Ebola News 12/29

[Buster's Uncle]

U.S. health watchdog approves Roche Ebola test for emergency use
Reuters  4 hours ago



ZURICH (Reuters) - Roche Holding AG said U.S. health regulators have approved its Ebola test for emergency use in response to the world's worst outbreak of the disease in West Africa.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved Roche's LightMix Ebola Zaire rRT-PCR Test for use on patients with signs and symptoms of Ebola Zaire virus infection, the Swiss drugmaker said in a statement.

Roche said the LightMix test can generate results in just over three hours, helping to detect the virus quickly so treatment can start as soon as possible.

Under the emergency use designation, certain laboratories in the United States and other countries have been authorised to use the test for a limited period to detect the type of Ebola that has been spreading in West Africa.

The test, made by TIB MOLBIOL GmbH and distributed by Roche, has not been approved by the FDA for general use.

The global death toll from Ebola has risen to 7,588 out of 19,497 confirmed cases recorded in the year-old epidemic in West Africa, the World Health Organization said last Wednesday. [ID:nL6N0U81OE]

(Reporting by Caroline Copley. Editing by Jane Merriman)


http://news.yahoo.com/u-health-watchdog-approves-roche-ebola-test-emergency-123450565--finance.html

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Liberia sees surge in new Ebola cases in border county
Reuters  16 minutes ago



A health worker wearing protective gear attends to a newly admitted suspected Ebola patient in 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



MONROVIA (Reuters) - An outbreak of Ebola cases in a western Liberia county threatens the country's goal of recording no new cases of the disease by the end of the year.

From Dec. 1 to 25, some 49 cases of Ebola were reported in Grand Cape Mount County. This included 27 confirmed cases, nine probable and 13 suspected, said Tolbert Nyensuwah, assistant minister for preventive services and the head of Liberia’s Ebola response.

The government had set a Dec 31 target for recording no new Ebola infections. The Grand Cape Mount outbreak makes hitting that target unlikely.

"This is a serious situation and we are going to Cape Mount today along with our international partners and UN agencies," Nyensuwah told a news conference late Sunday in Monrovia. "We are going there to open an Ebola Treatment Unit."

Grand Cape Mount is one of Liberia’s least populous counties, with just over 140,000 people. It borders Sierra Leone, where the deadly hemorrhagic fever is also raging.

Some 3,413 people have died in Liberia in the worst Ebola epidemic on record. In the three worst-hit countries -- Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea -- the outbreak has killed about 7,842 out of 20,081 cases, according to the World Health Organization. However, under-reporting means the number of deaths and cases is probably much higher, the WHO says.

Nyensuwah said the increases in new cases was caused by suspected and probable victims migrating into the county and by persistent denial of the existence of the virus by tribesmen.

"Cultural practices are still being done in Grand Cape Mount -- for example, burial preparation and bathing of dead bodies before burial," Nyensuwah said. "We have observed ... complacency and a high level of disregard of preventive measures that are laid down by the Ministry of Health."

Liberia has stepped up efforts to control the spread of the disease, including the building of treatment centers. Infections had declined in recent weeks, raising hopes that the outbreak may be nearing an end.

(Reporting by James Harding Giahyue and Alphonso Toweh; Writing by Bate Felix; Editing by Larry King)


http://news.yahoo.com/liberia-sees-surge-ebola-cases-border-county-171536324--business.html

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Ebola returns to Europe with first case diagnosed in Britain
AFP  19 minutes ago



The specialist Brownlee Centre on the Gartnavel Hospital campus is seen in Glasgow on December 29, 2014, where a healthcare worker diagnosed with Ebola is being treated (AFP Photo/Andy Buchanan)



Glasgow (AFP) - A healthcare worker recently returned from Sierra Leone was diagnosed with Ebola on Monday by doctors in Scotland's largest city.

"A confirmed case of Ebola has been diagnosed in Glasgow," the Scottish government said.

