EBOLA: THE PLAGUE FIGHTERS

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Ebola is the Pest of our times. Ebola can come to the West via American and European tourists who have been to Middle Africa. Or African refugees or immigrants who enter Europe.

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Was Ebola Behind the BLACK DEATH ?

L O N D O N, July 30
By Jen Sterling

Controversial new research suggests that contrary to the history books, the "Black Death" that devastated medieval Europe was not the bubonic plague, but rather an Ebola-like virus.

History books have long taught the Black Death, which wiped out a quarter of Europe's population in the Middle Ages, was caused by bubonic plague, spread by infected fleas that lived on black rats. But new research in England suggests the killer was actually an Ebola-like virus transmitted directly from person to person.

The Black Death killed some 25 million Europeans in a devastating outbreak between 1347 and 1352, and then reappeared periodically for more than 300 years. Scholars had thought flea-infested rats living on ships brought the disease from China to Italy and then the rest of the continent.

But researchers Christopher Duncan and Susan Scott of the University of Liverpool say that the flea-borne bubonic plague could not have torn across Europe the way the Black Death did.

"If you look at the way it spreads, it was spreading at a rate of around 30 miles in two to three days," says Duncan. "Bubonic plague moves at a pace of around 100 yards a year."

Unlike the bubonic plague, a bacterial disease which still exists in parts of Asia, India and North America, viral diseases are passed on from person to person, usually by breath or touch.

Ebola-Like Symptoms Cited

In their new book Biology of Plagues: Evidence from Historical Populations, Duncan and Scott compare the signs and symptoms of the Black Death with modern-day viruses such as the Spanish flu, the West Nile virus and, most closely, Ebola.

Medieval descriptions of the Black Death sound like the hemorrhagic fever caused by an Ebola-like virus, the authors say. Such fever strikes fast and causes blood vessels to burst underneath the skin, bringing out welts, similar to what British medical texts from the Middle Ages describe as "God's tokens."

The liquidization of internal organs that causes excruciating pain in Ebola victims matches the descriptions of historical autopsies on plague victims, which similarly describe internal organs being dissolved along with the appearance of a black liquid, according to the authors.

Duncan and Scott also note that efforts to quarantine the Black Death were successful. In the wake of the first outbreak, Europeans learned that quarantining infected families for 40 days was effective in stopping the spread. Such a measure would not have worked if the disease were transmitted by rats, the authors suggest, because rats do not observe quarantines.

Also, the 40-day period was enough time to ensure the disease finished its incubation period. One of the difficulties in controlling the Ebola virus is that its symptoms start to appear only about five to 22 days after exposure. Therefore people who appear perfectly healthy could be carrying the lethal disease.

Skeptics Say Theorists Should Work Plague by Plague

Ann Carmichael, a historian who is an expert on the Black Plague, welcomes the work produced by Duncan and Scott, but remains skeptical.

"It is problematic to assimilate evidence over four centuries and draw conclusive theories," says Carmichael. "We must look at it on a plague-by-plague basis."

According to Carmichael, texts dating from 14th-century Italy provide extremely detailed and consistent accounts that describe visible swellings called buboes that developed predominantly under the skin around the groin and armpits — a prime target area for fleas. The buboes are what give bubonic plague its name.

"We don't know that Florentine buboes looked like 'God's tokens' found in England, however," she says.

The research by Duncan and Scott is a good start, but there is need for further research, says Carmichael. There is no robust evidence that quarantining systematically applied worked, she says.

Link to HIV-Resistant Gene?

Duncan and Scott believe their theory of a viral cause for the Black Death is supported by the recent discovery of a mutated gene called CCR5 that is resistant to HIV/AIDS. It is estimated that approximately 10 percent to 18 percent of those of European descent carry the gene.

American researchers working on the gene have calculated that the first mutation of the gene took place around 650 years ago — coinciding with the first outbreak of the Black Death in Europe.

According to Duncan, a process of natural selection could have left Europe populated predominantly by those carrying the mutated gene. This would account for the high percentage of the European population that still carries this gene.

The current Ebola virus outbreak spreading across West Africa is the biggest that has ever been recorded, having killed more than 670 people at the time of writing. It has led to a major international response focused on the main affected countries: Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia. But the aid organisation Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has described the disease as “out of control”, and last week fears grew of a global outbreak after a case was confirmed in Lagos, Nigeria.

Ebola: As deadly virus becomes a threat to Europe, what signs and symptoms should we look out for?

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The Coming Plague

First published in 1994 in hardcover by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, THE COMING PLAGUE: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance was a New York Times bestseller in 1994-5. Laurie Garrett researched and wrote THE COMING PLAGUE for ten years, starting in the mid-1980s when the very premise of the effort was highly controversial.

