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Read more about USG expected to announce within days procedures for handling Ebola patents' medical waste
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WHO Situation Report: Few Signs Ebola is Coming Under Control

Thu, 2014-10-02 15:48 — mike kraft

WHO: Ebola Response Roadmap Situation Report
1 October 2014 OVERVIEW
The total number of probable, confirmed and suspected cases (see Annex 1) in the current outbreak of Ebola virus disease (EVD) in West Africa reported up to 28 September 2014 is 7178, with 3,338 deaths. Countries affected are Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, Senegal and Sierra Leone.
Figure 1 shows the total number of confirmed and probable cases in the three high-transmission countries (Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone) reported in each epidemiological week between 30 December 2013 (start of epidemiological week 1) and 28 September 2014 (end of epidemiological week 39). For the second week in a row the total number of reported new cases has fallen. It is clear, however, that EVD cases are under-reported from several key locations. Transmission remains persistent and widespread in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, with strong evidence of increasing case incidence in several districts. There are few signs yet that the EVD epidemic in West Africa is being brought under control.
Read Full Report (with graphs)http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/135600/1/roadmapsitrep_1Oct2014_eng.pdf

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Sierra Leone Situation worsens: Estimated Five New Cases per Hour

Thu, 2014-10-02 14:47 — mike kraft

SIERRA LEONE SITUATION TWO ARTICLES (Scroll down)

THE GUARDIAN OCT. 2, 2014

Nowa Paye, 9, is taken to an ambulance after showing signs of the Ebola infection in the village of Freeman Reserve Liberia. Photograph: Jerome Delay/AP

Ebola is spreading at the rate of five new cases an hour in Sierra Leone, according to figures released as world leaders and experts on disease control gathered in London to discuss the outbreak.

The figures from Save the Children showed there were 765 new cases last week in the west African country alone, but only 327 hospital beds to treat infected patients. ...The rate of spread of the deadly virus is projected to double to 10 people an hour in the country before the end of October, Save the Children said.

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Scrutiny in Texas to Detect Whether Ebola Spread

Thu, 2014-10-02 09:32 — mike kraft

UPDATE

Officials: ‘About 100′ people may have had contact with the Texas Ebola patient

WASHINGTON POST OCTOBER 2, 2014 10:03 AM

Texas health officials said Thursday that there are "about 100" people who may have had contact with Thomas Eric Duncan, the man who is being treated in a Dallas-area hospital for Ebola.

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Working in Ebola areas: First rule is you don’t touch anyone

Wed, 2014-10-01 20:02 — mike kraft

Lawrence Togbah, left, Moses Bryant, center, and Abraham Saye try to protect themselves from Ebola by covering their hands, feet and torso with plastic bags. They did not have proper protective gear like gloves or masks. (Michel du Cille/The Washington Post)

The WASHINGTON POST OCT. 1, 2014

By Lenny Bernstein

MONROVIA, Liberia — I was goofing around with a small group of young children outside their home on a muddy, cratered road in the New Kru Town slum here. I made a scary face and the kids skittered, giggling, behind a low wall at the front of their shanty. Then they peeked out, hoping for more.

Finally the boldest of the lot, a little girl perhaps 5 years old, approached and stuck out her hand. “Shake!” she offered excitedly.

“No touching,” I responded, keeping my hands at my sides, trying to hide my sadness. “No touching.”

You don’t touch anyone in Liberia. Not kids, not adults, not other Westerners, not the colleagues you arrived with. It is the rule of rules, because while everyone able is taking precautions, you just can’t be sure where the invisible, lethal Ebola virus might be. Once the virus is on your fingers, it would be frighteningly easy to rub an eye and infect yourself.

