Ebola...

[brownindian]

Dengue is only transmitted by mosquitoes, people cannot spread it to other people.

mosquitoes cross the border too !!!

 

[The Oi]

@AZ_ always has interesting takes on things @Maximus says. Let's see what he and @Damage** have to say.








**Alex Jones

 

[CleveRocks]

Doctors and healthcare professionals seem very flippant in regards to their own safety sometimes. They test health care workers phones and find MRSA and stuff like that on them all the time. Ventilation systems in hospitals often leak infected rooms into clean ones all the time. Everything needs redone and re-engineered, but it is very expensive to do this. That is why people are getting sicker and sicker from just going to the hospital

So what kind of person is comfortable cleaning up the bodily fluids from sick patients? These people have to be risk tolerant to even want this job. In my experience engineers are usually one of the least risk tolerant groups around (OK maybe production managers are up there). My aunt was an ER nurse for 20 years. She was hardened by what she had seen in the ER. That does not imply careless, but she would take risks to save lives. Its part of the psychology of an ER person.

That is why we need government oversight of this event. I am a small government guy, but this is the best example of the need of the greater good overshadowing personal freedom that I can imagine. We can't ask an health care worker exposed to a virulent disease that kills 50% of its victims to rearrange a vacation.., but we can mandate school teachers cannot say "boys and girls"..

 

[Sumac13]

Rather than continuing to feed paranoia and being opportunistic to dump on others--here is some good news, if you can call it that.

source: http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=49108#.VEGv2hYbLfO

Ebola: back from outbreak epicentre, UN official says survivors now helping with care

“I lost my parents to Ebola,” says survivor Tafala, at the Ebola Treatment Centre in Kenema, Sierra Leone. Photo: UNICEF Sierra Leone/2014/Tanya Bindra


17 October 2014 – Survivors of Ebola who have developed immunity to the virus are being trained to care for children in Liberia and Sierra Leone, a United Nations official today announced.

People who survived Ebola at these “interim care centres” can give small children the love they need in a world where touching is feared.

“It’s strange, a very unhuman experience,” Sarah Crowe, Crisis Communications Chief at UNICEF told journalists in New York following a five-week mission to Liberia, where “fear of contagion, contamination has eroded that sense of compassion.” Liberia, along with hard-hit countries Sierra Leone and Guinea, is on the frontlines of efforts to stop the outbreak.

The virus has “hijacked” every aspect of life and “changed the way people live...and how people die,” said the UN official, beginning her presentation by disclosing her temperature and showing a bottle of hand sanitizer to the gathered reporters.

The UN agency estimates that some 3,700 orphans are in the region, of whom 600 have been reunited with an existing or extended family member.

Among the moving survivors’ stories captured by UNICEF, four-year-old Amadou wakes up his sister, Mary, at 4:30 in the morning to ask where their mother is. He has asked almost daily since he was discharged from the Ebola Treatment Unit in Kenema, almost two months ago.

“I don’t know what to tell him,” 15-year-old Mary told UNICEF. “How can I explain death to a 4-year-old when I barely just understood it myself? This wasn’t supposed to be my responsibility.”

Their mother fell sick after helping a woman in the neighbourhood. They thought it was malaria, but her condition worsened quickly.

“They called for an ambulance, and she was rushed away to the General Public Hospital in Kenema. It was the last time that I saw her,” Mary said.

Across West Africa, children face stigma and rejection from their communities and their relatives, especially if the children are survivors themselves.

A recent UNICEF survey of 1,400 homes across the country found that about 96 per cent of those households reported some discriminatory attitudes toward people with suspected or confirmed Ebola, and 76 per cent said they would not welcome someone who was infected with Ebola back into their community, even if that person has recovered.

“Children who have been in interim centres are often shunned,” Ms. Crowe said. She recalled the story of siblings living under a tree, chased out of their village by neighbours too afraid to have them near after their care-givers died.

