Category Archives: pandemic

Israel to open Ebola clinics in Sierra Leon, Liberia | i24news – See beyond

Israel on Tuesday said it will open two emergency clinics in Sierra Leon and Liberia to aid in the fight against Ebola.

The clinics will include special equipment and will be run by medical teams, flown from Israel in order to train local aid teams.

via Israel to open Ebola clinics in Sierra Leon, Liberia | i24news – See beyond.

Illegal loggers remain hidden in Peru’s forest but timber finds global buyers | Environment | The Guardian

In this remote part of Peru’s 700,000 sq km of Amazon rainforest, there is not much beyond subsistence fishing and farming as a way to earn a living. Other options are mostly illegal: logging Amazonian hardwoods, growing coca, hunting and selling bushmeat. These activities are all prohibited, but in a region larger than Germany, the state is virtually absent. Levels of poverty and illiteracy are far above the national average. Organised crime and evangelical sects fill the vacuum. As in the Rudyard Kipling poem, here the “law of the jungle” is “as old and as true as the sky”.

The murder of forest campaigner Edwin Chota with three fellow Ashaninka leaders – Jorge Rios, Leonicio Quintisima and Francisco Piñedo – at the beginning of last month briefly drew the world’s attention to Peru’s rainforest. The remains of just three men, shot dead in the forest, have been found. DNA profiling using relatives’ hair samples are being used to identify the bodies. The authorities arrested the alleged killers, illegal loggers Adeuzo and Eurico Mapes, a father-and-son pair who are reported to have threatened Chota when he informed officials of their activities. These complaints fell on deaf ears, say members of his community, Alto-Tamaya Saweto.

via Illegal loggers remain hidden in Peru’s forest but timber finds global buyers | Environment | The Guardian.

Where’s Monty Hall when we need him? SoCal Researcher Launches Crowdfunded Effort To Find Cure For Ebola: LAist

{Is the race to find a vaccine or cure for ebola – which had more or less been ignored for 30 some years globally for lack of profit – becoming the new “Let’s Make a Deal!” for researchers and drug firms? The first to find a real advance will be able to trade on that for investments and support for other more profitable efforts in the future!}

Professor Saphire is leading the charge at Scripps to find a cure for Ebola, having already led in the development of the experimental ZMapp serum has cured five patients this past summer of the virus. In order to find the antibodies that will fight the virus effectively, her work requires samples being shipped in from around the globe. Unfortunately, her lab is limited in resources, and has started a CrowdRise fundraiser in order to get the money for personnel and equipment. So far, we’re at $14,000 of her $100,000 goal.

Saphire was on KPCC’s Take Two this morning to talk about her efforts, and addressed the concerns that research for a cure isn’t what the current epidemic needs right at this moment:

It’s true that none of these experimental therapies are going to be available in enough doses to treat everybody; it’s just not possible. To contain this outbreak the focus really needs to be on medical supplies and medical care. We just can’t have people dying in the streets and infecting their families at home. They need to be cared for by doctors and nurses that have supplies to protect themselves, but the contain and control isn’t enough. One of the things about crowdfunding is it gives people the control. They can choose what they want to invest in and maybe they want to put some of their resources toward supplies like medical gloves and bleach and maybe they want to put some of their resources toward getting a cure ready to treat this thing.

via SoCal Researcher Launches Crowdfunded Effort To Find Cure For Ebola: LAist.

Race for Status May or May Not Help Stop Ebola… Chinese firm pushes Ebola drug it says can cure deadly virus | South China Morning Post

{Russia says it has a cure, Canada and US have a cure, UK has a treatment, India and Japan will be next to claim they are working on a cure and/or vaccine – and those dying of Ebola are really not as important as status to be won in eyes of world – and hoped for profit in other drugs later}

A Chinese drug maker with close military ties is seeking fast-track approval for a drug that it says can cure Ebola, as China joins the race to help treat a deadly outbreak of a disease that has spread from Africa to the United States and Europe.

Sihuan Pharmaceutical has signed a tie-up with China’s Academy of Military Medical Sciences (AMMS) last week to help push the drug called JK-05 through the approval process in China and bring it to market. The drug, developed by the academy, is currently approved for emergency military use only.

“We believe that we can file to the Chinese Food and Drug Administration (CFDA) before the end of the year,” Sihuan’s chairman Che Fengsheng said during an investor call last week.

“They are looking at this very seriously … and we could get on the ‘green light’ track,” he added.

