Ebola update - 10/13/2014

Just to confuse the punters someone in the UN is claiming they'll have Ebola under control by the end of the year!

Pigs will fly (or they'll have to get that Russian vaccine out pronto)

Ebola epidemic 'could lead to failed states', warns WHO

The Ebola epidemic threatens the "very survival" of societies and could lead to failed states, the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned.

BBC,

13 October, 2014

The outbreak, which has killed some 4,000 people in West Africa, has led to a "crisis for international peace and security", WHO head Margaret Chan said.

She also warned of the cost of panic "spreading faster than the virus".

Meanwhile, medics have largely ignored a strike call in Liberia, the centre of the deadliest-ever Ebola outbreak.

Nurses and medical assistants had been urged to strike over danger money and conditions. However, most were working as normal on Monday, the BBC's Jonathan Paye-Layleh in Monrovia said.

More than 4,000 people have died during the Ebola outbreak

A union official said the government had coerced workers - but the government said it had simply asked them to be reasonable.

In a speech delivered on her behalf at a conference in the Philippines, Ms Chan said Ebola was a historic risk.

"I have never seen a health event threaten the very survival of societies and governments in already very poor countries," she said. "I have never seen an infectious disease contribute so strongly to potential state failure."

She warned of the economic impact of "rumours and panic spreading faster than the virus", citing a World Bank estimate that 90% of the cost of the outbreak would arise from "irrational attempts of the public to avoid infection".

Ms Chan also criticised pharmaceutical firms for not focusing on Ebola, condemning a "profit-driven industry [that] does not invest in products for markets that cannot pay".

In a corner of a UN compound at Accra airport, the UN's newest agency is having its first warehouse put up.

In a nearby office block, a multinational team of UN workers are finding desks and setting up phone lines for the regional headquarters of the UN Mission for Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER). The operation is so new that pieces of paper Sellotaped to walls and doors serve as nameplates.

But the question on many minds is why it has taken the UN so long to set up UNMEER. Medical aid agencies working on the front lines in the fight against Ebola, such as Medecins Sans Frontieres, have been sounding the alarm since the beginning of the year.

But UNMEER officials say they didn't realise until recently that the disease was out of control

Liberia health workers poised to start indefinite strike; Ebola efforts in jeopardy

The Ebola epidemic threatens the "very survival" of societies and could lead to failed states, the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned.

Japan Times,

13 October, 2014

Thousands of Liberian health care workers are set to begin an indefinite strike at midnight on Monday that could undermine the country’s effort to stop the spread of the deadly Ebola virus and leave several hundred patients without care.

Health workers in the West African nation threatened to abandon hundreds of patients in Ebola treatment units, clinics and hospitals if demands for better incentives, working conditions and protective equipment were not met.

A meeting to resolve their grievances on Oct. 10 ended in a deadlock with the government refusing the meet their demands, said George Williams, secretary general of the National Health Workers Association of Liberia.

“The government of Liberia has not changed their posture. They do not want to engage us so that we can talk,” Williams said. “Time is running out, by 1200 midnight on Monday morning, we will be starting the go-slow action.”

Liberia’s deputy health minister, Matthew Flomo, said the government was not aware of health workers planning to strike

“What I do know is that the government has reached an agreement with health workers for their payment, which will be as of September, beginning Monday,” Flomo said.

But Williams denied the workers had reached any agreement with the government. He accused the administration of trying to divide the workers.

He, however, acknowledged that the strike would undermine the gains being made in the fight against Ebola in Liberia, but said they were confident the public would understand the reason behind their action.

“The problem is the government. The public should get angry with the government, not with us,” Williams said

“The public is aware that health workers are dying because they are not protected. Nobody is supposed to die while protecting lives, we have been calling on the government to give us protective gear but they are not doing so,” he said.

Liberia has the highest number of infections and deaths of the worst outbreak of the viral haemorrhagic fever that has killed 2,316 people in the poor West African nation.

Health care systems in Liberia as well as in Sierra Leone and Guinea where the outbreak was first recorded in March, have been overwhelmed by the epidemic. The disease has also spread to Senegal, Nigeria, Spain and the United States.

