US to be 'more aggressive' in monitoring Ebola response: Obama

WASHINGTON - US President Barack Obama on Wednesday pledged a "much more aggressive" response at home to the Ebola threat, and insisted that the risk of a serious outbreak on US soil was low.

After a crisis meeting with top aides at the White House, Obama underlined the importance of helping African countries stem the spread of the virus, calling such aid "an investment in our own public health."

"If we are not responding internationally in an effective way... then we could have problems," Obama said in comments aired on US television.

The meeting -- attended by Vice President Joe Biden, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell and Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, among others -- came after a second US Ebola infection was diagnosed at a Texas hospital where a Liberian man died a week ago.

Obama said meeting participants discussed "monitoring, supervising, overseeing in a much more aggressive way exactly what's taking place in Dallas" to ensure those lessons are "transmitted to hospitals and clinics all across the country."

"This is not a situation in which, like a flu, the risks of a rapid spread of the disease are imminent," Obama said, adding he "shook hands with, hugged and kissed" nurses who had treated an Ebola patient at Emory University hospital in Atlanta.

"They followed the protocols. They knew what they were doing and I felt perfectly safe doing so," he said.

"I am absolutely confident that we can prevent a serious outbreak of the disease here in the United States... The key thing to understand about this disease is that these protocols work."

The White House said Obama had canceled plans to visit Rhode Island and New York on Thursday so he could follow up on the Ebola meeting.

So far, Ebola has killed nearly 4,500 people, the vast majority of them in West Africa, where the outbreak began early this year.

Since the announcement last month that the United States would send at least 3,000 troops to West Africa to help fight the outbreak, Obama has repeatedly criticized the international response to the health crisis as insufficient.

source: interaksyon.com

Guinea detects Ebola in new region as US warns outbreak out of control

CONAKRY/DAKAR - Guinea's government said on Wednesday that Ebola had spread to a previously unaffected region of the country, as US experts warned that the worst ever outbreak of the deadly virus was spiraling out of control in West Africa.

Guinea, the first country to detect the hemorrhagic fever in March, had said it was containing the outbreak but authorities announced that nine new cases had been found in the southeastern prefecture of Kerouane.

The area, some 750 km (470 miles) southeast of the capital Conakry, lies close to where the virus was first detected deep in Guinea's forest region. The epidemic has since spread to four other West African countries and killed more than 1,500 people.

"There has been a new outbreak in Kerouane but we have sent in a team to contain it," said Aboubacar Sikidi Diakité, head of Guinea's Ebola task force. He insisted the outbreak was being contained.

The nine confirmed cases were in the town of Damaro in the Kerouane region, with a total of 18 people under observation, the health ministry said in a statement.

The latest outbreak started after the arrival of an infected person from neighboring Liberia, the ministry said. Guinea has recorded a total of 489 deaths and 749 Ebola cases as of Sept. 1.

President Alpha Conde urged health personnel to step up their efforts to avoid new infections.

"Even for a simple malaria, you have to protect yourselves before consulting any sick person until the end of this epidemic," Conde said in a televised broadcast. "We had started to succeed but you dropped the ball and here we go again."

Cases of Ebola have been reported in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Nigeria, Senegal and Democratic Republic of Congo. The cases in Congo, which include 31 deaths, are a separate outbreak unrelated to the West African cases, however, the World Health Organization has said.

Outbreak not under control

In a stark analysis last week, the WHO warned that the Ebola epidemic in West Africa could infect more than 20,000 people and spread to 10 countries. It outlined a $490 million roadmap for tackling the epidemic.

Doctor Tom Kenyon, director of the US Centers for Disease Control's (CDC) Centre for Global Health, said on Wednesday the outbreak was "spiraling out of control" and he warned that the window of opportunity for controlling it was closing.

"Guinea did show that with action, they brought it partially under control. But unfortunately it is back on the increase now," he told a conference call. "It's not under control anywhere."

