Ebola News 12/30

[Buster's Uncle]

IMF focus on cutting debt over health spending worsened Ebola in Africa: study
Reuters
By Chris Arsenault  3 hours ago



International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Christine Lagarde points to a button saying "Isolate Ebola, Not Countries" as she speaks during the IMFC news conference during the World Bank/IMF Annual Meeting in Washington October 11, 2014. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts



ROME (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - The International Monetary Fund (IMF) was partially responsible for the scale of the Ebola crisis in three West African countries as its policies hampered healthcare spending in these post-conflict states, according to a new study.

Conditions on IMF loans to Guinea, Sierra Leona and Liberia over the past two decades prioritized debt repayments and building foreign exchange reserves over healthcare spending, said research by professors from three leading UK universities.

The study comes amid mounting criticism about the slow response to the world's worst outbreak of Ebola that has killed nearly 8,000 people and increasing scrutiny on how organizations could have acted differently to prevent this.

"Policies advocated by the IMF have contributed to under-funded, insufficiently staffed, and poorly prepared health systems in the countries with Ebola outbreaks," said Alexander Kentikelenis, a Cambridge University sociology professor and an author of the study published in the Lancet Global Health journal.

Heavily indebted to foreign lenders after emerging from conflicts, the three countries rely partially on loans to run government services, including health centers.



(L-R, at table) IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde, World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim, Guinea's President Alpha Conde and United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon address the Ebola crisis during the IMF-World Bank annual meetings in Washington October 9, 2014. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst


As a condition for financing, the IMF imposes public sector reorganization on debtor countries and promotes privatization and decentralization of services.

The study quotes a letter written at the beginning of the outbreak by authorities in Guinea to IMF managers stating "unfortunately, because of the reduction in spending, including on domestic investment, it was not possible to respect the indicative targets for spending in priority sectors".

IMF officials refused interview requests, pointing the Thomson Reuters Foundation to an online response to the study.

"The IMF is working on mechanisms to allow us to move rapidly to provide more debt relief to these countries — which would free up more resources that could be used for health care spending," wrote Sanjeev Gupta, an official with the Washington-based financial institution.

More than 20,000 people have been infected with Ebola in the three worst affected states and more than 7,800 have died in ht past year, the World Health Organization reported this week.

The study did not say how many deaths could have been avoided had the IMF not imposed changes to health spending.

Other countries in the region, including Nigeria and Senegal – who also faced cases of Ebola – had stronger healthcare systems, which were able to stop mass contagion of the epidemic, Kentikelenis said.

Gupta denied that IMF policies had caused a drop in spending on health services saying healthcare funding increased 1.6 percent in Liberia as a percentage of GDP, 0.7 percent in Guinea and 0.2 percent in Sierra Leone between 2010 and 2013.

He said mortality rates, child nutrition and sanitation had all improved in the three Ebola-hit nations in the past decade.

Kentikelenis, who conducted the research with other academics from Cambridge University, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and Oxford University, said that bump in funding since 2010 came from factors beyond IMF controls, including "increased aid flows".

The IMF has pledged $430 million to fight Ebola in the three worst affected countries, the study said.

(Reporting By Chris Arsenault, Editing by Belinda Goldsmith)


http://news.yahoo.com/imf-focus-cutting-debt-over-health-spending-worsened-130016748--sector.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Liberia eases up on cremation order for Ebola victims
Associated Press
By JONATHAN PAYE-LAYLEH  21 minutes ago



MONROVIA, Liberia (AP) — Liberia's government announced Tuesday that it will allow families to bury Ebola victims in a special plot of land instead of requiring that the bodies be cremated so as not to spread the virus blamed for killing nearly 8,000 people across West Africa this year.

Ciatta Bishop, head of the national Ebola burial team, said the government has secured a 25-acre parcel of land where Ebola victims can now be laid to rest. More than 2,000 corpses of suspected Ebola victims had been cremated after the decree was ordered at the height of the crisis in Liberia several months ago.

The corpses of Ebola victims are highly contagious, and many of those who washed or touched bodies before their burials contracted the disease.

Bishop warned the public that in returning to normal burials "we have to be careful now" so that the process does not lead to a flare-up in Ebola cases.

