Ebola. What is going on?

Grand Potentate

Grand Potentate

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Yeah, so about that Ebola stuff...

http://www.theverge.com/2014/9/23/6...pidemic-may-be-almost-over-or-1-5-million-may

The Ebola epidemic could be over by January — or worse than ever
The CDC seems confident, but up to 1.5 million people could be infected


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    A fast, decisive response by the medical community could end the Ebola epidemic in January, says Tom Frieden, the director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That's the best-case scenario. The worst-case scenario is 1.5 million people infected in Sierra Leone and Liberia by January. Guinea wasn't included in the estimate because the cases there have varied in ways that can't be reliably modeled.

    To end the epidemic in January, about 70 percent of people who are infected need to be treated at an Ebola treatment facility or at home to reduce disease transmission, according to CDC data. Right now, only 18 percent of Liberian patients and 40 percent of those in Sierra Leone are receiving that kind of care.

    "Even poor clinical services can cut the death rate in half," Frieden says. Treatment for Ebola generally involves making sure patients stay hydrated. Hospital treatment does this using an IV; at home, families should give patients water and time.

    The numbers are from an Ebola modeling tool that the CDC released today, based on data available at the end of August. Changes since August make the worst-case scenario unlikely, as the US and other countries have pledged aid to the West African countries. Supplies and more people are already on the ground. Given the changes since August, Friedan says, "I am confident the most-dire projections are not going to come to pass."

    "Even poor clinical services can cut the death rate in half."Already there have been more than 4,000 confirmed cases and almost 2,300 confirmed deaths from the disease, but those numbers are almost certainly underestimates, according to World Health Organization data published by the New England Journal of Medicine. That report also voiced concern that Ebola might become endemic in the region. It estimated 20,000 would be infected by November.

    Yesterday's report from WHO found that the number of Ebola patients is now greater than the number of hospital beds in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. The CDC report suggested alternate methods of treatment, based at home or in community centers, where relatives are provided with the gear required to keep from getting infected. That means gloves and disinfectant, gowns and masks, according to an NPR report. The US government is sending 400,000 kits containing those tools to Liberia, to help care for patients who don't make it to a hospital.

    "This is an unprecedented outbreak and every hour counts," said Gayle Smith, a senior director of the National Security Council, who was also on the call. "We want people to understand that there's data to guide the response."
 
Grand Potentate

Grand Potentate

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/24/liberia-ebola-conflict_n_5874194.html

Top Liberian Official Warns Ebola Crisis May Plunge The Country Back Into Conflict

  • A top official in Liberia's government warned on Wednesday that the Ebola outbreak ravaging through West Africa may have disastrous consequences for the peace and stability of the region.

    Liberia's Information Minister Lewis Brown told the Agence France Presse that the slow response to the Ebola outbreak could cause the region to "slip back into conflict."

    "Hospitals are struggling, but so too are hotels," Brown said. "Businesses are struggling. If this continues the cost of living will go to the roof. You have an agitated population."

    "The effect of Ebola is being seen not just as a public health situation but it is also a political situation," he added. "Liberia is just 10 years out of our conflict."

    Brown's comments come just one day after the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released worrying predictions of the possible spread of the disease if the global response remains inadequate. It said that in the worst case scenario, Liberia and Sierra Leone combined may see up to 1.4 million cases of Ebola by Jan. 20, 2015.

    So far, there have been 5,800 cases of Ebola reported, a majority of them in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone. More than 2,800 deaths have been recorded. Yet many experts, including doctors at the CDC, believe the numbers are actually much higher, as many cases go unreported.

    Liberia has been the country worst hit by the Ebola outbreak, with more than 3,000 registered infections and more than 1,500 deaths. The country has seen a 52 percent increase in cases in the past three weeks alone.

    The few hospitals in Liberia that are equipped to take care of the sick are severely strained. CNN reports that in the capital of Monrovia, there is an estimated shortage of 700 beds for Ebola patients, forcing them to wander from clinic to clinic in search of a place to get treatment. The crisis has crippled the country's already fragile health care system and has severely strained its economy.

    Several countries, including the United States, have pledged to help the country cope with the outbreak. President Obama announced last week that the U.S. is sending 3,000 troops to West Africa to help combat the disease and will build 1,700 beds in Liberia for treatment.
 
Zé Ferreira

Zé Ferreira

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CDC confirmed today first US case. In TX, I think it was. An illegal from that liquid border, perhaps?
 
Russell Street

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I am completely ignorant on the matter, but find these bumper stickers amusing nonetheless.
Ebola%20Sticker(1).jpg
 
Thruth

Thruth

Big Winter Daddy
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...and Spain put the sick nurse's dog Excaliber down as it might have Ebola too. There was an online uproar over that.
 
Thruth

Thruth

Big Winter Daddy
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In 1995, I interviewed at CDC as a candidate for the Epidemic Investigation Service (EIS) Officer program. Disease outbreak investigations like Ebola are part of the gig. They would not take me because I was a furriner without government funding.

