The worst outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus in history is threatening to spread out of West Africa and affect countries further afield. The first case was reported in Guinea on March 22.
22 November 2014
Spanish authorities have granted citizenship to two African missionaries, Paciencia Melgar Ronda from Equatorial Guinea and Helena S. Wolo from Sierra Leone, who helped to save the life of Madrid-based nurse Teresa Romero.
Ronda recovered from Ebola after contracting it in Liberia, travelled to Madrid and gave her blood plasma to Romero. Wolo also donated her blood plasma to the Madrid nurse.
Doctors say Ronda’s and Wolo’s help ensured Romero’s recovery.
17 November 2014
The United States is adding Mali to the list of countries whose travelers get special Ebola screening after a number of cases in the West African nation, the government said on Sunday.
Enhanced screening will start on Monday for the 15 to 20 travelers who arrive daily from Mali, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement.
"The CDC recommended this measure because there have been a number of confirmed cases of Ebola in Mali in recent days, and a large number of individuals may have been exposed to those cases," it said. (Reuters)
16 November 2014
Russia has sent two military An-124 transport planes to Guinea to deliver field hospital equipment and medicine, a spokesman for the Defense Ministry told journalists. The cargoes are meant to help the West African country fight against the Ebola outbreak.
“There are more than 150 tons of medical and special cargo needed to deploy the hospital on board the military transport planes,” said Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov. “It includes diagnostic and triage equipment, three units for treating infectious diseases, an intensive therapy unit and special test laboratories.”
The hospital is capable of treating up to 200 patients and has resources for autonomous operation, he added.
Martin Salia, a surgeon from Sierra Leone who is critically ill with the Ebola virus, has arrived in the United States from West Africa to be treated at a Nebraska hospital, medical officials said. His condition is reportedly worse than previous patients treated for the disease in America.
The 44-year-old, who has permanent US residency, contracted the virus when he was working as a surgeon in a Freetown hospital. He was admitted to Nebraska Medical Center on Saturday.
12 November 2014
The Ebola outbreak in West Africa has now claimed 5,147 lives, the World Health Organization announced on Wednesday. According to its latest statistics, more than 400 new infections were reported in Sierra Leone during the week leading up to November 9, but the outlook in Guinea and Liberia is a little more hopeful.
"There is some evidence that case incidence is no longer increasing nationally in Guinea and Liberia, but steep increases persist in Sierra Leone," the WHO said in a statement. "Cases and deaths continue to be under-reported in this outbreak."
The vast majority of cases and fatalities have been reported in West Africa. Elsewhere around the world – in Nigeria, Senegal, Mali, Spain, and the United States – 13 deaths and 30 cases have been identified.
10 November 2014
The first person in New York City to be diagnosed with Ebola, doctor Craig Spencer will be released from Bellevue Hospital Center on Tuesday, the New York Times reported. The 33-year-old doctor’s release has not been officially confirmed, but two unnamed sources “familiar with his treatment” told the newspaper it will be happening.
First diagnosed on October 23, Spencer came to the attention of healthcare workers when he reported a fever of 100.3 degrees. When the Ebola infection was confirmed, it sparked a significant response from New York City as well as the state, with disease detectives from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention rapidly tracking down his past movements and interviewing people he came in contact with.
Once it is declared that the doctor no longer has the virus, Spencer’s release will mark the first time the United States has been Ebola-free since Liberian man Thomas Eric Duncan was diagnosed with it in late September.
02 November 2014
A UN employee who contracted Ebola while working in Sierra Leone has been evacuated to France for treatment, reports AFP. The UN worker has been placed under isolation in a high security military training hospital near Paris, where a French nurse who contracted the virus in Liberia recovered earlier this autumn. Though there have been about 500 reports of possible Ebola infections in France since June, none have tested positive. France has 12 research hospitals equipped to deal with Ebola cases.
Ebola’s toll on Sierra Leone could be much greater than previously thought, with entire villages killed off by the virus. This means up to 20,000 people could have succumbed to the disease by now, a senior coordinator for Doctors Without Borders (MSF) told AFP.
READ MORE: ‘Entire villages disappeared’: Ebola deaths in Sierra Leone ‘underreported’
01 November 2014
The Spanish government said it is concerned that terrorists of the Islamic State (formerly ISIS) could use the Ebola virus as a biological weapon against the West. A close eye is being kept on online chat rooms, where such attacks are said to be discussed among jihadist groups.
Dallas nurse Nina Pham, who has recovered from the Ebola virus, left the hospital and was finally reunited with her dog Bentley on Saturday. The dog spent the last three weeks in quarantine while being monitored for the deadly virus, until doctors determined that he was also free of the disease.
Nina Pham caught Ebola while caring for Thomas Eric Duncan, the first person to die from the disease in the US. She was sent to the National Institutes of Health in Maryland for treatment before being released on Oct. 24. Meanwhile, Bentley was isolated and cared for by Dallas Animal Services workers who petted and played with the dog while wearing protective suits. Bentley received a third negative test for Ebola on Thursday.
Oregon state health officials said a local woman is being monitored for Ebola symptoms. She has been hospitalized outside of Portland and placed in isolation after registering a sustained high temperature of 102 degrees Fahrenheit. It has not been confirmed whether the woman has Ebola, but the hospital is conducting tests to find out if the virus is present.
"The patient does have an acute illness of some kind," Dr. Paul Lewis, Tri-County health officer, told reporters. "Ebola is on a list of possibilities."
The people who were living in the same house as the patient are under a voluntary quarantine. The woman had traveled to an Ebola-affected country, though it is unclear which one.
Canada has become the second country to deny visas to foreign nationals from the three West African countries suffering Ebola outbreaks. The federal government announced on Friday it is suspending the processing of visa applications for residents and nationals who have been in the countries of Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone in the last three months, as well as permanent residence applications.
The Canadian government said in a statement it is taking "new precautionary measures to protect the health and safety of Canadians." The government said the move does not affect Canadians in West Africa helping to contain Ebola, adding that health workers will be permitted back in the country.
31 October 2014
A US judge ruled that the Maine nurse, who treated Ebola patients in West Africa, can go to public places. However, she must be actively monitored by health officials. This new ruling overrides a temporary order on Thursday that quarantined nurse Kaci Hickox.
29 October 2014
Chuck Hagel, the United States secretary of defense, said Wednesday that all American troops returning from West Africa will be kept in supervised isolation for 21 days in order to prevent the potential spread of Ebola. Persons exposed to the deadly disease may show symptoms, including fever and diarrhea, anywhere from two days to three weeks after being exposed to Ebola.
The number of people infected with Ebola has exceeded 13,700 people, according to the World Health Organization. WHO Assistant Director Bruce Aylward told a news conference on Wednesday that the institution remained "cautiously optimistic" nonetheless. "We are seeing slowing rate of new cases, very definitely," Aylward stated. The virus has killed more than 5,000 people to date.
China's capital will suggest to people returning from regions affected by Ebola to quarantine themselves at home for 21 days, and to undergo twice daily temperature checks if they have had contact with patients, state media said on Wednesday.
China has not reported any confirmed cases of the deadly virus, though several suspected cases have ended up in hospital for observation.
People returning to Beijing from Ebola-affected regions will have to undergo temperature checks at the airport and will be sent to hospital for tests if their temperature exceeds 37.3 degrees Celsius, the official Xinhua news agency reported.
Those without a fever but who have had contact with Ebola patients will have to have their temperatures checked twice a day for 21 days, it added.
People who have had no contact with Ebola patients will be recommended to quarantine themselves at home for 21 days, the report said. (Reuters)
28 October 2014
Amber Vinson, the second of two Dallas nurses who contracted the Ebola virus while treating Thomas Eric Duncan, will be released Tuesday from Atlanta's Emory University Hospital, officials said, according to Yahoo News.
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 travelled 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. (Reuters)
A potential Ebola patient has been received by the University of Maryland Medical Center, The Baltimore Sun reports.
The patient has been transferred to the hospital at the request of state health officials and was being treated in isolation, the outlet reported citing the center’s spokeswoman.
Maryland on Monday announced plans to quarantine and ban from public transit those travelling from the three top Ebola-stricken states of Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea.
MARYLAND: Possible Ebola Patient in Isolation - http://t.co/26s1tBB5LGpic.twitter.com/RKESilvQXz
— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) October 28, 2014
27 October 2014
The five-year-old boy who recently returned to New York City from Guinea has tested negative for Ebola, according to preliminary tests. Health officials, however, said the child will remain in isolation until further tests have been completed.
"Out of an abundance of caution, further negative Ebola tests are required on subsequent days to ensure that the patient is cleared," the NYC’s Health and Hospitals Corporations said in a statement to ABC News. "The patient will also be tested for common respiratory viruses. The patient will remain in isolation until all test results have returned."
Restrictions on travelers from Ebola-hit countries create difficulties for health workers, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon believes, according to his spokesman, Stephane Dujarric.
"Returning health workers are exceptional people who are giving of themselves for humanity," she said. "They should not be subjected to restrictions that are not based on science. Those who develop infections should be supported, not stigmatized."
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will release on Monday additional guidelines governing protocols for healthcare workers returning to the US after treating Ebola victims in West Africa, the White House spokesman Josh Earnest said.
US policies need to be guided by science and to not discourage volunteers from going to help in the countries hardest hit by the Ebola outbreak, he added. The comment came as several US states instituted quarantines going beyond federal guidelines for such people.
US military commanders are being given the authority to quarantine troops who have been deployed to fight Ebola in West Africa, according to a Defense Department memo seen by CNN. The memo does not say where troops would be quarantined but a US official said it may be a site in the Washington DC area. The Pentagon has authorized the deployment of 4,000 soldiers to assist in containing the Ebola outbreak and although they will not directly treat patients, they could come in contact with the virus.
Kaci Hickox, the nurse who was quarantined in New Jersey upon return to the United States from treating Ebola patients in Sierra Leone, has been given clearance by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to go home, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie announced early Monday.
Ten people who had contact with Ebola survivor Nurse Teresa Romero have been released from a Madrid hospital after 21 days under observation with no symptoms. Among those released was the nurse’s husband.
A 5 year-old boy who arrived in New York City from Guinea is being put under observation in hospital after showing possible symptoms of the Ebola virus. The child arrived in the US with a temperature of 39 Celsius, according to ABC News, though he has yet to be tested for the virus and has not been put in quarantine.
Bellevue Hospital: 5-year-old boy who returned from Guinea Saturday being observed, not tested for Ebola @GMApic.twitter.com/OdQdz0oWkE
— Josh Haskell (@joshbhaskell) October 27, 2014
A report by the New York Post said that the boy had been vomiting and had been taken from his home in the Bronx to Bellevue Hospital. New York health officials have not yet commented.
