Ebola and other Epidemics, Inadequate Healthcare Threatens Millions

[The Brain]

Now those who did it are on cd.

[Ed Anger]

Dead Ebola victims are resurrecting.  Not sure if it's a good thing or bad thing.

http://allafrica.com/stories/201409240829.html

Liberia: Dead Ebola Patients Resurrect?

By Franklin Doloquee
Two Ebola patients, who died of the virus in separate communities in Nimba County have reportedly resurrected in the county. The victims, both females, believed to be in their 60s and 40s respectively, died of the Ebola virus recently in Hope Village Community and the Catholic Community in Ganta, Nimba.

But to the amazement of residents and onlookers on Monday, the deceased reportedly regained life in total disbelief. The New Dawn Nimba County correspondent said the late Dorris Quoi of Hope Village Community and the second victim only identified as Ma Kebeh, said to be in her late 60s, were about to be taken for burial when they resurrected.

Ma Kebeh had reportedly been in door for two nights without food and medication before her alleged death. Nimba County has had bizarre news of Ebola cases with a native doctor from the county, who claimed that he could cure infected victims, dying of the virus himself last week.

News of the resurrection of the two victims has reportedly created panic in residents of Hope Village Community and Ganta at large, with some citizens describing Dorris Quoi as a ghost, who shouldn't live among them. Since the Ebola outbreak in Nimba County, this is the first incident of dead victims resurrecting.

Time to buy 3000 more rounds. And a crossbow.

[jimmy olsen]

there hasn't been an ebola outbreak like this before, correct? so, isn't it difficult to say exactly how it will progress over the next year? people and communities adapt, so i suspect the trajectory of the outbreak isn't going to play out the way authorities suggest.

Some people like to panic.  Like Tim.

Is he really even panicking? Just seems like he's gleefully pasting various articles about doomsday.

I don't see what's gleeful about it!

EDIT:

The numbers from the S. Leone three day quarantine are much greater than first reported.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/25/ebola-epidemic-sierra-leone-quarantine-un-united-nations

Door-to-door searches during the three-day curfew in Sierra Leone identified more than 350 suspected new cases of Ebola, according by the top US diplomat in the country. Charge d'affairs Kathleen Fitzgibbon said teams of volunteers had also discovered 265 corpses, of which 216 had since been buried.

[garbon]

there hasn't been an ebola outbreak like this before, correct? so, isn't it difficult to say exactly how it will progress over the next year? people and communities adapt, so i suspect the trajectory of the outbreak isn't going to play out the way authorities suggest.

Some people like to panic.  Like Tim.

Is he really even panicking? Just seems like he's gleefully pasting various articles about doomsday.

I don't see what's gleeful about it!

Well, of course not. If you did, you'd be mortified at how gauche you've been.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

Dead Ebola victims are resurrecting.  Not sure if it's a good thing or bad thing.

http://allafrica.com/stories/201409240829.html

Liberia: Dead Ebola Patients Resurrect?

By Franklin Doloquee
Two Ebola patients, who died of the virus in separate communities in Nimba County have reportedly resurrected in the county. The victims, both females, believed to be in their 60s and 40s respectively, died of the Ebola virus recently in Hope Village Community and the Catholic Community in Ganta, Nimba.

But to the amazement of residents and onlookers on Monday, the deceased reportedly regained life in total disbelief. The New Dawn Nimba County correspondent said the late Dorris Quoi of Hope Village Community and the second victim only identified as Ma Kebeh, said to be in her late 60s, were about to be taken for burial when they resurrected.

Ma Kebeh had reportedly been in door for two nights without food and medication before her alleged death. Nimba County has had bizarre news of Ebola cases with a native doctor from the county, who claimed that he could cure infected victims, dying of the virus himself last week.

