Ebola Outbreak World News

[rdunk]

Millions more at risk in Ebola outbreak, British study finds

Research by the University of Oxford reveals how 15 more countries across Africa could be hit by the Ebola virus

By Oliver Duggan 5:27PM BST 10 Sep 2014

The deadliest Ebola outbreak in history could spread to a further 15 countries in West and Central Africa, putting up to 70 million people at risk of infection, a ground-breaking study has found.

Research by the University of Oxford compared historic outbreaks to the virus' possible transmission in bats and chimpanzees to predict how the disease could spread through its vast animal reservoir.

It is the first time scientists have attempted to explain how the virus, which is contracted through contact with infected bodily fluids, has travelled westward across Africa.

The resulting map shows how the populations of the Central African Republic, Cameroon, Ghana and a dozen more countries could be hit by the outbreak, which has already killed nearly 2,300 people in 2014.

Several species of bat are suspected of carrying the virus through the jungles of West and Central Africa without showing symptoms, passing the disease onto other animals which are eaten by some communities as "bush meat".

Researchers said transmission to the human population was not "inevitable", but that environmental factors in many more countries than previously considered made it possible for further Ebola outbreak outbreaks.

According to the Oxford study, Cote D'Ivoire, Gabon, Angola, Tanzania, Togo, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Burundi, Equatorial Guinea, Madagascar and Malawi could also join those countries already affected.

More than 1,000 people have so far died in Liberia, where the country's Defence Minister Brownie Samukai has said the disease threatens the country's very existence.

"Liberia is facing a serious threat to its national existence. The deadly Ebola virus has caused a disruption of the normal functioning of our State," he said yesterday.

More: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/ebola/11086598/Millions-more-at-risk-in-Ebola-outbreak-British-study-finds.html

[rdunk]

Citing security threat, Obama expands U.S. role fighting Ebola

Well, don't we think it is past time for a major response to such as this? But much the same with just about every event this administration has faced, with this one and others costing lives as they dwell on, "What oh what should we do"??

Reuters  By By Jeff Mason and James Harding Giahyue

ATLANTA/MONROVIA (Reuters) - President Barack Obama on Tuesday called West Africa's deadly Ebola outbreak a looming threat to global security and announced a major expansion of the U.S. role in trying to halt its spread, including deployment of 3,000 troops to the region.

"The reality is that this epidemic is going to get worse before it gets better," Obama said at the U.S. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention's Atlanta headquarters.

"But right now, the world still has an opportunity to save countless lives. Right now, the world has the responsibility to act, to step up and to do more. The United States of America intends to do more," Obama added.

The U.S. plan, a dramatic expansion of Washington's initial response last week, won praise from the U.N. World Health Organization, aid workers and officials in West Africa. But health experts said it was still not enough to contain the epidemic, which is quickly growing and has caused local healthcare systems to buckle under the strain of fighting it.

U.S. officials said the focus of the military deployment would be Liberia, a nation founded by freed American slaves that is the hardest hit of the countries affected by the crisis.

Obama's plan calls for sending 3,000 troops, including engineers and medical personnel; establishing a regional command and control centre in Liberia's capital, Monrovia; building 17 treatment centres with 100 beds each; training thousands of healthcare workers - up to 500 per week for six months or longer; and establishing a military control centre for coordinating the relief effort.

"We have to act fast. We can't dawdle on this one," Obama said.

More:  https://za.news.yahoo.com/obama-announce-ramped-efforts-beat-ebola-040815217.html

[rdunk]

Right now, this thing has the possibility of becoming really UGLY before it is defeated. The forecasts of infections are all over the place, but they likely are beginning to be more realistic in their number estimates, if EBOLA is not quickly controlled. If these higher numbers of infection rate predictions were to happen, at the current death rates, the number of deaths would be staggering!

CDC report predicts as many as 1.4 million cases of Ebola by January

Published September 23, 2014FoxNews.com

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released a report Tuesday predicting as many as 550,000 to 1.4 million cases of the Ebola virus in Liberia and Sierra Leone alone, by the end of January.

The CDC calculations are based, in part, on assumptions that cases have been dramatically underreported. Other projections haven't made the same kind of attempt to quantify illnesses that may have been missed in official counts.

CDC scientists conclude there may be as many as 21,000 reported and unreported cases in just those two countries as soon as the end of this month.

"The model shows — and I don't think this has been shown by other modeling tools out there — that a surge now can break the back of the epidemic. It also shows that there are severe costs of delay," CDC Director Dr. Thomas Frieden said in a press conference Tuesday.

The agency's numbers seem "somewhat pessimistic" and do not account for infection control efforts already underway, said Dr. Richard Wenzel, a Virginia Commonwealth University scientist who formerly led the International Society for Infectious Diseases.