The medical staff at Bellevue Hospital are heroes—and they deserve to be treated that way. pic.twitter.com/f3I2zugOU0
— Bill de Blasio (@BilldeBlasio) October 26, 2014
A Japanese journalist thought to of have caught the Ebola virus has been quarantined in Japan as the first suspected case in the country. The man arrived at Haneda airport in Tokyo on Monday and complained to medics of having a temperature. He was sent to a hospital in the city to undergo blood tests, according to the Japan’s NHK television.
The journalist had been working for two months in Liberia, and then visited Belgium and the UK, before returning to Japan. The results of the test should be known on Tuesday.
Man who arrived at Haneda Airport this afternoon from Liberia and hot fever, he may be an Ebola virus holder, quarantine now in Shinjuku.
— 中津川 昴 (@subaru2012) October 27, 2014
On Friday, Japan took steps to make sure the virus could not enter the country. All passengers are being questioned by health officials to see if they have recently visited West Africa, while immigration control also conducts passport checks to see where travelers had been, before entering Japan.
Juan Manuel Parra Ramirez, the Spanish doctor who treated Nurse Teresa Romero, who contracted the Ebola virus, has been released from hospital. He spent 21 days in quarantine, to make sure he had not been infected, the Europa Press Agency reports.
Parra Ramirez thanked the hospital “wholeheartedly” for its support during the period. When leaving the medical facility he also said he would be happy to meet with Romero.
Nurse Romero became the first person to catch the disease outside of West Africa after she treated two priests who had contracted the virus while in Liberia and Sierra Leone.
26 October 2014
An 18-year-old girl, who immigrated to Australia from Guinea with a family of eight, is being tested for Ebola, health officials said on Sunday.
The whole family was quarantined immediately after their arrival in the state of Queensland 11 days ago. The girl developed a fever and was taken to hospital on Sunday. Her Ebola test is expected to be ready on Monday.
“There is no risk to the community at all because she hasn’t left the house or had any visitors in the time that she has been here in Brisbane,” Queensland Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young told reporters, according to AFP.
Dr. Craig Spencer who has been hospitalized in New York has entered the next phase of Ebola by showing signs of “gastrointestinal symptoms,” according to the New York City Health And Hospitals Corporation.
“The patient is awake and communicating. In addition to the required supportive therapy, we initiated antiviral therapy within hours of admission. We also administered plasma therapy yesterday. These therapies have been used at Emory and Nebraska,” the statement reads.
The US Ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power will visit the three West African nations hardest hit by the Ebola virus. She is expected to land in Guinea on Sunday before visiting Liberia and Sierra Leone.
"For me the benefits of having first hand knowledge of what is happening in these countries gravely outweighs the almost nonexistent risk of actually traveling to these countries provided I take the proper precautions," Power told reporters before departure.
25 October 2014
Kaci Hickox, a nurse who was quarantined at Newark after returning from Sierra Leone criticized the medical attention she was offered.
"I ... thought of many colleagues who will return home to America and face the same ordeal," Hickox wrote in an article published on Saturday by The Dallas Morning. "Will they be made to feel like criminals and prisoners? I am scared that, like me, they will arrive and see a frenzy of disorganization, fear and, most frightening, quarantine," she said.
The US food and drug administration FDA has authorized an “emergency use of two BioFire Defense diagnostic tests” to detect the deadly Ebola virus.
The BioFire Defense FilmArray NGDS BT-E Assay will be used by Pentagon approved laboratories designated by the Department of Defense (DoD). The other, EUA for the FilmArray Biothreat-E test “enables hospitals with laboratories that fit these characteristics to conduct a PCR test for Ebola in-house, without having to send the sample to an outside lab,” the FDA said in a statement.
The fiancé and the two friends of an Ebola patient from New York who had all been quarantined show no signs of the illness, according to the New York City mayor.
The governor of Illinois, Pat Quinn, has announced that any one deemed “high-risk”, that is anyone who has had direct contact with anyone infected with the Ebola virus, while in Liberia, Sierra Leone or Guinea will be required to go into quarantine for 21 days. The directive has been issued to every local health department in Illinois. Previously such medical personnel were subject to a voluntary quarantine.
Mauritania has closed its border with Mali, after Mali’s first case of Ebola was confirmed in the west of the country, a two-year-old girl who had just returned from Guinea. The government in Nouakchott, the Mauritanian capital, ordered all land crossings with Mali to be closed. Earlier the president of Mali, Boubacar Keita, said his country would close its border with Guinea, which has battling Ebola for months and was where the current outbreak originated.
A health worker returning from treating Ebola patients in West Africa and who was quarantined at New York’s Newark Liberty International Airport has tested negative for the disease, according to statement from the New Jersey Health Department.
The World Health Organization (WHO) reports 10,141 cases of the deadly Ebola virus have been registered through Thursday.
The death toll from the outbreak rose to almost half of all infected, with 4,922 killed by the disease, WHO says.
Eight countries have been affected, with several West African states suffering the most.
An emergency situation is developing in Mali, as the toddler girl who brought Ebola from Guinea had a nosebleed on a bus journey, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday. The two-year-old was traveling with her grandmother through several cities of the West African republic, which “presented multiple opportunities for exposures – including high-risk exposures - involving many people.” The girl died at a hospital in the western city of Kayes on Friday, according to a statement from the Health Ministry read out on television, AP reports.
Mexico has joined the World Health Organization (WHO) in an effort to combat the severe outbreak of Ebola in West Africa. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs declared on Friday that it would provide financial assistance to doctors and health workers, pledged by Cuba: "Aware that diseases know no boundaries and must be tackled in a coordinated fashion at the international level, the governments of Cuba and Mexico have decided to join forces to help fight the Ebola epidemic."
A female healthcare worker has been isolated at Newark, New Jersey’s University Hospital after she developed a fever on Friday, the state’s Department of Health has announced. The unnamed worker did not have symptoms when she landed at Newark Liberty International Airport on Friday, but officials quarantined her after she acknowledged that she was in contact with infected patients in Sierra Leone. The fever developed after she had been quarantined.
She is currently being evaluated at Newark’s University Hospital, the New Jersey Department of Health announced in a statement.
The woman originally landed in Newark, though that was not going to be her final destination – she was heading to New York.
Earlier in the day, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie announced a mandatory quarantine for those travelers who have been treating or otherwise in contact Ebola-infected patients in West Africa.
24 October 2014
US President Barack Obama hugs Nina Pham, who was declared Ebola-free, at the White House. #Photo by @saulloebpic.twitter.com/DCIhMfRwmP
— Agence France-Presse (@AFP) October 24, 2014
The US military in Texas have started the first stage of training a new Ebola rapid-response team that could be deployed to hospitals on the request of the US Department of Health and Human Services if an outbreak occurs.
The Ebola Rapid Response Team consists of 30 people and will operate from San Antonio Military Medical Center. It has five physicians, 20 nurses and five certified trainers.
"There is always a fear factor when you are dealing with this disease," Major Joseph Narvaez, a physician on the team, told Reuters. "The more we train the more confident we are."
Mali's first confirmed case of Ebola has died from the disease, a local health official has told Reuters. The two-year-old girl succumbed to the illness in the western Malian town of Kayes at approximately 4pm GMT.
The first of two Dallas, Texas nurses to contract the Ebola virus has overcome the disease and will be discharged from a hospital on Friday, according to local media. A Dallas NBC affiliate reported early Friday that Nina Pham is expected to be released later in the day; officials will announce more details during an afternoon press conference.
The World Health Organization says hundreds of thousands of doses of Ebola vaccine will be ready for use in West Africa by the middle of 2015. The global health body said on Friday that two leading vaccine candidates are already in human clinical trials and another five experimental vaccines were also being developed and would begin clinical trials next year, Reuters reports.
"Before the end of first half of 2015…we could have available a few hundred thousand doses. That could be 200,000 - it could be less or could be more," the WHO Assistant Director-General for Health Systems and Innovation Marie-Paule Kieny told a news conference in Geneva.
World Health Organization (WHO) experts are going to Mali to help the country fight Ebola, the body announced on Friday.
The first case of the deadly virus was confirmed in Mali a day before, making it the sixth West African country to be affected by the outbreak.
43 people, including 10 health workers, are currently being monitored for the virus there, WHO said.
Mali confirmed its first case of Ebola on Thursday, becoming the sixth West African country to be touched by the worst outbreak on record of the haemorrhagic fever, which has killed nearly 4,900 people.
Mali's Health Minister Ousmane Kone told state television that the patient in the western town of Kayes was a two-year-old girl who had recently arrived from neighbouring Guinea, where the outbreak began.
"The condition of the girl, according to our services, is improving thanks to her rapid treatment," the minister told state television.
A health ministry official, who asked not to be identified, said the girl's mother died in Guinea a few weeks ago and the baby was brought by relatives to the Malian capital Bamako, where she stayed for 10 days in the Bagadadji neighbourhood before heading to Kayes. (Reuters)
Eight hospitals in New York state have been specifically designated to handle Ebola patients, five of which are in New York City, said acting state health department commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker.
Governor Cuomo, meanwhile, said all 200 hospitals in the state are prepared to handle Ebola if someone turns up with symptoms, but eight have been designated for treating patients.
New York City Health Commissioner Mary Bassett said the patient is currently in isolation at Bellevue Hospital. She did not name the patient, but he is a 33-year-old physician with Doctors without Borders.
When the patient left Guinea earlier this month -- and when he arrived in the United States -- he was well with no symptoms, Bassett said. Although he did feel fatigue on October 21, he did not report a fever until Thursday.
One of the people who had contact with the patient is already at the hospital, she added.
Healthcare workers are using full protective gear at Bellevue Hospital, said Bassett, and no workers have opted out of treating Ebola patients.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said the patient who has tested positive for Ebola “was exposed to a relatively few people.” The governor later pegged the number at four.
“We’ve had a full, coordinated effort that’s been working literally night and day” directing state and federal resources, Cuomo said. "We are as ready as one could be for this circumstance ... We had the advantage of learning from the Dallas experience.”
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has confirmed that a patient has tested positive for Ebola, but added that there is “no reason for New Yorkers to be alarmed.”
"We have been preparing for months for Ebola threat," de Blasio said at a press conference. The mayor noted that officials are working together to put together pieces of the patient’s timeline and encounters with other. He also said protocols have been followed, and that "being on the same subway car or near someone with Ebola does not put someone at risk."
“We are prepared to quarantine contacts as necessary,” de Blasio said.
