Ebola. Back in the news?

[John Marston]

Kansas hospital monitoring patient for possible Ebola infection.
The University of Kansas Hospital said on Friday it was monitoring a patient for a possible Ebola infection after he returned from the West African nation of Sierra Leone and developed a fever.
Kansas hospital monitoring patient for possible Ebola infection Reuters

Wow, I have already forgotten what Ebola is. Have you noticed how sudden it disappeared from the news?
What about Ebola today?
The latest figures, compiled by the World Health Organization, show that Ebola has infected 26,933 persons, mainly in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, and of those, 11,120 have died.
The death rate, though horrific, turns out to be far less than the 95 percent predicted in the first dispatches out of Africa.
Ebola never made the jump to the developed nations, as the doom-criers suggested it would. We’re still not all dead.

 

[pwjohn]

The reason why Ebola never made the jump here is because we spent a lot of money fighting the disease over there. And learned a little something about it in the process.

Ebola is still deadly and something to be avoided for sure but we can save at least some of the patients if caught early on.

 

[waltky]

New Ebola death in Sierre Leone...

Sierra Leone Confirms New Ebola Death
August 30, 2015 - Health officials in Sierra Leone on Sunday confirmed a new death from the Ebola virus, less than a week after the last known Ebola patient was released from a hospital.

The West African country's chief medical officer, Brima Kargbo, said samples from the body of the 67-year-old victim, who died recently in a rural area near the Guinea border, have tested positive for the deadly disease. Kargbo told Reuters that further tests are under way to confirm the diagnosis.

The country's National Ebola Response Center said it is tracing people who were in contact with the woman. Sierra Leone's last known patient was released from a hospital August 24, triggering a 42-day countdown required for a country to be declared free of the disease.

The World Health Organization says more than 11,300 people in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia have died from Ebola -- more than one-third of all West Africans known to have been infected. The current crisis -- the worst in history -- began in early 2014.

This undated colorized transmission electron micrograph image made available by the CDC shows an Ebola virus virion.

As the epidemic raged, Liberia was declared Ebola-free in May. But a new cluster of cases appeared about two months later, frustrating an army of doctors and scientists seeking to end the crisis.

Scientists at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say sexual transmission is the most probable explanation for the resurgence in Liberia. In May, a CDC report noted that the virus can live in semen for a period of time after a patient has otherwise recovered from the infection.

Sierra Leone Confirms New Ebola Death

 

[waltky]

Sierra Leone Village Quarantined Over Ebola...

Sierra Leone village quarantined after Ebola death
September 4, 2015 - Nearly 1,000 people in a Sierra Leone village have been put under quarantine following the death of a 67-year-old woman who tested positive for Ebola, the media reported on Friday.

It comes five days into a six-week countdown for the country to be officially declared Ebola-free, BBC reported.

According to reports, the quarantine will last for three weeks in the village in Kambia on the northern border with Guinea, provided no new cases are recorded. The quarantine is stricter than previous ones. It includes a curfew in which people will not be allowed to move from one house to another.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) and Sierra Leone's health ministry are planning a vaccination programme for those who could have come into contact with the woman. Over 11,000 people have died since the start of the Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia.

Sierra Leone village quarantined after Ebola death

 

[Old Rocks]

Well, they are learning.

 

[waltky]

Ebola turns up in monkeys in the Philippines...

Philippine monkeys infected with Ebola
Sep 5, 2015: Philippine officials say several monkeys at a research and breeding facility are infected with an Ebola strain that is non-lethal to humans.

Health Secretary Janette Garin said Saturday 25 workers at the facilities have been tested for possible infection but all have been found negative for the Ebola Reston variety.

She says the virus was detected last week after the monkeys were observed to be suffering from measles, which could have lowered their resistance to Ebola.

Garin has provided scant details, and did not identify the facility, the location or whether the monkeys were being also bred for export to foreign laboratories. It is the latest reported Ebola infection in mammals in the Philippines after pigs tested positive for the virus last year.

Philippine monkeys infected with Ebola - The Times of India

 

[waltky]

Ebola can be sexually transmitted...

Hundreds quarantined as Ebola returns to north Sierra Leone district
14 Sept.`15 -- Health authorities quarantined hundreds of people in northern Sierra Leone on Monday after a 16-year-old girl died of Ebola in an apparent case of sexual transmission, the first confirmed death from the virus in the district for nearly six months.