He warned that the longer the outbreak went uncontained, the greater the possibility the virus could mutate, making it more difficult to contain. Ebola is only transmitted in humans by contact with the blood or bodily fluids of sick people, though suspected cases of airborne infection have been reported in monkeys in laboratories.

A senior US official rebutted a call from medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) for wealthy nations to deploy specialized biological disaster response teams to the region. MSF on Tuesday had warned that 800 more beds for Ebola patients were urgently needed in the Liberian capital Monrovia alone.

"I don't think at this point deploying biological incident response teams is exactly what's needed," said Gayle Smith, Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Development and Democracy on the National Security Council.

She said the US government was focusing efforts on rapidly increasing the number of Ebola treatment centers in affected countries, providing protective equipment and ensuring local staff received training.

"We will see a considerable ramp-up in the coming days and weeks. If we find it is still moving out of control we will look at other options," Smith told a conference call.

The US Department of Health and Human Services said on Tuesday a federal contract worth up to $42.3 million would help accelerate testing of an experimental Ebola virus treatment being developed by privately held Mapp Biopharmaceutical Inc.

Human safety trials are due to begin this week on a vaccine from GlaxoSmithKline Plc and later this year on one from NewLink Genetics Corp.

source: interaksyon.com

GSK Ebola vaccine fast-tracked into U.S., UK and African trials

An experimental Ebola vaccine from GlaxoSmithKlineis being fast-tracked into human studies and the company plans to build up a stockpile of up to 10,000 doses for emergency deployment, if results are good.

Britain's biggest drugmaker said on Thursday the research was being accelerated with funding from an international consortium, reflecting mounting concern over the worst-ever outbreak of the disease in West Africa that has killed more than 1,500 people.

The candidate vaccine, which is being co-developed with the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), is expected to be given to healthy volunteers in Britain and the United States from around mid-September, with the program then being extended to volunteers in Gambia and Mali.

source: interaksyon.com

West Africa Ebola death toll rises above 1,200; Liberia fights to halt spread of virus

MONROVIA/GENEVA - Liberia battled on Tuesday to halt the spread of the Ebola disease in its crowded, run-down oceanside capital Monrovia, recording the most new deaths as fatalities from the world's worst outbreak of the deadly virus rose above 1,200.

The epidemic of the hemorrhagic disease, which can kill up to 90 percent of those it infects, is ravaging the three small West African states of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, and also has a toehold in Nigeria, Africa's biggest economy.

As the Geneva-based World Health Organization rushed to ramp up the global response to the outbreak, including emergency food deliveries to quarantined zones, it announced that deaths from it had risen to 1,299 as of Aug. 16, out of 2,240 cases.

Between Aug. 14-16, Liberia recorded the most new deaths, 53, followed by Sierra Leone with 17, and Guinea with 14.

On a more hopeful note, the WHO expressed "cautious optimism" that the spread of the Ebola outbreak in Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation where four deaths out of 12 confirmed cases have been recorded since July, could be stopped.

It also described the situation in Guinea, where the virus made its first appearance in West Africa in December, as currently "less alarming" than in Liberia and Sierra Leone.

The WHO said it was working with the U.N.'s World Food Programme (WFP) to ensure food delivery to 1 million people living in Ebola quarantine zones cordoned off by local security forces in a border zone of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

"Providing regular food supplies is a potent means of limiting unnecessary movement," it said in a statement.

Besides infection in border zones, Liberia is fighting to stop the spread of the virus in the poorest neighborhoods of its capital, such as the West Point slum where at the weekend a rock-throwing crowd attacked and looted a temporary holding center for suspected Ebola cases, 17 of whom fled.

As fears of wider contagion increased - Ebola is spread by contact with the bodily fluids of infected persons - Liberia sent police to track down the fugitive suspected cases.

