US to send 50 experts to West Africa to battle Ebola.

The US has announced plans to send at least 50 public health experts to West Africa to help fight the worst-ever outbreak of Ebola.

A senior US health official said the outbreak was out of control but insisted it could be stopped.

Ebola has claimed 728 lives in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone this year. The current mortality rate is about 55 per cent.


Meanwhile, an American doctor infected with the virus is improving in hospital after returning to the US from Liberia.

Dr Kent Brantly arrived at a military base in Georgia on Saturday before being driven to Emory University Hospital.

Another infected American, aid worker Nancy Writebol, is expected to arrive in the US soon.

The virus spreads through human contact with a sufferer’s bodily fluids.

Initial flu-like symptoms can lead to external haemorrhaging from areas like eyes and gums, and internal bleeding which can lead to organ failure.

Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr Thomas Frieden, announced the new US measures in an interview with ABC’s This Week.

“We do know how to stop Ebola. It’s old-fashioned plain and simple public health: find the patients, make sure they get treated, find their contacts, track them, educate people, do infection control in hospitals.”

The experts would arrive in West Africa within 30 days to fight what he called the “scary” disease.

He rejected fears that this would put more US citizens in harms way.

“The single most important thing we can do to protect Americans is to stop this disease at the source in Africa” he said.

EBOLA: Infected Nigerian doctor not dead - FG.

The Director, Centre for Disease Control, Abuja, Prof. Abdulsalami Nasidi, has refuted claims that the infected doctor is dead.



Nasidi who spoke at a press briefing in Lagos State on Monday, said the infected patient had been quarantined and was presently receiving treatment at the hospital in Lagos.

“We will not be able to release the name of the new contact, but we know that the person is a doctor and a female. The patient is not dead. She is alive. Experts from the local and international organisations are attending to the patient,” he said.

The Lagos State Commissioner for Health, Dr. Jide Idris, appealed to striking doctors under the aegis of the Nigerian Medical Association to call off their strike and join the government to fight the virus.

He added that the state government would be offering incentives to health workers who volunteer to work with the team of doctors that are treating infected patients.

Idris said, “We also welcome volunteers from the health profession and those who do so shall be given incentives. We also appeal to residents to support the government in fighting the scourge by being cautious.”

Nigeria doctor who treated Ebola patient infected with virus, eight others quarantined.

The Minister of Health, Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu, on Monday said one of the doctors that treated the Liberian-born American, Patrick Sawyer, who died of the Ebola disease, had contracted the virus.

Chukwu made this known in Abuja as Reuters news agency quoted the Geneva-based World Health Organisation as saying in a statement that Nigeria had four cases, of which three were classed as ‘probable’ Ebola and one as ‘suspected.’

The death toll from the Ebola outbreak, according to WHO, rose from 729 to 887 by August 1. The total number of cases in the four West African countries affected is now 1,603.

Sawyer, who arrived at the Murtala Mohammed Airport, Lagos on July 20, died at an Obalende hospital five days after.

Chukwu said, ‘‘This is now the second case of Ebola virus disease in Nigeria. This victim is one of the doctors who attended to the patient who brought Ebola virus to Nigeria.’’

He also told journalists in Abuja that ‘‘about eight other persons who came into contact with Sawyer, and who had developed the Ebola symptoms, had been quarantined while 70 others were under surveillance.’’

The minister said, “All those who came into contact with the late Sawyer depending on the level of contact are still being traced and being invited every day and they are placed under surveillance just to ensure that the spread of disease is curtailed.”

He added that the Federal Government was currently reinforcing the technical working group on Ebola to include 35 state governments. Lagos State already has a TWG.

The minister allayed the fears being expressed by the public about the corpses that were brought into Anambra and Imo states from some countries which already had records of the deadly disease.

He said, “Medical records have proved that the corpse taken to Imo State was not carrying Ebola while test is being carried out on the one taken to Anambra State.

‘‘We are collaborating with all the state governments to establish isolation wards for persons proven symptomatic to Ebola and a 24- hour emergency operation centre.”