The case is the first diagnosis of the deadly virus in Britain during the current outbreak.

Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon confirmed that the patient was a female health worker, and was currently in a stable condition in hospital.

The patient returned to Scotland late Sunday via Casablanca and London Heathrow, arriving at Glasgow Airport around 11:30 pm local time (2330 GMT).

She was admitted to Gartnavel Hospital campus Monday after feeling unwell and placed in isolation at 7:50 am.

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

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



Nurses wearing personal protective equipment treat ebola patients at the Kenama treatment center on November 15, 2014 (AFP Photo/Francisco Leong)


The patient is being treated in the hospital's Brownlee Unit for Infectious Diseases but a transfer is being arranged to move her to the high level isolation unit in London's Royal Free hospital "as soon as possible", according to protocol laid down by the government in London.

The Scottish government is currently contacting passengers on the Glasgow-bound flight, but stressed there was "negligeable risk" as the patient "displayed no symptoms" of the type that could cause transmission.

"Our first thoughts at this time must be with the patient diagnosed with Ebola and their friends and family. I wish them a speedy recovery," said Sturgeon at a press conference.

"Scotland has been preparing for this possibility from the beginning of the outbreak in west Africa and I am confident that we are well prepared."


- Emergency committee -

Sturgeon confirmed that she had earlier chaired a meeting of the Scottish government's "resilience committee" and that she was working closely with British Prime Minister David Cameron.

British Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt was also to chair a meeting of the Cobra emergency committee late Monday.

Scotland remains part of the United Kingdom following September's referendum, but has autonomy over its health service.

However, it has agreed to send any Ebola patients to the highly-specialised London unit.

Will Pooley, a British nurse, was treated there using the experimental ZMapp drug earlier this year after being diagnosed with Ebola in Sierra Leone.

He recovered and has since returned to the country to help fight the disease.

The last Ebola patient in Europe was a Nigerian UN peacekeeper who was cured after being brought to the Netherlands for treatment.

He was flown to there at the request of the World Health Organization in a specially equipped plane and treated at the university hospital in the central city of Utrecht.

The death toll from the Ebola outbreak in west Africa has risen to 7,842 out of 20,081 cases recorded, the World Health Organization said Monday.


http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-diagnosed-medical-worker-britain-official-191005468.html

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Liberia reports dozens of new Ebola cases on border
Associated Press
By JONATHAN PAYE-LAYLEH  8 hours ago



MONROVIA, Liberia (AP) — Dozens of new Ebola cases have erupted in Liberia, near the border with Sierra Leone, Liberian health officials warned Monday, marking a setback amid recent improvements.

The flare-up is due to a number of factors including people going in and out of Liberia and traditional practices such as the washing of bodies, said Liberia's Assistant Health Minister Tolbert Nyenswah.

Forty-nine cases were reported in in western Grand Cape Mount County between December 1 and 25, Nyenswah told state radio.

"In a very small population, an increase in the number of (Ebola) cases raises high level of concerns that we need to take very seriously as people of Liberia and people of Grand Cape Mount in particular," he said.

Nearly 3,400 people have died from Ebola in Liberia over the past year with nearly 8,000 cases total, though health officials say the situation has improved, especially in the capital, Monrovia.

Sierra Leone, in comparison, has now eclipsed Liberia with more than 9,000 Ebola cases, according to the World Health Organization.


http://news.yahoo.com/liberia-reports-dozens-ebola-cases-along-border-102151493.html

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Healthcare worker in Scotland diagnosed with Ebola
Reuters  45 minutes ago




April 7 2008 file photo of the Gartnavel Royal Hospital in Glasgow, Scotland. Scottish authorities say a health care worker who has just returned from Sierra Leone has been diagnosed with Ebola and is being treated in a Glasgow hospital. The Scottish government says the patient flew to Glasgow via Casablanca and London's Heathrow Airport, arriving late Sunday Dec. 28, 2014 and was admitted to the hospital on Monday Dec. 29 2014. (AP Photo / Danny Lawson,PA File)



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 transfered 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. Neighboring Liberia and Guinea have also been badly hit.