No Hazmat suit for you, they said
 
Thruth

Thruth

Big Winter Daddy
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John Lee Pettimore III said:
Jesse Jackson just landed in Dallas. 22 kids were shot this past weekend in his "beloved" Chicago, but that sorryass is in Dallas. I suppose he's going to challenge why the black guy with Ebola couldn't get the good drugs?
Click to expand...

Well whaddaya know:

http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-...fferent-Treatment-for-Black-People-in-America

JESSE JACKSON: 'WE KNOW THERE IS DIFFERENT TREATMENT' FOR BLACK PEOPLE IN AMERICA

Reverend Jesse Jackson stated that “we know there is different treatment among blacks in the country,” when asked whether he thought the treatment of Dallas Ebola patient Thomas Duncan was due to race on Tuesday.
Previously, he said “it seems the way we treated the Americans in Georgia, and the American in Nebraska is different than the way we treated a victim here in Dallas.”

Later, when asked whether he thought racism was a factor by WFAA reporter David Schechter, he responded “I don’t want to say that, only because, I don't want to say only because that's a headline…whether you are white in Atlanta or whether you are white in Nebraska or black in Dallas, we know there is different treatment among blacks in the country.”

He also offered some praise of the hospital officials “I think they’ve done a marvelous recovery, and we want to embrace the hospital staff and work with them on his recovery,” but Schechter added that Jackson stated he “remains concerned that Duncan was sent home from the hospital the first time he came in for help.”
 
Grand Potentate

Grand Potentate

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I don't know what the fuck Jessee is planning on doing down there but you have to be able to see the racial component in this without looking at it very closely.
 
Zé Ferreira

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Rambo said:
I don't know what the fuck Jessee is planning on doing down there but you have to be able to see the racial component in this without looking at it very closely.
Click to expand...

People tend to see race in everything when that's all they care about.
 
Grand Potentate

Grand Potentate

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Russell Street said:
I remember the Chinese-American activists flipping out with that bird flu...oh wait.
Click to expand...
What are we waiting on? These things to be the same?
El Argentino said:
People tend to see race in everything when that's all they care about.
Click to expand...
I suppose we could field test this if we could only find a white person who had just traveled back from a country ravaged with disease, who went to a hospital without insurance, and then was thrown out on his ass with just some antibiotics.
 
Zé Ferreira

Zé Ferreira

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1) What white person would really want to go to Liberia (ravaged with disease) like that?
2) What of that small group wouldn't have insurance? If they're traveling internationally, they should probably have $ to take care of themselves.
 
Russell Street

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Rambo said:
I suppose we could field test this if we could only find a white person who had just traveled back from a country ravaged with disease, who went to a hospital without insurance, and then was thrown out on his ass with just some antibiotics.
Click to expand...
Is this the same Rambo that had a thread just a few days back on the American healthcare system being so fucked up that is now claiming that inadequate care is surely because of race alone????
 
Grand Potentate

Grand Potentate

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El Argentino said:
1) What white person would really want to go to Liberia (ravaged with disease) like that?
2) What of that small group wouldn't have insurance? If they're traveling internationally, they should probably have $ to take care of themselves.
Click to expand...
:facepalm:
 
Thruth

Thruth

Big Winter Daddy
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They used the experimental drug on the poor fellow and it did not help him.

Wouldn't you think that the "can you afford" top notch American health care would be suspended with respect to Ebola? Wouldn't the gubment have a role to play in the treatment process?

This ain't a fucking gall bladder.

That said, since he presented on his own to the ER I could see low income playing a role at first when he was sent home. But that might just be because he wasn't screaming "hey, I just flew in from Liberia and I think I gots the Ebola".

The same thing might have occurred if a well to do person presented in the same way.

"It is the flu"

No one in the hospital would have been thinking Ebola. It was never coming to America, right. CDC said so, right. Docs and nurses are dumbfucks too, right.

If there is anyone or anything to blame it is a public health system that failed to sound the alarm of preparedness that people might be popping in who had been in West Africa.

When you do a physical you generally ask questions to find out where they might have been to rule out or rule in various conditions into your differential diagnosis.
 
Thruth

Thruth

Big Winter Daddy
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The WHO fucks up but Bono & U2 are at the ready to save Africa!

http://www.cbc.ca/m/news/topstories...tched-early-attempt-to-stop-disease-1.2802432

Ebola outbreak: WHO admits it botched early attempt to stop disease

The World Health Organization has admitted that it botched attempts to stop the now-spiraling Ebola outbreak in West Africa, blaming factors including incompetent staff and a lack of information.

"Nearly everyone involved in the outbreak response failed to see some fairly plain writing on the wall," WHO said in a draft internal document obtained by The Associated Press, noting that experts should have realized that traditional containment methods wouldn't work in a region with porous borders and broken health systems.