When Laurie Garrett started working as a journalist her training in immunology had been grounded in the widespread belief that infectious diseases had been conquered. By the early 1980s biomedical scientists throughout the wealthy world focused on cancer and heart disease, feeling that the antibiotic and vaccine era ushered the demise of infectious threats. But Garrett kept hearing about strange outbreaks of deadly, mysterious diseases such as Ebola, which seemingly contradicted the mainstream view. As early as 1976, with the advent of Legionnaires Disease, Garrett started collecting news and scientific papers regarding odd outbreaks and strange epidemics.

By the late 1980s, with the world shaken by the strangest and deadliest arrival of all – HIV and AIDS – Garrett traveled widely in search of understanding: Why did new viruses and bacteria appear, seemingly out of nowhere? Why couldn’t modern medicine vanquish HIV and other newly emerging microbes? How were scientists battling these diseases? Had hubris put the arrogant biomedical world of the late 20th Century at peril?

As the 1980s came to a close the National Academy of Sciences convened a landmark gathering focused on newly emerging viruses. For days experts shared insights in Washington, growing collectively anxious. By the close of the gathering Garrett recognized that her anxieties about the infectious diseases threat were shared by such extraordinary Nobel Prize-winning scientists as Joshua Lederberg, Howard Temin, and David Baltimore.

During the 1992-3 academic year Garrett was a Fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health, where she worked closely with Drs. Mary Wilson, Uwe Brinkman, Andrew Spielman, and their Harvard colleagues to understand the origins of seemingly “new” viruses, and the amplification systems that fostered their worldwide spread in the age of globalization. The bulk of THE COMING PLAGUE was written at Harvard.

During the administration of President Bill Clinton epidemic threats were elevated to official elements of U.S. national security. An expert in the field was, for the first time in U.S. history, appointed to the National Security Council.

Former UN Ambassador Richard Holbrooke successfully pushed the Security Council in 2000 to convene its first session on the HIV/AIDS pandemic. The following year, on the 20th anniversary of recognition of the new disease, a United Nations General Assembly Special Session was held, entirely focused on the AIDS pandemic.

In 2005 Garrett spearheaded an analysis of the links between national security and HIV, issued jointly with the UN AIDS Programme to the Security Council. The report came two years after the SARS epidemic shook up China and a dozen other nations, prompting widespread elevation of concern about the dangers of newly emerging disease, as well as bacteria and viruses that were evolving drug-resistant forms. In the years since nations the world over have officially designated HIV, drug resistant tuberculosis, virulent influenza, and other pandemic diseases as national security concerns.

What seemed an acutely controversial premise in 1994 is mainstream thought in the second decade of the 21st Century.



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THE DOCTOR'S WORLD

By LAWRENCE K. ALTMAN, M.D.
July 20, 1982

SOME of the recent conquests against infections have been so spectacular that they have nearly driven from public consciousness the vast array of organisms that can still make people ill.

Smallpox has been eradicated. Vaccines have made diphtheria, measles, tetanus, typhoid, polio and yellow fever all but disappear from the headlines and the minds of Americans. Antibiotics have thwarted the effects of many bacterial infections.

As a result, infections are no longer widely perceived as a major threat. With good reason, many people worry instead about cancer, arthritis, senile dementia and other chronic disorders that seem more likely than infectious diseases to end our lives or make them unbearable.

Yet infections did not vanish with the widespread use of antibiotics and vaccines. The section on infections is what makes medical textbooks so thick. More than 500 infectious diseases, each caused by a different microorganism, are recognized. Every so often the total is increased by new discoveries, such as that of the organism that causes legionnaire's disease.

There remain, however, at least 200 known infections that can neither be treated nor prevented. The common cold, for example, is caused by more than 100 members of the rhinovirus family, none of which can be treated effectively. A few years ago, scientists hoped to develop a vaccine to prevent the common cold. Now that goal is considered impractical because 100 or so vaccines would be required.

Common colds can be dismissed as trivial annoyances, perhaps. But many other infections, such as some types of hepatitis and viral encephalitis, are much more serious and cannot be effectively treated. Even when antibiotics stop meningitis, as they do in perhaps 90 percent of cases, survivors can be left with varying degrees of permanent mental and nervous system impairments.

One physician trying to shake the complacency about infections is Dr. Richard M. Krause, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in Bethesda, Md. The National Foundation for Infectious Diseases, a private organization in Washington, has just published a collection of Dr. Krause's popular lectures as ''The Restless Tide: The Persistent Challenge of the Microbial World.'' These lucid essays are the type needed to promote a more intelligent public health policy.

Infections are such a serious threat, Dr. Krause argues, that ''we must redeploy some of the best of our scientific talent to do research on infectious diseases.''