The minister also on Monday inaugurated an Ebola Treatment and Research Group with a mandate to carry out an extensive research into the Ebola virus.

Chukwu said the group would receive and verify claims on Ebola cure; collate and analyse researches on the virus and advise the government as may be appropriate.

The group, according to the minister, has the Director – General of the Nigerian Institute of Pharmaceutical Research and Development and the Director-General of the Nigerian Institute of Medical Research as chairmen.

He added that the Nigerian researcher, who had found evidence of Bitter Kola inhibiting the growth of Ebola virus, Prof. Maurice Iwu ,and the Director-General of the Nigerian Centre for Disease Control are also members of the group. Iwu was also a former chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission.

Chukwu said, “Although the research on bitter kola was not concluded, no progress can be made without research. For now, there is no scientifically proven vaccine or drug for the treatment of Ebola.”

He assured the public that the Federal Government was doing everything to stop the outbreak of the disease but enjoined everybody to embrace good hygiene by constantly washing their hands.

Also on Monday, the President of the Medical and Dental Consultants Association of Nigeria, Dr. Steven Oluwole, said that only one authentic case of Ebola had been documented in Nigeria.

He added that “the risk to all contacts of the case are theoretically unlikely to be uniform.”

Oluwole stressed the need for tracing, screening, follow-up on all contacts and effective control at Nigerian borders as means of checking the spread of the virus.

He described the virus as “a filovirus, which is transmitted to humans from contact with infected wild animals, or consumption of their raw or undercooked meat.”

The scientist listed the susceptible animals as fruit bats, monkeys, chimpanzees and antelopes.

He noted that human to human transmission primarily occurs through contact with body fluids of infected persons, adding that skin and mucous membranes are the main routes of entry.

Infected doctor is not dead –FG

Just minutes after Chukwu and Oluwole spoke, there were rumours that the doctor who treated Sawyer had died.

The rumour was quickly dismissed by the Director, Centre for Disease Control, Abuja, Prof. Abdulsalami Nasidi.

Nasidi told journalists in Lagos that the doctor had been quarantined and was presently receiving treatment .

He said, ,”We will not be able to release the name of the new contact; but we know that the person is a doctor and a female. The patient is not dead. She is alive. Experts from the local and international organisations are attending to the patient.”

Lagos plans another isolation centre, may isolate 10 people

In Lagos, NE gathered that the state government had begun renovating another centre at the Mainland Infectious Diseases Hospital, Yaba , to isolate and accommodate some of the people that had direct contact with the late Sawyer.

A reliable source, who is also on the team of experts monitoring the testing and surveillance of persons who came into contact with Sawyer, said the building would give more room for them to contain possible infections.

He said, “ We are presently renovating another building at the hospital, so that we can isolate more contacts. This is now important with the recent development. We need to increase vigilance on surveillance on persons who came in contact with him.

“For now, we are looking at isolating at least 10 people that had first contact with him (Sawyer). This is in line with the stated guidelines for the monitoring of the virus by the World Health Organisation.”

The source added that the state government might earmark the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, Ikeja, as another hospital for isolated persons.

It was learnt that this caused panic among health workers and patients at LASUTH.

A nurse who spoke on condition of anonymity with one of our correspondents, expressed fears that the plan might lead to an outbreak of the disease in the hospital.

She said, “We have been told that it is possible that they may bring in more people that came into contact with him (Sawyer) here. We are scared that LASUTH may not be the best place to bring anybody who may have contracted an highly infectious disease like Ebola. There is too much exposure for us, the health workers and other patients who come to the hospital.”

Earlier, the state Commissioner for Health, Dr. Jide Idris, appealed to striking doctors under the aegis of the Nigerian Medical Association to call off their strike and join the government to fight the Ebola virus.

He said the government would be offering incentives to any health worker who volunteered to work with the team of doctors treating any infected person.

Idris said, “ We also welcome volunteers from the health profession and those who do so shall be given incentives. We also appeal to residents to support the government in fighting the scourge by being cautious.