The UN health agency acknowledged that, at times, even its own bureaucracy was a problem. It noted that the heads of WHO country offices in Africa are "politically motivated appointments" made by the WHO regional director for Africa, Dr. Luis Sambo, who does not answer to the agency's chief in Geneva, Dr. Margaret Chan.

'Not competent'

Dr. Peter Piot, the co-discoverer of the Ebola virus, agreed in an interview Friday that WHO acted far too slowly, largely because of its Africa office.

"It's the regional office in Africa that's the frontline," he said. "And they didn't do anything. That office is really not competent."

Piot also questioned why it took WHO five months and 1,000 deaths before the agency declared Ebola an international health emergency in August.

"I called for a state of emergency to be declared in July and for military operations to be deployed," he said. But he said WHO might have been scarred by its experience during the 2009 swine flu pandemic, when it was slammed for hyping the situation.

In late April, during a teleconference on Ebola among infectious disease experts that included WHO, Doctors Without Borders and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, questions were apparently raised about the performance of WHO experts, as not all of them bothered to send Ebola reports to WHO headquarters.

"I called for a state of emergency to be declared in July and for military operations to be deployed," he said. But he said WHO might have been scarred by its experience during the 2009 swine flu pandemic, when it was slammed for hyping the situation.

In late April, during a teleconference on Ebola among infectious disease experts that included WHO, Doctors Without Borders and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, questions were apparently raised about the performance of WHO experts, as not all of them bothered to send Ebola reports to WHO headquarters.

About 4,500 dead
WHO said it was "particularly alarming" that the head of its Guinea office refused to help get visas for an expert Ebola team to come in and $500,000 in aid was blocked by administrative hurdles. Guinea, along with Sierra Leone and Liberia, is one of the hardest-hit nations in the current outbreak, with 843 deaths so far blamed on Ebola.

The Ebola outbreak already has killed 4,484 people in West Africa and WHO has said within two months, there could be new 10,000 cases of Ebola every week.

When Doctors Without Borders began warning in April that the Ebola outbreak was out of control, a dispute on social media broke out between the charity and a WHO spokesman, who insisted the outbreak was under control.

At a meeting of WHO's network of outbreak experts in June, Dr. Bruce Aylward, normally in charge of polio eradication, alerted Chan about the serious concerns being raised about WHO's leadership in West Africa. He wrote an email that some of the agency's partners — including national health agencies and charities — believed the agency was "compromising rather than aiding" the response to Ebola and that "none of the news about WHO's performance is good."

Five days later, Chan received a six-page letter from the agency's network of experts, spelling out what they saw as severe shortcomings in WHO's response to the deadly virus.

"This (was) the first news of this sort to reach her," WHO said in the draft document. "She is shocked."

On Thursday, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said that a trust fund he launched to provide fast and flexible funding for the fight against Ebola has only $100,000 US in the bank.

UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the trust fund is part of a nearly $1 billion UN appeal for humanitarian needs in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, the three countries hardest-hit by the deadly virus.

Ban urged the international community to respond to the appeal immediately, which he said will enable the United Nations "to get ahead of the curve and meet our target of reducing the rate of transmission by Dec. 1."

UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the trust fund is part of a nearly $1 billion UN appeal for humanitarian needs in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, the three countries hardest-hit by the deadly virus.

Ban urged the international community to respond to the appeal immediately, which he said will enable the United Nations "to get ahead of the curve and meet our target of reducing the rate of transmission by Dec. 1."

The World Health Organization said Thursday that the Ebola death toll will reach more than 4,500 this week, from among 9,000 people infected by the deadly disease. It has projected that there could be between 5,000 and 10,000 new cases a week in early December without urgent action.

Dujarric said donors may choose to give directly to a UN agency or a specific country, or they may channel their contribution through the trust fund which will allow the UN to allocate the funds where they are most urgently required at the time.

The secretary-general said the trust fund had received about $20 million, but the United Nations later clarified that the $20 million has been pledged, and only $100,000 has actually been received.

As of Thursday, Dujarric said the wider $1 billion UN appeal had received $376 million in pledges, about 38 per cent of the amount sought.

U2 concert possible
"Ebola is a huge and urgent global problem that demands a huge and urgent global response," Ban told reporters.

He said dozens of countries "are showing their solidarity," singling out the U.S., Britain, France, Canada, Germany, Poland, Japan, South Korea, Cuba and China. But he said it's time that countries that have "the capacity" — which he didn't identify — provide support.

The secretary-general said he liked the idea of greater public support for the fight against Ebola, including the possibility of a fundraising concert promoted by someone like U2 singer Bono.

"I would welcome any initiative taken by Mr. Bono or some other leaders around the world to join this campaign to mobilize funds and mobilize awareness to take urgent action all together and to show solidarity," Ban said.
 
OfficePants

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Heh. I was coming to post about the Ebola Czar. I was also going to post that I've never seen an anything Czar do shit. Czar's are overrated.
 
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