"We are glad to confirm that all of the 17 individuals have been accounted for and have now been transferred to JFK Ebola specialist treatment center," Liberia's Information Minister Lewis Brown told Reuters on Tuesday.

He added that after meetings with religious and community leaders, a task force was being set up to go door-to-door through West Point, a labyrinth of muddy alleys, to explain the risks of the disease and the need to isolate infected patients.

"I know that Monrovia is really of concern to WHO," WHO spokeswoman Fadela Chaib said in Geneva.

Lewis said the Liberian authorities were considering imposing even tougher restrictions on movements.

Liberia and Sierra Leone's weak health systems have been overwhelmed by the multiplying numbers of cases and deaths.

WHO has said it is coordinating a "massive scaling up" of international assistance to the worst affected countries.

But a Liberian health ministry report for Aug. 17 said its Ebola-hit Lofa County had stopped burials due to a lack of body bags. "Absolutely no body bags," the report said.

It said the ministry warehouse had only three pairs of rubber boots remaining and no more bottles of hand sanitizers.

"I am sorry to say the government has lost the fight against Ebola. It is out of control now," said student Samuel Zorh.

On Friday, the Liberian and Sierra Leonean governments and a medical charity chided the WHO for its slow response, saying more action was needed to save victims threatened by the disease and hunger.

"IMPROVEMENT" AFTER RARE DRUG USED

The WHO declared the West African Ebola outbreak a "public health emergency of international concern" on Aug. 8, triggering global alarm as countries stepped up precautions and testing.

Reflecting this, emergency services in Berlin on Tuesday cordoned off a job center and took a woman with Ebola-like symptoms including high fever to hospital.

The U.N. health agency this month gave the green light to use untested pharmaceuticals to treat Ebola patients.

In Monrovia, three African healthcare workers were given the rare experimental ZMapp drug, which has already been used on two American aid workers being treated in the United States after being evacuated from Liberia with Ebola.

Lewis said the three Africans treated with ZMapp were showing "remarkable signs of improvement".

However, the manufacturer of the drug, California-based Mapp Biopharmaceutical, has already said its scarce supplies have been exhausted. Officials have cautioned the public not to place too much hope in untested and scarce treatments.

As part of the increased international response, WFP is stepping up emergency food deliveries to the quarantined areas, which include severely-affected cities such as Gueckedou in Guinea, Kenema and Kailahun in Sierra Leone and Foya in Liberia.

Fears of the disease and quarantine measures like military and police roadblocks have stopped farmers from reaching their fields, and as a result food output has dropped, raising fears that a famine could set in on top of the deadly illness.

"We think that even beyond the control of the outbreak there will be severe food shortage," said Gon Myers, WFP country director for Sierra Leone. The extra food deliveries would be trying to reach 400,000 people in Sierra Leone alone.

The WHO has told countries affected by the outbreak to screen people departing at airports, seaports and major land border points and stop any with signs of the virus.

It has argued against further travel restrictions, but several international and regional airlines have canceled services to Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.

Shipping companies operating on Africa's west coast, as well as port authorities, were also on high alert.

"We sense a certain amount of concern out there in the industry," Ian Millen, Chief Operating Officer of Dryad Maritime, a maritime operations company, told Reuters, but he said he had not seen widespread cancellations of services.

Nigeria said on Monday its confirmed Ebola cases had reached 12, up from 10 last week, but five had almost fully recovered. Four people have died from the virus in Lagos, where it was transferred by a U.S. citizen who arrived by plane from Liberia.

Although WHO said the situation in Lagos looks "reassuring", Cameroon closed its borders with Nigeria on Tuesday as a precaution.

source: interaksyon.com

At frontline in fight vs Ebola, a doctor finds grief and inspiration

LONDON -- After a month on the frontline battling Ebola in a hospital in Sierra Leone, the memories that both haunt and inspire British doctor Tim O'Dempsey are of the children.

Many memories of children dying in isolation wards while their parents wailed outside. And one of a small girl who fought her way out of a coma and was reunited with her father.

