Ebola outbreak: Guinea confirms two new cases

[Disir]

Two new Ebola cases have been confirmed in Guinea, almost three months after it celebrated the end of the outbreak.

Three other members of the family are suspected to have recently died from the virus.

The cases were reported in the southern region of Nzerekore, where the outbreak began in December 2013.
Ebola outbreak: Guinea confirms two new cases - BBC News

The gift that keeps on giving.

 

[TheOldSchool]

Hmm 7 months before the elections...

Will republicans try to ride this one home like they did in 2014?

 

[Disir]

Hmm 7 months before the elections...

Will republicans try to ride this one home like they did in 2014?

As it were, Ebola turned out to harm people in ways that were not thought imaginable at the time. Kidney malfunctions, blindness. There was reason to fear. The Republicans have done nothing since having been elected to come up with a game plan should the US be faced with something similiar so this is probably something they should stay away from.

 

[waltky]

Duplicate deleted

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Obama will lay hands on the infected, just like he did last time

 

[TheOldSchool]

Obama will lay hands on the infected, just like he did last time

 

[waltky]

How Fast Can An Outbreak Be Detected?...

How Fast Can An Outbreak Be Detected?
March 23, 2018 - How do you stop an outbreak from becoming an epidemic?

You catch it early, of course – a task that requires rapid response and coordination. That's a tough mission in any country, especially a nation lacking in resources. Uganda is proving that it's absolutely doable, even in a low-income country. Since 2010, a first-of-its-kind program has helped Ugandans quickly detect and respond to deadly viral hemorrhagic fevers (VHFs) – like Ebola, Marburg, Rift Valley fever and Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever. It's run by the Ministry of Health, the Uganda Virus Research Institute and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which started up the endeavor.

Because of the program, Uganda has cut the time it takes to confirm an outbreak from an average of two weeks to an average of 2.5 days. "Informally, it was probably a lot longer than two weeks before," says Trevor Shoemaker, the CDC epidemiologist who led the program for six years. "It was maybe a three- [or] four-week average, but we had to go by what was published in literature."

Rapid detection of outbreaks is critical. That's why the CDC partnered with Uganda on a pilot program to speed things up. Above: Workers at an Ebola emergency response center in Sierra Leone during the outbreak that began in 2014.​

Regardless, early detection and responses have led to a "significant decrease in the overall intensity and duration" of outbreaks, according to a CDC report published Wednesday in The Lancet Infectious Diseases. "Days really matter," says Dr. Tom Frieden, president and CEO of Resolve to Save Lives and director of the CDC from 2009 to 2017. "Every hour and day is more time the disease has a chance to spread within a community and move to other communities."

Uganda got a bitter taste of that in 2000, when 425 cases of Ebola erupted in Gulu district. It was the largest Ebola outbreak ever recorded – until 2014, when the virus killed more than 11,000 people in West Africa and was carried to the U.S. and Europe. So Ugandans were aware of these devastating diseases. But protocols for sample collection, transportation and diagnosis were mostly for HIV and tuberculosis. Also, exiting systems were only being used on an "as-needed" basis. No operations were in place to constantly monitor and address viral hemorrhagic fevers specifically.

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