News of the resurrection of the two victims has reportedly created panic in residents of Hope Village Community and Ganta at large, with some citizens describing Dorris Quoi as a ghost, who shouldn't live among them. Since the Ebola outbreak in Nimba County, this is the first incident of dead victims resurrecting.

who could tell anyway, they all look alike :p

[jimmy olsen]

Is this dude just unhinged, or do you think he's purposefully spreading misinformation with the intent of killing more people?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/09/26/an-american-professor-is-telling-liberians-that-the-u-s-manufactured-ebola-outbreak/?tid=hp_mm&hpid=z3

A professor in U.S. is telling Liberians that the Defense Department 'manufactured' Ebola

By Terrence McCoy September 26 at 3:17 AM

Last week, President Obama announced an ambitious — and expensive — plan that effectively placed the U.S. military at the forefront of the global fight against the worst Ebola outbreak in history. In an effort that could cost as much as $750 million in the next six months, he assigned up to 3,000 military personnel to West Africa to "combat and contain" what officials call "an extraordinarily serious epidemic."

As those military doctors and officials begin what will be a difficult task, among the challenges they face are rumors that spread fear — fear of Ebola, fear of quarantine measures and fear of doctors. Already, several medical workers have been murdered in Guinea — throats slit, bodies dumped in a latrine. Then six Red Cross volunteers were attacked earlier this week while they tried to collect the body of an Ebola victim.

And now, in what may plant further seeds of mistrust and suspicion, a major Liberian newspaper, the Daily Observer, has published an article by a Liberian-born faculty member of a U.S. university implying the epidemic is the result of bioterrorism experiments conducted by the United States Department of Defense, among others.

And while some commenting on the article were critical, the number who praised it was telling. "They are using" Ebola, wrote one, "for culling the world population mainly Africa for the...purpose of gaining control of the Africans resources criminally."

The piece purports to describe scientific findings from various "reports," which are not cited in detail, and even references the bestselling thriller, "The Hot Zone."

"Reports narrate stories of the US Department of Defense (DoD) funding Ebola trials on humans, trials which started just weeks before the Ebola outbreak in Guinea and Sierra Leone," wrote Delaware State University associate professor Cyril Broderick.

Under the headline, "Ebola, AIDS Manufactured by Western Pharmaceuticals, US DoD?", it says: "the U.S., Canada, France, and the U.K. are all implicated in the detestable and devilish deeds that these Ebola tests are. There is a need to pursue criminal and civil redress for damages."

Worse, in the same breath, the semi-intelligible article suggests groups trying to stop the epidemic — Centers for Disease Control, the World Health Organization and Doctors Without Borders — are all somehow in on it. The piece puts them on a list of those "implicated in selecting and enticing African countries to participate in the testing events."

Broderick, who is listed as an associate professor in the Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources at Delaware State University, defended his article in a brief interview with The Washington Post. "There are many references to what was contained in my letter," he said. "You may read the letter and double-check the sources listed. They are available and legitimate."

But are they? Broderick drew on research published in several conspiracy Web sites, including Global Research and Liberty Beacon. He discussed a 1996 book called "Emerging Viruses: AIDS & Ebola — Nature, Accident or Intentional?," written by a man who called himself a "humanitarian, clinician, prophet, scholar and natural healer." One of Broderick's sources claimed Tulane University, which once worked on test kits for hemorrhagic fever in West Africa, has "been active in the African areas where Ebola is said to have broken out in 2014."

"Ebola has a terrible history, and testing has been secretly taking place in Africa," Broderick wrote, going on to praise the famous Ebola account "The Hot Zone" as "heart-rending," but written "to be politically correct."

Broderick declined to answer whether he is concerned his article, published in Liberia's Ebola-devastated capital, would convince locals that Western doctors are trying to harm them. "I refer you to the articles and reports published," he said. "I hope you can understand them. They are unambiguous. I am happy that our government has taken the lead in counteracting the infection to curtail the infections and death."

His claims represent a pervasive, pernicious and crippling problem facing the fight against Ebola: misinformation. Across Liberia and Sierra Leone, where the CDC fears Ebola could eventually infect 1.4 million people, there is such distrust of the medical community that some don't even think Ebola exists.

