MINISTER of Health, Professor Onyebuchi Chukwu, on Tuesday, said only one Ebola patient remained in isolation in the country, down from the 13 cases it confirmed since the outbreak of the virus in July.
Professor Chukwu, at a press conference, also disclosed that two more people in isolation had been tested negative to the deadly virus.
The deadly virus was first brought to Nigeria 38 days ago by a Liberian-American, Patrick Sawyer, who later died, but after health workers who treated him had contracted the virus.
Professor Chukwu said so far, Nigeria has had 13 cases, including the index case, adding that five of those infected died, while seven had successfully recovered and discharged.
This makes sense if water is used as soon as the patient is infected.The virus needs time to mutate causing antigenic shift and drift in it's protein capsid so as to evade the antibodies deployed by the patients immune system.
Posted by Tehutimes (Member # 21712) on :
Something so strange about Ebola & Aids/HIV...bats are said to have flown to the affected nations according to UK researchers & AIDS is from Green Monkeys in the DRC says UK,US,& other lands. Why weren't thousands of slave owners in Europe,Asia,& the Americas in the last 1,400 or more yrs who got slaves from the African Continent infected? Hopefully Professor Chukwus'system can help slow down Ebolas'path of misery.
Posted by xyyman (Member # 13597) on :
Bomb the "Arabs "into the dark ages and experiment with viruses on Africans.
Posted by the lioness, (Member # 17353) on :
quote:Originally posted by Tehutimes: Why weren't thousands of slave owners in Europe,Asia,& the Americas in the last 1,400 or more yrs who got slaves from the African Continent infected?
why do you assume a disease cannot be new and have evolved natuarally ? Has every disease been around since the beginning of time? No. Also some diseases are confined to isolated areas. During the past 20 years, at least 30 new diseases have emerged, for many of which there is no treatment, cure or vaccine, or the possibility of effective prevention or control.
Nevertheless Ebola may have ancient roots:
Science 9 November 2012: Vol. 338 no. 6108 pp. 750-752 DOI: 10.1126/science.1225893 PERSPECTIVE EPIDEMIOLOGY
Emerging Disease or Diagnosis?
Stephen K. Gire1,2,*, Matthew Stremlau1,2, Kristian G. Andersen1,2, Stephen F. Schaffner2, Zach Bjornson3, Kathleen Rubins4, Lisa Hensley5, Joseph B. McCormick6, Eric. S. Lander2, Robert F. Garry7, Christian Happi8,9,10, Pardis C. Sabeti1,2,10,* + Author Affiliations
Outbreaks this year of the deadly and highly contagious Ebola and Marburg viruses in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda and Lassa virus in Nigeria raised concerns about possible epidemic spread of these hemorrhagic fevers. These pathogens seemed to appear out of nowhere around the middle of the 20th century: Marburg virus in 1967, Lassa virus in 1969, and Ebola virus in 1976. By the early 1990s, public health concerns were crystallized in a landmark report (1) that was the first to popularize the concept of “emerging pathogens” (fig. S1). But could “emerging diagnosis” explain the rise in appearance of hemorrhagic fevers caused by these pathogens? Recent epidemiologic and genetic studies of Lassa and Ebola fevers suggest that these diseases may have widespread prevalence and ancient origins. They raise the possibility that some viral infections may reflect “emerging diagnoses” of diseases that are circulating more widely than thought, with an emerging character primarily a matter of improved detection of the culprit pathogens.
Emerging pathogens generally fall into two categories: microbes newly introduced to humans from other species, and existing but previously rare human pathogens that rise rapidly in prevalence or pathogenicity (2). Their appearance is often attributed to human encroachment on animal habitats, changing socioeconomic conditions, increased connectivity of the world, and genetic changes in the microorganisms. The concept of emerging pathogens arising through better diagnoses of disease is not commonly thought to apply to deadly viruses such as those causing Lassa and Ebola hemorrhagic fevers.