Concern that Ebola could spread globally has prompted international organizations and the international community to step up support for the affected countries with medical personnel, material and pledges of about $1 billion to tackle the epidemic.

But health care workers in Liberia complain they are still working without basic protective clothing and are not receiving adequate compensation while many of them have contracted and died from the disease.

Over 4,000 people have died from Ebola, including 233 health care workers, among them 95 from Liberia and the same number from Sierra Leone, according to the World Health Organization.

One thing is unprecedented. That is the simultaneous outbreak of major diseases. This has a high mortality rate.

Uganda: two new suspected 

Marburg cases put in 

isolation 

http://theextinctionprotocol.wordpress.com/2014/10/14/uganda-two-new-suspected-marburg-cases-put-in-isolation-second-outbreak-forming/

October 2014 – UGANDA – Two new suspect cases of Marburg have been put in isolation at the national referral hospital Mulago. They did not have any contact with the health worker who died of Marburg on September 28th, which could suggest a 2nd outbreak may be festering. Three other suspected cases are in isolation camps in Ibanda and Entebbe and preliminary tests on them have so far turned out negative. Test will be re-administered. 

The Marburg virus is similar to the Ebola virus in many ways than one. They both cause illnesses marked by severe bleeding (haemorrhage), organ failure and, in many cases, death. The Marburg virus is a genetically unique zoonotic (transmissible from animal to man) RNA virus of the filovirus family. The five species of Ebola virus are the only other known members of the filovirus family.

The reservoir host of Marburg virus is the African fruit bat which, when infected with the virus, do not to show obvious signs of illness. 

Although, it is not clearly known of how the Marburg virus first got transmitted from its animal host to humans, it was discovered that in the two cases in Uganda in 2008, unprotected contact with infected bat faeces or aerosols were the most likely routes of infection.

In some other outbreaks, persons who have handled infected non-human primates or have come in direct contact with their fluids or cell cultures have become infected. As soon as infection occurs, it leads to contracting the deadly Marburg Haemorrhagic Fever which has a high mortality. –NTV

The mass movement of people across porous borders will make the outbreak even harder to control

Migration beginning out of 

West African countries hit by 

Ebola epidemic – as I 

predicted

http://theextinctionprotocol.wordpress.com/2014/10/13/migration-beginning-out-of-west-african-countries-hit-by-ebola-epidemic-as-i-predicted/

by The Extinction Protocolhttp://theextinctionprotocol.wordpress.com/2014/10/13/migration-beginning-out-of-west-african-countries-hit-by-ebola-epidemic-as-i-predicted/

October 2014 – AFRICA - As the world panics over the Ebola outbreak, West Africans are reportedly fleeing their countries in a bid to outrun the virus – some even headed overland for South Africa. 

According to theSunday Independent, this could place South Africa at considerable risk. Johannesburg-based members of the immigrant communities from Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, told the newspaper that there is a considerable number of people attempting to reach SA, most trying to reach it overland – a 5,000km trek. 

One man said he alone knew of at least five people who were on their way. The newspaper reports that it would just take one carrier to change the situation in SA – particularly in a community that is largely housed in the densely populated city centre of Johannesburg – an ideal breeding ground for a communicable virus such as Ebola.

 In addition, these often undocumented migrants also enter the country through the porous border at Beitbridge in northern Limpopo – an entry point that has no measures such as temperature radars in place to check visitors who could be carriers.

However, Minister of Home Affairs Malusi Gigaba and Minister of Health Aaron Motsoaledi have stated that although caution needs to be exercised, it cannot be done at the expense of fuelling xenophobia. 

Motsoaledi said that he feels SA is too far away for most people to reach by land and if they were carrying the disease, the chances are they would not make it to the border alive, reported the newspaper. 

Meanwhile, as reported by News24 on Saturday, the UN special envoy on Ebola says the number of cases is probably doubling every three to four weeks and the response needs to be 20 times greater than it was at the beginning of October. 

David Nabarro warned the UN General Assembly on Friday that without the mass mobilization of the world to support the affected countries in West Africa, “it will be impossible to get this disease quickly under control, and the world will have to live with the Ebola virus forever.” –AFK Insider