Category Archives: pandemic

Why Dumb and Dumber 2 is being made in US! CT Family Sues Ebola-Fearing School After Child Is Banned: Gothamist

Ikeoluwa traveled with her father, Stephen Opayemi, Oct. 2-13 to Lagos, Nigeria, for a family wedding. The Opayemi family says that health director Dr. Dennis McBride initially told them that Ikeoluwa should be screened, which they agreed to. The father, Stephen Opayemi, even took her to a doctor to get a clean bill of health. But then McBride said the little girl should stay home, due to Ebola panic—even though the family only visited Nigeria. From the CT Post:

Ebola is a contagious illness that has killed nearly 5,000 people, mostly in the West African countries of Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone. Though there was a small outbreak of Ebola in Nigeria that caused 19 illnesses and seven deaths, there has not been a case in the country in more than a month. Indeed, the country has been praised for its aggressive efforts to contain the disease.

Screening protocols released by the state Department of Public Health and the governor’s office on Monday only said travelers from Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone would be monitored for Ebola upon returning to the United States. Nigeria has not been mentioned as a “red flag” country by state health authorities.

Connecticut Governor Dan Malloy’s office said that McBride’s decision didn’t come from the state, “This was a decision by the town’s public health official. The state did not play a role in making this determination, and this family is not under any quarantine orders.”

Stephen Opayemi said, “She is unfairly treated and discriminated against because of a fear some people have [that] she might have Ebola.” Opayemi said the school district was sending a tutor to their house for 90 minutes a day, and argued that this proves the district wasn’t truly worried about the disease.

The lawsuit is asking for $250,000 in damages and for Ikeoluwa to be allowed to return to class immediately.

via CT Family Sues Ebola-Fearing School After Child Is Banned: Gothamist.

SC opts not to quarantine health care workers

South and North Carolina have protocols short of quarantine in place.

South Carolina is following federal guidelines, which call for active monitoring of these workers by public health staff as opposed to quarantine, according to Doug Mayer, spokesman for South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley.

“Going forward,” he told The Greenville News, “we are awaiting the updated guidelines … and will evaluate whether or not there is a need to take additional measures.”

In North Carolina, state epidemiologist Dr. Megan Davies said public health nurses will monitor for 21 days travelers from the affected countries who have no identified risks.

Those with an exposure risk but no symptoms will undergo daily personal assessments, and their movement will be monitored and restricted if necessary, she said.

via SC opts not to quarantine health care workers.

Thanks to Gov. Christie: Ebola Bullies Shun African Immigrants in Schoolyard Panic – NBC News.com

In New York City, two Senegalese brothers — only 11 and 13 — were beaten so badly on the playground that they were taken to a hospital emergency room. Their bullies chanted: “Ebola! Get away from here!”

At a high school soccer game in Nazareth, Pennsylvania, a 16-year-old who had moved from Guinea in West Africa three years ago was taunted with chants of “Ebola!” by players on the opposing team. Ibrahim Toumkara was thrown out of the game after he charged at one of the bullies.

via Ebola Bullies Shun African Immigrants in Schoolyard Panic – NBC News.com.

How Unscientific Ebola Steps in U.S. Could Help Spread Virus Elsewhere – NYTimes.com

that it pays to be 100% safe and to isolate anyone with a remote chance of carrying the virus. What harm can that approach do besides inconveniencing a few health care workers? We strongly disagree. Hundreds of years of experience show that to stop an epidemic of this type requires controlling it at its source. Médecins sans Frontières, the World Health Organization, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and many other organizations say we need tens of thousands of additional volunteers to control the epidemic. We are far short of that goal, so the need for workers on the ground is great. These responsible, skilled health care workers who are risking their lives to help others are also helping by stemming the epidemic at its source. If we add barriers making it harder for volunteers to return to their community, we are hurting ourselves….

We should be guided by the science and not the tremendous fear that this virus evokes.

We should be honoring, not quarantining, health care workers who put their lives at risk not only to save people suffering from Ebola virus disease in West Africa but also to help achieve source control, bringing the world closer to stopping the spread of this killer epidemic.

via How Unscientific Ebola Steps in U.S. Could Help Spread Virus Elsewhere – NYTimes.com.

