New strain of Meningitis is deadlier than Ebola, says Sokoto health commissioner

Posted on April 3, 2017 by Staff Reporter

Balarabe Kakale, Sokoto commissioner for health, says the type ‘C’ strain of meningitis, which has killed forty-one people in the state, is deadlier than Ebola virus disease.

Kakale, disclosed this to newsmen in Sokoto on Sunday when he gave an update on the state of high alert declared by the state government since March 20.

He said that the deaths were mostly recorded out of the nearly 600 clinically confirmed cases of meningitis in the eight worst-hit local governments.

They are Rabah, Kebbe, Tureta, Gada, Dange/Shuni, Wamakko, Kware and Bodinga.

“The epidemic was caused by the type “C’’ strain of meningitis and not the type “A’’ strain which the people of the state had hitherto developed immunity for,” Kakale said.

“This new strain of meningitis is deadlier than the dreaded Ebola disease as it kills within four to six hours of afflicting a patient.

“More than eighty percent of the victims also had not been immunised, hence, the aggravation of the epidemic.’’

He further stated that the state government has embarked on a state-wide, mass vaccination for the people of the state, against meningitis.

He explained that over 700,000 persons, aged one to thirty years, were being targeted across the 23 local governments of the state.

Kakale further stressed the need for people of the state to ensure that their children were fully immunised against child killer diseases like measles, whooping cough, yellow fever and diphtheria, among others.

He also warned against self-medication and attaching superstitious beliefs to the disease.

“They should also desist from self-medication as adequate drugs and medicament were provided by the state government for the free treatment of the patients.

“The people should also desist attaching traditional beliefs like witchcraft and report all suspected cases of meningitis, measles and other diseases to the nearest health facility.

“We will not rest on our oars until when the epidemic is fully mitigated, although the cases had drastically reduced,” he said.

Source: The Cable

Ebola nurse named ‘Time Magazine’s Person Of The Year’ has died.

Posted on March 5, 2017 by Staff Reporter

An Ebola nurse who was named Time magazine’s person of the year in 2014 has died after giving birth to a son.

Salome Karwah, 28, from Liberia, gave birth to Jeramiah by cesarean section on February 17.

But husband James Harris claims medical staff were unwilling to touch her because she was a survivor of Ebola.

The mother-of-four, who tested negative for the disease, was re-admitted to hospital when she experienced complications after the birth.

Mr Harris said his wife started having convulsions and foamed at the mouth.

He told NPR: ‘[The doctor] was checking Facebook.

‘Nurses came to help me, but the doctor told me that she would not touch her, and that if [Salome] stayed [at the hospital] she would die.’

He said that hospital workers did not treat her as quickly as they could have because of lingering superstitions about Ebola survivors.

Chief Medical Officer, Dr Francis Kateh, told the BBC: ‘We have to do a thorough investigation.’

Husband James Harris claims medical staff were unwilling to touch her because she was a survivor of Ebola. Chief Medical Officer Dr Francis Kateh said the matter is being investigated

During the Ebola crisis of 2014, Ms Karwah lost her mother, father and brother to the disease.

The couple, who met in 2013, both caught the disease in the summer of 2014.

Ms Karwah, who was pregnant at the time, her sister and Mr Harris survived the outbreak.

When they recovered, they were hired by Doctors Without Borders to help care for sufferers at their unit in Monrovia.

Ms Karwah caught Ebola in the summer of 2014 but miraculously survived, along with husband James Harris and her sister. She was hired by Doctors Without Borders to help after she recovered

While working for the charity, Ms Karwah was not afraid to touch people with the disease and soothed crying babies back to sleep.

As she had survived the usually deadly disease, she could touch sufferers and not be at risk of contracting Ebola again.

At the end of 2014, the nurse was named by Time Magazine, along with a group of ‘Ebola Fighters’ as Person of the Year.

She married Mr Harris in January 2016.

As she had survived the usually deadly disease, she could touch sufferers and not be at risk of contracting Ebola again. She was able to comfort her patients and sooth babies to sleep

Ms Karwah’s friend Adolphus Mawolo has launched a crowdfunding page to help support Mr Harris, who is unemployed, and his four children.

Mr Mawolo hopes to raise $20,000 to pay for medical bills, food, clothing and shelter.

End times for Ebola as prototype vaccine records 100 per cent success rate.

Posted on December 23, 2016 by Staff Reporter

A prototype vaccine for Ebola may be “up to 100 percent effective” in protecting against the deadly virus, the World Health Organization (WHO) said Friday.

If all goes well, the vaccine could become available in 2018 under a fast-track approval process, it said.

In a major clinical trial, nearly 6,000 people in Guinea were given the test vaccine last year, at the tail end of a lethal epidemic of Ebola.

But in a control group of volunteers that did not receive the vaccine, 23 Ebola cases occurred, researchers reported in The Lancet medical journal.

“If we compare zero to 23, this strongly suggests that the vaccine is very effective, that it could be up to 100 percent effective,” Marie-Paule Kieny, WHO’s assistant director-general and lead author of the study, told AFP.

Her team of three dozen researchers calculated a 90-percent likelihood during a full-fledged epidemic that the vaccine, dubbed rVSV-ZEBOV, would work in more than 80 percent of cases.

“After 40 years, we appear to now have an effective vaccine for Ebola virus disease to build upon,” Thomas Geisbert, a scientist at Galveston National Laboratory in Texas who did not take part in the study, wrote in a commentary, also in The Lancet.

– ‘Compassionate use’ –
First identified in 1976 in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Ebola virus erupted periodically in outbreaks of up to a couple hundred cases, mainly across west and east Africa.

In early 2014, however, a handful of infections in southern Guinea mushroomed rapidly into an epidemic.

Over the next two years, more than 28,000 people fell ill, mainly in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. Some 11,300 died.

With a mortality rate above 40 percent, the disease — one of a category of so-called haemorrhagic fevers — has an incubation period of up to three weeks. It causes violent and painful symptoms, including vomiting, diarrhoea, organ failure and internal bleeding.

The new vaccine was initially developed in Canada by public health authorities before being taken over by pharmaceutical giant Merck.

It is slated to be submitted by Merck to health authorities in the United States and Europe sometime next year under a fast-track approval process.

“We may have a vaccine which is registered in 2018,” Kieny told journalists at a press conference Thursday, noting that the standard approval process for a new drug takes a decade, if not more.

In the meantime, Merck has committed to ensuring that 300,000 doses of the vaccine are available for emergencies under a protocol called “compassionate use”.

“They will be able to produce a million in very short period of time,” Kieny noted.

– Unanswered questions –
There are still questions to be resolved concerning the vaccine, including side effects.

Initial tests last year did not include children, while the most recent trials covered those over six years old.

Of the more than 6,000 people injected with the Ebola vaccine only two showed serious adverse effects, the study reported. Both recovered fully.

But it is still unknown if the vaccine is safe for children six and under, pregnant women, or people with the AIDS virus — all groups that were excluded from the most recent trials.

Another unknown is how long innoculation lasts.

“With the Canadian Merck vaccine, you have a protection very early after vaccination, but we don’t know if it will last after six months,” Kieny said.

Other Ebola vaccines under development — some of which have been tested in humans — could prove more effective over a longer period.

British firm Glaxosmithkline and Johnson & Johnson, based in the United States, each have experimental products in the pipeline.

China and Russia have also developed vaccines, with the Russian one having just finished the second phase of three-step clinical trials.

Some of these vaccines require two doses three weeks apart, and may confer a longer immunity.

“That might be better suited to immunise health workers in advance of an outbreak,” Kieny said.

Health officials also point to the fact that other strains of the virus — including one in Sudan — will require the development of separate vaccines.

Ebola: Where Is It Hiding And When Will It Be Back?

Posted on October 4, 2016 by Staff Reporter

Ebola is a zoonotic disease, meaning that it can spread between animals and humans. It burns hot and fast through people. Its ruthless nature means that we are often the end of the line for the virus: a host like us that gets too sick too fast, that dies too quickly, cuts down the virus’s ability to jump into a fresh body. To remain a threat, Ebola needs a safe house in which to lie low and hide.

Such a long-term host, the quiet refuge of a pathogen, is known as a reservoir species. If a reservoir species is Ebola’s safe house, we are its luxury retirement property, a place for it to live out its last days with a bang. The trouble is that we aren’t sure where the safe house is. If we are going to be vigilant against Ebola’s re-emergence, we need to find it.

Searches so far have focused on forested parts of Africa, the home of a number of possible reservoirs. Classically, bats have been considered the most likely culprits, given that they overlap with humans geographically and can carry Ebola infection without symptoms. Based on research that has tested a wide variety of small mammals, bats, primates, insects and amphibians, several species of fruit bat have emerged as possible candidates.

A 2005 study published in Nature and helmed by Eric Leroy tested over 1,000 small vertebrates in central Africa and found evidence of symptomless Ebola infection in three species of fruit bat, suggesting that these animals — which are sometimes hunted for bushmeat — might be Ebola’s reservoir. An editor’s summary ran alongside the paper, titled simply: “Ebola virus: don’t eat the bats.”

But not everyone is convinced that fruit bats are to blame. Some researchers, like Fabian Leendertz of the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin, are working with circumstantial evidence that points to the insectivorous bat Mops condylurus. The first — or “index” — case of the 2014 Ebola epidemic was traced to a two-year-old boy in Guinea who may have spent time inside a large hollow cola tree near his house before falling ill.

The tree was a known roost for these bats and a popular neighborhood play spot. The boy died in December 2013, and by the following March, officials were alerting the public to the brewing outbreak. However, by the time researchers arrived in April to examine the tree and its inhabitants, it had been burned down.

Still others are looking elsewhere for Ebola’s home, skeptical that bats are to blame. Virologist Jens Kuhn of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Maryland, has told Nature that he thinks bats live much too close to humans: if they were the reservoir, it would be curious that there have been so few emergences of Ebola since we first discovered the virus 40 years ago. Instead, he believes insects or fungi could be possibilities.

As Kuhn told National Geographic in 2015, he’s betting on finding Ebola in a “strange host”, explaining that perhaps the virus is hiding in a tick or a flea that intermittently bites bats, which only sometimes initiates the virus’s move from the wild into human communities.

Liberia After Ebola: Turning Midwives Into Surgeons

Posted on July 25, 2016 by Staff Reporter

Before the outbreak of the Ebola epidemic in Liberia, the country had a total of 50 doctors for its population of 4.3 million.

In comparison, there are 50 doctors available to every 100,000 people in the US.

This, taken together with Liberia’s extremely high maternal mortality rate, which sees three women dying every day, means the health system is buckling under the strain.

Many deaths would be preventable with simple surgery and adequate equipment. A chronic lack of doctors, however, means that many maternity wards are overstretched and understaffed.

In this film, we meet the midwives being enrolled on ambitious advanced obstetrics and surgery courses to replace these “missing doctors”.

The process is called task-shifting and is run by the international charity Maternal Childhealth Advocacy International.

The Cure presenter Dr Tlaleng Mofokeng meets Dr Obed Dolo, who is helping transform midwives into surgeons.

One Known Ebola Case Left In Guinea After Girl’s Discharge

Posted on April 14, 2016 by Staff Reporter

A dedicated Ebola clinic was treating Guinea’s only known case of the virus on Thursday after the recovery of a girl diagnosed with the disease, the charity running the facility said.

The Alliance For International Medical Action (ALIMA) runs the country’s sole treatment centre in the southern city of Nzerekore, where it has handled six of the 10 confirmed cases recorded since the outbreak was officially declared over in December.

“(Of) six confirmed cases, four have died, one was discharged after recovery and the sixth is still here,” said ALIMA emergency co-ordinator Solenne Barbe.

Barbe attributed the high mortality rate to the fact that the recent patients arrived too late to be treated with a good chance of survival.

The newest confirmed case is an elderly man from Macenta prefecture to the north of Nzerekore, she said, thought to be a healer visited by one of the dead while still alive and infected with the virus.

Credit: Guardian

Ebola No Longer Poses Global Health Risk – WHO

Posted on March 30, 2016 by Staff Reporter

The WHO Emergency Committee on Tuesday said the Ebola situation in West Africa no longer constitute public health emergency and as such the temporary recommendations adopted in response should now be terminated.

This information is contained in a statement issued after the ninth meeting convened by the WHO.

The Committee also noted that since its last meeting, all the three concerned countries had met the criteria for confirming interruption of their original chains of Ebola virus transmission.

The Committee noted that Ebola transmission in West Africa no longer constitute an extraordinary event, that the risk of international spread was now low.

It further stated that countries currently had the capacity to respond rapidly to new virus emergences and emphasised that there should be no restrictions on travel and trade with Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, and that such measures should be lifted immediately.

Specifically, it added, the three countries had now completed the 42-day observation period and additional 90-day enhanced surveillance period since their last case that was linked to the original chain of transmission twice tested negative.

It said that Guinea achieved this milestone on March 27.

The Committee also observed that as expected, new clusters of Ebola cases continued to occur due to reintroductions of virus as it was cleared from the survivor population, though at decreasing frequency.

It said that 12 such clusters had been detected to date, the most recent of which was reported on March 17 in Guinea and was ongoing.

Based on the advice of the Emergency Committee and her own assessment of the situation, the WHO Director-General, Margret Chan, terminated the Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) regarding the Ebola virus disease outbreak in West Africa.

She did it in accordance with the International Health Regulations (2005).

The director-general terminated the temporary recommendations issued in relation to this event and expressed support to the public health advice provided above by the Committee.

She also reinforced the importance of States Parties immediately, lifting any restrictions on travel and trade with these countries.

She thanked the Emergency Committee members and advisers for their service and expert advice, and requested their availability to reconvene if needed.

(NAN)

New Virus Deadlier Than Ebola, Zika To Emerge, Scientists Warn

Posted on March 21, 2016 by Staff Reporter

Scientists have warned that humans should brace for the emergence of a new virus that could be deadlier than Ebola Virus Disease (EVD), Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) or Zika.

The scientists in a study published on March 14, 2016, edition of the journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, titled “SARS-like WIV1-CoV poised for human emergence” said outbreaks from zoonotic sources represent a threat to both human as well as the global economy.

A zoonotic disease is a disease that can be passed between animals and humans.

The scientists are already bracing for a potential outbreak of the new SARS-like virus.

They warn the new virus, called WIV1-CoV, may induce the same results in humans as SARS – starting out with flu-like symptoms and accelerating rapidly to pneumonia.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), Bat SARS-like coronavirus WIV1, (Bat SL-CoV-WIV1) also sometimes called SARS-like coronavirus WIV1 that is W1V1-CoV, is a newly identified CoV isolated from Chinese rufous horseshoe bats. The discovery confirms that bats are the natural reservoir of the SARS virus. Phylogenetic analysis shows the possibility of direct transmission of SARS from bats to humans without the intermediary Chinese civets, as previously believed.

The scientists say this virus may never jump to humans, but if it does, WIV1-CoV has the potential to seed a new outbreak with significant consequences for both public health and the global economy.

According to the researchers, the capacity of this group of viruses to jump into humans is greater than originally thought. While other adaptations may be required to produce an epidemic, several viral strains circulating in bat populations have already overcome the barrier of replication in human cells and suggest reemergence as a distinct possibility.

The researchers wrote: “Focusing on the SARS-like viruses, the results indicate that the WIV1-coronavirus (CoV) cluster has the ability to directly infect and may undergo limited transmission in human populations. However, in vivo attenuation suggests additional adaptation is required for epidemic disease. Importantly, available SARS monoclonal antibodies offered success in limiting viral infection absent from available vaccine approaches. Together, the data highlight the utility of a platform to identify and prioritize prepandemic strains harboured in animal reservoirs and document the threat posed by WIV1-CoV for emergence in human populations.”

Credit: Guardian

Sierra Leone Confirms Second Ebola Case

Posted on January 21, 2016 by Staff Reporter

Sierra Leone confirmed a new case of Ebola on Wednesday, its second in less than a week, marking a further setback in efforts to end a two-year West African epidemic that has killed more than 11,300 people.

Health ministry spokesman, Sidi Yahyah Tunis, described the new patient as a 38-year-old woman, a relative who had helped care for the earlier victim Mariatu Jalloh.

Reuters reported that Jalloh died on January 12, and tested positive for Ebola posthumously.

Credit: Nation

Sierra Leone Ebola Victim Exposed 27 Others To Disease

Posted on January 15, 2016 by Staff Reporter

A woman who died of Ebola this week in Sierra Leone potentially exposed at least 27 other people to the disease, an aid agency reported.

This has raised the possibility of further transmission as a regional epidemic appeared nearly over.

The victim, a 22-year-old female student from Tonkolili District named Mariatu Jalloh, became ill at the beginning of the year and died on Jan. 12 while living in a house with 22 people.

She had sought medical attention at a local hospital but was treated as an outpatient

Credit: Reuters

WHO Declares West Africa Ebola-Free

Posted on January 15, 2016 by Staff Reporter

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The World Health Organisation (WHO) on Thursday in Geneva, Switzerland declared West Africa Ebola-free, affirming that the transmission of the Ebola virus has been stopped in West Africa.

WHO experts, however, warned that there was still a risk that the haemorrhagic fever could flare up again.

They said this is because the Ebola virus can persist for up to 12 months in the semen of male survivors.

The announcement came 42 days after the last case was confirmed in Liberia, the final of three West African countries with active transmission of the virus.

WHO Director-General, Margaret Chan, said Sierra Leone was declared free of Ebola transmission on Nov. 7 and Guinea on Dec. 29.

“More than 11,300 people have died since the outbreak in December 2013 in West Africa, while 28,500 have been infected.

Detecting and breaking every chain of transmission has been a monumental achievement,” she said.

Ebola, which was discovered in 1976 and transmitted through contact with blood and other bodily fluids, causes massive haemorrhaging.

It has a fatality rate of up to 90 per cent if left untreated.

Liberian Deputy Health Minister, Tolbert Nyenswah, said the country would be vigilant, as related to maintaining surveillance and thereby keeping the nation safe from Ebola.

Luis Encinas, Medical Head of Projects in Niger, for the Doctors Without Borders (MSF), said they would remain in West Africa, where they started Ebola response services in March 2014.

He said this has become necessary because the health system has to be completely reconstructed in the most-affected countries.

“MSF will be ready if there is another outbreak, but much depends on resources.

If there is no money and people are not trained, there will be a problem,’’ the official said.

(dpa/NAN)

WHO Declares Guinea Ebola-Free

Posted on December 29, 2015 by Staff Reporter

The World Health Organisation (WHO) on Tuesday declared Guinea Ebola-free, after more than 2,500 people died from the virus, leaving Liberia as the only country still waiting for the end of the epidemic.

People in the capital, Conakry, greeted the declaration by authorities and the WHO with mixed emotions, given the deaths and the damage the virus caused
the economy and the country’s health and education sectors.

Rene Migliani, WHO Official, National Coordination Centre for the Fight Against Ebola, said Ebola had made more than 6,200 children orphans in Guinea.

He said there were more than 3,800 Ebola cases in Guinea out of the more than 28,600 cases globally with 11,300 deaths.

Migliani said almost all the cases and deaths were in Guinea and its neighbours Liberia and Sierra Leone.

WHO said a country was declared Ebola-free 42 days after the recovery or death of the last patient and if there were no new infections.

It said Liberia lost more than 4,800 people to the haemorrhagic fever, “but if all goes well, the country can be declared virus-free in January.”

The country was declared Ebola-free in May and September, but each time new cases emerged thereafter.

(Reuters/NAN)

Three New Cases Of Ebola Recorded In Guinea

Posted on October 29, 2015 by Staff Reporter

According to a senior health official in Guinea who spoke yesterday Wednesday, October 28, three more people have been infected with the Ebola virus. According to Fode Tass Sylla, spokesman for the national centre for the fight against Ebola, the three were infected in Forecariah in western Guinea from the family of a woman who died of Ebola and whose body was handled without appropriate protection.

“In all, nine sick people are being treated at our centres throughout the country and most are connected to the dead woman,” he told Reuters, adding that authorities had known of the three fresh cases since Saturday.

FG Set To Establish Ebola Survival Clinic- NCDC Director

Posted on October 21, 2015 by Staff Reporter

The Director-General, Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, Abdulsalam Nasidi, says the Federal Government will soon establish an Ebola Survival Clinic in Lagos or Ibadan.