Sihuan’s drug is only one contender among a number of experimental cures worldwide to treat Ebola, although if successful it would be a huge boon for China’s developing pharmaceutical sector and the country’s soft power in Africa, an increasingly important partner for the world’s No.2 economy.

via Chinese firm pushes Ebola drug it says can cure deadly virus | South China Morning Post.

America The Whiny: Everyone Blames Everyone For An Ebola Disaster That Has Yet To Occur

s there absolutely nothing left in this country that we can take on as a nation without someone heading for the nearest cable TV news studio or on-line publication to lay the blame for our latest problem on the President, the government, racism or some other convenient entity?

via America The Whiny: Everyone Blames Everyone For An Ebola Disaster That Has Yet To Occur.

VDU’s blog: Ebola double vision….

Complain about and hide behind who didn’t react fast enough if you must, but do be very, very clear in your own mind that now, right this minute, if you are not acting, calling someone, pleading a humanitarian case, then it is you and those like you who are to blame for some of our global villages burning out of control.

I don’t care a damn if the currency for today’s political action is “security” – you find a way to bring it back to being about humanity.

We live in an interconnected world and some of those country’s citizens are your constituents.

The global calls have gone out, the Resolution has been passed, the pleas have been made, the situation is clear to all. And you are failing.

Get up and do something. Now.

via VDU’s blog: Ebola double vision…..

News – Epidemiological update: outbreak of Ebola…

Situation in West Africa

Since December 2013 and as of 5 October 2014, 8 032 cases of EVD, including 3 865 deaths, have been reported by WHO (Figure 1) [10].

The distribution of EVD cases by affected countries is as follows and is presented in figure 1:

Guinea: 1 298 cases and 768 deaths as of 5 October 2014;

Liberia: 3 924 cases and 2 210 deaths as of 4 October 2014;

Sierra Leone: 2 789 cases and 879 deaths as of 5 October 2014;

Nigeria: 20 cases and 8 deaths, with last confirmed case in Lagos on 5 September 2014 (30 days as of 5 October 2014) and in Rivers State on first September 2014 (34 days as of 5 October);

Senegal: 1 case, no deaths, confirmed on 28 August 2014 (38 days as of 5 October). All contacts have completed 21 days of follow-up.

via News – Epidemiological update: outbreak of Ebola….

Coming to America – Ministry’s MRSA reaction to be investigated – The Local

Two leading experts concluded in August that between 6,000-12,000 people are currently infected with MRSA CC398, a variant that can be transmitted from livestock to humans.

 

CC398 has seen a massive increase in Denmark over the past seven years. According to the State Serum Institute (SSI), the CC398 variant only accounted for two percent of all MRSA cases in 2007 but this year is up to 35 percent. In July alone, 105 people were infected with MRSA – the highest monthly total ever.

 

See also: Every fifth pack of pork carries MRSA

 

Last month, an analysis of pork products in Denmark’s supermarkets found that every fifth pack is contaminated with MRSA. Just five years ago, a similar analysis found the bacteria in just five percent of products.

via Ministry’s MRSA reaction to be investigated – The Local.

Liars for profit! Not the nurses but the headline writers! U.S. Nurses Say They Are Unprepared To Handle Ebola Patients

{Really!?! – all the nurses in the United States told “un-news” reporters that they are unprepared! Bull! But meant to sell ads, scare people and shame on them for such lies! There are 2,724,570 Registered Nurses in US and they all said this? Not! http://kff.org/other/state-indicator/total-registered-nurses/}

Nurses, the frontline care providers in U.S. hospitals, say they are untrained and unprepared to handle patients arriving in their hospital emergency departments infected with Ebola.

via U.S. Nurses Say They Are Unprepared To Handle Ebola Patients.

First Deaths Linked to Enterovirus 68 Are Announced – NYTimes.com

At least four people have died after contracting a severe respiratory illness that has spread to more than 40 states, public health officials announced on Wednesday.

The deaths were the first to be linked to the nationwide outbreak of enterovirus 68, which has caused an influx of sick children – some of them critically ill – at hospitals around the country. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed 472 cases of the infection as of Wednesday, although experts said the true number of cases was likely to be many times that number.

Tests showed that four patients who died were carrying the virus, but it was unclear to what extent the virus contributed to their deaths, the C.D.C. said.

via First Deaths Linked to Enterovirus 68 Are Announced – NYTimes.com.