World Bank: Major economic impact
World Bank president Kim says Ebola will have a major impact on West Africa economies:
For 2014 we estimate that the GDP losses to Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea from this crisis will be a combined $360 million, which is a huge portion of the overall GDPs of these small countries. We expect that the impact on government budgets to be $292 million.
Continued spread of the virus could multiply the effect:
Our findings indicate that if the virus continues to spread the economic cost to these countries could grow eight-fold by 2015. This would deal a potentially catastrophic blow
A fast and effective response could limit the economic damage in 2015 to $97 million but if rapid action isn’t taken it could be $800 million. The bank has released $117 million grant funding for an immediate humanitarian response to save lives and prevent new infections.
Pre-flight screening ‘useless’
0 CommentsVirologist Heinz Feldmann says the Monrovia airport is the place he felt least safe:
They are checking your temperature three times before you get into the airport, but if you look at the people that do this kind of work, they don’t really know how to use the devices … They are writing down temperatures of 32°C, which everybody should know is impossible for a living person. All the checks they do are completely useless because they are done by people who are not well trained or overwhelmed by the number of passengers. It is just a disaster, and it needs to be fixed.
Will expand Ebola program
Obama is expected to announce the expansion of a $763 million U.S. plan to help West African nations combat the Ebola virus later Tuesday during his visit to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. Officials say the administration has asked Congress for an additional $88 million for the program. The Department of Defense, which is heading up the program, has requested the re-programming of $500 million. The expansion will include deploying 3,000 troops to the Liberian capital, according to a White House statement:
U.S. Africa Command will set up a Joint Force Command headquartered in Monrovia, Liberia, to provide regional command and control support to U.S. military activities and facilitate coordination with U.S. government and international relief efforts. A general from U.S. Army Africa, the Army component of U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), will lead this effort, which will involve an estimated 3,000 U.S. forces.
The White House says ‘many’ of the troops will be stationed at an ‘intermediate staging base’ where they will supervise movement of medical staff, supplies and heavy equipment.
Rejected patients infect more
0 CommentsResearchers from UK in Liberia say that each Ebola patient turned away by volunteers is infecting 1.5 other people. Prof Edmunds, Medecins Sans Frontieres.
The doubling time of this epidemic is about two weeks, so if we are overwhelmed with our resources right now, it’s going to be twice as bad in two weeks’ time.
Contact tracing is ‘shambles’
0 CommentsThe disease detection technique of contact tracing cannot be done properly in Sierra Leone due to unreliable information. The UN says only 16 of 44 zones in west Africa have sufficient details on people who have come into contact with Ebola patients. U.S. Public Health Service Lt. Rebecca Levine describes the Health Ministry’s database:
Pretty much in shambles.
Contact tracing identifies people who have come into contact with an infected person and monitors them for 21 days. If they develop the disease, they are isolated and their contacts are tracked down. She says many contacts’ addresses are missing or vague, like ‘down by the farm road. In all, only 20% to 30% of the contacts in the database had a usable address.
Gospel tunes
0 CommentsAid workers in Monrovia sing Liberian gospel tunes and encourage Ebola patients to join in in an effort to promote recovery. Nurse Mary Byepu:
They themselves will tell you they want to sing
Health staff have also added cornbread to the menu to encourage patients to eat. One health-care worker brought a woman a cucumber from the local market, while another promised a boy a bicycle if he recovered.
600 doctors needed
0 CommentsThe WHO says at least 600 more doctors are needed in west Africa. Director general Chan:
Our response is running short on nearly everything from personal protective equipment to bodybags, mobile laboratories and isolation wards. But the thing we need most of all is people: healthcare workers. The right people, the right specialists – and specialists who are appropriately trained and know how to keep themselves safe – are most important for stopping the transmission of Ebola. Money and materials are important, but those alone cannot stop Ebola transmission.
At least 1,000 other health workers are needed.
Four times more beds needed
0 CommentsMedecins sans Frontieres worker Pierre Trbovic says the organization has only 200 beds in Monrovia and there are a total of only 240 in the city. MSF is turning away patients to avoid being overwhelmed:
In Monrovia, we estimate that there needs to be more than 1,000 beds to treat every Ebola patient. There are currently just 240 in total. Until that gap is closed by treatment centres with hundreds, rather than the small numbers pledged so far, the misery of turning people away at our gates will continue.
Doctor’s condition improving
0 CommentsDr. Rick Sacra is recovering after receiving a blood transfusion. According to his physicians he is doing very well. The blood came from Kent Brantly, another doctor who had been infected. Blood from a previously infected patient contains antibodies against the virus. Sacra’s wife is very pleased that Brantly was willing to donate blood:
It really meant a lot to us that he was willing to give that donation so soon after his own recovery.