Some in West Africa, reported the Economist, "fear that the government wants to sell the blood of Ebola patients, or that it will remove patients' limbs for ritual purposes. Others think health workers will inject them with Ebola; or that the ubiquitous chlorine disinfectant spray will give them the disease; or simply the virus is an invention to help the government bring in donations."

Broderick's article played on those fears — and attempted to substantiate them. By drawing from conspiracy-obsessed American sources — one of which said the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, were planned by the American elite — its author took rumors circulating in the United States and injected them squarely into the most Ebola-ravaged place on Earth.

Such rumors are "commonplace" in Liberia's capital, according to Ramen IR, an international affairs blog: "They become strengthened through mass dissemination and the credibility gained through publication. The public is then mobilized through misinformation. This tendency is especially high in post-conflict zone like Liberia, where the 14-year civil war still fills the country with memories of violence distrust."

"Unfortunately," Ramen IR wrote, "articles like Dr. Broderick's commonly circulate in Liberia's local media."

Many readers of the article were equally critical of Broderick's reasoning. "These are the kinds of publications which are going to do more harm to our fight against Ebola than good," one said. "Dr. Broderick could have waited till this thing was contained before publishing his speculations. Dr. Broderick has inadvertently placed an anti-Ebola weapon in the hands of ebola skeptics!"

Said another: "My God, this is why Liberians will continue to die, they can believe every half wit who writes with a dictionary and a cut and paste right click of the mouse. Dr. Broderick, I felt sorry for you but I am angry, amazed, and totally shocked at your ignorance."

"It does not take research to discover this professor is a crack pot," wrote another.

But see also: "This paper is creating awareness so that African will refuse any vacination as a biogun that they manufacture and use as a weapon of mass destruction only to anihilate African race."

And, "aids and ebola are perfect examples of recent forays into the germ warefare research the US is pursuing."

[derspiess]

Well, he is a doctor.  At Del State, no less.

[jimmy olsen]

Well, he is a doctor.  At Del State, no less.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2014/09/26/delaware-state-wont-interfere-with-free-speech-of-professor-spreading-ebola-conspiracy-theories/

Officials at the university first became aware of Broderick's article on Friday, after The Post reported on its contents, Holmes said.

He declined to comment on whether the university had spoken to Broderick, citing a policy of keeping "personnel issues" private.

"A lot of people can have tenure at a university and then they'll go out and commit mass murder, okay," Holmes said. "We didn't know that they would do that before they were granted tenure.

[mongers]

Well, he is a doctor.  At Del State, no less.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2014/09/26/delaware-state-wont-interfere-with-free-speech-of-professor-spreading-ebola-conspiracy-theories/

Officials at the university first became aware of Broderick's article on Friday, after The Post reported on its contents, Holmes said.

He declined to comment on whether the university had spoken to Broderick, citing a policy of keeping "personnel issues" private.

"A lot of people can have tenure at a university and then they'll go out and commit mass murder, okay," Holmes said. "We didn't know that they would do that before they were granted tenure.

This out 'onions' The Onion, save it's real life and he's a truly despicable person.

I think I'd put him the same circle of hell as the British guy convicted of selling fake bomb detectors to the Iraqi police/military.

[jimmy olsen]

Those 1700 beds were pledged about two weeks ago right? So they won't open until at least November and I'm skeptical they'll be properly manned. Whatever I read it's constantly reinforcing the idea that there's no hope.

I'm surprised that the level of doom and gloom in the media is still so low. You'd think someone, the British tabloids at least, would see a market in selling the grisly truth. And if happily the projections turn out wrong they can just point to the peer reviewed studies they quoted and blame them. It's just so odd that the media which loves to over hype the smallest things is being so blase about the biggest disaster since 1945.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/lack-of-ebola-volunteers-has-doctors-scrambling-to-catch-up/article20816857/

Lack of Ebola volunteers has doctors scrambling to catch up

DONALD G. McNEIL JR.

The New York Times News Service

Published Friday, Sep. 26 2014, 7:16 PM EDT

Last updated Friday, Sep. 26 2014, 7:32 PM EDT


Doctors and nurses are finally volunteering to fight the Ebola virus in West Africa after a long period of paralyzing fear in which almost none stepped forward.

