Tag Archives: CDC

Zuckerberg & Wife Donate $25M to CDC for Ebola

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 Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, are donating $25 million to the CDC Foundation to help address the Ebola epidemic. The money will be used by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Ebola response effort in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone and elsewhere in the world where Ebola is a threat, the foundation said Tuesday.

The grant follows a $9 million donation made by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen last month. Zuckerberg and Chan are making the grant from their fund at the nonprofit Silicon Valley Community Foundation.

“We need to get Ebola under control in the near term so that it doesn’t spread further and become a long term global health crisis that we end up fighting for decades at large scale, like HIV or polio,” Zuckerberg wrote on his Facebook page on Tuesday. “We believe our grant is the quickest way to empower the CDC and the experts in this field to prevent this outcome.”

“The most important step we can take is to stop Ebola at its source. The sooner the world comes together to help West Africa, the safer we all will be,” said CDC Director Tom Frieden in a statement.

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US military Aircraft Arriving in Liberia

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 Six U.S. military planes arrived in the Ebola hot zone Thursday with more Marines, as West Africa’s leaders pleaded for the world’s help in dealing with a crisis that one called “a tragedy unforeseen in modern times.”

“Our people are dying,” Sierra Leone President Ernest Bai Koroma lamented by video conference at a World Bank meeting in Washington. He said other countries are not responding fast enough while children are orphaned and infected doctors and nurses are lost to the disease.

Tom Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said he was reminded of the start of the AIDS epidemic.

“We have to work now so this is not the next AIDS,” Frieden said.

The fleet of planes that landed outside the Liberian capital of Monrovia consisted of four MV-22 Ospreys and two KC-130s. The 100 additional Marines bring to just over 300 the total number of American troops in the country, said Maj. Gen. Darryl A. Williams, the commander leading the U.S. response. Williams joined the American ambassador to Liberia, Deborah Malac, at the airport to greet the aircraft.

As vehicles unloaded boxes of equipment wrapped in green-and-black cloth, the Marines formed a line on the tarmac and had their temperatures checked by Liberian health workers.

Ebola in Hollywood? Ghen Ghen!!!

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A person who landed at LAX after traveling to Liberia has been rushed to Centinela Hospital Medical Center to be tested for Ebola.

The patient was brought to the Centinela Hospital Medical Center Emergency Department on Tuesday night by ambulance from Los Angeles International Airport.

“Ambulance personnel alerted the hospital prior to arrival so upon entry to the hospital campus, all CDC precautions were fully implemented,” said the hospital in a statement. “The hospital has been preparing for the possibility of this situation for weeks and staff has been trained per CDC protocols.”

The patient does not have any symptoms of Ebola, but precautions were taken due to travel history and the patient has not yet tested positive or negative for the virus. The patient will remain isolated in the hospital’s ER for evaluation and testing will be conducted in consultation with the CDC, according to the hospital.

The hospital remains open to seeing other patients and “are taking all steps to ensure our patients, their families, staff, and the community are protected.”

In the wake of the global Ebola scare, which has now taken the life of one U.S. patient, Eric Duncan, in Dallas, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that five of the biggest airports in the U.S will have enhanced Ebola screening for passengers coming from the West African countries of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

U.S. wants to Learn how Nigeria Contained Ebola

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GUINEA-HEALTH-EBOLA

US teams are headed to Nigeria to learn about its success in using ‘contact tracing’ a significant practical step that limited the spread of the virus.

The possibility that Ebola would reach and spread in Nigeria was broached with great trepidation by public health experts. Nigeria is Africa’s most populous country.

But those doubts proved wrong. This week, teams of American health officials are Lagos-bound to learn from Nigeria’s experience in defying expectations and stopping the outbreak before it could wreak havoc.

Since July 20, the day Nigeria’s so-called “Patient Zero” arrived in Lagos, officials have recorded a total of only 19 cases, with no new cases since Aug. 31. Last week, on the same day the US confirmed its first case of Ebola, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) proclaimed that Nigeria had stopped its outbreak.

First Ebola Case Diagnosed in U. S.

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U.S. health officials said on Tuesday, that the first patient infected with the deadly Ebola virus had been diagnosed in the country after flying from Liberia to Texas.

The patient sought treatment six days after arriving in Texas on Sept. 20, Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), told reporters on Tuesday. He was admitted two days later to an isolation room at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas.

“It is certainly possible someone who had contact with this individual could develop Ebola in the coming weeks,” Frieden told a news conference. “I have no doubt we will stop this in its tracks in the United States.”

The Texas Department of State Health Services said it was working with the CDC, the local health department and the hospital “to investigate the case and help prevent transmission of the disease.”

“The hospital has implemented infection control measures to help ensure the safety of patients and staff,” the statement said.