Many people are skeptical when they hear from doctors that infectious diseases are still a major health problem. They often express surprise that, more than four decades after the discovery of antibiotics, there is even a need for specialists in infectious diseases, let alone scientific challenges as complex as those faced by cancer researchers and those in other fields.

Much of the protection against infections comes from the sanitarians and engineers who make our water safe and protect us from disease-bearing insects. But the key weapons have been vaccines and antibiotics. They have helped diminish the threat of infectious diseases from the leading cause of death in this country at the turn of the century to the sixth today.

Still, antibiotics are effective mostly against infections caused by bacteria, rickettsiae and some fungi. With a few exceptions, they do nothing against viral illnesses, the leading cause of infections.

Moreover, the grip of antibiotics on disease is tenuous because many bacteria have developed resistance to them. For instance, 40 times as much penicillin is needed now to treat some infections as was needed when the drug was introduced into medical practice in World War II. Worse yet, other bacteria are no longer susceptible to any amount of some antibiotics.

''No one,'' Dr. Krause said, ''anticipated the microbe guerrilla actions that were to break out from enclaves in the rear, as the medical research enterprise regrouped for a frontal assault on chronic and degenerative diseases and deployed the best and the brightest for the attack.''

All this has forced chemists and pharmacologists into a seemingly endless quest for new families of antibiotics. Success against infectious diseases has often been dramatic, but slow. As Dr. Krause says, ''The 14 vaccines effective against infectious agents amount to little more than one vaccine for each decade since Pasteur.''

One standing challenge is that of influenza. Despite the availability of a vaccine, the flu has killed more than half a million Americans in the last 20 years. The influenza virus has the uncanny knack of changing its molecular structure every so often to cause new epidemics. The vaccine, which is altered to keep up with those changes, protects many people, but a better one is needed.

Given the widespread belief that infections are no longer a serious threat, Dr. Krause asks: ''Is it any wonder, therefore, that the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases is sometimes not taken seriously? It has a credibility problem. With all else there is to do, why on earth should we have an institute for sneezes and colds, flu and fluxes, itches and blotches?''

He correctly argues that Americans need to devote more resources to the battle against infectious diseases. ''Sometime between 1950 and 1960 the medical profession and the public began to dismiss infections as serious threats to health,'' Dr. Krause says. ''By and large, the profession, medical foundations and later even the Federal Government closed the book on infectious diseases and set new health research priorities focusing on the persisting problems of heart disease, cancer, stroke and a whole series of chronic and degenerative diseases.''

Now, infections are among the most serious complications of many treatments of cancer and other chronic disorders because the body's ability to fight these infections can be crippled by the drugs used or by the underlying disorder itself. Moreover, scientists have grown increasingly suspicious that infections may play crucial roles in the development of chronic diseases as diverse as diabetes, arthritis, senile dementia and cancer.

Although the public may resent the costs of research, it behooves us to recall that the development of effective vaccines and antibiotics did not happen overnight.

What about the future? As we approach the second century since Pasteur's death in 1895, Dr. Krause is cautiously optimistic that the new tools of genetic engineering and technology will produce even greater victories.

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How much do crowded plane cabins increase the risk of catching and spreading infectious diseases beyond national borders?

Ebola: How easily do germs spread on planes?

The Ebola outbreak is stoking fears of a deadly virus spreading across the world through air travel. We talked to experts to discover the risks of catching the disease mid-flight.

David Robson
31 July 2014

Are plane cabins hotbeds of disease? Frequent flyers are often on guard against sneezing or coughing co-passengers, in fear of catching what they have. And the possibility that much more serious epidemics or pandemics could spread by air travel has been a worry for years, whether it is avian flu, Sars or tuberculosis.

Now we are in the middle of one of the deadliest outbreaks of Ebola virus ever: the outbreak started in Guinea last March and soon reached Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria. Concern in the West has heightened after it emerged that a man had flown on internal flights while carrying the virus, with fears growing that air travel could quickly carry the terrifying disease around the world. British Prime Minister David Cameron described Ebola as a “serious threat”.

How likely is it to catch a deadly disease mid-flight, and what might stop a sick passenger carrying it between countries? To get a sense of the risks involved, BBC Future talked to infectious disease researchers to find out what we know about transmission during air travel – and what this can tell us about the risk of Ebola spreading across the world.

Transmission problems

The risks of catching an infection from an ill passenger are not as high as you would think, says Christine Pearson, a spokesperson for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia. “It’s not any more dangerous than any place where you are in touch with lots of people – like a shopping mall food court for example.