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://graphics.thomsonreuters.com/14/ebola/index.htm

(Reporting by Andy Bruce in London and Ankur Banerjee in Bengaluru; Editing by Joyjeet Das)


http://news.yahoo.com/confirmed-case-ebola-diagnosed-glasgow-192628217.html

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British patient being treated for Ebola
Associated Press
By GREGORY KATZ and JILL LAWLESS  4 minutes ago



April 7 2008 file photo of the Gartnavel Royal Hospital in Glasgow, Scotland. Scottish authorities say a health care worker who has just returned from Sierra Leone has been diagnosed with Ebola and is being treated in a Glasgow hospital. The Scottish government says the patient flew to Glasgow via Casablanca and London's Heathrow Airport, arriving late Sunday Dec. 28, 2014 and was admitted to the hospital on Monday Dec. 29 2014. (AP Photo / Danny Lawson,PA File)



LONDON (AP) — A female health care worker who has just returned from Sierra Leone has been diagnosed with Ebola and is being treated in a Glasgow hospital, Scottish authorities said Monday.

Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon called it the first case of Ebola ever diagnosed inside the United Kingdom.

The patient flew to Glasgow via Casablanca and London's Heathrow Airport, arriving late Sunday, the Scottish government said. The health care worker was admitted to a hospital on Monday morning after developing a fever.

Sturgeon said the risk to the public is "extremely low to the point of negligible" and that pre-planned steps would be taken to protect the public.

"Scotland has been preparing for this possibility from the beginning of the outbreak in west Africa, and I am confident that we are well prepared," she said, adding that the patient is "stable" and would soon be transferred to an isolation unit at the Royal Free Hospital in London.

She said the patient, who is not being identified, had traveled on an internal British Airways flight from London to Glasgow on Sunday night and that the other 71 passengers and staff on that flight will be contacted.

But she said the patient was not yet showing symptoms at the time and that people in that stage are much less contagious than they are after they exhibit symptoms, which include a high fever, diarrhea and vomiting.

The patient became ill Monday morning and contacted health officials. She was soon admitted to the Brownlee Unit for Infectious Diseases at Gartnavel Hospital in Glasgow.

The patient had been screened for symptoms before leaving at Sierra Leone and at London Heathrow Airport, Sturgeon said.

The first minister said the patient had only had contact with one other person in Scotland and that person's health will be monitored.

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.

Prime Minister David Cameron said all measures will be taken to protect the public. An emergency meeting of the government's security committee was to be held Monday night.

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/british-patient-being-treated-ebola-192725512.html

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Malaria killing thousands more than Ebola in West Africa
Associated Press
By MICHELLE FAUL  20 hours ago



In this Saturday, Feb. 20, 2010, file photo, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, left, former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, on Blair's left, and Religion Leaders hold a Mosquito net with a women lying inside to demonstrate the use of the net against malaria in Abuja, Nigeria. The operation to fight Ebola in West Africa has hampered the campaigns against malaria, a preventable and treatable disease that is claiming many thousands of lives. In information released Sunday Dec. 28, 2014, Dr. Bernard Nahlen, deputy director of the U.S. President’s Malaria Initiative says they have had to stop pricking fingers to do blood tests for malaria, so statistics show a decrease in reported cases of maleria but the decrease is likely because people are too scared to go to health facilities and are not getting treated for malaria.(AP Photo/Sunday Alamba, FILE)



GUECKEDOU, Guinea (AP) — West Africa's fight to contain Ebola has hampered the campaign against malaria, a preventable and treatable disease that is claiming many thousands more lives than the dreaded virus.

In Gueckedou, near the village where Ebola first started killing people in Guinea's tropical southern forests a year ago, doctors say they have had to stop pricking fingers to do blood tests for malaria.

