Tracking the next pandemic: Avian Flu Talk |
Ebola outbreak slowing |
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Albert
Admin Joined: April 24 2006 Status: Offline Points: 47746 |
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Posted: January 15 2015 at 6:19pm |
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Looks like the Ebola outbreak will probably end by the end of the year, and maybe sooner with the Ebola vax coming out this month by GlaxoSmith. Blue horseshoe loves GSK. I'm actually investing in GSK at the moment since it tanked after the flu vaccine mismatch and this price is low, and will probably do fairly good by the end of this month with the Ebola vaccine. But maybe not, who knows.
Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea making Ebola strides Liz Szabo, USA TODAY 6:13 p.m. EST January 14, 2015 Ebola cases in Sierra Leone have fallen for the second straight week and health experts say the region could be turning a corner in the battle against the disease. The number of new cases in the three hardest hit nations – Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea – is at the lowest level in months, the World Health Organization reported Wednesday. In fact, the outbreak in Liberia could end by June, provided that at least 85% of patients receive hospital care, according to a new study in PLOS Biology. Patients who don't get to the hospital for treatment are more likely to die and may spread the virus to relatives caring for them. While the Ebola epidemic is far from over, the situation has vastly improved since September, when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention predicted that there could be as many as 1.4 million cases by this time, if swift action were not taken. Since then, the U.S. and other nations have sent thousands of troops and aid workers to build hospitals and treat patients, actions that have limited the size of the outbreak. The WHO reported Wednesday that there have been 21,296 cases and 8,429 deaths. Ebola has sickened 825 health workers and killed 493 – a massive total for a region which had few doctors, nurses and hospitals. The international relief effort – while slow to get going – has made major progress. Health officials are preparing to begin large-scale trials of the first Ebola vaccines in Liberia by the end of January; additional trials are set in Guinea and Sierra Leone in February. Cases in Liberia have declined from a peak of more than 300 per week in August to only eight in the most recent week, WHO says.There were two days this month with no new cases in Liberia. The number of new cases there is at the lowest point since June, WHO says. In August, at the height of the outbreak, Liberia took the controversial step of cremating the bodies of all Ebola victims, rather than burying them, to prevent the virus from spreading at funerals. Traditional West African funerals – in which mourners often touch the bodies of the deceased – have been blamed for fueling the Ebola outbreak. The corpses of people who die from Ebola are highly infectious. This week, Liberia announced it would no longer require cremation. Instead, Ebola victims will be buried at a 50-acre site set aside for victims of the virus. A new report from the CDC finds that Sierra Leone also has made progress against Ebola. Some health experts are more worried about Guinea, where the outbreak started more than one year ago, says Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. The health system there remains fragile. West African nations need to "keep the pressure on or these numbers will go back up," Osterholm says. "Think of this epidemic as a big forest fire. If you suppress it in most of the forest, you can put it out. But you have to suppress all of it or it will come back." The Ebola outbreak in West Africa "will not be over until it's completely over," Osterholm says. "Remember, the entire epidemic started with just one case." As the number of Ebola cases fall, testing vaccines could become more difficult, Osterholm says. It's easier for scientists to measure whether vaccines are working during an outbreak because there tends to be a much clearer difference in infection rates between those who get an effective vaccine and those who don't. Osterholm says he worries that recent progress against Ebola will make people grow careless or make international donors think they no longer need to contribute to battling the outbreak. Americans have tended to lurch from apathy about Ebola to panic when the first few cases on U.S. soil were diagnosed and then back to apathy about Africa when the threat to the USA has seemed less urgent. "We need informed, heightened awareness about Ebola," Osterholm says. "We don't need overreaction, but we don't need apathy, either." http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/01/14/ebola-numbers-decline/21758645/ |
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Kilt2
Adviser Group Joined: December 17 2007 Status: Offline Points: 7414 |
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forget Ebola
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And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him.
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Albert
Admin Joined: April 24 2006 Status: Offline Points: 47746 |
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I believe people are being misled a bit with all this. If there are 21,000 cases, and with a fatality rate of 70%,
then there are 6,000 dead bodies unaccounted for. There are many
"hotspots" still as they say, and there is a likelihood that those
villages are being (or have been) decimated.
Since cases are estimated to be 2.5 times higher, we're talking approximately 15,000 bodies laying around. People are no longer venturing to the treatment centers, but wait until health officials research the ongoing hotspots. Probably fairly gruesome and no indication of slowing in those spots, is my guess |
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Kay
Adviser Group Joined: October 22 2014 Location: OHIO Status: Offline Points: 7205 |
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I agree Albert who knows what is going on.
