CNN: 2 Ebola patients returning to U.S.

[visionary]

https://twitter.com/AFP

AFP: Nigeria confirms two more ebola cases raising the total number of people infected in the country to nine

5:41 PM

[visionary]

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/12/world/africa/at-heart-of-ebola-outbreak-a-village-frozen-by-fear-and-death.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&smid=tw-nytimesworld&_r=0

At Heart of Ebola Outbreak, a Village Frozen by Fear and Death

 

The signs of a deadly struggle remain: Scattered around the houses of the Ebola dead lie empty pill packages, their plastic casings punched through. Nearby in the mud are used packets of oral rehydration salts. The pills did not work and the hurried trip to the hospital, if there was one, came too late.

 

Inside house after house, Ebola has claimed its victims: Here, 10 people died; over there, four, including three children. A few yards away, an old man lives alone, his wife now dead. In another, seven people are dead, the village teacher said. In a long low house nearby, 16 died, all from the same family. Outside yet another, two tiny girls, one age 6 and her sister, 7, sit pensively in front, their parents gone.

 

And there are more. “So many,” said Sheku Jaya, the 35-year-old village teacher, clutching his little daughter’s hand. “We lost too many people.”

 

Health workers in protective clothing screened people for Ebola on Saturday at the government hospital in Kenema, Sierra Leone.Tracing Ebola’s Breakout to an African 2-Year-OldAUG. 9, 2014

 

Here in the nation most afflicted by Ebola, in the hardest-hit part of the country, this may well be the most devastated village, local and international officials say. Some 61 people have died here, out of a population of perhaps 500. Njala Ngiema, a mud-brick community of rice and cassava farmers deep in the forest, is quiet now.

Now, a region roughly the size of Jamaica has been cut off from the rest of the country because of the roadblocks, warned a local leader, David Keili-Coomber, the paramount chief — raising worries that if the epidemic does not decimate the region, a subsequent shortage of food, trade and supplies will.

 

“Our fear now is that closing these roads risks having more people die of malnutrition and even starvation than by Ebola,” Mr. Keili-Coomber said in an email message.

 

The sweeping quarantine, much like the one imposed on parts of Liberia across the border, underscores a basic reality in the battle against the epidemic: Neither the government nor the international health organizations on the front lines seem able to stop it from spreading. So many villages have been struck, with so few health workers and other resources to try to halt the advance, that governments have resorted to closing off entire regions in hopes of containing the damage.

[Larry]

You'd sure think that, if you're gonna quarantine people, you can at least send them food and supplies.

Heck, it makes it less likely that they'll try to break the quarantine.

[Special K]

You'd sure think that, if you're gonna quarantine people, you can at least send them food and supplies.

Heck, it makes it less likely that they'll try to break the quarantine.

When implementing quarantines to stop the spread of a disease they have to quarantine 1st, then attempt try to address basic needs.  Unfortunately in these countries (as in many developing nations), transportation infrastructure is very much lacking and it isn't easy to get food, water and supplies into some of these remote areas.

[visionary]

http://www.reuters.com/video/2014/08/12/who-says-experimental-drugs-should-be-us?videoId=340472042&videoChannel=1&utm_source=twitter

WHO says experimental drugs should be used in West Africa Ebola fight

 

1:44pm EDT - 01:19

 

The World Health Organization says it believes some potential Ebola treatments, even if barely tested on humans, should be used to help contain the deadly Ebola outbreak in west Africa. The WHO announcement came shortly after a Spanish priest died from the disease. Karen Hendren reports.

[Special K]

http://www.reuters.com/video/2014/08/12/who-says-experimental-drugs-should-be-us?videoId=340472042&videoChannel=1&utm_source=twitter

There is a pretty big ethical debate over the use of experimental drugs in the developing world.  It will certainly be interesting to see how this develops.