"They just must not touch bodies otherwise than that we will have problems again and the number (of Ebola cases) will rise," Bishop said.

The cremation decree is highly unpopular in Liberia, where funeral traditions are carefully followed and are considered a sacred obligation to the deceased. Many families have tried to secretly bury their relatives' bodies to avoid them being taken away by burial teams to face cremation.

Liberia has recorded the highest number of deaths — more than 3,400 — though the number of cases is now highest in neighboring Sierra Leone. More than 9,400 people have become sick there, about 2,700 of whom have died.


http://news.yahoo.com/liberia-eases-cremation-order-ebola-victims-150429236.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Nurse is first Ebola victim diagnosed in Britain
Reuters
By William James and Andy Bruce  2 hours ago



LONDON (Reuters) - A health worker who has become the first person to be diagnosed with Ebola in Britain was being treated at a London hospital on Tuesday after contracting the disease in West Africa.

The woman arrived from Scotland at the Royal Free hospital, Britain's designated Ebola treatment centre, in an ambulance accompanied by police vehicles, a Reuters witness said.

"The latest update we have on the condition of the patient is that she is doing as well as can be expected in the circumstances," Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said.

The BBC named the patient as Pauline Cafferkey, and local media described her as nurse with 16 years' experience who normally worked at a Scottish health centre.

Sturgeon said she could not confirm the patient's identity for confidentiality reasons.

The London hospital's 'High-level isolation unit' will allow doctors to treat Cafferkey while she lies in a plastic tent, limiting the scope for the disease, which is transmitted by contact with bodily fluids, to be passed to medical staff.

The World Health Organization said on Monday that the number of people infected by Ebola in the three West African countries worst affected by the outbreak -- Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea -- had passed 20,000, with more than 7,842 deaths so far.

Cafferkey, a National Health Service worker who had been working in West Africa with the charity Save the Children, flew from Sierra Leone to Glasgow late on Sunday on a British Airways flight via Casablanca in Morocco and London's Heathrow.

She was diagnosed with the virus on Monday after developing symptoms overnight and was initially treated at a Scottish hospital.

Local media said she is in her late 30s and had been working in the Kerry Town Ebola treatment centre outside Sierra Leone's capital, Freetown.

A Reuters journalist who visited the centre last week said it was a huge, pristine facility built by British army engineers, with around 80 beds and stringent cleansing procedures far superior to those of a nearby Sierra Leonean treatment centre.

With paths laid with new gravel and whitewashed walls, the centre even had a gazebo in the "red zone" for recovering patients to sit and chat. Child patients were given a cuddly toy on arrival. On discharge, the toys would have to stay inside the red zone, so each child was given a new, ebola-free toy.

At every doorway there was a barrel of disinfectant. Health workers preparing to enter the red zone all had spotters to check equipment as they changed into protective clothing.


LOW CONTAGION RISK

Authorities said Cafferkey was diagnosed early, meaning the risk to others was extremely low, but they were investigating all possible contacts with her.

"I'm satisfied ... that the procedures, the protocols, the things that we've been practising now for months and months have now kicked in," health minister Jeremy Hunt said.

Britain began screening passengers from West Africa for symptoms of Ebola in October. Hunt said then that he expected to see "a handful" of cases arriving in Britain.

Earlier this year the Royal Free hospital successfully treated another British aid worker, William Pooley, who was flown home after being diagnosed with the virus in Sierra Leone.

Sturgeon said a second patient in Scotland was being tested after returning from West Africa, but had a low probability of having the virus, having had no known contact with infected people.

A third person was undergoing tests in Cornwall, England, and was being treated in an isolation unit, a statement from Public Health England said. The results of those tests would take at least 24 hours.

Around 200 people have been assessed or tested for the virus in recent months, Paul Cosford, Director for Health Protection at Public Health England, the government body handling Britain's response to Ebola, told the BBC.


http://news.yahoo.com/nurse-first-ebola-victim-diagnosed-britain-150252300.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Researchers: IMF policies hindered Ebola response
Associated Press
By MICHELLE FAUL  6 hours ago



YORK, England (AP) — Professors from three leading British universities say International Monetary Fund policies favoring international debt repayment over social spending contributed to the Ebola crisis by hampering health care in the three worst-hit West African countries.

