EBOLA: Things to come...

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"Anne Hathaway denies claims she refused to shake Argentine journalist's hand because she thought he had Ebola: 'She had a cold' "

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/pe...049.html?dkdkd

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CURRENT CDC EBOLA POSTER. NOTE THAT IS SAYS EBOLA CAN BE TRANSMITTED VIA AIR DROPLETS!

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US Health Care System Unprepared for Ebola

The U.S. health care apparatus is so unprepared and short on resources to deal with the deadly Ebola virus that even small clusters of cases could overwhelm parts of the system, according to an Associated Press review of readiness at hospitals and other components of the emergency medical network.
Experts broadly agree that a widespread outbreak across the country is extremely unlikely, but they also concur that it is impossible to predict with certainty, since previous Ebola epidemics have been confined to remote areas of Africa. And Ebola is not the only possible danger that causes concern; experts say other deadly infectious diseases — ranging from airborne viruses such as SARS, to an unforeseen new strain of the flu, to more exotic plagues like Lassa fever — could crash the health care system.
To assess America's ability to deal with a major outbreak, the AP examined multiple indicators of readiness: training, manpower, funding, emergency room shortcomings, supplies, infection control and protection for health care workers. AP reporters also interviewed dozens of top experts in those fields.
The results were worrisome.

(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ..

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'You can hug me, you can shake my hand - I won't give you Ebola' (Kaci Hickox)

* Nurse Kaci Hickox left the home of her boyfriend in Fort Kent, Maine, on Wednesday night to speak with the press
* Residents of the small town are unimpressed that Hickox is trying to fight a 21-day quarantine imposed by the state
* State's health chief and governor vowed to enforce Maine state guidelines which ask for a voluntary three week quarantine
* Governor sent state police to her home but did not say whether she would be arrested if she tried to leave

* State may go to court to get an order to make it mandatory tomorrow
* Hickox told Today: 'I don't plan on sticking to the guidelines. I am not going to sit around and be bullied by politicians and forced to stay in my home when I am not a risk to the American public'
* Residents set up Facebook pages to attack her for being selfish, 'un-American' and unprofessional
* Obama shook hands with returning healthcare workers today at the White House and hit out at critics who were 'hiding under the covers'
Already pushing the boundaries of her state-imposed quarantine, Ebola nurse Kaci Hickox defiantly left the Maine home she was ordered to stay inside for three weeks on Wednesday night in order to speak with the press about her 'frustrating' situation.
Standing out front of her boyfriends house in Fort Kent about 7pm, as the police tasked with watching her looked on from across the street, Hickox told the waiting media contingent that she will continue to fight her quarantine orders, even if she is charged for breaking them.
'We have been in negotiations all day with the state of Maine and tried to resolve this amicably, but they are not allowing me to leave my house and interact with the public....

(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...

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Spanish Intelligence Intercepts Plot to Weaponise Ebola

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)
Spanish intelligence has intercepted messages passed between jihadists online discussing the weaponisation of the deadly Ebola virus for use against the West, while a blackmailer in Prague has threatened to unleash the virus unless the Czech Republic pay him one million bitcoin, a volume of online currency worth over £200 million.
The national secretary of state for security in giving evidence to the Spanish Senate revealed online jihad propagandists had issued an edict to followers to kill Westerners by any means possible. Some of the methods suggested included “deadly chemical products from laboratories”, “poisonous injections” and “Ebola as a poisonous weapon”, reports theLocal.es.
Rumours of Ebola as a weapon have long circulated among the international intelligence community, as speculation arose over the potential successes of the former Soviet Union's extensive biological weapons programme in the last century. It is thought that at least one terrorist organisation, the Japanese Aum Shinrikyo cult has attempted to cultivate the Ebola for attacks. The cult killed thirteen on the Tokyo subway in 1995 with a release of potent nerve agent Sarin gas....

(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...

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Cargo ship from Ebola-stricken Sierra Leone bound for Port Canaveral (Self-monitoring)

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)
PORT CANAVERAL, Fla. (WOFL FOX 35 ORLANDO) - The EOT Spar is a 300-foot-long cargo ship due in Port Canaveral just 17 days after leaving the port of Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone in West Africa.
The country has documented 5,235 Ebola cases so far, according to the World Health Organization.
The U.S. Coast Guard says federal requirements already in place, as well as self-monitoring by the crew is enough to reduce risk to Central Floridians.
The Coast Guard says it is in close communication with the EOT Spar, an American-flagged cargo ship out of Annapolis, Maryland. It's scheduled to arrive in Port Canaveral on Nov. 4, four days prior to the end of a 21-day incubation period, based on its last day in Freetown. The Coast Guard says it's monitoring the ship's transit time closely.
“They are required to report anybody with any symptoms,” said U.S. Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr. Gabe Somma. “And in this particular case, we have no indication, no reason to believe, there is anything wrong with this ship.”(continued)

(Excerpt) Read more at myfoxorlando.com ...

