Ebola Spread 'Bigger than Expected' – WHO
Fears ‘It Will Be Impossible’ to Stop Ebola Outbreak as Death Toll Climbs
By TVNZ.
The UN special envoy on Ebola says the number of cases is probably doubling every three-to-four weeks and the response needs to be 20 times greater than it was at the beginning of October to control the rapid advance of the deadly virus.
David Nabarro warned the UN General Assembly that without the mass mobilisation of virtually every country, all donor organisations and many non-governmental groups to support the affected countries in West Africa, “it will be impossible to get this disease quickly under control, and the world will have to live with the Ebola virus forever.”
Nabarro, who is the Senior United Nations System Coordinator for Ebola Virus Disease, said in his 35 years as a public health doctor dealing with many disease outbreaks and some pandemics he has never encountered a challenge like Ebola because the outbreak has moved from rural areas into towns and cities and is now “affecting a whole region and … impacting on the whole world.”
He said the United Nations, which is coordinating the global response, knows what needs to be done to catch up to and overtake Ebola’s rapid advance, “and together we’re going to do it.”
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Ebola Death Toll Rises to 4,033: World Health Organization
The number of people known to have died amid the worst Ebola outbreak on record has topped 4,000, the World Health Organization said Friday. The Geneva-based United Nations agency said the virus had killed 4,033 people out of 8,399 cases over seven months in seven countries by Oct. 8.
The death toll includes 2,316 in Liberia, 930 in Sierra Leone, 778 in Guinea, eight in Nigeria — and one in the United States. A separate Ebola outbreak in Democratic Republic of Congo has killed 43 people out of 71 cases. Thomas Eric Duncan, the first person to be diagnosed with Ebola in the United States, died Wednesday in Dallas.
Meanwhile, Samantha Power, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said Friday that Ebola infections rates are expected to climb.
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Photo Credit: Liverpool EchoFrom American airliners to British buses, number of Ebola false alarms mounts as panic grows over spread of deadly disease
By ANNABEL GROSSMAN.
Fears surrounding the spread of Ebola have led to a string of false alarms by people fearing they have caught or been exposed to the killer disease.
As the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) attempts to tackle the flood of worried Americans – with more than 800 Ebola false alarms coming in each day – a flurry of incidents have seen Hazmat officers boarding planes.
On the other side of the Atlantic, last night a Liverpool coach station found itself at the centre of an Ebola scare after a female passenger arriving from London collapsed and vomited, with others on the bus seen sprinting from the scene.
Medical staff boarded the coach in protective gear and removed the elderly woman, who is from Africa, wearing a protective garment and face mask.
The woman was taken to Royal Liverpool Hospital where doctors confirmed she did not have the disease. It is understood she was feeling feverish and also had stroke symptoms.
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Photo Credit: Liberty VoiceEbola Is Becoming a Global Pandemic: New Reported Cases Worldwide
By Janette Verdnik.
Despite several confident exclamations from officials that the Ebola pandemic is contained, there are more and more reports of possible or confirmed infections. Several nations are admitting to have Ebola-symptomatic cases or that they are bringing infected patients back from Africa for treatment. New reports of possible infections are coming from Australia, Turkey, Brazil and France. Furthermore, health officials in Germany confirmed that a 3rd infected patient arrived into the country.
Bloomberg is reporting that a nurse, Sue-Ellen Kovack, who returned from volunteering in Africa, has developed Ebola-like symptoms. Kovack treated the infected patients with the Red Cross in Sierra Leone and after she developed a low-grade fever, she was hospitalized in Australia. She is being tested for Ebola and this means that Australia now has its first potential case of the deadly disease.
Even though several people and officials say that the Nigeria’s outbreak is over, a Turkish worker has been hospitalized in Istanbul, after he started showing signs of high fever and diarrhea. The 46-year-old man, whose identity has not been revealed yet, returned from Africa 11 days ago to see his family during the Feast of the Sacrifice holiday. After a Nigerian woman was tested negative in mid-August, this is now the second case of a suspected Ebola patient in Turkey.
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Photo Credit: BBCEbola spread ‘bigger than expected’ – WHO
By BBC.
Leading global health experts did not anticipate the scale of the Ebola outbreak, a senior health official has told the BBC.
Chris Dye from the World Health Organization (WHO) said the international response was helping but needed to continue.
Ebola is now entrenched in the capitals of the worst-affected states – Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, WHO says.
The outbreak has killed more than 3,860 people, mainly in West Africa.
More than 200 health workers are among the victims.
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Officials Admit a ‘Defeat’ by Ebola in Sierra Leone
By ADAM NOSSITER.
Acknowledging a major “defeat” in the fight against Ebola, international health officials battling the epidemic in Sierra Leone approved plans on Friday to help families tend to patients at home, recognizing that they are overwhelmed and have little chance of getting enough treatment beds in place quickly to meet the surging need.
The decision signifies a significant shift in the struggle against the rampaging disease. Officials said they would begin distributing painkillers, rehydrating solution and gloves to hundreds of Ebola-afflicted households in Sierra Leone, contending that the aid arriving here was not fast or extensive enough to keep up with an outbreak that doubles in size every month or so.
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AFRICOM Clarifies: Some U.S. Military Personnel Will Be Testing Lab Samples, Not Patients, in Liberia
By Susan Jones.
General David Rodriguez, commander of the U.S. Africa Command, told a Pentagon briefing on Tuesday that as the U.S. military helps contain the outbreak of Ebola in West Africa, “the health and safety of the team supporting this mission is our priority.” But he also said a small number of Americans working in mobile testing labs could have direct contact with sick people, a comment he later corrected (see above).
“As we deploy America’s sons and daughters to support this comprehensive effort, we will do everything in our power to address and mitigate the potential risk to our service members, civilian employees, contractors, and their families.”
Rodriguez said “the majority” of the 3,000 to 4,000 U.S. military personnel will not have direct contact with Ebola patients.
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