Ebola outbreak - general thread #9

[Azriell]

Patient being evaluated for possible Ebola infection at Jefferson County, Missouri hospital

http://www.stltoday.com/lifestyles/health-med-fit/health/patient-being-evaluated-for-possible-ebola-infection-at-jefferson-county/article_58f52b20-8c19-5e15-98f8-59077e5f3b83.html

"The patient recently returned from West Africa, according to Mercy spokeswoman Bethany Pope. The patient is considered low risk and is in isolation in a separate facility used for outpatient surgery on the hospital campus. The hospital is working in collaboration with the Jefferson County Health Department.
Officials with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are aware of the situation, according to a federal official."

 

[Yoda]

SEC suspends trading in four ebola related stocks.

The Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday abruptly suspended trading in four small companies that drew investors' attention last month following the Ebola scare and warned investors to be wary of scams tied to the deadly outbreak.

http://www.foxbusiness.com/economy-policy/2014/11/20/sec-suspends-trading-in-4-ebola-stocks/

 

[Yoda]

:thinking:
Dallas County health and human services site shows up to date numbers of people being monitored for ebola., risk level and when monitoring will end.
http://www.dallascounty.org/department/hhs/Ebola_Monitoring.html

 

[SStarr33]

:thinking:
Dallas County health and human services site shows up to date numbers of people being monitored for ebola., risk level and when monitoring will end.
http://www.dallascounty.org/department/hhs/Ebola_Monitoring.html

Wait, wth?

 

[atthelake]

http://www.gq.com/news-politics/201412/kent-brantly-ebola?currentPage=1 (All quote below from link - with less than 10% copy/paste per WS TOS)

Interesting read..

Another article with those interviewed who took care of Dr. Brantly.....

Vance Ferebee (CHIEF FLIGHT NURSE, PHOENIX AIR): They brought Dr. Brantly to the airport in a stake-bed pickup truck covered with a blue tarp. It was midnight. He's lying in the back in a yellow outfit, a full set of protective gear. It was vinyl, very hot. We walked him up the steps with just a little bit of assistance, and then he walked through the aircraft. As soon as he got in the tent, we got him out of his outfit, because first of all, he didn't need it, and plus it was very hot. The humidity there is ugly.

Ferebee: He tried to sleep on the plane. Just knowing you're going home makes a big difference. But there was so much concern and angst, and just the unknown of getting a patient with Ebola back into the U.S., that it wouldn't have happened without heavy, heavy government influence. That involved landing at a U.S. Air Force base on the way back—in the Azores, but on sovereign Portuguese territory. And then dealing with customs in Bangor, Maine; Dobbins Air Reserve Base; FAA; Department of Agriculture… All the different agencies had to be dealt with.

Ribner: Certainly some of our employees needed some better education. This is not some highly contagious disease that places a lot of people at risk. It's a pretty wimpy virus, as viruses go. I mean, almost any disinfectant wipes it out in ten to fifteen seconds. As viral pathogens go, it's much less hardy than, say, the norovirus, which causes the diarrhea outbreaks on cruise ships. Which is why you need direct exposure to body fluids relatively soon after they come out, because it doesn't survive in the environment very long.

Arevalo: We go above, as far as protective gear. We knew Ebola was transmitted by contact only, not airborne. But if they were to splatter or start vomiting and you get hit, it's going to get you. To minimize that, we always train in a PAPR [powered air-purifying respirator] suit. It gets you used to being in it, so you're conditioned. If you never train in it, thirty, forty minutes or an hour in, you can pass out. Then you have a down medic who's contaminated, and somebody else has to get in. Then you'd run into problems of having way more people exposed.

We went through our regular SOPs, checked our equipment. Then we dressed the truck out. We pull everything out—the stretcher mount, the cabinets, the seat belts off the benches—and we cover the inside from the ceiling down with a waterproof thick material. We create a bucket, basically, so if there's any spillage, any fluids, it would be contained. We dressed two trucks so there was a backup. Some people didn't want Ebola coming into the country, so we were planning for the worst. If somebody tried to ram the ambulance and we flipped, then we're in the middle of highway 285, waiting for…what? So we always have a backup and a chase vehicle.

 

[Yoda]

A doctor in Mali died of Ebola after treating an imam who succumbed to the disease, taking the total toll in the west African country up to seven, health authorities have said.The World Health Organisation said the virus was "almost certainly re-introduced into Mali by a 70-year-old Grand Imam from Guinea, who was admitted to Bamako's Pasteur clinic on 25 October and died on 27 October."

http://www.in.com/news/current-affairs/ebola-rears-its-head-in-mali-again-death-of-doctor-takes-fresh-outbreak-toll-to-five-53007810-in-1.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

 

[SteveS]

Curiosity question:

Anyone still expecting the "170,000 cases and 90,000 deaths by Dec. 15" offered by some of the doomsayers only a few weeks ago?

Looks to me like the world is gonna end up a teeeeeeeensy bit short of that goal.

It's getting harder and harder for the fear-mongering writers and officials to justify putting those kinds of tall tales in print anymore ...once the masses start to recognize the emperor has no clothes, it's a credibility-killer to keep telling the myth.

Once the easy targets are taken out of the equation - the careless and the unaware - things change. We have learned from watching that this is really NOT an easy disease to catch.