Fielding questions from journalists on the first anniversary of declaration of Nigeria Ebola-free in Abuja on Tuesday, Mr. Nasidi said doctors that defeated Ebola in Lagos would be used to quickly establish the proposed clinic.

He said the survival clinic by the NCDC would work in collaboration with tertiary health institutions to address the issue of relapse in survival.

“The clinic has the component of the follow-up, where we will be monitoring what happens to Ebola survivors daily,’’ he said.

According to Mr. Nasidi, the idea of survival clinics was conceived by the NCDC in Sierra Leone.

“The clinic was established by the Nigeria contingent to assist survivors in Sierra Leone, and it has gone a long way in bringing us to proper understanding what is happening to Ebola survivors.

“But in Nigeria, we do not practice it. We have come to realise with all the relapses and new pattern of epidemiology of Ebola, that we should now establish the clinic in Nigeria.’’

Read More: premiumtimesng

Nigeria is working on Ebola drug -NIPRD DG

Posted on September 22, 2015 by Staff Reporter

Prof. Karniyus Gamaniel, the Director-General, National Institute of Pharmaceutical Research Development, has said that the institute is carrying out clinical trials of vaccine for Ebola Virus Disease.

Gamaniel, made the disclosure in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Tuesday.

He said the institute was carrying out the research in collaboration with the 2014 Ebola Response Committee.

The director general said the response committee was set up in 2014 by the former Minister of Health; Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu, after the first Ebola case was recorded in Nigeria.

NAN recalls that Mr Patrick Sawyer, a 40-year-old Liberian, was the first confirmed case of the highly contagious and deadly disease in Nigeria.

Gamaniel, who was also a member of the response committee, said the move to produce a vaccine for the virus was to equip the country in any future crisis.

He said that after Nigeria was declared Ebola free by WHO, the committee remained active as it discovered that no country in the world had produced any vaccine to treat the disease.

“During the outbreak, the committee was given the mandate of looking all over the world to find documents that could be used to identify the best treatment for Ebola.

“This is because we needed an antidote immediately as people were already dying from the disease.

“The committee called on people who may have any traditional or orthodox method to resolving the crisis. We were to analyse the methods and give a report.

“We identified and got reports on methods that were used either directly or indirectly on Ebola; interestingly there was no single registered drug or product all over the world at the time.

“There was trial going on in Japan at the time but no company had registered any product which could be used to fight Ebola.

“What we did was to use some of the products that were in clinical trial at the time. These products were mostly produced to fight the Influenza virus.

“We identified this and made a recommendation to the Federal Government who gave the go-ahead to use the drugs that were being experimented on.

“Government had little or no option because the death toll continued to rise; so with the drugs, quarantine, fumigation, sensitisation and seclusion of infected persons in Nigeria recorded success,” Gamaniel said.

The director general said through collaborative efforts, a drug had been produced with the combination of three different drugs.

He said the drug was currently being clinical tested as it needed to undergo direct study in a Biosafety Level 4 laboratory.

Gamaniel said the study was a crucial step in the final phase of the production of the drug, adding that it would also give credence to the research being carried out.

“Since we had drugs that were already being clinically tried we improved on these drugs and certified that combining them could produce a treatment for the virus.

“We had to ensure that these drugs when administered did not cause harm to the human body like the brain, heart, liver and other parts.

“ We have had to test these drugs and monitor their effects. They have already been approved in the past only that we are now using them in a combined form.

“The drug we produced from these combinations is already in clinical trial although there is need for a direct study in a Biosafety Level 4 Laboratory which we do not have in the country.

“This laboratory is not found just anywhere; it is a special laboratory because the disease is very deadly it causes death at a fast rate and so it constitutes a great risk and one needs to be careful when handling such trials.

“You will recall that some doctors and nurses who assisted during the outbreak lost their lives. There is need for an exclusive laboratory to handle the trial because it is a biological weapon.

The institute has often times depended on collaborations with foreign organisations to carry out some clinical trials on drugs and this time we are still getting this support,” he added.

The director general said the success of the study and its certification by relevant national and international organisation would impact positively on the image of the country.

He said that it would also give citizens the assurance that they were safe in the event of any future crisis.

(NAN)

Hundreds Quarantined For Ebola In Sierra Leone

Posted on September 15, 2015 by Staff Reporter

Health authorities quarantined hundreds of people in northern Sierra Leone on Monday after a 16-year-old girl died of Ebola in an apparent case of sexual transmission, the first confirmed death from the virus in the district for nearly six months.

Sierra Leone celebrated last month when it discharged the last remaining Ebola patient from its treatment centres.

But since then new cases have erupted, leaving two dead and five people in treatment, Reuters reported.

Liberia was declared Ebola-free this month but growing evidence that the virus may survive longer than previously thought in sperm has raised fears of fresh outbreaks.

The teenage girl, Kadiatu Thullah, died on Sunday at the International Medical Corps Ebola treatment unit, authorities said.

Read More: thenationonlineng

Istifanus Yaro :On Europe And An Unprecedented Refugee Crises, My Take

Posted on September 7, 2015 by Staff Reporter

Hordes and hordes of men, women and children are knocking on the doors of Europe in a manner never before experienced. These are adjudged to be people running away from war thorn Syria, Saudi-shelled Yemen and the overall uneasiness characterising the Middle East at this very moment. This is even more so with ISIS expanding the frontiers of a new, resurgent Islamic state.

The policy of the West had a triggering effect, resulting in to the kind of humanitarian crises being witnessed today. The arming of rebels in Syria, the divided stance on the part of the permanent membership of the UN Security Council where one country supports the beleaguered Assad Regime while others support the rebels is a recipe for a protracted war.

One of the legacies of the Libyan war is an internal instability that has created a breeding ground for terrorists and lunching pad to the rest of the world. Libya now provides a window into Europe from an anarchical environment that is now the state of Libya.

With a policy that has consistently shown Africa as a jungle of disease, starvation, conflicts and failed states, it is little wonder that Africans increasingly become drawn to Europe. We have been inundated with stories of Africans ready to undertake the deadly journey across the Sahara desert into Europe. These dogged journeymen considered it far more dignifying to die in the desert or drown in the Mediterranean than to live in the throes of abject poverty. The allures of Europe is that attractive.

At the height of the Ebola scourge, ‘Ebola diplomacy’ was used to further undermine Africa. CNN ascribed numbers constituting those who lost their lives to the Ebola pandemic. Those numbers, affixed to west African countries, depicted a dehumanizing situation that was only expected to get worse, and the numbers bound to increase.

America was depicted as the great nation, whose citizens cannot be allowed to die in the disease-infested jungles of Africa. An SOS mission was launched and the American doctor who was cured of the ailment read a pre-scripted note while proclaiming his recovery ‘a historic moment’ for America and for himself. When Nigeria, with lesser drama and showmanship, surmounted the scourge, America ate the humble pie and sent emissaries to understudy the methods employed by the most populous black country in the world. The Ebola diplomacy failed woefully. But in the minds of those fixated with thoughts of the West as eldorado, the systematic diplomacy of persistently downgrading Africa has resulted into an inferiority complex that even a feat such as Nigeria’s defeat of Ebola cannot warrant any re-valuation.

Those that undertake the journey-of-no-return to Europe have lost every sense of rational thought that they wouldn’t bother to know that Europe today is dithering under great economic uncertainty. Just recently, David Cameron has embarked on foreign diplomatic shuttles to woo investors to the UK! By the year 2050, according to a recent PWC report, the UK would ease out of the World’s Top 10 Economies while Nigeria as one of the foremost world economy. It is really not surprising as close observers have since noticed the recurrent indices of an economy that is loosing steam on a number of fronts. This probably is the reason why Fareed Zacharia in an article in the Washington Post recently acclaimed that ‘the Great Britain has resigned as a World Power’. But our brothers and sisters that commit all they have including their lives to making it into Europe do not realise that it is far easier to be free on the shores of their ancestors than it would be elsewhere.

On the whole, the blame for the unprecedented scramble to European shores rests substantially on the West. Western policy often cast the rest of the world as either Third rate or Third World. Those who now want to make it at all cost into Europe are orphans of western policies. But it must be said that terrorist could also hide under cover of seeking political asylum to make to Europe thereby extending the frontiers of the Islamic State.

There is a scar on the conscience of the West, which ought to lead to a realization that the sooner a solution to the humanitarian crisis is found, the better it would be for the security of Europe and the world.

By Istifanus Yaro (public servant, researcher, writer and poet)

Views expressed are solely that of author and does not represent views of www.omojuwa.com nor its associates

OAP Freeze Wants Donald Trump To Be The Next US President… Find Out Why

Posted on August 12, 2015 by Staff Reporter

The Cool FM On air personality was previously one of Donald Trump’s critics,especially with his tweets about Ebola and Africans..Now, he seems to have taken a U-turn,expressing his wish that Trump becomes the American President so Nigerians will be forced to return home and fix their country…

My next American President! Donald Trump! I hated this guy initially because of his comments on Africa during the #Ebola pandemic. But after the perceived lack of direction (except of course, in the instance of the controversial gay marriage issue), I personally think it’s time America elected someone the world can see through, instead of
a political facade. When, if at all, he becomes president, I hope he successfully tightens immigration laws, so our Nigerian brothers and sisters there can come back home and #FixNigeria. My opinion is, instead of discarding your sinking ship for a floating one, stay aboard and #FixIt

Good News! Ebola Vaccine Works, Offering 100% Protection In African Trial

Posted on August 3, 2015 by Staff Reporter

A highly unusual clinical trial in Guinea has shown for the first time that an Ebola vaccine protects people from the deadly virus. The study, published online today by The Lancet, shows that the injection offered contacts of Ebola cases 100% protection starting 10 days after they received a single shot of the vaccine, which is produced by Merck. Scientists say the vaccine could help to finally bring an end to the epidemic in West Africa, now more than 18 months old.

“This will go down in history as one of those hallmark public health efforts,” says Michael Osterholm, the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy in Twin Cities, Minnesota, who wasn’t involved in the study. “We will teach about this in public health schools.”

“It’s a wonderful result and a fantastic illustration of how vaccines can be developed very quickly and can be used in an outbreak situation to control the disease,” says Adrian Hill, a vaccine researcher at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, also not involved in the work.

The vaccine, first developed by researchers at the Public Health Agency of Canada, consists of the Vesicular Stomatitis Virus (VSV), which causes disease in livestock but not people, with the Ebola surface protein stitched into it. It is one of two vaccines currently being tested in the Ebola-stricken countries; the other one is produced by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK). The study of the Merck vaccine was led by Ana Maria Henao-Restrepo of the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva, together with colleagues at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health in Oslo, the Guinean Ministry of Health, and others.

The decision to start the trial was taken in October, but it didn’t get off the ground until March. By then, Ebola cases had already begun to plummet, and they were scattered across a large area in Guinea. To show efficacy in a standard randomized controlled trial, the researchers would have had to enroll far more people than was feasible.

Instead, they opted for a design called ring vaccination, in which only contacts of new Ebola patients, as well as the contacts’ contacts, were vaccinated. The rings, or clusters, were randomized; in 48 of them, vaccination occurred as soon as possible after the detection of the Ebola case in their community. In the 42 other clusters, the vaccination teams came to give the shots three weeks later. The researchers then counted the number of new Ebola cases in each ring; because they weren’t sure how long it takes for the vaccine’s protection to kick in, they only included cases that occurred at least 10 days after vaccination in their primary analysis of the data. There were zero such cases among the 2014 people who were vaccinated right away, and 16 among the 2380 who got the shot 3 weeks later. That translates to 100% vaccine efficacy, at least in this study, the researchers write.

The idea of a ring vaccination design, never before used in a formal vaccine study, “was absolutely very creative,” says Osterholm, and it allowed the team to follow the epidemic wherever it went. “Had this been a standard, straightforward randomized controlled trial, we would never had this answer.”

“It surprised me how quickly you can intervene with a vaccination and have an effect,” says Jeremy Farrar, the head of the Wellcome Trust research charity, which co-funded the study. “It’s possible to do that sort of complex work in very, very complex environments—ethically, socially, culturally and scientifically. You can do it. That is a revelation for many people.”

Source: Sciencemag.org

Ebola: University Of Ilorin To Develop Ebola Vaccine

Posted on July 27, 2015 by Staff Reporter

Vice-Chancellor, University of Ilorin, Prof. Abdulganiyu Ambali says the school’s Ebola Research Committee is working assiduously to develop a vaccine for the Ebola virus.

“What is happening is that the committee is just monitoring events; in terms of the vaccine, it will take a while because there are processes that you have to follow before you develop a vaccine,” Ambali disclosed in an interview on Sunday in Abuja.

“For example, you have to isolate the virus; grow the virus; attenuate the virus; bring it out for testing; and then before the final usage.

“So those are the processes that any vaccine candidate will have to pass through before you can now use on victim.

“But right now what they are doing is monitoring events across the borders; and then we have put in place the facilities to be able to advise our staff as well as students that want to visit those places (High risk Ebola countries).

According to Ambali, the committee is monitoring developments in neighbouring countries, especially in Liberia where there was a resurgence of Ebola.

He said that people, staff and students, who travelled, would be advised on proper precautionary measures while those returning from high risk areas would be properly screened before entry.

He advised universities in Nigeria to step up the publications of their research findings in order to improve the global rating of the country’s universities, describing the recent ranking of African universities in which only one Nigerian university made the top ten as worrisome.

“Every academic should be worried about this ranking and we are doing our best to make sure that we enter that vicinity of the ranking arena.

“We need to increase our visibility; we need to improve on our interaction through the internet and then update our research publications.

“We also need to make sure that we are seen across globe as much as possible so that the world will know what is happening in our institutions,” Ambali told the News Agency of Nigeria.

Ebola Resurgence: WHO Calls For Resilient Health Systems

Posted on July 7, 2015 by Staff Reporter

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned that recovery from Ebola will be impossible unless resilient health systems are rebuilt in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

The world health body in a message yesterday on its website said recovery in West Africa needs more urgency as the region’s battered systems have limited capacity to reactivate essential health services.

In the lead-up to a major fundraising conference for Ebola recovery, the WHO described rebuilding of the national health systems in West Africa as a critical priority.

“While the countries are still working to get to zero Ebola cases, staying at zero is inconceivable unless rebuilding of the health systems begins now.”

According to Dr Matshidiso Moeti, WHO regional director for Africa, “Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone entered the Ebola epidemic with severely underfunded health systems. After a year of handling far too many severely ill patients, the surviving staff need support, better protection, compensation and reinforcements. The existing facilities need a complete overhaul, and many new structures need to be built. If another outbreak strikes, the toll would be far worse.”

“Outbreaks of contagious diseases can flare up anywhere,” said Marie-Paule Kieny, WHO assistant director-general for Health Systems and Innovation. “But the size of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa is directly related to the lack of resilience of the national health systems. In West Africa, the governments did not have the tools or resources to identify the initial cases or control the outbreak that resulted.”

“National pride will not stop a viral outbreak on its own,” said Dr. Philip Ireland, an emergency medicine physician at John F. Kennedy Hospital in Monrovia, Liberia. “But it provides a strong foundation for building a new health system; the one we had collapsed under the weight of Ebola. The hiring of well-trained doctors and technicians, nurses and physician assistants should be our nation’s number one priority.”

According to a WHO report released in May, Ebola took an exceptional toll on health workers. They were 20-30 times more likely to contract the disease than the general public, given the number of patients they saw and treated. More than 800 contracted Ebola, and more than 400 died – with the outcome of almost one quarter of the cases unknown.

The health systems of all three countries need an exceptional infusion of funding and other resources, the focus of the United Nations Secretary-General’s International Ebola Recovery Conference (9-10 July, 2015).

“To rebuild their health systems and provide services from now through the end of December, 2017, Guinea has budgeted $1.176 billion and still needs to raise $386.5 million; Liberia has budgeted $550 million and still needs to raise $169.7 million; and Sierra Leone budgeted $361 million and still needs to raise an estimated amount of $140 million,” the WHO said in the statement.

A sizable investment in the health systems would be a profound change of course for the region. As with other low-income countries, the governments of all three countries have not spent enough money on health care to provide basic services, and the life expectancy of the populations has suffered greatly as a result.

Dr Kieny added, “In this interconnected world of international travel and porous borders, no one is immune from disease outbreaks. This is the lesson the West African Ebola outbreak has taught us. We need to ensure that health systems everywhere can detect and treat emerging diseases and still keep their routine healthcare services up and running.”

“When people think global health security, they think disease surveillance,” said Dr. Moeti. “Nobody wants to see the Ebola outbreak start in West Africa and spread around the world. But disease surveillance cannot happen in a vacuum. Emerging diseases cannot be detected and controlled if there are no laboratories, hospitals and heath personnel,” the WHO added.

Open Letter To President Muhammadu Buhari, GCFR, By Nigerian Volunteers To The West African Ebola (ASEOWA) Mission – Appeal for Intervention

Posted on July 1, 2015 by Staff Reporter

Your Excellency,

Congratulations on your victory in the March 28^th 2015 Presidential Election. You indeed are a success model for every Nigerian or any human being for that matter, toiling everyday to get his due. Your victory proves that self-belief pays, that there is reward for consistency and faith in hard work and democracy. You confirm that once there is resolute commitment and persistence to strategic efforts, success will come. The massive votes you received from the masses demonstrate how desperately Nigerians wanted change. It shows how much Nigerians are tired of “business as usual”.

Your Excellency, this letter is written by a group of Nigerians who have a lot in common with you, in that we want change. We have been mistreated by the Nigerian Government and the African Union (AU) and we want change. And just like you, we have chosen to pursue justice by democratic means. We have chosen to seek your intervention and protection.

Before we continue with this letter, an introduction is apt. We are the Nigerian responders to the ASEOWA (African Union Support for Ebola Outbreak in West Africa) Mission in Liberia and Sierra Leone. Some of us embarked on this mission after having volunteered and participated in the eradication of the Ebola virus in Nigeria. We listened keenly to your Inaugural Speech on the day of your official swearing-in ceremony, May 29th, as we hoped and waited for the promised presidential reception in Abuja. The Speech showed how vastly knowledgeable you are about the right things to do in order to steer the Nigerian ship in the right direction. It was a clear picture of all the problems Nigeria must solve to reach the promise land. However, something was missing. We hoped you would mention the Ebola outbreak in West Africa and the successful intervention of the Nigerian contingents seconded by the Federal Government to the African Union ASEOWA Mission. When you did not, we realized that we may have been calculatedly misled into believing the presidency knew about our return from mission areas to Nigeria and was waiting to honor us on behalf of our great nation. We appreciate that you might not have been briefed on our mission and return. It is for this reason, we write.

On the 5^th of December, 2014, a Nigerian Contingent of about 200 members were dispatched to Liberia (87) and Sierra Leone (111) to help curb the threat of Ebola virus outbreak that threatened human existence in West Africa, and since it is a migratory disease, the world over. These men and women, out of over 500 that initially subscribed and most of whom were briefed at the Welcome Hotel in Lagos, are the brave and courageous soldiers who volunteered to board the Ethiopian Airlines to the mentioned Ebola ravaged countries. When these countries counted 100s of cases per week, Nigeria provided the first set and largest government seconded responders to the ASEOWA mission. By this gesture, we set great example for other nations who later began to send in responders. These volunteers are the patriots who gave up their jobs, left their families with no guarantee of return, risked their lives and suspended personal dreams and pleasure to contribute to the efforts to save Africa and the world from extinction by the deadly virus. Each of us signed a 6 months contract with the AU, went on the mission, saw and conquered. Most of the contingents returned to Nigeria in the early hours of 24^th May, 2015 while a small pocket of volunteers were retained to sustain surveillance. Sir, we returned to a poor reception and till date, no meeting with the presidential as was promised. Although we have been hailed heroes by the international community, the treatment towards us by the AU and the Nigerian government makes us wonder if that word “hero” has a different meaning as well as hope that its usage in our case is not ironically implied. We have been treated very poorly and fed with false and contradictory information at every stage of the mission.