"Seeing a mother come in with a little baby, and within a few days the baby die -- it's very difficult," he told Reuters. "What you do is just get on with it. There are lots and lots of patients that need to be attended to. Occasionally, entire families would be admitted. You can't stop."

O'Dempsey, a doctor with three decades' experience studying and fighting tropical diseases, was seconded to Sierra Leone by the World Health Organization to help battle the biggest outbreak of the deadly hemorrhagic fever in history.

He ended up as part of a team of between two and four doctors, plus a handful of nurses, caring for 40-60 patients a day with one of the most lethal known diseases.

Kenema hospital's three Ebola wards -- one for suspected cases, the other two for confirmed infections -- had barely 10 or 12 beds each, so patients lay on mattresses on the floors and in the corridors.

Many of the staff themselves became ill, and many died, including the head nurse on the Ebola wards, Mballu Fonnie, and the doctor in charge of the unit, Sheik Umar Khan -- declared a national hero by the government when he passed away last month at 39 after treating more than 100 Ebola sufferers.

Amid the misery, it was the small triumphs that made the work worth doing, like that of a girl aged around six or seven.

‘Stormy course’

"Her father had brought her in, but because he wasn't a suspect case he had to leave, so she was on her own," O'Dempsey said. The girl was soon confirmed with Ebola and moved to the isolation wards.

There, she had "a pretty stormy course" with high fever, vomiting and diarrhea. She slipped into a coma and was close to death.

"But we managed her as best we could, and she came out of her coma, and very, very slowly we were able to encourage her to drink, and then begin feeding her," he said.

"Just before I left -- four weeks later -- I arranged for her to go into a side room so her father could see her and look after her again. I hear that she is getting stronger every day."

Such stories, he said, are important because they encourage people to come forward and seek the medical attention that can save lives and prevent the disease from spreading. They are also a blessing for staff who risk their own lives to provide succor.

"It's quite fantastic to see people convalescent and waiting to be discharged -- walking around the place, joking, singing and looking remarkably well."

WHO Director General Margaret Chan said last week that one of the most important factors in being able to bring the outbreak under control was to ensure healthcare workers were cared for and respected.

"Governments affected need to send a very strong signal that the local healthcare workers' contribution is appreciated, they are properly paid, and security is provided to make sure they can work quietly and do what they are best at," Chan said.

Infected health workers

O'Dempsey saw the struggle faced by local doctors and nurses at first hand.

"When I arrived the nurses had been on strike since the previous day. There were no nurses inside the wards at all, so conditions were really pretty grim," said O'Dempsey. "There was a high infection rate among healthcare workers and nursing staff. It was very difficult for people to see their colleagues becoming ill and in some cases dying."

The death toll in this Ebola epidemic -- the largest and most deadly ever seen -- reached 961 on Aug. 8 from a total of 1,779 cases, according to WHO data. In the four countries hit so far, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Nigeria, the virus has infected some 140 or 150 healthcare workers, killing around 80 of them, WHO Director General Margaret Chan said last week.

Many epidemiologists and infectious disease specialists -- including O'Dempsey, a senior lecturer at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine -- fear it could get far worse.

"It's unlikely we've seen the peak," he said. A lot more needs to be done to improve and expand treatment facilities to ensure all patients who need to be contained and isolated can be, and to make sure fear and stigma were not made worse, he added.

Nurses and other health workers were not only exhausted and fearful for their lives, he said, but are also shunned by family, friends, landlords and other members of the community, some of whose traditional beliefs lead them to see Ebola infection as a punishment for doing something wrong.

"We need enough nurses who are properly trained and we need clinicians able to offer support and expertise," he said. "You can't have nurses working 12, 14 hours a day, seven days a week for months without a break."

source: interaksyon.com

Death toll from Ebola in W. Africa hits 887: WHO

ABUJA, Nigeria — The doctor who treated a man who flew to Nigeria and died of Ebola now has contracted the disease, authorities said Monday, presenting a dire challenge to Africa's most populous nation as the regional toll for the outbreak grew to 887 dead.