Separately, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned in a new report that the number of people infected with the Ebola virus could reach 20,000 by the beginning of November if efforts to contain the outbreak are not accelerated.

The outbreak has killed around 2,800 people in five West African countries this year. An estimated 5,800 people have been infected with the virus, which has no known cure. The WHO has repeatedly said that the actual number of infections and deaths is almost certainly higher than the official figures.

The report, published six months after the first cases were reported, is far more pessimistic than an earlier survey published last month, in which the WHO suggested that the number of cases could reach 20,000 by the middle of next year. According to The New York Times, the report also raises the possibility that the outbreak will cause Ebola to become endemic in West Africa.

More: http://www.foxnews.com/health/2014/09/23/who-forecasts-more-than-20000-ebola-cases-by-november-2/

[WarToad]

I suspect we now have a mutated virus.  It's never been this transmitable before.  I think we need to come to grips it's going to end up like the flu.  Something that never really goes away and it constantly breaking out here and there.  Only with a 70% mortality rate, not 1%.

I'll take a vaccine in a heartbeat considering how brutal this virus is.

[Amaterasu]

Given that there is no evidence that vaccines work, that they are a cocktail of toxins, simian virii, and other stuff never meant to enter the bloodstream, and unvaccinated children seem to be immune to the respiratory virus that is ravaging the miswest...  I will avoid any additional load on My system and NOT get a shot.

http://www.thesleuthjournal.com/unvaccinated-children-appear-immune-mysterious-virus-currently-spreading-midwest/

[this_is_who_we_are]

If you aren't aware of this site...
Here's where I've been keeping updated:

About NewsNow
NewsNow.co.uk: the UK's #1 news portal
NewsNow.co.uk is the UK's first and leading home-grown and independent news aggregation service. Fully-automated, and on a continuous basis, NewsNow updates breaking headlines linking to news websites all around the world.

Our mission is to help provide people with links to the news they need to read, and publishers with people to read the news they write.

Launched in 1998 with fewer than ten sources, today NewsNow links to tens of thousands of publications, including top news brands. NewsNow.co.uk performs an important public interest role, by referring people to mainstream and alternative news on a single platform.

We operate by matching breaking news articles, in real time, against keyword-based topic specifications, delivering relevant links to users, and relevant readers to publishers.

Our website, which is among the UK's top news destinations, is generally visited by over 3 million users monthly and receives in excess of 120 million page views per month.

http://www.newsnow.co.uk/h/Current+Affairs/Health/Pandemics/Ebola

[WarToad]

Given that there is no evidence that vaccines work, ...

  Hello?  Polio? Smallpox? Amazing how short memories are. 

[Wrabbit2000]

I think Ebola may be one of the scariest bugs man has yet come across. It's not as a result of how it kills, as that isn't unique by any stretch. Other bugs kill by the same mechanisms. It isn't the mortality rate, which can hit as high as 90% in some previous outbreaks. In my view, it comes down to how much is still mystery. The very host population which spawns it as well as precise transmission method for some past documented cases are but a couple of the areas left as question marks with a little critter that needs no mystery to make a grand entrance where it appears.

This is my first contribution here, and it may not be in quite the format desired. If so, please let me know and I'm quick to adapt. I do want to get this information out to share though. Particularly within a group of intelligent folks who most likely need only the source material sitting here to read, without extensive commentary or explanation.

#1. This first piece of material is what you would have gotten and may still receive as an official handout following Ebola screening or testing within a group.

http://www.fda.gov/downloads/MedicalDevices/Safety/EmergencySituations/UCM408333.pdf

It's a PDF of two pages. It's on the Food and Drug Admin server and it's the public handout for information about the test you would just have gone through and what will come next, depending on result.

#2. The CDC Outbreak Summary Table shows past outbreaks (there have been few in history to study, and that is part of the challenge with this)

http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/outbreaks/history/chronology.html

#3. The MSDS or Material Safety Datasheet on the Ebola Virus. Yes..there IS an MSDS, believe it or not, and yes, it is as straight forward and no-nonsense as any MSDS sheet is on a dangerous substance. In other words, it's the straight scoop without massaging for public impact.

http://www.msdsonline.com/resources/msds-resources/free-safety-data-sheet-index/ebola-virus.aspx

#4. Medical Management of Biological Casualties Handbook - Seventh Ed. / USAMRIID (US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases). Of specific interest are pages 103 - 118. Within those, 106 and 107 are specifc to Ebola and its variant strains. The whole chapter is dedicated to Viral Hemorrhagic Fevers. Ebola is not in this book as a biowarfare agent, and they explain that. It is listed and detailed because it may be encountered as the source of what first appeared to be a biowarfare event, but is found to be a wild outbreak of Ebola itself, by way of explanation for how a natural virus ends up in that book.

http://www.usamriid.army.mil/education/bluebookpdf/USAMRIID%20BlueBook%207th%20Edition%20-%20Sep%202011.pdf