Let it be known, Your Excellency, that we are indeed grateful to the government of Nigeria under the leadership of the then President, Goodluck Ebere Jonathan and the AU for the noble initiative and support against Ebola. Also, we acknowledge the support of the international donors and the African private sector, for supporting the ASEOWA Mission. It was a sacred opportunity to serve Africa and the world and we are honored to have been selected by history for this great role.

We accept that this is the first time AU would embark on disease outbreak response, however, as you would see, some of the problems do not require special expertise to avoid. To make it worse, the AU failed to learn on the job by repeating same mistakes many times over and making us wonder whether these were mistakes or strategic. Albeit we could easily have ignore these but we are inspired by patriotism and love for Nigeria and Africa. Most importantly, we owe it to you and posterity to report this for the sake of change. Like you, Your Excellency, we would persist in pursuing justice till it is granted. We believe that posterity and mother Africa have chosen us to do this for the betterment of Nigeria and the continent. We fear that the spirit of volunteerism is deeply endangered by the attitude of the AU and the Nigerian government towards volunteers and that our quiet would kill that spirit. This is very dangerous because, God forbid, we do not know when future outbreak of Ebola or worse requires sacrifice of this magnitude. There is therefore an urgent need to right some of the wrongs as summarized below.

Poor Treatment of Volunteers by the African Union (AU)

Violation of Contract Terms with the Volunteers-
The contract we signed with the AU, provided for us to have a “2 weeks On-Boarding and Induction Training on Ebola Specifics” before deployment. Instead we were sent straight to the hottest parts of Sierra Leone without it. This was in December, 2015, when the country still counted in 100s per week. When Volunteers signed onto the ASEOWA Mission knowing the enormous risk we were going to face. It was clear to us that some of us might not make it back. We were even told that should anyone have caught the Ebola virus and died, his family would never have seen his corpse. What we did not expect was that the AU would heighten the risk by compromising and failing to observe this very important induction process.
Our Contract was clear on the fact that the AU would pay us specified “monthly” allowances. Again, hardly did we receive timely payment of either feeding or monthly allowances. It would shock you to know that our first allowance was paid 3 months into the mission (February, 2015). Consequently, we left our families and dependents with no financial support for the period. Up till the writing of this letter, we are yet to receive allowances for the months of December and May, our April allowances were paid with unexplained deductions and no prior notice to the effect. We still wonder why we are yet to get the respect of true explanation to all of these rather than explanations targeting “damage control”. The truth is what sets free. The lies we have been fed with are only damaging the control we volunteers have on our emotions rather than help the AU achieve “damage control”. And it is only a matter of time before such emotion overflowed and embarrasses Africa. We write you to forestall this.

There are several other instances of contract violations; to mention them all would be tantamount to writing a library. However, we must mention that our 6^th and last month allowance has been illegally tied to the submission of a report on the compulsory 21 days health observation for volunteers. First, this conditional connection is not provided for in our contract. So one wonders why? Besides the legal wrong of it, one also imagines the moral or logical right of it. Would anyone with abnormal temperature readings not get his allowances and why? It just does not make sense. They could claim that the 6^th month allowance was tied to the submission of the temperature charts to ensure compliance with the observation process and safeguard the public from possible Ebola infection by a volunteer. It still violates our contract. This cannot even be true because on entering Nigeria, we were sent back to our families less than 10 days into the observation camp instead of the announced 21 days. Besides, we are yet to receive the December, 2014 allowances which are not tied to anything. To make it worse, since completing the observation period on the 13th of June, 2015, we are yet to receive our payment. There is hardly clarity on the matter; while the compilers claim to have complied and sent the charts to the AU, the AU in turn denies receipt insisting they would not commence any payment until they receive the charts. The AU Director of Finance recently requested the AULO Monrovia to confirm that volunteers were being owed the December allowances. Does it mean that the AU has no records of payments made? Why is this request from the Director of Finance coming almost 6months after? This is unacceptable from a reputable organization as the AU

Note that we have complied with these changes not because we do not know our rights but we chose endurance and love for Africa. However, our patience has not paid off. Our emotions are mounting and with pains in our heart, we fly to your patronage knowing you would not despise our prayers.

Accommodation: Most volunteers lived in poor accommodation even though the money AU allocated to accommodate each volunteer could have afforded more decent accommodation. Moreover, some volunteers in Northern Region of Sierra Leone were embarrassed and sacked from their accommodation, their water and electricity services were often cut for days because the hoteliers and service providers claimed they could not sustain services. They claimed the AU owed them. In Liberia, About 12 volunteers which included 2 women were relocated from their hotels to an ASEOWA abandoned office with neither power nor clean water for almost a month because of supposed lack of funds by ASEOWA. Again, some volunteers were made to stay in poor accommodations against their will. What is difficult to accept is AU paid much higher for these poor accommodations than the rates for some others with much better services and that volunteers begged to stay in. It is therefore easy to wonder whether there were no shady deals between the hoteliers and the AU negotiators on the field.
Unexplained unbalanced treatment: We had vowed not to leave mission area unless all our allowances were paid but the AU Director of Social Welfare, Ambassador Maiyegun and the ASEOWA Deputy Head of Mission, Dr Obasanya persuaded us, urging us to return to our country and that the then President, Goodluck Ebele Jonathan was eager to receive us. The Ambassador also promised on his honor that our payment was being processed and would be made soon. Again, we heeded. We have since returned to a ‘’no presidential” reception and maltreatment while the Kenyans who used the same stance and persisted were all paid their allowances before they left mission area. You must know how this makes us feel…used, tricked, conquered, disrespected and very annoyed. We all know what precedence the AU has set by that singular act. As at the time of writing, we are yet to receive any reliable information as per payment of outstanding allowances (for the month of December) while colleagues (who remained) in the field have been paid same. We wonder why all the payments could not be made at the same time. We sincerely feel like specimens in an experimental laboratory of stress and we are definitely reaching breaking point.
We were told by General Okaetta, The ASEOWA Head of Mission, that every volunteer would exit through Addis Ababa on completion of contract to receive honors (medals and certificates) and handshake from the AU Chair Person: This has not been the case and there has not been any public announcement on that intentions or direct communication to us on the matter. It is true that this is not a contractual provision between the volunteers and the AU. We feel it is customary and apt for the AU to recognize the efforts of all volunteers across Africa that responded to the fight against Ebola virus disease. Volunteers are African and global heroes for the braveness and courage they showed against the evil virus at a time the whole world was under siege and most people would not even dare travel to the affected areas. These volunteers put humanity ahead of their lives and the love of their loved ones in order to respond to the call of mother Africa and the world. This would help to sustain the spirit of volunteerism and sacrifice.
AU has not been proactive on the issues surrounding the payment of our allowances and communication and information system must improve: They appear reactionary to our complaints. Even such reactions have lacked sincerity and are rich in contradictions. One day we are told that all payments have been made to us and that we should expect bank alerts, another day, we are told by same source, that non submission of temperature charts is the reason for our nonpayment of allowances.
Abandonment and stigmatization of the ASEOWA Volunteers by the AUC: The AU support team waited almost 4 months (for the outbreak to subside) before coming to the same mission area we had been sent in to work. When they eventually came, they either observed from Ghana or stopped at the AU office in Freetown and or Monrovia. They never came to the field until the outbreak was reaching zero cases.
It was ineffective to allow the operations of the Sierria Leone ASEOWA to be managed from Liberia. It is difficult to argue with this considering that Sierra Leone is still having cases at a time WHO long declared Liberia free of Ebola. Our colleagues in Sierra Leone suffered with the ASEOWA Mission in that country. They persisted and insisted on going out to work when AU always had one logistic reason or the other to keep them from the field where they were needed by a country that is massively short-staffed as per qualified health care workers. Contingents occasionally fueled vehicles from their pockets just to ensure that the fight was sustained. The failure of logistic system exposed contingents to the use of motorcycle transportation (okada). The use of Okada did not only put volunteers to further risk of Ebola virus disease (this is one way the virus was transmitted), one of our colleagues was actually involved in an accident in which she sustained burns.
Emergency Evacuation Response: The AU needs to strengthen emergency evacuation system for seriously ill volunteer or any volunteer involved in an accident. Two Nigerian volunteers were involved in vehicle accident. They stayed at the scene for hours waiting for evacuation because there was no plan for such at the time. The follow up on these colleagues has been reactionary rather than proactive. This should not be so especially now that they have to live with chronic pains in the spine and chest respectively.

We sent a mail to the Chairperson of the AU on the 22^nd June, 2015 and copied AU officials to make some these complains official but we are yet to get any reply.

Treatment of the ASEOWA Volunteers by the Nigerian Government
Abandonment of the seconded Nigerian contingents in the mission area by the Nigerian government: Never were we visited by delegates from the Nigerian government throughout our stay in mission areas. You can not begrudge us the doubt we started having as per whether our secondment was truly done by the Nigerian government or worst still, whether we had been truly seconded to our fate by the government.
The Nigerian Government is yet to intervene in our difficulties with the AU…
Poor Treatment in Nigeria on return from Mission Area: we were promised a heroic welcome and reception but what we got was a far cry. We now realize that these promises were only made to lure us from mission area without payment of outstanding allowances. We were occasionally moved from one hotel to the other for no just cause. On one occasion, most of us spent a whole day outside the Summit Hotel, Life Camp, with our luggage. You would think we were in homes for displaced people. On another occasion, the hotel management of same hotel declared house arrest on some of our colleagues. They claimed they had not been paid anything for our accommodation, hence the “house arrest”. This is against the backdrop of 60 million donated by the Dangote Foundation for the purpose. We were left without food for days without explanation only to be consoled with promises of monetization that were fulfilled several days later. This is the least we expect to get from the government of Nigeria, our own country. As we write, some volunteers are yet to get their missing luggage containing priceless personal belongings, delivered. Although the organizing committee promised to help track these luggage, there has been no communication yet to these volunteers and they are frustrated by it.
Quarantine/Observation: The terms of our contract with the AU provided for a compulsory 21days quarantine/observation period before separation and reintegration into the Nigerian society. On the 28^th of May 2015, the Committee for the Management and Welfare of the returnee volunteers instructed all volunteers that served in Liberia to check out of their hotel accommodation by the next day (29^th of May 2015) and proceed to their various places of residence while volunteers that served in Sierra Leone were to remain in the hotel till 1^st or 2^nd of June 2015. They based their decision on the fact that Liberia had already been declared Ebola free by the WHO while the Sierra Leone team had exited at a time Sierra Leone still reported cases. This decision was opposed by volunteers who felt this was unsafe for our families and the Nigerian public, being that the volunteers from both countries (Liberia and sierra Leone) had had unhindered association during the flight. Again, we were all camped together, volunteers from both countries, with no discrimination.

Nonetheless, our position fell on deaf ears and it was made clear to us by the organizing committee that if we stayed beyond the dictated timeframe, we would be responsible for our hotel bills. As helpless citizens, we obeyed while collectively agreeing to limit our movement and association once back in our places of residence for the rest of the 21 days. Most Liberia deployed volunteers upon receiving the provided fare left in the morning of 29^th May 2015 against the fuel scarcity issues that hindered the country at the time.

Your Excellency, upon getting home, some were rejected and turned back by their families, friends and associates under the misunderstanding that they had escaped quarantine. This opinion was formed based on the media report that the government in partnership with Dangote Foundation was camping all returnee volunteers for 21 days making the relatives conclude that for the affected volunteers to be back home barely 4-5days into the so-called quarantine, they must have escaped the process. They cannot be begrudged because the Port Health Director, Dr Gwarzo together with Prof. Nasidi, the NCDC Director/CEO and Dr Obasanya, the ASEOWA Deputy Head of Mission had hailed the Dangote Foundation on several news media for donating 60 million naira for the accommodation of the returnee volunteers. Dr. Joshua Olusegun Obasanya is quoted by the Nation, June 1^st, 2015 to have said that “With this kind of support the Dangote Foundation is providing…we are being camped for 21 days during which we would be monitoring ourselves…” We wrote a complaint letter to the Permanent Secretary of the FMoH and never received a reply.

Promises and Expectation:

Jobs and Promotion: Your Excellency, a number of volunteers gave up their jobs to embark on this humanitarian journey. Some were unemployed while others who worked with the private sector lost their jobs after volunteering in the Nigerian Ebola outbreak. There are volunteers who missed promotion exercise in their work places by virtue of their being away on this mission. It is good news that they made it back but they are now without jobs. We were assured by the Director of NCDC, Prof. Nasidi that the government of Nigeria had promised automatic jobs and promotion for the unemployed and those who missed promotion respectively. But this is yet to be fulfilled and there has not been any communication to the effect.
Awards and Recognition: David Cameron has instituted a new medal of bravery with which to honor over 2000 UK citizens involved in the fight against Ebola in Africa. He said about them on the Times of India: “They were incredibly brave people who have worked in very difficult conditions, including many of them over Christmas. They are people who are helping to save thousands of life in Africa and protecting the UK from the potentially disastrous consequences of the disease spreading”. He is not alone in this understanding and gesture. On the 10^th of April, President John Mahama of Ghana announced his intension to award the 45 Ghanaian Ebola volunteers with State Honors (according to Joy Online, an online newspaper). In his words, “These are heroes. The State shall award them with state honors for this very risky venture they were engaged in”. Also recently, The Star, a Kenyan newspaper, covered President Uhuru Kenyatta reception for the returnee Kenyan contingents. He has since instructed that they be rewarded with jobs in the Kenyan Ministry of Health. They are all also waiting to receive their state honors. The Ethiopian government gave a red carpet reception to their Ebola heroes while rewarding them with the highest State honor available. Nigeria as the giant of Africa should not be the one straggling in this moral and stately reasoning. It would be sad to allow these heroes retire to a lack of recognition. Most importantly, it would be a costly shame to Nigeria as it would douse the flames of patriotism, volunteerism and national sacrifice which these set of volunteers have stoked in no mean measure. We are confident that you would not let this happen as it contravenes your personal love for justice and truth. The Nigerian State under your administration has an opportunity to change the culture of rewarding criminals to that of rewarding true heroism and virtues

The Future Deployment Plans:

The AU has catalogued the ASEOWA volunteers in furtherance of its plans to establish an African Centre for Disease Control. This is very laudable. At the level of Nigeria, these volunteers should be formed into a reserve and active outbreak response units to protect the country from any future outbreaks. To strengthen this plan, it would make sense to award volunteers with study scholarships for capacity building in the various pillars of outbreak response. Some of these areas should include but not limited to Public Health/Epidemiology, modern laboratory detection protocols and best practices, case management in outbreak response, social mobilization, health system communication and data management.
We have a lot of experience to share with the Nigerian health system operators and with the help of government, we plan to cascade the knowledge gathered on this mission in the health institutions across the country to enable improvement on IPC practices and stronger disease surveillance systems. These are necessary in areas of epidemiology, laboratory detections and case management of especially dangerous pathogens.

We are proud to have served Africa with all we had and more. On expiry of our contract, Liberia had already been declared Ebola free by the WHO while Sierra Leone had moved from counting 100s of cases per week to pursuing zero Ebola cases. The Nigerian contingents were rated very high. The passion, drive and knowledge we brought to the fight against Ebola are on record in both Liberia and Sierra Leone respectively. This is exemplified by the many awards and recognition we received from the governments of these affected countries. The good and hospitable people of both countries see Nigerians as their God-sent. We held the flag very high throughout the mission. Albeit, they always referred to the roles Nigeria played in restoring order during their respective civil wars, the involvement of Nigerians on the ASEOWA Mission took the image of the country to an all time high. We achieved this despite very difficult work conditions.

Africa can solve her problems with better assessment-based planning, coordination, will power and sincerity of purpose. Your Excellency, our expectations of you are high, not necessarily because of the campaign promises you made some of which you already started fulfilling by declaring your assets but because of your track record of incorruptibility and love for justice. You have become president of our country at a very critical time in our collective history but we trust your capacity and commitment to change. Africa can sustain and enhance the flames of volunteerism by seeing to it that these Ebola Volunteers are made to smile again soon. No more time should be wasted on false information. Rather, all efforts should be targeted at payment of all allowances owed us by AU. Most importantly, we feel it is time for the Nigerian government to take cue from the likes of David Cameron and President Uhuru Kenyatta and bestow on us the well deserved honor. Also, it would encourage volunteers across Africa, if the AU could without much delay; award all African contingents on the ASEOWA Mission, with the promised Medal of Honor and certificates.

Our case is a huge opportunity for you to show that change is possible. We want a change in the avoidable sufferings, disrespect, maltreatment and lack of appreciation we have been through. Sir, we pray you to use your various offices to see that we are paid all our dues as appropriate and soon. We do this for love of Nigeria and Africa and we shall always fight for Africa no matter what. We greet Ebola responders across the world, we pledge support to your government and to the AU and we pledge allegiance to the flag of Federal Republic of Nigeria.

High Regards

Nigerian AU-ASEOWA Volunteers

(As Listed Below)

CC:

The Senate President, Federal Republic of Nigeria

The Speaker, House of Representative

Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Health

Chairman Nigerian Governors Forum

President, Nigeria Union of Journalists

President, Nigerian bar Association

President, Nigerian Medical Association

President, Association of Medical Laboratory Scientists of Nigeria

President, Nigeria Veterinary Medical Association

Secretary Registrar Council Veterinary Council of Nigeria

Registrar/CEO, Medical Laboratory Sciences Council of Nigeria

Secretary General, Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria

The President, Nigerian Association of Nurses and Midwives

President, Pharmaceutical Council of Nigeria

Director, National Centre for Disease Control

Director, Port Health Services

African Union Chairperson

Director for Social Welfare – African Union

Deputy Head of Mission, ASEOWA

KENYAMO Chambers

World Health Organization (WHO)

NIGERIAN AU-ASEOWA VOLUNTEERS AND DESIGNATION

Views expressed are solely that of author and does not represent views of www.omojuwa.com nor its associates

Fresh case of Ebola recorded in Liberia

Posted on June 30, 2015 by Staff Reporter

Liberia has been hit with a fresh case of Ebola. According to the Liberian Deputy Health Minister, Tolbert Nyensuah, a 19 year old man died of the deadly virus. And they are saying it’s possible he infected close friends or relatives before he died.

“A new case of Ebola has been reported in Margibi County. The person has died and was confirmed positive before death. He has been buried” Nyensuah said

Family members of the deceased have been quarantined so as to stop the spread of the virus. Liberia was declared Ebola free on May 9th by the World Health Organization. A total of 11,207 people died from Ebola in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone since the outbreak began in December 2013.

Ebola Returns To Sierra Leone’s Freetown

Posted on June 24, 2015 by Staff Reporter

Sierra Leone has announced the return of Ebola to its capital Freetown, dashing hopes that health authorities in the densely-populated city of 1.2 million had beaten the deadly outbreak.

The government’s National Ebola Response Centre (NERC) told AFP late on Tuesday three cases had emerged in the east-end slum of Magazine Wharf — three weeks after the last known infections in the capital.

Health officials said six people have been under observation since the first of the new cases — a casual labourer — tested positive on June 17.

Authorities are concerned that the case could lead to a mini-outbreak in the overcrowded fishing community, which has poor sanitation and is regularly hit by outbreaks of malaria and cholera.

Read More: vanguardngr

Ebola Volunteers Return With Sad Tales Of Maltreatment By AU Officials, Nigerian Govt.

Posted on June 4, 2015 by Staff Reporter

Nigerians who volunteered to help fight the deadly Ebola disease in Sierra Leone and Liberia, returned home a fortnight ago, after spending about six months on the frontline against a virus that ravaged several countries last year, killing over 20,000.

The volunteers returned alive and well, although they are yet to complete an expected 21-day quarantine period.

But they have sad tales of deprivation and maltreatment, and accuse officials of the Nigerian government and the African Union of stealing from them while they risked their lives.

On Wednesday, some of the volunteers were locked in a hotel in Abuja where they had camped since returning to Nigeria, after days of bickering with health ministry officials.

PREMIUM TIMES’ investigation, interviews with officials of the Nigerian government and the AU, and several volunteers since their arrival in Abuja, show a programme that was beset by crisis, poor management and fraud, worse than the hotel scandal.

“I have now confirmed that serving or representing Nigeria is a waste of time as the country treats those who have done her proud shabbily,” said Oladimeji Adepoju, a medical doctor volunteer.