But, experts say, even though money is now pouring in from the World Bank, the Gates Foundation and elsewhere, and the U.S. Army is to start erecting field hospitals soon, there is likely to be a long gap before those hospitals can be fully staffed to care for the growing numbers of people sick with Ebola.

"As a result, thousands of people will die," Dr. Joanne Liu, president of Médecins sans frontières (Doctors Without Borders), which treats more patients than any other entity, said Friday. "I can't say the exact figure because we don't know how many unreported cases there are. But thousands for sure."

Because months went by this summer in which almost no volunteers could be found, and because it takes time to train them and get them to Africa, there remains a yawning gap between the number of medical professionals needed and those in place to do the work. Each 100-bed hospital needs a staff of 400, about 40 of whom are foreign doctors or nurses. Meanwhile, about 600 Ebola cases are being recorded every week, according to the World Health Organization, and that number doubles every three weeks.

"If we had 1,700 staffed beds right now, we could maybe turn the tide," Dr. Liu said. "When we hear the pledges, we ask for timelines. Some say eight to 10 weeks. They're going to wake up to a much bigger problem at Christmas."

The first U.S. troops with orders to build 17 100-bed hospitals are arriving in Liberia now. Other countries, particularly Britain and France, are under pressure to do the same in Sierra Leone and Guinea.

But the U.S. military now plans to staff only one 25-bed hospital for infected health workers with members of the quasi-military Public Health Service.

"Who will staff the rest?" asked Dr. Liu. "It needs to be hands-on. You have to chip in and expose yourself."

Ebola field hospitals ideally contain three separate tents for confirmed, probable and suspected cases; separate toilet and washing facilities for each; and a double fence outside so relatives can talk without touching. They also contain separate dressing and undressing rooms for staff members wearing protective gear, and possibly laboratory and kitchen tents.

[Liep]

Danish journalists are slowly arriving in Monrovia, it's the ones usually covering war zones that got the job. Doom and gloom incoming!

[Liep]

Danish journalists are slowly arriving in Monrovia, it's the ones usually covering war zones that got the job. Doom and gloom incoming!

A very chilling report where the journalists followed a body collecting team was the first.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

Danish journalists are slowly arriving in Monrovia, it's the ones usually covering war zones that got the job. Doom and gloom incoming!

A very chilling report where the journalists followed a body collecting team was the first.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FvX_Suj11s

[jimmy olsen]

As I thought, the "decline" in infection in Guinea is illusory.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2014/09/guinea-residents-refusing-ebola-treatment-201492751955453636.html

Guinea residents 'refusing' Ebola treatment
Residents say people frightened to go to clinics because of conspiracy theories that they will be killed by doctors.
Last updated: 27 Sep 2014 14:56

Residents of the Guinean capital Conakry, hit hard by Ebola, say they are afraid to seek treatment at hospitals for fear of being poisoned by doctors, as the death toll across West Africa passed the 3,000 mark.

Local resident Tairu Diallo said on Friday that people living in his neighbourhood refused to seek medical help and instead stayed at home, trying to alleviate their symptoms with drugs bought at a pharmacy.

Diallo said people think doctors at hospitals inject patients with a deadly poison.

"If we have a stomach ache we don't go to hospital because doctors there will inject you and you will die," he said.

Many Guineans say local and foreign healthcare workers are part of a conspiracy which either deliberately introduced the outbreak, or invented it as a means of luring Africans to clinics to harvest their blood and organs.

Earlier in September, eight people, including journalists and Ebola-related educators, were killed in southeastern Guinea. 

The World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Friday that the death toll in West Africa has risen to at least 3,091 out of 6,574 probable, suspected and confirmed cases.

Liberia has recorded 1,830 deaths, around three times as many as in either Guinea or Sierra Leone, the two other most
affected countries, according to WHO data received up to September 23.

An outbreak that began in a remote corner of Guinea has taken hold of much of neighbouring Liberia and Sierra Leone,
prompting warnings that tens of thousands of people may die from the worst outbreak of the disease on record.

