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Ebola in the Air? A Nightmare that Could Happen

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Photo Credit: CNNBy Elizabeth Cohen.

Today, the Ebola virus spreads only through direct contact with bodily fluids, such as blood and vomit. But some of the nation’s top infectious disease experts worry that this deadly virus could mutate and be transmitted just by a cough or a sneeze.

“It’s the single greatest concern I’ve ever had in my 40-year public health career,” said Dr. Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. “I can’t imagine anything in my career — and this includes HIV — that would be more devastating to the world than a respiratory transmissible Ebola virus.”

The World Health Organization says its scientists are unaware of any virus that has dramatically changed its mode of transmission.

“For example, the H5N1 avian influenza virus… has probably circulated through many billions of birds for at least two decades. Its mode of transmission remains basically unchanged. Speculation that Ebola virus disease might mutate into a form that could easily spread among humans through the air is just that: speculation, unsubstantiated by any evidence.”

Osterholm and other experts couldn’t think of another virus that has made the transition from non-airborne to airborne in humans. They say the chances are relatively small that Ebola will make that jump. But as the virus spreads, they warned, the likelihood increases.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Government Has Failed In Its Job To Protect Americans From Ebola

By Phyllis Schlafly.

Americans against amnesty are not only worried about unemployed Mexicans crossing our southern border illegally to take U.S. jobs.

More than ever, we need the fence that Congress voted for and President George W. Bush made a television photo event when he signed it into law.

Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., said that at least 10 ISIS thugs have crossed our southern border. Hunter added, if we caught 10, “you know there are going to be dozens more that did not get caught by the Border Patrol.”

Rep. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., says the Islamic State, ISIS, is actively working with Mexican drug cartels to infiltrate and eventually attack Americans.

ISIS has told us it wants to extend a caliphate over America, so why is anybody surprised that they are doing what they said they wanted to do?

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: AP / Brandon WadeABOUT 70 HOSPITAL STAFFERS CARED FOR EBOLA PATIENT

BY MARTHA MENDOZA.

They drew his blood, put tubes down his throat and wiped up his diarrhea. They analyzed his urine and wiped saliva from his lips, even after he had lost consciousness.

About 70 staff members at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital were involved in the care of Thomas Eric Duncan after he was hospitalized, including a nurse now being treated for the same Ebola virus that killed the Liberian man who was visiting Dallas, according to medical records his family provided to The Associated Press.

The size of the medical team reflects the hospital’s intense effort to save Duncan’s life, but it also suggests that many other people could have been exposed to the virus during Duncan’s time in an isolation unit.

On Monday, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the infection of the nurse means the agency must broaden the pool of people getting close monitoring. Authorities have said they do not know how the nurse was infected, but they suspect some kind of breach in the hospital’s protocol.

The medical records given to the AP offer clues, both to what happened and who was involved, but the hospital said the CDC does not have them.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: FacebookTexas nurse fighting Ebola receives blood transfusion from survivor Dr Kent Brantly – who also matched blood types with two others struck by the deadly virus in the U.S.

By Nick Fagge and Mia De Graaf.

The Texan nurse diagnosed with Ebola has received a blood transfusion from survivor Dr Kent Brantly, reports claim.

It is the third time Dr Brantly has donated blood to Ebola victims after medics discovered he had the same blood type as previous patient Dr Nick Sacra and NBC cameraman Ashoka Mukpo, who is still being treated.

Incredibly, nurse Nina Pham, 26, has also matched with Brantly and today received a transfusion of his blood in a move that doctors believe could save her life.

Pham has been in quarantine since Friday after catching the disease from ‘patient zero’ Thomas Eric Duncan – the man who brought the deadly virus to America.

Brantly is believed to have traveled to Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, where Pham worked, to make the donation on Sunday night.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: RicochetThe Centers for Disease Control Loses Its Grip

By Paul A. Rahe.