Mr. Adepoju and 197 other Nigerian volunteers travelled to the two West African countries in December, to help stem the tide of Ebola. Their ordeal began even before they departed Nigeria.

Read More: premiumtimesng

“Ebola Will Return”: The Veteran Scientist Who First Worked On The Virus Wants You To Know

Posted on June 2, 2015 by Staff Reporter

Congolese expert Jean-Jacques Muyembe may be little known to the public, but he has been one of the world’s top Ebola investigators since the first epidemic erupted in central Africa in 1976.

Now, amid a decline in a west African outbreak that has taken more than 11,000 lives, Muyembe warns that Ebola will strike again in the future and that the deadly virus poses “a threat to the whole world”.

Muyembe studied medicine in Kinshasa and at the University of Leuven in Belgium. He returned home to the Democratic Republic of Congo — then known as Zaire — in 1976, when the northern village of Yambuku was struck by a mysterious disease.

“They said many people were dying, and the health ministry asked me to go investigate,” Muyembe told AFP.

He initially thought it could be a case of typhoid fever but he decided to continue investigating until he got to the bottom of it.

“I drew blood, and had no protective gloves or clothing,” Muyembe said.

Accompanied by a Belgian nun suffering from fever, he returned from Yambuku to Kinshasa.

It was her blood samples, shipped in a makeshift cooler to the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp, that enabled scientist Peter Piot to identify the worm-looking virus for the first time.

It was then named after the Ebola river, located near the area first hit by the epidemic.

“Then there was total silence until 1995,” Muyembe said.

That year, he was summoned to Tikwit in the south of DR Congo where a bloody diarrhoea outbreak was decimating the population, including medical staff.

“I examined an Italian nun and saw signs that reminded me of the Yambuku incident,” Muyembe said.

He discovered that contamination “had taken place in the operation room — in other words, from the patient’s blood”.

Muyembe’s discovery that the virus is transmitted through bodily fluids was a key find.

“From then on, we put in place strategies to fight against the disease, isolating patients, following up on people they had been in contact with, and mobilising communities,” he said.

“These are strategies that the World Health Organization practises today.”

Professor Muyembe’s team then started testing serotherapy on patients.

“We drew blood from people recovering from Ebola, and injected it into eight sick patients. Seven of them survived, even though there was an 80 percent mortality rate,” he said.

This type of treatment is now being studied for its potential.

Even after decades fighting the deadly virus, Muyembe said he was “surprised” by the sheer size of the resurgence in Guinea in late 2013.

“We thought Ebola epidemics could be brought under control quickly,” he said.

Previously, DR Congo had successfully put an end to seven epidemics.

“These countries (in west Africa) believed that Ebola was a central and eastern African problem. They weren’t prepared,” he added.

The epidemic has now ended in Liberia, and is declining in Sierra Leone.

But in Guinea, “new cases continue to appear”, Muyembe said.

“We need to find the most recent cases, even if they are hidden deep in the forest, because if the disease becomes endemic, it would be terrible for the whole world,” he warned.

“In 10 or 20 years’ time, this epidemic will return, and we need to be prepared,” he said.

“Ebola can strike anywhere, and we need to be vigilant. The United States and Europe must understand that Africa is their shield.”

This year’s winner of the prestigious Christophe Merieux award for researchers studying infectious diseases in developing countries, Muyembe sees the 500,000 euros ($550,000) in prize money as a “boost” to help him study Ebola reservoir hosts.

“Monkeys, bats, we aren’t certain,” he said.

Muyembe also sees the prize as a way to encourage young Africans studying abroad to return to work.

“I have made my career in DR Congo, despite all the conflicts my country has known,” the researcher said.

“We must build up labs and research centres in Africa,” he added, “so that when the danger arrives, we can stop it in time. This is the lesson we must learn from this epidemic.”

My Mother’s Last Moments — Dr Adadevoh’s Son, Bankole

Posted on May 24, 2015 by Staff Reporter

Bankole, the only son of the late Dr. Stella Adadevoh, has opened up on the last moments of his mum and her heroic efforts in the country’s fight against Ebola.

Please introduce yourself.

My name is Bankole Cardoso. I am the son of Dr. Stella Ameyo Adadevoh.I am an entrepreneur and I launched a company called Easy Taxi in Nigeria.

Everyone sees your mum as a heroine for the role she played in stopping the Ebola Virus Disease outbreak in the country. Do you also see her as such?

She was indeed extremely special and what she did was heroic. Despite the pressure and stress she was under, she was just concerned for Nigeria at the time. She kept saying, ‘I hope this doesn’t stigmatise Nigeria, I hope this doesn’t give us a problem.’ To me, she is a heroine, 100 per cent.

Can you recollect her encounter with the late Liberian diplomat, Patrick Sawyer, who brought Ebola into Nigeria?

The actual story was that when this man (Sawyer) flew into Nigeria from Liberia to attend a conference, he fell ill on his arrival and was taken to First Consultants because the general hospitals were on strike. When he got there, he was first treated for malaria on a Sunday. That weekend was my dad’s 60th birthday and my mum wasn’t in the hospital. We were all at home celebrating. On that Monday, she went to the hospital and saw him. Immediately, these were her own words to me, she said she was very disturbed, because it looked as if blood was seeping through his skin. She said she knew it was not malaria. When she asked him where he had been and he said Liberia, she immediately suspected it could be Ebola. Interestingly, three months or so before, we were just watching the news when she said, “Nigeria is not prepared for Ebola.” Back then, she immediately did her research on Ebola, noting that Nigeria needed to be prepared if there was an outbreak. She printed those papers long ago. So, when this man came, she immediately suspected; although at the time, she didn’t have any positive result that it was Ebola. The Liberian officials there were very furious and said she must release him, claiming that she was holding him against his will; and she had kidnapped him. But she said she could not let him leave the hospital for the public good, and he must stay there because she suspected he had a haemorrhagic disease which was infectious.

How was that period for you and your family?

It was incredibly stressful. I hardly saw her at the time because she was always busy at the hospital, with government officials and the World Health Organisation officials, and also having to care for this sick patient. She got home at 3am every day, and was up by 7am. I couldn’t see her for about three days and with the Ebola disease, one couldn’t predict the outcome. My dad and I went to the centre at Yaba every day, but we were not allowed to come close to her. At first, we could come close to the window to see her, but eventually, we were not even allowed near the window. I didn’t see her for about 10 days while she was in there.

When last did you see her and what were her last words to you?

The last time I saw her face-to-face was the day I went to the centre to give her her footwear and her iPad. She was physically very weak. This was someone I had never seen fall sick in my life. But then, she was physically very weak. I took all the stuff to her and put it through the door, she had to go and collect it because I couldn’t go into the room. We spoke through the window, I was crying. But she was adamant, she said, “Don’t worry, son. This thing is not going to kill me, but I am very proud of you.” Those were the last words she told me. This was about 10 days before she died. The WHO doctor, Dr. David, told us that it was only a matter of time (before she died), that we should expect the call the next day or in the next week. We were waiting for the call. But he kept telling us that it was a matter of time— it was worse than receiving the actual call.

Did she influence your career path?

She has always been involved in everything I have done. She always gave me advice. Last year April, I was supposed to give a TED X talk in Abuja, and I was going to talk about patriotism in Nigeria. I told her about it, we were supposed to go together. But it was cancelled because of some issues at the time. Before then, she did research, and sent me an email on her thoughts. I still have it. She basically wrote the speech for me. Five months later at the event; after she had passed on, most of the words I used were from her. I made her the centre of the speech, that she was a patriot.

You are a scion of two powerful dynasties; your mum was the grand-daughter of Herbert Macaulay and the great, great grand-daughter of Ajayi Crowther. Do you think your mum’s part in stopping the Ebola outbreak in the country was a stroke of fate?

These things are funny. I can’t answer that but a lot of people say that. Luckily, she was prepared. That’s what I can say. We had a Nigerian that was prepared. Maybe it’s her lineage, I don’t know, that’s what people say. I wished it wasn’t her, but I am thankful for what she did (for the country). Till today, I still get telephone calls from her patients, because they had a special bond with her. She was great in what she did. She didn’t need this to stand out or stamp her greatness.

A health trust has been named after your mum, what is it about?

The Dr. Ameyo Stella Adadevoh Health Trust is strictly a non-profit organisation. After going through this very difficult time, my family and I decided to set up this trust. We have done a lot of research and we have met with the World Bank, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and other big international organisations; and we have decided to focus on training and ethics, because my mother believed in these. She used to quiz her doctors all the time, and gave them homework; things to read and she asked them questions. She recognised the challenges in our health care system.

Was your family stigmatised in any way at the time?

We were not stigmatised outrightly but we did our best to keep away from people. People wanted to visit us at home then but we said no, they had to stay away. We needed to be responsible. My father and I were placed under quarantine for 21 days. I didn’t know at that time that I would be alive today. But people were very kind to us and showed their support for us.

Were you scared of dying?

I was scared of falling ill, but I was never scared of dying because I didn’t think I would die.

What are some of the values you have learnt from your mother?

I wrote down the five main lessons I learnt from her— how to be a good person, because she cared for everybody. There is a disabled man on our street who came around every Sunday. She bought him a wheelchair, and she always gave him money and showed him care. She also taught me how to be incredibly strong, and how to get things done. If she wanted to do something today, she got it done. She taught me how to enjoy life, she loved enjoying life, and she enjoyed it to the fullest. Also, she taught me the importance of faith because faith is the bedrock of life.

How did she create time for the family?

As a busy doctor, till today, I don’t know how she did it. I don’t know how we shared her with many people. She had a huge heart and had time for everybody.

Where did she usually take you out to?

We went out visiting family or some came around to visit us. When I lived in the US, whenever she came around, we would go to see Broadway shows. Also, she loved shopping. We would go out shopping together. We would take walks in the park, and go to the museum; those were the kind of things she enjoyed— museums, arts, history and theatre.

What kind of reaction do you get when people realise that you are Dr. Stella Adadevoh’s son?

They say, “Oh, I’m so sorry, she was an amazing woman, she was this and that.” I’m used to it now. Initially, when the episode was still very fresh, I didn’t want to hear that. Now, I’m happy to hear it.

Would you say your mum’s name has opened doors for you?

While she was here, she opened all the doors for me, with everything I did in life. When I started my own company here, she wrote down a list of about 50 people I should visit. She would hand every patient of hers my company’s flyer. It’s amazing that she continues to open doors for me after her death. Her name is still opening doors for me.

Are you still angry with Sawyer, the man that brought Ebola to Nigeria?

I have overcome the anger. I don’t think anybody would ever know his real motive of coming to Nigeria. But I think his actions were completely irresponsible. That’s how I would leave it.

How long were you angry with him?

I was angry at him, I was angry at God, I was angry at many things. But one had to channel it into something positive like the health trust. And that’s what I’m dedicated to and focused on now, full time. Like we would always say, if my mother was here now, she would have forgiven him (Sawyer). I can never forget what happened, it’s going to be a part of my life forever, but I forgive him. My dad also feels the same way.

How do you think she should be remembered?

She was the person that bonded our family together. She was incredibly dedicated to family and everybody understood that and appreciated that about her. She was just the most loving person you could think about. That’s how I remember her. Beyond that, Nigerians recognise that if it wasn’t for her correct diagnosis, we would not have had elections; we would not be where we are today. I think that is a legacy. She prevented us from going backwards. Our way of immortalising her is by continuing what she would have done, making that same impact on people’s lives and on the medical profession, subsequently, the whole country. That’s why we have set up the health trust in her name. Government and other people can do what they think is right to immortalise her. I think the way government could immortalise her is by revamping the health sector, and improving on health care in the country. There should be a change, for such not to happen in Nigeria again.

How have you and your family coped since her death?

To lose a parent, especially in that way, is incredibly painful. The first three or four months were just hard. But, luckily, there was a lot of family support, everybody pulled very close together, and I drew on my faith as well. It’s something one cannot explain. Yes, people fall ill, and they have maybe one or two years for a chance to say goodbye; but in this case, it was so quick. There was no chance (for us) to say goodbye to her, properly.

What do you miss most about her?

The love. It was like she used to bug me and I miss that. I miss her phone calls every day, three or four times a day, and I would say, ‘mum, I’m busy,’ and she would call me again. I’m happy that we always used to express our love for each other. She knew I loved her, I still do.

Ebola Cases On The Increase In Sierra Leone And Guinea – WHO

Posted on May 20, 2015 by Staff Reporter

The World Health Organisation (WHO), confirmed on Tuesday that the Ebola virus is still raging in Sierra Leone and Guinea.

Bruce Aylward, WHO Special Representative for Ebola in Geneva, told a technical briefing attended by health ministers that there were 36 new cases in the past week, which is four times as many cases as the week before.

Aylward said the findings were an indication that the virus would not go quietly and it would take painstaking efforts.

Ebola: Weekly Infections Drop To Single Figures

Posted on May 6, 2015 by Staff Reporter

The two African countries still battling Ebola have both recorded weekly infections in single figures for the first time since the peak of the epidemic, the United Nations said on Tuesday.

Guinea and Sierra Leone each reported nine new cases in the seven days up to Sunday, in sharp contrast to six months ago, when the government in Freetown was registering upwards of 500 weekly infections and its neighbour was also going into triple figures.

The UN Ebola envoy David Nabarro said it was the first time since June last year that the total weekly infections across both countries had dipped below 20.

“Guinea has never been massively high but this is extraordinary progress,” Nabarro told reporters in Senegalese capital Dakar.

“For those of us involved in this we’ve got used to having good news one week and bad news the next week, so we’re not starting to celebrate yet, but we are feeling positive.”

#OndoX is Not Ebola, Lab Tests Confirm

Posted on April 18, 2015 by Staff Reporter

Laboratory tests have confirmed that the strange illness ravaging the Ode-Irele community in Ondo state, which is now known as #OndoX, is not Ebola virus disease.

Ebola Alert, an evidence-driven group of volunteer professionals who helped with the Ebola Virus Disease interventions in the country, said samples taken from victims and tested in a laboratory in Lagos tested negative to Ebola and five other deadly diseases.

“#OndoX samples tests negative for Ebola Virus, Yellow Fever, Lassa Fever Virus, Rift Valley Fever Virus, Dengue Virus, West Nile Virus,” the organisation said in an update provided via its twitter handle Friday night.

It said the samples were “currently undergoing toxicology screen”.

The strange disease had suddenly broken out in the sleepy community five days ago, leading to the death of no fewer than 28 people, according to Ebola Alert.

Residents say the disease, whose cause remained unknown, spread rapidly around the community, killing its victim within 24 hours.

Experts say victims manifest clinical symptoms such as headache, blurry vision/total blindness, convulsion and death.

Ebola Alert said three survivors have so far been reported. In its effort at containing the spread of the disease, the Ondo state government on Friday set up emergency task teams and a Situation Room to coordinate the response teams working from the frontlines.

Read More: premiumtimesng

APC Will Change Name To Ebola & We Will Bury Them- Patience Jonathan

Posted on March 24, 2015 by Staff Reporter

The wife of the President, Mrs. Patience Jonathan, yesterday in Enugu advised the women of the state against being deceived by the antics of the All Progressives Congress (APC) which she said has nothing good to offer the people.

Mrs. Jonathan who was in Enugu to mobilize the women for the President, described the APC as a group that keeps changing their names in a desperate attempt to hijack power.

“By the time they lose again, they will definitely change their name again. We will wait until they change their name to Ebola, then we will bury them,” Mrs Jonathan said.

She told the women that Buhari as Head of State, never recognized the women, rather he jailed Sam Mbakwe and his wife. She therefore queried; “Will you vote a man who jailed a husband and wife?”

Mrs. Jonathan, who danced with the women for several minutes at the Okpara Square Enugu, stated that President Jonathan has great respect for women and the youths, he appointed women into his cabinet and has been building schools, instead of prisons as she alleged the opposition will do.

Read More: sunnewsonline

Doctors Without Borders Slams WHO, Says They Failed To Respond Quickly

Posted on March 23, 2015 by Staff Reporter

Aid agency’s report says “months were wasted and lives were lost” because WHO failed to respond quickly or adequately.

A year on from the start of the Ebola outbreak, a report has been published by frontline aid agency Doctors Without Borders slamming the international community’s slow response and detailing the “indescribable horror” faced by its staff.

More than 10,000 people have been killed and some 25,000 infected since the Ebola epidemic was first identified in West Africa in March 2014, mostly in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

But Doctors Without Borders said in a report on Monday that “months were wasted and lives were lost” because the UN’s World Health Organization (WHO), which is charged with leading on global health emergencies and “possesses the know-how to bring Ebola under control”, failed to respond quickly or adequately.

Its report accused the WHO’s Global Alert and Outbreak Response Network of ignoring desperate pleas for help from Liberia when it met in June. “I remember emphasising that we had the chance to halt the epidemic in Liberia if help was sent now,” said Marie-Christine Ferir, emergency coordinator for the aid agency, which is commonly known as MSF.

“It was early in the outbreak and there was still time. The call for help was heard but no action was taken.”

The WHO did not set up a regional hub for coordinating the response until July, by which time a second wave of the epidemic had struck. “All the elements that led to the outbreak’s resurgence in June were also present in March, but the analysis, recognition and willingness to assume responsibility to respond robustly were not,” the report said.

Particularly in the early months, it therefore fell to MSF to carry much of the response, but the organisation had only 40 staff with experience of Ebola when the outbreak began. “We couldn’t be everywhere at once, nor should it be our role to single-handedly respond,” said Brice de le Vingne, MSF director of operations.

It was only when a US doctor and Spanish nurse were diagnosed with Ebola that the world woke up to the threat, MSF said. WHO did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The aid agency also blamed the governments of Guinea and Sierra Leone for refusing to admit the scale of the epidemic, saying they put “needless obstacles” in the path of MSF teams.

Credit: AFP

American Ebola Patient Admitted To US Hospital

Posted on March 13, 2015 by Staff Reporter

An American healthcare worker who tested positive for Ebola in Sierra Leone was admitted Friday to specialized hospital near the US capital for treatment, officials said.

The person, whose identity has not been revealed, was evacuated from Sierra Leone via a private charter plane and “admitted to the NIH Clinical Center at 4:44 am (0844 GMT),” the National Institutes of Health said in a statement.

“The patient’s condition is still being evaluated. No additional details about the patient are being shared at this time.”

Located in Bethesda, Maryland, the NIH Clinical Center has “high-level isolation capabilities and is staffed by infectious diseases and critical care specialists,” said a statement from the hospital.

The same facility treated US nurse Nina Pham, who was infected while caring for a Liberian man at a Texas hospital.

The man, Thomas Eric Duncan, died. Pham and another nurse who was also infected have since recovered.

On Thursday, the World Health Organization announced that the death toll from the world’s largest Ebola outbreak had topped 10,000.

Most of the deaths in the outbreak, which began in late 2013, have been in the West African nations of Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia.

Finally! Liberia’s Last Ebola Patient Released

Posted on March 5, 2015 by Staff Reporter

Liberia released it’s last confirmed Ebola patient on Thursday. According to the Associated Press, the patient was a 58-year old English teacher named Beatrice Yardolo who was undergoing treatment at a Chinese-run Ebola center in the capital of Monrovia.

The World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed with TIME that the country currently does not have any confirmed patients in its Ebola treatment centers. Starting Thursday, Liberia can begin its count to 42 days of no new cases—two times the typical incubation period for the virus. At that point, Liberia can be declared Ebola-free.

However, the situation is still fragile, according to the medical aid group Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). Though MSF is not treating any confirmed patients in its Liberian Ebola treatment center, they still accept suspected cases. It’s quite possible that a person with suspected and later confirmed Ebola comes into their facility at any point.

“This is an encouraging sign for Liberia. However, there is no room for complacency as the overall number of new Ebola cases in [West Africa] has risen this week,” MSF said in a statement sent to TIME. “From the outset, this outbreak has been characterized by its unpredictability and geographic spread. People move easily over the porous borders that separate Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, so until 42 days pass without a new case in any of the three worst-affected countries we need to remain vigilant.”

