this outbreak and the limited resources, we need to find out what are the two or three things that will most help drive down infections,” Farrar says, and that’s where models can help. For instance, would following up on all the contacts of every case be more effective than following up on the much smaller number who had a certain type of contact with a case, such as sharing a room?

Rivers is evaluating interventions, such as increased use of protective equipment or campaigns to isolate infected people. In the most optimistic scenario, every contact of infected people is traced, and transmission in hospitals is reduced by 75%. Even that, while drastically reducing the number of Ebola deaths, did not push Re below one. MY COMMENT: FOOKED! No end in sight ever.

The challenge varies by country, Althaus says. “In Guinea and Sierra Leone, Re is close to 1 and the outbreak could be stopped if interventions improve a bit.” In Liberia, Re has been near 1.5 the whole time. “That means work is only just beginning there.” But Meltzer says there is no reason to believe the situation is any better in Sierra Leone. “We are not seeing any change in the rate of the accumulation of cases,” he says. MY COMMENT: From everything we have seen they have the Re wrong. So that means they should have come up with much worse results.

As models get better at differentiating what is happening in places, Rivers says, “you might be able to put firelines around certain communities.” But such measures are very controversial. When Liberia last week barricaded off West Point, a sprawling slum with probably more than 100,000 inhabitants, it drew a largely negative response. “Quarantines and curfews tend to instill fear and distrust towards the whole of the outbreak response including health structures,” a representative for Doctors Without Borders told Science. Paul Seabright, a researcher at the Toulouse School of Economics in France who has studied such measures, says they are an incentive for people to keep it secret if they have had contact with a patient. Liberia’s harsh actions are “the last thing this epidemic needs,” he says.

People in West Africa will have to alter behaviors, Meltzer says. “We won’t stop this outbreak solely by building hospitals. There will have to be a change in the way the community deals with the disease.” Modeling that is easy enough, Vespignani says. “I can decrease the transmission at funerals by 40% easily in a model. That’s one line of code. But in the field that is really hard.”
___

 

[Housecarl]

People in West Africa will have to alter behaviors, Meltzer says. “We won’t stop this outbreak solely by building hospitals. There will have to be a change in the way the community deals with the disease.” Modeling that is easy enough, Vespignani says. “I can decrease the transmission at funerals by 40% easily in a model. That’s one line of code. But in the field that is really hard.”

Considering local attitudes and practices that's a pretty steep hill to climb to get ahead of this.

 

[Medical Maven]

I just posted this at the PFI Forum. I think the CDC is feeding crapola to these modelers. Pixie and Monotreme think the Re (RO) is closer to 7 or 8.

Monotreme wrote:
Scary graph at link.

Disease modelers project a rapidly rising toll from Ebola
http://news.sciencemag.org/health/2014/08/disease-modelers-project-rapidly-rising-toll-ebola
Kai Kupferschmidt 31 August 2014

Alessandro Vespignani hopes that his latest work will turn out to be wrong. In July, the physicist from Northeastern University in Boston started modeling how the deadly Ebola virus may spread in West Africa. Extrapolating existing trends, the number of the sick and dying mounts rapidly from the current toll—more than 3000 cases and 1500 deaths—to around 10,000 cases by September 24, and hundreds of thousands in the months after that. “The numbers are really scary,” he says—although he stresses that the model assumes control efforts aren't stepped up. "We all hope to see this NOT happening," Vespigani writes in an e-mail.

Vespignani is not the only one trying to predict how the unprecedented outbreak will progress. Last week, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that the number of cases could ultimately exceed 20,000. And scientists across the world are scrambling to create computer models that accurately describe the spread of the deadly virus. Not all of them look quite as bleak as Vespignani's. But the modelers all agree that current efforts to control the epidemic are not enough to stop the deadly pathogen in its tracks.


To a mathematician, combating any outbreak is at its core a fight to reduce one number: Re, the pathogen’s effective reproductive rate, the number of people that an infected person in turn infects on average. An Re above 1, and the disease spreads. Below 1, an outbreak will stall.


The challenge varies by country, Althaus says. “In Guinea and Sierra Leone, Re is close to 1 and the outbreak could be stopped if interventions improve a bit.” In Liberia, Re has been near 1.5 the whole time. “That means work is only just beginning there.” But Meltzer says there is no reason to believe the situation is any better in Sierra Leone. “We are not seeing any change in the rate of the accumulation of cases,” he says.



Where are they getting those "Re"s? From the CDC?

Everything we have seen looks to be much higher than that.

Garbage in, garbage out.
_________________

 

[Housecarl]

Pixie and Monotreme think the Re (RO) is closer to 7 or 8.

EEK!!!!!

 

[SheWoff]

EBOLA:NIGERIAN DIPLOMAT, OLUBUKUN KOYE TO FACE MANSLAUGHTER CHARGES FOR INFECTING PH DOCTO

EBOLA:NIGERIAN DIPLOMAT, OLUBUKUN KOYE TO FACE MANSLAUGHTER CHARGES FOR INFECTING PH DOCTOR

A Nigerian diplomat attached to the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), Olubukun Koye who escaped from quarantine in Lagos after testing positive to Ebola virus and travelled to Port Harcourt for treatment, an action that resulted in the death of the doctor who treated him (Iyke Enemuo) may face manslaughter charges. This is coming on the heels of report that the number of persons under surveillance in the state forEbola Virus Disease has increased from 100 to 160. According to Thisday,Sources said that the issue of Koye (a primary contact of the index case, late Liberian Partick Sawyer) who defied instruction not to leave Lagos after being placed in the isolation unit, was discussed at the Federal Executive Committee meeting on Wednesday and that the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation Mohammed Adoki was directed to look into the Nigerian laws and see how he could be sanctioned for his action that resulted in the death of Enemuo.

Read more at: http://naijalog.com/ebolanigerian-d...manslaughter-charges-for-infecting-ph-doctir/

 

[SheWoff]

Number of dead health workers climbs as Ebola epidemic continues to spread

By Agence France-Presse
Sunday, August 31, 2014 13:37 EDT

A Doctor's Without Borders (MSF) medical worker wears protective clothing at an MSF Ebola treatment facility in Kailahun, Sierra Leone, on Aug. 15, 2014 [AFP]


Nigeria on Sunday confirmed a fresh case of Ebola in a doctor whose husband died from the virus, adding to a growing list of healthcare workers in West Africa hit by the epidemic.

The woman’s husband was also a doctor and died in the city of Port Harcourt on August 22 after treating a patient who had contact with a Liberian man who brought the virus to Nigeria in late July.

She was in stable condition at an isolation unit in the financial capital, Lagos, said Sampson Parker, the health commissioner of Rivers State, of which Port Harcourt is the capital.

Nigeria’s medics have paid a heavy price in the outbreak: of the six people who have died from the disease in Africa’s most populous nation, two have been doctors and two others nurses.

Another doctor and a pharmacist were put into isolation at a unit outside Port Harcourt, Parker said.

“They have not been confirmed (as having Ebola) and we are awaiting the result of investigation,” he told a news conference.

