Like AIDS before it, Ebola Isn't explained clearly by officials

 NEW YORK TIMES                                                                         Nov. 11, 2014

People shun the infected and their contacts; some demand quarantines. Conspiracy theorists contend the virus escaped from government laboratories.

BBC                                                    Nov. 12, 2014

More than 400 health workers involved in treating Ebola patients have gone on strike at a clinic in Sierra Leone.

The staff, who include nurses, porters and cleaners, are protesting about the government's failure to pay an agreed weekly $100 (£63) "hazard payment".

There have been almost 300 new Ebola cases in Sierra Leone in the past three days

The clinic, in Bandajuma near Bo, is the only Ebola treatment centre in southern Sierra Leone.

The Bandajuma clinic is run by medical charity MSF, which said it would be forced to close the facility if the strike continued. MSF's emergency co-ordinator in Sierra Leone, Ewald Stars, told the BBC that about 60 patients had been left unattended because of the strike at the clinic in Bandajuma.
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http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-30019895

UPDATE:   Mali quarantines dozens after Ebola kills second victim

REUTERS                                                                              Nov. 12, 2014

By Joe Penney

BAMAKO --Authorities in Mali quarantined dozens of people on Wednesday at the home of a 25-year-old nurse who died from Ebola in the capital, Bamako, and at the clinic where he treated an imam from Guinea who died with Ebola-like symptoms.

Secretary-general of Mali's Health Ministry Ousmane Doumbia (2nd L) speaks to journalists at a news conference in Bamako November 12, 2014. Credit: Reuters/Joe Penney

The imam from the border town of Kouremale was never tested for the disease and his body was washed in Mali and returned to Guinea for burial without precautions against the virus.

Two aid workers said that another person who lived in the house where the imam stayed in Bamako had died this week and was buried without being tested.

THE ECONOMIST                                                                                Nov.9, 2014

The number of new cases of Ebola in west Africa is decreasing, suggesting that quickly-enacted emergency precautions have so far been successful. Yet there is a valuable tool that epidemiologists would like to use to track the disease and help stamp it out: data from mobile phones.

These "call data records" identify where the device is and has been, along with its proximity to other devices, among other things. It lets experts infer, with empirical data and in real-time, where people are, and how many, and where they are probably headed. Yet despite talks among researchers, phone companies, governments—and even UN agencies and the GSMA, the mobile-industry’s trade association—the records have not yet been released. Why not?

It is not for a lack of utility. A bevvy of cases already underscore the data’s usefulness.....

If the data are so helpful, why are they not used? Several factors are to blame....

CBS NEWS                                                                                             Nov. 11, 2014

By Jonathan  Berr

About 20,000 nurses walked off the job today in California as part of a two-day series of events across the country organized by National Nurses United. The country's largest such union is aiming to draw attention to what it sees as inadequate preparation at most hospitals to treat Ebola cases.

"Nurses, who have been willing to stand by the patients whether it's the flu, whether it's Ebola, whether it's cancer, are now being asked to put themselves in harm's way unprotected, unguarded," said NNU Executive Director Rose Ann DeMoro, in a statement.

The NNU has targeted Kaiser Permanente, the biggest nonprofit health insurer in the U.S., over what it claims is an "erosion in patient care." The strike affected 86 Kaiser Permanente hospitals and clinics along with two other California hospitals. Another 400 registered nurses in Providence Hospital in Washington, D.C., are set to walk off the job tomorrow.

The organization is demanding that nurses and other care givers who interact with Ebola patients be given full-body hazmat suits that leaves no skin exposed or unprotected, along with air-purifying respirators that meet stringent standards of the National Institute for Occupational Safety & Health.

USA TODAY                                   Nov. 11, 2014
By Liz Sazbo
The successful treatment of Westerners with Ebola in the USA and Europe is changing the way doctors think about the disease.

The conventional wisdom about Ebola has been that it's usually fatal, with a mortality rate of up to 90%. That was based largely on experience with Ebola in developing countries in Africa, where many hospitals have no running water and soap, let alone personal protective equipment for the medical staff.