‘‘As of today, one person out of the eight people who came into contact with the late victim of Ebola has tested positive. The state has established isolation and treatment centre for the patient.

“The members of staff at this centre have also been trained on how to treat and handle patients under their care. The hospital is also provided with enough facilities to ensure that the officials and other patients do not contact the virus.

“The patients under our surveillance were those who came into contact with the late Liberian-American. And the rapid response team has been in communication with these patients who developed fever and other symptoms.

“We will not stop in tracking all those who came into contact with Mr. Sawyer. They remain in isolation until the confirmatory results are in and those who test positive for the virus will remain in isolation until they are no longer infectious.”

2015 AFCON QUALIFIERS: Super Eagles to Rwanda

Nigeria will have to contend with the Amavubi of Rwanda in Group A of the 2015 Afcon qualifiers after the Wasps defeated Congo 4-3 on penalties to book their place in Group A of the qualifiers.
The Super Eagles are drawn to play in Pool A of the 2015 Afcon qualifiers against South Africa and Sudan, with the winner between Congo and Rwanda to take the last slot in the group.

Trailing 2-0 from the first leg in Pointe Noire, Rwanda had to wait till the 55th minute before going ahead through a Michel Ndahinduka effort as Rwanda looked to get back on track to qualifying.

The dream was firmly on when Meddie Kagere scored the second goal for the Wasps to put them 2-0 and tie the series 2-2 on aggregate in the 60th minute.

Congo mounted pressure on the home side at the capacity crowd Stade Regional Myamirabo in Kigali but the Amavubi held on to take the game to penalties.

Rwanda triumphed 4-3 in the ensuring penalties to complete their dream to book a place in the final phase of qualifying for Morocco 2015.

The Amavubi will now travel to Nigeria on September 5 or 6 for their first group match against the Super Eagles.

EBOLA VIRUS: Lagos State Government, FG visits Prophet T.B. Joshua.

The Lagos State Government and some federal delegates on Sunday paid a visit to the General Overseer of the Synagogue Church of All Nations, Prophet Temitope Joshua.

The visit was said to be aimed at sensitising the church and its membership on the menace of the deadly Ebola virus.

The Lagos State Commissioner for Health, Dr. Jide Idris, who led the delegation, said it was also to make sure that no victim of the virus came into the church from any of the affected countries.

Idris said, “We have our strategies that we intend to share with you. Again, we need to know the resources you have here because whether it is one or two cases, if they are allowed to get out, it is a major problem. We are here to work together on how to contain this disease.”

Idris said the delegation decided to pay the visit to the SCOAN because of the recognition that it was an international Christian centre whose congregation comprised people from all over the world, including the countries of the West African sub-Region which had already been infected by the Ebola disease.

The Director, Centre for Disease Control, Professor Abdulsalami Nasidi, added that the visit was also to inform the Synagogue leader of the deadliness of the Ebola Virus, and ensure that it did not escape into the country.

Prophet Joshua, in his reaction, promised to work with government.

One of such measures, he said, was to visit any of the countries, rather than allow their residents come into Nigeria.

He also promised to suspend some of his major Church healing programmes for a few weeks adding, “I am ready to work with you. I love my country and I will be ready to work with you. Even if it is a rumour, there is need to secure our environment to ensure that it is safe.”

FG will no longer allow the corpses of Nigerians from abroad.

The Federal Government will no longer allow the remains of dead Nigerians, especially from countries battling Ebola virus, from being brought into the country for burial.


The Federal Government is also probing the corpse of a Nigerian that was brought into the country from Liberia last month to ascertain whether the deceased died of Ebola or not.

The Director General, Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, Professor Abdulsalami Nasidi, said this on Friday in Alausa, Ikeja, Lagos.

Nasidi said, “The Federal Government has issued a directive that no dead body should be brought into the country, especially from neighbouring infected countries in view of the rampaging Ebola outbreak in West Africa.