Read More: time.com

#KakandaTemple – Nigerian of the Year I & II

Posted on January 2, 2015 by Staff Reporter

2014 was a tumultuous year. It’s a year I remember in the shade of red, in my imagination of the globe now as a mottle of red, green, blue and brown – blood, vegetation, oceans and deserts. And Nigeria, especially the northern part, is one of the red patches on the globe, having lost too many citizens to the year’s escalated terrorism. Several disasters, mostly initiated by the folly of man, contributed in making the globe redder this year. In Middle East, the State of Israel was furious in highlighting the red on the territory that hosts the people of Gaza, while, close by, the ISIS militants did theirs in Syria and Iraq. Africa which, like Middle East, has always been a slaughterhouse where we seem to celebrate the death of humanism, joined the Project Red fad as we killed one another in Central African Republic, Kenya, South Sudan and Nigeria, while the saner societies advanced in technological and scientific inventions. By the time Ebola struck, we weren’t actually caught off guard, only lacking the medical facilities to contain the virus that spread across various countries killing and exposing the deficiencies of a continent. Nigeria, having won the fight against the spread of Ebola, was badly hit by terrorism, and also by the ethnic militancy in the north-central states of Nasarawa, Plateau and Taraba, which are the fault of its insensitivity to cultural and religious dissidents over the years. Consequently, 2014 was also the year of emergency activism and inspiring heroism by Nigerians who had had enough of the government’s unimpressive and considerably politicised counterterrorism and systemic corruption.

I chose to categorise this recognition of exceptional accomplishments by Nigerians into two to highlight the contributions of the private citizens who had no link with, and had never been in, government and that of public servants, past and serving. “Nigerian of the Year I” is a celebration of those ordinary Nigerians who, noticing the deficiencies of this country and seeming cluelessness and incompetence of the government, sacrificed themselves to protect the resources, interests, virtues and lives of the citizens. “Nigeria of the Year II” is for those influential public servants, both past and active.

Nigerian of the Year I

This recognition can never go to an individual as it’s on record that all the most successful advocacies witnessed in 2015 were pursued by groups of likeminded citizens. And it has to be given to a group because all involved in such advocacies were equally threatened, and members have lost lives or fortunes in their attempts to protect us from either the system or a perceived external threat.
My nominees for the first category are: the Ebola Fighters in Nigeria, led by the inspiring Dr Stella Adadevoh; the ?#?BringBackOurGirls??? Campaigners, led by the courageous Dr. Oby Ezekwesili; and the Civilian JTF, led by that faceless and unknown Nigerian. I must add that all of these groups deserve this honour, but there’s a certain privilege that wasn’t enjoyed by one of these groups, in spite of its consistent incursions into danger all through the year, which make them the most qualified for this category. This privilege is media representation and praise, and the group denied that is the Civilian JTF!

Being the most dangerous, and yet unfairly underreported advocacy, the sacrifices of these vigilante groups of the north-eastern Nigeria are hardly noticed and rarely praised by us, because we’re only moved by televised tragedies, and while some of us were busy with the ?#?FreeGaza??? campaign, with a certain people even writing to justify anti-Semitism in their attack of our call for commitment and dedication to protecting Nigeria, these unnamed and faceless “soldiers in kaftan” were walking the talk, being killed for what’s not exactly their business, doing the work of those constitutionally tasked with protecting us: the military and para-military institutions.

But I must apologise to those expecting me to mention the Ebola fighters, already declared as Man of the Year by TIME, especially our own beloved Dr. Stella Adadevoh whose sacrifice was indeed inspiring. The recognition, without mincing words, is in acknowledgment of the existence of a group that had risen to fight the biggest threat in the history of this country, a threat that is already turning the whole country into a funeral house. Similarly, while it’s the duty of doctors to protect lives, for which they may be paid, it’s not the duty of unarmed citizens to fight terrorism in the field, and succeeding despite getting killed.
But I understand the sentiments in favour of the Ebola fighters. It’s the reality that, here, Ebola is seen as a threat to us, the urban and itinerant haves, while the major victims of terrorism in Nigeria have been the “subaltern” citizens, the “second-class” Nigerians in Gwoza, Potiskum, Chibok, Bama, Baga, Mubi, and at Nyanya Parks, churches and mosques that can’t afford advance security arrangements.

Nigerian of the Year II

In 2014, of the Nigerian public servants, while the Minister of Aviation, Ms. Stella Oduah and her colleague at the Ministry of Petroleum, Ms. Diezani Alison-Madueke were graduating from scandal to controversy, leaving their most cerebral colleague in charge of Finance to defend the government’s misappropriations of public funds, there was a Malam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, an active public servant, alerting us to the worst of such scandals, General Muhammadu Buhari still struggling to remain the poster-child of the opposition party in Nigeria, prominent members of the APC weaving cheap conspiracy theories about the genesis and operations of the Boko Haram and promoting them as facts to blackmail a clearly underperforming government and a Dr. Oby Ezekwesili, a former public servant, as the face of the nation’s hitherto dormant civil society. 2014 was indeed the year of both exceptional and characterless public servants, and while Sanusi had played a part in his whistle-blowing showmanship, with Buhari being resisted as a spent force, Oby was unstoppable.

Sure, you know the winner. I stood firm in defending her and even took it personal when some close friends disparaged an aspect of her, with clearly flawed statistics. She’s no saint, but Dr. Oby Ezekwesili is that beautiful mind whose existence, especially this year, challenged us to stand for something in life. She had paid a price for her revolutionary stance as the face of the civil society, pursuing a cause that most of our NGOs that had fed fat on grants from the West ought to have advocated and sustained.

She was called names even by some of her Igbo kinsmen in the cause of her struggle for a responsible Nigeria as she led the ?#?BringBackOurGirls??? campaign to the attention of the world. She was called names for standing up for the destiny of some “northern girls” by a mischievous group that sought to blackmail her with a sentimental history of the Biafra War, reminding her that the ongoing social devolution in the north is an atonement for the sins of the North.

But she wasn’t deterred, she’s first a human being – a principle she advocates. And not even the opposition party was safe from her unpatronising criticism this year. As a guest of the opposition party at a summit held in the first quarter of the year, she reminded the members that the quest for change is more than just a change of party and acronym, highlighting their structural and ideological flaws. That’s the spirit of the phenomenal woman!

Needless to list her antagonists, among whom are young Nigerians on the payroll of, and sympathetic to, the government, especially the delusional ones on the social media who have made a career out of tweeting disrespectful rants at her. And these are young people, whose country and future she was fighting to salvage, young enough to be her kids. They called her a hypocrite, and it’s so because the indecorous clowns didn’t seem to know that they were really referring to that seasoned technocrat who’s become a globally sought-after policy advisor, having paid her dues at various international financial institutions, which peaked at appointment as a Vice President of the World Bank, after a tenure as Minister of Education. It’s, however, disquieting that a notable citizen who has sacrificed a lot in reactivating our dormant civil society, amplifying the tragedy of the ordinary Nigerian was so vilified by amnesiac hacks. But, may God save us from us!

By Gimba Kakanda

@gimbakakanda on Twitter

Ebola Workers In Sierra Leone Dump Bodies

Posted on November 26, 2014 by Staff Reporter

Burial workers in Sierra Leone have dumped bodies in the street outside a hospital in protest at authorities’ failure to pay bonuses for handling Ebola victims.

Residents said up to 15 corpses had been abandoned in the eastern town of Kenema, three of them at a hospital entrance to stop people entering. The head of the district Ebola Response Team, Abdul Wahab Wan, said on Tuesday that the bodies included those of two babies.

A spokesman for the striking workers, who asked not to be identified, said they had not been paid their weekly hazard allowance for seven weeks.

Authorities acknowledged the money had not been paid but said that all the striking members of the Ebola Burial Team would be dismissed.

“Displaying corpses in a very, very inhumane manner is completely unacceptable,” said Sidi Yahya Tunis, the spokesman for the National Ebola Response Centre.

He added that the central government had paid the money to the district health management team.

“Somebody somewhere needs to be investigated (to find out) where these monies have been going,” he told Reuters news agency.

Healthcare workers have repeatedly gone on strike in Liberia and Sierra Leone over pay and dangerous working conditions. Two weeks ago, workers walked off the job at a clinic in Bo in Sierra Leone.

Sierra Leone has become the biggest hotspot in the West African Ebola epidemic, which has killed nearly 5,500 people since March.

The outbreak appears to be coming under control in neighbouring Liberia and Guinea, but infection rates have accelerated in Sierra Leone.

Source – Punch NG

Surgeon with Ebola to Arrive US for Treatment

Posted on November 14, 2014 by Staff Reporter

A surgeon from Sierra Leone and a permanent resident of the United States who contracted Ebola while working in West Africa will be flown to the United States to receive treatment for the deadly virus, according to a government official.

Dr. Martin Salia is expected to arrive in the United States on Saturday and will receive treatment at Nebraska Medical Center, the official told ABC News today.

It is unclear how he contracted Ebola, but the official said he was in Sierra Leone at the time.

Credit: Good America

Guinea Hunger Strike at Village Occupation after Ebola Worker Killings

Posted on November 11, 2014 by Staff Reporter

A hunger strike has been launched in Guinea in protest against the military’s presence in a village where an Ebola awareness team was killed in September.

About 20 leaders from the southern Wome village are camping outside parliament since launching the strike. The “military occupation” of Wome had forced some 6,000 people to flee their homes, an opposition leader said. The government and military have not commented on the allegations.

In September, the government accused villagers of murdering eight people raising awareness about Ebola.

Some of the bodies – of health workers, local officials and journalists – were found in a septic tank in Wome some 50km (30 miles) from the south-eastern city of Nzerekore.

The motive for the attack was not clear, but it came at a time when many communities either denied the existence of Ebola or accused health workers of spreading the virus.

Stars Collaborate New Band Aid Single Against Ebola

Posted on November 11, 2014 by Staff Reporter

One Direction, Ed Sheeran and a host of other stars are to raise money to fight Ebola with a 30th anniversary version of the Band Aid charity single “Do They Know It’s Christmas?”, Bob Geldof announced on Monday.

It will the fourth incarnation of the song, which became one of the world’s biggest-selling singles ever after its release in 1984 to raise funds for famine relief in Ethiopia.

Ebola “is a particularly pernicious illness because it renders humans untouchable and that is sickening,” Geldof said at a London press conference with Midge Ure, who co-organised the first Band Aid with the Irish singer.

“Mothers can’t comfort their children in their dying hours. Lovers can’t cradle each other. Wives can’t hold their husbands’ hands. People are chased down the streets because of it — and it could come our way,” Geldof said.

The rocker-turned-activist said he had been spurred into action not out of nostalgia but by a call from the United Nations three weeks ago, concerned about not having the necessary funds to combat the epidemic.

Other artists already signed up for the single include U2 frontman Bono — who sang on the original recording — Coldplay’s Chris Martin, Bastille, Elbow, Ellie Goulding, Emeli Sande, Foals, Paloma Faith, Queen drummer Roger Taylor, Sinead O’Connor and Underworld. Band Aid were also reported to be in talks with British superstar Adele.

The vocals will be recorded on Saturday at Sarm Studios in west London, just as on the original recording.

The sleeve artwork will be done by British artist Tracey Emin and the single will be available for download on November 17, with physical copies three weeks later.

The track will cost 99 pence ($1.60, 1.30 euros) to download or Â£4 ($6.35, 5.10 euros) to buy as a physical record.

Fundraising was underway on Tuesday with fundraising site Prizeo offering fans a chance to win a “day in the studio” as the single is recorded, in exchange for donations between $5 and $50,000.

Morocco Insists on Delaying African Cup over Ebola

Posted on November 9, 2014 by Staff Reporter

Morocco is sticking to its demand to postpone the African Cup of Nations football tournament due to the outbreak of Ebola in West Africa, despite pressure from the Confederation of African Football.

A statement from the Ministry of Sports late Saturday said that because of the “spread of the deadly Ebola pandemic,” Morocco was maintaining its call for delaying the tournament it is scheduled to host from Jan. 17-Feb. 8, to the following year.

The Confederation of African Football has repeatedly rejected calls to postpone the tournament and last Monday gave Morocco five days to agree to hold the tournament as scheduled or they would reassign it.

The body will meet again on Tuesday to make a final decision on whether the tournament will be delayed or assigned to another country.

The CAF will talk to other countries willing to host if Morocco doesn’t agree to hold the tournament on the scheduled dates, although it’s unclear if other nations are willing to step in.

Possible replacement hosts South Africa, Egypt and Sudan have all said they won’t stage the tournament. Ghana and Nigeria are believed to be considering if they want to act as short-notice hosts.

Last month, Morocco asked for the 16-team competition to be delayed because of the threat of fans arriving in numbers from Ebola-affected countries. The virus has killed about 5,000 people in West Africa in the worst recorded outbreak. The deaths have almost all occurred in the three worst-affected countries of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

In its statement, the CAF listed reasons why the cup should go ahead in January and February, saying the numbers of traveling fans would be low, Morocco has no reported Ebola cases, and the dates can’t be moved because they fit in with FIFA’s calendar.

The CAF also cited its commitments to its “commercial partners,” with the African Cup of Nations the organization’s most important and valuable tournament.

The CAF has maintained the qualifying competition for the African Cup by banning all games in Guinea and Sierra Leone, and ordering their teams to play “home” games in neutral countries. Liberia isn’t involved in the final qualifiers.

Credit: Yahoo News

WHO Appoints New Africa Chief after Ebola Criticism

Posted on November 5, 2014 by Staff Reporter

The Africa arm of the World Health Organization — which has been criticised for being slow to react to Ebola — appointed a new director Wednesday.

Dr Matshidiso Rebecca Moeti immediately vowed to improve the response of countries worst hit by the epidemic.

Delegates at the UN health body’s regional committee for Africa in Benin voted for the Botswana-born WHO veteran to take over from Luis Gomes Sambo, who has held the post since 2005.

The WHO has said that it will look into complaints about its response to the outbreak and that it was overly bureaucratic and too politicised to react quickly to global health crises.

Moeti maintained the organisation was undergoing changes and her first task was to ensure that the first wave of reforms are implemented in Africa.

“I am going to work to improve the capacity deployed on the ground currently in the three countries gravely affected by the Ebola virus so that we can manage to control this epidemic,” she said.

“I am going to work with partners to improve the support for health systems in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea,” Moeti, who steps up from deputy regional director, told AFP after the vote.

The United Nations has taken charge of the overall emergency response to Ebola in west Africa, which has claimed nearly 5,000 lives and infected nearly 14,000 this year, through its own dedicated mission.

Credit: Yahoo News

Thousands Break Ebola Quarantine to Find Food

Posted on November 5, 2014 by Staff Reporter

Thousands of people in Sierra Leone are being forced to violate Ebola quarantines to find food because deliveries are not reaching them, aid agencies said.

Large swaths of the West African country have been sealed off to prevent the spread of Ebola, and within those areas many people have been ordered to stay in their homes.

The government, with help from the U.N.’s World Food Program, is tasked with delivering food and other services to those people. But there are many “nooks and crannies” in the country that are being missed, Jeanne Kamara, Christian Aid’s Sierra Leone representative, said Tuesday.

While public health authorities have said heavy restrictions may be necessary to bring under control an Ebola outbreak unlike any other, the Disasters Emergency Committee, an umbrella organization for aid organizations, warned on Monday that they were cutting off food to thousands of people.

“The quarantine of Kenema, the third largest town in Sierra Leone, is having a devastating impact on trade — travel is restricted so trucks carrying food cannot freely drive around,” the committee said in a statement. “Food is becoming scarce, which has led to prices increasing beyond the reach of ordinary people.”

Because services are not reaching them, people who are being monitored for signs of Ebola — and should be staying at home — are venturing out to markets to look for food, potentially contaminating many others, said Kamara of Christian Aid.

N. Korea to Quarantine Foreigners over Ebola Fears

Posted on October 31, 2014 by Staff Reporter

North Korean officials have announced they will quarantine foreigners for 21 days over fears of the spread of the Ebola virus.

An announcement distributed to foreign diplomatic missions in Pyongyang said that, regardless of country or region of origin, all foreigners will be quarantined under medical observation for 21 days.

It said foreigners from affected areas will be quarantined at one set of locations, while those from unaffected areas will be sent to other locations, including hotels. It said the staff of diplomatic missions and international organizations in North Korea will be allowed to stay in their residences.

A copy of the document, dated Wednesday, was obtained by The Associated Press on Thursday. There have been no reported cases of Ebola in North Korea.

Father says Sons Beaten at School & Called ‘Ebola’

Posted on October 30, 2014 by Staff Reporter

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A group of students attacked two of their peers at I.S. 318 in the Bronx while yelling “Ebola” at the brothers who had recently returned from Senegal, the boys’ father told CNN Newsroom Tuesday.

The New York Department of Education confirms the incident occurred, saying the boys were pushed and shoved.

Ousmane Drame, the boys’ father, said the boys felt so upset by their experience that they want to go back to Africa.

“They were made fun of by the children (who) started yelling, ‘Ebola. Ebola. Ebola. Africa. Africa,” Drame said his sons told him.

Charles Cooper of the African Advisory Council, a local advocacy group, said that during lunch, one of the boys was jumped by the students who had been calling him “Ebola.” When his older brother intervened, the brother also was assaulted.

Drame said classmates refused to play with his sons in gym.

“We’re done playing with you. You have Ebola,” he said one of the bullies told his sons. “You sit down. … They don’t want to play with them. Nobody is close to them.”

“We will not tolerate intimidation or bullying of our students,” NYC Schools Chancellor Carmen Farina said in a statement, “especially in this moment when New Yorkers need to come together.”

US using Ebola to Expand its Intervention in Africa: Azikiwe

Posted on October 30, 2014 by Staff Reporter

The United States is using the guise of the Ebola virus outbreak to expand its intervention in Africa, a civil rights activist and journalist in Detroit says.

Abayomi Azikiwe, editor of the Pan-African News Wire, made the remarks in a phone interview with Press TV on Tuesday while commenting on the Pentagon’s decision to isolate and quarantine US soldiers returning from West Africa.

Two US states — New Jersey and New York — have already ordered a mandatory 21-day quarantine for medics who have treated Ebola patients in West Africa, where the epidemic has already killed about 5,000 people.

“I strongly believe that the United States should provide more assistance to the three countries that have been stricken by the outbreak of the Ebola virus disease,” Azikiwe said.

“Nonetheless, I believe there has been an overreaction inside the United States, largely fuelled by rightwing political forces to stigmatize and isolate and quarantine all those who have been assisting in the healthcare mechanisms for those who have been stricken by the Ebola virus disease in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia,” he added.

Azikiwe stated that the US Africa Command (AFRICOM) is “designed to extend the United States’ military intervention on the African continent.”

“They are utilizing AFRICOM to penetrate Africa under the guise of treating or responding to the Ebola virus outbreak,” he emphasized.

President Barack Obama has authorized the Pentagon to deploy troops to West Africa to fight the spread of the deadly disease. Under the president’s order, some 3,600 troops could be sent to West Africa. Hundreds of US soldiers have already been deployed to Liberia.

Azikiwe went on to say that “it is important for those soldiers, who have been stationed in Liberia, ostensibly in response to the Ebola virus disease outbreak, that they be protected.”

“The United States’ government does not have a history of protecting its own soldiers. We know that in Iraq they were exposed to depleted uranium weapons; we also know that US chemical weapons, that were utilized by the Iraqi government in the 1980s in their war against Iran, these weapons were in Iraq. They were discovered yet the discovery of these weapons, the information was concealed by the United States’ government and the corporate media,” the veteran journalist continued.

“So we are concerned that those who are in West Africa right now, in Libra particular, be protected, and their health and lives are given maximum priority,” he stressed.

There is currently no known cure for Ebola, which is a form of hemorrhagic fever with diarrhea, vomiting and bleeding as its symptoms.

The Ebola virus spreads through direct contact with infected blood, feces or sweat. It can also be spread through sexual contact or the unprotected handling of contaminated corpses.

Recently, more experts have said that the Ebola virus is a genetically modified organism and was developed in US bio-warfare laboratories in West Africa.

In a recent interview, Dr. Francis Boyle of the University of Illinois said, “My opinion is that the origins of the current pandemic came out of the USA bio-warfare labs in West Africa.”

He added that the US has been “using West Africa as an offshore to circumvent the Convention on Biological Weapons and do bio-warfare work.”

Seen on: http://www.presstv.ir

Ebola Scare in Lagos Airport… Again!!!