Sierra Leone celebrated last month when it discharged the last remaining Ebola patient from its treatment centers. But since then a new spate of cases has erupted, leaving two dead and five people in treatment. The worst outbreak of Ebola on record has killed more than 11,000 people in Sierra Leone, Guinea and neighboring Liberia since it began in December 2013. Liberia was declared Ebola-free this month but growing evidence that the virus may survive longer than previously thought in sperm has raised fears of fresh outbreaks. The teenage girl, Kadiatu Thullah, died on Sunday at the International Medical Corps Ebola treatment unit, authorities said.

A man walks past a banner about Ebola in Freetown, Sierra Leone

Emmanuel Conteh, head of the Ebola Response Centre for the district of Bombali in northern Sierra Leone, said that some 690 people in the village of Robuya where Kadiatu lived would be isolated for three weeks. "Seven of her primary contacts have been taken to the Ebola treatment unit," he told Reuters. Three patients who came into contact with the girl at another health facility have also been taken to the treatment unit. Conteh said health workers were investigating how the teenager got infected, since she had not traveled outside the village in years. Initial suspicions are that she had sex with an Ebola survivor. "We are baffled by that possibility because the survivor in question was discharged in March, way beyond the 90-day period within which sexual transmission is said to be possible," Conteh said.

The head of Sierra Leone’s Ebola response, Pallo Conteh, has warned of a possible new surge of the virus after a woman died in the nearby Kambia district, on the border with Guinea. Nearly 1,000 people are into their second week of quarantine there, but a "high risk" contact remains on the loose, Conteh said.

Hundreds quarantined as Ebola returns to north Sierra Leone district

 

[waltky]

Post mortum of last years ebola outbreak...

10 critical mistakes in last year's Ebola outbreak
21 Sept.`15 — An Associated Press investigation has found that the World Health Organization and other responders faced avoidable obstacles in their efforts to stop the spiraling Ebola outbreak last summer in Kenema, a pivotal seeding point for the virus and a microcosm of the messy response across West Africa. Their work was hampered by poor management, lack of basic protective gear and bureaucratic infighting, according to internal WHO emails, documents and AP interviews. Here are 10 critical mistakes:

1. Questionable chlorine: Unlike other aid agencies, WHO obtained the disinfectant locally in Sierra Leone. On several occasions, officials at Kenema Government Hospital discovered the chlorine had expired or that the containers had their tags ripped off and expiration dates were missing. In an email, WHO's Sierra Leone representative called for a criminal investigation into the defective disinfectant, which is key to limiting exposure to the virus.

A health worker sprays a colleague with disinfectant after working inside a morgue with people suspected of dying from the Ebola virus, in Kenema, eastern Sierra Leone. An Associated Press investigation has found that the World Health Organization and other responders faced key obstacles in their efforts to stop the spiraling Ebola outbreak in the summer of 2014 in Kenema, a pivotal seeding point for the virus and a microcosm of the messy response across West Africa.

2. Health care workers at risk: More than 40 health staffers died; 20 were infected during the delayed construction of an Ebola clinic meant to relieve pressure on Kenema's hospital. Many weren't properly trained on how to use protective equipment and worked in an Ebola ward so dangerous that aid agency Doctors Without Borders called for its closure.

3. Delayed construction: The Red Cross offered to build an Ebola clinic in Kenema, but no one in Sierra Leone's government or WHO could tell them where to build it. By the time it opened, the outbreak in Kenema already had peaked.

Maxon Kobba, right, a nurse who works at the government hospital in Kenema, eastern Sierra Leone stands next to colleagues at the facility. Kobba says as many as 20 Ebola patients could die in one night at the facility. An Associated Press investigation has found that the World Health Organization and other responders faced key obstacles in their efforts to stop the spiraling Ebola outbreak in the summer of 2014 in Kenema, a pivotal seeding point for the virus and a microcosm of the messy response across West Africa.

4. No body bags: At the beginning of August 2014, an internal WHO report noted "supplies of body bags have completely run out," vital information since the bags limit exposure to the corpses of Ebola victims, which are highly contagious. Later that month, an aid official attempting to arrange delivery of about 100 body bags to Kenema was stymied for hours by government bureaucracy. After finally being released, the bags were delayed yet again — this time overnight — when the driver couldn't reach a sleeping police superintendent for clearance through a checkpoint.

MORE

 

[waltky]

Graft an' corruption hits the Red Cross...