It may be that the causative pathogens of viral hemorrhagic fevers are characterized as rare because we lack the tools in the right places to routinely detect them. Contrary to popular perception, viral hemorrhagic fevers often have nonspecific symptoms such as fever, headache, and nausea, which make clinical diagnosis difficult. Without proper laboratory diagnostics, health care workers cannot accurately determine the source of fever; malaria, typhoid, or shigella is often assumed to be the culprit. Such misdiagnosis costs lives, as in a 1989 outbreak of Lassa virus in two Nigerian hospitals where 22 people died (3). In addition, most patients rarely present with symptoms in the hospital, and death from febrile illness is common in many developing regions of the world.
Seroprevalence surveys, which estimate the number of individuals exposed to a specific microbe (based upon the presence of antibodies for that microbe in the blood), indicate widespread exposure to Lassa and Ebola viruses in certain parts of Sub-Saharan Africa (see tables S1 and S2, and note S1). Prevalence rates for Lassa virus in surveyed regions are as high as 52% and 54.9% in parts of Sierra Leone and Guinea, respectively, with lower yet substantial rates for Nigeria (21.3%), Côte d'Ivoire (20%), Benin (9.9%), and Ghana (3.8%), suggesting that the virus is endemic in West Africa. These studies led public health officials to estimate that 100,000 to 300,000 people in West Africa become infected each year, and that Lassa infections account for as many as 15% of admissions in some regional hospitals in Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Liberia (4, 5). Seroprevalence surveys of Ebola virus also indicate high exposure (table S2), with prevalence rates up to 22%, depending on the population, and 15.3% in Gabon (6). But the prevalence of both viruses may be higher, as assays for seroprevalence can understate actual exposure rates (because antibody concentrations in the blood wane after exposure), or lower, as they are also subject to false positives (because some assays have low specificity).
Human exposure to animal reservoirs of Lassa and Ebola viruses may underlie their widespread presence in human populations. Both viruses primarily infect nonhuman hosts, and the natural reservoirs of these hosts are abundant. Lassa virus is transmitted by the mouse Mastomys natalensis, which persistently maintain the infection, likely through many years of coevolution. The rodent lives in close contact with humans—in some areas, the rodents are eaten by up to 90% of the population—and a sizable fraction of the mice are infected with and shed Lassa virus. Large areas of West Africa, ranging from 10% of Ghana to 80% of Sierra Leone and Liberia, are exposed to the Lassa reservoir (7). The likely Ebola reservoir, the fruit bat, similarly inhabits broad swaths of Western and Central Africa (8).
Although human outbreaks of Ebola are thought to quickly wane, a 2006 Ebola epidemic among nonhuman primates in Central Africa indicated that virus transmission can be wide-ranging and sustained. The epidemic wiped out ∼95% of the exposed gorilla populations [almost 5000 animals (9)] and a large fraction of the chimpanzee population. Given the extreme fatality rates, it is possible that the virus was newly introduced to these populations of nonhuman primates or was a more pathogenic species or strain. In the case of a newly introduced virus, however, 12.9% of chimpanzees in Central Africa are seropositive, suggesting natural exposure and resistance (rather than the introduction of a new virus) (10). In 10 instances where human infection resulted from hunters handling non-human primate carcasses, the outbreaks had one point of origin with subsequent spread throughout Gabon, indicating that sustained transmission can occur (11).
Analyses of the evolutionary histories of both viruses hints at their long-time and widespread presence around the world, and possible long-standing potential for causing human disease. Lassa virus likely diverged around 500 years ago from other arenaviruses, some of which also cause hemorrhagic disease (12). Similarly, Ebola virus is estimated to have diverged from Marburg virus ∼10,000 years ago (13), and itself occurs as at least five genetically distinct, stable subtypes that are dispersed geographically. Most cause disease in humans, suggesting that the virus has ancient origins and that its pathogenicity has been present for an extended period.
Multiple genomewide scans have uncovered potential evidence for human evolutionary adaptation to Lassa virus infection (14). Most notably, the gene LARGE, which encodes a protein that modif ies α-dystroglycan, a cellular receptor for Lassa virus, is one of the strongest signals of natural selection in the Yoruba of Nigeria (table S3). The variants in LARGE (found to be under recent selection) are present only in certain West African and West African–derived populations and are estimated to have emerged between 3000 and 10,000 years ago. Establishing that the positively selected variants in LARGE and other identified genes confer resistance to Lassa fever would support long-term human exposure to Lassa virus.
