West Africa Ebola Outbreak [11,313 dead]

[MickeyD]

FOOTBALL: EBOLA-HIT SIERRA LEONE'S NATIONS CUP MATCHES TO GO AHEAD

Sierra Leone's football authority said Sunday the team's upcoming Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers would go ahead despite a devastating Ebola outbreak which has killed more than 1,500 people.

Many African governments have sought to isolate Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia, the worst hit countries, throwing into doubt a number of sporting fixtures including the Leone Stars' first Group D game scheduled for September 6.

But the Sierra Leone Football Association told AFP it was planning to go ahead with the fixture in Abidjan with a 20-man squad consisting entirely of players based abroad.

The Ivory Coast government had said it was refusing to allow the game to be played in Abidjan and the country's federation had not announced a country ready to play host.

Ivory Coast will forfeit the match if it failed to show up for the fixture, SLFA secretary-general Chris Kamara said.

Sierra Leone were then due to travel to the neutral territory of Ghana's capital, Accra, to play Democratic Republic of Congo on September 10.

The venue has been rearranged, however, and will now go ahead in DR Congo's second city, Lumumbashi, the SLFA said.

"We are looking forward to winning both matches," Kamara told AFP.

"Our players are all geared up and although they are not home-based, their spirits have not been dampened by the Ebola outbreak. They are eager to bring laurels to the motherland."

The spread of the virus to Senegal and the World Health Organization (WHO) warning that up to 20,000 cases could be reported mean more restrictions can be expected ahead of the Nations Cup finals in Morocco from January 17.

The Confederation of African Football (CAF) and the WHO had asked member nations "to avoid huge gatherings of people that could facilitate the spread of the Ebola virus."

But CAF media director Junior Binyam told AFP no qualifying game was under threat.

Guinea is due to play its home game against Togo in the Moroccan city of Casablanca on September 6.

Source : Sapa-AFP /kd
Date : 31 Aug 2014 17:25

 

[LazyLion]

SWEDEN TESTS PATIENT FOR EBOLA

A man is in isolation at a Swedish hospital, pending tests to determine whether he has contracted Ebola, a physician said Monday.

The patient - who suffered from high fever and abdominal pain - had recently visited areas in West Africa hit by the Ebola outbreak, Ake Ortqvist, Stockholm County infectious disease officer told Swedish television.

The patient was admitted late Sunday to a special isolation unit at the Karolinska University Hospital Huddinge, just south of the Swedish capital.

The Ebola epidemic in West Africa has claimed more than 1,500 lives, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

Ebola causes massive haemorrhaging and has a fatality rate of up to 90 per cent. The disease is transmitted through contact with blood and other bodily fluids.


Source : Sapa-dpa /mr
Date : 01 Sep 2014 10:40

 

[LazyLion]

SUSPECTED EBOLA PATIENT TESTS NEGATIVE IN SWEDEN

A man suspected of being infected with the deadly Ebola virus ravaging several African countries tested negative in Sweden on Monday, local health officials said.

"We analysed the tests and can say there is no sign whatsoever that the patient was suffering from Ebola," a statement said.

The man, a foreign national who travelled to Sweden from an Ebola-affected area last week, was hospitalised on Sunday, Aake Oertqvist head of the Stockholm region's communicable diseases unit told AFP, without giving details of the man's identity nor the country he travelled from.

Even if there is a very low risk of an Ebola case in Sweden, healthcare workers closely followed Ebola emergency procedures, he added in a statement.

"When people come home with fever from infected areas it's most often due to other illnesses such as salmonella, malaria or common colds," said Oertqvist.

The patient was receiving further tests at Karolinska University Hospital on Monday to determine the cause of his symptoms.

The virus, for which there is no treatment nor vaccine, has claimed 1,552 lives out of 3,069 reported cases -- 694 in Liberia, 430 in Guinea, 422 in Sierra Leon and six in Nigeria, according to the latest figures from the World Health Organisation.


Source : Sapa-AFP /mr
Date : 01 Sep 2014 14:14

 

[OrbitalDawn]

The birthplace of an outbreak

Some stunning shots in there. Well worth checking out.

