Splinter Ebola Outbreaks Hinder Fight Against Virus: UN

[cronus]

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2015-0 ... t-virus-un

Splinter Ebola Outbreaks Hinder Fight Against Virus: UN

West Africa’s Ebola epidemic has morphed into several micro-outbreaks of varying intensity and with the potential to reignite more widespread contagion, a United Nations official said.

The pattern of spread has become more nuanced and complex, occurring over a wider area, David Nabarro, the UN Secretary-General’s special envoy on Ebola, said in a report by the Global Ebola Response Information Centre.

The 36-page publication, dated January 2015, outlines progress to date and changes in the global response needed to end the deadly scourge, which began in December 2013 in a remote area of Guinea, near the border with Liberia and Sierra Leone. Since then, Ebola has sickened more than 21,000 people in eight countries and killed 8,468, according to data compiled by the World Health Organization on Jan. 16.

“Ending the outbreak will not be easy because the disease is being transmitted in three countries with a collective land area greater than the United Kingdom,” Nabarro said. “Success can only be achieved if communities themselves understand the nature of the outbreak and act in ways that reduce their likelihood of becoming infected.”

The intensity of the epidemic has now reached a plateau and is starting to decline in some places, the report said.

The overall disease reproduction rate, which gauges the propensity for an infection to spread in the community, fell below 1.0 last month, from about 1.4 in September, the report said. At the peak of the epidemic in the third quarter of last year, new Ebola cases were doubling every three weeks in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, the three worst-affected countries.

“Reaching zero cases and enabling durable social and economic recovery will require sustained commitment from a global coalition of supporters throughout 2015,” UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in the foreword of the report, titled “Making a Difference - The Global Ebola Response: Outlook 2015.”

By mid-December, there were more than 2,000 beds in Ebola treatment centers, compared with fewer than 350 in mid-August, when patients were being turned away because of lack of capacity, Nabarro said. Available beds now exceed the number of Ebola patients recorded each week, though treatment capacity is unevenly distributed in all three most-affected countries.

“Many deaths are still unreported, and communities in some areas are still reluctant to adopt safe burial practices or seek treatment,” he said. “The virus is lurking close by and in coming months it may make a comeback if we become complacent and let down our guard.”

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[Clinton Huxley]

Ebola is being put back in its box. Move on.

[cronus]

Ebola is being put back in its box. Move on.

OK...

[Clinton Huxley]

Just don't want you to be let down again, like all the other times, dear boy.

[JimC]

Ebola has killed third of the world's great apes, says ecologist
Ebola has wiped out a third of the world's chimpanzee and gorilla populations and could threaten the survival of these already endangered great apes, conservationists have warned.

The current Ebola epidemic in West Africa is the worst known among humans, killing 8641 people, according to the latest World Health Organisation figures.

But outbreaks have taken place sporadically in central Africa since the first known case in 1976 and the virus is considered a major threat to gorillas and chimpanzees. In an article for the Jane Goodall Institute, Ria Ghai, an ecologist, wrote that a third of the world's chimpanzees and gorillas have died from Ebola since the 1990s. "Unlike human epidemics, wild-ape epidemics tend to go unnoticed for months or even years," she wrote.

Some of the previous Ebola outbreaks among humans are believed to have stemmed from infected gorillas and chimpanzees, found dead in the forest and butchered for food. Conservationists have called for greater resources to develop a vaccine to help save the animals from extinction. But there are concerns that it could be seen as a competing with human research. According to the conservation group WWF, the Ebola mortality rate is estimated at 95 per cent in gorillas and 77 per cent in chimpanzees.

[piscator]

Who the fuck eats rank carrion they find bloating in the steamy jungle? Answer: No one.

That kind of speculation is one of the reasons people think scientists are generally aspie dweebs who lack the common sense to button a sportcoat, when it's the dipshit journalists who put words in their mouths.