zerohedge
Spain Warns "Something Went Wrong" As Suspected Ebola Cases Rise In Madrid http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-10-07/spain-warns-something-went-wrong-suspected-ebola-cases-rise-madrid …
Nurse in Spain contracts Ebola, raising global concern: http://abcn.ws/1y0Fu4U
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-10-06/doctor-who-discovered-ebola-1976-fears-unimaginable-tragedy
Doctor Who Discovered Ebola In 1976 Fears "Unimaginable Tragedy"
"In 1976 I discovered Ebola - now I fear an unimaginable tragedy" - Peter Piot was a researcher at a lab in Antwerp when a pilot brought him a blood sample from a Belgian nun who had fallen mysteriously ill in Zaire. Now, the Director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine warns, "around June it became clear to me there was something different about this outbreak. I began to get really worried."
...
After Yambuku, you spent the next 30 years of your professional life devoted to combating Aids. But now Ebola has caught up to you again. American scientists fear that hundreds of thousands of people could ultimately become infected. Was such an epidemic to be expected?
No, not at all. On the contrary, I always thought that Ebola, in comparison to Aids or malaria, didn't present much of a problem because the outbreaks were always brief and local. Around June it became clear to me that there was something fundamentally different about this outbreak. At about the same time, the aid organisation Médecins Sans Frontières sounded the alarm. We Flemish tend to be rather unemotional, but it was at that point that I began to get really worried.
Why did WHO react so late?
On the one hand, it was because their African regional office isn't staffed with the most capable people but with political appointees. And the headquarters in Geneva suffered large budget cuts that had been agreed to by member states. The department for haemorrhagic fever and the one responsible for the management of epidemic emergencies were hit hard. But since August WHO has regained a leadership role.
There is actually a well-established procedure for curtailing Ebola outbreaks: isolating those infected and closely monitoring those who had contact with them. How could a catastrophe such as the one we are now seeing even happen?
I think it is what people call a perfect storm: when every individual circumstance is a bit worse than normal and they then combine to create a disaster.And with this epidemic there were many factors that were disadvantageous from the very beginning. Some of the countries involved were just emerging from terrible civil wars, many of their doctors had fled and their healthcare systems had collapsed. In all of Liberia, for example, there were only 51 doctors in 2010, and many of them have since died of Ebola.
The fact that the outbreak began in the densely populated border region between Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia ...
… also contributed to the catastrophe. Because the people there are extremely mobile, it was much more difficult than usual to track down those who had had contact with the infected people. Because the dead in this region are traditionally buried in the towns and villages they were born in, there were highly contagious Ebola corpses travelling back and forth across the borders in pickups and taxis. The result was that the epidemic kept flaring up in different places.
For the first time in its history, the virus also reached metropolises such as Monrovia and Freetown. Is that the worst thing that can happen?
In large cities – particularly in chaotic slums – it is virtually impossible to find those who had contact with patients, no matter how great the effort. That is why I am so worried about Nigeria as well. The country is home to mega-cities like Lagos and Port Harcourt, and if the Ebola virus lodges there and begins to spread, it would be an unimaginable catastrophe.
Have we completely lost control of the epidemic?
I have always been an optimist and I think that we now have no other choice than to try everything, really everything. It's good that the United States and some other countries are finally beginning to help. But Germany or even Belgium, for example, must do a lot more. And it should be clear to all of us: This isn't just an epidemic any more. This is a humanitarian catastrophe. We don't just need care personnel, but also logistics experts, trucks, jeeps and foodstuffs. Such an epidemic can destabilise entire regions. I can only hope that we will be able to get it under control. I really never thought that it could get this bad.
What can really be done in a situation when anyone can become infected on the streets and, like in Monrovia, even the taxis are contaminated?