The World Health Organization has voiced concern about the number of healthcare workers hit by the Ebola outbreak: more than 120 health workers have died and over 240 others infected so far.

The disease has killed a total of 1,552 people and infected 3,062 as of August 26, according to WHO figures.

In Guinea, where 430 people have died in all, nurses told AFP they lacked basic medical equipment to treat patients and had even bought items such as gloves and protective clothing themselves.

- Travel restrictions -

In Senegal, doctors were treating a young Guinean man who became the country’s first confirmed case of the disease. He was said to be in a “satisfactory” condition in hospital on Saturday.

The case lends credence to fears that the haemorrhagic fever, for which there is currently no vaccine, is spreading rapidly.

At current infection rates, it could take six to nine months and at least $490 million to bring under control, by which time over 20,000 people could be affected, the WHO has warned.

In Liberia, hardest hit by the outbreak with 694 deaths, the government has denied permission for any crew to disembark from ships docking at any of the country’s four ports.

Medical screening of passengers was also causing long delays at Monrovia’s international airport but a 21-day quarantine thrown around the city’s West Point neighbourhood was lifted on Saturday.

Air travel to West Africa has been badly hit by the disease. Eight of the 11 international airlines serving Monrovia have suspended flights, including British Airways and Air France.

The WHO and the West African regional bloc ECOWAS have both called for travel bans to be lifted, saying medical screening should identify at-risk passengers instead.

- Football qualifiers -

The Ebola crisis has cast doubt over a number of international football fixtures involving the worst-hit countries, with qualifying beginning next week for the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations.

Sierra Leone, where 422 people have died so far, named a 20-man squad consisting entirely of foreign-based players for its matches against Ivory Coast and the DR Congo.

But Ivory Coast’s government has refused to allow the game to be played in Abidjan and not announced an alternative venue. The Ivorians risk forfeiting the match if they fail to show up.

Ebola-linked restrictions have led to sporadic violence in recent weeks. In Guinea, 55 people were injured in N’Zerekore after two days of protests this week over a government-imposed curfew.

The WHO has credited public health campaigns, especially in Guinea and Nigeria, for limiting the transmission of Ebola.

Guinea-Bissau, currently Ebola-free, on Saturday announced a national hygiene drive, with the cleaning and disinfection of public places on the last Saturday of every month.

Nigeria, however, has seen its hopes of containing the virus dashed with the outbreak in its oil-producing hub, 435 kilometres (270 miles) east of Lagos.

The city is home to a number of global oil and gas majors. Anglo-Dutch giant Shell and France’s Total said this week that the arrival of Ebola has not affected operations.

Chevron said it, too, was closely monitoring developments and implementing “precautionary measures” for its workforce.

Agence France-Presse

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/08/...mic-continues-to-spread/#.VANioRRlNs4.twitter

 

[SheWoff]

In the most optimistic scenario, every contact of infected people is traced, and transmission in hospitals is reduced by 75%. Even that, while drastically reducing the number of Ebola deaths, did not push Re below one. MY COMMENT: FOOKED! No end in sight ever.

First off, there is NO way now that they can run down every contact of every infected person. They have run off to other countries or into the bush, etc... And as for decreasing the transmission in the health care setting, how? Just how when you have a lot of the staff themselves becoming infected? Not realistic, just optimistic lol. I'm with you MM in the fooked camp. And someone up there in the thread said something about news slowing down? Yep had to scour about for just those two new stories. Most seem to be a rehash of already reported things or feel good pieces. It's slowing to a trickle quickly.

She

 

[Melodi]

You know, I understand that feelings are high in situations like this but I think they should wait in the manslaughter charges because at least the guy did go see a doctor, it was not done well and I gather he wasn't totally honest; and charges might be appropriate at some point. But right now, the authorities really don't want to scare people, even "runners" from turning themselves in to medical professionals, I am very much concerned that the charges will have the unintended consequences of insuring that more people die as infected people (especially the educated) panic and run to their homes, other villages or just refuse to go to the hospital until they have infected their entire family and neighbors. I mean that is happening anyway, but my guess is the government wants to send a message to people that to infect people is manslaughter but I'm not sure that is exactly the message that will come across in third world countries where people are already scared of being sent to a quarantine to die.

 

[Countrymouse]

First off, there is NO way now that they can run down every contact of every infected person. They have run off to other countries or into the bush, etc... And as for decreasing the transmission in the health care setting, how? Just how when you have a lot of the staff themselves becoming infected? Not realistic, just optimistic lol. I'm with you MM in the fooked camp. And someone up there in the thread said something about news slowing down? Yep had to scour about for just those two new stories. Most seem to be a rehash of already reported things or feel good pieces. It's slowing to a trickle quickly.

She

So....until Mz Kitty returns, is there anyone more skilled on Twitter (because I most definitely am NOT) who can try to find any tweets from folks ON THE GROUND IN THE INFECTED COUNTIES who are posting about the situation there?

It's odd that in a country where they don't even have running water, I remember reading MANY have smart phones...so getting news via Twitter, as we had to do for any "real" news from Ukraine, the ISIS invasion, and the Israel / Gaza action, may be our only choice....

 

[Lilbitsnana]

We interrupt the hysteria party with, perhaps, some truth and clarity.

http://presstv.com/detail/2014/08/09/374593/ebola-threat-real-or-false-flag/

" The mainstream media is hyping the "biggest ever" Ebola outbreak in West Africa.

We are told that the dread disease, which produces symptoms like something out of a horror movie, is spreading to the USA. Some Americans are canceling their vacations and refusing to fly, believing that they might catch Ebola on an airplane.

People are being terrorized by horrific images, fear of a quick and awful death, and fear of airplanes. The fears are out of all proportion to the reality of the threat. Where have we seen this before?

On September 11th, 2001, the American public was subjected to trauma-based mind control – an intensive form of the brainwashing technique known as coercion, described in a book by Douglas Rushkoff of the same name. Trauma-based mind control uses extreme fear or horror to shape the subconscious minds of its victims. It is a highly effective technique for making people submit to authority without realizing what they are doing or why.

In the autumn of 2001, we were brainwashed into believing that radical Muslims, using airplanes, anthrax, and who knows what else, were willing and able to kill large numbers of Americans. As a result, the US went to war against Muslim nations, persecuted Muslims worldwide, shredded the Constitution, threw away trillions of dollars, and risked moral as well as fiscal bankruptcy.

Since then, evidence that the 9/11-anthrax scare was a hoax has left many Americans sadder but wiser. Today, whenever the government and mainstream media begin terrorizing people with a hyped-up menace, knowledgeable observers ask themselves: Is this threat real? Or just another false flag?

In an exclusive interview with Truth Jihad Radio, Dr. Garth Nicolson, a leading expert in emerging diseases and biological warfare, suggested that the Ebola threat has been exaggerated due to the spectacular nature of the symptoms. Indeed, Dr. Nicolson suggested that it is precisely those spectacular symptoms, which show up very quickly, that make Ebola relatively easy to contain:

"If you have a vicious, highly lethal disease like Ebola, that gains a lot of attention. But you can isolate those patients immediately, and that contains the whole process."