Conditions for loans from the IMF prevented an effective response to the outbreak that has killed nearly 8,000 people, the academics allege in a report in The Lancet Global Health journal this month.

The IMF denied the charges and quoted World Bank data to support its argument that its programs contributed to "significantly improved" health outcomes in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia. In addition, the multilateral finance agency provided $430 million to fight Ebola in West Africa.

"The IMF aims to become part of the solution to the crisis ... Yet, could it be that the IMF had contributed to the circumstances that enabled the crisis to arise in the first place?" asks the study, whose lead author is Cambridge University sociologist Alexander Kentikelenis. Co-authors are Lawrence King of Cambridge, Martin McKee of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and David Stuckler of Oxford University.

IMF lending requires governments to give priority to short-term economic objectives over investment in health, the authors said, citing IMF statistics that showed the terms of loans to Guinea, under an IMF austerity program for 21 years, Liberia, following one for seven years, and Sierra Leone, in one for 19 years.

Civil wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone in the 1990s also contributed to the long-term destruction of those countries' health systems, said the report.

IMF policies contributed to "under-funded, insufficiently staffed, and poorly prepared health systems" in the three countries — a major reason the outbreak spread so rapidly, the report said. The IMF's insistence on decentralized health care made it difficult to mobilize a coordinated response to Ebola, it said.

The IMF responded by saying that health spending had increased in the three countries, if counted as a percentage of GDP. And it is working to provide more debt relief that would free funds for increased health spending, the IMF said.


http://news.yahoo.com/researchers-imf-policies-hindered-ebola-response-091915673--finance.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Ebola patient in Britain transferred to London
Associated Press  3 hours ago



A general view of the Royal Free Hospital where a female health care worker who contracted the Ebola virus disease is being treated in London, Tuesday, Dec. 30, 2014. The patient arrived in Britain on Sunday night from Sierra Leone and became ill Monday morning. Officials say she is the first patient diagnosed with Ebola inside Britain. Her condition is described as "stable" and she is said to be in the early stages of the disease. (AP Photo/PA, John Stillwell)



LONDON (AP) — A British health care worker who contracted the Ebola virus in West Africa has been transferred from Scotland to an isolation unit in London for specialist treatment.

The woman arrived at the Royal Free Hospital in north London on Tuesday. She was transferred from Glasgow on a military plane in a quarantine tent.

Officials have not identified the patient, but she has been named by the BBC and other media as public health nurse Pauline Cafferkey.

She arrived in Britain on Sunday night from Sierra Leone and became ill Monday morning. Officials say she is the first patient diagnosed with Ebola inside Britain.

Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said "she is doing as well as can be expected in the circumstances."

The patient had worked with the charity Save the Children in Sierra Leone, one of the countries worst hit by the deadly disease.



In this Aug. 12, 2014, file photo high level isolation apparatus is seen in the High Secure Infectious Disease Unit at The Royal Free Hospital in London as the female healthcare worker in hospital in Glasgow who has been diagnosed with Ebola will soon be moved to the high-level isolation unit in London. (AP Photo/PA, Jonathan Brady)


In a diary published in The Scotsman newspaper before she returned, Cafferkey said that "my nice community- nursing job in (Scotland) is far removed from this but at the moment this seems a lot more real."

Officials are tracing passengers who traveled with her on her journey home via Casablanca and London's Heathrow Airport.

Paul Cosford, director for health protection for Public Health England, said the passengers were being contacted "on a very precautionary basis."

"But I would emphasize the risk is extremely low to anybody else outside of the hospital treating her," he told the BBC.

The only previous victim of the often-fatal disease in Britain was William Pooley, a nurse who contracted the disease while treating patients in Sierra Leone. He recovered after treatment in London and returned to West Africa.

Since an Ebola outbreak began in December 2013 in the West African country of Guinea, there have been more than 20,000 cases and more than 7,800 deaths, mostly in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone.


http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-patient-britain-transferred-london-090436172.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Healthcare worker in Scotland diagnosed with Ebola
Reuters  10 hours ago



LONDON (Reuters) - A healthcare worker has been diagnosed with Ebola a day after flying home to Glasgow from Sierra Leone, the Scottish government said on Monday.