Preliminary test results have shown that the NYC doctor is positive for the Ebola virus. The federal Centers for Disease Control will conduct further tests to confirm the initial result.
23 October 2014
UN's @WHO says primary focus of #EbolaResponse is halting spread of virus across West Africa http://t.co/oGjwd96dPdpic.twitter.com/TqJMXtN8bA
— UN News Centre (@UN_News_Centre) October 23, 2014
New York City Councilor Mark Levine confirmed the patient being tested for Ebola is Craig Spencer, adding that authorities were discussing possible evacuation of the Harlem apartment building where he lived.
The first case of Ebola has been confirmed in Mali, Reuters reports citing the country's health minister.
A doctor is being tested for Ebola at a New York City hospital on Thursday after showing signs of a fever and gastrointestinal issues — both symptoms of the deadly disease — the city’s Health Department confirmed to Reuters. According to a statement provided by the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene to the newswire Thursday afternoon, test results are expected within 12 hours. Reuters added that the patient recently returned from West Africa where he was on assignment as a healthcare worker amidst the most deadly Ebola outbreak ever.
Amber Vinson, the third person to be diagnosed with Ebola in the US, is free of the disease, her family says. But the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the hospital where the nurse is being treated won’t confirm that determination.
Five patients have been released from a Spanish hospital after 21-day quarantine due to contact with an Ebola-infected nurse. A doctor, a health center cleaning woman, two hairdressers and a friend of nurse Teresa Romero have tested negative. Ten other people who had contact with Romero are still in isolation at Madrid's Carlos III hospital, including her husband. None of them has shown any symptoms. Another 68 people are staying at homes and are asked to check their temperature several times a day.
The first patient suspected to have been carrying the Ebola virus in Lebanon has been diagnosed with the disease, according to Minister of Health, Wael Abou Faour. "At the moment the patient has been placed in the quarantine zone and is undergoing tests," he said.
Dozens of people who have been quarantined as an Ebola risk in western Liberia have reportedly been threatening to leave quarantine because of a food deficit, state radio LBS said Thursday. Forty-three people were isolated after four people died near the border with Sierra Leone. Those who have been put in isolation were quoted as saying that food has stopped being provided by the UN World Food Program (WFP). A WFP officer told AP that the claim is being investigated.
#Ebola survivor Isata, 6, was cleared with 43 others yesterday at treatment centre in #SierraLeone. Via @UNICEFslpic.twitter.com/2FPfzW1Cgq
— UNICEF (@UNICEF) October 22, 2014
Volunteers from Hamburg, Germany, are to start testing an Ebola vaccination. Some 20-30 volunteers have committed themselves to the project. "The voluntary participants will be fully informed and as subjects, will receive protection, including insurance coverage," Dr. Klaus Cichitek, president of the Paul-Ehrlich-Institute told German daily Hamburger Abendblatt.
22 October 2014
The death toll from Ebola has risen to 4,877 out of 9,936 confirmed cases by Oct. 19, the World Health Organization said as it updated its figures.
Johnson & Johnson (J&J) and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) have announced plans to join forces to facilitate the development of an Ebola vaccine and produce millions of doses by 2015, Reuters reports.
J&J, a US firm, said it aims to produce at least 1 million doses of its two-step vaccine by next year. The company said it has already discussed working with the UK’s GSK, which is developing its own rival vaccine.
With no proven vaccine existing against the disease, researchers say it is vital that more than one experimental drug is created, since it remains unclear which ones will ultimately work.
NBC freelance cameraman Ashoka Mukpo, who was earlier infected with Ebola, is reportedly free of the virus and will be discharged from Nebraska Medical Center on Wednesday, Reuters cites the hospital as saying.
Mukpo arrived on October 6 after contracting the virus while working in West Africa. He is the second patient to be successfully treated for Ebola at the hospital
Closing borders will not effectively curb Ebola infections, the head of the Red Cross said on Wednesday, amid debate over whether bans on travel from hardest-hit African countries would help combat the spread of the deadly virus.
Elhadj As Sy, Secretary General of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), said such restrictions would not make sense.
"It (Ebola) creates a lot of fear and extreme panic that sometimes lead to very irrational type of behaviours and measures, like closing borders, cancelling flights, isolating countries etc.," Sy told reporters in Beijing, where the IFRC, the world's largest humanitarian network, was holding a conference.
"Those are not solutions. The only solution is how can we join our efforts to contain those kinds of viruses and epidemics at their epicentre, right where they start."
Sy said he believed it was possible to contain the disease in four to six months if proper practices were implemented, but that additional investment in the West Africa's health infrastructure would be needed to prevent future outbreaks. (Reuters)
Passengers arriving to the US from countries worst hit by Ebola will now go through five major airports: New York's John F. Kennedy, New Jersey's Newark, Washington Dulles, Atlanta, and Chicago's O'Hare international. Advanced screening procedures were set up there, which should minimize risk posed by passengers from Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia and allow authorities to avoid the previous idea of a travel ban.
China said that 43 people suspected of being infected with Ebola in Guangdong Province have tested negative for the virus.
A total of 8,672 people from Ebola-ridden areas have entered the province since August 23, said Chen Yuansheng, director with the provincial health and family planning commission. So far, 5,437 people have been discharged from medical observation, Xinhua reports.
As visitors flood to the country's biggest trade fair - Canton Fair -authorities have tightened examination to avoid possible spread of the disease. So far, no Ebola cases have been registered in China.
President Barack Obama and his senior advisors will meet on Wednesday with the new Ebola “czar”, Ron Klain. It will be Klain’s first day after he was appointed last Friday with coordinating the US response to the Ebola outbreak.
The announcement of Klain’s appointment followed a Congressional hearing on Capitol Hill with lawmakers concerned the Obama Administration wasn’t handling the Ebola crisis well enough.
21 October 2014
The NBC News cameraman diagnosed with Ebola while working in Liberia has been officially cleared of the virus, the news outlet reported on Tuesday. Freelance cameraman Ashoka Mukpo tested negative for Ebola three days in a row, and will be released from the Nebraska Medical Center on Wednesday.
"Recovering from Ebola is a truly humbling feeling," Mukpo said, according to the hospital. "Too many are not as fortunate and lucky as I've been. I'm very happy to be alive."
The knowledge that there's no more virus in my blood is a profound relief. I'm so lucky. Wish everyone who got sick could feel this.
— ashoka (@unkyoka) October 21, 2014
The medical status of nurse Nina Pham, who contracted Ebola when she helped treat the first patient to be diagnosed with the disease on US soil, was upgraded to good from fair, Reuters reports citing the National Institutes of Health.
Human trials for a new Ebola virus vaccine are set to start in two weeks’ time, Assistant Director-General for Health Systems and Innovation Marie-Paule Kieny said at a press conference.
The World Health Organization's emergency committee on Ebola will meet on Wednesday to review the scope of the outbreak and whether additional measures are needed, a WHO spokeswoman said on Tuesday.
"This is the third time this committee will meet since August to evaluate the situation. Much has happened, there have been cases in Spain and the United States, while Senegal and Nigeria have been removed from the list of countries affected by Ebola," WHO spokeswoman Fadela Chaib told a news briefing.
The 20 independent experts, who declared that the outbreak in West Africa constituted an international public health emergency on Aug. 8, can recommend travel and trade restrictions. The committee has already recommended exit screening of passengers from Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. (Reuters)
VIDEO: CDC chief releases updated guidelines for health care workers when dealing with Ebola: http://t.co/1rq499ANHO
— The Associated Press (@AP) October 21, 2014
The first three shipments with 800 vials of vaccine developed by Canadian scientists have been sent for testing to the World Health Organization, Canada's Health Minister Rona Ambrose told AFP. The vials were put in dry ice at a temperature of minus 80 degrees Celsius.
20 October 2014
A Norwegian doctor infected with Ebola while working for Doctors Without Borders in Sierra Leone has successfully recovered from the virus and has been discharged from Oslo’s Ulleval University Hospital.
“I am very grateful for the treatment at Ulleval. Today, I am healthy and no longer contagious. . . I am glad you were not scared by the fact that I got infected,” Silje Lene Michaelsen told reporters.
Michaelsen arrived in the city of Bo in Sierra Leone on July 2. She fell ill after work on October 2 and was diagnosed with Ebola two days later.
After testing positive for the dangerous virus, Michaelsen was hastily transported to Ulleval University Hospital in the Norwegian capital, where she was reportedly treated with the experimental Ebola drug ZMapp.
A UN staff member in Sierra Leone has died from Ebola, the organization’s spokesman said. The man has become the third UN employee to die from the virus. The diseased man was a driver for the UN Women's Agency. He died of the virus at the weekend in Sierra Leone, while his wife is currently being treated.
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) said it was prepared to give Ebola treatments and vaccines “orphan drug” status; a designation for pharmaceutical agents developed specifically to treat rare medical conditions in order to get them on the market more quickly. The move, which would also give the drugs extended market exclusivity, is intended to encourage the development of Ebola vaccines.
"Applications for orphan designation of Ebola medicines will be treated as a priority and EMA has committed to fast-tracking their evaluation," the London-based agency said in a statement.
A patient has been hospitalized with suspected Ebola in Barcelona in Spain, with medics awaiting the results of their blood test. Catalonian health authorities have said that the person spent 35 days in Sierra Leone, and a week in Guinea recently. 28 previous suspected cases of Ebola were not confirmed by tests.
EU foreign ministers, who have been discussing Ebola during a Foreign Affairs Council meeting in Luxembourg, have "welcomed" the creation of a fast-response Ebola Task Force.
"The Council acknowledges the need to establish a clearing house/ reserve pool of health experts from member states on voluntary basis for quickand targeted deployment in health crises, welcomes all efforts to enhance medical and pharmaceutical R&D especially on tropical and neglected diseases, and calls for a tailoring of the EU’s development cooperation to the specific needs of the countries in the region affected by Ebola in order to strengthen the resilience of their health systems and governance," said a document produced after the meeting.
Other proposals included better evacuation for European medics in danger zones, and calls for greater funding to fight the Ebola epidemic.
Brussels Airport became the latest to screen its passengers for Ebola, an airport spokeswoman Florence Muls told AFP. The officials took the temperatures of some 200 Brussels Airlines passengers. Their plane landed from Guinea via Sierra Leone. "Everything went very well this morning," Muls said, adding that every passenger tested negative for symptoms of the virus.
Earlier suspicions of an Ebola outbreak in Sweden were disconfirmed. Fears were sparked when a passenger showing some form of symptoms of the disease – including a nose bleed – arrived at Stockholm airport. He was hospitalized on Sunday.