 

[LazyLion]

JAPANESE RESEARCHERS DEVELOP 30-MINUTE EBOLA TEST

Japanese researchers said Tuesday they had developed a new method to detect the presence of the Ebola virus in 30 minutes, with technology that could allow doctors to quickly diagnose infection.

Professor Jiro Yasuda and his team at Nagasaki University say their process is also cheaper than the system currently in use in west Africa where the virus has already killed more than 1,500 people.

"The new method is simpler than the current one and can be used in countries where expensive testing equipment is not available," Yasuda told AFP by telephone.

"We have yet to receive any questions or requests, but we are pleased to offer the system, which is ready to go," he said.

Yasuda said the team had developed what he called a "primer", which amplifies only those genes specific to the Ebola virus found in a blood sample or other bodily fluid.

Using existing techniques, ribonucleic acid (RNA) -- biological molecules used in the coding of genes -- is extracted from any viruses present in a blood sample.

This is then used to synthesise the viral DNA, which can be mixed with the primers and then heated to 60-65 degrees Celsius (140-149 Fahrenheit).

If Ebola is present, DNA specific to the virus is amplified in 30 minutes due to the action of the primers. The by-products from the process cause the liquid to become cloudy, providing visual confirmation, Yasuda said.

Currently, a method called polymerase chain reaction, or PCR, is widely used to detect the Ebola virus, which requires doctors to heat and cool samples repeatedly and takes up to two hours.

"The new method only needs a small, battery-powered warmer and the entire system costs just tens of thousands of yen (hundreds of dollars), which developing countries should be able to afford," he added.

The outbreak of the Ebola virus, transmitted through contact with infected bodily fluids, has sparked alarm throughout western Africa and further afield.


Source : Sapa-AFP /mm
Date : 02 Sep 2014 08:22

 

[Sinbad]

Now that's good news.

 

[LazyLion]

EBOLA-DENIAL A REVOLT AGAINST COLONIAL MINDSET: EXPERT
by Malick Rokhy Ba

It has been one of the more bizarre features of a deadly epidemic: a vocal minority in west African society denying that Ebola exists even as family and friends die around them.

The outbreak has cut a swathe through the region, killing more than 1,500 people since the start of the year, yet the work of medics and nurses has been disrupted by angry mobs claiming Ebola is an invention.

A leading social anthropologist who spent a month among communities in the epicentre claims that "Ebola-denial" is perhaps more complex than it first appears.

"When people say that Ebola does not exist, they are rebelling against something," Senegalese university professor Cheikh Ibrahima Niang told AFP.

"They are in situations where they were not consulted and feel that they are treated with a lot of paternalism."

Doctors and nurses -- often from global aid agencies -- are not only fighting the disease, but also a deep mistrust in communities often in the thrall of wild rumours that the virus was invented by the West or is a hoax.

Seventeen Ebola patients in the Liberian capital Monrovia fled from a guarantine centre two weeks ago after it was attacked by club-wielding youths shouting "there's no Ebola" in the latest of a series of such incidents across the region.

"We need to ask what is making them say that," Niang told AFP in an interview at Dakar's Cheik Anta Diop University.

"People have the impression that they are not getting all the necessary information or they do not agree with the prevention measures and medical procedures being imposed on them."

Niang spent July in Sierra Leone's eastern districts of Kenema and Kailahun, on the front line of the fight against the outbreak, as part of a mission for the World Health Organization (WHO).

The epidemic, which emerged in Guinea at the start of the year before spreading to Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria, is the worst Ebola outbreak since the haemorrhagic fever was first identified in 1976.

More than 3,000 people have been infected, with 1,552 deaths: 694 in Liberia; 430 in Guinea; 422 in Sierra Leone and six in Nigeria, according to the latest WHO figures.

Niang believes that "counterproductive" border closures were an example of the wrong approach, giving at-risk populations a false sense of security and propagating complacency.

"There is a very important African metaphor that says a forest fire which has spread to a town or community needs to be fought at its origins. Barricading myself at home and stockpiling water for when it arrives will not put it out," he said.