The patient is being treated in isolation at Glasgow's Gartnavel Hospital, having flown back to Scotland's largest city late on Sunday on a British Airways flight via Casablanca in Morocco and London's Heathrow.

"All possible contacts with the patient are now being investigated and anyone deemed to be at risk will be contacted and closely monitored," the Scottish government said in a statement.

"However, having been diagnosed in the very early stages of the illness, the risk to others is considered extremely low."

The patient, whom BBC sources described as a female aid worker, will be tranferred to a high-level isolation unit in the Royal Free hospital in London.

British Prime Minister Cameron has been informed, the Scottish government added.

In August, another British aid worker, William Pooley, contracted the disease after working Sierra Leone. He was discharged in September after treatment at the Royal Free hospital.

With more than 9,000 cases, Sierra Leone now accounts for nearly half of the known cases of Ebola in this year's West African outbreak, the worst ever. Neighbouring Liberia and Guinea have also been badly hit. [ID:nL6N0U908X]

The World Health Organization on Monday said the number of people infected by Ebola in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea -- the worst affected by the outbreak -- has passed 20,000, with more than 7,842 deaths in the epidemic so far.


http://news.yahoo.com/healthcare-worker-scotland-diagnosed-ebola-063005970.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Ebola wrecks years of aid work in worst-hit countries
Reuters
By Bate Felix and Emma Farge  2 hours ago



Health workers rest outside a quarantine zone at a Red Cross facility in the town of Koidu, Kono district in Eastern Sierra Leone December 19, 2014. REUTERS/Baz Ratner



DAKAR/KOIDU, Sierra Leone (Reuters) - Ebola is wrecking years of health and education work in Sierra Leone and Liberia following their civil wars, forcing many charity groups to suspend operations or re-direct them to fighting the epidemic.

More than a decade of peace and quickening economic growth had raised hopes that the nations could finally reduce their dependency on foreign aid and budgetary support; now Ebola has undermined those achievements, charity workers and officials say.

"The impact of Ebola will take us completely back to it being a basket case," said Rocco Falconer, CEO of educational charity Planting Promise in Sierra Leone. "The impact on some activities have been simply catastrophic."

The two countries worst hit by Ebola have struggled to recover from the wars that raged through the 1990s until early in the 21st century, killing and maiming tens of thousands, and devastating already poor infrastructure.

In Sierra Leone, aid made up one-fifth of economic output in 2010, according to officials, though this had been shrinking as growth accelerated thanks to a boom in the country's commodities exports. Britain and the European Union are the main donors with funds directed to health, education and social assistance.

But Planting Promise's experience typifies the problems of non-government organizations (NGOs) since Ebola hit West Africa, infecting more than 20,000 people and killing nearly 8,000.

It had spent six years in Sierra Leone developing farms and using the profits to fund local schools. The project had just become self-financing for the first time when the outbreak was detected in March.

After that, things fell apart. Planting Promise was forced to withdraw its expatriate staff in June and the following month it closed its five primary schools where nearly 1,000 pupils had studied. It has also shut down its food processing factory.

Though sales have dived, it continues to pay about 120 staff, eating into its reserves. This has forced the group to return "cap in hand" to donors to ask for more money, Falconer said.

The highly contagious disease has brought normal activity to a near halt in the two countries. Governments have issued strict quarantine orders on communities, restricted people's movement and closed schools. They have also banned gatherings, communal work and markets.

Paul Saquee, the chairman of the council of chiefs in Sierra Leone's eastern Kono region, said disruption to the long-term agricultural development projects of one NGO would have knock-on effects. "It means the work they were doing before suffers and next year we will have less food supply," he told Reuters.


RETHINKING STRATEGY

In Liberia, the epidemic dashed President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf's hopes of shifting the focus of aid to investment.

"Now Ebola is here and all of those efforts have been brought to a standstill. We could be starting from scratch again," said Jennah Scott, director of the Liberia Philanthropy Secretariat, a government agency. "That is very heartbreaking."

The World Bank and other donors have pledged hundreds of millions of dollars in aid. But Scott is concerned that money will go mostly to United Nations agencies and large NGOs, rather than local organizations.