However, she also told the story of survivors of the virus, who are reunited with their families. Among them, was Ann Marie, a girl Ms. Crowe met while visiting Montserrado and Loofah counties, which encompass Monrovia, and who has since returned home.

“They each have a survivor’s certificate. For them, it’s really like a new birth certificate,” Ms. Crowe said speaking about a photograph of the family with the documents.

In Kenema, Sierra Leone, 25 Ebola survivors met earlier this week to share their experience of the virus, learn how to deal with its psychological aftermath, and find ways to help infected community members, particularly children. The event was organized by the Ministry of Social Welfare, Gender and Children’s Affairs, with support from UNICEF and other partners.

“A key challenge that parents, care workers and many of us working on the Ebola response are facing is how to care for children who have been affected or infected with Ebola without putting their care givers at risk,” said Roeland Monasch, UNICEF Representative in Sierra Leone.

“One creative way to address this gap is to work with Ebola survivors who can provide these children with the love, care and attention they so badly need.”

In New York, Ms. Crowe also spoke about make-shift quarantine centres created by communities where families stay for 21days, the incubation period for the virus, and which are sometimes set up in empty schools.

Classes have been canceled throughout the countries, leading UNICEF and its partners to pilot an “emergency on-air schooling” for children, many of whom have said they are frustrated at not being able to continue their studies.

The agency is also setting up water and sanitation stations, having shipped a record amount of chlorine from its depot in Copenhagen, Denmark. UNICEF has appealed for over $200 million to respond to the Ebola outbreak, which is part of a broader, six-month appeal for $987.8 million that governments and humanitarian agencies require to fight the disease.

“Our message is that we can’t be crushed by this,” Ms. Crowe said, encouraging every non-governmental organization “that isn’t there but who should be there.”

She noted, however, that the international community is in “totally unmapped terrain” without a template or protocols for such situations.

The death toll in the outbreak is now at 4,546 out of 9,191 known cases in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, according to the latest figures from the UN World Health Organization (WHO).

Also in Sierra Leone, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) and its partners today reported the start of a food distribution in the outskirts of the capital, Freetown, to 265,000 people.

It is the biggest one-off food distribution in the country since the start of the Ebola outbreak, according to a UN spokesperson.

More than 700 aid workers are expected to be mobilized in just one day to distribute over 800 metric tons of food, including rice, pulses, vegetable oil and salt, to meet the needs of families’ for about 30 days.

The aim of the distribution is to stabilize quarantined families by giving them enough to eat so that they do not have to leave their homes to look for food.

Before today’s distribution, in the suburb of Waterloo, WFP and its partners had provided food assistance to more than 300,000 Ebola-impacted people across Sierra Leone.

The UN agency is scaling up to reach 600,000 people impacted by the crisis, according to a spokesperson.

 

[The Oi]

So what does everyone think of the new Ebola czar Obama picked?

@Maximus

 

[Maximus]

So what does everyone think of the new Ebola czar Obama picked?

@Maximus

He has zero medical or healthcare experience. He was one of the key figures in giving Solyndra $535,000,000 of our tax dollars despite all kinds of red flags getting waved in his face. Obama had an Ebola Response meeting last night after golfing...his Ebola Czar skipped it.

 

[Maximus]

Dengue is only transmitted by mosquitoes, people cannot spread it to other people.

Correct. But people spread it to other mosquitoes who spread it to other people.

How dengue fever spreads

Dengue mosquitoes are not born with the dengue virus. When a dengue mosquito bites someone who is sick with dengue fever, that mosquito is infected and becomes a carrier of the virus. Once the mosquito is a carrier, it can spread the virus to other people by biting them. The mosquitoes carry the virus for life and can infect many people.

The dengue virus does not spread directly from person to person.

People get sick 3 to 14 days after being bitten by an infected dengue mosquito. While sick with dengue fever people are able to pass the virus on to other dengue mosquitoes that bite them. These mosquitoes can then infect more people and one dengue case can very quickly become many, which results in an outbreak.