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Keeping out Ebola

Canada decided it’s too risky to allow free movement between Ebola prone areas and Canada. If the Obama administration cared about Americans, they might follow suit
Here’s an interesting tidbit: Sierra Leone accuses Canada of discrimination over the suspension of visa applications for residents of nations currently hit with large outbreaks of Ebola. The nerve!
Theo Nicol, Sierra Leone’s deputy minister of information is outraged, as he sees the Canadian government’s decision not to process applications from individuals that had been in Ebola-stricken nations within the previous 3 months as being ‘discriminatory’.

(Excerpt) Read more at canadafreepress.com ...

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Fresh Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone raises fears of new infection chain

A fresh outbreak of Ebola in a part of Sierra Leone where the virus was thought to have been contained has raised fears of a new, uncontrolled infection chain that could send the death toll soaring.
A Red Cross ambulance team was sent to the remote district of Koinadugu, which had prided itself on being the only area to have kept Ebola at bay, from on Tuesday to urgently collect 30 corpses for medical burial.
The outbreak is a major setback for the Ebola response force and the district, which two weeks ago remained resolved to control the spread of the virus that has officially infected 5,338 people and claimed 1,510 lives in the country.
Koinadugu has been operating a self-imposed quarantine for four months, thanks to the intervention of an expat businessman, Momah Konte, who returned from Washington and worked with local officials and tribal chiefs to try to prevent the spread.
The Red Cross said an emergency burial team was making the five-hour journey from Freetown on Tuesday to collect the bodies in the Nenie chiefdom east of the district’s capital Kabala.
A spokesman said that there were reports of a further 25 ill with Ebola and another 255 being monitored after coming into contact with the dead and the sick.
13,567 total number of cases as of 31 October 2014

(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...

[GN Tobacco Sweden AB]

HahahahahaahhahahaahahahHahahahshshshsh

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Number of People Under "Active Monitoring" for Ebola in NYC Triples, City Officials Say

The number of people under "active monitoring" for Ebola symptoms has increased from 117 on Monday to 357 people Wednesday, health officials said. The vast majority of those being monitored arrived in New York City within the past 21 days from the three Ebola-affected countries, the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation said in a statement.
Others being monitored are the staff caring for Dr. Craig Spencer, the physician being treated for Ebola at Bellevue Hospital, the lab workers who conducted his blood tests and the FDNY EMTs who transported the doctor. All of those being monitored showed no symptoms but are being checked on out of "an abundance of caution," the statement said.

(Excerpt) Read more at nbcnewyork.com ...

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One under quarantine in Iowa after spending time in West Africa

One person is under quarantine in Iowa and a dozen others are being monitored after returning from west Africa, the Iowa Department of Public Health said Thursday.

An IDPH release said that they consider the individual under quarantine to have “some risk” of carrying Ebola, while the other twelve are considered “low risk.” They say all 13 are cooperating fully with officials.

(Excerpt) Read more at heartlandconnection.com ...

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Pentagon names military bases as Ebola troop quarantine sites


WASHINGTON — The Pentagon said Friday it has designated five military bases inside the U.S. and two in Europe as quarantine areas for troops returning from the Ebola-response mission in West Africa.

Servicemembers will be isolated for 21 days at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington; Fort Bragg, North Carolina; Fort Hood and Fort Bliss, Texas; and Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Virginia to check for symptoms of the deadly virus, Pentagon press secretary Rear Adm. John Kirby said. Army garrisons in Baumholder, Germany, and Vicenza, Italy, will also be quarantine sites.
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Plans finalized Friday allow quarantine exemptions for servicemembers who travel through Africa briefly and have limited contact with people there, such as staff traveling with senior officials who are only there for a day or two, according to The Associated Press.

Under the new plans, civilians in the fight against Ebola will now be able to get medical treatment on military bases and free treatment from hospitals in the United States, Kirby said.
More than 1,900 Defense Department personnel are deployed to Africa, with the majority in Liberia and small contingent in Senegal, and that number could climb to 4,000

(Excerpt) Read more at stripes.com ...