#5. Mayo Clinic Data Sheet of Ebola and Marburg Virus. This is included because the source defines authoritative in civilian medicine and research centers. The list of symptoms there outright contradicts some of what the media has distributed as solid information. It's a case where we each need to be the judge of credibility for our own self, I imagine.

http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/ebola-virus/basics/symptoms/con-20031241

#6. Last, but absolutely not least is what really sits as the valuable piece of data within this contribution. The USAMRIID and MSDS sheets do a number on a good many "factual" presentations within major media recently. However, nothing speaks to an issue like simply reading what has happened in real world events of the past. Stanford University servers have this and it's part of an Honors Thesis on the topic. It supplied an in-depth summary of some specific cases and raises some of the core and most disturbing questions by the choice of cases and circumstances to examine. These aren't full case files. They are merely summaries that carry enough detail to easily reference for more detailed case material, if one desires.

http://web.stanford.edu/group/virus/filo/eboz.html

I hope the above is helpful in solid and non-media related material to help with the outbreak the world seems to be facing for real this time.

[Amaterasu]

  Hello?  Polio? Smallpox? Amazing how short memories are.

Hello?  Polio was rapidly declining as sanitation and better nutrition were increasing.  When the polio vaccine came out (with SV40 which has proven to cause cancer) there was a SPIKE in polio cases...mainly amongst the vaccinated.  Smallpox too declined more from better living than from vaccine efficacy.  Amazing how unaware Some are...

[Amaterasu]

I think Ebola may be one of the scariest bugs man has yet come across.

It was lab created (see US patents for ebola...).  So it would better be said, it is one of the scariest bugs People have created.  It depletes vitamin C to zero (yes, zero!  Something never seen before).  If Ya get it, massive doses of VC are in order.

[Wrabbit2000]

Ebola as a man made biological agent forms an interesting interpretation of the 1970's data surrounding its initial appearance in modern Africa. I'm not sure I can say I've seen data to support that in either the first official case documented in 1976 or the suspected first case that came some period before that. The current outbreak has almost played out like a well known movie without the isolation of a small California town as the setting though. Complete with a previously unknown treatment with exceptional outcome, previously left to sit in a freezer until, oddly, fitting just right for this outbreak and strain. Odd, how that came to be.

[VillageIdiot]

It was lab created (see US patents for ebola...).  So it would better be said, it is one of the scariest bugs People have created.  It depletes vitamin C to zero (yes, zero!  Something never seen before).  If Ya get it, massive doses of VC are in order.

Ebola was traced to green monkeys and bats in the Congo. Yes, it has been weaponized, and combined with other viruses like smallpox, but it has a natural source and reservoir in Africa.

[this_is_who_we_are]

Cross referencing this in your thread:

Liberia: Dead Ebola Patients Resurrect?
http://allafrica.com/stories/201409240829.html
By Franklin Doloquee
24 SEPTEMBER 2014

Two Ebola patients, who died of the virus in separate communities in Nimba County have reportedly resurrected in the county. The victims, both females, believed to be in their 60s and 40s respectively, died of the Ebola virus recently in Hope Village Community and the Catholic Community in Ganta, Nimba.

But to the amazement of residents and onlookers on Monday, the deceased reportedly regained life in total disbelief. The NewDawn Nimba County correspondent said the late Dorris Quoi of Hope Village Community and the second victim only identified as Ma Kebeh, said to be in her late 60s, were about to be taken for burial when they resurrected.

AllAfrica is a voice of, by and about Africa - aggregating, producing and distributing 2000 news and information items daily from over 130 African news organizations and our own reporters to an African and global public. We operate from Cape Town, Dakar, Lagos, Monrovia, Nairobi and Washington DC.
http://allafrica.com/

[rdunk]

Here is a graphic that portrays what has been happening with the current Ebola outbreak thus far.





More: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/ebola/11121045/Graphic-how-Ebola-cases-have-grown-since-March.html

[Wrabbit2000]

You know what bothers me the most about the guesswork being disguised as science or epidemiology here? It was watching or listening to estimates of 250,000 grow to 500,000, then a Million ...in as many days as there were estimates being published. Now, that may not have been so terribly bad if a place like Drudge weren't around to highlight those headlines as they came, and to show in so clear a way that the estimates weren't from different sources to explain the radical range over so short a period. They were coming from Uncle Sam and his children at CDC.

My feeling on this has been similar from near the start, and for a variety of reasons. When those handling this crisis learn to count or assess and learn to convey that information honestly? I may just read some of it.

Until then, the ever growing doom of headlines while still saying we have nothing personal to worry about in our individual lives as Americans leaves me with a mental image of the 3 stooges in lab coats and a CDC emblem on their breast pockets. This isn't the way to get that 'warm and fuzzy' feeling of confidence, to be sure.