The WHO said Liberia had reported six confirmed cases of Ebola and four deaths in the Grand Cru district, which is near the border with Ivory Coast and had not previously recorded any cases of Ebola. Liberia's chief medical officer, Bernice Dahn, said that she is placing herself under quarantine for 21 days after her office assistant died of Ebola. Dahn, who has represented Liberia at regional conferences intended to combat the ongoing epidemic, told the Associated Press on Saturday that she did not have any Ebola symptoms but wanted to ensure she was not infected.

Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara said on Friday that his country will lift the controversial suspension of flights to countries affected by the Ebola virus. He said there was no longer a reason to restrict air travel.

There are no reported cases of Ebola in Ivory Coast.

Nigeria and Senegal, the two other nations that have had confirmed cases of Ebola in the region, have not recorded any new cases or deaths in the last few weeks.

[jimmy olsen]

Clinics are filling up as fast as they open.

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/beds-scarce-staff-scarcer-liberias-overrun-ebola-wards-182833374.html#AWp06I8

Beds scarce, staff scarcer, in Liberia's overrun Ebola wards

They carry photos, bags of food -- and hope. But what the families idling at the gate of this Ebola centre in Monrovia lack is news of the fate of their sick loved ones inside.

George Williams brought his wife and daughter to the Island Clinic on Tuesday and since then has had "no news, no contact with my family".

"I trust the doctors and the government," he says.

But his faith draws hoots of laughter from the 40-odd others also waiting. For days, they say, no news of their family has ventured beyond the clinic's barbed-wire and high walls -- only cadavers.

The keeper of the clinic gate, in protective white gear from head to toe, looks like he is transported from outer space to this sweltering, misery-infected African city.

The crowd's noisy complaints fall silent as the gates open, and two Red Cross trucks, each carrying a dozen body bags, emerge.

A woman cries out, then two -- and then anger surges again.

"I want to see my son!" Janjay Geleplay, hard-faced, demands.

She brought 12-year-old Joshua on Sunday from the "72nd" district of Liberia's capital, where "there is a lot of Ebola".

"We get no record from the authorities. They always say we should wait. I come here every day. I want to see my son! Maybe he is already dead," she says, dry-eyed.

The Island clinic opened on Sunday. By the next day its 120 beds were full.

"As of Friday, we had 206 patients," a spokesman for the UN's World Health Organization, which runs the centre, told AFP.

Like all the NGO-run Ebola centres in Liberia, the Island is under-resourced and overrun by demand, forced to fill in for a public health infrastructure that has been decimated by 14 years of civil war and grinding poverty.

"There is supposed to be a system to allow the patients to talk to their families while keeping a distance of several metres (yards) -- but apparently it's not up and running yet," a clearly embarrassed WHO official there says.

Of the four west African nations affected by the Ebola outbreak, Liberia has been hit the hardest, with 3,458 people infected, and 1,830 killed by the disease.

A total of more than 6,500 infections, almost all in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, have been recorded since the beginning of the year according to a WHO count as of Saturday. Of those, 3,091 people have died so far.

- More beds, few aid workers -

On the other side of Monrovia, a 160-bed Ebola clinic run by Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres, MSF) had to turn away patients for days.

A Belgian aid worker, forced to act as a "bouncer" there, quit and returned home, traumatised by the need to turn away the sick and dying.

"A lot of people are saying this is the hardest mission they've ever had," an MSF colleague says, requesting anonymity.

But the colleague also pointed to progress, saying that "slightly fewer arrivals" since Thursday has meant no one needed to be turned away -- "perhaps because new centres have been opened".

International efforts are finally building speed to get critical supplies and staff to stricken nations, following a call for fresh aid by US President Barack Obama, and along with fast-track funding from the International Monetary Fund.

The UN has estimated that nearly one billion dollars will be required to effectively fight the disease.

"In the next two to three weeks, we'll have over a thousand beds available in Monrovia," Frank Mahoney, the representative of the US health body Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, says.