John Oxford, a virologist at Queen Mary University, London, agrees. He points out that the aeroplane ventilation goes from the ground to the ceiling, where the air is filtered for bacteria and viruses before it recirculates. Simulations looking at the potential spread of germs have found that they are generally confined to just a couple of rows either side of the carrier. Even then, the chances appear to be small, according to a study published in the British Medical Journal. The paper looked at a flight involving nine school children who were later found to be carrying the swine flu virus. Just two other passengers, of more than 100 questioned, later developed the illness – and they were both sitting within two rows of the ill school kids. As a result, the researchers concluded that there was just a 3.5% risk of catching the illness if you were sitting in those seats. A handful of other studies, looking at measles and TB, also suggest that in-flight transmission rates are similarly low. From studies such as these, Oxford says that “the biggest risk is not on the plane, but in the taxi on the way to the airport”.

However, John Edmunds, professor of infectious disease modelling at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, points out that it is difficult to come to any firm conclusions, even for the more prevalent diseases. The number of studies is small, he says, meaning you can’t find absolute figures for the risk and compare that to the risk of infection in a school, say. So it is even harder to assess the risk of in-flight transmission of rare and unstudied diseases like Ebola.

Mode of transmission is clearly a factor. There are a few documented cases of norovirus spreading among passengers – probably due to people sharing the same toilet. But we know that Ebola is relatively difficult to catch: unlike respiratory diseases like colds and flu, it can only be transmitted through contact with bodily fluids like saliva, vomit, or blood, which begins to secrete out of every orifice. Although it is unlikely that someone suffering the full-blown attack would attempt to fly, it is not impossible. Patrick Sawyer, a US citizen who died from the virus last week, showed some of these symptoms on a flight from Liberia to Nigeria, raising fears for the other passengers. Airline staff and public health officials should be more aware of the dangers now, however, and should place anyone suspected of having the disease in quarantine. “Everyone is on the lookout,” says Oxford.

There is always the chance that a passenger could board a flight before they have developed the full-blown symptoms. But so far, the evidence suggests you are unlikely to catch it from someone in the early stages of the disease, before they have started vomiting and bleeding. “I wouldn’t want to be a passenger next to a guy with Ebola,” admits Edmunds. “But if they are just sitting there with a fever, I can’t imagine the situation being high risk.” Oxford points out that basic hygiene measures should further reduce the chance of infection – even if it can’t eliminate the danger completely. “The Ebola virus is very easily killed; you can kill it with hot water and soap,” he says. “Alcohol rubs get rid of it in a microsecond.”

“Small risk”

If an apparently healthy person carrying the virus lands in a country, there is still room for a second stage of contagion. This is perhaps the greater risk for a global epidemic – undetected carriers are the way that swine flu and Sars spread across the world. “The history of the spread of infectious diseases is infinitely entwined with improvements in travel,” says Edmunds. He points out that in the past, the spread of diseases was limited by the length of travel; measles develops quickly, so all the cases would have burnt out by the end of a long voyage. Since Ebola has an incubation period of up to 21 days, carriers could arrive in a country weeks before symptoms develop – potentially transmitting it to the people they know. “It is an issue,” admits Oxford, but he is optimistic that the infection could still be contained. Anyone showing the symptoms would have a rapid diagnosis before being quarantined, and health authorities would also check anyone who had been in contact with them – such as air crews, passport officials and their families. “All of that can stop it spreading – and it will be stopped.”

A spokesperson for the World Health Organization, Gregory Härtl, says its official stance currently is that a global epidemic is a “small risk”, although it is currently working with the International Air Transport Association to review their recommendations. Currently, it does not recommend screening passengers at airports – since the thermal scanners used to detect a fever are unlikely to find people incubating the first stages of the disease – and there are no recommended travel restrictions.

However; the situation is evolving fast and the recommendations may change in the coming days. At the moment, no one can yet predict whether other air travellers have been infected with the disease, but the hope is that heightened vigilance will help to minimise any potential risk. However, even if it is successfully contained and the outbreak peters out, Ebola shows, yet again, the fact that no disaster or epidemic is too distant in the highly-connected modern world.

“This virus, if it is not taken care of, will be a global pandemic,” Nyenswah told CBS News, calling for more international aid to help treat the sick and stop the spreading of the disease.

Liberian Official: Ebola Outbreak ‘Is Above The Control Of The National Government’

Sierra Leone's president has declared a public health emergency to curb the deadly Ebola outbreak.Ernest Bai Koroma said the epicentres of the outbreak in the east would be quarantined and asked the security forces to enforce the measures. The UN says 729 people in West Africa have died of Ebola since February - 233 of them in Sierra Leone.

Sierra Leone declares Ebola public health emergency

[JustJohn or JJ]

From various news sources that came across my desk this AM.




We've got another exclusive breaking story for you today.