Reports of subclinical infections suggest that natural human genetic resistance to Lassa and Ebola exists. Although fatality rates among hospital cases range from 12 to 78% for Lassa fever and 42 to 88% for Ebola fever (reference S1), the seroprevalence data and reports of asymptomatic individuals during Ebola outbreaks indicate that there are many subclinical cases. Host immune responses may potentially restrict viral replication of both viruses (15). However, the degree and route of exposure to these viruses, as well as variable pathogenicity of viral species and strains, must also be considered.
How does the possibility that some “emerging diseases” are ancient and widespread affect approaches to fighting them? If exposure is indeed common, then the causative pathogens are likely already circulating—undetected—in communities and health clinics. With the right detection tools in place, we can identify where their corresponding diseases are likely to be prevalent, and begin to develop treatment, surveillance, and research capacity without waiting for the next outbreak.
Efforts to reduce the burden of Lassa fever at the Kenema Government Hospital (KGH) in Sierra Leone and the Irrua Specialist Teaching Hospital (ISTH) in Irrua, Nigeria, are informative examples. At KGH and ISTH, Lassa virus is recognized as a common cause of illness, and local and international partners work together to diagnose and treat it (16, 17). These efforts have saved numerous lives and the institutions have become thriving research centers; in the process they have raised awareness nationally. In 2012, the Nigerian Federal Ministry of Health reported an increased incidence of suspected Lassa fever cases, with nearly 1000 cases reported by 41 local government agencies in 23 states, potentially due to “emergence of diagnosis.”
Intriguingly, as patient outcomes for Lassa fever have improved at KGH and ISTH, the surrounding communities have become more engaged, and the sites are now referral clinics for patients with undiagnosed (or unexplained) febrile illness within hundreds of kilometers. Consequently, the sites have amassed not only numerous cases of Lassa fever but thousands of cases of unexplained fever. They provide an opportunity both to investigate Lassa virus and to identify or discover other microbes, thereby becoming sentinel sites for emerging infectious diseases.
This kind of strong and sustained partnership between local health care clinics and their communities, along with access to effective diagnostics and treatment, motivates more members of the community to seek care, resulting in a positive feedback cycle that can save lives and facilitate rapid detection of pathogens, both “emerging” ones and common pathogens whose improved detection has labeled them as emerging pathogens. Ideally, after local analysis, samples can be sent to laboratories for identification and discovery of known and new microbes through next-generation DNA sequencing. Implemented more widely, this approach could create a worldwide surveillance capacity with the ability to monitor known disease agents (including the prevalence and evolution) and to discover new disease agents. As pathogens are identified, affordable, field-deployable diagnostics could be developed to reduce the burden of disease. These efforts will thus not only have an immediate impact on affected communities, but can help detect, monitor, and characterize emerging diseases before they become global threats.
Posted by IronLion (Member # 16412) on :
Lioness
There are no new diseases. Just new re-search and re-discovery.
Lion
Posted by the lioness, (Member # 17353) on :
quote:Originally posted by IronLion: Lioness
There are no new diseases. Just new re-search and re-discovery.
Lion
^^^false statement, makes no sense
so nature jutst decided she wasn't going to make any new diseases at some point?
Posted by DD'eDeN (Member # 21966) on :
6 died, 7 survived
'diseases' if defined as viral parasite attacks always undergo mutation, just as all other forms of life, exchanging genes
people provide the opportunity/niche via exposure, disease organisms take advantage of it
Posted by Narmerthoth (Member # 20259) on :
quote:Originally posted by the lioness,:
quote:Originally posted by Tehutimes: Why weren't thousands of slave owners in Europe,Asia,& the Americas in the last 1,400 or more yrs who got slaves from the African Continent infected?
why do you assume a disease cannot be new and have evolved natuarally ? Has every disease been around since the beginning of time? No. Also some diseases are confined to isolated areas. During the past 20 years, at least 30 new diseases have emerged, for many of which there is no treatment, cure or vaccine, or the possibility of effective prevention or control.
