Category Archives: pandemic

Ebola outbreak: call to send in military to west Africa to help curb epidemic | Society | The Guardian

Military teams should be sent to west Africa immediately if there is to be any hope of controlling the Ebola epidemic, doctors on the frontline told the United Nations on Tuesday, painting a stark picture of health workers dying, patients left without care and infectious bodies lying in the streets.

The international president of Médecins sans Frontières (MSF), Dr Joanne Liu, told member states that although alarm bells had been ringing for six months, the response had been too little, too late and no amount of vaccinations and new drugs would be able to prevent the escalating disaster.

via Ebola outbreak: call to send in military to west Africa to help curb epidemic | Society | The Guardian.

Ebola, Experimental Drugs and Informed Consent: Should Those At Risk Simply Take What The Doctor Orders?

West Africans have nothing to fear from European nations and firms who want to experiment and maybe find a cure, for which they will charge billions? lol White Europeans and White Americans have never taken advantage of or lied to West Africans before have the? rotflol Tests on African-Americans without their informed consent were OK, until people found out what was really going on – giving men VD and seeing how long it took to die, giving massive radiation to dying people saying it might cure them, when they were really testing the amount of radiation soldiers might be able to endure before dying? wtf!

Ebola, Experimental Drugs and Informed Consent: Should Those At Risk Simply Take What The Doctor Orders?.

It seems that if we’re fortunate enough to find a drug that works, soon, treating Ebola will require trust that approximates a leap of faith (in medicine), and beneficence – that doctors will order and give these drugs because they think they’re more likely to help than harm those affected. Without that trust, we’ll be stuck, unable to give therapy to most people infected or at risk. Is it possible that meaningful consent can be a barrier to care?

Racist Newsweek’s Dehumanization of Africans and Monkey Meat Ebola Fearmongering | Global Research

The most definitive takedown of the Newsweek piece appeared at the Washington Post  website (8/25/14), where Laura Seay and Kim Yi Dionne place the article in a historical context:

Far from presenting a legitimate public health concern, the authors of the piece and the editorial decision to use chimpanzee imagery on the cover have placed Newsweek squarely in the center of a long and ugly tradition of treating Africans as savage animals and the African continent as a dirty, diseased place to be feared.

While Newsweek zeroed in on the wild game risk as being “all but but ignored by the popular press and public,” Seay and Dionne write: “The reason this ‘risk’ is ignored is because it is infinitesimally close to zero.”

During a BBC discussion of the story (8/26/14), host Nkem Ifejika noted that Ebola experts stress that the risks of Ebola exposure come from hunting and dissection–which would seem to undermine the point of  Newsweek‘s cover story. The magazine’s senior editor Elijah Wolfson responded by appearing to back away from the article’s premise:

I would say that the risk for contracting Ebola by eating or handling bushmeat that arrives in the U.S. through illegal importation is minimal. But that doesn’t mean it is a zero risk.

That’s a far cry from the message the magazine is telling us–unless they plan on rewriting that headline to say, “Not a Back Door for Ebola: Smuggled Bushmeat Is Unlikely to Spark a US Epidemic.” And replacing the chimp with a photo of a bat. As Seay and Dionne put it:

Newsweek’s piece is in the worst tradition of what journalist Howard French calls “Ooga-Booga” journalism: the practice of writing in exoticizing and dehumanizing ways about Africa.

via Newsweek’s Dehumanization of Africans and Monkey Meat Ebola Fearmongering | Global Research.

Five co-authors of a new Ebola study died of the virus before their research was published – The Washington Post

On the same day the findings were published, Science wrote a separate piece about the five researchers who died while working on the study.

Mbalu Fonnie, an experienced nurse at the Kenema Government Hospital, was among the five victims. Her specialty? Managing advanced Lassa fever infections — a disease with symptoms similar to Ebola — in pregnant women. Fonnie was caring for one of her co-workers, who was pregnant and infected with Ebola, when she contracted the disease herself. According to study co-author Robert Garry, Fonnie was the “matron of nursing” at the Sierra Leone hospital.