The U.S. government is desperately preparing for a massive Ebola pandemic outbreak across the USA.

Ebola detection equipment has been deployed to all 50 states, and the U.S. Dept. of Defense has awarded a $140m contract to a little-known pharma company conducting clinical trials on an Ebola treatment drug.

Meanwhile, infectious disease experts warn this outbreak may already be too widespread to control:
www.naturalnews.com/046259_Ebola_outbreak_drug_treatments_Monsanto.html


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Peace Corps evacuates over Ebola as 2 isolated

MONROVIA, Liberia (AP) -- The largest recorded Ebola outbreak in history has led the U.S. Peace Corps to evacuate hundreds of volunteers from three affected West African countries, and a State Department official on Wednesday said two volunteers were under isolation after having contact with a person who later died of the virus.

Meanwhile, Liberia's president ordered the nation's schools to shut down and most civil servants to stay home as fears deepened over the virus that already has killed more than 670 people in West Africa.

The Peace Corps said it was evacuating 340 volunteers from Liberia as well as neighboring Guinea and Sierra Leone.

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EBOLA Detection Kits Deployed To National Guard Units In All 50 States -






As Dr. Orient said in her interview on The Common Sense Show, on June 30, 2014, “It is not a matter of if Ebola comes into the United States, but when.”


The United States Containment Procedures

Fortunately, the United States has detailed procedures to deal with a pandemic outbreak and it carries the force of law. Under section 361 of the Public Health Service Act (42 U.S. Code § 264), the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services is authorized to take measures to prevent the entry and spread of communicable diseases from foreign countries into the United States and between states. The authority for carrying out these functions on a daily basis has been delegated to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The CDC utilizes two basic strategies when trying to contain a public outbreak of something as deadly as Ebola and they are Isolation and Quarantine.

“Isolation is used to separate ill persons who have a communicable disease from those who are healthy. Isolation restricts the movement of ill persons to help stop the spread of certain diseases. For example, hospitals use isolation for patients with infectious tuberculosis. Quarantine is used to separate and restrict the movement of well persons who may have been exposed to a communicable disease to see if they become ill. These people may have been exposed to a disease and do not know it, or they may have the disease but do not show symptoms. Quarantine can also help limit the spread of communicable disease” (CDC). Quarantining involves the creation of detainment facilities in which people, who are suspected, or are infected with a pathogen, are forcibly detained and not allowed to leave. This statute also applies, in the same manner, as people who “may be exposed”.


The United States Is Moving to Establish Quarantine Centers

Even if there was not a present immigration crisis at the border, there is a significant outbreak of Ebola in a seven country region of West Africa. With modern air travel, this government should be enacting protocols to limit the chances for Ebola from coming into the United States. Instead, President Obama is having ICE and DHS load up the busses and planes, at taxpayers expense to ship them throughout the United States without going through a minimum of a three week health screening period (i.e. Ebola’s incubation period). This is highly irresponsible and could be considered to be an act of treason being committed against the people of the United States. Under federally mandated quarantine procedures, here is what the CDC and President Obama are mandated to do in the present crisis. Here is what is supposed to happen as described by the CDC:

The Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services has statutory responsibility for preventing the introduction, transmission, and spread of communicable diseases in the United States. Under its delegated authority, the Division of Global Migration and Quarantine works to fulfill this responsibility through a variety of activities, including

the operation of Quarantine Stations at ports of entry

establishment of standards for medical examination of persons destined for the United States, and

administration of interstate and foreign quarantine regulations, which govern the international and interstate movement of persons, animals, and cargo.

Instead, we are getting this type of Obama led method of pandemic protection, as described below.
Ebola Quarantine Centers

Yesterday, Paul Watson opened a lot of eyes with the following statement: ” The source, an office clerk within the LADHS, said that during a policy meeting on the morning of June 18th last month, his supervisor announced that the Los Angeles County Dept. of Health Services had struck a deal with the government to open up “low cost housing” facilities for homeless people, otherwise known as “FEMA camps.” The source said that his supervisor ordered staff not to use the term “FEMA camps.” One look at who is behind this program should raise the eyebrows of every person. as it is being administered by the Department of Health Services.

“In an effort to respond to the high need for recuperative care services, Housing for Health will open a 38 bed recuperative care site in South LA this summer. The goal of recuperative care is to provide short-term housing with health oversight to homeless DHS patients who are recovering from an acute illness or injury or have conditions that would be exacerbated by living on the street or in shelters. The site was renovated to serve patients with mobility impairments and provides wheelchair accessible community space indoors and in an open-air courtyard. The site will be operated by LAMP Community, a non-profit agency with over 25 years of experience providing services to homeless individuals”.