"We need to get more support to local NGOs because they are the ones who stay in Liberia," said Scott, whose organization channels around $20 million in aid a year into Liberia.

The WaterAid organization, which works to improve access to safe water, hygiene and sanitation services in developing countries, had to suspend plans to drill 100 boreholes in Sierra Leone and provide services to four villages in Liberia.

Apollos Nwafor, WaterAid's West Africa advocacy manager, said the countries hit by Ebola suffered from broken health systems and food insecurity as well as a lack of safe water, sanitation and hygiene.

WaterAid was now lobbying donors to step up funding in these areas. "Ebola has become a hydra-headed crisis," Nwafor said.

OneVillage Partners, a rural development agency, started seven years ago with post-war reconstruction in villages in eastern Sierra Leone. It has since moved into other activities such as micro-loans for small business.

Since the Ebola outbreak, it has used its knowledge and relationship with villagers to educate them about Ebola, even though this was not its area of expertise.

The group suspended its programs in July and laid off some staff. Now its activities include delivering soap and working with communities to stop the spread of the disease.

While the virus has set the clock back on years of promising aid initiatives, the immediate work of showing local people how to avoid becoming infected is vitally important.

"Everywhere we looked, there was just wholesale denial and a lot of misinformation going around about Ebola," said Chad McCordic, Community Project Manager at OneVillage Partners.

(Additional reporting by Daniel Flynn; Editing by Ed Stoddard and David Stamp)


http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-wrecks-years-aid-worst-hit-countries-152001499--business.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Second patient in Scotland being tested for Ebola: first minister
Reuters  8 hours ago



LONDON (Reuters) - A second health worker is being tested for Ebola in Scotland after returning from West Africa, a day after another was diagnosed with the disease in Glasgow, Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon said on Tuesday.

Sturgeon told BBC radio there was a "low probability" the second worker had the disease.

"Although this is another returning healthcare worker from West Africa, the patient here has had no, as far as we're aware, direct contact with people infected with Ebola," said Sturgeon.

"This patient over the course of today will be transferred for tests."

(Reporting by William James and Andy Bruce; Editing by Andrew Heavens)


http://news.yahoo.com/second-patient-scotland-being-tested-ebola-first-minister-083613233.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Bat-Filled Tree May Have Been Source of Current Ebola Outbreak
LiveScience.com
By Laura Geggel  7 minutes ago



The tall hollow tree that housed thousands of bats and served as a playground for local children.



In the small village of Meliandou, in Guinea, stood a tall, hollowed-out tree where children loved to play. But thousands of bats lived in the tree, and one toddler — a 2-year-old named Emile Ouamouno — may have contracted Ebola from playing there.

Emile, who died in December 2013, was "patient zero," or the first person known to have contracted Ebola in the current outbreak that has now claimed at least 7,600 lives in the region. In a new study, researchers looking for the source of the outbreak found that free-tailed bats (Mops condylurus) lived in the tree. These bats are likely a reservoir of the disease, the researchers concluded.

The tree was about 165 feet (50 meters) away from Emile's house, in the village of 31 houses surrounded by farmland.

"It [the tree] was near a path where the women would go for washing," said Fabian Leendertz, a veterinarian at the Robert Koch Institute in Germany who specializes in zoonotic diseases. "They would always walk down there with the kids, and the kids would play in this nice tree."

Perhaps Emile got Ebola from one of the bats in the tree, Leendertz told Live Science.

The researchers will never know for sure — a fire in the tree on March 24 killed thousands of bats. A few days later, when Leendertz and his team arrived in the village, the villagers had already removed or eaten the dead bats, and there wasn't any evidence left to test for the Ebola virus, Leendertz said. However, the team did find DNA evidence that Mops condylurus were living there, he said.

The finding opens up the possibility that free-tailed bats, which eat insects, may carry and transmit Ebola, reports the study, published today (Dec. 30) in the journal EMBO Molecular Medicine. Other studies have found that the virus can live in fruit-eating and insect-eating bats, Leendertz said.

