Ebola and other Epidemics, Inadequate Healthcare Threatens Millions

[jimmy olsen]

Not surprising given how sloppy they were.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-29587803

Ebola: Health care worker tests positive at Texas hospital

A Texas health care worker who treated US Ebola victim Thomas Duncan before his death has tested positive for the virus, officials say.

"We knew a second case could be a reality, and we've been preparing for this possibility," said Dr David Lakey, commissioner of the Texas Department of State Health Services.

Mr Duncan, who caught the virus in his native Liberia, died at a Dallas hospital on Wednesday.

The health worker has not been named.

Mr Duncan tested positive in Dallas on 30 September, 10 days after arriving on a flight from Monrovia via Brussels.

He became ill a few days after arriving in the US, but after going to hospital and telling medical staff he had been in Liberia, he was sent home with antibiotics.

He was later put into an isolation unit at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas but died despite being given an experimental drug.

It is not clear at which point the health worker, who has tested positive in a preliminary test, came into contact with Mr Duncan.

The current Ebola outbreak, concentrated in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, has resulted in more than 8,300 confirmed and suspected cases, and at least 4,033 deaths.

[Legbiter]

Relax, it'll just be a slow trickle of cases in the West while the epidemic is burning itself out.

[dps]

Relax.

Don't do it.

He's got a point.  After all, you might say dying young is a reasonable prediction.

Somebody missed a reference, it appears.

[CountDeMoney]

Languish is full of Ayn Rand Assburger fucktards.  A means A.

[jimmy olsen]

Some choice quotes in here.

http://reliefweb.int/report/liberia/keynote-address-regional-committee-western-pacific-sixty-fifth-session-manila

Keynote address to the Regional Committee for the Western Pacific, Sixty-fifth session Manila, Philippines, 13 October 2014

Report from World Health Organization
Published on 13 Oct 2014

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Mr Chairman, Excellencies, honourable ministers, distinguished delegates, Dr Shin, ladies and gentlemen,

The Director-General sends you her best wishes for a productive session. She is fully occupied with coordinating the international response to what is unquestionably the most severe acute public health emergency in modern times.

I am delivering her messages to you, in the words she wanted to use.

I begin here.

These days, people from WHO are expected to say something about the Ebola outbreak that is raving parts of West Africa. I will do so as well.

In my long career in public health, which includes managing the H5N1 and SARS outbreaks in Hong Kong, and managing the 2009 influenza pandemic at WHO, I have never before seen a health event attract such a high level of international media coverage, day after day after day. I have never seen a health event strike such fear and terror, well beyond the affected countries.

I have never seen a health event threaten the very survival of societies and governments in already very poor countries. I have never seen an infectious disease contribute so strongly to potential state failure.

All of this was confirmed on 18 September when the UN Security Council convened an unprecedented emergency session to address what has moved from a public health crisis to become a crisis for international peace and security.

I will not give you the latest figures for cases and deaths, as the number of new cases is now rising exponentially in the three hardest-hit countries, Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone.

But I will use the outbreak to show how some messages, some key arguments that WHO has been making for decade, are now falling on receptive ears.

First, the outbreak spotlights the dangers of the world's growing social and economic inequalities. The rich get the best care. The poor are left to die.

Second, rumours and panic are spreading faster than the virus. And this costs money.

Ebola sparks nearly universal fear. Fear vastly amplifies social disruption and economic losses well beyond the outbreak zones.

The World Bank estimates that 90% of economic losses during any outbreak arise from the uncoordinated and irrational efforts of the public to avoid infection.

Third, when a deadly and dreaded virus hits the destitute and spirals out of control, the whole world is put at risk.

Our 21st century societies are interconnected, interdependent, and electronically wired together as never before.

Fourth, decades of neglect of fundamental health systems and services mean that a shock, like an extreme weather event in a changing climate, armed conflict, or a disease run wild, can bring a fragile country to its knees.

In the simplest terms, this outbreak shows how one of the deadliest pathogens on earth can exploit any weakness in the health infrastructure, be it inadequate numbers of health care staff or the virtual absence of isolation wards and intensive care facilities throughout much of sub-Saharan Africa.

You cannot build these systems up during a crisis. Instead, they collapse.

A dysfunctional health system means zero population resilience to the range of shocks that our world is delivering, with ever greater frequency and force.

We know that higher numbers of deaths from other causes are occurring, whether from malaria and other infectious diseases, or zero capacity for safe childbirth.

Here is one of the few things WHO is glad to see.

When presidents and prime ministers in non-affected countries make statements about Ebola, they rightly attribute the outbreak's unprecedented spread and severity to the "failure to put basic public health infrastructures in place."

Fifth, Ebola emerged nearly 40 years ago. Why are clinicians still empty-handed, with no vaccines and no cure? Because Ebola has been, historically, geographically confined to poor African nations.

The R&D incentive is virtually non-existent. A profit-driven industry does not invest in products for markets that cannot pay.

We have been trying to make this issue visible for ages, most recently through the deliberations of the Consultative Expert Working Group on Research and Development: Financing and Coordination.

Finally, the world is ill-prepared to respond to any severe, sustained, and threatening public health emergency.

This statement may sound familiar to some of you, as it was one of the main conclusions of the IHR Review Committee convened to assess the response to the 2009 influenza pandemic.

The Ebola outbreak proves, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that this conclusion was spot on.

Thank you.

[Ed Anger]

Day 3 of my Ebola/cold. I have taken to the basement to await socitey's collapse. I put a mask on and played with my organ.

[Caliga]

I put a mask on and played with my organ.

Think of me... think of me fondly, when we've said goodbye.