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18,000 Kaiser Permanente Nurses Will Strike Tuesday Over Concerns About Ebola Preparedness
Medical Daily's The Hill Blog ^ |

Since March, the world had watched Ebola spread through West Africa, infecting not only residents but also the health workers tasked with stopping the outbreak. During this time, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has said that hospitals were prepared, and resolved to stop the virus if it made its way over the Atlantic. But health care workers have said otherwise; that hospitals are actually far from prepared — the virus’ spread to the Dallas nurses proved that. Over 18,000 nurses in Northern California feel similarly, and are planning a two-day strike this week to show it.
The strike, which begins Tuesday, involves nurses from the National Nurses United (NNU) labor union, who work in 21 hospitals and 65 clinics. Although an area of focus for the strike is a lack of Ebola preparedness, officials in the union say these concerns stem from an overall deficiency in patient care standards — an issue they’ve been trying to address during new contract negotiations with Kaiser Permanente, which owns the health centers. “In negotiations earlier today (Thursday), Kaiser continued to stonewall on dozens of proposals to improve patient care standards, as well as refusing to address the concern of Kaiser RNs about Ebola safety protocols and protective equipment,” a union press release said.
Their concerns are valid, especially over Ebola. The virus’ spread from Thomas Eric Duncan, the first Ebola patient diagnosed in the U.S., to two of his nurses exposed how unprepared the hospital was and how easily a system could fall apart. Duncan had originally visited the hospital with a low fever, and even told staff that he had been to West Africa recently, yet they sent him home with only antibiotics. Two days later, he was obviously sick with Ebola. The hospital failed again, however, by allowing nurses to care for him for two days without proper protective gear. And this was only one hospital; a survey from NNU found that 85 percent of nurses feel they’re unprepared, with many saying they haven’t been briefed on protocol.
At the same time, health authorities responded relatively quickly once the virus was transmitted to the two nurses. Both were flown to specialized facilities where they underwent treatment and subsequently survived. All of the possible contacts they made while sick were monitored for three weeks, and no one got sick. In New York City, where Dr. Craig Spencer is undergoing Ebola treatment, there are 357 people being monitored for Ebola. However, the doctor admitted himself to a hospital just before he could be considered contagious (under a 105-degree fever). Considering all of this, it’s clear that the fear of the virus spreading in the U.S. is over-exaggerated, even if the nurses fears are reasonable — they are, after all, the ones taking care of sick patients.
Kaiser said that it was the NNU, however, that was to blame for stalled negotiations. We are training our staff on how to use the right protective gear, to make sure they know how to use it,” spokesman John Nelson said, according to Bloomberg. “We have repeatedly asked union leadership to work with us on our Ebola strategy. They have refused. Instead, they continue to hold press conferences claiming hospitals are unprepared for Ebola.”
The hospital and insurance chain expects all business to run as usual during the strike. emergency and urgent care departments, primary and specialty care departments, and pharmacies and labs will be open, it said in a statement, according to The San Francisco Chronicle. Only some appointments and elective procedures would be cancelled.
In all, the virus has spread through every district of Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea, and cases have appeared in Spain, Mali, Nigeria, and Senegal. As of Nov. 5, there has been a total of 13,042 cases and 4,818 deaths, according to the World Health Organization.

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US Hospital: Surgeon with Ebola ‘extremely ill’

A surgeon who contracted Ebola while working in Sierra Leone was in extremely critical condition Sunday at a Nebraska hospital, his doctors said.
Dr. Martin Salia, who was diagnosed with Ebola on Monday, arrived in Omaha on Saturday to be treated at the Nebraska Medical Center’s biocontainment unit that has successfully treated two other Ebola patients this fall.
Salia is “extremely ill,” said Dr. Phil Smith, who is helping oversee Salia’s treatment. The 44-year-old Salia might be more ill than the first Ebola patients successfully treated in the United States, according to the hospital. …

(Excerpt) Read more at hosted.ap.org ...

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Number of Ebola cases nears 16,000 as Sierra Leone loses ground - WHO

- The death toll in the world's worst Ebola epidemic has risen to 5,689 out of 15,935 cases reported in eight countries by Nov. 23, the World Health Organization said on Wednesday.
Almost all cases and all but 15 deaths have been in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia - the three hardest-hit countries, which reported 600 new cases in the past week, the WHO said in its latest update.
"The total number of cases reported in Sierra Leone since the outbreak began will soon eclipse the number reported from Liberia," it said. The former British colony has reported 6,599 cases against 7,168 in Liberia.
Transmission of the virus remains intense in Sierra Leone, especially in the west and north, with the capital Freetown still the worst affected area, it said.

(Excerpt) Read more at in.reuters.com ...