Nevertheless Ebola may have ancient roots:
Science 9 November 2012: Vol. 338 no. 6108 pp. 750-752 DOI: 10.1126/science.1225893 PERSPECTIVE EPIDEMIOLOGY
Emerging Disease or Diagnosis?
Stephen K. Gire1,2,*, Matthew Stremlau1,2, Kristian G. Andersen1,2, Stephen F. Schaffner2, Zach Bjornson3, Kathleen Rubins4, Lisa Hensley5, Joseph B. McCormick6, Eric. S. Lander2, Robert F. Garry7, Christian Happi8,9,10, Pardis C. Sabeti1,2,10,* + Author Affiliations
Outbreaks this year of the deadly and highly contagious Ebola and Marburg viruses in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda and Lassa virus in Nigeria raised concerns about possible epidemic spread of these hemorrhagic fevers. These pathogens seemed to appear out of nowhere around the middle of the 20th century: Marburg virus in 1967, Lassa virus in 1969, and Ebola virus in 1976. By the early 1990s, public health concerns were crystallized in a landmark report (1) that was the first to popularize the concept of “emerging pathogens” (fig. S1). But could “emerging diagnosis” explain the rise in appearance of hemorrhagic fevers caused by these pathogens? Recent epidemiologic and genetic studies of Lassa and Ebola fevers suggest that these diseases may have widespread prevalence and ancient origins. They raise the possibility that some viral infections may reflect “emerging diagnoses” of diseases that are circulating more widely than thought, with an emerging character primarily a matter of improved detection of the culprit pathogens.
Reports of subclinical infections suggest that natural human genetic resistance to Lassa and Ebola exists. Although fatality rates among hospital cases range from 12 to 78% for Lassa fever and 42 to 88% for Ebola fever (reference S1), the seroprevalence data and reports of asymptomatic individuals during Ebola outbreaks indicate that there are many subclinical cases. Host immune responses may potentially restrict viral replication of both viruses (15). However, the degree and route of exposure to these viruses, as well as variable pathogenicity of viral species and strains, must also be considered.
Intriguingly, as patient outcomes for Lassa fever have improved at KGH and ISTH, the surrounding communities have become more engaged, and the sites are now referral clinics for patients with undiagnosed (or unexplained) febrile illness within hundreds of kilometers. Consequently, the sites have amassed not only numerous cases of Lassa fever but thousands of cases of unexplained fever. They provide an opportunity both to investigate Lassa virus and to identify or discover other microbes, thereby becoming sentinel sites for emerging infectious diseases.
This kind of strong and sustained partnership between local health care clinics and their communities, along with access to effective diagnostics and treatment, motivates more members of the community to seek care, resulting in a positive feedback cycle that can save lives and facilitate rapid detection of pathogens, both “emerging” ones and common pathogens whose improved detection has labeled them as emerging pathogens. Ideally, after local analysis, samples can be sent to laboratories for identification and discovery of known and new microbes through next-generation DNA sequencing. Implemented more widely, this approach could create a worldwide surveillance capacity with the ability to monitor known disease agents (including the prevalence and evolution) and to discover new disease agents. As pathogens are identified, affordable, field-deployable diagnostics could be developed to reduce the burden of disease. These efforts will thus not only have an immediate impact on affected communities, but can help detect, monitor, and characterize emerging diseases before they become global threats.
Get the fuk out of here you albino apologist dunce.
Just following the AIDS epidemic 20 albino doctors and scientists went public and provided ample proof that they worked within a larger team of medical professionals to develop the HIV virus under the specific direction of the US Department Of defence. To provide proof, they are brought their contract files consisting of DoD RFI, DoD RFP, and Post award DoD SOW documents, all written on official DoD letterhead and repeatedly and in detail described their requirement to develop a virus which attacked the immune systems of Africans. ALl these doctors and Scientists appeared on the Washington DC syndicated TV show, The Tony Brown Journal. Not long after their appearance, The TBJ was taken off the air after 20 years of broadcasting.
This is old news and just another follow on to the Tuskegee experiment.
