Health

Update of this Morning's story:

Obama tells global health officials: After Ebola, ‘we have to do better.’Obama tells global health officials: After Ebola, ‘we have to do better.’

WASHINGTON POST
By Juliet Eilperin September 26 at 1:30 PM

WASHINGTON --

President Obama addressed health officials from dozens of countries who had gathered Friday at the White House to determine ways the international community can strengthen defenses against future epidemics, such as the Ebola outbreak now raging in West Africa.

Administration officials had launched a global health security initiative in February to help other nations develop basic disease detection and monitoring systems to contain the spread of deadly illnesses.

nytimes.com - by MARK LANDLER and SOMINI SENGUPTA - September 25, 2014

UNITED NATIONS — Seeking to speed the response to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, President Obama delivered a blunt warning on Thursday at a high-level United Nations meeting devoted to the health crisis: The world was doing too little and moving too slowly.

Mr. Obama cited his announcements last week that the Pentagon would build a field hospital and treatment units in Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone — along with the establishment of a United Nations emergency mission to respond to the Ebola outbreak — as positive steps.

“But I want us to be clear: We are not moving fast enough. We are not doing enough,” the president said. “There is still a significant gap between where we are and where we need to be.”

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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.

...

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.