We urgently need to come up with new strategies. Currently, helpers are no longer able to care for all the patients in treatment centres. So caregivers need to teach family members who are providing care to patients how to protect themselves from infection to the extent possible. This on-site educational work is currently the greatest challenge. Sierra Leone experimented with a three-day curfew in an attempt to at least flatten out the infection curve a bit. At first I thought: "That is totally crazy." But now I wonder, "why not?" At least, as long as these measures aren't imposed with military power.
A three-day curfew sounds a bit desperate.
Yes, it is rather medieval. But what can you do? Even in 2014, we hardly have any way to combat this virus.
Do you think we might be facing the beginnings of a pandemic?
There will certainly be Ebola patients from Africa who come to us in the hopes of receiving treatment. And they might even infect a few people here who may then die. But an outbreak in Europe or North America would quickly be brought under control. I am more worried about the many people from India who work in trade or industry in west Africa. It would only take one of them to become infected, travel to India to visit relatives during the virus's incubation period, and then, once he becomes sick, go to a public hospital there. Doctors and nurses in India, too, often don't wear protective gloves. They would immediately become infected and spread the virus.
The virus is continually changing its genetic makeup. The more people who become infected, the greater the chance becomes that it will mutate ...
... which might speed its spread. Yes, that really is the apocalyptic scenario. Humans are actually just an accidental host for the virus, and not a good one. From the perspective of a virus, it isn't desirable for its host, within which the pathogen hopes to multiply, to die so quickly. It would be much better for the virus to allow us to stay alive longer.
Could the virus suddenly change itself such that it could be spread through the air?
Like measles, you mean? Luckily that is extremely unlikely. But a mutation that would allow Ebola patients to live a couple of weeks longer is certainly possible and would be advantageous for the virus. But that would allow Ebola patients to infect many, many more people than is currently the case.
But that is just speculation, isn't it?
Certainly. But it is just one of many possible ways the virus could change to spread itself more easily. And it is clear that the virus is mutating.
You and two colleagues wrote a piece for the Wall Street Journal supporting the testing of experimental drugs. Do you think that could be the solution?
Patients could probably be treated most quickly with blood serum from Ebola survivors, even if that would likely be extremely difficult given the chaotic local conditions. We need to find out now if these methods, or if experimental drugs like ZMapp, really help. But we should definitely not rely entirely on new treatments. For most people, they will come too late in this epidemic. But if they help, they should be made available for the next outbreak.
Testing of two vaccines is also beginning. It will take a while, of course, but could it be that only a vaccine can stop the epidemic?
I hope that's not the case. But who knows? Maybe.
In Zaire during that first outbreak, a hospital with poor hygiene was responsible for spreading the illness. Today almost the same thing is happening. Was Louis Pasteur right when he said: "It is the microbes who will have the last word"?
Of course, we are a long way away from declaring victory over bacteria and viruses. HIV is still here; in London alone, five gay men become infected daily. An increasing number of bacteria are becoming resistant to antibiotics. And I can still see the Ebola patients in Yambuku, how they died in their shacks and we couldn't do anything except let them die. In principle, it's still the same today. That is very depressing. But it also provides me with a strong motivation to do something. I love life.That is why I am doing everything I can to convince the powerful in this world to finally send sufficient help to west Africa. Now!
* * *
And that's the scientist that discovered this monstrous virus!!
RIA Novosti.....
Obama Announces Toughening of Passenger Screening Over Ebola Outbreak
Topic: Ebola Outbreak in West Africa
US President Barack Obama announces the toughened security measures on transport in order to prevent the entry of possible Ebola virus carriers to the United States.
© REUTERS/ Larry Downing
02:24 07/10/2014
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WASHINGTON, October 7 (RIA Novosti) - USPresident Barack Obama has announced toughened security measures on transport in order to prevent the entry of possible Ebola virus carriers to the United States.
"We're also going to be working on protocols to do additional passenger screening, both at the source and here in the United States," Obama said Monday after meeting with top US health and security officials.
The US President stressed, though, that the virus is extremely unlikely to spread over the country.