"How many people cross the border at night, by bush tracks and trails, because this border, a colonial legacy, is artificial?" he asked.

Niang said the strictly clinical approach to combating Ebola had provided "relatively limited" success because it failed to take into account local sensitivities.

"It only sees the disease and not the context. This is one of the reasons why the problem has been slow to have an adequate response," he told AFP.

Niang believes that talk of the African reluctance to accept modern clinical practices comes from a "reductive medical vision".

The problem is not that locals don't accept medicine can work, it's that they are mistrustful of an invading culture coming into their homeland telling them how they should behave.

Niang believes that western models of targeting individuals in education campaigns have been equally wrong-headed, when it is families who are primarily affected by the virus.

He said the response to the epidemic was being led by men and called for more women to be placed in decision-making positions.

"Ebola is transmitted by a virus, but the outbreak of the epidemic comes at a time when there is a social, political, cultural and historical context which is facilitating its spread," said Niang.

He called for "greater political will of our (west African) states, resources to be mobilised to send teams to provide clinical and sociological answers".


Source : Sapa-AFP /mm
Date : 02 Sep 2014 04:53

 

[Sinbad]

Let them eat cake

 

[Magnum]

FOOTBALL: EBOLA-HIT SLEONE'S NATIONS CUP MATCHES TO GO AHEAD

Date : 31 Aug 2014 17:25

Hey mickey. Can you fix this maybe? Please. Thanks.

 

[Magnum]

Gary we need to discuss this thread. The number of deaths ( 1552 ) has been idle for a very long period. I am most certain the virus has not gone on holiday, and is still going strong. There is no way these number can be even close to accurate.

Thank you for the updates and keep on doing a good job.

 

[LazyLion]

Hey mickey. Can you fix this maybe? Please. Thanks.

Fixed

 

[LazyLion]

Gary we need to discuss this thread. The number of deaths ( 1552 ) has been idle for a very long period. I am most certain the virus has not gone on holiday, and is still going strong. There is no way these number can be even close to accurate.

Thank you for the updates and keep on doing a good job.

I know, but I have to stick with the official figures from WHO which I do check once a day (the link is in the first post).
Will update it again some time today.
Thanks.

 

[Magnum]

WHO seems to be sleeping again. And WHO said you can not break the rules a bit here and there... Live a little Gary. Life is too short.

 

[2023]

http://ewn.co.za/2014/09/02/Nurses-in-Liberia-go-on-strike-new-vaccine-on-cards

JOHANNESBURG - Nurses at Liberia’s largest hospital have gone on strike, demanding better pay and equipment to protect themselves against the deadly Ebola epidemic which has killed hundreds in the West African nation.

Better equipment for sure... but asking for pay feels a bit morally questionable.

 

[LazyLion]

WHO seems to be sleeping again. And WHO said you can not break the rules a bit here and there... Live a little Gary. Life is too short.

There is no other source for official figures, unless I just thumb suck them.
And I am not willing to do that.
Sorry.

 

[Kornhub]

Gary we need to discuss this thread. The number of deaths ( 1552 ) has been idle for a very long period. I am most certain the virus has not gone on holiday, and is still going strong. There is no way these number can be even close to accurate.

Thank you for the updates and keep on doing a good job.

Guessing it takes time to collect the data

 

[Sinbad]

Guessing it takes time to collect the data

I think more realistically the number is impossible to know accurately, given the lack of penetration of first world communication methods in many of these areas. Whole villages could be wiped out with no outsiders knowing at all...

 

[The_Unbeliever]

There is no other source for official figures, unless I just thumb suck them.
And I am not willing to do that.
Sorry.

Excellent to hear that you will do the right thing.

 

[The_Unbeliever]

I think more realistically the number is impossible to know accurately, given the lack of penetration of first world communication methods in many of these areas. Whole villages could be wiped out with no outsiders knowing at all...

This.

And in a few years' time said villages will be overgrown, and hidden by the jungle...

 

[Magnum]

There is no other source for official figures, unless I just thumb suck them.
And I am not willing to do that.
Sorry.

Ah a reporter with some ethics...