 

[The Oi]

The lack of medical or healthcare administration experience concerns me much more than the Solyndra connection or the missing of a meeting. I assume there's an explanation for the missed meeting.

You'd think even just for PR purposes, he'd have selected someone that made sense on paper. This guy makes zero sense heading up this thing from what I can see.

Ebola is a pretty nuanced disease, it's new here and the issue thus far has been a lack of urgency amongst the professionals who have dealt directly with infected patients.

This guy is a communications expert, whatever that means.

Seems to me you'd want a healthcare administrator or someone with an MD to head this up.

 

[Kyrieville]

This guy is a communications expert, whatever that means.

Seems to me you'd want a healthcare administrator or someone with an MD to head this up.

It means he is good at bullshitting the American public. Seems like that's what is wanted, at this point.

I agree that you would want someone with actual knowledge of ebola... like an epidemiologist who has studied it???

 

[The Human Q-Tip]

So on Saturday, the President says "you cannot get Ebola from riding in a bus or plane."

So why did the CDC track down everyone who was on that flight? And why is the CDC saying the that she shouldn't have flown on public transportation?

 

[RaidenDAWG2]

The lack of medical or healthcare administration experience concerns me much more than the Solyndra connection or the missing of a meeting. I assume there's an explanation for the missed meeting.

You'd think even just for PR purposes, he'd have selected someone that made sense on paper. This guy makes zero sense heading up this thing from what I can see.

Ebola is a pretty nuanced disease, it's new here and the issue thus far has been a lack of urgency amongst the professionals who have dealt directly with infected patients.

This guy is a communications expert, whatever that means.

Seems to me you'd want a healthcare administrator or someone with an MD to head this up.

I would have accepted medical experts, doctors, nurses, or really anyone who's worked as a hospital administrator or other such occupation.

Or even someone who's managed a competent organization.

Former chief of staff to the biggest buffoon in the executive branch...it's a BFD, and a bad one at that.

 

[CleveRocks]

I would have accepted medical experts, doctors, nurses, or really anyone who's worked as a hospital administrator or other such occupation.

Or even someone who's managed a competent organization.

Former chief of staff to the biggest buffoon in the executive branch...it's a BFD, and a bad one at that.

So a POTUS selected a guy with low expectations and nothing politically to lose.. Not too surprising, really. This is guy who is going to take a bullet for the President, if shit gets out of hand..

 

[Soda]

It means he is good at bullshitting the American public. Seems like that's what is wanted, at this point.

I agree that you would want someone with actual knowledge of ebola... like an epidemiologist who has studied it???

He's only good at bullshitting the broke majority. Smart people are dying off and the ones who live off the gov't are Dems.

The wise American public is concerned with safety and keeping the economy afloat. Neither being social issues, it doesn't matter to libs.

 

[Binkster]

Still waiting on that imminent outbreak... Any day now.

Still waiting on that imminent mutation to get this thing airborne...

Democrat fuck up or Republican fear mongering? The results are pouring in:

 

[The Human Q-Tip]

Still waiting on that imminent outbreak... Any day now.

Still waiting on that imminent mutation to get this thing airborne...

Way to misrepresent what other people are saying. Nobody in this thread has used the word "imminent" except you. I even tried the spiffy "search" feature to see, and nope, nobody but you has made that claim. And actually, an "outbreak" as defined by the WHO has already occured in Texas because you had two cases in a population in which none previously existed.

http://www.who.int/topics/disease_outbreaks/en/

The concern isn't Ebola swallowing the country overnight. It didn't even happen that way in West Africa. It's that the failure to handle this properly could lead to a steady increase in cases to the point where it may become unmanageable. That would take time, but it's something you have to move on quickly precisely to keep it under control.

The mutation issue also has been stated as a possibility, not as something that is "imminent" or even likely to happen at all.