A spectacular disease that gains a lot of attention, but is incapable of killing a large number of people, is ideal for false-flag manipulations of public opinion. One of the leading indicators of a false flag is disproportion between the event's massive public relations impact and the feeble reality of the alleged threat.

This pattern has existed for centuries.

In early 17th-century England, Robert Cecil's war party wanted to launch an assault on the Spanish and Portuguese empires, but was constrained by the irenic policies of King James and some of his advisors, and by the recalcitrance of peace-loving public opinion. Since Spain and Portugal were Catholic countries, Cecil needed to convince his countrymen that they faced a terrifying "Catholic threat." So he found a radical Catholic agitator, Guy Fawkes, put Fawkes and a few barrels of soggy gunpowder in a tunnel beneath the Parliament building, and had him arrested according to plan.

Cecil's plot worked to perfection. From every Anglican pulpit in the land, preachers denounced the evil Catholic extremists who had nearly blown up the entire British government. The British public entered a state of anti-Catholic hysteria similar to America's post-9/11 anti-Muslim hysteria. And Cecil got his war.

In fact, British Catholics had posed little or no actual threat to anyone. But due to the enormous public relations impact of Cecil's gunpowder plot, the public was convinced that a wave of Catholic mayhem was washing over their shores.

The US government, like the British government, has repeatedly convinced its citizens to fear an exaggerated or nonexistent threat. In 1847 Washington fabricated a phony "Mexican invasion." In fact, Mexico was much weaker than the US and posed no threat whatsoever. But frightening headlines stampeded Americans into war against Mexico, and Washington stole nearly half of Mexico's territory.

In 1898 a fake "Spanish threat" was fabricated by the false-flag sinking of the U.S.S. Maine in Havana Harbor. In reality, Spain posed no threat to the US; being the weaker party, it wanted to avoid war. But once again, Americans were brainwashed into fearing a non-existent threat by a false flag attack. And once again, Washington used the ensuing hysteria to grab large swathes of territory for its bankers and capitalists to feed upon.

Prior to World War I, a nonexistent German threat to the US was manufactured by two public relations stunts: The forged Zimmerman Telegram that convinced Americans Germany was conspiring with Mexico to invade the USA; and the orchestrated sinking of the weapons-laden passenger liner "Lusitania." Americans arose in hysterical fear of Germans – and went to war on behalf of the British and their Zionist financiers.

Washington and London also dragged the US into World War II through a fabricated threat. They used an Eight Point Plan that included cutting off Japan's oil supplies to force Japan to attack the US at Pearl Harbor. The shocking, spectacular newsreel footage convinced Americans that they faced a horrific threat from Japan and its German ally. In fact, had the US simply remained neutral, it never would have faced any such threat.

In the 1960s, another nonexistent threat – this time from Vietnam – was fabricated to drag the US into full-scale war against that country. A fake Vietnamese attack on America, the famous Gulf of Tonkin Incident, was arranged.

These are just a few of the many examples showing that media-hyped public hysteria is almost always in service to a hidden agenda.

What might be the hidden agenda of the Ebola scare?

Researcher Anne Sullivan argues that an orchestrated Ebola outbreak in America could be used to "create a level six pandemic emergency that includes mandated vaccines, which will contain their patented weaponized Ebola." This nightmarish worst-case scenario envisions the eugenicist faction of the global elite using a fake Ebola threat to create a real one.

With or without an actual threat, the US government could use the specter of an emergency pandemic to lock down Americans and remove the few remaining shreds of their Constitutional rights. President Obama recently signed an amendment to George W. Bush's Executive Order 13295, which authorizes the “apprehension, detention, or conditional release of individuals to prevent the introduction, transmission, or spread of suspected communicable diseases.” Obama's amendment broadens the order to allow the detention of unlimited numbers of Americans based on mere suspicion that they have a dangerous illness.

Why would the US government manufacture a disease threat, real or feigned, as an excuse for martial law and mass detentions? It might do so as a pre-emptive measure against the likelihood of popular unrest when the dollar collapses and the American economy implodes. Currently the BRIC nations, led by Russia and China, are pulling the plug on the US dollar, which is swirling with increasing rapidity as it prepares to go down the drain. When the dollar takes its final plunge, Americans will face the full consequences of their government's squandering of trillions on the 9/11 wars. The likely result: A second American revolution.

If the US government can terrorize Americans with Ebola, militarize society, and lock up thousands or millions of people in concentration camps, it may be able to head off the revolution before it starts. That, at least, might be their plan.

But natural Ebola could not possibly create a pandemic in America. It is not easily transmissible, it lacks a long latency period, and it cannot survive outside the body except in extremely hot, humid temperatures.

So be forewarned: If the mainstream media reports an alleged Ebola pandemic in America, there are only two possibilities: Either they are lying, or they have created a synthetic, weaponized version of Ebola.

If that happens, we had better start the revolution...before they lock us up.

Or kill us. "

We interrupt the hysteria party with, perhaps, some truth and clarity.

The next time you are looking for "truth and clarity", you might want to use something other than an Iranian propaganda site for your facts.

That article has a LOT of w-r-o-n-g info in it.

 

[SheWoff]

Umaru Fofana @UmaruFofana · 1m
#Ebola claims the lives of two more nurses today at the Kenema treatment centre, hospital sources there have just confirmed.
https://twitter.com/UmaruFofana

from twitter. this guy is in Sierra Leone and a journalist...one of the local ones I follow

She

 

[BREWER]

Posted for fair use and discussion.
http://www.nydailynews.com/life-sty...rs-outbreak-study-published-article-1.1922329

Ebola kills 5 Sierra Leone researchers before their study on outbreak is published
All five of the deceased co-authors worked at a Sierra Leone hospital. The study, led by a team at Harvard University, found that Ebola has mutated over the course of the outbreak.
BY Meg Wagner
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Saturday, August 30, 2014, 12:15 PM


EDITORIAL USE ONLY / NO SALES NIAID / HANDOUT/EPA Five of 50 co-authors of a new study on the 2014 Ebola outbreak died before the work was published Thursday.

Five West African Ebola researchers died from the virus before they ever saw their work in print.

The Harvard University-led study, published Thursday in Science magazine, found that the virus has mutated over the course of the 2014 outbreak, which has killed more than 1,500 people since its March onset.

The work emphasized that the rapid variations could make vaccine and treatment development difficult — a point further underscored by the Ebola deaths of its authors.

The five deceased researchers were among 50 co-authors who wrote the study, Science reported. While the Harvard team backed the research, it was supported by authors on the ground in Africa.

All five worked at Sierra Leone's Kenema Government Hospital Lassa fever facility, including the center's top doctor, Sheik Humarr Khan.

Sheik Umar Khan, head doctor fighting Ebola in Sierra Leone, was one of the co-authors killed by the virus. STAFF/REUTERS Sheik Umar Khan, head doctor fighting Ebola in Sierra Leone, was one of the co-authors killed by the virus.