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Information Relay Failure Admitted In Texas Ebola Victim Case

Wed, 2014-10-01 16:25 — mike kraft

A patient was diagnosed with Ebola on Sept. 30 at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas.(Photo: Mike Stone, Getty Images)

THE WASHINGTON POST

By Mark Berman October 1 at 3:15 PM

The man in Texas who tested positive for Ebola told hospital officials he had traveled from West Africa when he sought treatment on Friday, but that information was not relayed to everyone treating him at that time, authorities said Wednesday.

As a result, the man was diagnosed with a “low-grade, common viral disease” and sent home that day, said Mark C. Lester, executive vice president of the health-care system that includes Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, the Dallas facility treating the Ebola patient.

“Regretfully, that information was not fully communicated throughout the full team,” Lester said during a news conference Wednesday. “As a result, the full import of that information wasn’t factored into the clinical decision-making.”

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CNN Source: Travel History of U.S. Ebola Patient Not Checked

Wed, 2014-10-01 13:38 — mike kraft

Atlanta (CNN) -- Some school-age children have been in contact with the U.S. Ebola patient being treated in Dallas, Texas Gov. Rick Perry said Wednesday. The children have been identified and are being monitored for symptoms, he said. Perry spoke at a news conference a day after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that, for the first time, a person with the killer disease has been diagnosed on American soil.

The patient, a man, walked into a Dallas emergency room September 26. Although his symptoms could have indicated Ebola, among other diseases, no one at the hospital asked him if he had recently traveled to countries where the virus is present, a source close to the case told CNN.

The man, who had just flown from Liberia to the United States, didn't offer the information either, the source said, and he then left the hospital. A spokesman for Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital says it's investigating whether the patient was questioned about his travels.

Link to Full Story

http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/01/health/ebola-us/

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FIRST EBOLA CASE IN U.S. CONFIRMED BY CDC

Tue, 2014-09-30 17:50 — mike kraft

Updated with link to CDC statement (below)

The WASHINGTON post September 30 at 5:29 PM

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has confirmed the first case of Ebola that's been diagnosed in the United States.

The Texas Department of Health Services said in a statement that the patient is at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas. The patient -- "an adult with a recent history of travel to West Africa" -- was admitted into an isolation unit at the hospital Sunday after developing Ebola-like symptoms "days after returning to Texas from West Africa."

The test, the Texas health department said, was conducted at the state public health laboratory in Austin and later confirmed by the CDC.

The state health lab got the ability to test for Ebola only last month, according to Carrie Williams, a spokeswoman with the Texas Department of State Health Services.

Link to full story

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http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/health-science-technology/ebola-outbreak/map-how-the-ebola-outbreak-spread-through-africa/

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Ebola Outbreak: How the Virus Spread

Tue, 2014-09-30 14:37 — Norea

September 9, 2014, 9:04 pm ET by Jason M. Breslow , Chris Amico and Evan Wexler - pbs.org

Never before has the world seen an Ebola outbreak like the one currently spreading across Africa. Thousands have died, even more have become infected, and with no cure and limited resources at their disposal, health officials are struggling to keep up. From Patient Zero to today, here is a look back at how the outbreak became the worst on record.

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Vectors, Hosts, Fomites and Food….The challenge of controlling Ebola in West Africa

Tue, 2014-09-30 13:00 — Kathy Gilbeaux

Vectors, Hosts, Fomites and Food….The challenge of controlling Ebola in West Africa

John T. Hoffman

Colonel, USA, Retired

Senior Research Fellow

National Center for Food Protection and Defense

University of Minnesota

September 29, 2014

Control of VHF Ebola in West Africa is complicated by the fact that we know so little as to the mechanisms for the spread of the disease other than direct contact with infected persons or their bodily fluids, which local wildlife and rodents actually serve as hosts for the virus and the actual survivability of viable Ebola virus on fomites. Given these knowledge gaps, modeling the spread and control of the disease with any probability of being close to reality is unlikely. Potentially, these gaps suggest that the current focus on treatment and traditional control protocols have be insufficient to stop the outbreak and produce an Ebola free West Africa.

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