All eight American patients with Ebola treated in the USA have survived. So have most Europeans evacuated to their home countries for care....

With early and aggressive care, "Ebola can be an eminently treatable disease," says Amesh Adalja, senior associate at the Center for Health Security at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

In some ways, Ebola is a different disease in the USA and Europe than it is in Africa, just as cancer is a different disease here than in developing countries, says Jeffrey Duchin, a professor at the University of Washington-Seattle and spokesman for the Infectious Diseases Society of America. Both conditions are fearsome and dangerous, but experience shows that cancer and Ebola can often be survived if caught early and treated aggressively.

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FORBES MAGAZINE                              NOV. 11, 2014
By Tevi Troy, President, American Health Policy Institute

Ebola has killed over 5,000 people, roiled U.S. hospitals, and shaken the faith of Americans in the government’s ability to respond. At the same time, and below the radar, U.S. companies are responding to Ebola with a variety of steps to protect themselves, their employees, and their operations.

The most important element of communicating the threat of the Ebola outbreak for both the government and corporate leaders is to provide factual information while also preventing panic and fear. There have been 5,000 false alarm cases of Ebola as people flock to U.S. emergency rooms out of fear that their common cold or seasonal flu symptoms are early manifestations of the Ebola virus. This hysteria not only has potential mental and physical health implications, but also economic implications. Fear may incentivize some people to change their behavior, whether through cancelling flights and vacation plans or visiting the doctor and stocking up on medications. Furthermore, treating suspected Ebola patients, even if they don’t pan out, is expensive and labor intensive for hospitals.

ASSOCIATED PRESS                                                                        Nov. 11, 2014
By CLARENCE ROY-MACAULAY
FREETOWN, Sierra Leone --A doctor in Sierra Leone has tested positive for Ebola, dealing yet another blow to the country's fight against the deadly outbreak, an official announced Tuesday.

Dr. Martin Salia, a specialist surgeon at a major hospital in the capital of Freetown, is the sixth Sierra Leonean doctor to become infected in this outbreak. Salia is receiving treatment, said Dr. Brima Kargbo, Sierra Leone's chief medical officer. He offered no other details.

.. Even with the proper protection, staying safe while treating Ebola patients requires rigorous attention to detail, and the smallest mistake can lead to an infection.

 Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair met with officials in Sierra Leone on Tuesday and urged the international community not to let up the fight against the disease.

"More beds, more medical personnel and laboratory testing need to be done, faster, to be on top of this situation," said Blair, who founded the Africa Governance Initiative to help leaders make reforms and meet development goals.

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Focus on Monrovia and Lofa and Nimba Counties

MERCY CORPS Study of the impact of Ebola on the Liberian Economy
While the main focus of the Ebola virus disease crisis in Liberia has been around prevention, treatment, and public health, the economic impact of Ebola is also affecting the lives of the majority of Liberians. Households have less access to basic goods on the market because of reduced incomes, which is resulting in a change in eating habits; the supply of goods is constrained due to border and market closures, as well as transportation problems; and challenges in the agricultural sector may affect farmers’ ability to have a normal harvest in the upcoming planting seasons.

Some of these issues may have immediate remedies, while others will require medium to long-term interventions. If attention is not paid to the economic impact of the crisis, the situation will continue to deteriorate over the coming months.

USA TODAY                                             Nov. 11, 2014
By Matthew Diebel, Doug Stanglin and Liz Szabo

NEW YORK — Craig Spencer, a New York doctor whose hospitalization for Ebola stirred fears that the disease might spread throughout Manhattan, was declared free of the virus Tuesday and released from the hospital...

Dr. Craig Spencer, center, is flanked by New York City Mayor Bill Bill de Blasio, left, and his wife Chirlane McCray as he leaves Bellevue Hospital after being declared free of the Ebola virus on Nov. 11 in New York. (Photo: Andrew Gombert, European Pressphoto Agency)

The release of the 33-year-old physician, who tested positive for the virus Oct. 23, means there are no longer any known Ebola cases being treated in the United States.

