Photo Credit: AFP
By Warner Todd Huston.
After Tuesday’s Ebola update news conference in New York, confusion reigned on the “six” patients reportedly being treated for possible Ebola infections in the Big Apple. Breitbart News has learned that the confusion stems from there not being six potential Ebola cases in New York– it seems that the CDC was talking about six patients nationwide, meaning the scare has spread across the country.
In a report on Tuesday, CNN’s Sanjay Gupta cited the CDC saying that there were six patients being watched for the deadly virus. From there news agencies across the country reported that there were six just in New York. Gupta did not specify New York, though, and it seems that his words were misconstrued by subsequent reports.
A few hours after the conference, New York’s Mt. Sinai corrected the record in a press release, saying that contrary to recent reports, “there is only one patient currently at Mount Sinai being tested for the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD).”
Sources in the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene confirmed that there was only one patient in New York City who was isolated for fear of the virus.
Read more from this story HERE.
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Ebola outbreak could be much worse than thought
By CBS.
The worst outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus in history could actually be much worse than the official death toll reflects. Already, the World Health Organization says 887 people have died, but a top doctor working at the heart of the outbreak in West Africa says many cases are going unreported.
The senior doctor, who works for a leading medical organization in Liberia, explained to CBS News’ Debora Patta that what has helped set this outbreak apart from previous ones is the virus’ spread in urban areas.
One of the epicenters of the disease is the Liberian capital of Monrovia, home to about a million people, or almost a quarter of the country’s population.
The doctor, who spoke to CBS News on condition of confidentiality, said the disease is spinning out of control in Africa partly because it is extremely difficult to contain it in a sprawling, congested city center.
Meanwhile, the second American missionary infected with the virus was on her way back to the U.S. aboard a private jet Tuesday morning. Nancy Writebol was expected to reach the isolation unit at the Emory University Hospital later in the day. Her colleague, Dr. Kent Brantly, is already there. Both have been given an experimental serum to try and treat the disease, and hopes have been expressed over limited improvements in their condition.
Read more from this story HERE.
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What you haven’t been told: American Ebola victims are the subjects of a science experiment
By The Extinction Protocol.
In the absence of official confirmation about how the two American patients with Ebola are being treated, rumor and speculation filled the void. First were the reports that the blood serum of a teenage Ebola survivor may have saved Dr. Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol, who contacted the deadly disease in Liberia while working with the Christian aid organization Samaritan’s Purse. The latest news centers around an experimental “secret serum” called ZMapp. Already, CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta has proclaimed that the medicine “appears to have worked.” Sadly, Dr. Gupta seems to be over-promising. Here’s why. Treating Ebola with the blood of a survivor: The science behind the first alleged treatment — using the blood serum of a survivor to cure those who are suffering — is the subject of controversy in the Ebola research community, said Dr. Thomas Geisbert, a professor of microbiology and immunology at the University of Texas Medical Branch. “Back in 1995 during the large outbreak of Ebola Zaire virus in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, there were reports that convalescent serum was used from people who survived Ebola to treat people who were infected,” he said. A small case series report about the treatment involving eight patients was published in the Journal of Infectious Diseases. Only one of the eight people died- a fatality rate much lower than the then-outbreak, which killed some 80 percent of those infected.
Unfortunately, however, the serum theory was not confirmed by later studies. “When we tested that hypothesis in a lab, and took convalescent blood from animals who survived and gave it to Ebola-infected animals, they all died,” said Dr. Geisbert. “There was the belief that most of those patients treated were in the process of recovering anyway.” Yesterday, the “secret serum” called ZMapp emerged as the primary treatment of the Americans. This is an antibody therapy developed by several stakeholders — Mapp Biopharmaceutical, Inc. and LeafBio in San Diego, Defyrus Inc. from Toronto, the U.S. government and the Public Health Agency of Canada — to treat Ebola. It’s made up of a cocktail of monoclonal antibodies, which are just lab-produced molecules that mimic the body’s immune response. To create these molecules, scientists gave mice Ebola proteins and watched the animals’ immune systems respond. After identifying the antibodies that fought off the disease in mice, they created almost identical antibodies from plants for use in humans. The idea is that, when given to Ebola-infected people, the drug will boost their immune system so that they too can eliminate the virus. But this drug has never undergone testing in people, only monkeys. The data on the efficacy of ZMapp in monkeys has never even been published.
Read more from this story HERE.
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Liberian horrors: Ebola victims bodies dumped in the street, wells poisoned to kill off population
By The Extinction Protocol.
Relatives of Ebola victims in Liberia defied government orders and dumped infected bodies in the streets as West African governments struggled to enforce tough measures to curb an outbreak of the virus that has killed 887 people. In Nigeria, which recorded its first death from Ebola in late July, authorities in Lagos said eight people who came in contact with the deceased U.S. citizen Patrick Sawyer were showing signs of the deadly disease. The outbreak was detected in March in the remote forest regions of Guinea, where the death toll is rising. In neighboring Sierra Leone and Liberia, where the outbreak is now spreading fastest, authorities deployed troops to quarantine the border areas where 70 percent of cases have been detected. Those three countries announced a raft of tough measures last week to contain the disease, shutting schools and imposing quarantines on victim’s homes, amid fears the incurable virus would overrun healthcare systems in one of the world’s poorest regions. In Liberia’s ramshackle ocean-front capital Monrovia, still scarred by a 1989-2003 civil war, relatives of Ebola victims were dragging bodies onto the dirt streets rather than face quarantine, officials said. Information Minister Lewis Brown said some people may be alarmed by regulations imposing the decontamination of victims’ homes and the tracking of their friends and relatives. With less than half of those infected surviving the disease, many Africans regard Ebola isolation wards as death traps.
“They are therefore removing the bodies from their homes and are putting them out in the street. They’re exposing themselves to the risk of being contaminated,” Brown told Reuters. “We’re asking people to please leave the bodies in their homes and we’ll pick them up.” Brown said authorities had begun cremating bodies on Sunday, after local communities opposed burials in their neighborhoods, and had carried out 12 cremations on Monday. Meanwhile, in the border region of Lofa County, troops were deployed on Monday night to start isolating effected communities there. “We hope it will not require excessive force, but we have to do whatever we can to restrict the movement of people out of affected areas,” Brown said. Finance minister Amara Konneh said the country’s growth forecast for the year was no longer looking realistic as a result of the outbreak…
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A Homeland Security employee has been arrested in connection with a sting that alleges he used a Craigslist ad in an effort to get a mother and an underage daughter to have sex with him.
