I don't want to panic anyone, but Ebola may be coming to a town near you

[Skyy God]

At least we won't have to slog through another 7-9 Chiefs season....

Now there are American casualties.

Not in Gaza, and not on the ill-fated Malaysian airliner. Now there are American casualties in another war very far away so maybe, goddammit, somebody should start paying more attention to it.

Kent Brantly, 33, an American doctor who has been working in Liberia since October for the North Carolina-based aid organization Samaritan's Purse, is receiving intensive medical treatment after he was infected with Ebola, according to a spokeswoman for the group. Melissa Strickland said Brantly, who is married and has two children, was talking with his doctors and working on his computer while being treated. A second U.S. citizen, Nancy Writebol, also has tested positive for Ebola, Samaritan's Purse said. Writebol is employed by mission group SIM in Liberia and was helping a joint SIM/Samaritan's Purse team treating Ebola patients in Monrovia. Writebol is married with two children, the organization said. "Both of them tonight are in stable condition," Ken Isaacs, Samaritan Purse's vice president of programs and government relations, said Sunday. "But they are not out of the woods yet."

That's some serious Damien-at-Molokai hero stuff right there, still being at your computer while you're being treated for one of the most vicious diseases on the planet. Other medical professionals, alas, are not as lucky.

A Liberian government official said Sunday that one of that country's highest-profile doctors has died in what the World Health Organization (WHO) calls the largest recorded outbreak of the disease...The first Liberian doctor to die of the disease was identified as Samuel Brisbane. He was working as a consultant with the internal medicine unit at the country's largest hospital, the John F. Kennedy Memorial Medical Center in Monrovia. Brisbane, who once was a medical adviser to former Liberian President Charles Taylor, was taken to a treatment center on the outskirts of the capital after falling ill with Ebola and died there, said Tolbert Nyenswah, an assistant health minister. He said another doctor who had been working in Liberia's central Bong County also was being treated for Ebola at the same center where Brisbane died. The situation "is getting more and more scary," Nyenswah said.

Yes, you could say that. The disease is now in both Nigeria and Liberia, and not in the backwater places any more, either, but in the capital cities. The ones with millions of people. And airports.

Over the weekend, health officials in Nigeria raced to stop the spread of Ebola after a man sick with the disease arrived on a flight in Lagos, Africa's largest city with 21 million people. He later died. The man's ability to board an international flight raised new fears that other passengers could carry the disease beyond Africa because of weak passenger inspection and the fact that Ebola's initial symptoms can resemble those of other illnesses. Isaacs said in an interview that "where it gets really scary" is that the disease, which was previously seen only "in very remote, small villages in Africa" is now being contracted by people in the capital cities of Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone. "Now the disease has been introduced into the big urban areas with millions of people," he said. "In the big cities, people can get on an airplane and fly out." Isaacs does not believe this outbreak his peaked. "I think the worst is yet to come," he said. "I hope I'm wrong."

Meanwhile, the local customs aren't helping a lot, either.

Koroma, 32, a resident of the densely populated Wellington district, had been admitted to an isolation ward while blood samples were tested for the virus, said Sidi Yahya Tunis, a health ministry spokesman. The results came back on Thursday. "The family of the patient stormed the hospital and forcefully removed her and took her away," Tunis said. "We are searching for her."

Jesus save us. I don't mean to sound like a cultural imperialist -- although I seriously doubt that the people in rural Sierra Leone are acting out of what they know about the Tuskegee experiments, or what happened in Guatemala in the 1940's -- but snatching an Ebola patient out of the hospital doesn't sound like a very good way to fight the disease, family networks notwithstanding. (The purloined patient eventually died.) This thing is one airplane flight away from being an international catastrophe, but there is no boom-boom, and without boom-boom, there is no news. However, you know, Americans are getting sick now. Hey, Wolf! Over here?

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politic...Ebola_Outbreak

[Aries Walker]

Originally Posted by BIG_DADDY

The CDC is completely full of shit. I don't believe anything they say. They estimated over 60 million people got H1N1 after they dropped testing because the pandemic wasn't happening. Do you even know a single person that got it?

I did.

[Mr. Laz]

No shit!?!?

UN: We Botched Response to the Ebola Outbreak
LONDON — Oct 17, 2014, 1:04 PM ET
By MARIA CHENG AP Medical Writer

Medical staff in protective gear escort Nina Pham, exiting the ambulance, to a nearby aircraft at Love Field, Thursday, Oct. 16, 2014, in Dallas. Pham, a nurse at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas, was diagnosed with the Ebola virus after caring for Thomas Eric Duncan who died of the same virus. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez) AP
Associated Press
In a draft document, the World Health Organization has acknowledged that it botched attempts to stop the now-spiraling Ebola outbreak in West Africa, blaming factors including incompetent staff and a lack of information.

In the document obtained by The Associated Press, the agency wrote that experts should have realized that traditional infectious disease containment methods wouldn't work in a region with porous borders and broken health systems.

"Nearly everyone involved in the outbreak response failed to see some fairly plain writing on the wall," WHO said in the document. "A perfect storm was brewing, ready to burst open in full force."

The U.N. health agency acknowledged that, at times, even its own bureaucracy was a problem. It noted that the heads of WHO country offices in Africa are "politically motivated appointments" made by the WHO regional director for Africa, Dr. Luis Sambo, who does not answer to the agency's chief in Geneva, Dr. Margaret Chan.

WHO is the U.N.'s specialized health agency, responsible for setting global health standards and coordinating the global response to disease outbreaks.

The document — a timeline on the Ebola outbreak — was not issued publicly but the AP was told the health agency would be releasing it earlier this week. However, WHO officials said in an email Friday that the timeline would now probably not be released publicly. No official at the agency would comment Friday on the draft report.