Posted on October 30, 2014 by Staff Reporter

Ebola victim, Mr. Theophilus Onnakhinon, who had already been cured of Ebola Virus Disease in Sierra Leone arrived aboard Royal Air Maroc, arrived the Murtala Mohammed International Airport, Wednesday, causing another fresh panic among travellers.

On arrival in Nigeria, the victim was immediately handed over to the Port Health officials at the Lagos airport who immediately isolated and quarantined him.

Sources reveal that he is being quarantined in the country so that the Nigerian officials can also check his health status and confirm that he was free of the disease before being released to the public.

However, the Port health services at the Lagos Airport have declined to comment on the issue and directed our enquiry to the Ministry of Health.

WHO says Monitoring 82 for Ebola in Mali

Posted on October 28, 2014 by Staff Reporter

Health workers are monitoring 82 people who had contact with a toddler who died of Ebola in Mali last week, but no new cases of the disease have yet been reported, World Health Organization spokesman Tarik Jasarevic said on Tuesday.

Three WHO officials are already in the country, having traveled to Mali a week ago to test its Ebola preparedness, and five more are arriving, Jasarevic said.

Mali became the sixth West African country to report a case of the disease, and health officials want to try to contain the virus before it can spread out of control.

Nurse Amber Vinson is Ebola Free

Posted on October 28, 2014 by Staff Reporter

Amber Vinson, one of two Texas nurses to be infected with Ebola while treating Thomas Eric Duncan, will be released Tuesday from Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, officials said.

Vinson is expected to make her first public statement during a national news conference at 1 p.m. E.T., according to the hospital.

Vinson, 29, was admitted to the hospital’s Serious Communicable Disease Unit on Oct. 15 and was declared free of the deadly virus last week.

More Ebola Cases in New York?

Posted on October 24, 2014 by Staff Reporter

Officials tried to tamp down New Yorkers’ fears Friday after a doctor was diagnosed with Ebola in a city where millions of people squeeze into crowded subways, buses and elevators every day.

“We want to state at the outset that New Yorkers have no reason to be alarmed” by the doctor’s diagnosis Thursday, said Mayor Bill de Blasio, even as officials described Dr. Craig Spencer riding the subway, taking a cab and bowling since returning to New York from Guinea a week ago. “New Yorkers who have not been exposed are not at all at risk.”

Heath officials have repeatedly given assurances that the disease is spread only by direct contact with bodily fluids such as saliva, blood, vomit and feces, and that the virus survives on dry surfaces for only a matter of hours.

But some in the nation’s most populous city, with more than 8 million people, were not taking any chances.

According to a rough timeline provided by city officials, in the days before Spencer fell ill, he went on a 3-mile jog, went to the High Line park, rode the subway and, on Wednesday night, got a taxi to a Brooklyn bowling alley. He felt tired starting Tuesday, and felt worse on Thursday when he and his fiancee made a joint call to authorities to detail his symptoms and his travels. EMTs in full Ebola gear arrived and took him to Bellevue in an ambulance surrounded by police squad cars.

Ebola: Liberians on Forced Exile

Posted on October 24, 2014 by Staff Reporter

Henry Boley left Liberia to attend a conference in Nigeria just days after his twins were born. Now, weeks later, he can’t get home. Amanda Johnson, a 50-year-old Liberian living in Ghana, awaits her fiance’s departure from their home country for their wedding, but refuses to return home because of Ebola.

Hundreds of Liberians are stranded in Ghana, separated from their families because of poverty, fear and logistics. Some are waiting for flights to resume after most airlines cancelled flights to Liberia. Others are having trouble navigating or affording the circuitous route back by bus. Many others feel it’s too risky to return home, even if their spouses or children are desperately urging them to.

Boley and Johnson are neighbors in a camp for refugees just outside Accra, the Ghanaian capital, where they monitor the news for any signs that Ebola is slowing down in their home country. Their exile is likely to continue as the worst outbreak of the disease in history continues infecting more people in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, with a total death toll of more than 4,500.

Ghana, which is still free of Ebola, has become the hub for an intensified international response to the crisis, with the U.N. Mission for Ebola Emergency Response based in Accra. Ghana is one of 14 West African counties seen as being at risk, and authorities have set up at least three Ebola isolation centers across the country in case there is an outbreak.

Boley, a 40-year-old Christian pastor, has been stranded for weeks. He is bored and often thinks of his babies, whom he barely knows.

“I have been trying to get back to Liberia but it’s very difficult,” he said. “This is tough for me. I am the man of the home and when I talk to my wife she says to me that I need to be there. But I can’t do anything for her.”

First Ebola Case in Mali, on 2 Yr Old

Posted on October 24, 2014 by Staff Reporter

Mali confirmed its first case of Ebola late Thursday, making it the sixth West African country to get the disease this year. The BBC has reported that the case involves a 2-year-old girl.

The World Health Organization has not yet analyzed and confirmed the case. But it’s not especially surprising that the virus has spread to Mali given the country shares a border with Guinea, where the outbreak originated and continues to spread out of control.

Mali — along with the the Ivory Coast — has been considered by the World Health Organization one the countries at greatest risk of getting Ebola. Reuters reported that Mali and Ivory Coast were “the top priorities on the WHO’s list of 15 African countries that need to be prepared for an Ebola case.”

Lagos ‘Ebola Hospital’ Battles to Recover

Posted on October 23, 2014 by Staff Reporter

Nigeria may have been declared officially Ebola-free but at the First Consultants Hospital in Lagos, doctors believe it’ll take the facility that treated the first victim years to recover.

The 40-bed private clinic in the bustling Obalende area of the city paid a high price in the outbreak, after the first patient with the Ebola virus was admitted on July 20. Not only has it taken a financial hit from having to replace every piece of potentially contaminated equipment but it also suffered the human loss of much-respected staff with decades of expertise.

“The most precious equipment in a hospital are the people. I lost four of my most important staff,” medical director Benjamin Ohiaeri told AFP. “In the midst of this celebration (about Nigeria’s Ebola-free status), people died… and it’s because of them that this place is a safer place today.”

Liberian finance ministry official Patrick Sawyer was brought to First Consultants on July 20 and died five days later, sparking fear about its spread through Africa’s most populous nation.

Effective leadership and co-ordination were key to defying naysayers who feared the country, with its under-funded and ill-equipped public healthcare system, would struggle to cope.

For Ohiaeri, the most credit should go to Stella Adadevoh, his most senior doctor and the person he had expected to take charge after his planned retirement next year.

Adadevoh physically stopped Sawyer from leaving, despite pressure from Liberia, preventing potentially thousands of people in crowded Obalende and beyond from becoming infected.

“He didn’t want to be treated. He pulled off his drip, he made sure that blood was everywhere, he did all kinds of things that were unspeakable and that’s when people got infected,” Ohiaeri said.

Ohiaeri lamented the loss of Dr. Adadevoh, saying that, “She had been working with us for 21 years, one of the most brilliant physicians you’d have ever met. Humble, diligent, brilliant, I had always trusted her,… How do you replace someone like that?”

After Sawyer’s death, the entire hospital had to be decontaminated and every piece of equipment, from the emergency room and laboratory to washing machines in the laundry, had to be replaced.

The clinic, which the US-trained Ohiaeri founded in 1982, was shut for two months, running up losses into the millions of dollars.

Cuban Medics Head for Liberia to Fight Ebola

Posted on October 22, 2014 by Staff Reporter

Cuban medical team is set to arrive in Liberia to help tackle the spread of the Ebola virus, the foreign ministry has said in a statement.

The ministry said a 52-member team comprising doctors, nurses, epidemiologists, intensive care doctors, general practitioners, surgeons, pediatricians, intensive care nurses, anesthetists and licensed nurses will arrive in the capital on Wednesday.

The statement said the ministry was informed of the medical team’s imminent arrival by Jorge Fernando Lefebre Nicolas, Cuban ambassador to Liberia.

The ambassador said the arrival signalled his government’s strong solidarity with Liberia.

He added that Cuba’s commitment was geared towards enhancing the existing ties between both countries and acknowledged that the move would mark the start of medical co-operation between Cuba and Liberia.

The Cuban doctors are expected to be assigned to a newly constructed unit at the an unfinished defence ministry facility in Congo Town.

Augustine Kpehe Ngafuan, Liberis’s foreign minister, said he was delighted over the arrival of the doctors and that he hoped the development would also help in strengthening the country’s health service.

Ebola: US Restricts Airport Arrivals from West Africa

Posted on October 22, 2014 by Staff Reporter

New US rules requiring air passengers from the three West African countries worst hit by Ebola to travel via one of five airports are coming into effect.

Travellers from Sierra Leone, Liberia or Guinea must now arrive at O’Hare in Chicago, JFK, Newark, Washington’s Dulles or Atlanta, where they will undergo enhanced screening.

Travellers from these countries will have their temperatures checked as part of screening programmes, despite experts warning such moves are unlikely to have an impact.

The new security measures come as public concern grows in the US, where three people have been infected and one person has died from the virus.

Why America won’t Shut Borders to West Africa

Posted on October 21, 2014 by Staff Reporter

ABC News chief health and medical editor Dr. Richard Besser, revealed during a recent ABC News Ebola town hall event, on why America will not close her borders to West Africa.

Keeping people from leaving the Ebola-affected countries would be a “major mistake,” Besser said, noting that he saw aid workers, journalists and family members aboard his plane on his two trips to Liberia in the last few months, and that letting them in and out is important.

“You want to make sure that people who leave that area are being monitored and doing it safely,” he said. “You want to encourage people to go there who have expertise and can help these governments, these health workers, control this disease. That will save lives there and will also improve the health and protection of Americans right here.”

Varma said the biggest concern in America should be containing the outbreak in Africa. Until that happens, he said “we will always be at risk.”

“You can’t just wrap a wall around these countries and not expect people to get out,” he said.

Ebola: Nigeria Got Right Everything America Got Wrong

Posted on October 21, 2014 by Staff Reporter

When the first case of Ebola was discovered in Nigeria this summer, Jeffrey Hawkins, the U.S. Consul General in Lagos, said that an outbreak there could become an “apocalyptic urban outbreak. The last thing anyone in the world wants to hear is the two words, ‘Ebola’ and ‘Lagos,’ in the same sentence,” Hawkins said in July.

Americans yawned, assured that if Ebola did somehow make it to their shores, the world’s richest country would swiftly and easily eradicate it from its borders. “The United States had overconfidence in their ability to stop it,” said David Dausey, a Yale-trained epidemiologist who works on controlling pandemics and who is dean of the School of Health Professions and Public Health at Mercyhurst University.

However, Hawkins and others had plenty of reason to worry about Africa’s most-populous country, Nigeria, which had 20 Ebola cases and eight deaths. Lagos, with some 21 million residents, is the continent’s biggest city.

In addition, 49 percent of Lagos state’s population lives in poverty in slums with little sanitation. Making matters worse is that doctors discovered an Ebola case in Port Harcourt, another extremely poor area where the majority of people live in shanties with almost nonexistentsanitation (keep in mind, the disease is spread by bodily fluids).

And it was not just lives at risk. As FP reported in August, an outbreak in Nigeria had the potential to devastate West Africa’s economy.

Nigeria seemed like the ideal petri dish for the virus to grow. That’s what makes the World Health Organization’s announcement that “Nigeria is now free of Ebola virus transmission” a massive relief in the fight to stop the pandemic that began in December 2013.

That WHO announcement reveals an organization that seems to be in disbelief. In a situation assessment, the WHO called it a “spectacular success story” that prevented “potentially the most explosive Ebola outbreak imaginable.”

So how did Nigeria, a country with poor public-health infrastructure and a GDP of $510 billion, manage to contain the disease when the United States, a country with sophisticated public-health infrastructure and a GDP of $17.3 trillion, could not?

First, a bit of luck: Nigeria’s “patient zero,” a man from Liberia, collapsed in a Lagos airport, making it easier to identify those exposed to the disease.

“What helped Nigeria is that they quickly traced the source of the virus,” said Richard Downie, an expert on Nigeria at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “The fact that he collapsed in the airport was good luck in a good way.”

However, Downie credits Nigeria, a country not known for coordinated or effective action at the national level (see the fight against Boko Haram), for what came next.

“What impressed me the most about the response, and somewhat surprised me given Nigeria’s track record in dealing with other crises, is that they were so thorough about it,” Downie said. “They quickly amassed a list of anyone who may have come into contact with the index case. They hit the streets. They had a fast response, came up with a plan, and did the legwork on the ground.”

According to the WHO, the public-health community knew an outbreak in Nigeria was a potential disaster. As soon the first case was discovered, the WHO, the CDC, and other government officials “reached 100 percent of known contacts in Lagos and 99.8 percent at the second outbreak site, in Port Harcourt, Nigeria’s oil hub.”

Isolation wards were then created, followed by treatment facilities. People who tried to escape were digitally tracked and returned to isolation. Doctors Without Borders and the WHO quickly trained local doctors to treat the disease. And while Nigeria’s public-health system is poor, it’s not nonexistent; aid groups have been working to eradicate polio there for years.

In an interview with Time magazine, Faisal Shuaib, a doctor at Nigeria’s Ebola Emergency Operation Center, also said that stopping public panic was instrumental.

“People began to realize that contracting Ebola was not necessarily a death sentence,” Shuaib said. “Emphasizing that reporting early to the hospital boosts survival gave comfort that [a person] has some level of control over the disease prognosis.” Shuaib added that keeping Nigerian borders open — the opposite of a strategy being thrown around in Washington right now — helped to contain panic.

On the other hand, the United States has done almost the complete opposite of Nigeria. It took 11 days to diagnose Thomas Eric Duncan with Ebola after he was turned away from a hospital six days after the Liberian’s arrival in Dallas. Amid questions about whether medical personnel were properly trained to treat the disease, two nurses who treated Duncan, Nina Pham and Amber Joy Vinson, contracted it. Vinson was allowed to travel round-trip to Cleveland, despite reporting a fever to the CDC, which has been on its heels since Ebola arrived in America.

Meanwhile, the political efforts to reassure the American public have been inconsistent; on Friday, President Barack Obama appointed Ron Klain, a political operative with no public-health experience, to coordinate the government’s response. The Pentagon created a 30-person medical personnel team to train people to treat the virus. Politicians continue to call for a travel ban, while cable news covers the three cases as if they represent a national outbreak.

Nigeria’s success “is a first-class effort,” Downie said. “There’s a lot here for other countries to learn, including the United States.”

by David Francis

First Published on: http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com

Views Expressed are Solely Author’s.

Ebola Spreads Through Red Cross Vaccine – Ghana Nurse

Posted on October 21, 2014 by Staff Reporter

A nurse from Ghana is passionate in “exposing” the truth about the deadly Ebola virus. He or she claims the Red Cross is responsible in bringing the virus to four West African countries for four specific reasons with the grand goal of bringing U.S. troops on boots in Nigeria, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

According to the nurse, U.S. wants to stop the protests conducted by the diamond miners in Sierra Leone. The miners were allegedly protesting against “cheap slave labour forever.” The region is said to be the “world’s largest supplier of diamonds.” An Ebola outbreak is the most valid reason for U.S. to send in its troops, the nurse alleged.

Essentially, the nurse from Ghana claims that the very vaccine injected to people to prevent the spread of the virus is in reality the means of spreading the disease. And the whole scheme is being orchestrated by the U.S. – the Red Cross its “accomplice” – to cover up its goal of taking over the diamonds of Sierra Leone and the prosperous Nigerian oil.

President Sirleaf’s Doctor Son Avoiding Liberia

Posted on October 20, 2014 by Staff Reporter

President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf on Sunday said “the whole world has a stake” in preventing an unfolding catastrophe in Liberia, calling on nations to provide more medical experts and supplies to confront the exploding Ebola epidemic. But illustrating the difficulties of heeding that call, her own son, a physician, has stayed in the U.S., saying he can do more for his country there than at home.

“It is the duty of all of us as global citizens to send a message that we will not leave millions of West Africans to fend for themselves,” Mrs. Sirleaf said. In line with that message, the president in late August fired state officials who refused to come home from abroad to help Liberia battle Ebola.

At that time, however, her son, Dr. James Adama Sirleaf, was returning to his family in Georgia, after deciding to pull his medical training group out of his homeland because of mounting risks to doctors there.

He is hardly alone. Officials and physicians here say far more Liberian doctors are in the U.S. and other countries than in the country of their birth, and that their absence is complicating efforts to curb what has become a global health crisis.

Even before Ebola, there were only about 170 Liberian doctors in the country, and colleagues say many of them weren’t actively practicing. At least four of them have since died of the virus. That shortage has prompted repeated pleas from the Liberian government for more foreign doctors to join the fight.

Lagos State Sending Ebola Medics To Sierra Leone, Says Raji Fashola

Posted on October 20, 2014 by Staff Reporter

The Lagos State Government on Sunday said it was finalising arrangements to deploy some health workers who had helped in the containment of the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) in the state to Sierra Leone .

Governor Babatunde Fashola, made the announcement in Ikeja while speaking at a programme to commemorate the 2,700 Days of his administration in office.

The governor said the health workers were to replicate the state`s virus containment strategies in Sierra-leone with a view to assisting the Ebola-hit country overcome the health crisis.

Ebola: WHO Lists 15 Priority Countries

Posted on October 17, 2014 by Staff Reporter

WHO says it is focusing on 15 African countries to stop spread of disease, as EU reviews its screening policies.

The WHO has said it is focusing its attention on 15 countries to prevent the spread of Ebola, as the EU announced a review of its entry policies and the disease was reported in the last untouched area of Sierra Leone.

Dr Isabelle Nuttall, the WHO’s global director, said on Thursday that cases were doubling every four weeks and that health officials were trying to prevent the disease spreading from Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, the worst-hit nations, to neighbouring countries and those with a strong travel and trade relationship.

Nuttall said: “The objective is to stop the transmission from occurring in these countries. They may not have a case but after one case we don’t want more. These countries need to be better prepared.

“This week we will cross 9,000 cases of Ebola and 4,500 deaths. The outbreak continues to hit health workers hard. So far 427 health care workers have been infected with Ebola and 236 have died.”

The statement came as Sierra Leone reported two infections in the northern area of Koinadugu, the last untouched district in the country, despite strict safety precautions and limited contact with the rest of the country.

The EU also announced that it was reviewing its screening controls for airline passengers leaving west Africa.

Nigerian Evacuated Passenger Tests Negative for Ebola

Posted on October 17, 2014 by Staff Reporter

The Nigerian passenger who was taken to a Madrid hospital from an Air France plane by police-escorted ambulance over fears he was suffering from Ebola has tested negative for the disease, the Spanish government said on Friday.

Spain is on high alert for the disease after Romero, a nurse who cared for two Ebola-infected priests before they died, became the first person to contract the virus outside West Africa. She is gravely ill but stable.

Although the two people tested negative for the disease initially, they must have another test within 72 hours in order to be given the all clear, the government said.

The United States, which is deploying up to 4,000 troops to West Africa to help contain the disease, has asked Madrid for permission to use U.S. military bases in Spain in its operation, a Spanish Defense Ministry source said on Thursday.

A decision is due to be announced on Friday when Spanish Defense Minister Pedro Morenes meets his U.S. counterpart Chuck Hagel in Washington. Madrid was set to agree to the request to use the bases at Rota near Cadiz and at Moron de la Frontera near Seville in southern Spain, the source said.

UN Launches Urgent Appeal for Ebola Donations

Posted on October 17, 2014 by Staff Reporter

UN chief, Ban Ki- moon, has launched yet another emergency appeal for funds to fight Ebola because the UN ran short of its target. He said a $1bn trust fund he launched in September has received just $100,000 (£62,000) so far. He joins a growing chorus of world leaders criticising the global effort to tackle the Ebola outbreak.

Donors have given almost $400m (£250m) to other UN agencies and aid organisations directly but the UN trust fund, intended to act as a flexible spending reserve, has itself only received pledges of just $20m (£12m). Of those countries that have pledged money to the trust fund, only Colombia has paid, giving $100,000 (£62,000).

The UN special envoy on Ebola, David Nabarro, said the fund was intended to offer “flexibility in responding to a crisis which every day brings new challenges… It allows the areas of greatest need to be identified and funds to be directed accordingly,” he added.

