Ebola update - 10/04/2014

First US Ebola case Thomas Duncan 'critical'

The first person to be diagnosed with Ebola within the US has deteriorated from a serious to a critical condition, doctors in the state of Texas say.

BBC,

5 October, 2014

Thomas Duncan, who caught the virus in his native Liberia, is being treated at a Dallas hospital in isolation.

Earlier it emerged that the flat where he lived is being cleaned by hazardous materials specialists and its remaining four occupants moved to a private home.

Some 3,431 people have died in West Africa in the worst Ebola outbreak yet.

Mr Duncan, shown here at a 2011 wedding in Ghana, was visiting family in the US

On Friday, a senior US military figure said the US could deploy as many as 4,000 troops to the region to help contain the outbreak, which has hit hardest in West African four nations.

While Mr Duncan is the first person to be diagnosed within the US, three American aid workers and a photojournalist contracted the virus in Liberia.

Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital issued a six-word statement about Thomas Duncan on Saturday, saying only that "Mr Duncan is in critical condition."

Earlier his condition had been described as serious but stable.

Experimental treatment

Ebola spreads through contact with the bodily fluids of someone who has the virus and the only way to stop an outbreak is to isolate those who are infected.

There have been nearly 7,500 confirmed infections worldwide, with officials saying the figure is likely to be much higher in reality.

Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia have been hardest hit.

Celebrations in West Africa for the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha are being badly affected by the Ebola outbreak, with many public places deserted this weekend.

Meanwhile, a French nurse who got the virus in Liberia has recovered after having experimental treatment in Paris, it has emerged.

And a Senegalese medical expert who was infected in Sierra Leone has also been discharged from a hospital in the German city of Hamburg.

Ebola virus disease (EVD)

• Symptoms include high fever, bleeding and central nervous system damage
• Spread by body fluids, such as blood and saliva
• Fatality rate can reach 90% - but current outbreak has mortality rate of about 70%
• Incubation period is two to 21 days
• There is no proven vaccine or cure
• Supportive care such as rehydrating patients who have diarrhoea and vomiting can help recovery
• Fruit bats, a delicacy for some West Africans, are considered to be virus's natural host

ISIS to attack US with Ebola? report claims jihadists ‘to send infected militants’ to America to spread disease

http://theextinctionprotocol.wordpress.com/2014/10/04/isis-to-attack-us-with-ebola-report-claims-jihadists-to-send-infected-militants-to-america-to-spread-disease/

October 2014 – HEALTH – If latest reports are to be believed, the Islamic State militants might be conspiring to deliberately infect jihadists with the deadly Ebola virus and send them to America in order to spread the disease in the US – an event that could see America being attacked in a new pseudo-war. 

The Israeli News Agency, a site which claims to be Israel’s first online news organization has confirmed the authenticity of the report saying it “clears all news items relating to Israeli security with the Israel government press office.” 

The agency said, citing “Israeli security sources,” that dozens of ISIS fighters in Syria have fallen ill and had symptoms of Ebola. 

This news quickly ignited a new conspiracy theory claiming that ISIS is planning to send Ebola-infected militants into the US to spread the disease. 

“While Western nations fighting the Islamic State might consider this reported Ebola outbreak among radical jihadists to be welcome news, there is a very big, very dangerous downside to Islamic terrorists being carriers of the virus,” Norvell Rose, the winner of numerous journalism honours, writes for WesternJournalism.com. 

The article also cites the Israeli News Agency (INA) for inference into why the news could prove dangerous for the Americans. The INA in its report quoted a source it identified only as “AVi,” who is “a global anti-terrorism consultant” as saying: “We know that ISIS has training camps in Africa and it is highly possible that this is where contact with the virus was made.

“This would add new meaning to the US stating that no boots would be on the ground as both missiles and Ebola penetrates one of the worst evils that the world has ever known.”

The theory was further bolstered by reports of a direct threat from the ISIS militants who said they would spread the Ebola virus to the United States and its allies if they continue to wage war on the organization inside Syria and Iraq as reported by Shoebat.com, a website created by Walid Shoebat who was a radicalized Muslim until 1994 when he converted to Christianity.