Dr. Peter Piot, the co-discoverer of the Ebola virus, agreed in an interview Friday that WHO acted far too slowly, largely because of its Africa office.

"It's the regional office in Africa that's the front line," he said at his office in London. "And they didn't do anything. That office is really not competent."

Piot, director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, also questioned why it took WHO five months and 1,000 deaths before the agency declared Ebola an international health emergency in August.

"I called for a state of emergency to be declared in July and for military operations to be deployed," Piot said. But he said WHO might have been scarred by its experience during the 2009 swine flu pandemic, when it was slammed for hyping the situation.

In late April, during a teleconference on Ebola among infectious disease experts that included WHO officials, Doctors Without Borders and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, questions were raised about the performance of WHO experts, as not all of them bothered to send Ebola reports to WHO headquarters, according to the draft document.

In the timeline, WHO said it was "particularly alarming" that the head of its Guinea office refused to help get visas for an expert Ebola team to come in and that $500,000 in aid was being blocked by administrative hurdles. Guinea, along with Sierra Leone and Liberia, is one of the hardest-hit nations in the current outbreak, with 862 deaths so far blamed on Ebola.

The Ebola outbreak already has killed 4,546 people in West Africa out of at least 9,191 cases. WHO says within two months, there could be new 10,000 cases of Ebola every week unless stronger measures to fight the outbreak are put into place.

When Doctors Without Borders began warning in April that the Ebola outbreak was out of control, a dispute on social media broke out between the charity and a WHO spokesman who insisted the outbreak was under control.

[BIG_DADDY]

Originally Posted by Aries Walker

I did.

You are the only one I know then who tested positive for it which is light years from the 60 million+ number the CDC blatantly lied about to cover their asses.

[Donger]

Originally Posted by BIG_DADDY

The CDC is completely full of shit. I don't believe anything they say. They estimated over 60 million people got H1N1 after they dropped testing because the pandemic wasn't happening. Do you even know a single person that got it?

What are you talking about, BD?

[KC native]

Originally Posted by Donger

What are you talking about, BD?

anti-vaccinationsplanet.com

[KC native]

Originally Posted by BIG_DADDY

The CDC is completely full of shit. I don't believe anything they say. They estimated over 60 million people got H1N1 after they dropped testing because the pandemic wasn't happening. Do you even know a single person that got it?

says the poster that completely ignores the scientific information that runs contrary to his kooky beliefs about vaccinations.

[DaFace]

Originally Posted by KC native

says the poster that completely ignores the scientific information that runs contrary to his kooky beliefs about vaccinations.

I read an interesting article a while back that was examining whether you could hypothetically prosecute parents who don't vaccinate their kids if they end up starting a mini-outbreak of a disease and it ends up killing someone else's kid. In summary, it's not as far-fetched as you might think.

[/tangent]

[BIG_DADDY]

Originally Posted by Donger

What are you talking about, BD?

http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/estimates_2009_h1n1.htm

[BIG_DADDY]

Originally Posted by DaFace

I read an interesting article a while back that was examining whether you could hypothetically prosecute parents who don't vaccinate their kids if they end up starting a mini-outbreak of a disease and it ends up killing someone else's kid. In summary, it's not as far-fetched as you might think.

[/tangent]

That's the most asinine thing I have ever heard. Considering the vast majority of adults are not on schedule this has to be a joke. Do you even think about what you post before you do?

You guys just need something to be scared about in here and someone to point your finger at that isn't doing what you think they should. Give me a break.

[ThaVirus]

Originally Posted by DaFace

I read an interesting article a while back that was examining whether you could hypothetically prosecute parents who don't vaccinate their kids if they end up starting a mini-outbreak of a disease and it ends up killing someone else's kid. In summary, it's not as far-fetched as you might think.



[/tangent]

Damn.

That sounds like a pretty clear violation of human rights.

[DaFace]

Originally Posted by BIG_DADDY

That's the most asinine thing I have ever heard. Considering the vast majority of adults are not on schedule this has to be a joke. Do you even think about what you post before you do?

Given your views on these things, I'll take that as a compliment.

[Donger]

Originally Posted by BIG_DADDY

http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/estimates_2009_h1n1.htm

And you don't think the 60 million estimate is valid? If not, why not?

Do you also dispute the number of hospitalizations and deaths?

[BIG_DADDY]

Originally Posted by Donger

And you don't think the 60 million estimate is valid? If not, why not?

Do you also dispute the number of hospitalizations and deaths?

Dude, you were here during that when they were releasing the numbers and nobody had it so they quit testing for it. When asked why they did that they said because they already knew it was a pandemic which made no sense at all. Over 60 million means 1 in 5 Americans had it. At that time on ChiefsPlanet the only person that claimed to have it was Dane but they never tested him. Are you kidding me right now? You lived through this? Did one in five people you know claim to have swine flu because I didn't know anyone who tested positive for it until Aries who just said it now.

[KC native]

Originally Posted by BIG_DADDY

Dude, you were here during that when they were releasing the numbers and nobody had it so they quit testing for it. When asked why they did that they said because they already knew it was a pandemic which made no sense at all. Over 60 million means 1 in 5 Americans had it. At that time on ChiefsPlanet the only person that claimed to have it was Dane but they never tested him. Are you kidding me right now? You lived through this? Did one in five people you know claim to have swine flu because I didn't know anyone who tested positive for it until Aries who just said it now.

Remember everyone, empirical evidence is trumped by anecdotal evidence everytime.

[KC native]

Originally Posted by DaFace

Given your views on these things, I'll take that as a compliment.