As Nigerian health authorities rushed to quarantine others who had been exposed, a special plane left Liberia to evacuate the second American missionary who fell ill with Ebola. Nancy Writebol, 59, is expected to arrive in Atlanta on Tuesday, where she will be treated at a special isolation ward.

The second confirmed case in Nigeria is a doctor who treated Patrick Sawyer, the Liberian-American man who died July 25 days after arriving in Nigeria from Liberia, said Nigerian Health Minister Onyebuchi Chukwu.

Three others who also treated Sawyer now show symptoms of Ebola and their test results are pending, he said. Authorities are trying to trace and quarantine others in Lagos, sub-Saharan Africa's largest city of 21 million people.

"This cluster of cases in Lagos, Nigeria is very concerning," said Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Controls and Prevention, which is dispatching 50 experienced disease control specialists to West Africa.

"It shows what happens if meticulous infection control, contact tracing, and proper isolation of patients with suspected Ebola is not done. Stopping the spread in Lagos will be difficult but it can be done," he said.


The World Health Organization announced Monday that the death toll has increased from 729 to 887 deaths in Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Nigeria.

Cases in Liberia jumped from 156 to 255, WHO said, as the government ordered that all Ebola victims must now be cremated because of rising opposition to burials in neighborhoods around the capital. Over the weekend, police were called in amid a standoff over whether health authorities could bury nearly two dozen victims in a neighborhood on the outskirts of the capital, Monrovia.

Sierra Leone marked a national stay-at-home day Monday in an effort to halt the disease's spread. A documentary film of the first outbreak of the Ebola disease in Congo was being shown intermittently throughout the day by the national broadcaster.

The emergence of a second case in Nigeria raises serious concerns about the infection control practices there, and also raises the specter that more cases could emerge. It can take up to 21 days after exposure to the virus for symptoms to appear. They include fever, sore throat, muscle pains and headaches. Often nausea, vomiting and diarrhea follow, along with severe internal and external bleeding in advanced stages of the disease.

"This fits exactly with the pattern that we've seen in the past. Either someone gets sick and infects their relatives, or goes to a hospital and health workers get sick," said Gregory Hartl, World Health Organization spokesman in Geneva. "It's extremely unfortunate but it's not unexpected. This was a sick man getting off a plane and unfortunately no one knew he had Ebola."

Doctors and other health workers on the front lines of the Ebola crisis have been among the most vulnerable to infection as they are in direct physical contact with patients. The disease is not airborne, and only transmitted through contact with bodily fluids such as saliva, blood, vomit, sweat or feces.

Sawyer, who was traveling to Nigeria on business, became ill while aboard a flight and Nigerian authorities immediately took him into isolation upon arrival in Lagos. They did not quarantine his fellow passengers, and have insisted that the risk of additional cases was minimal.

Nigerian authorities said a total of 70 people are under surveillance and that they hoped to have eight people in quarantine by the end of Monday in an isolation ward in Lagos.

Tracking down all the people who came into contact with Sawyer and his caregivers could prove difficult at this late stage, said Ben Neuman, a virologist and Ebola expert at Britain's University of Reading.

"Contact tracing is essential but it's very hard to get enough people to do that," he said. "For the average case, you want to look back and catch the 20 to 30 people they had closest contact with and that takes a lot of effort and legwork ... The most important thing now is to do the contact tracing and quarantine any contacts who may be symptomatic."

___

Paye-Layleh reported from Monrovia, Liberia. Associated Press Medical Writer Maria Cheng reported from London. Krista Larson in Dakar, Senegal; Clarence Roy-Macaulay in Freetown, Sierra Leone; and Maram Mazen in Lagos, Nigeria contributed to this report.

source: philstar.com