You are here

UNMC dean who just returned from Sierra Leone, another Ebola expert agree: Fight not over

Primary tabs

OMAHA WORLD-HERALD by  Bob Glissman                                                             March 11, 2015

  The West African countries hit hardest by the Ebola virus and the countries and groups that have helped battle the disease must remain vigilant if the number of new Ebola cases is to get to zero, health experts said Wednesday.
Dr. Ali Khan, dean of the University of Nebraska Medical Center’s College of Public Health, spent a month in Sierra Leone as a consultant on Ebola for the World Health Organization. 

Dr. Ali Khan, who returned to Omaha late last week after a month in Sierra Leone, said progress is evident, but he cautioned officials there against becoming complacent. “Because with a disease like Ebola,” he said, “all you need is one case to restart an outbreak or a cluster of cases.”

Khan, the dean of the University of Nebraska Medical Center’s College of Public Health, said that during his stint as a consultant for the World Health Organization, one Ebola-infected fisherman infected more than 30 people before dying.

WHO reported Wednesday that 116 new confirmed cases of Ebola virus disease were reported in Sierra Leone and Guinea during the week ending Sunday, compared with 132 the previous week. Liberia, WHO said, reported no new confirmed cases for the second consecutive week.

Still, the disease remains distributed across a large geographic region, said Dr. Gavin Macgregor-Skinner, global projects manager for the Elizabeth R. Griffin Foundation and an assistant professor at Penn State University.

Macgregor-Skinner was in Omaha as part of a daylong Ebola conference...  that drew researchers from across the U.S.

With the rainy season approaching in the three countries, Macgregor-Skinner said, people in remote areas who contract Ebola won’t be able to get to treatment centers, and health care workers won’t be able to reach them. The rainy season begins in mid-May and is most intense from July to September....

Read complete story.
http://m.livewellnebraska.com/ebola/unmc-dean-who-just-returned-from-sierra-leone-another-ebola/article_fb40900a-637b-5b36-bc8d-04c0ab344787.html?mode=jqm

General Topic Tags: 
Problem, Solution, SitRep, or ?: 
Groups this Group Post belongs to: 

Comments

12 News

Regarding the following comment made by Dr. Gavin Macgregor-Skinner in the above article . . . "Instead of pulling the U.S. military and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials out of the region, he said, 'we should be sending more Americans to West Africa' to make sure communication and other issues are resolved." . . .

(It is questionable whether the deployment described as follows will be enough.)

21 soldiers with the 48th Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Explosives Brigade's headquarters are being deployed to West Africa. Those soldiers will replace thousands of troops and help command the remaining force of about 100 in Africa . . .

. . . their main goal is to transition the humanitarian efforts conducted by military personnel to civilian organizations. Erichsen says that civilian led response will continue to grow until Liberia is 100% Ebola free.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

(ALSO SEE RELATED ARTICLE HERE)

howdy folks
Page loaded in 0.481 seconds.