21st Century Plague: Ebola

The 2014 Ebola epidemic is the largest in history, affecting multiple countries in West Africa. A small number of cases in Lagos and Port Harcourt, Nigeria, have been associated with a man from Liberia who traveled to Lagos and died from Ebola, but the virus does not appear to have been widely spread in Nigeria. The case in Senegal is related to a man who traveled there from Guinea.

On 9/30/2014, CDC confirmed, the first travel-associated case of Ebola to be diagnosed in the United States. CDC and partners are taking precautions to prevent the spread of Ebola within the United States. CDC is working with other U.S. government agencies, the World Health Organization (WHO), and other domestic and international partners and has activated its Emergency Operations Center to help coordinate technical assistance and control activities with partners. CDC has also deployed teams of public health experts to West Africa and will continue to send experts to the affected countries.

Recently:

October 5, 2014: Ebola Contact Tracing, Dallas, Texas
October 5, 2014: What You Need To Know About Ebola
October 4, 2014: Update: Sick airline passenger, Newark

Outbreak Update

    On 9/30/2014, CDC confirmed, the first travel-associated case of Ebola to be diagnosed in the United States.

    New cases have been reported from Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. Nigeria and Senegal have not reported any new cases since September 5, 2014, and August 29, 2014, respectively. In Senegal, all contacts have now completed their 21-day follow up, with no further cases of Ebola reported.
    On August 29, 2014, Senegal’s Ministry of Public Health and Social Affairs announced a case of Ebola virus disease (EVD) in Senegal. The case is in a man from Guinea who traveled to Senegal.

    The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has reported cases of Ebola. These cases are not related to the ongoing outbreak of Ebola in West Africa. For information on the outbreak in DRC, see the 2014 Ebola Outbreak in DRC page.

    HHS has contracted with Mapp Biopharmaceutical Inc. to develop and manufacture ZMapp. Mapp Biopharmaceutical will manufacture a small amount of the drug for early stage clinical safety studies and nonclinical studies.

    NIH will begin initial human testing of an investigational vaccine to prevent EVD in early September and is working with a company to develop an antiviral drug to treat Ebola.

    U.S. Department of Defense has funded two companies that are developing drug therapies for Ebola and is working with another company to develop an Ebola vaccine.

    CDC returned a staff member from West Africa by charter flight after the employee had low-risk contact with an international health worker who recently tested positive for Ebola. The CDC staff member was not sick with Ebola, did not show symptoms of the disease, and therefore posed no risk to friends, family, co-workers, or the public.

The above has several excerpts from the CDC.

Basically we have thousands infected in Africa at the moment.

Disease modelers project a rapidly rising toll from Ebola

 

A. Vespignani

If spread continues at the current rate, a model by Alessandro Vespignani and colleagues projects close to 10,000 Ebola infections by 24 September. (The shaded area provides the projection’s variability range.)

By

Kai Kupferschmidt

31 August 2014 10:00 am

Alessandro Vespignani hopes that his latest work will turn out to be wrong. In July, the physicist from Northeastern University in Boston started modeling how the deadly Ebola virus may spread in West Africa. Extrapolating existing trends, the number of the sick and dying mounts rapidly from the current toll—more than 3000 cases and 1500 deaths—to about 10,000 cases by 24 September, and hundreds of thousands in the months after that. “The numbers are really scary,” he says—although he stresses that the model assumes control efforts aren’t stepped up. “We all hope to see this NOT happening,” Vespigani writes in an e-mail.

Vespignani is not the only one trying to predict how the unprecedented outbreak will progress. Last week, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that the number of cases could ultimately exceed 20,000. And scientists across the world are scrambling to create computer models that accurately describe the spread of the deadly virus. Not all of them look quite as bleak as Vespignani’s. But the modelers all agree that current efforts to control the epidemic are not enough to stop the deadly pathogen in its tracks.  http://news.sciencemag.org/health/2014/08/disease-modelers-project-rapidly-rising-toll-ebola

The World Health Organization – a United Nations group – sees it pretty badly as well.

World Health Organization researchers issued a dire new forecast for the Ebola epidemic Tuesday, one that sees 20,000 cases by November, much sooner than previous estimates. And 70 percent of patients are dying.

That’s a big increase over the previous estimates of a 50 percent fatality rate.

“These data indicate that without drastic improvements in control measures, the numbers of cases of and deaths from Ebola virus disease are expected to continue increasing from hundreds to thousands per week in the coming months,” the WHO Ebola Response Team, led by Dr. Christopher Dye, wrote in a report rushed into print by the New England Journal of Medicine. http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/ebola-virus-outbreak/ebola-death-rate-70-percent-who-says-dire-new-forecast-n209226

This morning (or late last night) a nurse in Spain was diagnosed with Ebola.  She was a caregiver to two priests whom had contracted the disease, and subsequently died from the infection.  As of an hour ago, her husband has been placed in isolation by the Spanish government, along with at least two other individuals believed to have been working with the nurse at some point.  It is unclear whether they are medical workers or other people that were just in contact with her.