Earlier, the White House spokesperson Josh Earnest said Washington was not considering issuing a travel ban on the Ebola-hit West African nations.
Last week, a Liberian national was diagnosed with Ebola in Texas, after traveling from his homeland to visit relatives in the United States. Also, several Americans have been diagnosed with the disease in West African countries and treated on the US territory.
The current Ebola epidemic broke out in Guinea, and spread across Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, and Senegal. According to the latest estimates by the World Health Organization, almost 3,500 cases of Ebola infection were lethal.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-10-06/new-york-times-some-may-carry-ebola-without-showing-any-symptoms
New York Times: Some May Carry Ebola Without Showing Any Symptoms
The New York Times reported in 2000:
The Ebola virus, which has caused deaths from high fever and bleeding in African outbreaks, can also infect without producing illness, according to a new finding by African and European scientists.The possibility of asymptomatic infection was only suggested in earlier studies, they said in last week’s issue of The Lancet, a medical journal published in London. Now they said they had documented such infections for the first time. They found that the Ebola virus could persist in the blood of asymptomatic infected individuals for two weeks after they were first exposed to an infected individual. How much longer the virus can persist is unknown.***If people can be carriers without showing symptoms, it means control might be more difficult.“This degree of containment would be virtually impossible if symptom-free carriers posed a significant threat of infection,” Dr. Alan G. Baxter of Newtown, Australia, wrote in an editorial in the same issue of The Lancet.***An immediate effect is to raise the need to reassess health policy about one of the most virulent viruses known and to determine how often healthy carriers transmit it, said the scientific team headed by Dr. E. M. Leroy of Franceville, Gabon.***Dr. Leroy’s team studied 25 individuals who never developed symptoms although they lived with family members and cared for them without using gloves and other precautions in two outbreaks in Gabon in 1996.Using standard virologic techniques, the scientists from Gabon, Germany and France said they could not detect the virus in the blood of the healthy contacts. But Dr. Leroy’s succeeded by using a technique known as polymerase chain reaction to grow the tiny amount of virus present.
Here is the study published in Lancet. And here is the editor’s comment.
The Lancet study does not warn of an apocalyptic scenario where any casual contact could cause infection. It is more focused on contagion through sex or blood transfusions.
But Western governments and scientists have repeatedly said that Ebola carriers can only infect others if they are showing symptoms. So they need to adjust their strategies to account for potential contagion from people who aren’t showing any symptoms.
Aerosol Transmission
Two national experts on infectious disease transmission – both professors in the School of Public Health, Division of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, at the University of Illinois at Chicago – report that Ebola can be transmitted by aerosols … i.e. fluids mixed with air (footnotes omitted):
We believe there is scientific and epidemiologic evidence that Ebola virus has the potential to be transmitted via infectious aerosol particles both near and at a distance from infected patients, which means that healthcare workers should be wearing respirators, not facemasks. [Aerosols are liquids or small particles suspended in air. An example is sea spray: seawater suspended in air bubbles, created by the force of the surf mixing water with air.]
The important points are that virus-laden bodily fluids may be aerosolized and inhaled while a person is in proximity to an infectious person and that a wide range of particle sizes can be inhaled and deposited throughout the respiratory tract.***Being at first skeptical that Ebola virus could be an aerosol-transmissible disease, we are now persuaded by a review of experimental and epidemiologic data that this might be an important feature of disease transmission, particularly in healthcare settings.***Many body fluids, such as vomit, diarrhea, blood, and saliva, are capable of creating inhalable aerosol particles in the immediate vicinity of an infected person. Cough was identified among some cases in a 1995 outbreak in Kikwit, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and coughs are known to emit viruses in respirable particles. The act of vomiting produces an aerosol and has been implicated in airborne transmission of gastrointestinal viruses. Regarding diarrhea, even when contained by toilets, toilet flushing emits a pathogen-laden aerosol that disperses in the air.***There is also some experimental evidence that Ebolaand other filoviruses can be transmitted by the aerosol route. Jaax et alreported the unexpected death of two rhesus monkeys housed approximately 3 meters from monkeys infected with Ebola virus, concluding that respiratory or eye exposure to aerosols was the only possible explanation.Zaire Ebola viruses have also been transmitted in the absence of direct contact among pigsand from pigs to non-human primates, which experienced lung involvement in infection. Persons with no known direct contact with Ebola virus disease patients or their bodily fluids have become infected.***Experimental studies have demonstrated that it is possible to infect non-human primates and other mammals with filovirus aerosols. [Ebola is a type of filovirus]Altogether, these epidemiologic and experimental data offer enough evidence to suggest that Ebola and other filoviruses may be opportunistic with respect to aerosol transmission. That is, other routes of entry may be more important and probable, but, given the right conditions, it is possible that transmission could also occur via aerosols.