Conclusion

At a time when city, state and federal budgets are stretched to infinity, we are supposed to believe that out of the goodness of their hearts, LA County is going to provide these kinds of services at this kind of expense to previously ignored homeless people? Does any of this make any sense given the economic state of the country? Paul Watson is calling these facilities, FEMA camps. I agree with Paul and would also add that they are FEMA Quarantine Camps. This is the early preparation for what is coming. Cities across the country, from Tempe, AZ. to Charleston, SC., are outlawing homeless people as it gives the government to quarantine these people. A clear pattern is emerging that we are soon going to see from California to South Carolina homeless people being quarantined, held against their will, for “health” reasons. The handling of the present and potential Ebola crisis speaks for itself. When there is trouble America, who are you going to call? Thirty years ago, we called the Ghostbusters (i.e. hit movie 1984), which is a whole lot better than what is available now.

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A Defense Department planning document summarizing the military's contingency plan says the Pentagon is prepared to assist in "quarantining groups of people in order to minimize the spread of disease during a pandemic" and aiding in "efforts to restore and maintain order."

Department of Defense Implementation Plan for Pandemic

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Medical staff working with Doctors Without Borders prepared to bring food to patients kept in an isolation area last week at an Ebola treatment center in Kailahun, Sierra Leone.

Sierra Leone Declares Health Emergency Over Ebola

By ADAM NOSSITER and ALAN COWELLJULY 31, 2014


ABUJA, Nigeria — As alarm spread over the deadly Ebola virus in West Africa, President Ernest Bai Koroma of Sierra Leone, one of the three main countries battling the worst known outbreak of the disease, has declared a public health emergency that calls for the deployment of security forces to quarantine epicenters of infection. He also said he was canceling a planned visit to the United States.

In an address to the nation posted late Wednesday on the presidential website, Mr. Koroma said the emergency would “enable us take a more robust approach to deal with the Ebola outbreak.”

Mr. Koroma said he had been planning to attend a United States-Africa summit meeting in Washington, but would instead go on Friday to Guinea to discuss a regional response to the outbreak. The other two countries accounting for many of the 672 killed by the disease in recent weeks are Liberia and Guinea.

“We need to tell everyone that the epidemic is here, it is happening, and it is serious,” said Amara Jambai, the director of prevention and control at the Sierra Leone Health Ministry.

In the address, Mr. Koroma said security forces would be deployed to support health professionals and that “all epicenters of the disease will be quarantined” along with “localities and homes where the disease is identified.”

Public meetings will be restricted, houses will be searched for infected people, Parliament will be recalled and top officials will be obliged to cancel all but essential overseas travel.

“These measures will initially be implemented for a period of 60 to 90 days,” Mr. Koroma said, and subsequent measures will be announced as and when necessary.”

The announcement came a day after Liberia said it was closing schools, placing nonessential government workers on compulsory leave for 30 days and ordering security to enforce what was termed an action plan to combat the outbreak. The Peace Corps, a program run by the United States government, said it was withdrawing its 340 volunteers from the three countries most affected by the virus.

“The epidemic is very big, very dispersed,” said Dr. Hilde de Clerck, the interim emergency coordinator in Sierra Leone for Doctors Without Borders. “It seems logical that the country is reacting. I do understand that the central government has to do something. Cases are now being reported in more southern regions. There is a geographical spread. We do see that it is several districts that are hit now.”

Officials and experts in Europe sought on Thursday to dampen fears that public health specialists were ill prepared to cope with the arrival of infected travelers.

“There is no health facility at the border, there is no containment facility and until extremely recently there has been no guidance issued to staff at all as to what they should do,” said Lucy Moreton, the head of the Immigration Service Union, which represents immigration staff in Britain.

But Dr. Peter Piot, co-discoverer of the virus and the director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said there was little risk.

“Spreading in the population here, I’m not that worried about it,” he told Agence France-Presse.

“I wouldn’t be worried to sit next to someone with Ebola virus on the Tube as long as they don’t vomit on you or something,” he said, referring to London’s underground train system. “This is an infection that requires very close contact.”

The French minister of health, Marisol Touraine, offered a similar assessment in an interview with the daily newspaper Le Parisien on Thursday, saying the risk of importing the virus into Europe was low, and that no such case had thus far been documented. Nevertheless, she called for extreme vigilance against an ailment she characterized as both “very serious” and “very contagious.”

In Geneva, the International Air Transport Association, which represents most of the world’s major airlines, also played down the hazards outside the region, Reuters reported. The agency said in a statement on Thursday that the World Health Organization had not recommended travel restrictions or border closures, and said there would be a low risk for travelers.

“In the rare event that a person infected with the Ebola virus was unknowingly transported by air, W.H.O. advises that the risks to other passengers are low,” the statement said, referring to the World Health Organization.