I have lived long enough, now, to have seen it again and again. Something goes badly wrong involving a corporation, a university, a religious denomination, or a branch of government, and the executive in charge or a designated minion goes before the press to engage in what is euphemistically called “damage control.” The spokesman does not level with the public. He or she tries to be reassuring and — more often than not — by lying, succeeds in undermining confidence in the institution he or she represents.

This is what is now going on with the Centers for Disease Control. In recent years, this well-respected outfit has branched out, opining in a politically correct manner on one issue after another outside its proper remit. Now it is faced with a matter absolutely central to its responsibilities — actual disease control — and it flips and flops and flounders because the ultimate boss, the President of the United States, cannot bring himself to put limits on contacts between Americans and the citizens of the countries in Africa where there is an Ebola epidemic.

There is only one way to prevent the spread of an epidemic, and that is quarantine. No medical professional with any sense would suggest that we should admit individuals from Liberia to the United States at this time, and no medical professional worth his or her salt would say that we can test for the disease when the prospective visitor arrives at Immigration and Passport Control. Like most diseases, Ebola has an incubation period. Early on, there are no symptoms: none at all. There is no reliable way to tell whether those arriving at our ports of entry have contracted the disease or not. If we do not want it coming here, for a time, we have to keep everyone out who has been in that neck of the woods.

And what are we told by the authorities? That cutting off contact would contribute to the spread of the epidemic. “Just how?” we are entitled to ask. But no explanation is given because, of course, there is none. We were also told that the disease would not come here. And, when it did come here, we were told that it could easily be contained. And, when it was not contained and a medical professional wearing all the proper gear came down with the disease, we were told that he did not follow the protocol.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: ZeeNewsWHO calls Ebola modern world’s worst health crisis

Manila: The World Health Organisation says the Ebola outbreak in West Africa is “the most severe, acute health emergency seen in modern times” but adds that economic disruptions can be curbed if people are adequately informed to avoid irrational moves to dodge infection.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: NolaState attorney general wants to stop ashes of Ebola victim’s belongings from being brought to Louisiana

By Diana Samuels.

Louisiana Attorney General Buddy Caldwell said late Sunday that he will seek a temporary restraining order to stop the incinerated belongings of Dallas Ebola victim Thomas Eric Duncan from being brought to a Louisiana landfill.

However, there is no evidence that this would spread the dreaded disease.

The items include linens, carpets and bedding from Duncan’s apartment. Six truckloads of the “potential Ebola-contaminated material” were burned at a facility in Port Arthur, Texas, on Friday, Caldwell said in a statement.

The ashes are planned to be brought to a hazardous-waste landfill in Louisiana, but Caldwell is trying to stop that from happening.

Read more from this story HERE.

Michael Savage: 'If You Like Your Ebola, You Can Keep Your Ebola'

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Dr. Michael Savage explained in an interview on Saturday that the U.S has sunk to the level of the Soviet Union in the 1950s, where government-controlled science and a government-controlled press were a way of life.

“There are no more independent voices that we know are in medicine or science anymore,” the conservative radio icon told Breitbart News Editor-in-Chief Alexander Marlow on Breitbart News Saturday on Sirius XM Patriot, channel 125.

Marlow introduced Savage as being on the front lines, along with the Drudge Report and Breitbart News, in alerting the nation about the threat of Ebola at home. The radio broadcasting giant just finished his thirtieth book, which he promises will be his last non-fiction work, called Stop the Coming Civil War: My Savage Truth.

Savage, not known for pulling his punches, came out swinging in the interview, stating that he holds Obama responsible for intensifying the Enterovirus D-68 epidemic in the U.S. with “his unaccompanied minors from Guatemala, Nicaragua, and El Salvador, where the virus is endemic.” Now that American children are getting D-68, which Savage referred to as a mystery virus, “Not a public health official in the entire nation will even ask the question: could it be related to them,” he says.