In other words, these two infectious disease experts believe that Ebola is already – in its current form – transmissible via aerosols. They therefore urge all doctors and nurses working with Ebola patients to wear respirators.
We need to understand how Ebola is really spread, and then take appropriate counter-measures.
Ebola Is Mutating
In addition, Ebola is mutating. The discoverer of the disease (Dr. Peter Piot) said last week:
It is clear that the virus is mutating.
Indeed, top doctors say that - unless contained - it could eventually mutate to become airborne.
And the Washington Post notes that terrorists could use Ebola as a bio-weapon. The longer the outbreak rages, the more likely such a scenario becomes.
We Need a World War 2, Marshall Plan or Moon Landing Level Effort to Stop This
According to American nurses, the U.S. healthcare system is woefully unprepared to handle Ebola. Even the best Ebola tests can give false negatives, meaning that people with Ebola can be released into the community.
We need an effort on the scale of World War 2, the Marshall Plan or the moon shot to prepare, contain and eradicate this modern plague.
Postscript to anti-statists who don't think the gov can do anything helpful: Please let us know a free market solution. If you have a good one, I will shout it from the rooftops.
http://www.infowars.com/emergency-manager-calls-federal-ebola-response-a-stand-down/
EMERGENCY MANAGER CALLS FEDERAL EBOLA RESPONSE A STAND DOWN
Feds are avoiding their own disease protocols, says emergency responder
Image Credits: Newport Geographic (Background), Vinicius Munhoz (Symbol)
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The numerous violations of disease protocol surrounding the Dallas, Texas Ebola case are intentional, according to an emergency response manager.
The manager, who was involved in the emergency response to both Hurricane Katrina and Rita in addition to planning for small pox outbreaks, said the official response to the first diagnosed case of Ebola in the United States purposely avoided the basic actions the government would take to prevent a virus from spreading.
“The reason I know the Ebola outbreak is being conducted on purpose is because it violates all protocol,” he said.
The violations of protocol are almost too numerous to mention. For one thing, government officials were slow to decontaminate the apartment of Thomas Eric Duncan, the 40-year-old Liberian national who was the first diagnosed case of Ebola in the U.S.
Before the apartment was sanitized, however, five Dallas Co. sheriff’s deputies were ordered to enter the unit without protective gear to remove Duncan’s family members who were placed under quarantine.
Dallas Co. Sheriff’s Association President Christopher Dyer said the deputies were uncomfortable with the order.
“They’re very concerned,” Dyer said to WFAA 8. ”Their families are concerned. You’ve got to go home and tell your spouse, ‘Hey, I was just inside this house where a guy had Ebola.’”
The workers who were ordered to clean the sidewalk where Duncan vomited were also not wearing protective clothing, despite the fact that Ebola spreads through bodily fluids.
And, like Duncan’s apartment, officials were slow to decontaminate the ambulance which transported Duncan to the hospital, meaning that the homeless man who was transported in the ambulance after Duncan was potentially exposed to the disease.
The Obama administration also refused to ban travelers from Ebola-stricken African nations from entering the U.S., which allowed Duncan to fly to Dallas.