Red Cross apologise for losing $5m of Ebola funds to fraud
Fri, 03 Nov 2017 - Auditors found bills for fraudulently overpriced supplies and salaries for non-existent aid workers.

The Red Cross has confirmed that more than $5m (£3.8m) of aid money was lost to fraud and corruption during the Ebola epidemic in West Africa. Auditors found overpriced supplies, salaries for non-existent aid workers and fake customs bills. The disease, which raged between 2014 and 2016, claimed at least 10,000 lives. It required a massive humanitarian operation costing hundreds of millions of dollars to bring it under control.

Ebola claimed at least 100,000 lives across west Africa​

As Ebola spread across Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, the Red Cross Federation in Geneva was dispersing cash donations to the national Red Cross societies in each of those countries - altogether a sum of about $100m. An investigation by Red Cross auditors has revealed that in Liberia $2.7m disappeared in fraudulently overpriced supplies, or in salaries for non-existent aid workers. In Sierra Leone, Red Cross staff apparently colluded with local bank workers to skim off over $2m while in Guinea, where investigations are ongoing, around $1m disappeared in fake customs bills.

The Red Cross told the BBC's Imogen Foulkes in Geneva that it is deeply sorry for the losses. The organisation adds that has introduced stricter financial rules, and promised to hold any Red Cross staff involved to account. Fraud involving donor money is every aid agency's nightmare, our correspondent says. The Red Cross is the world's best-known humanitarian organisation, and this revelation will be damaging, she adds.

Red Cross admits Ebola cash lost to fraud

See also:

Scientists Solve 50-Year-Old Mystery About Breakbone Fever
November 2, 2017 • For decades, scientists have noticed something particular about a mosquito-borne virus: The second infection can cause your blood vessels to leak, like with Ebola. Now scientists think they know why.

In 1954, a mysterious disease struck children in Manila. They were showing up at hospitals with internal bleeding. Their blood vessels were leaking. Over the next few years, similar outbreaks cropped up every rainy season. And then in 1958, a massive outbreak hit Bangkok. More than 2,500 children were hospitalized. About 10 percent of them died. That year, an American doctor, working on polio in Southeast Asia, began searching for the culprit. Eventually, he isolated a mosquito-borne virus — dengue — and, in the process, launched a 60-year-old medical mystery.

The four dengue viruses originated in monkeys and independently jumped to humans in Africa or Southeast Asia between 100 and 800 years ago. Dengue remained a relatively minor, geographically restricted disease until the middle of the 20th century. Known as "breakbone fever" because of the joint pain it can bring, dengue had been causing problems for decades, maybe even centuries. But it rarely caused hemorrhaging or death. Why had it all of a sudden become so dangerous? Had the virus mutated? Was there an additional virus — or environmental factor — boosting dengue's potency? Or did a previous infection with dengue somehow make a person more vulnerable to this deadly form?

During the study's 12-year period, researchers collected more than 41,000 blood samples from more than 8,000 children in Nicaragua.​

Over the past 50 years, scientists have accumulated more and more data pointing to the last hypothesis. Now a study, published Thursday in the journal Science, finally appears to nail down why. "This is a rock-star study," exclaims Jean Lim, a virologist at Icahn Medical School at Mount Sinai, who wasn't involved in the study. "I think it will be a benchmark paper." Of course, some scientists in the field are still skeptical and want still more proof, as Science's Jon Cohen reported. But the findings also open up some intriguing theories about why Zika became such a threat in certain places of South America.

In the study, researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, followed about 6,600 children in Nicaragua where dengue circulates. For 12 years, the researchers drew the children's blood annually and measured their concentrations of dengue-binding antibodies — molecules the immune system makes to destroy viruses. Then the researchers looked for connections between severe dengue cases and antibody levels. "If a child developed dengue, we could go back to the banked antibody samples and say, 'OK, is there something about the child's antibody levels that are different than that of the healthy kids?' " says Eva Harris, an infectious disease researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, who led the study.

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[badger2]

This raises the entire issue as to whether the yellow fever viruses originated in the Western Hemisphere, including Zika. The height of the Zika outbreak in New Caledonia region corresponded precisely with the first case of ebola at Gueckedou, 6 Dec 2013.

The sexual transmission theory actually began with the Marburg case who worked at the Nzoia sugar factory, and that is why they are still very cautious about traffic from Uganda:

1 Nov 2017 No Ebola, Marburg in Kenya
No Ebola, Marburg in Kenya - Citizentv.co.ke
'....Tans-Nzoia County....'