Shoebat quoted a statement from ISIS published in another website called Vetogate.com.

The statement reportedly said: “Followers and soldiers of the Islamic State are mostly suicide bombers and all of them are ready not only to carry Ebola, but to drink Ebola if they were asked to carry and spread it in the United States. This is not difficult but we need a decision from the leaders jihadist.”

The statement further said: “The process of spreading disease is not difficult.

It can easily be transported in a bottle in your bag from Africa to America. The contents of the bottle can then be released in an air-conditioning duct or put it in the public drinking water.”

–IB Times

U.S. nurses say they are unprepared to handle Ebola patients

http://theextinctionprotocol.wordpress.com/2014/10/04/u-s-nurses-say-they-are-unprepared-to-handle-ebola-patients/

October 2014 – HEALTH - Nurses, the frontline care providers in U.S. hospitals, say they are untrained and unprepared to handle patients arriving in their hospital emergency departments infected with Ebola. 

Many say they have gone to hospital managers, seeking training on how to best care for patients and protect themselves and their families from contracting the deadly disease, which has so far killed at least 3,338 people in the deadliest outbreak on record. 

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has repeatedly said that U.S. hospitals are prepared to handle such patients. Many infectious disease experts agree with that assessment. Dr. Edward Goodman, an infectious disease doctor at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas that is now caring for the first Ebola patient to be diagnosed in this country, believed his hospital was ready. 

The hospital had completed Ebola training just before Thomas Eric Duncan arrived in their emergency department on Sept. 26. But despite being told that Duncan had recently traveled from Liberia, hospital staff failed to recognize the Ebola risk and sent him home, where he spent another two days becoming sicker and more infectious. 

The Texas case is a perfect example,” said Micker Samios, a triage nurse in the emergency department at Medstar Washington Hospital Center, the largest hospital in the nation’s capital. “In addition to not being prepared, there was a flaw in diagnostics as well as communication,” Samios said.

Nurses argue that inadequate preparation could increase the chances of spreading Ebola if hospital staff fail to recognize a patient coming through their doors, or if personnel are not informed about how to properly protect themselves. 

At Medstar, the issue of Ebola training came up at the bargaining table during contract negotiations. 

“A lot of staff feel they aren’t adequately trained,” said Samios, whose job is to greet patients in the emergency department and do an initial assessment of their condition. 

So Young Pak, a spokeswoman for the hospital, said it has been rolling out training since July “in the Emergency Department and elsewhere, and communicating regularly with physicians, nurses and others throughout the hospital.” Samios said she and other members of the emergency department staff were trained just last week on procedures to care for and recognize an Ebola patient, but not everyone was present for the training, and none of the other nursing or support staff were trained. 

“When an Ebola patient is admitted or goes to the intensive care unit, those nurses, those tech service associates are not trained,” she said. “The X-ray tech who comes into the room to do the portable chest X-ray is not trained. The transporter who pushes the stretcher is not trained.” If an Ebola patient becomes sick while being transported, “How do you clean the elevator?’

Nurses at hospitals across the country are asking similar questions. A survey by National Nurses United of some 400 nurses in more than 200 hospitals in 25 states found that more than half (60 percent) said their hospital is not prepared to handle patients with Ebola, and more than 80 percent said their hospital has not communicated to them any policy regarding potential admission of patients infected by Ebola. 

Another 30 percent said their hospital has insufficient supplies of eye protection and fluid-resistant gowns. 

“If there are protocols in place, the nurses are not hearing them and the nurses are the ones who are exposed,” said RoseAnn DeMoro, executive director of National Nurses United, which serves as both a union and a professional association for U.S. nurses.

 – Huffington Post

Mother of Ebola Infected Cameraman Speaks

The mother of a freelance cameraman from Rhode Island who became infected with Ebola in Libera says her son was aware of the risks and took every precaution while working in Africa. (Oct. 3)