Nurses Mbalu Fonnie, Alex Moigboi and Alice Kovoma were all infected with the virus while they treated another, pregnant nurse with Ebola. Lab tech Mohamed Fullah also died from the disease, likely after he contracted it from a family member.

Ebola has killed about half of its 3,069 known patients. The West African outbreak has victims in five countries: Sierra Leone, Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Senegal.

But while the virus has African roots, its reach extends beyond the continent.

Some cautious American universities have developed extra health checks for West African students before they set foot on campus this fall.
PHOTO TAKEN WEDNESDAY AUG 27 2014 Abbas Dulleh /AP The West African disease has killed more than 1,500 people since its March onset.

The American College Health Association recommended its members update emergency plans, find out where patients have traveled and use isolation exam rooms when available. Several colleges have started checking the temperatures of students arriving from affected countries. South Carolina and North Dakota health departments have spelled out for administrators what symptoms to look for and how to react.

The American concern comes after two U.S. humanitarian health workers caught the virus while treating patients in Liberia. Both Dr. Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol were transported to Emory University in Atlanta for treatment.

Both were released last week.

There is no cure for the virus, but some drug makers are in the early stages of testing treatments. Abbas Dulleh /AP There is no cure for the virus, but some drug makers are in the early stages of testing treatments.

Experimental drug ZMapp was given to both Brantly and Writebol. Some shipments of the American drug have been sent to Africa to fight the outbreak.

Liberian physician's assistant Kyndy Kobbah received one of the limited ZMapp doses. She recovered and is expected to be released from the hospital Saturday.

Ahead of her release, she urged the drug's makers to ramp up production.

"They need to make more ZMapp and send to us," she said.

The company has said that all its supplies are exhausted and it will take months to make more. ZMapp's success is still questionable — while the American doctors and Kobbah recovered after receiving a dosage, a Spanish Catholic missionary taken to Madrid for treatment died after he was given the drug.

With News Wire services

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/life-sty...udy-published-article-1.1922329#ixzz3C06p4guK

 

[DHR43]

The next time you are looking for "truth and clarity", you might want to use something other than an Iranian propaganda site for your facts.

That article has a LOT of w-r-o-n-g info in it.

First of all, I wouldn't and don't characterize PressTV as an 'Iranian propaganda site'. On the contrary.

Second, would you put more value in the content of the material if it was from an American propaganda site? I'm guessing 'no'.

Third, perhaps you could get past your self-applied characterization of the web host and look instead at the material presented. In this way, learning is possible. Unless you just like mind-numbing and non-ending doom stories about the Ebola disaster.

 

[Countrymouse]

You have GOT to be kidding.

You think Ebola is over-played?

A joke?


sheesh.


Ok, then go take a Fall vacation in Liberia....


we'll (not) be seeing you (if you do)....

 

[Possible Impact]

First of all, I wouldn't and don't characterize PressTV as an 'Iranian propaganda site'. On the contrary.

Second, would you put more value in the content of the material if it was from an American propaganda site? I'm guessing 'no'.

Third, perhaps you could get past your self-applied characterization of the web host and look instead at the material presented. In this way, learning is possible. Unless you just like mind-numbing and non-ending doom stories about the Ebola disaster.

[FONT=Verdana,Arial]PROSCRIBED SITES LIST
[/FONT]http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?435122-PROSCRIBED-SITES-LIST

TB2K Admin says this:

[FONT=Verdana,Arial]POSTS FROM THESE SOURCES WILL BE MOVED OR REMOVED IMMEDIATELY (normally within 1-3 hours):

PressTV (Iranian propaganda outfit)[/FONT]

^ For posting a new thread. Posting deep inside someone's ongoing thread will get ???


From your post:
"[FONT=Verdana,Arial]It is not easily transmissible,
it lacks a long latency period,
and it cannot survive outside the body except in extremely hot, humid temperatures."

Backgrounders:

Ebola virus may be spread by droplets,
but not by an airborne route: what that means
http://virologydownunder.blogspot.com.au/2014/08/ebola-virus-may-be-spread-by-droplets.html

www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/lab-bio/res/psds-ftss/ebola-eng.php

[/FONT][FONT=Verdana,Arial]Aerosol droplet airborn.
[/FONT][FONT=Verdana,Arial][FONT=Verdana,Arial]21 day latency is fairly common[/FONT]

[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Arial][FONT=Verdana,Arial]Survives outside the body better with lower temps. (Canadian study...)[/FONT]
[/FONT][FONT=Verdana,Arial][FONT=Verdana,Arial](This is a fully encapsulated virus, dessication reduced.)[/FONT]

Heat, soap, and Ultraviolet are the best ways to kill it.


[/FONT]

 

[PCViking]

http://www.thehealthsite.com/news/ebola-virus-is-mutating-rapidly-say-scientists/

Ebola virus is mutating rapidly — say scientists​

Bhavyajyoti Chilukoti August 31, 2014 at 5:48 pm

A recent research related to the Ebola virus disease (EVD) states that the Ebola virus is rapidly mutating, making it difficult to diagnose and treat. A study conducted on the initial patients being infected with the virus in Sierra Leone revealed more than 400 genetic modifications of the Ebola virus, which might prove detrimental for the ongoing treatment measures but also to the vaccines that are under clinical trials for future treatment of the Ebola virus. (Read: Traditional healer responsible for bringing Ebola to Sierra Leone — scientists http://www.thehealthsite.com/news/ebola-virus-is-mutating-rapidly-say-scientists/)

The Researchers at the Broad Institute in Massachusetts and Harvard University warn that the Ebola virus is constantly undergoing mutation. The findings show that the future treatment options including vaccines as well as diagnosing of the disease will be very difficult and less effective as mutations will continue. As of now, the researchers have analysed around 99 Ebola viral genomes. Since the Ebola outbreak in West Africa in March, more than 1550 people have died of the Ebola virus disease. Earlier in August (24th), a new viral strain of the Ebola virus different from the one being observed in West Africa was detected in those from Democratic Republic of Congo, posing threat to million of lives all over the world. (Read: Latest Ebola News: Liberian Government lifts Ebola quarantine, people celebrate http://www.thehealthsite.com/news/ebola-virus-is-mutating-rapidly-say-scientists/)

The World Health Organization has supported the use of experimental drugs (drugs which are not approved by FDA due to lack of data on human clinical trials) like ZMapp and other vaccines for treatment of Ebola infected patients. The U.N. health agency on Thursday said, ‘The Ebola outbreak will affect more than 20,000 people in West Africa and might spread to more countries, indicating a clinical emergency all over the world. It requires worldwide effort costing more than half a billion dollars to overcome the deadly Ebola outbreak.’ The WHO has announced a $490 million plan to contain the rapid spread of the Ebola virus over the next nine months due to the possibility of Ebola endemic to spread to 10 more countries, other than the four major Ebola-hit countries of West Africa namely Sierra Leone, Liberia,Guinea and Nigeria. (Read: Ebola infected monkeys said to be recovering with ZMapp http://www.thehealthsite.com/news/ebola-virus-is-mutating-rapidly-say-scientists/)

 

[kittyknits]

deleted

 

[AR15ER]

So, were are all these foundations that claim they are set up to help in the third world? Bill and Melinda Gates?