Savage, a PhD from the University of California who studied epidemiology as well as botany and nutrition, has been studying epidemics for a long time and insists that the Obama administration has violated “every rule of science, medicine, public health, and epidemiology.” He said passionately, “What Obama is doing is a crime against humanity. There is no other way around this, it is all lies.”

Read more from this story HERE.

2nd Ebola Case Emerges, Obama's 'Action Plan?': Play 200th Round of Golf

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Photo Credit: AFPAfter hearing the news shortly after midnight early Sunday morning that a second Ebola case had been diagnosed in a Texas Presbyterian Hospital nurse, Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings stayed up through the night putting together an action plan.

In contrast, President Barack Obama’s response is being criticized as not adequately prioritizing the crisis. As Fox News Channel’s Greta Van Susteren tweeted, Obama made a phone call to Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell and then “headed out to play golf.” CBS White House correspondent Mark Knoller had posted that the press corps had been escorted to vans in the presidential motorcade to go to the golf course, but then were led back to the White House for a photo opp of Obama on the phone with Burwell that “lasted only 40 seconds.” Knoller tweeted several photos of Obama wearing a casual windbreaker, sitting at his desk in the Oval Office while speaking on the phone.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: Louis DeLuca / The Dallas Morning NewsHealth care worker at Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas tests positive for Ebola

By MELISSA REPKO and SHERRY JACOBSON.

A Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital health care worker in Dallas who had “extensive contact” with the first Ebola patient to die in the United States has contracted the disease.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta confirmed the news Sunday afternoon after an official test.

The infected person detected a fever Friday night and drove herself to the Presbyterian emergency room, where she was placed in isolation 90 minutes later. A blood sample sent to the state health lab in Austin confirmed Saturday night that she had Ebola — the first person to contract the disease in the United States.

The director for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Sunday that the infection in the health care worker, who was not on the organization’s watch list for people who had contact with Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan, resulted from a “breach in protocol.”

“We have spoken with the health care worker,” who cannot “identify the specific breach” that allowed the infection to spread, said CDC director Dr. Tom Frieden. The CDC has sent additional staff members to Dallas to “assist with the response,” he said.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: David Tulis U.S. lacks a single standard for Ebola response

By Larry Copeland.

As Thomas Eric Duncan’s family mourns the USA’s first Ebola death in Dallas, one question reverberates over a series of apparent missteps in the case: Who is in charge of the response to Ebola?

The answer seems to be — there really isn’t one person or agency. There is not a single national response.

The Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has emerged as the standard-bearer — and sometimes the scapegoat — on Ebola.

Public health is the purview of the states, and as the nation anticipates more Ebola cases, some experts say the way the United States handles public health is not up to the challenge.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: AP / Brandon WadeCDC: PROTOCOL BREACH IN TREATING EBOLA PATIENT

BY CAROLE FELDMAN.

As Thomas Eric Duncan’s family mourns the USA’s first Ebola death in Dallas, one question reverberates over a series of apparent missteps in the case: Who is in charge of the response to Ebola?

The answer seems to be — there really isn’t one person or agency. There is not a single national response.

The Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has emerged as the standard-bearer — and sometimes the scapegoat — on Ebola.

Public health is the purview of the states, and as the nation anticipates more Ebola cases, some experts say the way the United States handles public health is not up to the challenge.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: REUTERS / Harrison McClaryU.S. military faces new kind of threat with Ebola

By Phil Stewart.

At Fort Campbell in Kentucky, spouses of U.S. soldiers headed to Liberia seem to be lingering just a bit longer than usual after pre-deployment briefings, hungry for information about Ebola.

For these families, the virus is raising a different kind of anxiety than the one they have weathered during 13 years of ground war in Afghanistan and Iraq. They want to know how the military can keep soldiers safe from the epidemic, a new addition to the Army’s long list of threats.

“Ebola is a different problem set that the division hasn’t (faced) before,” said Major General Gary Volesky, who will soon head to Liberia along with soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division.