The Karolinska hospital’s head physician has confirmed that the blood samples taken have revealed no signs of infection. The patient, however, will continue to receive treatment until he is well again.
The World Health Organization (WHO) declared Nigeria, the largest country in Africa with 174 million inhabitants, Ebola-free on Monday, after 42 days with no new reported cases.
"Nigeria is now free of Ebola," said Rui Gama Vaz, WHO representative, at a news conference in the capital Abuja, Reuters reported.
"This is a spectacular success story."
European foreign ministers gather in Luxembourg Monday to try and formalise a joint EU response to combat the Ebola virus amid diplomatic warnings the crisis has reached a "tipping point".
The ministers will meet hours after it was announced that a Spanish nurse who was the first person outside Africa to be infected had tested negative for the virus.
Ahead of the talks, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said the bloc should consider sending "a civilian EU mission" to west Africa.
"This would offer a platform to (EU) member states" to send medical staff to the region, he said at a health forum in Berlin.
One EU diplomat said Britain -- which already has a navy ship bound for Sierra Leone laden with medical staff and supplies -- hoped to "galvanise EU action on Ebola".
"There is a real sense that this is a tipping point and we must get to grips with it now," said the diplomat. "If we can deal with it in the country, we don't have to deal with it at home." (AFP)
The 44-year-old Spanish nurse Teresa Romero who contracted the Ebola virus while treating infected patients at a Madrid hospital appears to have overcome the disease, the country's government said in a statement.
Romero’s treatments included a drip of human serum with antibodies from Ebola sufferers who had survived the virus, as well as other drugs which were not named.
19 October 2014
A passenger at a Stockholm airport was hospitalized under suspicion of carrying the Ebola virus, Sweden's Aftonbladet newspaper reported on Sunday.
The man, whose flight arrived at Stockholm's international airport on Sunday afternoon, felt sick and was taken to hospital in an ambulance for further examination, after being assisted by staff in protective suits.
The passenger did not come directly from any of the Ebola affected countries, as his flight arrived from the Middle East, Aftonbladet reported.
The US has said it will create a 30-member medical support team to help civilian medical professionals and provide domestic emergency support for the US Ebola response, a Pentagon spokesman said Sunday. The team will be made up five doctors, 20 nurses and five trainers who will deploy at short notice. It would not be deployed overseas.
The Dallas health care worker who was monitored for Ebola on the Carnival Cruise Lines tested negative for the virus, cruise line officials said, as cited by AP.
The cruise ship carrying the Dallas health care worker has returned to port in Texas. The woman had been caring for a Liberian man who died of Ebola at the beginning of October. She hasn’t shown any signs of the virus for 19 days. Carnival Cruise Lines said in a statement that the health worker is isolated from the passengers “and is not deemed to be a risk to any guests or crew.”
The US Coast Guard has taken a sample from a Dallas health worker who is on board the cruise ship, Petty Officer Andy Kendrick told AP. The woman provided the blood sample, which will be taken to a lab in Austin, Texas, for analysis. The health worker cared for a Liberian man who died of Ebola at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital earlier this month. According to the officials, she had shown no symptoms of the virus during 19 days’ of voluntary self-quarantine on board the cruise ship.
18 October 2014
A woman being “monitored for signs of [the] Ebola virus” fell ill at a Dallas transit station on Saturday, WFAA-TV reported. The woman exhibited a low grade fever, according to a Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) spokesman.
Following the incident, White Rock Station has been closed and hazardous materials teams have been sent out.
Despite earlier reports that the woman was being monitored for the virus, DART did not confirm that she was on an Ebola watchlist, according to Reuters.
“There are no indications of any biohazards or spills on any vehicle she has used,” DART spokeswoman Morgan Lyons told the agency. “We're inspecting the train and the platform and will clean the facility and vehicle as needed consistent with our protocol.”
The Public Health Agency of Canada said it would send 800 vials of experimental vaccine to a UN department in Geneva. It will be sent by three separate shipments in special conditions to avoid accident. The WHO will determine how to distribute and use it, taking into account the vaccine is experimental. The tests began last month and results are expected in December.
“This vaccine, the product of many years of scientific research and innovation, could be an important tool in curbing the outbreak,” said Dr. Gregory Taylor of the Public Health Agency of Canada. “We will continue to work closely with the WHO to address some of the ethical and logistical issues around using this experimental vaccine in the fight against Ebola.”
The charity Oxfam has said the world must do more to tackle the spread of Ebola and stop the disease from becoming the “disaster of our time.” Oxfam said the world only has two months left to contain the virus, which has already killed 4,500 people.The charity also noted a shortfall in military personnel to provide logistical support to the West African countries hardest hit - Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. Troops are needed to provide airlifts and flights, build treatment centers and offer logistical and engineering support. So-far The US has dispatched 4,000 soldiers to the affected regions and the UK has sent 750. France has some military staff already in Guinea and Germany has laid on military supply flights.
In a weekly address to the nation on Saturday, US President Barack Obama called on Americans not to “give in to hysteria or fear” over Ebola, Reuters reports. He also downplayed the idea of travel bans for people from deadly virus epicenters – West Africa’s Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea – to enter the USA. "Trying to seal off an entire region of the world – if that were even possible – could actually make the situation worse," he said.
A woman and her baby in Komsomolsk-on-Amur, in the Khabarovsk region of Russia’s Far East, are being tested for Ebola, after they returned from Nigeria, according to local healthcare authorities. Both show flu symptoms and have been hospitalized and isolated in an infectious diseases unit.
“The mother and her 21-month-old child have arrived from Nigeria,” the Khabarovsk region Healthcare Minister, Aleksandr Vitko told journalists, as cited by RIA Novosti. “They’ve been sent to hospital, and have undergone several medical tests, including one for Ebola. The tests results will be ready on Tuesday. At the moment the child’s temperature has stabilized - he’s active, getting medication. Doctors have not seen symptoms of the dangerous disease, only symptoms of flu”.
17 October 2014
The Ebola death toll has soared to 4,546 across the most severely hit countries in West Africa, the WHO announced Friday. There have been some 9,191 cases registered in total across Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, with 20 more cases recorded - among them eight deaths in Nigeria and a case in Senegal which did not result in death. The Senegal "outbreak" was officially declared over earlier on Friday.
The southern entrance to the Pentagon is closed due to an Ebola scare Friday morning.
Around 9 a.m. a woman began vomiting in the south parking lot while there to see the Pentagon Memorial, Arlington Now reported. Arlington County Fire Department (ACFD) was notified and responded immediately with both emergency medical aid and HazMat response team, the county said in a statement.
#Hazmat team at #Pentagon for woman recently arrived from Africa vomiting on tour bus #Ebolahttp://t.co/eXNMAKCn3upic.twitter.com/X2SQ3iG7aX
— Jeffrey Guterman PhD (@JeffreyGuterman) October 17, 2014
“During the response, the individual allegedly indicated that she had recently visited western Africa,” Arlington County noted.
“At 9:53 a.m, the patient was taken to the Virginia Hospital Center; however she did not exit the ambulance. ACFD then transported the patient to Fairfax Inova Hospital,” the statement continued.
PHOTOS possible #Ebola patient moved to #Fairfax hospital from the Pentagon #BREAKING#BreakingNewspic.twitter.com/AdFbiLafHK
— Brad Freitas (@NewsChopperBrad) October 17, 2014
“Out of an abundance of caution and to allow the investigation to proceed, pedestrian and vehicular traffic around the Pentagon South Parking lot’s lanes 7-23 will remain restricted until further notice,” Pentagon spokeswoman Lt. Col. Valerie Henderson said.
Since the incident, the tour bus then traveled to Capitol Hill, WNEW senior correspondent Mark Segraves reported. It was stopped on a street, and the remaining passengers and the driver have been isolated on another bus. That street, Virginia Avenue, has been closed down while Washington, DC officials investigate.
Bus from possible #Ebola case now held at 7th & I SE DC. pic.twitter.com/LiPOziRqBJ
— Bruce Leshan (@BruceLeshan) October 17, 2014
Nina Pham, the first Texas Presbyterian Hospital nurse diagnosed with Ebola after treating Thomas Eric Duncan, was transferred to the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland late Thursday night.
“Her condition is fair, she is stable and she is resting comfortably,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health, said during a press conference Friday morning. “She is in good spirits.”
“We fully intend to have this patient walk out of this hospital, and we will do everything we can to make that happen,” he added. “She’s a trooper. She’s very brave.”
Dr. Richard Davey, the NIH doctor treating Pham, gave more detail on her status.
“She is resting comfortably and interacting with the staff,” he said. “I really think she’s doing quite well compared to how we were told she was doing from the other hospital.”
Davie told reporters that Pham has a dedicated staff of up to 20 nurses assigned to her case in a given week, with five nurses per a shift, two of whom are in the room with the 26-year-old at any time. All NIH staff interacting with her are in full HAZMAT suits, with someone inspecting them as they put on and take off the equipment.
A female prison inmate who recently traveled to West Africa has been quarantined at Inova Louden Hospital after coming down with a fever. However, officials have said that the chances of her having the virus are “very low.” Congress today blasted the Center for Disease Control (CDC) for not putting in place strict measures to stop Ebola spreading which has now infected at least eight people in the US.
#Ebola Fearmongering: Myths, conspiracies and ‘cures’ go viral http://t.co/Jml7Sp6viM@Gayane_RT
— RT (@RT_com) October 17, 2014
WHO has officially confirmed Senegal to be free of the Ebola virus and thanked the Senegalese for the diligence with which they succeeded in controlling the spread of Ebola.
A double incubation period has passed after a Guinea man with confirmed Ebola came to Senegal, whose geographical location makes it vulnerable to the disease. The man recovered and none of his contacts caught the disease. But Senegal must remain vigilant for any suspected cases with strict compliance to WHO guidelines.
The World Health Organization has admitted it botched the attempt to stop the now-spiraling Ebola outbreak in West Africa, blaming factors including incompetent staff and a lack of information.
In a draft internal document obtained by The Associated Press, the agency says "nearly everyone" involved in the response failed to notice the potential for Ebola's explosive spread.
The agency acknowledged that its own bureaucracy was a problem, pointing out that the heads of WHO country offices in Africa are "politically motivated appointments" made by the WHO regional director for Africa.
Ebola aid that has been sent to the West African countries suffering from the epidemic has had virtually no impact at all, according to a senior official with the charity Doctors Without Borders (DWB).
The charity also said it was “ridiculous” that it is still bearing the brunt of care for sufferers in the affected regions. DWB runs about 70 percent of the just 1,000 beds available in treatment centers in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea.