 

[Elley Mae]

Cuban doctor arrives in Geneva for Ebola treatment

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/storie...ME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-11-21-07-37-36

Romand said doctors will decide on a treatment regime for Baez, which could include experimental drugs.

Also on Friday, Doctors Without Borders flew one of its Spanish health care workers home from Mali after she accidently pricked herself with a needle used on a person suffering from Ebola.

 

[atthelake]

An interesting read of the patient that was taken to Germany and his clinical case study. I'm surprised he survived as he came down with a blood borne gram negative septicemia which usually has a high mortality rate. Again, as with Brantley case study above, this patient had incredibly high stool output of more than 8 liters per day for 3 days (it's called stool, but at that time would just look like water) requiring extraordinary push of iv fluids, and significantly low platelet counts. As with Brantley, they monitored urine and found that the culturable virus survived in urine longer than blood, up to 26 days post infection.

https://www.pasteur.fr/sites/www.pasteur.fr/files/a-case-of-severe-ebola-virus-infection.pdf

Abstract

Ebola virus disease (EVD) developed in a patient who contracted the disease in Sierra Leone and was airlifted to an isolation facility in Hamburg, Germany, for treatment. During the course of the illness, he had numerous complications, including septicemia, respiratory failure, and encephalopathy. Intensive supportive treatment consisting of high-volume fluid resuscitation (approximately 10 liters per day in the first 72 hours), broad-spectrum antibiotic therapy, and ventilatory support resulted in full recovery without the use of experimental therapies. Discharge was delayed owing to the detection of viral RNA in urine (day 30) and sweat (at the last assessment on day 40) by means of polymerase-chain-reaction (PCR) assay, but the last positive culture was identified in plasma on day 14 and in urine on day 26. This case shows the challenges in the management of EVD and suggests that even severe EVD can be treated effectively with routine intensive care.

 

[jjenny]

An interesting read of the patient that was taken to Germany and his clinical case study. I'm surprised he survived as he came down with a blood borne gram negative septicemia which usually has a high mortality rate. Again, as with Brantley case study above, this patient had incredibly high stool output of more than 8 liters per day for 3 days (it's called stool, but at that time would just look like water) requiring extraordinary push of iv fluids, and significantly low platelet counts. As with Brantley, they monitored urine and found that the culturable virus survived in urine longer than blood, up to 26 days post infection.

https://www.pasteur.fr/sites/www.pasteur.fr/files/a-case-of-severe-ebola-virus-infection.pdf

No wonder most patients die in Africa. Sounds like most extraordinary efforts are needed for survival.

 

[Elley Mae]

Bandits in Guinea steal suspected Ebola blood

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/storie...ME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-11-21-10-05-33

It was a highway robbery but the bandits got more than they bargained for when they stopped a taxi van in Guinea and made off with blood samples that are believed to be infected with the deadly Ebola virus.

 

[nrdsb4]

^^^^Wow.

 

[SCHMAE]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/27/ebola-phone-theft-steals-infected-patient_n_1832927.html

Sorry if this has been shared. Man contracts ebola after stealing phone from hospital with ebola patients. I'm assuming he had no contact with their fluids, only their items. Who can say ?

 

[faw720]

Louise finally has a home, thanks to her church. It is such a joy for me to see church members "walk the walk" rather than just "talking the talk".

http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-victims-moves-dallas-home-212631358.html

 

[SCHMAE]

Louise finally has a home, thanks to her church. It is such a joy for me to see church members "walk the walk" rather than just "talking the talk".

http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-victims-moves-dallas-home-212631358.html

I'm glad. Of all the players within all these stories of ebola, Louise is a rock star. And she , in my opinion, saved the lives of her sons/ nephews by diligently cleaning up that house before, during and after Duncan's illness. I wish her well !

 

[jjenny]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/27/ebola-phone-theft-steals-infected-patient_n_1832927.html

Sorry if this has been shared. Man contracts ebola after stealing phone from hospital with ebola patients. I'm assuming he had no contact with their fluids, only their items. Who can say ?

But the items likely have patient's fluid on them. The phone likely had saliva on it, etc.

 

[faw720]

I'm glad. Of all the players within all these stories of ebola, Louise is a rock star. And she , in my opinion, saved the lives of her sons/ nephews by diligently cleaning up that house before, during and after Duncan's illness. I wish her well !

I know!! I absolutely do NOT understand all the animosity toward her. We live in such a strange world.............

 

[SCHMAE]

http://nypost.com/2014/10/16/dont-say-ebola-on-the-radio-fdny-to-911-dispatchers/

911 dispatchers have been forbidden from dropping any “E”-bombs over the radios, The Post has learned.

 

[SteveS]

http://nypost.com/2014/10/16/dont-say-ebola-on-the-radio-fdny-to-911-dispatchers/

911 dispatchers have been forbidden from dropping any “E”-bombs over the radios, The Post has learned.

It's been awhile since The Post "learned" that item. It was posted here about 5 weeks ago, and may already be out of date in the ever-changing world of ebola news.

 

[Yoda]

Good news

Geneva - The World Health Organisation confirmed on Friday that the Democratic Republic of Congo was Ebola-free, as 42 days had passed since the last case in an outbreak that killed at least 49 people.

http://www.news24.com/Africa/News/WHO-confirms-DRC-Ebola-free-status-20141122