Ban said, said it was time for the countries “who really have capacity” to provide financial and other logistical support. “

Zuckerberg & Wife Donate $25M to CDC for Ebola

Posted on October 15, 2014 by Staff Reporter

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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Ebola Fears Expected to Affect China TradeFair

Posted on October 15, 2014 by Staff Reporter

Organizers say concern about the spread of the Ebola virus is expected to impact attendance at China’s largest international trade fair, which kicks off Wednesday.

Spokesman for the Canton Fair Liu Jianjun was quoted in Chinese newspapers as saying he expects to see a fall in the number of foreign buyers, especially those from African countries. About 500,000 buyers and exhibitors usually attend the biannual event in the southern city of Guangzhou, including about 15,000 from Africa.

While no restrictions have been placed on visitors from Ebola-hit countries, they will be closely monitored, Wednesday’s China Daily newspaper quoted Liu as saying. Fever detection readers will be set up at fair entryways and emergency measures drawn up in the event of possible cases, Liu said. China has no reported Ebola cases.

Chris Brown’s Take on Ebola

Posted on October 14, 2014 by Staff Reporter

Regardless of the many campaigns conducted in the bid to contain Ebola, here is Chris Brown’s take on the epidemic.

Doctors Without Borders Loses 9 Medics to Ebola

Posted on October 14, 2014 by Staff Reporter

International aid organization Doctors Without Borders said that 16 of its staff members have been infected with Ebola and nine of them have died.

Speaking at a press conference in Johannesburg Tuesday, the head of Doctors Without Borders in South Africa Sharon Ekambaram said medical workers have received inadequate assistance from the international community.

“Where is WHO Africa? Where is the African Union?” said Ekambaram who worked in Sierra Leone from August to September. “We’ve all heard their promises in the media but have seen very little on the ground.”

Four of the organization’s medical workers who had just returned from Sierra Leone and Liberia said they were frustrated, “chasing after the curve of the outbreak,” according to Jens Pederson, the aid organization’s humanitarian affairs adviser.

“To manage Ebola is not rocket science. It’s very basic infection control and very basic protection of staff,” said Pederson who said clean water, chlorine and soap were enough to disinfect an affected area.

While donations often focus on medical supplies, Pedersen said psychological and social support were just as important for patients who were isolated from their communities and who had lost many of their own relatives. Demonstrating the hazmat suits worn during treatment, doctors said it is difficult to build a relationship with patients with only their eyes visible between a heavy duty mask and hood, blurred behind thick goggles.

The number of those who have died from Ebola is probably an underestimate because many families hide their sick and dying loved ones, said Juli Switala, a Doctors Without Borders staff member. More than 4,000 people have died from Ebola so far, according to the World Health Organization.

UN Employee Dies of Ebola in Germany

Posted on October 14, 2014 by Staff Reporter

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A UN employee infected with the Ebola virus in west Africa has died after arriving in Germany last week for treatment, the hospital said Tuesday.

“The Ebola patient died during the night in the St Georg Clinic in Leipzig,” it said in a statement.

Local health officials said last week that the patient was a Sudanese doctor who had arrived in Germany from Liberia on Thursday.

The United Nations medical worker was infected with Ebola in Liberia and despite “intensive medical procedures,” he still died, said the German hospital authorities.

The St. Georg hospital in Leipzig said the 56-year-old man, whose name has not been released, died overnight of the infection. It released no further details and did not answer telephone calls.

The man tested positive for Ebola on Oct. 6, prompting Liberia’s UN peacekeeping mission to place 41 staff members who had possibly been in contact with him under “close medical observation.”

He arrived in Leipzig for treatment on Oct. 9 where he was put into a special isolation unit.

Liberia Health Workers’ Monday Strike, Setback on Ebola Efforts

Posted on October 13, 2014 by Staff Reporter

Thousands of Liberian healthcare workers are set to begin an indefinite strike at midnight on Monday which could undermine the country’s effort to stop the spread of the deadly Ebola virus and leave several hundred patients without care.

Health workers in the West African nation threatened to abandon hundreds of patients in Ebola treatment units, clinics and hospitals if demands for better incentives, working conditions and protective equipment were not met.

A meeting to resolve their grievances on Oct. 10 ended in a deadlock with the government refusing the meet their demands, said George Williams, secretary general of the National Health Workers Association of Liberia.

“The government of Liberia has not changed their posture. They do not want to engage us so that we can talk,” Williams said. “Time is running out, by 1200 midnight on Monday morning, we will be starting the go-slow action.”

Liberia’s deputy health minister Matthew Flomo said the government was not aware of health workers planning to strike.

“What I do know is that the government has reached an agreement with health workers for their payment, which will be as of September, beginning Monday,” Flomo said.

But Williams denied the workers had reached any agreement with the government. He accused the administration of trying to divide the workers.

He, however, acknowledged that the strike would undermine the gains being made in the fight against Ebola in Liberia, but said they were confident the public would understand the reason behind their action.

“The problem is the government. The public should get angry with the government, not with us,” Williams said

“The public is aware that health workers are dying because they are not protected. Nobody is supposed to die while protecting lives, we have been calling on the government to give us protective gear but they are not doing so,” he said.

Five Ugandans in Isolation after Ebola-like Marburg Virus Death

Posted on October 13, 2014 by Staff Reporter

Ugandan health officials said Monday that they are continuing to monitor five people feared to have contracted the Ebola-like Marburg virus, even though all suspected cases so far have tested negative.

A 30-year-old medical technician died from Marburg on September 28, 11 days after falling ill, at the Mengo hospital in the capital where he worked, sparking alarm in the east African nation.

“All the alert and suspect cases have been thoroughly investigated, and have all tested negative for the Marburg virus,” primary health care minister Sarah Opendi Achieng said in a statement on Monday.

But five people are in medical isolation as doctors monitor their health as a precautionary measure.

The Marburg virus is one of the most deadly known pathogens. Like Ebola, it causes severe bleeding, fever, vomiting and diarrhoea and has a 21-day incubation period.

The government has made repeated appeals to the public “to remain alert” and observe the precautions to control the spread of the virus.

Like Ebola, the Marburg virus is also transmitted via contact with bodily fluids and fatality rates range from 25 to 80 percent.

Ebola in Brazil?

Posted on October 10, 2014 by Staff Reporter

Brazil says it has identified a suspected Ebola case who arrived in the country on Thursday.

The patient, Souleymane Bah from Guinea, presented himself after coming down with a fever at a public health centre in the town of Cascavel in the southern state of Parana. He has been flown to Rio de Janeiro to the National Institute of Infectology.

Doctors say he no longer has a fever and blood test results are expected on Saturday. Health Minister Arthur Chioro said the situation was under control and “all health protocols and procedures were applied efficiently and with great success”.

Guinea is one of the three West African countries most affected by Ebola.Mr Bah’s symptoms appeared on the 20th day after he left Guinea – within the 21-day incubation period. But since his arrival he has not shown any symptoms and his fever has not returned. Mr Bah arrived in Brazil as a refugee and was granted leave to remain until 2015 by immigration police.

Sixty-four people who came into contact with Mr Bah, mostly in the health centre in Parana, are also being monitored for symptoms of Ebola, although the Health Ministry says they are considered low risk. Concerns have been expressed about what route Mr Bah took to get to Brazil.

The authorities in Argentina are concerned he may have come to South America through one of the country’s airports or ports. The Brazilian Health Ministry says it has contacted the World Health Organisation about these concerns.

WHO- West Africa Ebola outbreak deaths exceed 4,000

Posted on October 10, 2014 by Staff Reporter

World Health Organization’s most recent report provides that the number of people killed in the Ebola outbreak has risen above 4,000.

Latest figures shows there have been 8,376 cases and 4,024 deaths in the worst-affected West African nations of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

The news comes as Liberian MPs refused to grant the president additional powers to deal with the Ebola crisis. President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has already declared a state of emergency that allows her to impose quarantines.

US military Aircraft Arriving in Liberia

Posted on October 10, 2014 by Staff Reporter

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.

Spain Ebola Patient at ‘Serious Risk’ of Dying

Posted on October 10, 2014 by Staff Reporter

A Spanish nurse who is the first person known to have been infected with Ebola outside Africa is at “serious risk” of dying after her condition worsened Thursday, officials said.

Teresa Romero, 44, is “very ill and her life is at serious risk as a consequence of the virus,” Madrid’s regional president Ignacio Gonzalez told parliament.

A spokeswoman for the La Paz-Carlos III hospital where Romero is being treated told reporters: “Her clinical situation has deteriorated but I can’t provide more information,” on the patient’s request.

Romero helped treat two elderly Spanish missionaries who died after returning from west Africa with Ebola in August and September. She tested positive for the disease on Monday.

Her case has heightened concerns that the worst epidemic of Ebola on record could spread from west Africa, where it began late last year. It has since killed nearly 3,900 people, mostly in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.

Dominica Rejects Flavour for Fear of Ebola

Posted on October 10, 2014 by Staff Reporter

The Caribbean island of Dominica has canceled a contract with a Nigerian band scheduled to participate in a local music festival, citing worries about the Ebola virus.

Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit said Thursday that he struck the band called “Flavour” from the lineup of Dominica’s three-day World Creole Music Festival out of “an abundance of caution.” He noted that a total of four musicians would have flown in from Nigeria.

Texas Ebola Patient Thomas Eric Duncan Dies

Posted on October 8, 2014 by Staff Reporter

The first man diagnosed with Ebola in the US, Thomas Eric Duncan, has died, says the Dallas facility where he was being treated.

A statement released by the Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital said,”It is with profound sadness and heartfelt disappointment that we must inform you of the death of Thomas Eric Duncan this morning at 7:51am.Mr Duncan succumbed to an insidious disease, Ebola. He fought courageously in this battle.”

The Liberian national picked up the killer virus in Liberia before flying to Texas where he fell ill and was admitted to the Dallas hospital.

His family said they had visited him on Tuesday at the hospital, but declined to view him via video link because his condition was too “disturbing”.

Mr Duncan’s nephew, Josephus Weeks, said he and his mother had been unable to sleep after seeing Mr Duncan’s face over video during a previous visit. He was being treated with an experimental drug and had been on a breathing machine while receiving kidney dialysis.

Ebola-Hit Sierra Leone Launches School by Radio

Posted on October 8, 2014 by Staff Reporter

Sierra Leone on Tuesday launched an ambitious schooling effort for more than a million children denied their education due to the Ebola epidemic, saying lessons would be delivered via radio.

Classes in a variety of subjects will be broadcast for four hours, six days a week, on 41 radio stations and the country’s sole TV channel, the government announced.

“The plan is to provide a suitable option for our school-going population as the entire school system has been disrupted since the outbreak of the Ebola disease,” said Education Minister Minkailu Bah.

Schools have been closed since the government announced a state of emergency in July in response to an epidemic which has killed 3,500 people in west Africa, more than 600 of them in Sierra Leone.

More than two million of its population of 5.7 million are aged between three and 17, although in reality the secondary school attendance rate is less than 40 percent for both boys and girls.

Bah also admitted that reaching many of the nation’s schoolchildren would be difficult in a country where radio ownership is around 25 percent and fewer than two percent have access to a television.

“As things now are we cannot expect schools to reopen until early 2015,” said Sylvester Meheaux, of the Conference of Principals of Secondary Schools that is helping the government run the classes.

“In the meantime, we are worried some children would end up being dropouts, pregnant and otherwise. These developments are a major concern for us in the educational sector.”

Public reaction to the announcement — which did not include details of how the scheme would be funded — has been mixed.

“This is not the type of tuition we used to know for our children, but we have little option,” said Sam Mbayo, a retired clerk from the eastern district of Kailahun.

“Any means to educate our children rather than leaving them idle is welcome. Otherwise we are going to have a generation of illiterates.”

Fatima Sheriff, a single mother from Freetown, said she was worried in particular about the damage the closures of schools was doing to the prospects of young girls.

“For many of them this is the end of their educational dreams as the choice of the going into prostituion and other vices loom,” she said.

Manuel Fontaine, the regional director of UN children’s fund (UNICEF) which is supporting the initiative, said the radio classes would be focussed on teaching children “life skills” and maintaining their contact with the outside world.

But, he added, it was important that schools reopened as soon as possible, “partly because there is a problem of long-term damage in children who have no education, and because there is a risk that children will drop out of school, of education in general”.

Bah, the education minister, said Sierra Leone authorities would “be devising other means (of) accommodating the hard-to-reach areas” without access to radios.

“We are quite aware that not all children will benefit from this method of teaching, but we are doing our best to reach as many children as possible”, he said.

Ebola Victims may Include Dog in Spain

Posted on October 8, 2014 by Staff Reporter

Ebola’s victims may include a dog named Excalibur. Officials in Madrid got a court order to euthanize the pet of a Spanish nursing assistant with Ebola because of the chance the animal might spread the disease.

At least one major study suggests that dogs can be infected with the deadly virus without having symptoms. But whether or how likely they are to spread it to people is less clear.

Lab experiments on other animals suggest their urine, saliva or stool might contain the virus. That means that in theory, people might catch it through an infected dog licking or biting them, or from grooming.

“Clearly we want to look at all possibilities. We have not identified this as a means of transmission,” said Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The nursing assistant and her husband have been in isolation since she tested positive for Ebola earlier this week. She was part of team at a Madrid hospital that cared for a missionary priest who died of Ebola.

The Madrid regional government got a court order to euthanize their dog, saying “available scientific information” can’t rule out it could spread the virus.

The dog’s owners don’t want it killed. Carlos Rodriguez, a Spanish veterinarian and host of a talk show about animals, said the husband messaged him from the hospital, trying to grant him temporary custody of the mixed-breed dog.

But now that there is a court order, “I can’t stop this happening,” Rodriguez said. The husband “asked me, crying, to at least make sure the animal does not suffer.”

The Spanish animal rights group Animal Equality complained that authorities wanted to “sacrifice the animal without even diagnosing it or considering the possibility of placing it in quarantine.”

It’s not clear how effective quarantine would be, since infected dogs don’t show symptoms and it’s not known how long the virus can last in them, or how long tests would have to be done to check for it.

Dr. Peter Cowen, a veterinarian at North Carolina State University who has advised global health experts on animal infection disease risks, says killing the dog is “clearly an overreaction.”

“I think it’s very unfortunate they are thinking of euthanizing that dog. They should really study it instead,” he said. “Ebola has never been documented to be spread by a dog,” and that’s clearly not a major route of spread in the outbreak in Africa, he said.

Ebola’s source in nature hasn’t been pinpointed. The leading suspect is a certain type of fruit bat, but the World Health Organization lists chimpanzees, gorillas, monkeys, forest antelope and porcupines as possibly playing a role in spread of the disease. Even pig farms may amplify infection because of bats on farms.

The possibility of spread by dogs — at least in Africa — was raised by a 2005 report. Researchers tested dogs during the 2001-2002 Ebola outbreak in Gabon after seeing some of them eating infected dead animals. Of the 337 dogs from various towns and villages, 9 percent to 25 percent showed antibodies to Ebola, a sign they were infected or exposed to the virus.

“I think it’s possible” that dogs might spread Ebola, but it’s not likely in the U.S. or other places where dogs aren’t near corpses or eating infected animals, said Sharon Curtis Granskog, a spokeswoman for the American Veterinary Medical Association.

In Dallas, health officials are monitoring 48 people who may have had contact with Ebola patient Thomas Duncan, but “we are not monitoring any animals at this time,” said Dr. David Lakey, commissioner of the Texas Department of State Health Services.

David Cameron to Hold Emergency Ebola Talks

Posted on October 8, 2014 by Staff Reporter

Prime Minister David Cameron will hold an emergency Cobra committee meeting Wednesday on how to coordinate the country’s response to the Ebola outbreak after Britain pledged troops to help combat the virus in West Africa.

Dozens of British military personnel are due to fly to Sierra Leone next week to help build medical facilities to tackle the epidemic, the Ministry of Defence said Tuesday.

The Department of Health said there were no plans to introduce entry screening in Britain for Ebola, after the United States said it planned to increase checks at airports.

In a statement, the prime minister’s office said Cameron had spoken to President Ernest Bai Koroma of Sierra Leone to discuss the situation.

“The president said the situation continued to be very serious and they were increasing their response, with a need to train more medical staff, have a better system for servicing treatment centres and improve the burial process,” the statement said.

“The prime minister said the UK would continue to do all it could to support their efforts.”

Around 100 British troops are expected to travel to Sierra Leone to provide assistance, including building a 12-bed treatment unit.

“The Ebola virus represents a global threat to public health and we will not stand idly by,” Britain’s minister for the armed forces Mark Francois said as he visited troops preparing for their mission at a training facility at Strensall barracks, York.

There are already about 40 military personnel in Sierra Leone.

Britain has pledged to provide infrastructure for 700 beds and training for medical staff.

Spanish Nurse First to Contract Ebola Outside Africa

Posted on October 7, 2014 by Staff Reporter

A Spanish nurse has contracted Ebola after treating two patients who died from the disease at a Madrid hospital, the government said Monday, in the first known case of transmission outside of Africa.

The 40-year-old began to feel ill on September 30 but did not go to hospital until Sunday, complaining of a fever.

Two tests have now confirmed that she has been infected with the deadly virus that has killed more than 3,400 people in west Africa.

Spanish health officials are scrambling to find out who she may have come into contact with, and are monitoring 30 people — including her co-workers and husband — closely for symptoms of the deadly disease.

The woman was part of a medical team at Madrid’s La Paz-Carlos III hospital that treated two elderly Spanish missionaries who died of Ebola shortly after they were repatriated from Africa.

She had gone on holiday the day after the second patient died on September 25, Madrid’s primary healthcare director, Antonio Alemany, said at a news conference, without specifying where she had travelled to.

The nurse, who is married without children, is now being treated in isolation at a hospital in Alcorcon, a southern Madrid suburb.

She is in a stable condition although still running a fever, Alemany added.

5th American with Ebola going to U.S. for Treatment

Posted on October 6, 2014 by Staff Reporter

American photojournalist who contracted Ebola while working in West Africa began his journey home for treatment Sunday, while a man who recently arrived in Dallas from Liberia remained in critical condition with the disease.

Ashoka Mukpo, 33, will be the second Ebola patient to be treated at the Nebraska Medical Center’s specialized isolation unit.

Mukpo was working as a freelance cameraman for NBC News in Liberia when he became ill last week. NBC reported Sunday evening that Mukpo had started his journey to the U.S. for treatment and that he would arrive Monday morning. Mukpo’s family said Friday he would be treated in Omaha. Hospital officials said they expected an Ebola patient to arrive Monday, but declined to provide a name.

Mukpo’s father, Dr. Mitchell Levy, told NBC Sunday that his son was “counting the minutes” until he could leave Liberia but that he was not feeling that ill Sunday.

Liberia says may Prosecute Man who Flew to U.S. with Ebola

Posted on October 3, 2014 by Staff Reporter

Liberia could prosecute a national who flew to the United States and was diagnosed with the Ebola for making a false statement on travel documents, the head of the West African nation’s airport authority said on Thursday.

Binyah Kesselly said the Liberian patient, Thomas Eric Duncan, was asked in a questionnaire as he left Monrovia airport if he had come in contact with any Ebola victim or was showing symptoms of the disease and he had replied ‘no’.

“I raised the question with the justice minister if we can prosecute people for knowingly making false declaration on forms where you willingly, knowingly and mortally put people’s lives at risk … She is of the opinion that we can,” said Kesselly.

“We hope he has a speedy recovery. We wait his arrival in Liberia: we will be open to prosecution. Knowingly making a false declaration is not a joke,” Kesselly said.

The Liberian government said Duncan failed to declare that he helped neighbor Marthalene Williams after she fell critically ill on Sept. 15. Duncan tried to arrange for a car to take her to a hospital, but failed.

“He took her on a wheelbarrow and sought help from a friend and called his office for assistance to take her to a health facility,” Information Minister Lewis Brown told the news conference. “But we know that she passed away in the wheelbarrow while en route to the health center.”

Duncan fell sick a few days after arriving in the United States and sought treatment at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital last week but was sent home even though he told a nurse he had recently arrived from West Africa.

By Sunday, he needed an ambulance to return to the same hospital, where he was admitted and tested positive for Ebola.

Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf told Canadian Broadcasting Corp. on Thursday that she was angry with Duncan for what he had done, especially given how much the United States was doing to help tackle the crisis.

“The fact that he knew (he might be a carrier) and he left the country is unpardonable, quite frankly.”

Sirleaf said she wanted Duncan to be sent back to Liberia once he had been treated “and then we will have to deal with him”. She did not give details.

He was the second Liberian to carry Ebola to another country by air travel after Patrick Sawyer took the virus to Nigeria in July. Eight people died from that outbreak in Africa’s most populous nation.

However, Kesselly said that while Sawyer was already showing signs of Ebola when he left Liberia — and knew therefore that he was placing other travelers at risk — Duncan had no symptoms when he boarded his flight.

Scores Possibly Exposed to U.S. Ebola Patient; Four Isolated

Posted on October 2, 2014 by Staff Reporter

More than 80 people had direct or indirect contact with the first person to be diagnosed with the deadly Ebola virus in the United States, health officials said Thursday, as 4 members of the patient’s family were quarantined as a precaution.

Dallas County officials said 12 to 18 people had direct contact with the Texas patient, and they in turn had contact with scores of others. All were being monitored and none had shown any symptoms.

A top health official urged U.S. hospitals to heed lessons from Dallas, where a hospital initially sent the ailing patient home, despite information that he had recently visited West Africa, potentially exposing more people to the virus.

Texas health officials told four “close” relatives of the patient not to entertain visitors and said they could be arrested if they leave their homes without permission through Oct. 19. The four did not exhibit symptoms, they said.

“We have tried and true protocols to protect the public and stop the spread of this disease,” said Dr. David Lakey, the Texas health commissioner. “This order gives us the ability to monitor the situation in the most meticulous way.”

“The order is in place until the incubation period has passed and the family is no longer at risk of having the disease,” Lakey said.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases said, “Unfortunately, that did not happen in this case… We just need to put that behind us and look ahead and make sure that in the future that doesn’t happen again.”

“This will certainly serve for the rest of a country as a cogent lesson learned,” he added in an interview on MSNBC.

Australia lifts Ebola Donation to $16 Million

Posted on October 2, 2014 by Staff Reporter

Australia more than doubled its donation to the fight against Ebola in West Africa to 18 million Australian dollars ($16 million) on Thursday, but resisted demands to send personnel.

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said an additional AU$10 million had been provided in response to a United Nations’ appeal for $50 million to meet needs over the next month.

“The government has assessed that, at this stage, financial contributions are the best and most efficient way Australia can make a rapid contribution to the global response and support front line health services in the affected countries,” Bishop said in a statement.

The Doctors Without Borders aid group and the Australian opposition party have called on the government to send a medical team to assist in a worsening doctor shortage in West Africa where the worst-ever outbreak of Ebola has killed more than 3,300 people.

But Bishop said Australia does not have the capacity to evacuate any Australian who became infected with the viral disease. The government would not send Australians unless they could be safely evacuated.

She told parliament on Wednesday that Australia did not have a plane suitable for evacuating an Ebola patient. Even if Australia did, the 30-hour flight from West Africa would be too long for effective medical treatment.

Australia was asking other governments if it could use their aircraft to evacuate an Australian Ebola patient to a hospital closer to West Africa, she said.

Ebola Almost Over in Nigeria: U.S

Posted on October 1, 2014 by Staff Reporter

US health officials said Tuesday, that the Ebola outbreak in Nigeria is almost over.

The virus’s incubation period is 21 days and after two of these periods have passed without any new cases, officials can declare an outbreak over.

Therefore, since there have been no new cases in Nigeria since August 31, the country should be able to announce a formal end to its outbreak on October 12, a spokesman for the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told AFP.

Meanwhile, the last three people monitored due to potential exposure to an Ebola patient will end their 21 days of follow-up for signs of symptoms later this week.

“The last three patient contacts will exit their 21-day follow-up on October 2 — strongly suggesting the outbreak in Nigeria has been contained,” the CDC said in a statement.

First Ebola Case Diagnosed in U. S.

Posted on October 1, 2014 by Staff Reporter

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

Air France Flies to Ebola-hit Guinea out of ‘Solidarity’: Hollande

Posted on September 30, 2014 by Staff Reporter

President Francois Hollande said Monday as he hosted a visit by Guinea’s President Alpha Conde, that Air France is maintaining its flights to Ebola-hit Guinea as a sign of France’s “solidarity”.

International help needed to be ramped up for Guinea and other west African nations struggling with the deadly epidemic, which has killed more than 3,000 people since the start of the year, the French leader said. At the same time, those countries suffering “should not be isolated and should remain open,” he said. “That is why Air France continues to work” by maintaining flights to Guinea’s capital Conakry, Hollande said.

Air France, however, in August suspended its services to neighbouring Sierra Leone, which is also beset by the virus. Other airlines, including British Airways, have also halted flights to Ebola-struck parts of west Africa.

Hollande assured Conde of France’s “total solidarity” as Guinea grapples with the disease. Ebola has infected 1,074 people and killed 648 in Guinea.

He said his government has allocated 35 million euros ($44 million) and would soon establish a third Ebola clinic with the dispatch of another 25 French doctors to help Guinea battle the epidemic.

UN Mission to Fight Ebola Opens Hdqtrs in Ghana

Posted on September 30, 2014 by Staff Reporter

The U.N. mission to fight Ebola opened headquarters on Monday in Ghana, where it will coordinate international aid to assist West Africa to combat the accelerating crisis.

In back-to-back speeches at the United Nations on Monday, the foreign ministers of Liberia and Sierra Leone described the terrible toll Ebola has taken on their efforts to lift their people from poverty and recover from civil wars and pleaded with the international community to continue to sending much-needed aid.

“Only when the number of available beds surpasses the number of cases can we say Ebola is under control,” Sierra Leone’s Foreign Minister Samura Kamara told the General Assembly. “This is a fight for all of us; we must prove that humanity will be equal to this new challenge to our collective existence.”

In the face of such desperate calls, many promises of aid have poured in recently, and some of it has begun to arrive. France promised on Monday to set up another field hospital in Guinea and to send 25 more doctors. But some say the response is still too slow and haphazard.

The United Nations Mission for Ebola Emergency Response, also known as UNMEER, is now tasked with figuring out where the greatest needs are and making sure aid gets there, said Christy Feig, director of communications for WHO, which will play a significant role in the mission. The head of the mission, Anthony Banbury, and his team arrived Monday in Ghana’s capital of Accra.

Sierra Leone Expands Ebola Quarantine to More Districts

Posted on September 25, 2014 by Staff Reporter

In the bid to contain the Ebola outbreak, the Sierra Loenian Government is expanding Ebola quarantine to more districts. Recently, the Government of Sierra Leone was considering yet another 3 days lockdown, after the recorded success of the initial 3 days lockdown.

Sierra Leone’s President Ernest Bai Koroma has now widened a quarantine to include three more districts in an attempt to curb the spread of Ebola. Port Loko and Bombali in the north and Moyamba in the south are to be sealed off immediately.

Sierra Leone may Observe Another 3 Days Lockdown

Posted on September 23, 2014 by Staff Reporter

Sierra Leone is considering another nationwide lockdown to slow the spread of Ebola, after a largely successful one in which teams visited more than 1 million households to hand out information on the disease and check for sick people, the president said Tuesday.

President Ernest Bai Koroma said on local radio Tuesday that he was “mainly satisfied with the whole process, as it has helped reaching more homes and bringing to the fore many sick people and corpses.”

Authorities are expected to give tallies later in the day. Koroma said it would be up to the task force coordinating the Ebola response to recommend another lockdown, and, if it did, he would consider repeating the exercise.

The three-day lockdown is believed to be the most dramatic disease-control measure taken since the plague was sweeping Europe in the Middle Ages.

Ebola Drug Trials to Begin in West Africa by UK Scientists

Posted on September 23, 2014 by Staff Reporter

Scientists in London on Tuesday unveiled plans to push ahead with clinical trials of prototype Ebola treatments in West Africa for the first time, possibly from November.

Wellcome Trust, a British biomedical research charity, which is funding the effort with a Â£3.2 million grant ($5.2 million, 4.1 million euros) said, “Ebola treatments are to be tested in West Africa for the first time.”

The charity said there had been some experiments with treatments already “but none has yet been tested for efficacy and safety in humans with Ebola” and scientists underlined that months of cautious work lay ahead.

David Heymann, Professor of Infectious Disease Epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine suggested that plasmapheresis, where serum is taken from survivors and their antibodies given to patients, could be a valuable tool in the battle to contain the epidemic.

“This would be a sustainable method of providing support to patients if it were effective, but unfortunately it has never been tested in a clinical setting, even though it has been used ad hoc many times,” he said at a press conference at Wellcome’s headquarters in London.

Heymann said that they hoped to collect enough serum for trials to begin once suitable sites had been identified.

Sally Davies, the Chief Medical Officer for England, said that William Pooley, the British nurse who recovered after contracting the disease in Sierra Leone, had volunteered his blood plasma.

Pooley was treated with ZMapp, and clinical tests of this experimental drug, along with anti-viral drugs, will also begin once possible sites for the trials in the affected countries have been established.

Health workers must also set up infrastructure and recruit personnel, pending WHO recommendations on which products to test first.

The first tests could take place “by November”, according to Peter Horby, Senior Clinical Research Fellow at Oxford University.

Wellcome added that the initiative, whose partners include the World Health Organisation (WHO), would aim to “fast-track trials of the most promising drugs”, but warned that it would take several months before any treatments bore fruit, and that they would only succeed as part of a wide raft of initiatives to combat the disease.

Several pharmaceutical companies are taking part in the tests, and will provide key data on safety and production abilities.

Nigeria & Senegal Contained Ebola Outbreak says WHO

Posted on September 22, 2014 by Staff Reporter

Two out of the five countries affected by the world’s worst ever Ebola outbreak are managing to halt the spread of the disease, the World Health Organization said on Monday, although the overall death toll rose to 2,793 out of 5,762 cases.

“On the whole, the outbreaks in Senegal and Nigeria are pretty much contained,” a WHO statement said. There were no new deaths in Guinea, four in Sierra Leone and 39 in Liberia.

A separate Ebola outbreak has killed 40 people in Democratic Republic of Congo, where there have been 71 cases, it said in a statement on the situation as of Sept. 18.

Here are some simple visually animated campaign graphics released by UNICEF to help fight the misinformation of the Ebola.

3 Days Ebola Curfew in Sierra Leone Successful?

Posted on September 22, 2014 by Staff Reporter

Sierra Leonian authorities have declared the three days lock down bid to contain Ebola outbreak successful.

Authorities also said that the curfew which ended Sunday GMT will not be extended.

Under the 3 days lock down plan, no one was allowed to leave their homes except volunteers who moved from door-to-door, educating people on the deadly virus.

More than 75% of the targeted 1.5 million households were contacted, according to the Health Ministry.

“The EOC (Emergency Operations Center) has officially ended the three day stay at home, but the Social Mobilization exercise will continue in those communities that have been identified as hot spots across the country,” it said in a statement.

Sierra Leone has been one of the countries worst affected by the outbreaks, with more than 550 victims among the 2,600 deaths so far recorded.

Obama to Intensify Response to Ebola

Posted on September 16, 2014 by Staff Reporter

U.S. officials have said that the United States will ramp up its response to the Ebola crisis in West Africa with plans to build 17 treatment centers, train thousands of healthcare workers, and establish a military control center for coordination.

Senior administration officials said the plan will be unveiled by President BarackObama on Tuesday.

The president will visit the U.S. Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta on Tuesday to show his commitment to the issue. The stepped-up effort he will announce is to include some 3,000 military forces and a joint forces command center in Monrovia, Liberia to coordinate efforts with the U.S. government and other international partners.

A senior administration official said on Monday that, the plan will “ensure that the entire international response effort is more effective and helps to scale up to turn the tide in this crisis”, adding that, “the significant expansion that the President will detail … really represents a set of areas where the U.S. military will bring unique capabilities that we believe will improve the effectiveness of the entire global response.”

The treatment centers will have 100 beds each and be built as soon as possible, an official said.

Officials also add that the U.S. plan also focuses on training. A site will be established where military medical personnel will teach some 500 healthcare workers per week for six months or more how to provide care to Ebola patients.

Obama’s administration has requested an additional $88 million from Congress to fight Ebola, including $58 million to speed production of the ZMapp experimental antiviral drug and two Ebola vaccine candidates. Officials said the Department of Defense had requested to reallocate $500 million in funds from fiscal 2014 to help cover the costs of the humanitarian mission.

British Recovered Ebola Patient to Return to Africa

Posted on September 12, 2014 by Staff Reporter

The first Briton to contract Ebola, William Pooley, 29, is planning to return to Sierra Leone, where he was infected in order to help fight the disease. He was treated in London after being flown out of Sierra Leone, when he was diagnosed with Ebola.

Care worker Pooley was “impatient” to return and that it was likely he was now immune to the deadly illness. He said, “I’m quite impatient to get back doing what I know needs to done,” adding that,”I feel like I’ve left things undone, having left prematurely. And I know there’s a lot of work to do out there, and we need to get out there and do it.”

$50 Million Pledge Against Ebola by Gates Foundation

Posted on September 11, 2014 by Staff Reporter

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced Wednesday, that it will donate $50 million to help fight the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.

The foundation says the money will be used to enable international aid organizations and national governments “to purchase badly needed supplies and scale up emergency operations in affected countries.”

It will also “work with public and private sector partners to accelerate the development of therapies, vaccines, and diagnostics that could be effective in treating patients and preventing further transmission of the disease.”

Ebola: Sierra Leone Plans 3Days Nationwide Lockdown

Posted on September 8, 2014 by Staff Reporter

Sierra Leone plans a three-day nationwide lockdown in an effort to fight the Ebola outbreak that has killed hundreds.

This implies that people will not be allowed to leave their homes for three days under the plan, set to start September 19. The lockdown is being billed as a predominantly social campaign rather than a medical one, in which volunteers will go door-to-door to talk to people.

Alhaji Alpha Kanu, Sierra Leone’s minister of information and communication said, “We believe this the best way for now to identify those who are sick and remove them from those who are well.”

Medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) however says that a proposed nation-wide lockdown in Sierra Leone will not help control the spread of the Ebola virus.

MSF said on Saturday that, “It has been our experience that lockdowns and quarantines do not help control Ebola as they end up driving people underground and jeopardizing the trust between people and health providers.”

Israel Test Nigerian Visitor for Ebola

Posted on September 5, 2014 by Staff Reporter

An Israeli hospital said it was testing a Nigerian visitor for possible Ebola on Friday after admitting her for a fever.

Shaarei Zedek, a spokeswoman for the Medical Centre in Jerusalem said the Nigerian, a health worker in her native country, had arrived Israel several days ago and the hospital admitted her on Friday with a fever,putting her in isolation.

She said, “It is possible that she is suffering from another viral complaint, but we are taking every precaution while we determine whether this could be Ebola.” She also added that by Saturday, the test results might be ready.

Meanwhile the Israel’s Health Ministry said it is keeping a close track on the case.

Ebola: 7 Deaths & 18 Cases in Nigeria

Posted on September 4, 2014 by Staff Reporter

Nigeria now has 18 Ebola cases, after a fourth case was found in Port Harcourt, the health minister said on Wednesday.

The Port Harcourt carrier skipped quarantine and traveled to Port Harcourt, bringing the disease there. A doctor died in the oil city last week. Health Minister Onyebuchi Chukwu said a patient he had treated had also now died.A total of 255 people were under surveillance in Port Harcourt, while 41 were in Lagos.

Meanwhile, the World Health Organization has said on Wednesday, that more than 1,900 people have died with a total of more than 3,500 people have been infected by the Ebola virus in Liberia, Guinea, Sierra Leone and Nigeria since the first documented cases in December.

Sweden Suspects Ebola…

Posted on August 31, 2014 by Staff Reporter

The Swedish capital Stockholm has reported a suspected case of Ebola.

A local official said, “So far it’s just a suspected case,” without giving any more details.

The suspected carrier fell ill after visiting an area known to be hit by the virus and is now being held in isolation, as reported on the website of the Svenska Dagbladet newspaper .

Quoting Aake Oertsqvist, a specialist in infection control responsible for the Stockholm area, the risk of an Ebola outbreak in Sweden was “very low”.

He adds that, “The virus is not airborne, but is spread among humans through direct or indirect contact via blood and other fluids.”

Rumours of Ebola in Abuja!!!

Posted on August 31, 2014 by Staff Reporter

The Ebola scare which hovered the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) a couple of weeks back, seems to be engaging on a come back.

Mouths have been meddling about the possibility of an Ebola virus carrier in Abuja. Sources say that the suspected carrier attended a conference in NICON Luxury Hotel, here in Abuja and must have established contacts with other people. Residents of Abuja are already experiencing another round of the Ebola scare, aside the earlier scare which featured the unfortunate viral messages that prescribed salt for bathing and drinking as a preventive measure.

Health authorities have also encouraged people to educate themselves about the Ebola virus, and have informed people about the possibility of surviving the disease. People have been also encouraged to beef up personal hygiene and avoid unnecessary body contact.
Click below to find out more on Ebola facts and preventive measures.
EBOLA FACTS!!!

Ebola- Sierra Leone Fires Health Minister

Posted on August 30, 2014 by Staff Reporter

Killing over 400 people in West Africa, the Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone lands Sierra Leonian health minister, Miatta Kargbo in big trouble.

The minister was fired on Friday because of her inability to manage the Ebola epidemic in Sierra Leone.

Ernest Bai Koroma, the Sierra Leonian President, dismissed his Health Minister Miatta Kargbo over her handling of the disease within the country’s region.

According to a released presidential statement confirming reasons behind her removal from office which was done “to create a conducive environment for efficient and effective handling of the Ebola outbreak”. Kargbo will also be replaced by her deputy Dr Abubakarr Fofanah.

Ebola Confirmed in Senegal

Posted on August 30, 2014 by Staff Reporter

Despite closing boarders by banning Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone in the bid to halt the spread of Ebola, Senegal reports its first Ebola case.

Senegal’s health minister, Awa Marie Coll- Seck informed reporters on Friday that an infected man coming from Guinea came into Senegal with the virus and was quarantined immediately.

The young Guinean is a student who wanted treatment at a hospital in Dakar but however did not reveal the nature of his illness to the hospital staff. This angered residents in Dakar.

The Ebola outbreak, which began in Guinea, has killed more than 1,500 people across the region, and at least 3,000 people have been infected with the virus.

Hence, regarding the spread of Ebola from one country to another, do you think it is wrong to seek for medical help from another country?

WHO Releases First Roadmap Situation Report on Ebola

Posted on August 29, 2014 by Staff Reporter

WHO releases the first series of regular updates on the Ebola Response Roadmap. The update contains a
review of the epidemiological situation and response monitoring. The data contained in the report is based on the best information currently available.

Countries recorded with widespread and intense transmission include (Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone); while those with an initial case or cases, or with localized transmission (Nigeria); and those sharing land borders with areas of active
transmission (Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Senegal) and those with
international transportation hubs.

In brief summary, the report provides this detailed information:

“The total number of probable, confirmed and suspect cases in the current outbreak of Ebola virus disease (EVD) in West Africa is 3052, with 1546 deaths. Countries affected are Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone. The figure below shows the number of cases by country that have been
reported between the beginning of January 2014 (epidemiological week 1) and 25 August 2014
(epidemiological week 34).”

Click below and view the roadmap situation report on Ebola

WHO: Ebola Response Roadmap Situation Report 1

New Ebola Strain Penetrates Congo Democratic Republic

Posted on August 25, 2014 by Staff Reporter

Health Minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Felix Numbi confirms that the Ebola outbreak in the Equateur province has a seemingly different strain of Ebola to that of West Africa. Revealing that the disease in the Equateur province has killed 13 already including health workers, was found in an isolated area.

This is reportedly the first case of Ebola outside West Africa, and Dr. Numbi said that a quarantine area has is being set up to manage the outbreak.

Congo has been hit by Ebola outbreaks seven times before, but the two deaths are the first ones in recent times.

A total of 1,427 people have died from the virus so far, while an estimation of 2,615 people have been infected with Ebola since March in West Africa.