Separately many world leaders are pleading for more funds, as donations repeatedly fall short of their target.UN chief Ban Ki-moon has pleaded for more cash. So far a $1 billion trust fund set up in September has received just $20 million. While former Secretary-General Kofi Annan told the BBC he was “bitterly disappointed” with the response to Ebola from the international community.
The five East African Community (EAC) member states – the Republics of Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, the United Republic of Tanzania, and the Republic of Uganda - are working on a new joint strategy to prevent Ebola in West Africa. The EAC is contributing a total of 41 medics and 578 other healthcare workers.
Rwanda has sent seven medical doctors and seven other healthcare workers, Kenya 15 doctors and 300 other healthcare workers, while Uganda will contribute 14 doctors and 21 other healthcare staff. Tanzania will send five doctors and Burundi 250 healthcare workers.
All students who arrived in Russia from Western Africa are being monitored Deputy Minister of Education Veniamin Kaganov said.
“I am sure there is no real danger of Ebola virus getting in Russia, all students from Western Africa, who study in Russia – there are more than a thousand of them - have been put under special medical monitoring,” he said.
Airports in Russia will be supplied with special equipment to prevent the Ebola virus from spreading. The measure was discussed at a meeting with Russia’s Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.
Nina Pham, the first nurse to fall victim to Ebola on US soil had her last appointment with Dr. Gary Weinstein at the Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas on Thursday.
Republican politicians are demanding that US President Barack Obama introduces new travel restrictions from those countries where the Ebola virus is most prevalent. The Obama administration has so far resisted calls for a ban on travel from Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone in West Africa, which have been the epicenter of the outbreak, which began in March.
"The president has that authority. He's choosing not to exercise it," said Representative Michael Burgess, a Texas Republican. "No one understands why we're not doing this fundamental job of defending the country."
The US President said that "a flat-out travel ban is not the way to go," as he believed the current screening measures in place are enough to deal with the problem, however he added, "I don't have a philosophical objection necessarily to a travel ban if that is the thing that is going to keep the American people safe," Reuters reported.
Obama not ruling out #Ebola travel ban http://t.co/lWXtGtKCOR
— Ruptly (@Ruptly) October 17, 2014
A 63 year-old male has died after vomiting on a trans-Atlantic flight from Nigeria to New York. There had been fears he was carrying the Ebola virus, but preliminary tests showed he was not suffering from the virus. After boarding the flight in Lagos, the man was sick in his seat and passed away sometime before the plane landed at John F. Kennedy airport.
Upon the plane arriving at the terminal at around 6am local time, the door was left open connecting the plane to the airport building, “which a lot of the first responders found alarming,” which was reported by the New York Post. Medical officials at the scene conducted a cursory exam and alleviated fears that the Ebola virus was present, according to the source.
16 October 2014
Amber Vinson, the Ebola-infected Dallas nurse who travelled to Cleveland over the weekend, may have already been showing symptoms of the virus when she left Texas on October 10, a spokesman for the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said Thursday.
"We can't rule out that she might have had the start of her illness on Friday," Dr. Chris Braden of the CDC said at a Thursday afternoon briefing, citing new information developed by investigators tracing all of Vinson's contacts. "This new information is saying we need to go back now to the flight she took on Friday the 10th and include them in our investigation of contacts."
CDC is asking all 132 passengers on Frontier Airlines flight 1143 from CLE to DFW on 10/13 to call 1-800-CDC-INFO: http://t.co/FVa0P8pjpM
— CDC (@CDCgov) October 15, 2014
Health officials are already performing ‘contact tracing’ to find all passengers on Vinson’s October 13 return flight because she reported a low-grade fever to the CDC before she boarded. They will now contact all passengers from her Friday flight as well.
US President Barack Obama on Thursday authorized the Pentagon to call up members of the National Guard and other military reserve units to help combat the spread of Ebola in West Africa.
Obama said the guardsmen would "augment the active forces in support of Operation United Assistance, providing humanitarian assistance and consequence management related to the Ebola virus disease outbreak in the West Africa region" in a letter to Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-Ohio), the Hill reported.
An Air France plane carrying 183 passengers has been quarantined in Madrid’s Barajas Airport over a passenger showing Ebola-like symptoms. The airport activated the emergency protocol.
A Spanish missionary, who returned from Liberia where he was in contact with Ebola patients, has been transferred to Madrid’s Carlos III hospital. He is suspected of having contracted the deadly virus. The missionary was earlier treated at the hospital of his religious order - Brothers Hospitallers of St. John of God. However, after a fever of 37.6 C, he decided to transfer to the Ebola treatment center, El Mundo reports.
The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned Congress on Thursday that America’s health care system may face a long-term threat if the Ebola virus continues to spread across Africa and into the United States.
"One of the things I fear about Ebola is that it could spread more widely in Africa. If this were to happen, it could become a threat to our health system and the healthcare we give for a long time to come," CDC Director Dr.Thomas Frieden said.
Dr. Daniel Varga, the chief clinical officer at Texas Health Presbyterian Dallas, testified before Congress on Thursday that officials are still uncertain how exactly two nurses contracted Ebola from a Liberian national treated at his facility in recent weeks.
“While we do not yet know exactly how these transmissions occurred, they demonstrate the need to strengthen the procedures for infection-control protocols which allowed for exposure to the virus. We are working very hard to investigate the situation, but are not waiting for the completion of this investigation and have already helped the hospital implement new measures for safety,” Frieden said.
Nina Pham, the first Texas nurse to be diagnosed with Ebola after treating a Liberian man at a Dallas hospital, is expected to be moved to the National Institutes of Health outside Washington, according to a report on Thursday.
NBC News and its television network MSNBC said Pham, who was being cared for at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, could be transferred to an isolation unit at Bethesda, Maryland-based NIH later on Thursday, citing an unnamed federal official with knowledge of the planned move.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has said that a major outbreak of Ebola in the west is unlikely because of the strong health systems in these countries.
But Christopher Dye, the WHO director of strategy, said the spread of Ebola into the US or Western Europe was a matter "for very serious concern."
A hospital in the US state of Connecticut says it is evaluating a patient with "Ebola-like symptoms," Reuters reports.
"Yale-New Haven Hospital admitted a patient late Wednesday night for evaluation of Ebola-like symptoms. We have not confirmed or ruled-out any diagnosis at this point," the hospital said in the statement on its website.
A spokesman said he had no further information on the patient.
One the employees of the Danish branch of Doctors Without Borders (DWB) medical charity is being tested in Copenhagen for the Ebola virus, the organization said in a statement on Thursday.
The medical worker, who has returned from West Africa, felt a "slight rise" in temperature, DWB said, adding that a rise in temperature could be due to many things besides the deadly infection.
Health authorities in Copenhagen confirmed that a blood test was being carried out, with the results expected later on Thursday.
#Ebola survival kits sales spike in US amid panic outbreak http://t.co/JH43J1H4di@portnayanyc
— RT (@RT_com) October 16, 2014
Authorities of the Texas hospital, where an Ebola patient died and two nurses contracted the disease, have apologized for mishandling the deadly virus.
The hospital initially misinterpreted Thomas Eric Duncan’s symptoms and sent him home, although he had informed staff of having arrived from Liberia.
"Unfortunately, in our initial treatment of Mr. Duncan, despite our best intentions and a highly-skilled medical team, we made mistakes," Dr. Daniel Varga, chief clinical officer and senior executive vice president for Texas Health Resources, said in a written testimony to the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
"We did not correctly diagnose his symptoms as those of Ebola. We are deeply sorry."
Varga also said the hospital authorities were “poring over records and observations” to find out how the “skilled” nurses of the facility could have contracted the disease.
The Texas hospital has also acknowledged the need for “more proactive, intensive and focused training for frontline responders in the diagnosis of EVD.”
Obama confesses to kissing Ebola nurses. http://t.co/BpiinqsoLS
— Ruptly (@Ruptly) October 16, 2014
France will on Saturday start screening for Ebola among passengers arriving from Guinea's capital, Conakry to Paris' Charles de Gaulle airport, AP reports.
That’s the only direct flight to Paris from West African countries affected by the virus.
It has been announced that medical teams will take passengers' temperatures before they enter the terminal.
“If there is no temperature there is no risk of contagion,” Health Minister Marisol Touraine told LCI television on Thursday.
The second Dallas nurse diagnosed with Ebola – Amber Vinson – says she got a green light from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention before boarding a flight from Ohio to Texas on Monday, CBS Dallas Fort Worth reported.
Vinsen said she was in contact with the CDC on multiple occasions to make sure it was permissible for her to fly.
“This nurse, Nurse Vinson, did in fact call the CDC several times before taking that flight and said she has a temperature, a fever of 99.5, and the person at the CDC looked at a chart and because her temperature wasn’t 100.4 or higher she didn’t officially fall into the category of high risk,” CBS Dallas medical reporter Dr. John LaPook said.
The CDC also confirmed to Fox 4 News that it told Vinsen she could fly.
Previously, CDC Director Tom Frieden said it was unlikely that any passengers were in danger of exposure to Ebola – Vinsen was not showing symptoms at the time of the flight – but he also said those exposed to the virus “should not have traveled on a commercial airline.”
Vinsen is the second person to contract Ebola in the US, and the third patient overall to be diagnosed with the virus in the country. The CDC is currently reaching out to all passengers on Vinsen’s flight in order to screen them for symptoms.
15 October 2014
Shortly after President Barack Obama spoke to reporters about the Ebola diagnoses in the US, Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-Ohio) called for the commander-in-chief to institute a travel ban on people arriving in the United States from affected West African countries.
On #Ebola crisis: our hearts go out to those affected. President should consider travel ban. Full statement: http://t.co/8sNK0sMyVg
— Speaker John Boehner (@SpeakerBoehner) October 15, 2014
"A temporary ban on travel to the United States from countries afflicted with the virus is something that the president should absolutely consider along with any other appropriate actions as doubts about the security of our air travel systems grow," Boehner said in a statement.
Obama had noted in his remarks that “if this epidemic gets out of control in West Africa...then it will spread globally due to constant travel.” However, the president said nothing about considering a travel ban.
US President Barack Obama called an emergency Cabinet meeting in response to a second nurse contracting Ebola after caring for the country’s first diagnosed case of the virus.
“In light of the second case, I thought it important to bring our team together to discuss how we’re ramping up our reaction,” Obama told reporters during the meeting at the White House on Wednesday.
The discussion focused on protocols developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), specifically on the best way to get information to hospitals, clinics, and first responders regarding how health care workers should handle treating patients with Ebola. The government is also looking into whether there is a need to update any of the protocols.
“I want to commended our health care workers, who are selfless and often underpaid,” Obama noted. “We need to make sure we’re doing everything we can to take care of them, even as they take care of us.”