[twa]

There is a pretty big ethical debate over the use of experimental drugs in the developing world.  It will certainly be interesting to see how this develops.

 

Always a interesting fight

 

Are there fears it will enable mutation?

[PeterMP]

Always a interesting fight

 

Are there fears it will enable mutation?

 

I don't know anything about the medicine, but with a virus (especially with an 8-10 day incubation) there's essentially no way that isn't a fear.

[twa]

I don't know anything about the medicine, but with a virus (especially with an 8-10 day incubation) there's essentially no way that isn't a fear.

 

The one used on the US folk was a triple antibodies formula.

 

it is always a worry to me, our efforts can certainly harm as well as help.....but if ya want to advance the science it is a needed step(preferably in a controlled lab imo)

[PeterMP]

The one used on the US folk was a triple antibiotic formula.

 

it is always a worry to me, our efforts can certainly harm as well as help.....but if ya want to advance the science it is a needed step(preferably in a controlled lab imo)

 

Antibodies not antibiotics.  There is a big difference.

 

There also appears to be an issue with the amount/ability to produce the drug.

 

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/experimental-ebola-drug-questions-and-answers-about-zmapp/

 

But there is essentially no way there isn't a concern with mutations.

[twa]

yeah ,I had a brain fart....knew you would catch it 

 

with a 60/40 survival rate it is less than critical to push the envelop too much(but that is easy to say from here)

[Special K]

Always a interesting fight

 

Are there fears it will enable mutation?

Like PeterMP said, there is a constant level of fear about the virus mutating.  

 

The ethical issue concerns the population being treated.  There is an issue with informed consent.  In the US, it is understood that when people sign their consent to participate in a drug or vaccine clinical trial or other types of research they actually know what informed consent is.  In developing nations like those in west Africa, the lines are really blurry when it comes to recipients of an experimental drug truly knowing what informed consent is.  Some of the recipients might not even be literate.  That is the type of population researchers and scientists have to be extremely careful with.  For example, if the drug does not work and results in bad outcomes, or worse, kills recipients, you're going to see people blaming researchers and saying that researchers only used that population because they were impoverished people who didn't know any better, etc.

 

Those considerations actually played a large part in early efforts to develop drugs to treat HIV+ patients.  Sub-saharan Africa would have been a great place to try new HIV drugs that had made it through animal trials.  Even then, when the drug(s) showed promise in preliminary trials and were more likely to help the African recipients than hurt them, ethical issues concerning the use of that demographic in medical trials shelved some of those trials over there.  

[Larry]

And it's really easy to demonize and spin, too. 

 

"Those Americans are using people in Africa as lab rats for medical experiments!!!" 

 

(The fact that we have actually done that, in the past, doesn't help, either.) 

[Special K]

And it's really easy to demonize and spin, too. 

 

"Those Americans are using people in Africa as lab rats for medical experiments!!!" 

 

(The fact that we have actually done that, in the past, doesn't help, either.) 

Pretty much that's exactly it.  

[visionary]

http://news.yahoo.com/leone-ebola-doctor-dies-w-africa-awaits-experimental-135332859.html;_ylt=AwrBEiH02OtTQ08Aey_QtDMD

West Africa anxiously awaits experimental Ebola drugs

 

Up to 1,000 doses of an experimental Ebola vaccine were headed for West Africa Wednesday as the world scrambled to halt the spread of the virus which felled dozens more victims this week.

 

Canada said it would send doses of a vaccine called VSV-EBOV which has shown promise in animal research, but never been tested in humans.

 

Hard-hit nations were also anxiously awaiting a barely-tested drug from the US called ZMapp which is expected to arrive within 48 hours as they hope to save hundreds infected by the tropical disease.

 

The death toll in the worst-ever epidemic of Ebola since its discovery four decades ago climbed to 1,069 Wednesday, according to the World Health Organisation which said 56 had died in two days. Nearly 2,000 people have now been infected.