Guinea's drop in reported malaria cases this year by as much as 40 percent is not good news, said Dr. Bernard Nahlen, deputy director of the U.S. President's Malaria Initiative. He said the decrease is likely because people are too scared to go to health facilities and are not getting treated for malaria.

"It would be a major failure on the part of everybody involved to have a lot of people die from malaria in the midst of the Ebola epidemic," he said in a telephone interview. "I would be surprised if there were not an increase in unnecessary malaria deaths in the midst of all this, and a lot of those will be young children."

Figures are always estimates in Guinea, where half the 12 million people have no access to health centers and die uncounted. Some 15,000 Guineans died from malaria last year, 14,000 of them children under five, according to Nets for Life Africa, a New York-based charity dedicated to providing insecticide-treated mosquito nets to put over beds. In comparison, about 1,600 people in Guinea have died from Ebola, according to statistics from the World Health Organization.

Malaria is the leading cause of death in children under five in Guinea and, after AIDS, the leading cause of adult deaths, according to Nets for Life.



In this Tuesday, Nov. 25, 2014 file photo, children play in the fishing port of Conakry, Guinea. The operation to fight Ebola in West Africa has hampered the campaigns against malaria, a preventable and treatable disease that is claiming many thousands of lives. In information released Sunday Dec. 28, 2014, Dr. Bernard Nahlen, deputy director of the U.S. President’s Malaria Initiative says they have had to stop pricking fingers to do blood tests for malaria, so statistics show a decrease in reported cases of maleria but the decrease is likely because people are too scared to go to health facilities and are not getting treated for malaria. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay, FILE)


Ebola and malaria have many of the same symptoms, including fever, dizziness, head and muscle aches. Malaria is caused by bites from infected mosquitoes while Ebola can be contracted only from the body fluids of an infected victim — hence doctors' fears of drawing blood to do malaria tests.

People suffering malaria fear being quarantined in Ebola treatment centers and health centers not equipped to treat Ebola are turning away patients with Ebola-like symptoms, doctors said.

WHO figures from Gueckedou show that of people coming in with fever in October, 24 percent who tested positive for Ebola also tested positive for malaria, and 33 percent of those who did not have Ebola tested positive for malaria — an indication of the great burden of malaria in Guinea.

Malaria killed one of 38 Cuban doctors sent to Guinea to help fight the Ebola outbreak. One private hospital had a kidney dialysis machine that could have saved his failing organ but the clinic was shut after several people died there of Ebola.

The U.S. President's Malaria Initiative ground to a halt in Guinea months ago and the WHO in November advised health workers against testing for malaria unless they have protective gear.



In this Friday, Sept. 12, 2003, file photo, An unidentified man runs past a billboard with the picture of a mosquito biting a human face in Lagos, Nigeria. The operation to fight Ebola in West Africa has hampered the campaigns against malaria, a preventable and treatable disease that is claiming many thousands of lives. In information released Sunday Dec. 28, 2014, Dr. Bernard Nahlen, deputy director of the U.S. President’s Malaria Initiative says they have had to stop pricking fingers to do blood tests for malaria, so statistics show a decrease in reported cases of maleria but the decrease is likely because people are too scared to go to health facilities and are not getting treated for malaria.(AP Photo/George Osodi, FILE)


The malaria initiative is doing a national survey of health facilities and elsewhere to try to find out "what's actually happening here ... where people with malaria are going," said Nahlen, of the U.S. campaign. There was some positive news in Guinea — it had just completed a national mosquito net campaign against malaria when Ebola struck, he said.

Neighboring Liberia, on the other hand, suspended the planned distribution of 2 million nets, said Nahlen.

In Sierra Leone, the third country hard-hit by Ebola, Doctors Without Borders took unprecedented, pre-emptive action this month, distributing 1.5 million antimalarial drugs that can be used to both prevent and treat, aiming to protect people during the disease's peak season.