Alex Moigboi, Fonnie’s fellow nurse, who contracted Ebola while treating the same pregnant colleague. He had more than 10 years of experience working with Lassa fever patients.

Alice Kovoma was also infected while helping Fonnie and Moigboi treat their colleague. Garry told Science that Kovoma was “a wonderful person … very dedicated and professional with a devotion to the patients and her teammates.” She was a nurse for six years in the Lassa fever ward.

Mohamed Fullah worked as a lab technician on the study. He taught at Eastern Polytechnic College in Sierra Leone, and also worked in the Lassa fever facility. His colleagues believe that Fullah contracted the disease from a family member — several relatives had died of the virus in the current outbreak, which has killed at least 1,552 people, according to the World Health Organization.

Sheik Umar Khan was the director of the Ministry of Health and Sanitation’s Lassa fever program and was directly involved in Sierra Leone’s national response to the Ebola outbreak. He was a well-respected expert on both Lassa fever and Ebola. At the time of his death, in late July, Khan was hailed as a national hero. He treated more than 100 patients in the outbreak before he contracted the disease himself.

via Five co-authors of a new Ebola study died of the virus before their research was published – The Washington Post.

Yellow Cake Spin times 10! Bubonic plague data found on Islamic state computer – UPI.com

Neo-Cons in heaven with nasty IS computer to claim planning of a bubonic plague bomb! Oh my!

 

An Islamic State laptop computer found in Syria allegedly contains plans to build chemical weapons for spreading bubonic plague.

The computer, now in Antakya, Turkey, belonged to a Tunisian militant named Muhammad S., who studied university-level chemistry and physics. It was found at an abandoned IS base in Idlib, Syria, by moderate rebel forces, and contains detailed instructions on explosives construction, the use of disguises while travelling, and chemical weapons plans, according to the magazine Foreign Policy, whose reporters were shown the laptop.

via Bubonic plague data found on Islamic state computer – UPI.com.

Urgent – le Sénégal enregistre son premier cas Ebola

L’importante déclaration que le Ministre de la Santé, Awa Marie Coll Seck doit faire dans quelques minutes est pour annoncer le premier cas de malade du virus Ebola au Sénégal.

La fièvre hémorragique a pu transpercer nos frontières malgré la décision de fermeture. La personne atteinte est d’origine guinéenne. Elle est venue en vacances au Sénégal en emportant dans ces bagages le virus. Elle est actuellement internée au service des maladies infectieuses de l’hôpital de Fann.

Le gouvernement avait fait cette assurance à savoir qu’il jouerait à fond la carte de la transparence. Ceci, après les cas suspects de l’hôpital Fann et celui de Ourossogui qui s’étaient avérés finalement négatifs.

Le Ministre de la Santé et de l’Action sociale fera face dans quelques minutes à la presse Nationale et Internationale. La salle de conférence du Ministère où ces lignes sont écrites, est présentement envahie par des journalistes des médias nationaux et internationaux.

PressAfrik détenait l’information depuis hier. Sa source à l’hôpital Fann est formelle. Toutefois avec le caractère très sensible de la question, nous ne pouvions donner l’information. Et pourtant, nous avions tenté de joindre les autorités du Ministère de la Santé comme le Directeur de la Prévention, Dr El Hadji Mamadou Ndiaye qui est hors du pays et la cellule de communication. Mais, nos tentatives ont été vaines, certainement, la nouvelle devrait être annoncée par la plus haute autorité comme le disait le docteur Dayi Ka du service des maladies infectieuses de l’hôpital Fann.

via Urgent – le Sénégal enregistre son premier cas Ebola.