In recent days, a person in Hawaii was placed into isolation and tested for Ebola.  That turned out to be negative.

Yesterday a cameraman was brought to Omaha Nebraska for treatment.

At least 100 people are said to have been in direct contact with Mr. Duncan, the traveler from Liberia who showed up in Dallas the other day with Ebola.  He has taken a turn for the worse and is in critical condition as of today.  His “family” – a girlfriend (apparently) and her children we believe have been moved to a nice, new home and placed in isolation (under government orders), complete with armed guards.  The apartment was cleaned yesterday.  The cleaning company owner stated he didn’t “know what would happen with the contaminated materials” and that was up to the “government”.

Obama has consistently refused to deny entry to the United States by people traveling from Ebola-stricken countries.  Congress has yet to be heard from.

Various Department of Homeland Security Agencies are acting up, acting out, or simply asleep at the wheel.

Epidemics spread because people don’t wash their hands or take other precautions.  Ebola allegedly spreads by “close contact” with individuals who are infected, because of bodily fluids.

It’s funny how the government, in trying to prevent a panic has not stopped lying about passing viruses.  First it was “not air borne” and then it was “You have to have contact with bodily fluids:.  Then we see where Mr. Duncan vomited all over a street outside the apartment complex, inside the complex, in his bed, the bathroom, on the floor.  And then inside an ambulance.  And the EMT personnel had NO IDEA IT WAS EBOLA.  They are in isolation.  The people who rode around in the ambulance (a homeless man for instance) walked away without knowing. (He has been found and apparently he too is in isolation).

Now, if you have a cold, the cold VIRUS eventually destroys the cells it takes over and you spew out virus inside of droplets you cough or sneeze out.

One of the symptoms of ebola is a “cough” (look it up for yourself, don’t believe me).  Ebola is a virus.  Ebola takes over cells in your body to replicate itself.  Ebola then destorys the cell.  How do you think that ebola is passed from person to person?

Through “bodily fluids”. Most LIKELY from droplets coughed/sneezed out of the body.  Viruses, like all other forms of life are difficult to kill off.  Usually viruses will remain viable for years because they are wrapped in a shell that protects them from the environment, until they can get inside a receptive host.

Ebola… is, pardon the pun, nothing to sneeze about.  This could be the final plague of the planet.

And no, I am not attempting to scaremonger.  The information in this article is factual, all check-able, and not opinion (except my statement about the “Final Plague” of course.  In truth, a plague, like the Black Plague (Bubonic Plague) passed through the population due to poor hygienic conditions, fleas and dirty people.

Colds routinely pass rapidly through a population in America, and people carry viruses aboard aircraft from coast to coast daily.

 Influenza (flu) also passed through the population in the US rather quickly.

Along with Ebola, America has a serious threat already here, already spreading and affecting dozens of children.  Enterovirus D-68.  This virus has already killed one child and affected many others.  According to other news articles at least five people have actually died, while the media makes a huge point of saying “one”.  So… more lies? (http://sharylattkisson.com/polio-like-outbreak-claims-fifth-life-in-u-s?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+SharylAttkisson+%28Sharyl+Attkisson%29)

There are more than 100 known varieties of non-polio enteroviruses in the world, and they cause 10 to 15 million infections every year, ranging from the common cold (rhinovirus), to hand, foot, and mouth disease (coxsackie), to meningitis and gastrointestinal illness. Enteroviruses are harbored in the GI tract, but they can cause symptoms all over the body depending on strain. (http://www.foxnews.com/health/2014/10/03/6-things-all-parents-should-know-about-enterovirus-d68/)

Poliovirus (aka Polio) is also an enterovirus.

 On Fox News, right now as this is being written, a doctor is telling us that indeed viruses, including ebola can live for SEVERAL hours allowing others to contact it, and perhaps contract the disease.

As a point of reference refer back to Mr. Duncan, the Liberian, who came here deliberately with the disease knowing full well he had contracted it and lied to authorities in an effort to ensure his survival, vomiting all over the apartment, the bedding, the outside street, the inside of the ambulance and quite probably the inside of the hospital.

Potentially thousands have been exposed to Ebola.  All it will take is ONE PERSON to remain undiagnosed out on the streets, in contact with others.  One person.

While a cold or the flu can kill, usually it doesn’t.  Flu can kill people in weakened condition, the young, the elderly.