There are already more than 350 U.S. troops on the ground in West Africa, mostly in Liberia, including a handful from the 101st. That number is set to grow exponentially in the coming weeks as the military races to expand Liberia’s infrastructure so it can battle Ebola.

Read more from this story HERE.

Ebola at Sea? US Coast Guard Began Monitoring Threat in Summer

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Photo Credit: A2012Ebola at sea is a frightening prospect, and one the U.S. Coast Guard began considering as early as August, long before the federal government proposed new airport screening measures.

An Aug. 7 Coast Guard bulletin obtained by FoxNews.com warned the maritime industry to be on the lookout for sailors from West African nations who showed signs of being infected with the deadly virus. And although there have been no known cases of crew members aboard the thriving ocean trade from the region having Ebola, protocols for dealing with it aboard ships and at ports have been put in place.

The August bulletin, entitled “Ebola Virus Precautions,” advised ship owners and operators and others in the maritime industry that:

*Ship representatives are required to report sick or dead crew and passengers within the last 15 days to the CDC.

*Vessel masters must inform any boarding teams from the Coast Guard of any ill crew members on board.

Read more from this story HERE.

WHO Admits Sneezing Could Transmit Ebola

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Photo Credit: WNDIn a largely overlooked media advisory email, the World Health Organization admitted there are some circumstances in which the current strain of Ebola in West Africa can be transmitted through coughing or sneezing.

“Theoretically, wet and bigger droplets from a heavily infected individual, who has respiratory symptoms caused by other conditions or who vomits violently, could transmit the virus – over a short distance – to another nearby person,” the United Nations agency said Monday.

“This could happen when virus-laden heavy droplets are directly propelled, by coughing or sneezing (which does not mean airborne transmission) onto the mucus membranes or skin with cuts or abrasions of another person.”

The WHO advisory said saliva and tears “may also carry some risk.”

“However, the studies implicating these additional bodily fluids were extremely limited in sample size and the science is inconclusive. In studies of saliva, the virus was found most frequently in patients at a severe stage of illness.”

Read more from this story HERE.

General: If Ebola Reaches Central America, 'There Will Be Mass Migration into the U.S.'

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By Jeryl Bier.

Those looking for good news on the fight against Ebola will not find much encouragement from Marine Corps Gen. John F. Kelly, the commander of the U.S. Southern Command. As Jim Garamone of Department of Defense News reports, Kelly told an audience at the National Defense University in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday that, if the disease reaches Central America, “it’s literally, ‘Katie bar the door,’ and there will be mass migration into the United States.” He also said with certainty that “there is no way we can keep Ebola [contained] in West Africa.”

“By the end of the year, there’s supposed to be 1.4 million people infected with Ebola and 62 percent of them dying, according to the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention]…”

“So, much like West Africa, it will rage for a period of time,” Kelly said.

This is particularly possible scenario if the disease gets to Haiti or Central America, he said. If the disease gets to countries like Guatemala, Honduras or El Salvador, it will cause a panic and people will flee the region, the general said.

“If it breaks out, it’s literally, ‘Katie bar the door,’ and there will be mass migration into the United States,” Kelly said. “They will run away from Ebola, or if they suspect they are infected, they will try to get to the United States for treatment.”

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: AP / Wilmot ChayeeEBOLA PATIENT’S DEATH RENEWS QUESTIONS ABOUT CARE

BY NOMAAN MERCHANT AND JOSH FUNK.

The death of the first Ebola patient diagnosed in the United States renewed questions about his medical care and whether Thomas Eric Duncan’s life could have been extended or saved if the Texas hospital where he first sought help had taken him in sooner.

Duncan died in Dallas on Wednesday, a little more than a week after his illness exposed gaps in the nation’s defenses against the disease and set off a scramble to track down anyone exposed to him.

The 42-year-old Liberian man had been kept in isolation since Sept. 28 at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, where a fevered Duncan first showed up days earlier and told the staff he had been in West Africa. Doctors initially sent him home. He returned after his condition worsened.

