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Ebola Should Be Easy to Treat

Sun, 2014-12-21 11:08 — mike kraft

NEW YORK TIMES SUNDAY REVIEW by Jeffrey Gettleman Dec. 21, 2014

FREETOWN, Sierra Leone --
...Ebola, however much some of its symptoms conjure up a horror film, is usually shockingly simple to treat. The virus is swift and ruthless, hideous and creepy, causing some patients to have bloody vomit, bloody diarrhea or even — in severe cases — bloody eyeballs. Ebola is one of the handful of viruses than can trigger a hemorrhagic fever, with internal bleeding, but in most cases the biggest threat is dehydration, which can be addressed by clean water and basic drugs.

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NHS Ebola staff ‘insulted’ by UK travel ban

Sun, 2014-12-21 10:02 — mike kraft

Volunteers’ anger at restrictions imposed on their return home from west Africa

THE GUARDIAN by Tracy Mcveigh Dec. 21, 2014

As the latest of the six British-built Ebola treatment centres in west Africa admitted its first three patients this weekend, some of the volunteer NHS staff working there over Christmas said they felt insulted by a draconian ramping up of the protocols they have been told they will have to follow when they return to the UK.

A British health worker puts on protective clothes at a Red Cross clinic in eastern Sierra Leone. Photograph: Baz Ratner/Reuters

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Ebola: limitations of correcting misinformation

Fri, 2014-12-19 16:56 — mike kraft

THE LANCET Dec.18, 2014
Communication and social mobilisation strategies to raise awareness about Ebola virus disease and the risk factors for its transmission are central elements in the response to the current Ebola outbreak in west Africa.1 A principle underpinning these efforts is to change risky "behaviour" related to "traditional" practices and "misinformation".

Populations at risk of contracting Ebola virus disease have been exhorted to “put aside, tradition, culture and whatever family rites they have and do the right thing”....Such messages follow logically from clinical and epidemiological framings of contagion.

They pay little attention, however, to the historical, political, economic, and social contexts in which they are delivered....

Read the complete article.

http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2814%2962382-5/fulltext

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Ebola Survivors Fight Prejudice

Thu, 2014-12-18 20:23 — mike kraft

Organizations seek to help patients reintegrate into society after recovering

SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN by Erika Check Hayden and Nature magazine Dec. 18, 2014

Katima Kamara survived Ebola. Now she cares for children as a nurse at an Ebola treatment center in Kenema, Sierra Leone. But Kamara’s neighbours are wary of her, despite her bill of good health. Some call her home the ‘Ebola compound’ and avoid taking water from her well.

Kamara’s story is not unusual. Across Sierra Leone, Ebola survivors are working as nurses, caregivers, counsellors, organizers and outreach workers, seeking to halt the spread of the disease that threatened their lives. But they also fight discrimination and stigma, lingering health problems and poverty—a legacy of the ongoing Ebola epidemic that is only now beginning to be addressed, seven months after the virus emerged in the country....

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Ebola leaves hundreds of thousands facing hunger in three worst-hit countries

Thu, 2014-12-18 11:44 — mike kraft

FOOD AND AGRICULTURE ORGANIZATION (FAO) Dec. 17, 2014

The number of people facing food insecurity due to the Ebola epidemic in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone could top one million by March 2015 unless access to food is drastically improved and measures are put in place to safeguard crop and livestock production, two UN agencies warned today.

The disease's impact is potentially devastating in the three countries already coping with chronic food insecurity, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP) said in three country reports published today.

Border closures, quarantines, hunting bans and other restrictions are seriously hindering people's access to food, threatening their livelihoods, disrupting food markets and processing chains, and exacerbating shortages stemming from crop losses in areas with the highest Ebola infection rates, the FAO-WFP reports stressed.

Read complete report.
http://www.fao.org/emergencies/fao-in-action/stories/stories-detail/en/c/273018/

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Ebola Centres Overflow as Sierra Leone Steps Up Fight

Wed, 2014-12-17 22:41 — Kathy Gilbeaux

A Sierra Leonean boy looks out of a doorway in Freetown, Sierra Leone, December 16, 2014.
Credit: Reuters/Baz Ratner

reuters.com - by Emma Farge - December 17, 2014

(Reuters) - Ebola centres in Sierra Leone overflowed on Wednesday as health workers combed the streets of the capital Freetown for patients, after the government launched a major operation to contain the epidemic in West Africa's worst-hit country.

President Ernest Bai Koroma said on national television that travel between all parts of the country had been restricted as part of "Operation Western Area Surge", and public gatherings would be strictly controlled in the run-up to Christmas.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

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Lessons From an Outbreak: How Ebola Shaped 2014

Wed, 2014-12-17 17:26 — mike kraft

Interviews with experts on what to take away from the devastation of the disease.

THE ATLANTIC by Julie Beck Dec. 17, 2014

...While some in the Western media criticized West Africans' fear of health workers and resistance to public-health measures, the United States got a small taste of Ebola panic when Thomas Eric Duncan became the first case diagnosed in the country in September, followed by three other cases this fall. Duncan was the only patient to die in the U.S., and the panic died down quietly.

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Challenges in Responding to the Ebola Epidemic — Four Rural Counties, Liberia, August–November 2014

Wed, 2014-12-17 14:18 — mike kraft

CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR)

by Aimee Summers, PhD1,2, Tolbert G. Nyenswah, MPH 3, Joel M. Montgomery, PhD2,4, John Neatherlin, MPH2,4, Jordan W. Tappero, MD Dec. 16, 2014

...The Ebola epidemic in Liberia presents unique challenges not only from its spread into crowded urban environments (10) but also its occurrence in remote communities. As in urban counties, county and district health teams in rural counties with remote regions need adequate training in 1) case reporting; 2) case investigation; 3) case management; 4) contact tracing; 5) safe burials; 6) safe collection, processing, and transport of blood specimens for testing; and 7) development of a county-level incident management system.

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2014 on Track to be Hottest Year on Record

Tue, 2014-12-16 18:41 — Elhadj Drame

The temperatures so far in 2014 compared to the top 5 warmest years on record.
Click image to enlarge. Credit: NOAA

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Here’s How Much the Next Ebola Will Cost Us

Tue, 2014-12-16 16:33 — mike kraft

Why saving the environment can help prevent it

TIME MAGAZINE by Alexandra Sifferlin Dec. 16, 2014

The global community cannot withstand another Ebola outbreak: The World Bank estimates the two-year financial burden price tag of the current epidemic at $32.6 billion. Unfortunately, the virus has revealed gaping holes in our preparedness for major infectious disease epidemics. Because of these, plus the urbanization of rural communities and globalization of travel and trade, more of these epidemics are expected.

In a new report from the EcoHealth Alliance published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), experts estimate that the world will see about five new emerging infectious diseases each year and that we need new prevention strategies to cut economic losses.

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