 

[JohnGaltfla]

Sweden: Hospital investigating possible case of Ebola

Reuters
Published: 08.31.14, 23:59 / Israel News

A hospital in the Swedish capital is investigating a possible case of Ebola, Swedish media reported on Sunday.

A man who recently travelled to a "risk area" for the virus was taken to Karolinska University Hospital in Stockholm suffering from a fever and is being treated in an isolation unit, the reports said.

 

[almost ready]

Question first

Have been looking for an online reference about AIDS, which I'd seen within the last week or so. It was referring to the speed with with AIDS changed in the early days.

Ebola had been thought to be a very stable virus before this outbreak. Since 3.7% (found that online some time back) of the Sub-Saharan Western African population are AIDS carriers, thought that perhaps they had a recombination as in Dr. Niman's Recombinomics work - viruses don't just mutate, they share and pass genes, like bacteria do. Don't blame him if I paraphrased this theory incorrectly.

Just hoping that someone here had seen the report comparing Ebola and AIDS, back when AIDS was a fast-changer and Ebola wasn't, because it needs to be reviewed in light of this HUGE change. Ebola is now a fast-changer.

Ugh!

 

[almost ready]

Another matter - Sudan not only has a suspected Ebola case out of Chad (which is not on the list of places Ebola is known or suspected) -- and they're outlawing reporting on this!

Uh oh -- hope this doesn't start a trend.
http://en.starafrica.com/news/sudan-bans-reporting-on-ebola.html

"Sudan bans reporting on Ebola
Posted by: APA Posted date : August 31, 2014 at 11:36 am UTC 56 views In: Africa

The Sudanese authorities have prohibited local media from covering any news related to the Ebola virus.Press sources who asked not to be mentioned for security reasons confirmed to APA on Saturday that the security authorities have circulated warning to all media outlets not to publish any news or articles related to the transmission of the Ebola virus in Sudan.

The prohibition came after local media reported on some suspected cases of Ebola in the west of Sudan.

The Minister of Health Affairs for the Darfur Regional Authority, Firdos Abdel Rahman Yousif denied reports of the deadly Ebola virus disease in El Geneina, capital of West Darfur State.

The Sudan News Agency quoted the minister as saying the suspected case had come from Abeche in Chad.

The patient suffered from hemorrhagic fever, began taking treatment from the health center, and was then transferred to a hospital in El Geneina, she claimed.

The Ebola epidemic has killed over 1, 400 people in Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria since its outbreak in West Africa in February.

Over 2, 500 people are infected by the virus in the region according to the World Health Organization."

 

[Doomer Doug]

Well, an epidemic has a cycle based on a lot of separate factors. While most of these factors are medical related, not all of them are. We are now getting a combination of independent factors that result in an "Ebola epidemic in West Africa." These include health system infrastructure, logistics and medical worker training, as well as government authority issues. Press TV has not concluded the near complete collapse of the West African ramshackle health system will have any impact on the epidemic. This is a totally ridiculous assertion and shows how uninformed they are. Independent of the actual Ebola virus it is the lack of ability to treat it, monitor, contact trace and quarantine people that is decisive. The multiply runner cases show the total lack of ability for the West African medical system to find these people, much less deal with them. Therefore, the rate of Ebola infection will increase solely do to the inability of the system to deal with infected people.

If the above Doomer Doug theory were true, you would see concrete results over the last three weeks or so. The actual results show 40 percent of ALL CDC and WHO admitted Ebola cases happened in the last 21 days. This is only consistent with a synergy effect, 2 plus 2 equals 6, where the combination of Ebola virus, a collapsed health care system, public hysteria and runners gives you what we are now seeing.

The blunt truth is the Ebola epidemic in West Africa is now COMPLETELY OUT OF CONTROL. The local health and government systems are completely unable to deal with it. They can't find the people, monitor the people, quarantine the people or deal with the lack of trust in the population. Now you add all that up and you get another cycle of infection. This new infection cycle is NOT, repeat NOT, based on the original CDC and WHO figures from early August. It is based on the additional 40 percent of admitted cases. Again, even this 40 percent increases is several factors LOWER than the actual numbers right now.

Yep, we already have the 20,000 cases WHO "predicted" two days ago. Ebola is about to explode in Liberia, Senegal and Sierra Leone. The public health situation guarantees that. Nigeria, well Nigeria has done everything wrong in relation to Ebola.

At some point, you have to just stop listening to the whore press, the lying CDC and WHO and simply wait. This is going to sort itself out over the next one to three months in West Africa. Every single factor Doomer Doug has seen indicates we are going to have rotting corpses scattered all over West Africa by the end of the year.

Now if anybody can show me where my analysis is wrong, well get to it.

 

[Melodi]

Right so Sudan forbids reporting on the disease so of course there will be no reports of disease there; at least not until bodies are littering the streets and it can be assumed that is the most likely cause...good grief this is so typical of the sort of nonsense you expect from third world dictatorships that haven't a clue what is really going on. This is what I meant about when something makes politicians (or people) uncomfortable they often try to bury the news and Death makes people very uncomfortable...

 

[Doomer Doug]

The information suppression effort will be from two sources, Melodi. The first will be CDC and WHO that are instructed to prevent any panic that would have an economic impact on consumer spending. This effort will be almost exclusively targeted to the Western countries and media.

The second suppression effort will be confined to Africa and be from the local government and health authorities. This effort is ongoing and has been in place, with WHO technical advice, for some time now. There is also a government subset of disinformation, confusion and outright lies that is based on corruption and incompetence. It is telling that in three known cases: Mr. Big from Nigeria to London, Diplomat to Port Harcout, and student to Senegal, as well as the nurse to the eastern Nigerian city CORRUPTION WAS INVOLVED. The reason it took so long to figure these specific cases out was the corruption and bribes involved. I have no doubt there are many other people running around West Africa because they paid off local authorities to ignore them.

WHO is still using the old lower numbers. The information is going to get less, be more inaccurate from now on.

The only reliable way to get actual numbers would be to start counting the rotting bodies on the streets.

 

[Possible Impact]

The information suppression effort will be from two sources, Melodi. The first will be CDC and WHO that are instructed to prevent any panic that would have an economic impact on consumer spending. This effort will be almost exclusively targeted to the Western countries and media.

The second suppression effort will be confined to Africa and be from the local government and health authorities. This effort is ongoing and has been in place, with WHO technical advice, for some time now. There is also a government subset of disinformation, confusion and outright lies that is based on corruption and incompetence. It is telling that in three known cases: Mr. Big from Nigeria to London, Diplomat to Port Harcout, and student to Senegal, as well as the nurse to the eastern Nigerian city CORRUPTION WAS INVOLVED. The reason it took so long to figure these specific cases out was the corruption and bribes involved. I have no doubt there are many other people running around West Africa because they paid off local authorities to ignore them.

WHO is still using the old lower numbers. The information is going to get less, be more inaccurate from now on.