Dr. Phil Smith is the director of the biocontainment center at the Nebraska Medical Center, where an NBC News freelance cameraman is being treated for Ebola. He said getting early treatment is key to survival.

When a patient reaches the point of needing dialysis and respiratory help, as Duncan did this week, there may be little doctors can do.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Hospital bill for Ebola grows at $1,000 an hour in Dallas case

By Alex Wayne.

Caring for Thomas Eric Duncan, the Dallas Ebola patient, may cost as much as $500,000, a bill that his hospital is unlikely to ever collect.

Duncan is in critical condition at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas, where he has been isolated since Sept. 28. He’s on a ventilator, has been given an experimental medicine and is receiving kidney dialysis, a hospital spokeswoman said Tuesday. His treatment probably includes fluids replacement, blood transfusions and drugs to maintain blood pressure. There’s also the cost of security, disposing of Ebola-contaminated trash and equipment to protect caregivers.

The bill may eventually total $500,000 including indirect costs such as the disruption to other areas of hospital care, said Dan Mendelson, chief executive officer of Avalere Health, a Washington consulting firm. Duncan’s care probably costs $18,000 to $24,000 a day, said Gerard Anderson, a health policy professor at Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Duncan has been in isolation in the hospital for nine days so far. “If they recognize that he has no money they will clearly just write it off as charity care,” Anderson said in a telephone interview.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Vaccine may be only way to bring Ebola under control in West Africa

By Helen Branswell.

As West Africa’s Ebola outbreak continues to rage, some experts are coming to the conclusion that it may take large amounts of vaccines and maybe even drugs – all still experimental and in short supply – to bring the outbreak under control.

Embedded in that notion is the reality that the catastrophic epidemic may remain unchecked for months, given that these products haven’t yet been proven to be safe or effective in people, and won’t be available in significant amounts any time soon. Experimental Ebola drugs in particular will remain in scarce supply for a considerable time.

“It is conceivable that this epidemic will not turn around even if we pour resources into it. It may just keep going and going and it might require a vaccine,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told The Canadian Press in an interview.

“As the epidemic gets more and more formidable and in some cases out of control it is quite conceivable, if not likely, that we may need to deploy the vaccine to the entire country to be able to shut the epidemic down. That is clearly a possibility.”

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: Reuters / Fabian BimmerEbola spread ‘unavoidable’ in Europe due to extensive travel – WHO

By RT.

The spread of Ebola in Europe is “unavoidable”, the World Health Organization said shortly after the contraction of four new cases was announced in Spain.

“Such imported cases and similar events as have happened in Spain will happen also in the future, most likely,” the WHO European director Zsuzsanna Jakab told Reuters.

On Monday scientists predicted that there was a 75 percent chance that Ebola would reach France by the end October and a 50 percent chance for the UK.

The most dangerous contributor to the spread is the behavior of the virus. Its symptoms catch people unawares and normally follow a 21-day incubation period, during which there’s literally no visible sign the person has contracted Ebola.

Read more from this story HERE.

Ebola Spread 'Bigger than Expected' – WHO

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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.”

Read more from this story HERE.

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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.

Read more from this story HERE.

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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.

Read more from this story HERE.

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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.

Read more from this story HERE.
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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.

Read more from this story HERE.

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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.

Read more from this story HERE.

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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.

Read more from this story HERE.

150 People Enter U.S. Per Day from Ebola-Stricken Countries–or 4,500 Per Month

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Photo Credit: APBy Susan Jones.

Both Homeland Security Secretary Secretary Jeh Johnson and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Tom Frieden said on Wednesday that 150 people a day arrive in the United States from Liberia, Sierra Leone or Guinea, the three West African countries that have been hit by the Ebola virus.

“When somebody travels from one of those three West African countries, even through a transit point (in Europe), we know where they’re coming from. So we’re able to track this. And we know that on average it’s about 150 passengers a day,” Johnson told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.