British man dies in Macedonia
The Foreign Office is investigating reports that a 57-year-old British man has died and a second man, aged 72, is ill in Skopje. Macedonian officials say the the patients had been staying at a hotel when they fell ill. The now-deceased man was admitted to the Clinic for Infectious Diseases around 3 p.m. (9 a.m. Eastern) and died around two hours later. His friend remains under observation at the hospital and medical staff are attempting to confirm whether they were infected with Ebola.
Threat to Liberia’s existence
0 CommentsDefence Minister Brownie Samukai tells the UN Security Council that Ebola threatens the entire country’s security:
Liberia is facing a serious threat to its national existence [as it is] now spreading like wildfire, devouring everything in its path.
Pledges Ebola funds
The Bill and Melinda Foundation pledged $50 million to help fight the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. The money will be used to help the government purchase supplies, “scale up emergency operations,” and enable international aid.
We are working urgently with our partners to identify the most effective ways to help them save lives now and stop transmission of this deadly disease. We also want to accelerate the development of treatments, vaccines and diagnostics that can help end this epidemic and prevent future outbreaks.
Plans to return to Sierra Leone
Pooley says he wants to return to west Africa following his recovery:
So while I’m happy to be recovered and alive, there’s a lot of stuff on my mind with what’s going on back there. It would be relatively safe for me to go back and work there, and it’s really the least I could do having received all this amazing care and have people look after me and potentially save my life. It’s the least I could do to go back and return the favour to some other people, even just for a little while. The more help they get the less chance there is they get sick. If they get sick they are just going to end up in a ward in Kenema with less chance than I had.
He says he has ‘huge gratitude’ for Cameron’s role in his recovery, but calls for more support from leaders:
It’s a global problem and it needs global level leadership so Obama and Cameron … need to show some more leadership on this issue … Sierra Leone needs lots of international health-care workers working with big NGOs like MSF and Red Cross. All of that needs to be increased.
Motorcycle taxis are infection risk
0 CommentsThe WHO says motorcycle taxis and regular taxis are not disinfected between passengers:
[They are] a hot source of potential virus transmission
WHO: Scale up aid three-four times
0 CommentsThe WHO says aid to Liberia needs to be scaled up by three to four times. It says new Ebola centres immediately overflow with patients, pointing to…
…a large but previously invisible caseload.
In Montserrado county, which includes Monrovia and is home to more than 1 million people, a WHO investigative team estimated that 1,000 beds are urgently needed:
The number of new cases is moving far faster than the capacity to manage them in Ebola-specific treatment centres.
Will send military aid to Ebola countries
Obama is likely to send US military resources to countries in West Africa affected by the Ebola virus outbreak. Obama stresses that action must be taken now to prevent the disease from spreading. Obama:
If we don’t make that effort now, and this spreads not just through Africa but other parts of the world, there’s the prospect then that the virus mutates. It becomes more easily transmittable. And then it could be a serious danger to the United States.
Nationwide lockdown planned
0 CommentsSierra Leone plans a three-day nationwide lockdown in an effort to halt an Ebola outbreak that has killed hundreds. People will not be allowed to leave their homes for three days under the plan, set to start September 19. The lockdown is being billed as a predominantly social campaign rather than a medical one, in which volunteers will go door-to-door to talk to people. Sierra Leone’s minister Alhaji Alpha Kanu:
We believe this the best way for now to identify those who are sick and remove them from those who are well.
$25 million ZMapp contract
0 CommentsThe U.S. Department of Health and Human Services signs a $24.9 million, 18-month contract with Mapp Biopharmaceutical to support the development, manufacture, and FDA approval of ZMapp. The deal can be extended up to a total of $42.3 million. HHS official:
While ZMapp has received a lot of attention, it is one of several treatments under development for Ebola, and we still have very limited data on its safety and efficacy. Developing drugs and vaccines to protect against Ebola as a biological threat has been a long-term goal of the U.S. government, and today’s agreement represents an important step forward.
NBC interview
Brantly is interviewed by Lauer for NBC Nightly News.
That morning. I just felt a little off. A little warm. A little under the weather. And I took my temperature and it was 100.0 I think.
I don’t think they ever said, ‘Ken I think you are about to die’. but I felt like I was about to die.
Experimental drug cures monkeys
0 CommentsZMapp is shown to cure 100% of monkeys in a Canadian study. Severe symptoms, rashes, bleeding, excessive liver enzymes and signs of liver failure had a reversal due to ZMapp injections and the monkeys continue to recover from a lethal dose of the virus, even five days after the infection. The anti-Ebola drug has yet to go through the official human testing phase. ZMapp takes several months to manufacture, which is why the dosages are currently not available.