“The order will be communicated to the affected countries through diplomatic channels.”

On the Nigerian that was brought into the country, Nasidi said the remains was brought into the country on 21 July, 2014 from Liberia and conveyed from Lagos to Anambra State and deposited in a private mortuary.

He said, “A team of experts, including those from the World Health Organisation, have been despatched to Anambra State to investigate whether the deceased died of Ebola.

“All the handler of the corpse brought into the country from Liberia will be registered and tracked.

“Those who accompanied the corpse to Anambra and the mortuary handlers are in quarantine in Anambra State. Our team in Anambra State will give us the statistics of those who came in contact with the corpse tomorrow (Saturday).

“If the corpse in Anambra State tested positive, we have been given two options by the World Health Organisation. We can either cremate or bury it. For corpses that would be buried, they will be placed in a bag, disinfected, while the grave must be two meters deep.”

Nasidi added that so far, 70 contacts had been established to have come in contact with Mr. Patrick Sawyer, the Liberian who died of Ebola in Lagos recently, saying that the contacts were being monitored to see if they would develop Ebola-like symptom.

He disclosed that two of the contacts that were brought down with fever had been tested and found negative to Ebola infection.

“But that does not mean that we will stop. We will continue to place them under observation until we are satisfied that they are free. They were part of the 70 established contacts. First, it was 59, it increased to 69 and yesterday (Thursday), we had another. And this increased the number to 70.”

Nasidi said there was no specific cure for Ebola virus.

“We treat the symptoms. If we say that there is no cure, the patients will not come to the hospital. There is no specific drug for Ebola virus. But we can use other drugs to save an infected person. On early intervention, three out four cases survive but if they come late, one out of four survive,” he said.

Lagos State Commissioner for Health, Dr. Jide Idris, said the government had stepped up measures to screen incoming passengers to Nigeria to identify any traveller with symptoms in airports, seaports and border crossing.

He added, “Nigerians must remain vigilant and strengthen surveillance in order to identify potential cases of EVD so that care can be given both patients and their communities and protect the population.”

“An Ebola reporting system has been activated in order to facilitate early identification of suspected Ebola cases.”

Everything you need to know about Ebola virus.

What is Ebola?

In February 2014 an outbreak of the Ebola virus was identified in the south-eastern forests of Guinea, the first time the virus had been recorded in the West African state. By March, it had spread from Macenta, Gueckedou and Kissidougou to the capital Conakry. By April, cases had been confirmed in a further two districts – Dabola and Djingaraye – and in neighbouring Liberia. 

The disease has since advanced to the capitals of Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, and it has killed two doctors, Dr Samuel Brisbane from Liberia and a Ugandan, with two more being seriously ill.

Now Nigerian officials are racing to prevent an outbreak in Africa’s largest city after a Liberian man died in Lagos shortly after arriving at the airport last Tuesday. All its entry points were put on red alert.

Médicins sans Frontières has called this outbreak – the world’s largest recorded to date – “unprecedented”, due to its broad geographic spread. The World Health Organization (WHO) have recorded 1,201 cases attributed to the Ebola virus up to last week, including 672 deaths.

Ebola is a terrifying phenomenon: it kills up to 90% of infected people; death can occur in as little as a week; and, prior to death, patients may haemorrhage, bleeding internally and externally. There is no vaccination and there is no cure.

The origins of Ebola

 
The Ebola virus is named after the Ebola River in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where the disease claimed its first known victims in 1976.  A separate strain broke out simultaneously in Nzara, Sudan.

Unlike bacteria, which are single-celled organisms that multiply by dividing themselves, viruses require hosts to replicate: they take over living cells and then force the infected cells to reproduce the virus. While bacteria can be combated with antibiotics, the same is not true of viruses.

Ebola is a ribonucleic acid (RNA) virus and multiplies particularly rapidly in its host creating a high pathogen dose. The science writer David Quammen, who has investigated the origins and spread of the virus,  writes that “[RNA viruses] produce acute infections, severe for a short time and then gone. Either they soon disappear or they kill you.”