Leendertz and his colleagues spent four weeks surveying the forest around Meliandou and interviewing villagers in the area. One theory is that Emile could have caught Ebola from a large mammal, such as a chimpanzee, but the researchers found no evidence of an Ebola outbreak in nearby animals.

"Animals, we can largely rule out," Leendertz said. "In theory, there could have been a small hidden epidemic. We didn't monitor the entire forest, but we can for sure say there was no large epidemic among the large wildlife."

Moreover, regional authorities, hunters and women in the village told the researchers that primates are rare in this region of southeastern Guinea, and the few that remain are difficult to hunt. Much of the large game eaten in the area arrives smoked from Liberia and northwestern Guinea, which makes it an unlikely source of the disease, the researchers said.

It is also possible to get Ebola from eating improperly cooked bat meat or by coming in contact with infected bodily fluids from a bat — and villagers in Meliandou routinely hunt bats for food. The researchers captured 169 bats in the area and tested them for Ebola, but none of the tests came back positive, Leendertz said. However, a foodborne transmission of Ebola likely would have affected adults in the community before or at the same time it affected Emile, the researchers said. This suggests a source of infection unrelated to food.

Many of the children in the village caught and played with bats in the hollow tree, and it remains possible that Emile caught Ebola there, Leendertz said.

"People have said, 'How can you be sure that the boy played in the tree?'" Leendertz said. "But how likely is it that a kid would not play in a playground next to his house? We talked a lot to the other children, and found out that they are actually quite big bat hunters."

It's not clear how the tree caught fire, but it burned down soon after the Guinea government banned the eating and hunting of bats, Leendertz said. He stressed that bats play an important role in the region's ecosystem: Fruit bats pollinate flowers and spread seeds, and insectivorous bats eat mosquitoes and help prevent the spread of malaria.

"We have to learn to live with these animals like we live with rabies in bats in Germany and Europe," he said. "It's not a solution to start killing bats and chasing away the colonies."


http://news.yahoo.com/bat-filled-tree-may-source-current-ebola-outbreak-202229325.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Ebola's 'patient zero' got virus from playing in a bat tree, scientists say
2-year-old boy 'may have been infected by playing in a hollow tree housing colony of insectivorous free‐tailed bats'
Yahoo News
By Dylan Stableford  2 hours ago



In this photo provided by UNICEF on Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2014, a person holds a family photograph of a new-born Emile, known as patient zero and his mother and father. The first known victim of the current Ebola outbreak was 2-year-old Emile Ouamouno, who lived in the picturesque forest village of Meliandou with his parents and three sisters, including 4-year-old Philomene. The boy fell sick last December with a mysterious illness that caused fever, black stools and vomiting. About a week after his death, Philomene got sick and died. She was shortly followed by the children's pregnant mother and grandmother. (AP Photo/UNICEF, Beukes)



The 2-year-old boy believed to have triggered the deadly Ebola outbreak in West Africa was likely infected by playing in a bat tree, scientists say.

According to an investigation published by the scientific journal EMBO Molecular Medicine on Tuesday, the current epidemic in West Africa stems from "a single zoonotic transmission event" in Meliandou, Guinea, where the boy, Emile Ouamouno, "may have been infected by playing in a hollow tree housing a colony of insectivorous free‐tailed bats."

The bats have been identified by researchers as potential sources for Ebola transmission and "monitoring data show that larger wildlife did not experience a recent decline and is therefore unlikely to have served as the source" of the current Ebola epidemic in West Africa, the journal said. And fruit bat hunting and butchering are common in southern Guinea, even among children, "facilitating direct human contact" needed to transmit the disease.

Emile died in December 2013, followed by his mother, sister, and grandmother. Within months, the virus spread from Guinea to Sierra Leone, Liberia, Nigeria, Senegal, the United States, Spain, Mali and the United Kingdom — the largest outbreak ever recorded, health officials say.

Dr. Fabian Leendertz led a four‐week field mission in southeastern Guinea in April to examine human exposure to bats and other bushmeat, survey local wildlife in the last remaining forests of the area, and capture and sample bats in the village as well as in neighboring forests.

The team of researchers discovered the possible cause of the boy's Ebola during a visit to the "index village" of Meliandou, where locals reported that children would frequently play in a hollow tree about 50 meters from Emile's home.