The president also stressed that the disease is only spread by direct contact with bodily fluids of a patient who is already showing symptoms. “I hugged, shook hands with and kissed the nurses at Emory who were dealing with the [Ebola] patients there,” he said. “They followed protocols, and I felt safe.”
Obama visited Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia more than three weeks ago, in mid-September. The incubation period for Ebola is up to 21 days.
Morocco's Ministry of Health has announced the introduction of a national program aimed at preventing any incursions of the disease that might be made into the country, according to statements made by the head of the department at a press conference. "The plan includes measures aimed at early detection of infections," El Hussein El Ouardi told reporters.
Passengers arriving from countries affected by he Ebola virus will be subject to medical examinations in both France and the Czech Republic. French President Francois Hollande told the leaders of Britain, Germany, Italy and the United States in a video conference, according to a statement from his office released to Reuters on Wednesday. The Czech Republic has ordered similar tests to be conducted.
The death toll from the lethal Ebola virus has climbed to 4,493 from a total of 8,997 confirmed cases as of the end of October 12 in 7 countries, the World Health Organization said.
Federal officials said Wednesday that the second Dallas-area health care worker to contract Ebola will be moved to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia, closer to the headquarters of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The patient was placed in quarantine on Tuesday after complaining of Ebola symptoms and, according to CBC Director Thomas Frieden, had “extensive contact” with the Liberian national who died in Texas of Ebola last week. Nina Pham, the first health care worker to contract Ebola from that man, is currently receiving treatment in Dallas.
US President Barack Obama has postponed a political trip in order to convene on Wednesday a White House meeting to address the Ebola crisis, Reuters reported.
Amber Vinson, the second Dallas health care worker infected with Ebola, took a flight from Cleveland to Dallas just one day before she reported symptoms of the virus, Reuters reported. The CDC is reaching out to all 132 passengers on the flight. Vinson's diagnosis was confirmed early Wednesday.
Meanwhile, the largest nurses' union in the United States has alleged that Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, where Vinson and another infected nurse treated initial Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan, did not take proper precautions following Duncan's diagnosis on Sept. 28.
Canada has supplied small amounts of an experimental Ebola treatment to Spain and Norway to treat infected healthcare workers, the Public Health Agency of Canada said on Wednesday.
The agency's National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg, Manitoba transferred the treatment ZMAb to Spain in September and to Norway this month, at the request of the countries, spokesman Robert Cyrenne said. The treatment is laboratory grade, meaning it was made for use on animals.
A nurse remained seriously ill this week after catching the virus in Madrid while caring for infected patients. A Norwegian healthcare worker working for Doctors Without Borders in Sierra Leone was infected and brought home for treatment, the organization said last week. (Reuters)
'Up to 50% of victims catch #Ebola at funerals' - WHO spokeswoman Winifred Romeril http://t.co/91D4R56IeGpic.twitter.com/1MJhtKpcyz
— RT (@RT_com) October 15, 2014
Dallas County in Texas is getting ready for more Ebola cases, after a second health care worker was diagnosed with the virus.
"We are preparing contingencies for more, and that is a very real possibility," Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins said during a news conference.
US President Obama and European leaders will hold a high-level video conference on the Ebola virus and other important issues on Wednesday. The president will be joined by British, French, German and Italian heads, the White House has said.
A second US health worker has tested positive for deadly Ebola virus, officials from the Department of State Health Services said. The person provided care for Ebola victim Thomas Eric Duncan at the Health Presbyterian Hospital.
The worker was immediately isolated after reporting a fever on Tuesday, the department said.
"Health officials have interviewed the latest patient to quickly identify any contacts or potential exposures, and those people will be monitored," the department said.
14 October 2014
The UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency has announced that it will be participating in the fight against Ebola in West Africa, providing specialized diagnostic equipment to quell the spread of the disease.
A further 100 US troops have arrived in Liberia to help fight the Ebola epidemic coursing through West Africa, reports NBC. The number of US troops stationed in the region now stands at 565. There are three mobile labs for testing and treatment currently stationed in West Africa.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, are to donate some $25 million to aid the fight against Ebola. It will be given to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in order to bolster the response effort in West Africa, the foundation said in a statement on Tuesday. It comes just one month after Paul Allen, a co-founder of Microsoft, made a $9 million donation to the CDC.
The nurse who contracted Ebola in a Dallas hospital has said she is doing well. "I'm doing well and want to thank everyone for their kind wishes and prayers," Pham said in a statement released by the hospital. "I am blessed by the support of family and friends." She contracted the disease while looking after a dying Liberian in hospital.
Britain has started screening passengers arriving at London Heathrow airport from West African countries.
Anyone who shows symptoms of the disease or has had recent exposure to the virus will be hospitalized, if necessary.
Passengers arriving from virus-hit countries will have to fill out questionnaires and undertake temperature checks.
The number of people infected with Ebola is expected to surpass 9,000 by the end of the week, the World Health Organization said. A WHO official said the lethal virus continues to spread in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia, but he also stressed the organization had seen a slowdown in the rate of new Ebola cases in the worst hit areas, Reuters reports.
"We will go over 9,000 cases this week," WHO assistant director general Bruce Aylward told reporters. "In certain areas were seeing disease coming down but that doesn't mean they're going to go to zero."
An 800-strong battalion of Sierra Leone soldiers was quarantined after one of its members tested positive for Ebola, military officials said. The battalion was to be deployed in a peacekeeping capacity in Somalia to relieve a contingent already there as part of a UN mission. The quarantine may last 21 days.
An Ebola patient being treated in Germany’s Leipzig has succumbed to the virus, according to the clinic. It was a 56-year-old UN aid worker with an active career in Liberia. Three patients with the virus have so far been treated in Germany. One of them has already been released from a medical facility in Hamburg.
13 October 2014
The Texas nurse who is now being treated for the deadly Ebola virus after caring for patient has been identified as Nina Pham, a 26-year-old Dallas woman who graduated from Texas Christian University in 2010. Pham was diagnosed over the weekend with the disease and was “clinically stable” on Monday, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Thomas Frieden said.
Pham’s identity was confirmed to USA Today by her family, but officials have yet to determine exactly how she contracted the virus. She is one of around 50 people who cared for Liberian national Thomas Duncan while he was being treated at Texas Health Presbyterian Dallas for Ebola. Duncan, 42, died on Wednesday.
The healthcare worker in Dallas, confirmed on Sunday to have contracted the Ebola virus from initial patient Thomas Eric Duncan, will receive safe and effective care, US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Thomas Frieden said Monday during a press conference. He added that the worker’s contacts, including a dog, are being monitored for signs of the virus.
Dir. Frieden also apologized Monday for remarks made on Sunday in which he alleged that a breach of protocol was to blame for the newly-infected worker.
“The healthcare workers who cared for this individual may have had a breach of the same nature,” Frieden said during a press conference on Sunday. “It is certainly very concerning and it tells us there is a need to enhance training and make sure protocols are followed.
“The protocols work… but we know that even a single lapse or breach can result in infection,” he added.
Dr. Daniel Varga of Texas Health Resources, which owns Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, said the nurse was infected despite wearing full protective equipment, which included a gown, gloves, mask, and shield.
The Canadian Health Agency and NewLink Genetics Corp have begun human testing of an experimental Ebola vaccine, VSV-EBOV, Canadian Health Minister Rona Ambrose said. The trial will be carried out on a small group of people, and results of the study are expected in December.
Liberian health workers have rejected calls to join a strike over poor pay and working conditions. They have “agreed, collectively as a community, to go back to work,” said Alphonso Weah, the head of the medical staff at the Island Clinic.
The strike was scheduled for Monday midnight, but the majority of hospitals and clinics were operating normally, Liberian Information Minister Lewis Brown told reporters.
A non-emergency phone line run by Britain’s National Health Service will question callers about their symptoms and their recent travel history to find possible Ebola suffers, Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt has announced as the UK steps up measures to combat the fast-spreading virus. The 111 phone line is staffed 24/7 and has 46 different call centers across the country.
Spain will intensify training for health workers and emergency services, including “police, firemen and anyone who has something to bring to the fight against [Ebola],” local healthcare academic Fernando Rodriguez Artalejo said.
Russia is ready to provide emergency medical flights to help fight Ebola, President Vladimir Putin has told Margaret Chan, the director general of the World Health Organization. He said that Russian experts are now looking into the possibility of such aid flights, and that some European countries have already asked Russia to provide assistance by sending planes with medical equipment. He added that Russia would need to act carefully to “protect our population” from Ebola.
Russian health minister Veronika Skvortsova has expressed certainty that Russia has virtually no chance of seeing the type of Ebola outbreak witnessed elsewhere.
“There are no conditions here to support an outbreak of Ebola, no sources from which it might emerge,” she told reporters, emphasizing, though, that no one is safe from a random importation of infection.
Russian health authorities have been working closely with air traffic control to monitor for signs of infection.
The EU is to hold a meeting on Thursday in Brussels to discuss the strategy for battling the outbreak, along with new entry regulations to pass in light of the region-state’s policy on free movement. These, according to the leadership, will be given top priority.
A team of top disease experts from Europe, Africa and the United States have agreed that using placebos in drug trials in the midst of an Ebola outbreak would be unethical.
"We accept that RCTs can generate strong evidence in ordinary circumstances; not, however, in the midst of the worst Ebola epidemic in history," the health specialists wrote to the Lancet medical journal in a statement.
Police in West Berlin closed a bar on Sunday after one of the patrons telephoned medical officials to say he had the Ebola virus. Dozens of emergency personnel arrived at the scene of what turned out to be a prank on the part of the caller. The authorities discovered the man, a native of Nigeria, and took him to the hospital for an examination anyways. "He wasn’t ill and he hadn’t been away on holiday," a spokeswoman for the emergency services told The Local, an English-language newspaper in Germany.
12 October 2014
The Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates clinic in Massachusetts has been briefly quarantined after a patient who recently travelled to Liberia was suspected of having Ebola. The patient showing some symptoms of the disease was transferred to another facility.
“Today, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed test results reported late last night by the Texas Department of State Health Services’ public health laboratory showing that a healthcare worker at Texas Presbyterian Hospital is positive for Ebola,” the CDC said in a statement released on Sunday afternoon.
The patient, who remains in isolation, and the hospital was notified of the confirmatory test results, CDC said.
The heath care officials “remain confident” that wider spread in the community can be prevented with“proper public health measures”, such as “ongoing contact tracing, health monitoring among those known to have been in contact with the index patient, and immediate isolations if symptoms develop.”
