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

Number of Ebola cases in Guinea rises to 134; death toll at 84

CONAKRY -- Guinea's health authorities have said four new Ebola cases have been reported in the country, bringing the total number of victims to 134 with 84 fatalities.

The disease is mostly widespread in the southern regions of Gueckedou, Macenta, Kissidougou and the capital Conakry.

To curb the spread of the epidemic, the government has taken certain measures that include setting up medical isolation centers in the affected regions, disinfection of homes with suspected cases or where Ebola patients have died and mobilization of necessary resources to provide individual protective materials to the most affected zones.

The United Nations Children's Fund has equally proceeded to distribute hygiene kits to schools in areas most hit by the Ebola virus.

source: interaksyon.com

Canada reports possible Ebola case

MONTREAL -- A man returning to Canada from Liberia is seriously ill in hospital after experiencing symptoms consistent with the Ebola virus that has killed dozens in Guinea, health officials have said.

The man has been placed in solitary confinement pending the expected results on Tuesday of tests on his condition. His family is in quarantine in Saskatchewan province, the local health ministry said in a statement.

"A diagnosis has not yet been confirmed. Measures have been taken to isolate the patient to ensure the illness is not transmitted," the ministry said.

Public health officials earlier sought to contain people's concerns, saying the risk to the public was low and noting that an investigation into the case's circumstances was under way.

"All we know at this point is that we have a person who is critically ill who travelled from a country where these diseases occur," Denise Werker, joint director of health in Saskatchewan, in western Canada, told reporters.

The casualty had been in Liberia but developed the symptoms after landing in Canada and would not have been contagious when in transit, she said.

"The information that we have now is this person was not ill when he travelled," Werker added. "People are not very contagious in the incubation period. There is also a possibility this person has another disease."

Aid workers and health officials in Guinea are battling to contain West Africa's first outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus, after neighboring Liberia reported its first suspected victims.

At least 59 people are known to have died in Guinea's southern forests but the Liberian cases, if confirmed, would mark the first spread of the highly contagious pathogen into another country.

Werker said the risk of contagion in Canada was low as the disease, one of the world's most virulent, is transmitted to humans from wild animals and between humans by direct contact with blood, feces or sweat, or by sexual contact and the unprotected handling of contaminated corpses.

To date, no treatment or vaccine is available for the Ebola pathogen, which kills between 25 and 90 percent of those who fall sick, depending on the strain of the virus, according to the World Health Organization.

The tropical virus -- described in some health publications as a "molecular shark" -- can fell its victims within days, causing severe fever and muscle pain, weakness, vomiting and diarrhea -- in some cases shutting down organs and causing unstoppable bleeding.

It was first discovered in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1976. The central African country has suffered eight outbreaks.

source: interaksyon.com