[mongers]

Some choice quotes in here.

http://reliefweb.int/report/liberia/keynote-address-regional-committee-western-pacific-sixty-fifth-session-manila

Keynote address to the Regional Committee for the Western Pacific, Sixty-fifth session Manila, Philippines, 13 October 2014
......

Fifth, Ebola emerged nearly 40 years ago. Why are clinicians still empty-handed, with no vaccines and no cure? Because Ebola has been, historically, geographically confined to poor African nations.

The R&D incentive is virtually non-existent. A profit-driven industry does not invest in products for markets that cannot pay.

We have been trying to make this issue visible for ages, most recently through the deliberations of the Consultative Expert Working Group on Research and Development: Financing and Coordination.
......

Tim, you forgot to bold this bit. 

[crazy canuck]

The hysteria is pretty retarded. Unless you're in a third world country a virus like Ebola isn't much of a concern. The reason it's so bad in Africa is that they don't have the capacity to isolate those with the virus so the sick end up being cared for at home. Those caretakers then get infected and the chain of death continues. Not a single physician with Doctor's Without Borders has gotten Ebola because isolation and contact/droplet precautions works. Most hospitals in America are capable of treating Ebola patients.

No physicians, but quite a few of their staff has.

Yet no staff in the United States has become infected while treating an Ebola patient. This is because we have the technical capability to run an isolation unit and we have an almost endless supply of appropriate personal protective equipment in every hospital in America. These kinds of conditions don't exist in Africa.

Hubris?

[Admiral Yi]

Apparently there wasn't sufficient incentive for public R&D either mongers.

[mongers]

The hysteria is pretty retarded. Unless you're in a third world country a virus like Ebola isn't much of a concern. The reason it's so bad in Africa is that they don't have the capacity to isolate those with the virus so the sick end up being cared for at home. Those caretakers then get infected and the chain of death continues. Not a single physician with Doctor's Without Borders has gotten Ebola because isolation and contact/droplet precautions works. Most hospitals in America are capable of treating Ebola patients.

No physicians, but quite a few of their staff has.

Yet no staff in the United States has become infected while treating an Ebola patient. This is because we have the technical capability to run an isolation unit and we have an almost endless supply of appropriate personal protective equipment in every hospital in America. These kinds of conditions don't exist in Africa.

Hubris?

I don't think we should take too much issue with Fate, I can understand were he is coming from.

But this Texan incident does seems a bit odd, first the authorities come out and point the finger of blame at the nurse, now they're retracing and saying it may be a procedural problem. Sounds like they need to re-examine the procedures and combine those with current best international practice.

One things for sure, it isn't going to be a walk in the park for the US service personnel over there, those going or others from additional countries. I don't envy them the challenges they're gonna face.

[grumbler]

Yet no staff in the United States has become infected while treating an Ebola patient. This is because we have the technical capability to run an isolation unit and we have an almost endless supply of appropriate personal protective equipment in every hospital in America. These kinds of conditions don't exist in Africa.

Hubris?

The statement was true when he made it.  Conditions change.

[CountDeMoney]

WHO Guy needs to stop QQing, and jack up Bill and Melinda for more money.

Fifth, Ebola emerged nearly 40 years ago. Why are clinicians still empty-handed, with no vaccines and no cure?

Because the vast majority of the 400+ known viral hemorrhagic fevers are nasty ass rRNA viruses that have no cure.  There are 4 different flavors of dengue fever, and if you're treated for one of them it actually increases your chances of infectibility for the other 3.  That's the sort of nasty shit this kind of stuff is.

Because Ebola has been, historically, geographically confined to poor African nations.

Ebola and other hemorrhagic fevers have always been geographically confined.  Look at hantavirus;  its been confined to the American southwest.  Why?  Because that's where it's North American carrier, the deer mouse, is.  But yeah, the lack of a cure is all about racism, we get it.

The R&D incentive is virtually non-existent. A profit-driven industry does not invest in products for markets that cannot pay.

The United States government thinks otherwise and it has the NIH, CDC, FDA, USDA and USAMRIID labs to prove it.  There has been some serious post-doctorate experimental work in recombinant DNA involving shit like Ebola that being done on the Federal level for several years.  Just because Pfizer isn't working on it doesn't mean others aren't.

[CountDeMoney]

Passport
Today in Parasitic Capitalism: Ebola.com Squatter Wants $150K for Domain
ForeignPolicy.com


Let's say you are someone who has recently returned from traveling in West Africa. You have visited an Ebola-ravaged country. You are understandably worried about contracting the disease during this worst-ever epidemic and, upon returning home, you catch a fever. You might then go online to try to find information about the disease and to assess whether the crippling fear you are experiencing is, in fact, well placed. That search might lead you to Ebola.com, but little do you know that that site is nothing but a moneymaking ploy.

In today's information economy, there are few more useless money-grubbers than domain squatters, and that is exactly who owns Ebola.com. Blue String Ventures, the company sitting on the domain, is asking for a mere $150,000 to transfer ownership of the site.

"Ebola.com would be a great domain for a pharmaceutical company working on a vaccine or cure, a company selling pandemic or disaster-preparedness supplies, or a medical company wishing to provide information and advertise services," Jon Schultz, Blue String's president, told CNBC. "There could be many other applications as well. With so many people concerned about the disease, any advertisement referring people to Ebola.com should get an excellent response."

So far, more than 4,000 people have died of the virus, and on Monday, the director of the World Health Organization, Margaret Chan, called the outbreak "unquestionably the most severe, acute public health emergency in modern times." Naturally, there is money to be made.

Schultz called his $150,000 price tag "not a tremendous amount for a premium domain."

[Ed Anger]

WHAT A COUNTRY!