 

The disease has hit doctors hard in the ill-equipped and fragile health systems of the worst-hit West African nations, Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

 

Liberia is scrambling to save two infected doctors and is hoping that the ZMapp serum, which has shown positive early results, arrives in time.

 

The presidency said on Tuesday it had received approval from the US Food and Drug Administration for the use of the drug.

 

Sierra Leone's health ministry spokesman Sidi Yahya Tunis told AFP the country had officially requested a shipment of the serum as the nation lost its second top doctor to the virus.

[Larry]

A vaccine? Maybe they should test it by inoculating the health care workers. They're probably healthier, and have more documented medical history, than the general population.

Can't prove that the thing works, that way. Cause the workers will use precautions, anyway. But if it doesn't work, we might find that out.

[Special K]

I believe human trials of an American-made Ebola vaccine are going to start in the US next month, at least that's what I think I remember reading somewhere.

 

As for the ZMapp and VSV-EBOV, I'm all for their use over there.  ZMapp likely played a significant role in saving the 2 Ebola-infected American healthcare workers brought back to US last week; I can't imagine it would make the situation much worse.  As for the vaccine, it will definitely be interesting to see who it's given to.

[visionary]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/08/14/us-health-ebola-hunger-exclusive-idUSKBN0GE2CW20140814?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews

Exclusive: Emergency food drops eyed for quarantined Ebola region of West Africa

 

International agencies are looking into emergency food drops and truck convoys to reach extremely hungry people in Liberia and Sierra Leone, who are cordoned off from the outside world to halt the spread of the Ebola virus, a top World Bank official said on Thursday.

 

Hunger is spreading fast as farmers die leaving crops rotting in fields. Truckers scared of the highly infectious disease halt deliveries. Shops close and major airlines have shut down routes, isolating large swathes of the countries.

 

The Mano River region, home to about 1 million people and an epicenter for the deadly disease, is a major concern and the issue was raised on Wednesday with U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, said Tim Evans, senior director for health at the World Bank.

 

“There has been a lot of inflation in food prices and a lot of difficulty in getting food to the quarantined population,” he said in an interview.

 

The World Bank, along with the UN and the World Health Organisation, is urgently assessing how to make emergency food deliveries, or they face the danger of a deepening health crisis from malnutrition and the spread of other diseases, he said.

 

“This is emerging as an important part of the immediate response,” Evans said. “We are looking at exactly what the needs are and where, and then looking at how we contribute to making sure that food gets to the right places.”

 

Meanwhile, the United Nation’s World Food Programme said it has declared Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone - the three countries reeling from over 1,000 deaths from Ebola - a Level Three food emergency, its highest threat. It is urgently mobilising teams to get food into the area and prevent widespread hunger and deaths.

[visionary]

http://news.yahoo.com/msf-says-ebola-moving-faster-handle-113727283.html;_ylt=AwrBEiTAfO5TkVAAuEbQtDMD

Ebola outbreak could take six months to control, say MSF

 

The Ebola epidemic is moving faster than the authorities can handle and could take six months to bring under control, the medical charity MSF said Friday.

 

The warning came a day after the World Health Organization said the scale of the epidemic had been vastly underestimated and that "extraordinary measures" were needed to contain the killer disease.

 

New figures released by the UN health agency showed the death toll from the worst outbreak of Ebola in four decades had climbed to 1,145 in the four afflicted West African countries -- Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone.

 

"It is deteriorating faster, and moving faster, than we can respond to," Joanne Liu, the chief of Doctors without Borders, known by its French acronym MSF, told reporters in Geneva.

 

She added that it could take six months to get the upper hand.

 

"It is like wartime," she said a day after returning from the region. "I don't think we should focus on numbers. To really get a reality check, we're not talking in terms of weeks, but months" to control the epidemic."

 

Elhadj As Sy, the new head of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, painted a similarly bleak picture, speaking of a "fear factor" in affected countries that was hampering medical assistance.

