American doctor in Liberia tests positive for Ebola virus

[redheadedgal]

Blood from survivors of Ebola apparently is very effective and has been tried in prior outbreaks.

“The rest of the team became concerned,” says Colebunders, and some of the medical professionals there who had suffered through and survived an earlier infection (“convalescent patients” in the literature) wanted to donate some of their blood to the nurse. “The Americans and Scientists from the States didnt believe it could work,” says Colebunders, but the Congolese doctors did it anyway. The same blood transfusion procedure was repeated for seven others who were ill, the final group of Ebola-stricken patients in the hospital.

The results were staggering: seven of the eight survived.

more @ http://www.newsweek.com/20-year-old-ebola-treatment-could-save-kent-brantly-262552

 

[Sigh Sister]

“The rest of the team became concerned,” says Colebunders, and some of the medical professionals there who had suffered through and survived an earlier infection (“convalescent patients” in the literature) wanted to donate some of their blood to the nurse. “The Americans and Scientists from the States didnt believe it could work,” says Colebunders, but the Congolese doctors did it anyway. The same blood transfusion procedure was repeated for seven others who were ill, the final group of Ebola-stricken patients in the hospital.

The results were staggering: seven of the eight survived.

more @ http://www.newsweek.com/20-year-old-ebola-treatment-could-save-kent-brantly-262552

Here is a documentary about it. Warning that it may be disturbing to some.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YYskFkqoyI

 

[SophieRose]

http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/our-work/medical-issues/ebola

Ebola infections can only be diagnosed definitively in the laboratory by five different tests.

snip

An Ebola outbreak is officially considered at an end once 42 days have elapsed without any new confirmed cases.

 

[jjenny]

http://web.stanford.edu/group/virus/filo/humandiseases.html

•David L. Heymann, MD, Director of Emerging Viral and Bacterial Diseases, Surveillance and Control, World Health Organization:
"The symptoms which occur in Ebola are very similar to those which occur in may other diseases in tropical Africa. Fever, up to 40 degrees centigrade, extreme fatigue, muscle and joint pain, headache, especially frontal headache, hiccups (and hiccups in this case are a very bad sign.) They are associated with a very severe prognosis probably because of irritation to the diaphragm, ocular injection and in very light skinned persons a macular rash. After the sixth day, on days seven and eight, there is actually a clinical improvement in many cases and a decrease in fatigue and many persons feel extremely well during this period. For many this is only the beginning of a cure and as you know there is about a 30% survival rate in this disease. For those unfortunate ones who don't survive on day nine onwards they begin with hemorrhagic signs which you know well from having seen films from the outbreak in Zaire. Bleeding from the orifices and eventually death. So these are the signs and symptoms of Ebola which show that this disease in its early phase is very difficult to distinguish from other diseases in tropical Africa." From his EIINet Seminar, 2 April 1996.

So the doctor could be in this "improvement" period? Up until now I haven't seen anywhere that there is an "improvement" period after which one can either recover or start the hemorrhagic phase.

 

[nrdsb4]

I've been lurking around here for a bit, and this is my first post. However, I have some insight into how these healthcare workers were exposed. I've worn PPE before, and even in air conditioning, they are incredibly uncomfortable and hot. Most of the medical facilities that these healthcare workers are in are at best buildings with no HVAC, and at worst, tents and other temporary structures. These healthcare workers are just as vulnerable to fatigue as anyone else, and I can only imagine the heat makes it much worse. When fatigue sets in, people get careless. That is why we had a limit of 45 minutes (and that was in air conditioned labs working with tissue samples) before we had to take a mandatory break.

When people get tired, they make mistakes. It can be as simple as touching your face or not properly removing your PPE.

I have had this suspicion as well, that in spite of reports that these infected health care workers were "meticulous" in taking the appropriate precautions, somewhere someone made a mistake and broke protocol.

If this virus were spread via the airborne route, I think we'd be seeing a massive epidemic, not what is now present, horrible though it may be.

 

[SophieRose]

http://www.economist.com/blogs/baobab/2014/07/ebola-west-africa

Past outbreaks have been contained and eliminated through careful tracking of individual cases. But the current outbreak has proved harder to manage. West Africa has higher population density and better roads than Central Africa, the site of previous outbreaks, meaning the illness has more opportunity to spread. Robert Garry, a virologist from Tulane University in New Orleans, points out that the current virus is less aggressive than some previous trains, meaning that infected patients are able to spread the disease farther after symptoms begin. These two factors have created a "perfect storm", he says.

 

[nrdsb4]

RE: the many posts speculating about the danger posed by allowing Dr. B's family to travel to see him:

Every single thing I have been able to get my hands on about ebola states that the patient is not contagious during the incubation period, which is quite fortunate for obvious reasons. Does someone have a link which proves the contrary?

 

[jjenny]

RE: the many posts speculating about the danger posed by allowing Dr. B's family to travel to see him:

Every single thing I have been able to get my hands on about ebola states that the patient is not contagious during the incubation period, which is quite fortunate for obvious reasons. Does someone have a link which proves the contrary?

But how would they know when this incubation period is going to turn to symptoms if they travel during of it?