Ebola is spread only by patients with severe symptoms that include vomiting, diarrhea, impaired kidney and liver function and finally internal and external bleeding, the statement said. “It is highly unlikely that someone suffering such symptoms would feel well enough to travel.”

In a poignant development, the university clinic in Hamburg-Eppendorf in Germany, which specializes in tropical viruses, said on Tuesday that it had been asked by the government of Sierra Leone to treat its leading doctor after he came down with the disease.

Physicians prepared a special isolation station to receive the patient, who at the time was too weak to make the journey to Germany, the clinic said. Later that day, the chief medical officer in Sierra Leone was quoted by Reuters as saying the doctor, Sheik Umar Khan, had died of the virus.

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THIS IS BAD:

Two American medical missionaries diagnosed with the deadly Ebola virus in Liberia could be back in the United States as early as this weekend for treatment at special medical isolation units, including Atlanta's Emory University Hospital, the U.S. State Department said Friday.

2 American Ebola patients heading to U.S.

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Airport staff tonight told of their fears of an Ebola outbreak after a passenger from Sierra Leone collapsed and died as she got off a plane at Gatwick. Workers said they were terrified the virus could spread globally through the busy international hub from the West African country which is in the grip of the deadly epidemic.

Ebola terror at Gatwick as passenger collapses and dies getting off Sierra Leone flight

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An ambulance arrives with Ebola victim Dr. Kent Brantly, right, at Emory University Hospital, Saturday, Aug. 2, 2014, in Atlanta.


Experimental drug likely saved Ebola patients

By Dr. Sanjay Gupta and Danielle Dellorto, CNN

updated 5:57 PM EDT, Mon August 4, 2014


(CNN) -- It's a story that could have come from a cinematic medical thriller: Two American missionary workers contract Ebola. Their situation is dire. Three vials containing a highly experimental drug are flown into Liberia in a last-ditch effort to save them.

And the drug flown in last week appears to have worked, according to a source familiar with details of the treatment.

Dr. Kent Brantly's and Nancy Writebol's conditions significantly improved after receiving the medication, sources say. Brantly was able to walk into Emory University Hospital in Atlanta after being evacuated to the United States last week, and Writebol is expected to arrive in Atlanta on Tuesday.

On July 22, Brantly woke up feeling feverish. Fearing the worst, Brantly immediately isolated himself. Writebol's symptoms started three days later. A rapid field blood test confirmed the infection in both of them after they had become ill with fever, vomiting and diarrhea.

It's believed Brantly and Writebol, who worked with the aid organization Samaritan's Purse, contracted Ebola from another health care worker at their hospital in Liberia, although the official Centers for Disease Control and Prevention case investigation has yet to be released.

A representative from the National Institutes of Health contacted Samaritan's Purse in Liberia and offered the experimental treatment, known as ZMapp, for the two patients, according to the source.

The drug was developed by the biotech firm Mapp Biopharmaceutical Inc., which is based in San Diego. The patients were told that this treatment had never been tried before in a human being but had shown promise in small experiments with monkeys.

Questions about this new Ebola drug

According to company documents, four monkeys infected with Ebola survived after being given the therapy within 24 hours after infection. Two of four other monkeys that started therapy within 48 hours after infection also survived. One monkey that was not treated died within five days of exposure to the virus.

Brantly and Writebol were aware of the risk of taking a new, little-understood treatment and gave informed consent, according to two sources familiar with the care of the missionary workers. In the monkeys, the experimental serum had been given within 48 hours of infection. Brantly didn't receive it until he'd been sick for nine days.

The medicine is a three-mouse monoclonal antibody, meaning that mice were exposed to fragments of the Ebola virus and then the antibodies generated within the mice's blood were harvested to create the medicine. It works by preventing the virus from entering and infecting new cells.

The Ebola virus causes viral hemorrhagic fever, which refers to a group of viruses that affect multiple organ systems in the body and are often accompanied by bleeding.

Early symptoms include sudden onset of fever, weakness, muscle pain, headaches and a sore throat. They later progress to vomiting, diarrhea, impaired kidney and liver function -- and sometimes internal and external bleeding.

The ZMapp vials, stored at subzero temperatures, reached the hospital in Liberia where Brantly and Writebol were being treated Thursday morning. Doctors were instructed to allow the serum to thaw naturally without any additional heat. It was expected that it would be eight to 10 hours before the medicine could be given, according to a source familiar with the process.

Brantly asked that Writebol be given the first dose because he was younger and he thought he had a better chance of fighting it, and she agreed. However, as the first vial was still thawing, Brantly's condition took a sudden turn for the worse.