IRIN Asia | “Third wave” of malaria resistance lurks on Thai-Cambodia border | Cambodia | Thailand | Early Warning | Health & Nutrition | Migration

{“Come Fly with Me” is a 1950’s tune playing on the popularity of flying for vacations and now commonly for business, as well. Malaria, Dengue, Chik V, West Nile virus, and other diseases transmitted by mosquitoes can tag along the same flights and people who have been infected but not exhibiting symptoms can fly and get bitten by a local mosquito and spread the new virus to a new location.}While almost 40 percent of the world’s population is exposed to malaria, no vaccine currently exists. In 2012, it killed 627,000 people globally; WHO estimates that 207 million cases were detected worldwide that year. The mosquito-borne parasite mutates to resist popular treatment drugs.

From the late 1950s to the 1970s chloroquine was the most commonly-prescribed drug, but resistance spread across Asia to Africa, resulting in a resurgence of malaria infections and millions of deaths. Chloroquine was replaced by sulphadoxine-pyrimethamine (SP) in 1973, but resistance to SP emerged in Thailand by the end of the 1980s and spread to Africa. By 2006, ACT became the treatment of choice for malaria in many malaria endemic countries, replacing SP.

“Now we face the prospect of history repeating itself for a third time,” said the Bangkok-based Mahidol Oxford Research Unit (MORU) in a July 2014 statement.

via IRIN Asia | “Third wave” of malaria resistance lurks on Thai-Cambodia border | Cambodia | Thailand | Early Warning | Health & Nutrition | Migration.

Ebola Is Rapidly Mutating As It Spreads Across West Africa : Goats and Soda : NPR

“That’s very hard to say. In most cases, the answer would be ‘no,’ ” Morse says. “But Ebola is obviously a concern and very virulent. I’d say it’s too early at this point to speculate on what any mutation or any change, even with rapid evolution, might lead to.”

A number of scientists working on the project caught Ebola. “Five of them passed from Ebola,” Sabeti says, including Dr. Shiek Humarr Khan. He was Sierra Leone’s top virologist, who had treated dozens of Ebola patients before catching the virus.

Health workers in Sierra Leone, who talked to NPR in the spring, blamed a lack of proper protective equipment for infections at the government-run hospital in Kenema, where Khan worked.

“The work is just that dangerous,” Sabeti say. “Another British nurse at the hospital has just come down with Ebola. You’re seeing so many infections going on. It’s an extraordinary thing that’s going on right now [in Sierra Leone].”

via Ebola Is Rapidly Mutating As It Spreads Across West Africa : Goats and Soda : NPR.

WHO | Ebola virus disease update – west Africa August 28, 2014

Epidemiology and surveillance

The total number of probable and confirmed cases in the current outbreak of Ebola virus disease (EVD) in the four affected countries as reported by the respective Ministries of Health of Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone is 3069, with 1552 deaths.

The outbreak continues to accelerate. More than 40% of the total number of cases have occurred within the past 21 days. However, most cases are concentrated in only a few localities.

The overall case fatality rate is 52%. It ranges from 42% in Sierra Leone to 66% in Guinea.

A separate outbreak of Ebola virus disease, which is not related to the outbreak in West Africa, was laboratory-confirmed on 26 August by the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and is detailed in a separate edition of the Disease Outbreak News.

Health sector response

A full understanding of the outbreak that will lead to improved response requires detailed analysis of exactly where transmission is occurring (by district level) and of time trends. This analysis is ongoing. Preliminary results show that cases are still concentrated (62% of all reported cases since the beginning of the outbreak) in the epicentre of the outbreak in Gueckedou (Guinea); Lofa (Liberia), where cases continue to rise; and Kenema and Kailahun (Sierra Leone). Capital cities are of particular concern, owing to their population density and repercussions for travel and trade.

via WHO | Ebola virus disease update – west Africa.

Avian Flu Diary: Japan Reports 1st Locally Acquired Dengue Case In 60 Years

In order to spread, Dengue requires the right mosquito vector.  And the two species best suited to transmit the virus are the Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus mosquitoes, which also can spread such diseases as West Nile, Malaria, Yellow Fever, and Chikungunya.

 

While the Aedes Aegypti isn’t a problem in Japan, the Aedes Albopictus (`Asian Tiger’) mosquito is.

via Avian Flu Diary: Japan Reports 1st Locally Acquired Dengue Case In 60 Years.