“The number of travelers is relatively small. We’re talking about 150 per day,” Frieden told a news conference on Wednesday. He announced that questionnaires and temperature checks will begin at five major U.S. airports that handle “95 percent of all the 150 travelers per day who arrive from these three countries.”

One hundred-fifty passengers a day from West Africa works out to more than a thousand a week (1,050), 4,500 a month, and 54,750 a year.

Given the 21-day incubation period for Ebola and the 150 people coming in each day, that means that at any given time there could be 21 x 150 people in the U.S. who could be asymptomatically incubating Ebola, and who are free to wander around the country.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Obama: You Can’t Get Ebola ‘Sitting Next to Someone on a Bus;’ CDC: ‘Avoid Public Transportation’

By Brittany M. Hughes.

Speaking in a video message to residents of West African countries currently experiencing outbreaks of Ebola, President Barack Obama dispensed advice on how residents can avoid the disease, including:”You cannot get it through casual contact like sitting next to someone on a bus.”

At the same time, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is advising Americans who travel to the Ebola-stricken nations to “avoid public transportation.”

“First, Ebola is not spread through the air like the flu,” Obama said in the video released by the White House Thursday. “You cannot get it through casual contact like sitting next to someone one a bus. You cannot get it from another person until they start showing symptoms of the disease, like fever.”

Obama also said that “the most common way you can get Ebola is by touching the body fluids of someone who is sick or has died from it, like their sweat, saliva or blood, or through a contaminated item like a needle.”

The CDC, however, is advising aid workers and others who travel to countries currently experiencing Ebola outbreaks to “avoid public transportation” if they develop a fever or experience other Ebola-like symptoms while on their trip.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Ebola Could Be ‘World’s Next AIDS,’ CDC Director Warns

By MEGHAN KENEALLY.

Ebola is spreading with such speed that it could become a global pandemic to rival AIDS if action isn’t taken now, one of the U.S.’s top health officials has warned.

“In the 30 years I’ve been working public health, the only thing like this has been AIDS, and we have to work now so that this is not the world’s next AIDS,” Dr. Tom Frieden, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Wednesday.

Frieden spoke at a conference at the World Bank in Washington D.C. Those in attendance included a group of African leaders from countries where the virus has spread.

“Speed is the most important variable here,” Frieden said. “This is controllable and this was preventable. It’s preventable by investing in core public health services, both in the epicenter of the most affected countries, in the surrounding countries, and in other countries that might be affected.”


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BP AGENT: NOTHING DONE TO SECURE BORDER FROM EBOLA, APPREHENSIONS AT 30%

By BREITBART TV.

Border Patrol Agent and National Border Patrol Council #3307 Vice President Chris Cabrera said that “nothing” has been done to secure the border in the event the Ebola virus spreads to Central America, and that the apprehension rate on the border was down to about 30% on Thursday’s “Your World with Neil Cavuto” on the Fox News Channel.

Cabrera said, “I agree with that 100 percent,” when asked whether he agreed with Marine Corps General John Kelly that there would be a “mass migration” to the US if the Ebola virus spread to Central America.

Then when asked if any steps had been taken to secure the border if such a migration occurred, he stated, “You know, actually, nothing has.”

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: Premium TimesEbola: Another UN staff tests positive

By Premium Times.

The UN Secretary-General’s spokesperson, Stephane DuJarric, on Wednesday, confirmed that an international member of staff who works for UN Mission in Liberia, UNMIL, tested positive for Ebola Virus Disease, EVD.

Mr. DuJarric confirmed this while briefing UN Correspondents on Wednesday in New York.

He said “this is the second case of Ebola in the mission.

“An earlier probable case resulted in the death of a staff member on September 25.

“The Mission has, therefore, taken all the necessary measures to prevent possible further transmission within or outside the mission.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: Getty‘Quarantine stations coming to 5 U.S. airports

By CNN.