In the process,  “sneezing, or coughing or vomiting or bleeding or diarrhoea … facilitates transmission to other victims”.

There are five known species of Ebola virus: Bundibugyo ebolavirus; Zaire ebolavirus; Reston ebolavirus; Sudan ebolavirus; and Taï Forest ebolavirus. All but the Reston strain can be fatal to humans and all but the Reston strain are found in Africa.

Until recently, the Zaire strain of Ebola was thought to be behind the current outbreak, with the US Centres for Disease Control (CDC) noting a 98% match between the West African and Zaire strains. The Zaire strain of Ebola is the most deadly: it attacks all organs in the body, including the skin, and can have a fatality rate of up to 90%. Since its first appearance – and excluding the current outbreak in West Africa – the strain has killed 1,098 of the 1,388 people it has infected, an average case fatality rate of 79%.

However, a team of experts studying the West African strain reported in the New England Journal of Medicine recently that the Guinea outbreak is a new strain of the virus: though closely related to Zaire ebolavirus, the current strain is endemic to West Africa and developed parallel to the central African ebolavirus strain. According to the team’s investigation, the strain’s outbreak can be traced to the death of a two-year-old child in Gueckedou on December 6 last year.

How is Ebola transmitted?

 

Ebola is thought to be a zoonotic or animal-borne virus. The virus survives in a “reservoir” host – an animal or insect that carries the virus at no cost to itself – and is passed on to other animals or humans through contact with the bodily fluids, secretions or organs of the host animal.

Though it has not been conclusively proved, the fruit bat (Pteropodidae) is considered to be the natural host or “reservoir” of the ebola virus. The exact manner in which Ebola enters human cells remains a mystery. Transmission to humans and primates is thought to occur through direct contact with the animal host, or through contact or consumption of the meat, bodily fluids or secretions of animals that have become infected by contact with the host. Guinea is a known wildlife trafficking hub and last month, the country’s government issued a warning to citizens to avoid eating traditional bushmeat dishes.

Once it has presented in humans, Ebola is transmitted through direct contact, where broken skin or mucous membranes come into contact with the blood or secretions of the infected person. It may also be transmitted indirectly “through exposure to objects (such as needles) that have been contaminated with infected secretions”, according to the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. This means that healthcare workers and family and friends of those infected with the virus are at a higher risk of infection.

What does the virus do?

 

The Ebola virus causes a viral haemorrhagic fever, a set of severe illnesses that are “multisystem” in that they affect various of the body’s regulatory systems. These viral diseases damage the circulatory system and may be accompanied by bleeding or haemorrhaging.

According to the WHO, patients will begin to show symptoms anywhere from two to 21 days after exposure to the virus, mostly between days eight and 10. Patients present with fever, weakness, muscular pain, headaches and sore throat. The generality of the symptoms at this stage makes it difficult to distinguish Ebola from various other diseases, including malaria, typhoid fever, meningitis or cholera.

As the disease develops, Ebola sufferers may experience vomiting, diarrhoea, a red rash, difficulty in breathing and swallowing. The virus severely compromises the immune system, and affects liver, kidney and respiratory function, as well as the skin and blood. Blood clots may form and patients may experience haemorrhaging, bleeding internally and externally.

Treating Ebola

There is no vaccine or cure for the Ebola virus, though several vaccinations are currently being tested. According to the US CDC, treatment is thus limited and merely supportive of the body’s immune function: providing fluids, electrolytes and oxygen; keeping blood pressure constant; and treating additional infections with antibiotics.

It is unclear why some people infected with the virus survive where so many do not, but it is thought to relate to the strength of the individual’s immune system, the strain of the virus and the viral dose the person has been exposed to.

In addition to supportive and symptomatic treatment, health workers can only really control the spread of the virus: isolating those infected, raising awareness of the virus and how it is spread in affected communities, ensuring appropriate protective gear is worn by all in contact with Ebola sufferers and ensuring the quick and safe burial of those who have succumbed.