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

[Mr. Laz]

Spanish nurse first to contract Ebola outside Africa

Spanish health officials are scrambling to find those people who may have come into contact with a nurse diagnosed with the Ebola virus. The nurse helped treat two patients who died from the disease at a Madrid hospital.

Nurse in Spain is first person to catch Ebola in Europe
Spanish Health Minister Ana Mato announced in a press conference on Monday that two tests had confirmed that the nurse had been infected with Ebola, which has killed more than 3,400 people in West Africa.
Mato said health officials were already monitoring 30 people, including the nurse's husband and coworkers, for symptoms of the disease and were seeking to find out who else she may have been in contact with since developing the symptoms a few days ago.

Jorge Marirrodriga reports from Madrid

The 40-year-old nurse checked into hospital in the Madrid suburb of Alcorcon on Sunday, despite having started to feel ill several days earlier. She was quickly placed in isolation, and the Associated Press reported that she had been transferred early on Tuesday to Madrid's Carlos III hospital, where she had helped treat two elderly Spanish missionaries who died of Ebola shortly after being brought home from Africa.

Questions raised

Health officials said they were investigating how the nurse could have become infected, as she had access to special equipment meant to protect health workers from the disease.

"We are working to see if all the protocols which were established were strictly followed," said Mato. "Spain follows all the recommendations of the World Health Organization."

Ebola's symptoms include fever, vomiting, diarrhea and sometimes internal and external bleeding. It is spread through contact with the bodily fluids of someone who has the virus.
pfd/crh (dpa, AFP, AP)

[ThaVirus]

It has begun.

[Donger]

The operative and relevant part of that article, Laz:

The nurse helped treat two patients who died from the disease at a Madrid hospital.

[htismaqe]

Not to say it isn't concerning, especially the fact that they're seemingly making no attempt to screen people arriving from West Africa...

But the stuff in Spain isn't terribly alarming. I've lived in Spain, it isn't a 1st-world country. The medical facilities there aren't on par with England, France, Germany, or the US.

[Aries Walker]

Originally Posted by ThaVirus

It has begun.

If you mean the media-fueled panicky overreaction, then yes, it absolutely has.

[htismaqe]

Originally Posted by Aries Walker

If you mean the media-fueled panicky overreaction, then yes, it absolutely has.

Just wait until the marginally-tested but absolutely mandatory vaccine becomes available...

[ThaVirus]

Originally Posted by Aries Walker

If you mean the media-fueled panicky overreaction, then yes, it absolutely has.

Definitely.

I was joking, FYI.

[loochy]

Originally Posted by htismaqe

Just wait until the marginally-tested but absolutely mandatory vaccine becomes available...

big_daddy will be first in line

[Aries Walker]

Originally Posted by ThaVirus

Definitely.

I was joking, FYI.

I figured you might have been, but it's a CP DC tradition to respond to jokes and seriousness with equal indignation, so I went for it.

Also, considering your username . . .

[BIG_DADDY]

Originally Posted by loochy

big_daddy will be first in line

[BWillie]

When Ebola mutates and joines forces with Aids & the flu, you ****ers are all gonna be dead.

Ebolaids Flu

Game changer.

[J Diddy]

Originally Posted by BWillie

When Ebola mutates and joines forces with Aids & the flu, you ****ers are all gonna be dead.

Ebolaids Flu

Game changer.

Transferred exclusively by mouth to manflute.

Is all good, all married men will be safe.

[bshmerlie]

I wish they would develope a procedure that would prevent these deadly diseases from leaving the original area....basically a containment protocol to ensure that it can't jump from country to country via the airlines. I don't think this is going to be a major world wide epidemic but I think we should use occurences like Ebola now and Swine Flu from a few years ago as a way to put systems in place.

[Rausch]

Originally Posted by bshmerlie

I wish they would develope a procedure that would prevent these deadly diseases from leaving the original area....basically a containment protocol to ensure that it can't jump from country to country via the airlines. I don't think this is going to be a major world wide epidemic but I think we should use occurences like Ebola now and Swine Flu from a few years ago as a way to put systems in place.

This...

[Mr. Laz]

Texas nurse who had worn protective gear tests positive for Ebola
By Elizabeth Cohen, Steve Almasy and Joe Sutton, CNN
updated 4:54 PM EDT, Sun October 12, 2014

NEW: A "close contact" of the nurse is being monitored, says CDC
The worker helped care for an Ebola patient multiple times, CDC director says
He says there was a breach in protocol and his agency is investigating
Nurse was wearing protective gear when she helped care for Thomas Eric Duncan

(CNN) -- The deadly Ebola virus has been contracted by someone inside the United States for the first time.

A nurse who had worn protective gear during her "extensive contact" at a Dallas hospital with an Ebola patient who died tested positive during a preliminary blood test, officials said Sunday.

The woman had on a gown, gloves, mask and a shield during her multiple visits with Thomas Eric Duncan, but there was a breach in protocol, health officials said.

The patient is a nurse at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas, an official who is familiar with the case told CNN.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta conducted testing on the blood sample, and confirmed the results Sunday, marking the first known transmission of Ebola in the United States and the second diagnosis in the country.

CDC: Protocol 'breach' led to infection Hospital: Worker wore protective gear Are U.S. hospitals prepared for Ebola? Second confirmed Ebola case in U.S.
She was involved in Duncan's care after he was placed in isolation -- his second trip to the hospital after coming to the United States from Liberia -- said Dr. Tom Frieden, the director of the CDC.

The nurse is in stable condition, Texas Health Resources chief clinical officer Dan Varga said. Duncan, the first person to be diagnosed with Ebola in the United States, died Wednesday.

The nurse had "extensive contact" on "multiple occasions" with Duncan, Frieden said.

"At some point, there was a breach in protocol, and that breach in protocol resulted in this infection," he said at a news conference Sunday. "The (Ebola treatment) protocols work. ... But we know that even a single lapse or breach can result in infection."

Also, Varga said that someone who is a "close contact" of the nurse has been "proactively" placed in isolation.

The hazardous materials unit of the Dallas Fire Department has cleaned up and decontaminated the public areas of the health worker's apartment complex, Mayor Mike Rawlings said. Police are keeping people out of the area and are talking to residents nearby.

"We have knocked on every door on that block," the mayor said.
Hazardous materials units have also cleaned out the nurse's car and will work on her apartment Sunday.

"This development is understandably disturbing news for the patient, the patient's family and colleagues and the greater Dallas community," the CDC said in a statement, announcing the nurse's test results.
It sought to play down a wider risk.

"The CDC and the Texas Department of State Health Services remain confident that wider spread in the community can be prevented with proper public health measures, including ongoing contact tracing, health monitoring among those known to have been in contact with the index patient, and immediate isolations if symptoms develop," the CDC said.

Complete coverage on the Ebola outbreak - http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/12/health/ebola/index.html