“The fact that [Ebola] being allowed to travel into the United States is insane and the fact that emergency operations have not been activated is insane and this is on purpose and by design,” the emergency response manager stated. “There are many competent people in the CDC, the military and emergency management officers who need to blow the whistle.”
“They’re being ordered to stand down from the top.”
A former CIA officer, Robert David Steele, warned of an Ebola false flag a few weeks before Duncan’s diagnosis.
http://www.infowars.com/cnn-reporter-returning-from-liberia-horrified-by-airport-screening/
CNN REPORTER RETURNING FROM LIBERIA ‘HORRIFIED’ BY LACK OF AIRPORT EBOLA SCREENING
"I expected that they were going to take my temperature... ask me lots of questions, but they didn't"
01890A CNN reporter returning from Liberia says she was “shocked” by the complete lack of screening at the Atlanta airport.
Speaking with HLN’s Robin Meade, CNN senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen revealed the horrifying incident in detail.
“I expected that they were going to take my temperature, they were going to ask me lots of questions, but they didn’t,” Cohen said.
Troubled by the lack of questioning, Cohen revealed her role as a journalist covering the Ebola outbreak, assuming an enhanced screening would then take place.
“I said, ‘I’m a journalist, I’ve come back from Liberia, I was covering Ebola,’ and the gentleman who was helping me, the officer, he started to hand my passport back and say, ‘welcome home,’” Cohen said. “But instead he said, ‘oh wait a second, I got an email about passengers like you, hold on a second,’ and he went and conferred with someone and he didn’t know and they conferred with someone else and in the end he said, ‘you need to watch yourself for signs of Ebola,’ and I said ‘well what am I watching for?’ and he couldn’t tell me.”
Incredibly, Cohen went on to reveal that two of her co-workers received no screening at all, even after admitting they had just returned from Liberia.
“Now is if that weren’t bad enough Robin, I was traveling with two colleagues, a photojournalist and a producer, and they weren’t told anything and they also said that they were journalists who’ve been covering Ebola,” Cohen said. “So we were all kind of shocked and pretty horrified at the lack of screening in US airports…”
Despite the federal government’s claims, the incident provides yet another glaring example of the complete disregard for public safety.
Just last week, five employees with the Dallas County Sheriff’s Department were thrown into harm’s way after being ordered to enter Thomas Eric Duncan’s quarantined apartment without any protective gear.
That same day, Texas health officials, who admittedly delayed a proper Hazmat cleaning of Duncan’s apartment for several days, used an unprotected cleaning crew to pressure wash Duncan’s vomit from the sidewalk.
Meanwhile, as the scientists who discovered Ebola warn of an “apocalyptic scenario,” the federal government continues to ignore the need for stopping all incoming flights from Ebola-affected nations.
Tweets.......
Top news story
CNN
These are the recorded #Ebola cases worldwide. Here are details of Spain's 1st known case: http://cnn.it/1utKufz
Why did Tex. hospital send Ebola victim home on 1st visit to ER? Decision raises questions about protocols nationwide http://www.dallasnews.com/ebola/headlines/20141003-hospital-cites-flaw-in-use-of-electronic-records.ece …
Firestone Tire Company Keeps Ebola Under Control When Liberian Government Can't http://reason.com/blog/2014/10/06/private-company-keeps-ebola-under-contro?n_play=54332ff1e4b04b15480f12ab … via @reason
excoriating piece by MSF's Brett Adamson on Oz govt's inaction on ebola http://www.smh.com.au/comment/complacency-a-worse-enemy-than-the-ebola-virus-20141002-10p5xn.html …
101st Airborne headed to Liberia to fight Ebola, build treatment centers | The Rundown | PBS NewsHour http://buff.ly/1s6dXvJ
Truman Dale Banton
‘Ebola jihad’: How terrorists could sicken thousands http://po.st/1OkPsF via @worldnetdaily
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