Ebola epidemic confirmed in Guinea

[cronus]

[cronus]

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/j ... os-nigeria

First case of ebola reported in Africa's most populous city Lagos

A man has died of ebola in Lagos, the first confirmed case of the highly contagious and deadly virus in Africa's most populous metropolis.

Patrick Sawyer, a 40-year-old Liberian civil servant, collapsed on arrival in Nigeria's main airport on Sunday, health officials said. His condition rapidly deteriorated before he died, said Abdulsalami Nasidi, project director at the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, who attributed his death to ebola.

Officials at the World Health Organisation confirmed a sample from Nigeria was being tested for ebola, but did not confirm the results.

The death marks a new and alarming cross-border development in a disease that has spiralled into the world's biggest epidemic, spread across three west African countries. At least 660 people have died in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone since ebola was first diagnosed in February.

The pathogen is passed through contact with bodily fluids of infected patients, and has no known cure, although chances of survival improve dramatically with early detection and treatment.

But weak health systems and frequent cross-border travel have hampered efforts to contain the virus in a region which has never before experienced an outbreak.

Lagos state authorities said they had requested the flight's manifest to contact the other passengers, and began distributing protective clothing to health workers, state health advisor Yewande Adeshina said. Sawyer flew from Liberia's capital of Monrovia, with a brief flight stopover in nearby Togo. His sister is believed to have died of ebola in the last month, a Liberian official told the Guardian.

Rumours about the virus – which causes a painful fever that degenerates into internal and external bleeding – were met with scepticism from residents in the crowded business district where Sawyer was treated. "I cannot believe it is true," said trader Segun Kosoko, who said he had seen two traders donning face masks.

Experts have also been alarmed by the disease's wide geographical spread, from Guinea's remote interior forest region, where it originated, to densely populated coastal regions.

(continued)

[cronus]

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/j ... s-outbreak

Liberia: top doctor becomes latest Ebola victim

One of Liberia's most high-profile doctors has died of Ebola, a government official said on Sunday, and a second US healthcare worker has been infected in what the World Health Organisation (WHO) is calling the largest outbreak ever recorded of the disease.

Dr Samuel Brisbane is the first Liberian doctor to die in an outbreak, which the WHO says has killed 129 people in the west African nation. A Ugandan doctor working in the country died this month.

Brisbane, who once served as a medical adviser to the former Liberian president, Charles Taylor, 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.

After falling ill, he was taken to a treatment centre on the outskirts of the capital, where he died, said Tolbert Nyenswah, an assistant health minister.Under the supervision of health workers, family members escorted the doctor's body to a burial location west of the city, Nyenswah said.

He said another doctor who had been working in Liberia's central Bong County was being treated for Ebola at the centre where Brisbane died.

The situation "is getting more and more scary," Nyenswah said.

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[laklak]

Apparently another American aid worker has it too. This is what you get for being a busybody.

[cronus]

Could be passing through the air or it might be blow jobs?

[Tero]

Wiki
Lists two breast cancer drugs as of some use in ebola.

[Seth]

Time and past time to quarantine Africa and stop all international flights.

Once it hits a major metropolitan area where carriers can escape cordon it can explode worldwide in a matter of days and become a pandemic that kills 90% of victims.

Only the remoteness of the outbreaks and the speed at which Ebola kills have prevented this, but international air travel can effectively kill us all.

[cronus]

When the chimps escape from local zoos they will take over, Seth, being smarter than 90% of the human survivors. And if the chimps discover how to use gnus what of us then?

[pErvinalia]

Time and past time to quarantine Africa and stop all international flights.

Adapt or die, Seth.

[Tero]

Time and past time to quarantine Africa and stop all international flights.

Adapt or die, Seth.

[Seth]

Time and past time to quarantine Africa and stop all international flights.

Adapt or die, Seth.

Trust me, I will, but this is not to make light of, it could very well be the beginning of the end. I'll say I told you so but you'll be dead.

[Clinton Huxley]

Surely Seth has nano-scale ammo for shooting bugs?

[Seth]

Surely Seth has nano-scale ammo for shooting bugs?

No, but I have infection control supplies and a bunker...

Of course they are in Colorado and I'm in New York City, one of the most likely places on the planet for an epidemic outbreak to occur, so there is that...

I think at the first hint of Ebola in NYC I'm quitting my job and bugging out.

[laklak]

Not the best candidate for a civilization-destroying pandemic, not contagious enough and kills too fast. Now, if it gets to China and cross-breeds with an avian flu virus we're well and truly fucked.

[cronus]

A lot of Chinese in Africa these days, they like a bit of exotica now they've got travelling money.