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Kay
Adviser Group Joined: October 22 2014 Location: OHIO Status: Offline Points: 7205 |
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http://news.sl/drwebsite/publish/article_200527027.shtml
n a bid to complement Government efforts to fight against the Ebola virus, a German non-governmental organisation, Deutsche Welthungerhilfe (DWHH) in partnership with Rectour Volunteers and Ebola Task Force members and the National Ebola Response Center has on Thursday 15th January 2015 officillay launched an operation weed out the sick in Tombo.
The opeartion is to complement the second phase of Western Area Surge (WAS) for Ebola which starts today Monday, January 19, 2015 in order to bring out sick people from the homes.
Volunteers has already started visiting houses in Tombo and neighbouring commuinties with thermomters for temperature checks and distrubuting Ebola information leaflets, while others are using megaphones to explain in local languages about the danagers of Ebola. During the launching of the operation to weed out the sick, the National Project Coordinator for welthungerhilfe, Mafilah Kellie Marrah said the aim of the operation is to weed out all sick people from homes.
He said the operation is intended to identify sick people with Ebola symptoms within the Tombo cluster fishing community. According to him, they will also weed other people with other ailments.
He said the operation to weed out the sick is to complement Government efforts in the fight against Ebola during the phase 2 of the Western Area Surge.
He said Welthungerhilfe has trained and supported several partners within the Tombo commuinity to particpate in the opeartion with 170 volunters.
The dynamic coordinator, Mafilah Kellie Marrah said the groups were carefully selected from the Ebola Task Volunteers in the area and Rectour Volunters. He assured that, the Police and the Millitary are expected to participate fully.
He said seventeen (17) groups have been created for the opeartion with each comprising of ten members to undertake house-to-house check for the sick in homes.
According to him, the state secuity, volunteers and local stakeholders supported by welthungerhilfe will work as a team during the operation, he stated adding that ,the team has also agreed to incresae Ebola check points with effective hand washing facilties.
Mafilah Kellie Marrah went on; their organisation has provided training and logistics for 44 coastal communities to fight against the Ebola Virus.
He said each group was provided with pairs of rain boots; touch light, lamp, batteries, thermometers, and veronica buckets for hand washing at check points and public places in respective communities.
"Welthungerhilfe is also providing substantial food to thousands of people in quarantined homes within the Western Area," Mr. Marrah added.
A Nutritionist from the Ebola Command Center, Madam Owizz Koroma spoke about their activities in ensuring that the food provided by welthungerhilfe for quarantined homes should be used judiciously, so that quarantined residents will not leave their houses to go in search of food.
Major Cogra head of the Burial Team at the National Command Center in the Western Area assured that both the Military and the Police will enforce the operation weed out the sick effectively.
He encouraged the people within the Tombo community to stay home for the house-to-house checking in order to protect the country from the deadly disease through the enforcement of operation wed out the sick.
Funds for the implementation of the Western Area Ebola Response by Welthungerhilfe, was provide by UK Aid-DFID Ebola Emergency Response Fund (DEERF) in partnership with Goal-NGO and the German Foreign Ministry and the German International Cooperation (GIZ).
In line with Welthungerhilfe and Rectour Project activity plans for Ebola Response, they are working with the Ministry of Health and Sanitation and the District Health Medical Team (DHMT) in collaboration with the National Ebola Response Center.
© Copyright by Awareness Times Newspaper in Freetown, Sierra Leone. |
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Kay
Adviser Group Joined: October 22 2014 Location: OHIO Status: Offline Points: 7205 |
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http://news.sl/drwebsite/publish/article_200527015.shtml
It appears efforts by our local scientists and medical personnel to curb the intransigent spread of the Ebola virus disease is yielding dividend, thanks to the intensification of the production and assessment of plasmas of convalescence and other blood products from survivors of the virus into patients newly infected with the virus.
After more than two thousand Sierra Leoneans had succumbed to the dreaded virus since last year, Sierra Leonean scientists and health personnel at the 34 Military Hospital have succeeded in curing over 90% of Ebola patients so far since they started applying convalescent blood plasma at the peak of the pandemic in late 2014. |
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Kay
Adviser Group Joined: October 22 2014 Location: OHIO Status: Offline Points: 7205 |
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http://www.businessweek.com/news/2015-01-18/splinter-ebola-outbreaks-hinder-fight-against-virus-un
West Africa’s Ebola epidemic has morphed into several micro-outbreaks of varying intensity and with the potential to reignite more widespread contagion, a United Nations official said. The pattern of spread has become more nuanced and complex, occurring over a wider area, David Nabarro, the UN Secretary-General’s special envoy on Ebola, said in a report by the Global Ebola Response Information Centre. The 36-page publication, dated January 2015, outlines progress to date and changes in the global response needed to end the deadly scourge, which began in December 2013 in a remote area of Guinea, near the border with Liberia and Sierra Leone. Since then, Ebola has sickened more than 21,000 people in eight countries and killed 8,468, according to data compiled by the World Health Organization on Jan. 16 |
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nc_girl
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