 

[HMSHood]

http://www.economist.com/blogs/baobab/2014/07/ebola-west-africa

Past outbreaks have been contained and eliminated through careful tracking of individual cases. But the current outbreak has proved harder to manage. West Africa has higher population density and better roads than Central Africa, the site of previous outbreaks, meaning the illness has more opportunity to spread. Robert Garry, a virologist from Tulane University in New Orleans, points out that the current virus is less aggressive than some previous trains, meaning that infected patients are able to spread the disease farther after symptoms begin. These two factors have created a "perfect storm", he says.

Study: Growing Guinea outbreak caused by new Ebola strain
http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-pers...owing-guinea-outbreak-caused-new-ebola-strain

The Ebola virus strain responsible for Guinea's outbreak—now at 197 suspected or confirmed cases—is a new strain that has been sickening and killing people at least as far back as December, researchers reported yesterday.

The results of full genetic sequencing suggest that the outbreak in Guinea isn't related to others that have occurred elsewhere in Africa, according to an international team that published its findings online in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM).

It is a new Ebola strain not seen before.

 

[nrdsb4]

But how would they know when this incubation period is going to turn to symptoms if they travel during of it?

I'm not stating that they should have traveled before they had completed the recommended quarantine period;in fact, I'm astounded that they did. However, in spite of that lapse, which I also would like explained, it appears that they have not compromised anyone else as none have developed symptoms. Basically I'm saying that if it is indeed true that infected persons are not contagious until they begin showing symptoms, then the best one can say here is that "we" dodged a bullet. I wonder why they didn't complete the quarantine cycle as recommended. Was there no oversight at all?

 

[Herding Cats]

HMSHood, that's what I thought. This transmits differently and has a different mortality rate either a mutation, or a new virus. Either way, it goes back to that we don't know....we just don't know enough about this virus.

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Herding Cats

 

[redheadedgal]

I wonder why they didn't complete the quarantine cycle as recommended. Was there no oversight at all?

i think b/c he wasn't symptomatic / contagious when they visited. he only got sick after the family left.

 

[nrdsb4]

i think b/c he wasn't symptomatic / contagious when they visited. he only got sick after the family left.

If that's the case, then there would indeed be no reason to restrict this family's movements.

 

[jjenny]

i think b/c he wasn't symptomatic / contagious when they visited. he only got sick after the family left.

They didn't visit. They lived there in Liberia with him. They left for US couple of days before he got symptoms. With incubation period of up to 21 or maybe even 25 days, seems like it should be better safe than sorry.

 

[redheadedgal]

Does anyone know how long each of the two have had Ebola? And where are the other three hospitals with special containment units located?

since about july 26/27 https://www.facebook.com/SamaritansPurse

nebraska: http://www.nebraskamed.com/biocontainment-unit
maryland: http://ww2.gazette.net/gazette_archive/2004/200412/brunswick/news/207790-1.html
montana: http://www.niaid.nih.gov/about/organization/dir/rml/pages/overview.aspx

 

[animlzrule]

Atlanta (CNN) -- Ebola is brutal. Those afflicted often bleed uncontrollably, vomit profusely, lose function of their kidneys and other organs, and -- in over half the cases recently in West Africa -- die.
So faced with the prospect of coming face-to-face with this terrible illness at their Atlanta hospital, where its first documented Ebola cases ever are soon set to arrive, what did two nurses do?
They canceled their vacation.
"They said, 'We have been training for this,'" Dr. Bruce Ribner, who heads the Emory University Hospital unit where the two Americans with Ebola will be treated, told CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta -- himself a neurosurgery professor at Emory. "'We are not going to miss this opportunity to care for this patient."

More at link: http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/01/health/ebola-emory-hospital-prepares/index.html

 

[animlzrule]

How hard is it to catch Ebola?

Ebola is relatively hard to catch compared to some other viruses like measles, SARS, or the flu because it doesn't like to hang out in the air.

In order to contract Ebola, someone must touch the blood or bodily fluids (including sweat, urine, and semen) of a person or animal who's infected (alive or dead). People can also catch it through indirect contact with victims' fluids, such as via bedding or medical equipment.

People generally aren't infectious until they get sick.

Ebola's limited transmission ability is one of the main reasons why outbreaks can often be stopped within weeks or months. What it takes is public education and good health-care hygiene like isolating patients, sterilization procedures, and the use of gloves, masks, and other protective gear.

Link: http://www.vox.com/2014/7/29/594551...-disease-symptoms-africa-facts-guinea-nigeria

 

[redheadedgal]

brantly's family are being monitored only as a precaution (low to no threat) http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...rican-doctors-ebola-prognosis-grave/13297569/

article also states dr brantly believes he somehow caught the disease outside of the medical facility since, as already posted, he was always very careful with using PPE.

 

[redheadedgal]

Brantly was working with nearly two dozen Ebola patients, but Strickland says he followed strict protocols. He covered every inch of his body before entering the Ebola ward in a protective suit. "It would take at least 30 minutes to get that suit on properly," she says.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/goatsandso...tor-sick-with-ebola-now-fighting-for-his-life

 

[Herding Cats]

RedHeadedGal, in re: brantly catching it outside the facility...yes, I've been thinking that for a while. Makes sense to me, you know?

Sigh. Which means, this outbreak is NOWHERE near being contained...

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