Ebola kills 90% of the people it infects, in horrible ways.  Young, Old, middle aged, everyone.  90%.

Ebola isn’t called “Hemorrhagic Fever” for nothing.

Never mind “The Stand”, this stuff is Stephen King’s Nightmare.

 

CDC Emergency Response Team Deployed

Federal team deploys to Dallas to track anyone who had close contact with Ebola patient

By DAVID WARREN and LAURAN NEERGARD  Associated Press
October 01, 2014 – 11:56 am EDT

DALLAS — A nine-member team of federal health officials is tracking anyone who had close contact with a man being treated for Ebola in a Dallas hospital, the director of the nation’s top disease-fighting agency said Wednesday.

The team from the Centers for Disease Control is in Dallas to work with local and state health agencies to ensure that those people are watched every day for 21 days.

“If anyone develops fever, we’ll immediately isolate them to stop the chain of transmission,” CDC Director Tom Frieden said in an interview with The Associated Press.

The Dallas patient on Tuesday became the first case of Ebola diagnosed in the U.S. The unidentified man has been in isolation at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital since Sunday. Health authorities have not revealed his nationality or age. He was listed in serious condition Wednesday.

Three members of the ambulance crew that transported the man to the hospital have tested negative for the virus and are restricted to their homes while their conditions are observed.

The man was vomiting when the ambulance got to the hospital, Dallas city spokeswoman Sana Syed said.

The ambulance crew is among 12 to 18 people being monitored after exposure to the man. Some are members of his family, but not all, Syed said.

Ebola symptoms can include fever, muscle pain, vomiting and bleeding, and can appear as long as 21 days after exposure to the virus. The disease is not contagious until symptoms begin, and it takes close contact with bodily fluids to spread.

Officials said there are no other suspected cases in Texas, but the diagnosis sent chills through the area’s West African community, whose leaders urged caution to prevent spreading the virus.

The man left Liberia on Sept. 19, arrived the next day to visit relatives and started feeling ill four or five days later, Frieden said.

Stanley Gaye, president of the Liberian Community Association of Dallas-Fort Worth, said the 10,000-strong Liberian population in North Texas is skeptical of the CDC’s assurances because Ebola has ravaged their country.

“We’ve been telling people to try to stay away from social gatherings,” Gaye said Tuesday at a community meeting.

The CDC has not advised that people avoid large gatherings in this country.

The association’s vice president warned against alarm in the community.

“We don’t want to get a panic going,” said vice president Roseline Sayon. “We embrace those people who are coming forward. Don’t let the stigma keep you from getting tested.”

A man walks up the stairway leading to the Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas, Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2014. A patient in the hospital is showing signs of the Ebola virus and is being kept in strict isolation with test results pending, hospital officials said Monday. (AP Photo/LM Otero)

Frieden said he didn’t believe anyone on the same flights as the patient was at risk.

“Ebola doesn’t spread before someone gets sick, and he didn’t get sick until four days after he got off the airplane,” Frieden said.

Four American aid workers who became infected in West Africa have been flown back to the U.S. for treatment after they became sick. They were treated in special isolation facilities at hospitals in Atlanta and Nebraska. Three have recovered.

A U.S. doctor exposed to the virus in Sierra Leone is under observation in a similar facility at the National Institutes of Health.

The U.S. has only four such isolation units, but Frieden said there was no need to move the latest patient because virtually any hospital can provide the proper care and infection control.

The man, who arrived in the U.S. on Sept. 20, began to develop symptoms last Wednesday and sought care two days later. But he was released.

At the time, hospital officials didn’t know he had been in West Africa. He returned later as his condition worsened.

Blood tests by Texas health officials and the CDC separately confirmed his Ebola diagnosis Tuesday. State health officials described the patient as seriously ill.

Dr. Edward Goodman, an epidemiologist at the hospital, said the patient was able to communicate and was hungry.

The hospital is discussing if experimental treatments would be appropriate, Frieden said.

Passengers leaving Liberia pass through rigorous screening, the country’s airport authority said Wednesday. But those checks are no guarantee that an infected person won’t get through and airport officials would be unlikely to stop someone not showing symptoms, according to Binyah Kesselly, chairman of the Liberia Airport Authority’s board of directors.

CDC officials are helping staff at Monrovia’s airport, where passengers are screened for signs of infection, including fever, and asked about their travel history. Plastic buckets filled with chlorinated water for hand-washing are present throughout the airport.

Liberia is one of the three hardest-hit countries in the epidemic, along with Sierra Leone and Guinea.

Ebola is believed to have sickened more than 6,500 people in West Africa, and more than 3,000 deaths have been linked to the disease, according to the World Health Organization. But even those tolls are probably underestimates, partially because there are not enough labs to test people for Ebola.