A health worker takes Benson, 2 months, from his mother to carry him to a re-opened Ebola holding center in the West Point neighborhood on October 17, 2014 in Monrovia, Liberia. The baby, his mother and grandmother were all taken to the center after an Ebola tracing coordinator checked their temperature and found they all had fever. A family member living in the home had died only the day before from Ebola. The West Point holding center was re-opened this week with community support, two months after a mob overran the facility and looted it's contents, denying the presence of Ebola in their community. The World Health Organization says that more than 4,500 people have died due to the Ebola epidemic in West Africa with a 70 percent mortality rate for those infected with the virus. (John Moore/Getty Images)


Villagers reported that the tree caught fire on March 24, releasing a “rain of bats” that were collected for bushmeat. "We found no evidence of additional zoonotic transmission events stemming from the consumption of these bats, but villagers reported disposing of them after a ban on bushmeat consumption was announced the following day," the scientists said.

But bad bushmeat was probably not the cause of the outbreak:

Consumption of fruit bats in the household is an unlikely source of infection for the index case; no hunters were members of this household and a food item‐borne transmission would likely have affected adults before or concurrently with the index case. Under the assumption that the 2‐year‐old boy was indeed the index case, a source of infection unrelated to food items consumed in the home might be more plausible. The close proximity of a hollow tree housing a large colony of free‐tailed bats (i.e., insectivorous bats), of a species for which serological evidence also suggests EBOV exposure (Pourrut et al, 2009), provided opportunity for infection. Children regularly caught and played with bats in this tree.

Since the start of the current outbreak, there have been a total of 19,695 cases of Ebola in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, and 7,693 deaths, according to the World Health Organization. In Guinea, there have been 2,630 Ebola cases and 1,654 deaths — the highest death rate among the three countries.

Researchers warn that while the village of Meliandou "had the misfortune to be where the zoonotic transmission event occurred, care needs to be taken to avoid retribution attacks" against bats in the region.

"We need to find ways to live together with the wildlife," Leendertz told the BBC. "These bats catch insects and pests, such as mosquitoes. They can eat about a quarter of their body weight in insects a day.

"Killing them would not be a solution," he added. "You would have more malaria."


http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-boy-index-patient-zero-bat-tree-182151708.html

[Buster's Uncle]

The Innocent Game That Started the Ebola Outbreak
Takepart.com
By Celeste Hoang | 3 hours ago



Back in October, researchers identified Ebola’s likely patient zero as a two-year-old boy living in the village of Meliandou, Guinea. Now the authors of a new report, published today in Embo Molecular Medicine, believe they know how he got infected: by playing near a hollow tree that housed a colony of insect-eating bats.

Ebola has dominated headlines for months now, and this outbreak is the largest ever recorded, killing at least 7,800 people across Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and Senegal as of Dec. 17. The fact that it could have been caused by something so innocent makes it even more heartbreaking and frightening.

The study, led by researchers from the Robert Koch-Institute in Berlin, Germany, details how scientists traveled to the boy’s village on a four-week field mission this past April and hunted for clues as to how he could have come into contact with the virus. At first they found no evidence of Ebola in larger wildlife, so they and zeroed in on fruit bats, which are commonly suspected of housing the virus because they’re frequently hunted and eaten as bush meat.

However, the food-borne transmission theory didn’t make sense either—it seemed unlikely that a young child would become ill before, or not alongside, any of the adults in the community, as his food sources probably came from his parents or caretakers. And, the authors noted, no large colony of fruit bats existed in or near the village of Meliandou.   

After speaking with several locals, the researchers learned a devastating detail: the children from the village often played near a hollow tree that was home to a large colony of free-tailed insectivorous bats—which may have resulted in a “massive exposure,” according to the study’s press release.

Still, researchers need more time before they can truly prove the virus' source. The authors sum up their results by acknowledging that these analyses “expand the range of possible Ebola virus sources,” but they need to broaden their sampling efforts.

The report’s publication comes on the heels of a health worker in Scotland just confirmed today to have Ebola after returning from a trip to Sierra Leone with Save the Children. She is currently being treated at a hospital in North London.


http://news.yahoo.com/innocent-game-started-ebola-outbreak-002031697.html