Spanish health authorities said on Sunday that Teresa Romero, the first known person to become infected with Ebola outside Africa, appears to be successfully fighting off the Ebola infection.
"The patient appears to be in a stable condition ... There are some signs that could give us cause for some hope," Reuters cites, Fernando Simon, a high level official at Spain's Health Ministry, as telling a news conference.
"There are high hopes that the infection is starting to come under control," he said, adding she was not yet out of danger.
"We have to be very cautious," Simon said.
Unconfirmed Spanish media reports say Romero has been treated with ZMab, a combination drug made by Canada-based company Defyrus Inc.
While a health source told the agency ZMab was available in Spain, they could not confirm whether it had been used in Romero's case.
Part of Prague's Central Station were reportedly closed due to suspicions that a passenger who had arrived from Ghana may be infected with the Ebola virus.
"We took action after we were informed that a man at the train station who had come from Ghana was ill,” Russia’s Zvevda TV cites a representative of the Metropolitan Police, Andrea Zoulova, as saying.
Rescuers donning protective suits came to the station and took the suspected Ebola sufferer to a nearby hospital. A representative from the city’s Rescue service was unable to confirm or deny that the individual in question had in fact fallen ill with Ebola.
In the next 6 month Russia is planning to introduce three vaccines to fight the Ebola virus and has begun creating special drugs for the prevention and treatment of Ebola.
"We are now creating three vaccines... And they will be created, we think, in the next six months," the country's Health Minister Veronika Skvortsova told Rossiya-1 TV channel.
11 October 2014
Members of an NBC crew in New Jersey were forcefully quarantined by the authorities after failing to stay indoors as advised upon their return from Liberia, where they were working with a local cameraman who contracted the deadly Ebola virus. No one in the crew has exhibited any virus-like symptoms but the order to quarantine, according to the Health Department came after they violated a voluntary 21-day isolation agreement. No more details were provided because of privacy issues.
Police in Prague were forced to shut down some of the Czech capital's railway stations after suspecting that one of the passengers returning from Ghana might be infected with the deadly Ebola virus.
"We have taken action after we were informed that there is a man who came from Ghana, and he was ill at the train station,” a police spokesperson said, Itar-Tass reports.
Earlier in the day, a woman in the Czech resort town of Karlovy Vary was also hospitalized with Ebola-like symptoms. The woman has recently visited Nigeria. Doctors have yet to confirm both cases.
The condition of the Spanish nurse Teresa Romero, who was infected with Ebola, “has undergone no significant changes and is still serious, but stable," a government Ebola committee said in a statement on Saturday afternoon. Meanwhile three other people – a hairdresser, another nurse and a cleaner – all of whom came into contact with Romero were admitted to the isolation unit to be monitored for signs of the disease along with 13 people already there.
Brazil's Health Ministry said on Saturday that a man under observation for a possible case of Ebola has tested negative for the disease.
The 47-year-old man arrived in Brazil on Sept. 19 from Guinea, one of three African countries at the heart of an epidemic that has killed more than 4,000 people since March.
He went to a doctor in southern state of Parana complaining of a fever, sore throat and a cough. After that he was kept in total isolation and transferred to a healthcare facility in Rio de Janeiro early Friday.
The Health Ministry said the man remains in quarantine and will stay there until a second exam takes place Sunday.
Liberia's UN peacekeeping mission says 41 staff members are under close medical observation after an international member of its medical team contracted Ebola, AP says.
The statement, released Friday, says the measures are precautionary and that none of the staff members has shown signs of Ebola. But they will be observed for 21 days, which the World Health Organization says is the maximum incubation period.
The staff member, whose name and nationality have not been disclosed, was diagnosed Monday and arrived in Germany on Thursday for treatment.
It is the second case of a UN staffer contracting Ebola in Liberia. The first died on Sept. 26.
10 October 2014
A Delta Air Lines flight was briefly quarantined at the McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas after two passengers were suspected of having Ebola-like symptoms, though tests turned out negative. The plane was flying from New York when a passenger complained about feeling sick, Reuters reports. Medical officials in hazmat suits boarded the plane when it landed at the gate and removed two sick passengers, according to local news outlet KTLA.
The decision to quarantine the plane was made “after reports that a passenger who had recently traveled in Africa vomited on board the aircraft,” the Clark County Department of Aviation told KTLA.
However, the scare turned out to be a false alarm and passengers left the plane soon afterwards.
The Ebola death toll has risen to 4,033, the World Health Organization said on Friday. With the number of documented cases now at 8,399, the death rate stands at close to 50 percent. So far, the vast majority of cases have been reported in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, but people have also tested positive for the virus in Senegal, Spain, and the United States.
The WHO also noted that 43 people have died from Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where a separate outbreak has taken root. There have been 71 reported cases there total.
The remains of the first person to die of Ebola in the US, Thomas Eric Duncan, have been cremated, Texas state health department officials said Friday.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control has implemented strict guidelines for the handling of Ebola victims' bodies, to prevent further spreading of the infection. Bodies infected with Ebola virus should not be embalmed, but rather, cremated or buried in a hermetically sealed casket.
Liberia said on Friday it was banning journalists from Ebola clinics, defying media rights campaigners who have warned panicked African governments against “muzzling” reporters in response to the crisis.
Government spokesman Isaac Jackson made the announcement about reporters being barred from covering a strike at a Monrovia Ebola treatment unit (ETU).
“Journalists are no longer allowed to enter ETUs. These journalists enter the ETUs and cross red lines,” Jackson, the deputy information minister, told listeners to commercial station Sky FM, AFP reported.
“They violate people’s privacy, take pictures that they will sell to international institutions. We are putting an end to that.”
UN special envoy David Nabarro told the UN General Assembly on Friday that the number of cases was doubling every three-to-four weeks and the response needed to be 20 times greater than it was at the beginning of October.
He added Friday that without the mass mobilization of the world 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,'' as cited by AP.
Nabarro said the UN knew what was needed to be done to catch up to and overtake Ebola's rapid advance “and together we're going to do it.''
The UN appeal for $1 billion to respond to the West Africa Ebola outbreak was only 25 percent funded, according to UN Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson.
"Of the $1 billion sought by U.N. agencies under (the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs) consolidated appeal only one quarter has been funded," he said at the Ebola outbreak briefing. A surge in trained healthcare personnel was also needed to help tackle the crisis, he added.
A Brazilian man being tested fro Ebola is "in good shape" according to the country's health ministry. The 47-year-old landed in Brazil after taking a flight from Guinea on September 19 and reported Ebola-like symptoms, including a fever, on Thursday. However, the fever was reported to have abated by Friday. He is still subject to testing by Brazilian doctors, Reuters reported. "There was no bleeding, vomiting or other symptoms," the health ministry statement said. "He is in good shape and totally isolated."
'I’ve got #Ebola, you’re all screwed!' ‘Joking’ passenger taken off plane http://t.co/pOwrDY2mHL#EbolaOutbreakpic.twitter.com/Ef6rxWQMQ6
— RT (@RT_com) October 10, 2014
Macedonia said on Friday there was only a "small probability" a Briton who died in Skopje on Thursday had the Ebola virus, according to an initial analysis.
"There is a small probability he had Ebola, but we have to wait for the full results," Dr. Jovanka Kostovska of the ministry's commission for infectious diseases told a news conference.
Kostovska said there were no other suspicious cases in Macedonia but that the hotel where the Briton had been staying remained sealed off. Blood and tissue samples have been sent to Frankfurt for testing. (Reuters)
A 45-year-old Nigerian woman is suspected of having the deadly Ebola virus, and is now under quarantine in a Taiwan hospital, according to local media outlet Apple Daily.
The woman was transferred to hospital after arriving in Taiwan on Thursday. The results of the conducted tests are set to be determined shortly.
According to the ER chief, the woman also has a past history of malaria, and there is a tendency to diagnose malaria as Ebola.
Brazil has hospitalized the first patient with symptoms similar to those of Ebola, according to the country’s health ministry.
The 47-year-old man comes from Guinea, and developed the Ebola-like symptoms within three weeks of arriving from West Africa, Brazil’s O Globo newspaper reported.
09 October 2014
The Czech Republic has hospitalized a man with a fever as its first suspected case of Ebola inside the country, the Czech-based CTK News reported. The only symptom exhibited by the man so far is a fever, but since he returned from Liberia 22 days ago he is being monitored as a preventative measure.
"As the only symptom has been fever so far, we hope that it might be another disease, for instance, malaria," chief sanitary officer Vladimír Valenta told ČTK. "At present all people whom he has met since he returned home are being searched for.”
Thomas Eric Duncan, the first Ebola patient to die in the US, will be cremated in order to ensure the risk of exposure to the virus is minimal for those preparing his body and attending a funeral.
“The remains have been transported for cremation. No additional detail about timing or location will be given at this time,” Christine Mann, a spokeswoman for the Texas Department of State Health Services, said to NBC News.
Cremation – as well as the use of a hermetically sealed casket – are the two ways the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend handling deceased victims of the virus.
The Dallas County sheriff’s deputy suspected of becoming the second case of Ebola in the United States does not have the virus, Texas health officials said on Thursday. The deputy, Michael Monnig, had originally reported being inside of the apartment of now-deceased Thomas Eric Duncan – the first Ebola patient to be diagnosed in the US – and had contact with Duncan’s family. He did not have contact with Duncan directly.
Officials at the Texas Department of State Health Services added that Duncan’s relatives have not displayed Ebola synptoms.
We have completed testing of the specimen submitted today by Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas. The result is negative for #Ebola.
— DSHS Press Office (@TexasDSHS) October 9, 2014
A British man who was suspected of contracting Ebola has died in Macedonia, Reuters reports citing a senior Macedonian official.
The official added that a second British national had shown symptoms of the deadly virus.
The condition of Teresa Romero - the Spanish nurse with Ebola - has deteriorated, Reuters reports citing a hospital official.
"Her clinical situation has deteriorated but I can't give any more information due to the express wishes of the patient," said Yolanda Fuentes, an official at the Carlos III hospital.
The official did not provide further details.
Spain kills #Ebola victim's dog #Excalibur despite #SaveExcalibur twitter storm http://t.co/yPbhalC49opic.twitter.com/lJYi8W6sKK
— RT (@RT_com) October 9, 2014
A medical official with the U.N. Mission in Liberia who tested positive for Ebola arrived in the German city of Leipzig on Thursday to be treated at a local clinic with specialist facilities, authorities said.
The unidentified medic infected in Liberia is the second member of the U.N. mission, known as UNMIL, to contract the virus. The first died on Sept. 25. He is the third Ebola patient to arrive in Germany for treatment.