Traditional culture trumps Ebola Safety? MONROVIA, Liberia: Beds at Ebola treatment units empty in Liberia | Health | The Island Packet

Even as Liberians fall ill and die of Ebola, many beds in treatment centers are empty because of the government’s order that the bodies of all suspected Ebola victims in the capital be cremated, authorities have determined.

Cremation violates values and cultural practices in the western African country. The order has so disturbed people that the sick are often kept at home and, if they die, are being secretly buried, increasing the risk of more infections.

President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia decreed in August that the bodies of Ebola victims in the Monrovia area be cremated. The government brought in a crematorium and hired experts. The order came after people in neighborhoods of the capital resisted burials of hundreds of Ebola victims near their homes.

A recent analysis of bed space at Ebola treatment units concluded that out of 742 spaces, 351 were occupied and 391 were vacant, said Assistant Health Minister Tolbert Nyenswah, who heads the government’s Ebola response.

via MONROVIA, Liberia: Beds at Ebola treatment units empty in Liberia | Health | The Island Packet.

AKA: No profit/no life! Without Lucrative Market, Potential Ebola Vaccine Was Shelved for Years – NYTimes.com

Almost a decade ago, scientists from Canada and the United States reported that they had created a vaccine that was 100 percent effective in protecting monkeys against the Ebola virus. The results were published in a respected journal, and health officials called them exciting. The researchers said tests in people might start within two years, and a product could potentially be ready for licensing by 2010 or 2011.

It never happened. The vaccine sat on a shelf. Only now, with nearly 5,000 people dead from Ebola and an epidemic raging out of control in West Africa, is the vaccine undergoing the most basic safety tests in humans.

Its development stalled in part because Ebola was rare, and until now outbreaks had infected only a few hundred people at a time. But experts also acknowledge that the lack of follow-up on such a promising candidate reflects a broader failure to produce medicines and vaccines for diseases that afflict poor countries. Most drug companies have resisted spending the enormous sums needed to to develop products useful mostly to poor countries with little ability to pay for them.

via Without Lucrative Market, Potential Ebola Vaccine Was Shelved for Years – NYTimes.com.

WHO: TB one of world′s deadliest infectious diseases | News | DW.DE | 22.10.2014

WHO: TB one of world′s deadliest infectious diseases | News | DW.DE | 22.10.2014.

1.5 million deaths a year – yet we follow the media lead and run for cover from ebola hype. Ebola and and should be stopped but taking years to stop new types of TB is insane!

“The death toll from this disease is unacceptably high,” the report read. “A staggering number of lives are being lost to a curable disease.”
Last year, there were 9 million new reported cases of tuberculosis, with 1.5 million of those being fatal.
The number of cases, however, continues to decrease: “TB is slowly declining each year and it is estimated that 37 million lives were saved between 2000 and 2013 through effective diagnosis and treatment.”
The trend indicated that one of the Millennium Development Goals – established by a UN panel in 2000 – to reverse TB infection rates could be achieved by the deadline.
“The 2015 Millennium Development Goal of halting and reversing TB incidence has been achieved globally, in all six WHO regions and in most of the 22 high TB-burden countries,” the report stated.
Multidrug-resistant TB alarming
Multidrug-resistant TB remains alarming – high cost prevented many people from getting proper diagnoses and treatment.
“There are severe epidemics in some regions, particularly in Eastern Europe and Central Asia,” the report read, adding that for people infected with this strain, rates for successful treatment were “surprisingly low.”
Grania Brigden, a TB expert with the charity Medecins Sans Frontieres, said, as reported by the Reuters news agency, that the “alarming spread of drug-resistant TB from person to person in the former Soviet Union is of critical concern, along with the growth in MDR-TB and XDR-TB cases,” she said, referring to multidrug-resistant (MDR) and extensively drug-resistant (XDR) strains of the disease.
“Access to proper treatment is drastically low: Only 1 in 5 people with multidrug-resistant TB receives treatment; the rest are left to die, increasing the risk to their families and communities and fueling the epidemic,” she said in a statement.