 

Also recently returned from the region, As Sy said he agreed with MSF's six-month timeline for bringing the outbreak under control.

 

The WHO said Thursday it was coordinating "a massive scaling up of the international response" to the epidemic.

 

"Staff at the outbreak sites see evidence that the numbers of reported cases and deaths vastly underestimate the magnitude of the outbreak," it said.

[Special K]

I forget where I heard this, but I heard experts believe that the "official" numbers reported by the WHO likely represent only a quarter of the real number of cases actually out there. 

[Corcaigh]

This can't help containment ... 17 patients undergoing treatment fleeing for their lives. Contaminated sheets and other materials taken by an angry mob ...

 

http://cir.ca/news/attack-on-liberia-ebola-center

[visionary]

Bunch of ****ing idiots.  I thought when I heard about it on the news that they must have attacked the place by accident.  Jesus....

[visionary]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/08/18/us-health-ebola-liberia-insight-idUSKBN0GH0EY20140818?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&utm_source=twitter

Struggling Liberia creates 'plague villages' in Ebola epicenter

 

To try to control the Ebola epidemic spreading through West Africa, Liberia has quarantined remote villages at the epicenter of the virus, evoking the "plague villages" of medieval Europe that were shut off from the outside world.

 

With few food and medical supplies getting in, many abandoned villagers face a stark choice: stay where they are and risk death or skip quarantine, spreading the infection further in a country ill-equipped to cope.

"If sufficient medication, food and water are not in place, the community will force their way out to fetch food and this could lead to further spread of the virus," said Tarnue Karbbar, a worker for charity Plan International based in Lofa County.

 

Ebola has killed at least 1,145 people in four African nations, but in the week through to August 13, Lofa county recorded more new cases than anywhere else - 124 new cases of Ebola and 60 deaths.

 

 

[Special K]

Bunch of ****ing idiots.  I thought when I heard about it on the news that they must have attacked the place by accident.  Jesus....

Unfortunately that type of distrust and suspicion of foreigners and foreign run medical clinics is very prevalent throughout that area and many parts of Africa.  It's part of the reason this Ebola outbreak got out of hand in the first place:  people did not trust medical officers and other aid workers and refused to present at clinics for treatment or stay in homes to be quarantined.  Add another level of difficulty in dealing with outbreaks over there :/

[China]

Why the escape of numerous Ebola patients in Liberia’s worst slum is so terrifying

 

The chants in the Liberian capital of Monrovia, according to reports, began near dusk. People gathered near the entrance of an Ebola isolation unit, where dozens of patients, many of whom were suspected if not confirmed to be infected, were getting treatment. Pictures showed some in the crowd had masked their faces with T-shirts or shawls. Others, including a woman in a red dress named Batu Flowers, tried to convince the mob that Ebola was real, they weren’t being lied to, that news of the outbreak wasn’t a hoax. But the crowd wouldn’t be dissuaded.

 

It pushed against the gates of the Liberian primary school, which had been converted into a treatment center in the middle of West Point, which some call the most squalid community in Liberia if not West Africa. Thanks to poor sanitation and open sewers, the community of tens of thousands crowded onto a peninsula jutting into the Atlantic Ocean has long been prone to debilitating sicknesses from typhoid to malaria to lethal diarrhea. Now it has one more to contend with — a virus spread through feces, blood and vomit.

 

...

 

Soon, between 17 and 29 Ebola patients had run away — or were physically removed by their families — and the looting began. They took off with items — goggles, masks, blood-stained mattresses and blood-stained sheets — that were likely infected with Ebola, a lethal disease that the World Health Organization says has killed 1,145 people in West Africa, 413 of whom were Liberian. Following the patients’ escape and Saturday’s looting, officials and health workers fear even more will be infected as patients return to their family’s homes and looters sleep on fetid mattresses.

 

Click on the link for the full article