"The man will be treated on an isolation ward... with strict security measures," said Dr Iris Minde, head of Leipzig's St Georg clinic in a statement. "There is no danger of infection for other patients, relatives, visitors or the public."
The hospital stressed its doctors and carers were fully prepared and have regular training on how to work in an isolation ward with highly infectious patients. A Spanish nurse became the first person to contract Ebola outside of Africa, while caring for a priest who died of the disease.
A WHO employee who arrived in Germany from Sierra Leone for treatment last month was released last weekend after successful treatment at a clinic in Hamburg. Another patient is being treated in Frankfurt. (Reuters)
In Sierra Leone, gravediggers are back to work following a one-day strike to demand their overdue risk payments, AP reported. The country’s health ministry promised to investigate the delay in payments.
In neighboring Liberia, health workers warned Wednesday they would go on strike if their demands for higher wages and better safety equipment were not met by the end of the week.
There are now more than 8,000 people in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea that have been infected with Ebola, the World Health Organization stated in its latest report. The death toll now stands at 3,857.
The report states that the situation in these West African countries “continues to deteriorate, with widespread and persistent transmission” of the virus. “There is no evidence that the [Ebola] epidemic in West Africa is being brought under control,” it continues. Although there is a decline of incidences observed in some districts, the report warns the virus is also being under-reported in “several key locations.”
08 October 2014
Officials in Frisco, Texas, said that the second potential Ebola case in the state had reported being inside of Thomas Eric Duncan’s apartment and had contact with some of his family members. The patient did not have direct contact with Duncan himself, said Frisco Fire Chief Mark Piland. Duncan died from Ebola on Wednesday.
Frisco Mayor Maher Maso added that local, state, and federal agencies believe the risk is minimal, though they will continue to take the necessary precautions.
Asked about a possible second case of Ebola in Texas, CDC Director Tom Frieden said there’s no confirmation that the individual has “definite symptoms,” but that there will likely be “definitive information” in the next few hours.
“We have stopped every Ebola outbreak” aside from this one, Frieden said near the end of the press conference. This outbreak in West Africa is “unprecedented,” he added, but insisted that “we know how to stop” the disease.
DHS Deputy Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said enhanced airport screenings will consist of targeted questions, temperature checks, and the collection of contact information at the five affected US airports.
He added that the department has “implemented a range of measures to fight Ebola.” They include adding “do not board” measures for planes, distributing guidance and information about the virus to airlines, posting notices at airports to raise awareness, and providing health notices to travelers entering the US from affected countries.
Mayorkas said that if travelers are found to have a fever or history of contact with Ebola, the CDC and other officers will conduct further interviews and assessment before taking more action.
Travelers to the United States from Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone will be screened as they attempt to enter the country from five US airports, said Deputy Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas of the Department of Homeland Security at a press conference on Wednesday.
The airports include: John F. Kennedy in New York, Washington Dulles International, O’Hare International in Chicago, Hartsfield-Jackson International in Georgia, and Newark Liberty International in New Jersey.
These five airports receive 95 percent of the 150 travelers a day from the three countries mentioned.
The World health Organization (WHO) has said that Ebola in West Africa has killed 3,879 people out of 8,033 recorded cases, as of the 5 October. Liberia and Sierra Leone, the worst hit countries, still only have 21 percent and 26 percent respectively of the beds they need, while neighboring countries have been told to prepare for the disease to spread across their borders.
The White House announced Wednesday that additional Ebola screening will be laid on at five Us airports including New York’s John F Kennedy, Newark Liberty, Chicago O’Hare, Washington Dulles and Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta.
A Spanish nurse, who became the first person to contract the Ebola virus outside of Africa says she may have caught the disease after touching her face with the gloves of her protective suit. Teresa Romero treated two Spanish priests who subsequently died of the virus, before she contracted the virus and is now being kept under watch at a hospital in Madrid.
Spanish #Ebola-infected nurse was separated only by curtains from other patients http://t.co/xQxo3x4B4Zpic.twitter.com/bYxlcYtlYF
— RT (@RT_com) October 8, 2014
"She has talked to me about the gloves, she touched her face with the gloves. That's what she remembers and what she has told me three times," German Ramirez, one of the doctors at Carlos III hospital where the nurse is being treated said, according to Reuters.
"I believe the error was made when taking off the suit," she told Spain's El Pais newspaper in a telephone interview on Wednesday. "I see that as the most critical moment, when something could have happened. But I'm not sure."
The US Secretary of State John Kerry says the international community needs to do more to help contain the spread of the deadly Ebola virus, which has claimed in the region of 3,500 lives. He urged countries not to shut their borders and also said that airlines need to keep flying to West Africa.
"More countries can and must step up," Kerry said, as he appealed to the international community to contribute funds and equipment for those countries that have been affected by the outbreak.
DETAILS: UK to send 750 troops to Sierra Leone to help contain #EbolaOutbreakhttp://t.co/0RRHuH6qCwpic.twitter.com/ONhlnmHsPW
— RT (@RT_com) October 8, 2014
Earlier on Wednesday, the United Kingdom announced they will send 750 troops to Sierra Leone to help build an Ebola treatment center. This followed a meeting of the government's emergency response committee chaired by Prime Minister David Cameron.
I've just chaired a COBRA meeting on Ebola, looking at how we tackle it overseas and make sure the UK is fully protected.
— David Cameron (@David_Cameron) October 8, 2014
Thomas Eric Duncan, the first person to be diagnosed with Ebola in the US has died on Wednesday morning at a hospital in Dallas, said a spokesman."It is with profound sadness and heartfelt disappointment that we must inform you of the death of Thomas Eric Duncan this morning at 7:51 am," hospital spokesman Wendell Watson said in an emailed statement.
Duncan had been hospitalized since September 28, after arriving in the United States on September 20 to visit family from Liberia.
CONFIRMED: Dallas #Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan has died in hospital http://t.co/8itmN0ajetpic.twitter.com/yvcDj1nesY
— RT (@RT_com) October 8, 2014
"The past week has been an enormous test of our health system, but for one family it has been far more personal. Today they lost a dear member of their family. They have our sincere condolences, and we are keeping them in our thoughts," David Lakey, commissioner of the Texas Department of State Health Services said in a statement.
Officials have said as many as 48 people may have been exposed to the disease by Duncan, and that the 10 people who are considered to be at the highest risk are cooperating with public health authorities by staying in quarantine voluntarily.
Travelers coming to the United States from West African countries, which have been stricken by the Ebola virus, will face extra screening at US airports, according to CNN. There are three countries’ currently on the list, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, however this could be expanded.
Countries in West Africa, where the deadly Ebola outbreak is centered, are already supposed to screen passengers before they are allowed to depart. But, under the new measures, passengers will also have to answer questions and have their temperature taken with a hand-held scanner once they arrive in the United States.
The World Bank says that the Ebola virus could cost the global economy in the region of $32 billion by the end of 2015, according to Reuters, if the deadly disease spreads beyond West Africa.
"The enormous economic cost of the current outbreak to the affected countries and the world could have been avoided by prudent ongoing investment in health systems-strengthening," World Bank President Jim Yong Kim said in a statement.
07 October 2014
A patient, who is being treated for the Ebola virus in a hospital in Dallas, is in a critical condition, according to hospital officials. They said that Thomas Eric Duncan, who arrived in the US on a flight from West Africa, is being kept on a ventilator and is receiving kidney dialysis.
"His liver function, which declined over the weekend, has improved, but doctors caution that this could vary in coming days," Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital stated.
They also added that he is being sedated. His temperature is normal and his diarrhea has slowed, according to family members who spoke with his doctors at the hospital on Tuesday. They have not been able to see Duncan, who has been kept in an isolation unit since September 28
Praying with Thomas Eric Duncan's mother, sister and nephews. pic.twitter.com/b3AiTpIyLG
— Rev Jesse Jackson Sr (@RevJJackson) October 7, 2014
A total of four people have been hospitalized in Spain on Tuesday, with fears they could be carrying the Ebola virus. Officials for the country’s health authorities said that they include the nurse who contracted the deadly disease on Monday, as well as her husband.
DETAILS: Nurse tested Ebola-positive twice Monday, 2 suspected infections among 4 hospitalized http://t.co/byCnIdj6zspic.twitter.com/FkrtlXugGW
— RT (@RT_com) October 7, 2014
A traveller who recently visited a country which has been affected by the outbreak and another health worker are also being kept under watch. The nurse, who has caught Ebola, is being treated with a drip using antibodies from patients who were previously infected.
The husband of a Spanish nurse who contracted the Ebola virus has been put in quarantine in a hospital, according to the head of Spain’s public health service, Marcedes Vinuesa. The nurse had helped to treat two Spanish priests, who were flown to Madrid after catching the disease in West Africa.
06 October 2014
A Spanish nurse, who treated a priest in Madrid who subsequently died of the Ebola virus, is now being treated for the disease herself, after she first began to feel sick on September 30. It is the first case of the virus being contracted outside of West Africa.
A Spanish nurse has become the first person to contract Ebola outside Africa http://t.co/2HG6SHpYWopic.twitter.com/St7Td3NuJ7
— Beat 102 103 (@beat102103) October 6, 2014
The news was confirmed by Spanish health officials, with the country’s Health Minister, Ana Mato telling a news conference that an emergency protocol had been put in place, while the authorities were working to establish where the source of contagion was. Everyone who had come in contact with the nurse is being monitored, according to hospital officials.
The US government is not considering introducing a ban on passengers arriving from country’s in West Africa, which is being hit by the deadly Ebola virus, the White House has stated.
"A travel ban is not something that we're currently considering," White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters at a daily briefing. "We feel good about the measures that are already in place," he said.
Get the latest on the U.S. response to the #Ebola epidemic in West Africa → http://t.co/8S19Q6DDRTpic.twitter.com/AIAZaUDmfp
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) October 6, 2014
Meanwhile the trade group Airlines for America will meet with health and safety officials about the possibility of introducing more stringent checks for those who may have been exposed to the virus.
Scientists believe there is a 75 percent chance the Ebola virus could reach France by the end of October and a 50 percent chance that it could reach British shores by the same October 24 date.
"It's really a lottery," said Derek Gatherer of Britain's Lancaster University, an expert in viruses who has been tracking the epidemic, which is the worst Ebola outbreak in history. Scientists used spread patterns and airline traffic data to come to their conclusions. However, if there is a reduction in the number of flights to the affected regions in West Africa, France’s risk falls to 25 percent and the UK’s to 15 percent.
"If this thing continues to rage on in West Africa and indeed gets worse, as some people have predicted, then it's only a matter of time before one of these cases ends up on a plane to Europe," said Gatherer.