Schoolchildren exposed
Dallas Independent School District Superintendent Mike Miles says five children from four of the district’s campuses were possibly exposed to the virus:
- Conrad High School
- Tasby Middle School
- Hotchkiss Elementary School
- Dan D. Rogers Elementary School
Tasby Middle School shares a campus with Jack Lowe Sr. Elementary School, but DISD officials say no students at Lowe Elementary were directly exposed. The students who may have had contact with Thomas Eric Duncan attended classes earlier in the week, but none have exhibited symptoms. Miles:
So, the odds of them passing on any sort of virus is very low
The children are at home and being monitored by Dallas County Health and Human Services, while the schools have been staffed with additional health employees and more sanitation staff.
Diagnosis missed
0 CommentsTexas Presbyterian Health officials say Duncan wasn’t diagnosed with Ebola because of incomplete information. Infectious disease specialist Dr. Edward Goodman says the medical team thought it was a low-grade viral infection as he was not vomiting and did not have diarrhea:
All the information wasn’t present as they made their clinical decision
Dr. Mark Lester confirms Duncan told staff on his first visit he had been in an area affected by Ebola:
A checklist was in place for Ebola in this hospital for several weeks. That checklist was utilized by the nurse, who did ask [the] question [if the patient had been to Africa.] Regretfully, that information [was not shared] with the full team.
CDC: Spread by bodily fluids
0 CommentsThe CDC says Ebola spreads through saliva, semen, blood, feces and mucus from people who are already showing symptoms, unlike the airborne transmission of other viruses. Frieden:
Ebola doesn’t spread before someone gets sick. Ebola does not spread … from someone who doesn’t have fever and other symptoms.
Symptoms generally occur abruptly eight to 10 days after infection, though it can range from two to 21 days. The virus can continue to spread after a patient dies. CDC’s Division of Global Migration and Quarantine director Dr. Marty Cetron:
There needs to be direct contact frequently with body fluids or blood.
First case diagnosed in US hospital
0 CommentsTexas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas becomes the first hospital in the US to diagnose a patient with Ebola. The patient, and unnamed man, is in isolation. CDC Director Tom Frieden said the patient had been traveling in Liberia, where he may have contracted the disease. He returned to the US on September 20, after which he sought care. Frieden:
It is certainly possible that someone who had contact with this individual…could develop Ebola in the coming weeks…there is no doubt in my mind that we will stop it here.
Frieden also said that “a handful” of people, including family members, may have been exposed to the patient prior to his seeking treatment.
United Nations: Combat Ebola Mission
For the first time, the UN opens a health mission headquarters. UNMEER, or United Nations Mission for Ebola Emergency Response, provides coordinating international efforts to combat the Ebola virus. Team lead Anthony Banbury with crew members arrive on Monday in Accra, the capital of Ghana. Speaking to the Security Council, Ki-Moon:
This international mission, to be known as the United Nations Mission for Ebola Emergency Response, or UNMEER, will have five priorities: stopping the outbreak, treating the infected, ensuring essential services, preserving stability and preventing further outbreaks. Under the leadership of a Special Representative of the Secretary-General, the Mission will bring together the full range of UN actors and expertise in support of national efforts. Our best estimate is that we need a 20-fold increase in assistance.
Admitted to hospital
Duncan arrives at Texas Health Presbyterian by ambulance and is admitted. A friend says that he called the CDC after Duncan was sent home from the hospital, who told him to call the Texas Board of Health and the message eventually got to the hospital. Health Presbyterian says by the time Duncan arrived:
EMS had already identified potential need for isolation. The hospital followed all suggested CDC protocols at that time.
Doctor treats with HIV drug
0 CommentsA doctor says he has good results with a treatment he is trying out of sheer desperation: an HIV drug. Dr. Gobee Logan gives the drug, lamivudine, to 15 Ebola patients, and all but two survive. That’s a 7% mortality rate. One of the patients says:
My stomach was hurting; I was feeling weak; I was vomiting. They gave me medicine, and I’m feeling fine. We take it, and we can eat — we’re feeling fine in our bodies.
Trash bag method
22-year-old Liberian nursing student Kekula invents her own equipment to protect against Ebola. She puts trash bags over her socks and ties them in a knot over her calves, wears rubber boots and another set of trash bags over them, wraps her hair in stockings and places a trash bag over it, wears a raincoat and four pairs of gloves on each hand, followed by a mask. She is able to treat her father, Moses, mother, Victoria, sister, Vivian, and 14-year-old cousin, Alfred Winnie, without becoming infected herself. Moses:
I’m sure she’ll be a great giant of Liberia/
Fake Ebola drugs
0 CommentsThe FDA sends warning letters to three companies the government agency says are selling products over the Internet that claim to treat, prevent or even cure the deadly disease. The letters are issued after an alert warning consumers about fraudulent Ebola products being hawked online went out last month. Howard Sklamberg, the FDA’s deputy commissioner for global regulatory operations and policy:
We have a program at FDA that monitors the Internet to look for health fraud products, products not approved by FDA that claim to cure or treat disease. We noticed that when there is a public health issue that really comes to the fore(front) — for example H1N1 a few years ago, and now Ebola — there tends to be an increase in health fraud products, which are products that claim to prevent, treat or cure disease and the product has not been approved by FDA.
