Resilience

As Emory was treating two US missionaries who were evacuated from West Africa in August, their waste hauler, Stericycle, initially refused to handle it. Photograph: Michael Duff/AP

REUTERS      September 24, 2014

CHICAGO (Reuters) - U.S. hospitals may be unprepared to safely dispose of the infectious waste generated by any Ebola virus disease patient to arrive unannounced in the country, potentially putting the wider community at risk, biosafety experts said.

Waste management companies are refusing to haul away the soiled sheets and virus-spattered protective gear associated with treating the disease, citing federal guidelines that require Ebola-related waste to be handled in special packaging by people with hazardous materials training, infectious disease and biosafety experts told Reuters.

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Dr. Gavin Macgregor-Skinner, an expert on public health preparedness at Pennsylvania State University, said there's "no way in the world" that U.S. hospitals are ready to treat patients with highly infectious diseases like Ebola.

FORBES                 September 23, 2014

By David Kroll

The Health Minister of Nigeria says that his country is completely free of active Ebola cases and has released the final victim contacts from surveillance.

In a telephone interview last night where he was preparing for a United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York, Minister of Health Onyebuchi Chukwu, MD, said, “Presently, there is no single case of Ebola virus disease in Nigeria – none.”

Dr. Chukwu provided further details, saying, “No cases are under treatment, no suspected cases. There are no contacts in Lagos that are still under surveillance, having completed a minimum of 21 days of observation.

Link to full story follows:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidkroll/2014/09/23/nigeria-free-of-ebola-as-final-surveillance-contacts-are-released/

NEWS24    September 23, 2014

Cape Town – At least 98 people reportedly have been placed under Ebola quarantine in Harare, as Zimbabwe takes steps to strictly monitor visitors coming into the country.

This comes as fears continue to grow that the deadly Ebola virus might spread beyond West Africa where the epidemic has killed 2 800 people.

According to News Day, out of the 98 people who have been quarantined, 84 were coming from Nigeria.

Link to complete story.

http://www.news24.com/Africa/Zimbabwe/At-least-98-under-Ebola-quarantine-in-Harare-20140923

LOS ANGLES TIMES     September 22, 10:25 PM

by Monte Morin

In a grim assessment of the Ebola epidemic, researchers say the deadly virus threatens to become endemic to West Africa instead of eventually disappearing from humans.

"The current epidemiologic outlook is bleak," wrote a panel of more than 60 World Health Organization experts in a study published Tuesday by the New England Journal of Medicine.

"We must therefore face the possibility that Ebola virus disease will become endemic among the human population of West Africa, a prospect that has never previously been contemplated."

In the absence of new control measures, the authors estimated that the total case load would exceed 20,000 by Nov 2.

Link to full story

http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-ebola-may-be-endemic-in-people-20140922-story.html

Link to New England Journal of Medicine study

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1411100?query=featured_ebola