The only reliable way to get actual numbers would be to start counting the rotting bodies on the streets.

Ebola: 39 foreigners arrested in Lagos hotels

Posted by: Adebisi Onanuga in Featured, News 22 hours ago
http://thenationonlineng.net/new/ebola-39-foreigners-arrested-in-lagos-hotels/

OFFICERS of the Nigeria Police, the Nigerian Immigration Services and
health officials at the weekend collaborated to arrest 39 foreigners in two
hotels on Lagos Island.

The arrest of the foreigners, it was gathered, was to prevent possible
spread of the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD).

The foreigners, 35 from the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire)
and four Senegalese were arrested by security agents at Benin Hotel and
Guest House on Atere Street in Lagos Island.

Eye witnesses said the arrest followed a tip-off by some residents of the
area to Area A Command, Lion Building, Lagos.

The residents were said to have expressed fears that the activities of the
foreigners, mostly cohabiting together, could lead to the spread of EVD in
the area.

On receiving the report, the Area Commander and Assistant Commissioner
of Police (ACP), Imohimi Edgal, reportedly contacted immigration and
health officials who stormed the hotel where the foreigners were placed
under arrest.

A police source who spoke to newsmen said the immigration officials will
determine if the suspects are legally residing in the country.

The source said the health officials will determine their health status to
know if they actually have the dreaded disease or not.

Following the arrest, all hotels in the area have been placed under close
surveillance while the residents were told to report any suspicious persons
or activities to the police.

Speaking to newsmen, a resident of the area, Femi Ajasa, said they
became suspicious and alerted the police following the mass movements of
the foreigners into the hotels since the outbreak of the Ebola virus.

While commending the Area A Command for their swift response, which
led to the arrest of the suspects, he said the residents suspected that
some persons were receiving treatment in the hotels rooms, a
development which made them alert authorities.


​

 

[bw]

Ebola: 39 foreigners arrested in Lagos hotels

If 39 have fled to a country that apparently takes immigration seriously, how many do you suppose have fled to a country that barely has borders at all? As an exercise for the reader, jot down your guess as to what country I might be referring to.

 

[Marthanoir]

Right so Sudan forbids reporting on the disease so of course there will be no reports of disease there; at least not until bodies are littering the streets and it can be assumed that is the most likely cause...good grief this is so typical of the sort of nonsense you expect from third world dictatorships that haven't a clue what is really going on. This is what I meant about when something makes politicians (or people) uncomfortable they often try to bury the news and Death makes people very uncomfortable...

I just got visions of the Fianna Fáil government denying that we need a bailout as the IMF money men were on TV getting off the plane at Dublin airport,

As a friend of mine used to say, "we'd be a Banana Republic but it's too ****ing cold to grow bananas"

 

[Doomer Doug]

So, PI did we just get a fourth Ebola infection cycle based on these 39 people? All of whom are/were apparently being treated secretly for Ebola, exposing dozens of additional people, all without ANY government knowledge about it.

Nigeria is a basket case.

 

[ainitfunny]

YOU KNOW, The BIG money making thing to be right now, ( for the stupid and unscrupulous) would be a COYOTE HUMAN SMUGGLER. The filthy rich few West African wealthy and wealthy politicians are wanting to SECRETLY relocate out of ebola stricken nations to a first world nation like the United States!! Bet the smugglers can get 200 thousand or more per person and that doesn't involve giving ( or promising) anything LESS than first class accommodations and treatment in the process, I bet.

You have to notice that most of those transplanting the virus to new places have been the wealthy, VIP's, politically connected or international medical staff.

It might be smart to ramp up the punishment for coyote smugglers to include automatic murder charges and guilt if they knowingly or unknowingly smuggle anyone sick with ebola and that person infects a subsequent person who later dies of the infection!

 

[Medical Maven]

Posted at the PFI Forum by Pixie.

Nigeria:

Ebola: Rivers asks late doctor’s contacts to come out of hiding

August 31, 2014 | Author: IGNATIUS CHUKWU
http://businessdayonline.com/2014/0...-contacts-to-come-out-of-hiding/#.VANuZ1aScW8

Persons, who had contacts with the late Port Harcourt doctor, Iyke Enemuo, who died of Ebola virus, but have gone underground, have been asked to step out before it is too late. MY COMMENT: TOO LATE FOR NIGERIA.

[snip]

Parker said 50 persons have been identified as high-risk contacts due to their level of contacts with the late doctor. He, however, said 60 others were yet to be tracked, saying some were known to have travelled to Imo, Abia and Akwa Ibom states. He said the commissioners of health in those states have been alerted.
_____________

MY COMMENT: One or two of these 60 "yet to be tracked" would likely be infected. The odds would favor that ratio at the very least.

 

[Countrymouse]

And the 'good' news from Mercer U, where my son will be going to college (but not until NEXT Fall, thankfully; however, I'll be driving him down to Macon every other week for music lessons).

(I wonder how many west African students they actually HAVE; I have been trying to find a breakdown of students by country of origin there but have had no luck so far)


Macon.com

Ebola in mind, US colleges screen some students
By CAROLYN THOMPSON
Associated PressAugust 29, 2014


Dr. Robert Palinkas, director of the McKinley Health Center at the University of Illinois, poses in an exam room in Urbana, Ill., Thursday, Aug. 21, 2014. Extra health checks are part of protocols campuses throughout the United States have in place as they prepare for as many as 10,000 students from Nigeria, Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, where more than 1,000 people have died in the worst Ebola outbreak in history. MICHAEL CONROY — AP

BUFFALO, N.Y. — College students from West Africa may be subject to extra health checks when they arrive to study in the United States as administrators try to insulate campuses from the worst Ebola outbreak in history.

With the virus continuing to kill in Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria, the expected arrival of thousands of students from those countries has U.S. authorities on alert but cautioning against alarm.

"I can see why there would be concern; there's no vaccine for it," said Fatima Nor, an 18-year-old freshman at the University at Buffalo, where about 25 students from Nigeria are enrolled for fall. But she said knowing that the virus is transmitted strictly through direct contact with bodily fluids of sick people, and not by sitting next to someone in class, should be enough to calm nerves.

"As long as everyone keeps their personal space, it should be OK," said Nor, of Buffalo.

While the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have issued no specific recommendations for colleges, some state health departments, including in South Carolina and North Dakota, have spelled out for administrators what symptoms to look for and how to react.

Elsewhere, universities are drafting their own precautionary plans against the often-fatal hemorrhagic fever, which causes weakness, vomiting, diarrhea, internal bleeding and sometimes bleeding from the nose and ears.

The American College Health Association recommends its members update emergency plans, find out where patients have traveled and use isolation exam rooms when available. Several colleges are checking the temperatures of students arriving from affected countries and continuing to monitor for fever until any risk of contagion has passed.

"I don't see this as a huge threat on college campuses," said Dr. Susan Even, student health director at the University of Missouri-Columbia and a member of the ACHA, "but it makes sense when you're communicating with students ... to ask a question or two."