Presents at hospital
Duncan presents at Texas Health Presbyterian after 10 p.m. local time. He undergoes basic blood tests but isn’t screened for Ebola, and is given antibiotics and a pain killer. Dr. Edward Goodman:
His condition did not warrant admission. He also was not exhibiting symptoms specific to Ebola.
Although Duncan informs a nurse that he has traveled from Liberia. Staff say this is not ‘fully communicated’ to the hospital’s medical team.
Treated with TKM-Ebola
Doctors at the Nebraska Medical Centre biocontainment unit say Sacra has been treated with the experimental TKM-Ebola, manufactured by Canadian company Tekmira, which is designed to stop the virus replicating. Doctors had previously declined to identify the drug. Dr. Angela Hewett:
We don’t know if it was Dr. Sacra’s own immune system, the supportive therapy we provided, the blood transfusion from Dr. Brantly, TKM-Ebola or a combination of all these factors that helped Dr. Sacra recover
Blair: Three ways to stop Ebola
Blair says Africa needs support to get through the initial crisis:
If we don’t get this thing under control in the next six to eight weeks, it could become the biggest humanitarian disaster in a generation.
Rebuilding efforts are needed to reinforce strained government resources:
This means stopping the knock-on effects of Ebola. Hunger is a huge risk. The price of basic goods in parts of Liberia’s capital, Monrovia, is up 8% since the virus got a foothold, and in some rural areas the cost of staple foods has doubled.
Governments need support against future crises:
Aid has been successful at slashing the number of people succumbing to preventable disease and lifting the number of kids in school, but too often it has managed this by working around governments. In a crisis you need governments with the capability to respond
Contact with 12-18 people
Duncan comes into contact with 12 to 18 people in Dallas over a period of several days after he starts developing symptoms. Five of them are his girlfriend’s children. An ambulance crew that takes him to hospital are also among those identified.
Develops symptoms
CDC director Frieden says Duncan developed symptoms ‘four or five days” after traveling to the U.S. The incubation period is two to 21 days.
CDC: 1.4 million cases by January
0 CommentsThe CDC releases a report on predicting as many as 550,000 to 1.4 million cases of the Ebola virus in Sierra Leone and Liberia alone, by the end of January. CDC scientists also say that there may be as many as 21,000 reported and unreported cases of Ebola in just those two countries as soon as the end of this month.
“he model shows — and I don’t think this has been shown by other modeling tools out there — that a surge now can break the back of the epidemic. It also shows that there are severe costs of delay,” CDC Director Dr. Thomas Frieden said in a press conference Tuesday.
Worse case scenario over 500,000
0 CommentsOne current projection by the CDC for a worse case scenario places the number of Ebola infections at 550,000. The estimate does not consider intervention and aid from governments and relief organizations mobilizing to contain the virus. The figures stretch all the way to the end of January.
CDC is working on a dynamic modeling tool that allows for recalculations of projected Ebola cases over time. CDC expects to release this interactive tool and a description of its use soon.
Volunteer: Avoid bodily contact
0 CommentsRed Cross Society volunteer Daniel James says his group bury six bodies a day and take blood samples from the corpses in Kailahun, Sierra Leone:
Our personal protective equipment and a chlorine solution are our protection; they are our medication and they are our doctors. We maintain the ABC Rule: Avoid Body Contact.
He says his team have suffered no medical problems.
Travels to U.S. via Belgium
Duncan leaves Liberia for the U.S. He boards an SN Brussels Airlines flight to Brussels. He then boards United Airlines Flight 951 to Washington Dulles and Flight 822 to Dallas-Fort Worth.
Tested in Liberia
Duncan is tested at Roberts International Airport, 35 miles east of Monrovia before boarding his flight to the U.S. via Belgium. He does not have high fever, sweating, vomiting or weakness. Jay Nagbe Sloh, the director-general of the state-run Liberia News Agency:
He showed no Ebola signs.
Facebook post
Ashoka posts on Facebook about the situation in Liberia;
Man oh man I have seen some bad things in the last two weeks of my life. how unpredictable and fraught with danger life can be. how in some parts of the world, basic levels of help and assistance that we take for granted completely don’t exist for many people. the raw coldness of deprivation and the potential for true darkness that exists in the human experience. I hope that humanity can figure out how we can take care of each other and our world. simple, soft aspiration for all my brothers and sisters on this earth who suffer the elements and the cold. may we all be free, loved, and tended to…
https://www.facebook.com/ashoka.mukpo/posts/10205014496708609