"Most people turn up at Ebola treatment centers thinking that they have Ebola, when actually they have malaria," said Patrick Robataille, Doctors Without Borders field coordinator in Freetown. "It's a huge load on the system, as well as being a huge stress on patients and their families."

He said a second distribution is planned in Freetown and western areas most affected by Ebola. Robataille said the huge delivery of antimalarial drugs was "in proportion to the scale of the Ebola epidemic — it's massive."


http://news.yahoo.com/malaria-killing-thousands-more-ebola-west-africa-132459896.html

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Scottish Health Care Worker Diagnosed With Ebola
LiveScience.com
By Rachael Rettner  1 hour ago



A student in Sierra Leone at an infection control workshop led by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.



A health care worker in Scotland has been diagnosed with Ebola, shortly after returning from treating patients with the disease in Sierra Leone, according to the National Health Service of the United Kingdom.

The patient is the first person to be diagnosed with Ebola in the United Kingdom since an outbreak of the disease began in West Africa earlier this year.

Yesterday (Dec. 28), the patient flew from Sierra Leone to Casablanca, Morocco, then to London Heathrow Airport, and finally to Glasgow Airport on a British Airways flight, arriving in Scotland around 11:30 p.m., the NHS said. Early today (Dec. 29), the patient felt unwell, and was admitted to the hospital and placed in isolation at 7:50 a.m. local time.

Because the patient was diagnosed in the early stages, the risk to the public is extremely low, according to the NHS.

Health officials are now investigating people who may have had contact with the patient while she had symptoms, and anyone at risk of developing the illness will be closely monitored.

“Scotland has been preparing for this possibility from the beginning of the outbreak in West Africa and I am confident that we are well prepared," Nicola Sturgeon, first minister of Scotland, said in a statement.


http://news.yahoo.com/scottish-health-care-worker-diagnosed-ebola-214711905.html

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The Ebola Crisis That Never Ended
The Atlantic
By Adam Chandler  18 minutes ago






It may have receded from the American public consciousness, but the biggest Ebola outbreak on record isn't over.

On Monday, the World Health Organization issued a statement in which it determined that the total number of known cases in the three hardest-hit West African countries—Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea—had passed 20,000. The agency added that the death toll in the outbreak was nearing 8,000.

Around the same time as the statement, Scotland announced its first confirmed case, a health worker who had been working in Sierra Leone.

The patient was admitted to hospital early in the morning after feeling unwell and was placed into isolation at 7.50am. All possible contacts with the patient are now being investigated and anyone deemed to be at risk will be contacted and closely monitored.

That the Scottish healthcare worker was infected in Sierra Leone dovetails with an exhaustive New York Times report released on Monday, which emphasizes how during a two-month period in the spring, two new Ebola cases in the country failed to reach investigators and health officials. This made an outbreak that had been more easily contained in dozens of previous iterations spiral quickly out of control.

"As a result, it was not until late May, after more than two months of unchecked contagion, that Sierra Leone recorded its first confirmed cases," the reports noted. "The chain of illnesses and deaths links those cases directly to the two cases that were never followed up in March. Sierra Leone has since tallied about 9,400 reported Ebola infections, more than any other country."

The report also connects these missed cases to a boomerang outbreak in Liberia, part of the country's nearly 8,000 cases. Meanwhile, on Monday, Liberia also announced a recent surge of new cases, which tempered hopes that the outbreak had stabilized there.

"It's like a forest fire. A few embers burning and the thing can re-ignite at any time."

With this news, Ebola may be primed for a public awareness comeback in the United States. Earlier this month, the White House announced that Ron Klain would finish his tenure as "Ebola czar" in March. On Sunday, however, Klain was back on Meet the Press, where he continued to sound the alarm about the virus, calling it a "global threat" that won't be finished "until we get all the way to zero."

"It's like a forest fire," he added. "A few embers burning and the thing can re-ignite at any time."


This article was originally published at http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/12/scotland-ebola-world-health-organization/384097/