One person has come to the United States and come down with Ebola here.

Authorities want to keep it that way.

To that end, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Wednesday beefed-up measures at five of America’s biggest, busiest airports aimed at preventing the deadly virus’ further spread.

While talk about preventing Ebola’s spread abounds everywhere from coffee shops to TV news, this intervention won’t affect a lot of people.

It applies only to about 150 people a day, by CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden’s estimate, arriving in the United States after having recently traveled from Ebolva-ravaged West African nations of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Read more from this story HERE.

WATCH: US Airways Pulls Passenger from Plane Who Yelled ‘I Have Ebola’

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By Phyllis Stark.

As Ebola panic grips the world, a US Airways flight from Philadelphia to Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, was detained after landing Wednesday after a passenger sneezed then yelled “I have Ebola, you are all screwed.”

The 54-year-old man reportedly also screamed “I have been to Africa,” according to Gawker, which cites Dominican news site Diario Libre and Fox News as its sources.

Flight 850 was boarded by men in blue hazmat suits, who escorted the man off the plane as nearly everyone on board shot video of the incident on their mobile phones. Passengers, which included at least one baby, were reportedly kept on the plane for two hours after landing.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Comment Prompts Ebola Scare On Flight From Philadelphia

By Matt Rivers.

A single comment about Ebola from one passenger on a flight out of Philadelphia prompted a scare in the air and a dramatic response when the plane finally landed.

We want to tell you up front that no one had Ebola on the plane.

But this situation demonstrates how public health officials are trying to stay on top of the threat and how even a mention of this deadly disease is taken extremely seriously.

It all happened on a U.S. Airways flight from Philadelphia to Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic.

For those on board U.S. Air flight 845, it started normal enough. When that flight landed, a flight attendant made this announcement.

Read more from this story HERE.

Spanish Ebola Nurse Teresa Romero Ramos 'Followed All Protocols' and Has 'No Idea' How She Contracted Deadly Virus

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Photo Credit: Independent.co.ukBy James Rush.

The Spanish nurse who became the first person to contract Ebola in Europe has said she followed all protocols and does not know how she became infected with the virus.

Teresa Romero Ramos, who helped treat two Spanish missionaries who died after returning from Africa with Ebola, tested positive for the disease on Monday.

In a brief interview with Spanish newspaper El Mundo, the nurse was asked how she may have fallen ill, to which she replied: “I really can’t say, I haven’t the slightest idea.”

Asked whether she followed the safety protocol, Mrs Romero Ramos said: “Yes, I did.”

Dozens of doctors and nurses yesterday demonstrated outside La Paz Hospital, in Madrid, demanding more information about how Mrs Romero Ramos caught Ebola.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: Enterprise News And PicturesSpanish nurse reported Ebola symptoms many times before being quarantined

By Ashifa Kassam.

A Spanish nurse who was admitted to hospital in Madrid with the Ebola virus, after treating a repatriated patient who later died of the illness, had told health authorities at least three times that she had a fever before she was placed in quarantine.

Teresa Romero Ramos is the first person in the current outbreak to have caught the virus outside of west Africa.

Her first contact with health authorities was on 30 September when she complained of a slight fever and fatigue. Romero Ramos called a specialised service dedicated to occupational risk at the Carlos III hospital where she worked and had treated an Ebola patient, said Antonio Alemany from the regional government of Madrid. But as the nurse’s fever had not reached 38.6C, she was advised to visit her local clinic where she was reportedly prescribed paracetamol.

Days later, according to El País newspaper, Romero Ramos called the hospital again to complain about her fever. No action was taken.

On Monday, she called the Carlos III hospital again, this time saying she felt terrible. Rather than transport her to the hospital that had treated the two missionaries who had been repatriated with Ebola, Romero Ramos was instructed to call emergency services and head to the hospital closest to her home. She was transported to the Alcorcón hospital by paramedics who were not wearing protective gear, El País reported.

Read more from this story HERE.