The WHO is planning on creating 500 new beds within the month, and MSF plans to have a total of 400 beds, while Obama has also charged the US army with setting up beds.

Jean-Pierre Veyrenche, in charge of the construction of clinics in Monrovia for the WHO, says the task is especially complicated in the dense Liberian capital.

"You need 5,000 square metres (5,400 square feet) for a 100-bed clinic -- not easy to find in a big city like Monrovia, with marshy terrain. And the heavy rains are an enormous obstacle, as is the high water table which makes it impossible to dig latrines and is forcing us to build septic tanks out of concrete."

Like all NGOs and political leaders, he appeals for more aid workers on the ground.

"I think people are scared," Veyrenche says, "No one knows how to deal with Ebola in an urban zone, and in such numbers.... But the international humanitarian community must act. There are ways of working here. You can't get Ebola from stepping down onto the runway."

A group of aid workers in Monrovia noted the same problem. "Supplies are coming in, but what we're still missing are healthcare personnel," one of them tells AFP.

After a devastating earthquake in Haiti in 2010, 820 NGOs mobilised with on-the-ground efforts, he says. In Liberia, there are fewer than 10.

Outside the Island clinic, 32-year-old Finley Freeman handed his homemade meals over to the gatekeeper to deliver to his mother.

He has not seen her for days but gets his news directly.

"I talked to her on the phone last night. She keeps praying," he says.

Things are looking really bad in S. Leone with an exploding case number and collapsed medical service.

http://www.voanews.com/content/sierra-leone-treatment-center-ebola-outbreak-patients-find-no-care/2463697.html

Exclusive: No Ebola Treatment at Sierra Leone Holding Center


MAKENI, SIERRA LEONE—

Dozens of very sick people sat on the floor in an empty university building in central Sierra Leone.

They waited in filthy conditions.

With the nearest treatment center a 16-hour drive away in Kailahun, there is no way to treat the sick, despite the likelihood they are infected with Ebola.

According to Osman Bah, the Makeni government hospital director, Ebola cases have spiked in recent weeks.

"More than 100, 150 cases, because we have sent 56 patients to Kailahun," he said. "This morning we have had more than 100-110 patients."

This university complex is being used as a makeshift holding facility because the sick people have nowhere else to go.

Highly contagious patients lie in the open.

One woman sat on the floor, too sick to stand.

Other victims huddled together on beds.

One young child was laying alone.

They waited and hoped for a space in the next ambulance.

Growing numbers of Ebola outbreak hotspots are emerging in new locations across the country.

"We get phone calls every day from districts over the whole country, and those districts are absolutely overwhelmed," said Axelle Vandoornick, a medical field coordinator for Doctors Without Borders.

There is no way of telling which patients are Ebola-positive.

Despite this, they are kept together.

"Ninety-nine percent of the cases that we have isolated are positive of Ebola," said Bah, the medical director.

Medical staff at the containment center have little training or experience dealing with Ebola.

Protective equipment is inadequate.

One makeshift ward was empty.

Beds were filthy.

Pill packets sat among piles of clothes left by a departing patient.

Twenty-five confirmed Ebola patients left for Borders treatment center in Kailahun one recent night.

Four died during the 16-hour journey.

Doctors Without Borders' Vandoornick said numbers are increasing.

"Every day we have ambulances arriving and when we open the door there are dead bodies inside the ambulance alongside non-cases potentially," Vandoornick said. "So that is the first source of contamination."

When two new patients were brought in to the center, one young boy showed symptoms for Ebola.

Despite the risk, his mother would not leave his side.

"It's too much," said Karimo Konteh, an ambulance driver. "Every day I pick up 10, 15, 14, 12 patients, everyday. ..."

Vandoornick said some districts have no Ebola treatment facilities of their own.

"They don't have [enough] capacity of Ebola centers in their district, so basically they are trying to send their patients to us," Vandoornick said.

Bah, the medical director, said he is not hopeful the situation will improve.

"For now the situation is not under control," he said. "We are hoping it will be better.

"But I am afraid, maybe it will get worse."