U.S. universities count 9,728 active students from Nigeria, 204 from Liberia, 169 from Sierra Leone and 95 students from Guinea, according to the federal government.

The odds they could bring Ebola to campus seemed too small to worry Laura Washburn, a senior at Tufts University outside Boston.

"It's not like I'm not going to class because someone has been to Africa," she said. "I mean, it's hard to say how paranoid we should be about it, but I feel pretty safe at Tufts."

The roughly 30 Nigerian students expected at the University of Illinois will be pulled aside for a temperature check and private Ebola discussion when they arrive at the health center for mandatory immunization paperwork and tuberculosis screening, said Dr. Robert Palinkas, the center's director.

The plans have been reassuring to the handful of parents who have called wondering whether their child's placement with a West African roommate should give them reason to worry, he said.

"Parents are comforted to know that there is a screening process, that we are alert for it, that we are prepared for it," Palinkas said, "and that we're doing everything we can without infringing on the rights of anybody to make sure their son or daughter is going to have the lowest risk possible."

Similar screenings are planned at the University at Buffalo, Mercer University in Georgia, Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia, and the University of Akron in Ohio, the campuses said.

Moses Ogunseye arrived from Lagos, Nigeria, a little over two weeks ago to study at Akron. The 31-year-old graduate student said he spent a few minutes filling out a questionnaire and was given a disposable thermometer to monitor himself for fever for a couple of weeks, something he doesn't mind doing even though he is certain he hasn't been exposed to Ebola.

"I would expect that. It's a very logical thing to do," he said of the screening, which, though voluntary, is encouraged.

Alma Olson, director of Student Health Services at the university, said students are being asked to keep tabs on their temperature for up to 21 days, the length of time it can take for symptoms of Ebola to appear following exposure.

"At the end of the 21-day period they'll come back and we'll check them and send them on their way," Olson said. The CDC requires that any potential Ebola patient be isolated and public health professionals notified.

"There's such a low level of worry" because Ebola doesn't spread easily, she said, "but we really have to be on top of any communicable disease."

Universities in the United Kingdom also are on alert with the expected arrival of thousands of Nigerian students there. Universities UK, which represents universities, has circulated guidance from Public Health England advising administrators on how to recognize and react to possible cases.


Read more here: http://www.macon.com/2014/08/29/3274462/ebola-in-mind-us-colleges-screen.html#storylink=cpy

 

[nchomemaker]

I am Facebook friends with a guy in Nigeria, I'll ask him if is interested in sharing any news he can find out.

So....until Mz Kitty returns, is there anyone more skilled on Twitter (because I most definitely am NOT) who can try to find any tweets from folks ON THE GROUND IN THE INFECTED COUNTIES who are posting about the situation there?

It's odd that in a country where they don't even have running water, I remember reading MANY have smart phones...so getting news via Twitter, as we had to do for any "real" news from Ukraine, the ISIS invasion, and the Israel / Gaza action, may be our only choice....

 

[kittyknits]

deleted

 

[summerthyme]

You know, I understand that feelings are high in situations like this but I think they should wait in the manslaughter charges because at least the guy did go see a doctor, it was not done well and I gather he wasn't totally honest; and charges might be appropriate at some point. But right now, the authorities really don't want to scare people, even "runners" from turning themselves in to medical professionals, I am very much concerned that the charges will have the unintended consequences of insuring that more people die as infected people (especially the educated) panic and run to their homes, other villages or just refuse to go to the hospital until they have infected their entire family and neighbors. I mean that is happening anyway, but my guess is the government wants to send a message to people that to infect people is manslaughter but I'm not sure that is exactly the message that will come across in third world countries where people are already scared of being sent to a quarantine to die.

I don't know, Melodi- I think it's VITAL to "send a message" to those who would willingly endanger a HUGE number of people (I mean, a HOTEL is *not* remotely the proper place for getting treatment when you KNOW you've been exposed to Ebola and you become very ill!!!) just because they somehow believe they're "too special" to go to a clinic or hospital.

IF the guy had isolated himself at home and convinced a doctor friend to treat him at home, and been honest about his exposure, I'd agree (even if the doctor then did die) that it wasn't manslaughter.

But apparently, there is no tradition or culture of "selflessness"- not even to the point of being honest so your volunteer doctor can protect himself from your deadly disease- over there. So, lacking the carrot of morality or chivalry or whatever, I guess they've only got the stick...

Summerthyme

 

[NWPhotog]

Disease modelers project a rapidly rising toll from Ebola

Kai is a contributing correspondent for Science magazine based in Berlin, Germany.

Kai Kupferschmidt
31 August 2014 10:00 am
Comments

Alessandro Vespignani hopes that his latest work will turn out to be wrong. In July, the physicist from Northeastern University in Boston started modeling how the deadly Ebola virus may spread in West Africa. Extrapolating existing trends, the number of the sick and dying mounts rapidly from the current toll—more than 3000 cases and 1500 deaths—to around 10,000 cases by September 24, and hundreds of thousands in the months after that. “The numbers are really scary,” he says—although he stresses that the model assumes control efforts aren't stepped up. "We all hope to see this NOT happening," Vespigani writes in an e-mail.

Vespignani is not the only one trying to predict how the unprecedented outbreak will progress. Last week, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that the number of cases could ultimately exceed 20,000. And scientists across the world are scrambling to create computer models that accurately describe the spread of the deadly virus. Not all of them look quite as bleak as Vespignani's. But the modelers all agree that current efforts to control the epidemic are not enough to stop the deadly pathogen in its tracks.

Computer models “are incredibly helpful” in curbing an outbreak, says infectious disease researcher Jeremy Farrar, who heads the Wellcome Trust research charity in London. They can help agencies such as WHO predict the medical supplies and personnel they will need—and can indicate which interventions will best stem the outbreak. Mathematical epidemiologist Christian Althaus of the University of Bern, who is also building Ebola models, says both WHO and Samaritan's Purse, a relief organization fighting Ebola, have contacted him to learn about his projections.

But the modelers are hampered by the paucity of data on the current outbreak and lack of knowledge about how Ebola spreads. Funerals of Ebola victims are known to spread the virus, for example—but how many people are infected that way is not known. “Before this we have never had that much Ebola, so the epidemiology was never well developed,” says Ira Longini, a biostatistician at the University of Florida in Gainesville. “We are caught with our pants down.”

To a mathematician, combating any outbreak is at its core a fight to reduce one number: Re, the pathogen’s effective reproductive rate, the number of people that an infected person in turn infects on average. An Re above 1, and the disease spreads. Below 1, an outbreak will stall.

Outbreak models typically assume that there are four groups of people: those who are susceptible, those who have been infected but are not contagious yet, those who are sick and can transmit the virus, and those who have recovered. A model, in essence, describes the rates at which people move from one group to the next. From those, Re can be calculated.

If the disease keeps spreading as it has, most of the modelers Science talked to say WHO’s estimate will turn out to be conservative. “If the epidemic in Liberia were to continue in this way until the 1st of December, the cumulative number of cases would exceed 100,000,” predicts Althaus. Such long-term forecasts are error-prone, he acknowledges. But other modelers aren’t much more encouraging. Caitlin Rivers of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg expects roughly 1000 new cases in Liberia in the next 2 weeks and a similar number in Sierra Leone.