Brantly began to deteriorate and developed labored breathing. He told his doctors he thought he was dying, according to a source with firsthand knowledge of the situation.

Knowing his dose was still frozen, Brantly asked if he could have Writebol's now-thawed medication. It was brought to his room and administered through an IV. Within an hour of receiving the medication, Brantly's condition dramatically improved. He began breathing easier; the rash over his trunk faded away. One of his doctors described the events as "miraculous."

By the next morning, Brantly was able to take a shower on his own before getting on a specially designed Gulfstream air ambulance jet to be evacuated to the United States.

Writebol also received a vial of the medication. Her response was not as remarkable, according to sources familiar with the treatment. However, doctors on Sunday administered Writebol a second dose of the medication, which resulted in significant improvement.

She was stable enough to be evacuated back to the United States.

The process by which the medication was made available to Brantly and Writebol is highly unusual.

World Health Organization spokesman Gregory Hartl cautioned that health authorities "cannot start using untested drugs in the middle of an outbreak, for various reasons."

ZMapp has not been approved for human use and has not even gone through the clinical trial process, which is standard to prove the safety and efficacy of a medication. It may have been given under the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's "compassionate use" regulation, which allows access to investigational drugs outside clinical trials.

Getting approval for compassionate use is often long and laborious, but in the case of Brantly and Writebol, they received the medication within seven to 10 days of their exposure to the Ebola virus.

On July 30, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, an arm of the military responsible for any chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and high-yield explosive threats, allotted additional funding to MAPP Biopharmaceutical due to "promising results.

Experimental Ebola Treatment Protects Some Primates Even After Disease Symptoms Appear August 21, 2013

[Nictoshek]

[Nictoshek]

Connecticut declared in state of ‘public health emergency,’ prepares for QUARANTINE

The State of Public Health Emergency allows bureaucrats to detain and force-vaccinate people without due process.

Posted on October 8, 2014 by Site Staff in News


HARTFORD, CT — Governor Dannel Malloy has declared Connecticut to be in a state of public health emergency, enabling the indefinite suspension of certain civil rights. State bureaucrats have been granted the broad authority to forcibly detain suspected sick people without due process. The declaration came preemptively, as Connecticut has not yet seen a single case of the virus it purports to stop.

The governor’s October 7th declaration read as follows:

“In response to the epidemic of the Ebola virus currently affecting multiple countries in western Africa, and in order to provide the Commissioner of Public Health and other appropriate officials with all authorities necessary to prevent any potential transmission of the Ebola virus within the State of Connecticut, I hereby declare a public health emergency for the State, pursuant to the Connecticut General Statutes Section 19a-131a, for the duration of the epidemic. Specifically, in accordance with Connecticut General Statutes Section 19a-131b, I authorize the Commissioner of Public Health to Order the isolation or quarantine, under conditions prescribed by the Commissioner of Public Health, of any individual or group of individuals whom the Commissioner reasonably believes to have been exposed to, infected with, or otherwise at risk of passing the Ebola virus.”

– Governor Dannel P. Malloy, October 7, 2014

Rationalizing his actions, the governor said in a statement: “We need to have the authorities in place that will allow us to move quickly to protect public health, if and when that becomes necessary. Signing this order will allow us to do that.”

The recipient of most of the newly-imparted power is Jewel Mullen, Connecticut’s Commissioner of the Department of Public Health (DPH). By having this measure in place, Commissioner Mullen explained, “we don’t have to scramble in the event I need to take action.”

The actions that authorities might want to “scramble” to use is the forcible quarantine of citizens — without charges or trial.

Connecticut General Statutes Section 19a-131a spells out the powers that may be used during the state of public health emergency:

“[While] the emergency exists [the state] may do any of the following: (1) Order the commissioner to implement all or a portion of the public health emergency response plan developed pursuant to section 19a-131g; (2) authorize the commissioner to isolate or quarantine persons in accordance with section 19a-131b; (3) order the commissioner to vaccinate persons in accordance with section 19a-131e; or (4) apply for and receive federal assistance.”

As noted above, the Commissioner may issue an order of mass vaccination at his or her own discretion.

Section 19a-131d states that any individual who refuses to comply with any portion of the order may be punished with with fines and imprisonment for up to one (1) year.

Fending off a police state requires constant vigilance against efforts to desecrate civil liberties. As the current scenario has shown us, a climate of fear — fear of disease, terrorism, foreign threats, etc. — makes it all-too easy to suspend constitutional rights with minimal public resistance. Many people actually feel grateful to see the government absorbing greater powers; taken with the promises of keeping them safe.

The state of public health emergency will remain in effect indefinitely until lifted by the governor.

[Nictoshek]

Craig Spencer, Doctor in New York City, Is SICK WITH EBOLA