The volunteer with Doctors Without Borders, who contracted the disease while treating Ebola patients in Guinea in West Africa, said:

REUTERS                                                 Nov. 11, 2014
By Ayai Tomisawa and Reiji Murai

TOKYO--Fujifilm Holdings Corp said it expects its influenza drug Avigan to be approved by international government bodies to treat Ebola after it receives clinical test results as early as the end of the year.

Fujifilm has been growing its pharmaceutical division through a series of mergers and acquisitions as its photography business wanes. In 2008, it bought Toyama Chemical Co, whose drug Avigan has been drafted to the global fight against Ebola.

NPR                                             Nov. 11, 2014
By Richard Harris

Medical experts are meeting today and tomorrow at the World Health Organization in Geneva to figure out how to test potential Ebola drugs in Africa. In addition to determining which experimental drugs should be the highest priority, the experts are sorting through some difficult ethical issues.

In short, they're trying to figure out how to design tests that will provide the fastest and most trustworthy answers — and yet minimize the need for comparison groups who won't be offered the experimental treatments.

Practice in the United States has set an unrealistic standard. When American health care workers fell ill with Ebola in Africa, they flew home and received medical care vastly better than what Africans were getting, including experimental therapies.

THE WASHINGTON POST                                                                                        Nov. 11, 2014
By Lena H. Sun, Brady Dennis and Joel Achenbach

The news out of West Africa in recent days — good and bad — has demonstrated a fundamental challenge in the fight against Ebola: The virus is more nimble than the human response to it. The landscape of infection and disease has changed dramatically in recent weeks, even as institutions have largely stuck to blueprints drafted months ago.

Archie C. Gbessay, coordinator of the Active Case Finders and Awareness Team in West Point, a large slum in Monrovia, Liberia, discusses efforts to combat Ebola with his team in a school classroom in September. (Michel du Cille/The Washington Post)

The looming question now is whether governments and other organizations can find a way to become as agile as the virus, which has vanished suddenly in some hard-hit places while erupting just as quickly in new locations.

Additional Assistance: Israeli group provides psychological counseling, German Air Force flies in relief supplies (Two stories, scroll down.)

JEWISH TELEGRAPHIC AGENCY                    Nov. 10, 2014
By Uri Heilman
IsraAid is providing psychosocial counseling and training to service providers – health workers, social workers, teachers, police — dealing with Ebola patients in Sierra Leone. The locals staffing Freetown’s Ebola hotline are among those receiving counseling.

IsraAid psychosocial trauma specialists Hela Yaniv, left, and Sheri Oz lead a counseling and training session for service providers in Sierra Leone.

“Dealing with the psychosocial trauma is critical to addressing the Ebola outbreak,” Shachar Zahavi, IsraAid’s founding director, told JTA in an interview. “A major deterrent to treatment is that people don’t trust one another. If you don’t feel well, your family immediately hides you and you then infect your entire family. We’re trying to teach police, social workers, health workers and teachers how to deal with people who are afraid of them – and how to manage their own stress and anxiety.”

ALLIANCE NEWS                                                  Nov. 10, 21014

Hamburg - Researchers at the Hamburg University Clinic (UKE) have begun the first tests on humans in Germany of an Ebola vaccine. The vaccine delivered by the World Health Organisation (WHO) is initially to be tested on 30 volunteers over the next six months, the clinic said Monday, noting that tests on animals had been successful.

If all the testing phases in Hamburg go successfully, then it is hoped that the vaccine can start to be employed by the fall of 2015, a UKE spokeswoman said.

It is hoped that the vaccine "rVSV-ZEBOV," (developed in Canada) can provide protection after just a single dose. Additionally, it might prove to be effective if applied immediately after an Ebola infection starts.

Parallel to the UKE research, scientists from the University Clinic of Tuebingen are to start testing the vaccine on volunteers in Gabon. Other studies are underway in the US and are soon to get started up in Switzerland, Hamburg doctors said.

http://www.lse.co.uk/AllNews.asp?code=vdoolxoa&headline=First_Test_Of_Ebola_Vaccine_On_Humans_In_Germany_Gets_Underway