Vespignani has analyzed the likelihood that Ebola will spread to other countries. Using data on millions of air travelers and commuters, as well as mobility patterns based on data from censuses and mobile devices, he has built a model of the world, into which he can introduce Ebola and then run hundreds of thousands of simulations. In general, the chance of further spread beyond West Africa is small, Vespignani says, but the risk grows with the scale of the epidemic. Ghana, the United Kingdom, and the United States are among the countries most likely to have an introduced case, according to the model. (Senegal, which reported its first Ebola case last week, was in his top ten countries, too.)

The models are only as good as the data fed to them; up to three-quarters of Ebola cases may go unreported. The modelers are also assuming that key parameters, such as the virus’s incubation time, are the same as in earlier outbreaks. “We might be missing the boat and we have no signal to indicate that,” says Martin Meltzer of the U.S. Centers for Disease Prevention and Control in Atlanta.

The biggest uncertainty is how much doctors, nurses, and others can slow the virus. There are many ways of pushing down Re, Farrar says—washing hands, wearing masks, or quarantining people, for example. “But given the complexity of this outbreak and the limited resources, we need to find out what are the two or three things that will most help drive down infections,” Farrar says, and that’s where models can help. For instance, would following up on all the contacts of every case be more effective than following up on the much smaller number who had a certain type of contact with a case, such as sharing a room?

Rivers is evaluating interventions, such as increased use of protective equipment or campaigns to isolate infected people. In the most optimistic scenario, every contact of infected people is traced, and transmission in hospitals is reduced by 75%. Even that, while drastically reducing the number of Ebola deaths, did not push Re below one.

The challenge varies by country, Althaus says. “In Guinea and Sierra Leone, Re is close to 1 and the outbreak could be stopped if interventions improve a bit.” In Liberia, Re has been near 1.5 the whole time. “That means work is only just beginning there.” But Meltzer says there is no reason to believe the situation is any better in Sierra Leone. “We are not seeing any change in the rate of the accumulation of cases,” he says.

As models get better at differentiating what is happening in places, Rivers says, “you might be able to put firelines around certain communities.” But such measures are very controversial. When Liberia last week barricaded off West Point, a sprawling slum with probably more than 100,000 inhabitants, it drew a largely negative response. “Quarantines and curfews tend to instill fear and distrust towards the whole of the outbreak response including health structures,” a representative for Doctors Without Borders told Science. Paul Seabright, a researcher at the Toulouse School of Economics in France who has studied such measures, says they are an incentive for people to keep it secret if they have had contact with a patient. Liberia’s harsh actions are “the last thing this epidemic needs,” he says.

People in West Africa will have to alter behaviors, Meltzer says. “We won’t stop this outbreak solely by building hospitals. There will have to be a change in the way the community deals with the disease.” Modeling that is easy enough, Vespignani says. “I can decrease the transmission at funerals by 40% easily in a model. That’s one line of code. But in the field that is really hard.”

Posted in Health Ebola

A. Vespignani

If spread continues at the current rate, a model by Alessandro Vespignani and colleagues projects close to 10,000 Ebola infections by 24 September. (The shaded area provides the projection's variability range.)


http://news.sciencemag.org/health/2014/08/disease-modelers-project-rapidly-rising-toll-ebola

 

[ainitfunny]

(Yesterday. Sunday)SWEDEN ANNOUNCES SUSPECTED EBOLA CASE:

(EXCERPT buried in article repeating old news!)http://news.yahoo.com/widow-nigerias-sixth-ebola-victim-virus-135345158.htmlStockholm
Authorities on Sunday said a suspected case of Ebola had been discovered in the Swedish capital. A local health specialist told AFP the patient was from an African country and had arrived in Sweden a few days ago.

So the case was discovered and he had been free, walking around spreading it for a few days beforehand??

************************************
THINGS TURN WORSE FOR NIGERIA:(buried excerpt in last pargraph o above article http://news.yahoo.com/widow-nigerias-sixth-ebola-victim-virus-135345158.htmlStockholm

Nigeria, however, has seen its hopes of containing the virus dashed with the outbreak in its oil-producing hub, 435 kilometres (270 miles) east of Lagos.

The city is home to a number of global oil and gas majors. Anglo-Dutch giant Shell and France's Total said this week that the arrival of Ebola has not affected operations.

Chevron said it, too, was closely monitoring developments and implementing "precautionary measures" for its work force.

 

[Medical Maven]

Posted by Dr. Niman at his rhizalabs forum.

MY COMMENT: This is just more clarification on the details of the Senegal case. It appears that the authorities are still trying to pin down his movements between hospital visits when he was highly contagious. It does not look good. I imagine that in another month or two Senegal will be another major hotspot.

Ebola virus disease update – Senegal
30/08/2014

Epidemiology and surveillance

On 30 August 2014, Senegal’s Ministry of Public Health and Social Affairs provided WHO with details about a case of Ebola virus disease (EVD) announced in that country on 29 August.

WHO has also received details of the emergency investigation immediately launched by the Government. Testing and confirmation of Ebola were undertaken by a laboratory at the Institut Pasteur in Dakar.

The case is a 21-year-old male native of Guinea, who arrived in Dakar, by road, on 20 August and stayed with relatives at a home in the outskirts of the city.

On 23 August, he sought medical care for symptoms that included fever, diarrhoea, and vomiting. He received treatment for malaria, but did not improve and left the facility.

After leaving the facility, he continued to reside with his relatives. Though the investigation is in its early stages, he is not presently known to have travelled elsewhere.

On 26 August, he was referred to a specialized facility for infectious diseases, still showing the same symptoms, and was hospitalized.

On 27 August, authorities in Conakry, Guinea, issued an alert, informing medical services in Guinea and neighbouring countries, that a person, who was a close contact of a confirmed EVD patient, had escaped the surveillance system.

That alert prompted testing at the Dakar laboratory, launched an investigation, and triggered urgent contact tracing.

Health sector response

WHO is treating this first case in Senegal as a top priority emergency. Key operational personnel were dispatched to Dakar today; others will follow.

The Government of Senegal has informed WHO of the urgent need for epidemiological support, personal protective equipment, and hygiene kits. These needs will be met with the fastest possible speed.

http://who.int/csr/don/don_updates/en/

 

[Medical Maven]

Something to consider with these mobile New Ebola patients is that they have vomiting and diarrhea. Those symptoms are by their very nature uncontrollable.

So if you are moving from to and from the hospital in heavy traffic in one of these urban centers, I imagine that you just have to get off to the side of the street and go into an alleyway or a nearby public facility.

The Senegal case would be a perfect example of such a scenario. And I would be amazed if the necessity did not arise in just such a manner. And if the relatives had private transport in which to take the Senegal case, then they had to deal with it. And just like noroviruses they could have spread it by their hands, if they made a stop for supplies at a market, etc.
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