Ebola is also a man-made virus created in Vianna, VA. 20 years ago a CDC scientist experimenting with Ebola accidentally broke a vial containing the live virus. He was exposed and rather than turn himself in for quarantine he left the facility and went home. A few hours later the CDC bumrushed his neighbourhood and locked it down as they moved in to retrieve him. The media and no one knew what was going on and why the 5 mile area surrounding his house had been closed off with no communications to the media. It wasn't known until a CDC whisleblower called in to report it.
The US, alone with Israel and South Africa have already confessed to be experimenting with bio-ethnics chemical weapons 10-15 years ago.
Israel collaborated with South Africa during the apartheid era where SA worked on BE weapons that effected only blacks and Israel worked on weapons that effected only primarily Arabs. The US is developing them to work selectively on Africans, Asians and Arabs using Human Gnome data.
On June 9, 1969 Pentagon spokesman Dr. Donald MacArthur testified before Congress:
"Within the next five to ten years, it would probably be possible to make a new infective microorganism which could differ in certain important aspects from any known disease-causing organism. Most important of these is that it might be refractory to the immunological and therapeutic processes upon which we depend to maintain our relative freedom from infectious disease. A research program to explore the feasibility of this could be completed in approximately five years at a total cost of $10 million." (HB 15090, pg 129) Indeed, "a disease-causing organism... refractory [resistant] to the immunological and therapeutic processes upon which we depend to maintain our relative freedom from infectious disease" appeared within "5 to 10 years." HIV is the first and only disease to fulfill such a definition. Proving that AIDS emerged simultaneously in Africa and America in the late 1970s, Scientific American (March 1996) published, "The African AIDS Epidemic," which states: "One frequently mentioned explanation for the severe epidemic in the AIDS belt is that the virus originated here and continues to move outward from an epicenter of disease. But AIDS cases appeared in hospitals in Uganda and Rwanda at the same time they did in the West, and no stored human-tissue samples taken from Africans during the 1970s are HIV-positive." Posted by the lioness, (Member # 17353) on :
quote:Originally posted by Narmerthoth:
Ebola is also a man-made virus created in Vianna, VA. 20 years ago a CDC scientist experimenting with Ebola accidentally broke a vial containing the live virus. He was exposed and rather than turn himself in for quarantine he left the facility and went home. A few hours later the CDC bumrushed his neighbourhood and locked it down as they moved in to retrieve him. The media and no one knew what was going on and why the 5 mile area surrounding his house had been closed off with no communications to the media. It wasn't known until a CDC whisleblower called in to report it.
20 years ago In 1994 there were 52 cases of Ebola in Gabon 1 in Ivory Coast
None outside of Africa in 1994
However the first recorded case was 38 years ago in 1976 not 20 years ago, get your facts straight fool
There were 318 cases in Zaire in 1976 and 287 cases in Sudan
The first case outside of Africa was in an English Laboratory also in 1976, an infection caused by an accidental stick of contaminated needle.
24 years ago in 1990 in Virginia reserachers were analyzing Reston virus ( RESTV) which was first described in 1990 as a new "strain" of Ebola virus (EBOV), a result of mutation from Ebola virus. RESTV was discovered in crab-eating macaques monkeys imported from the Philippines Despite its status as a level-4 organism, Reston virus is non-pathogenic to humans, though hazardous to monkeys.
In January 1990, an animal handler at Hazelton cut himself while performing a necropsy on the liver of an infected Cynomolgus. Under the direction of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) the animal handler was placed under surveillance for the duration of the incubation period. When the animal handler failed to become ill, it was concluded that the virus had a low pathogenicity in humans
Ebola is also a man-made virus created in Vianna, VA. 20 years ago a CDC scientist experimenting with Ebola accidentally broke a vial containing the live virus.
If a researcher brakes a vial containing the live virus how does that mean it's man made? Besides the strain researchered in Virginia in 1990 was lethal to monkeys not humans and is not the strain of the current outbreak of other human cases, stop the nonsense
known Cases and Outbreaks of Ebola Virus Disease, in Chronological Order:
There are no new diseases. Just new re-search and re-discovery.
Lion
LoL, Honey can you name three new diseases for me so we can discuss them...
Posted by IronLion (Member # 16412) on :
Ebola and the United States of America USA:
It is clear that the US government has been keeping tabs on Ebola for a while now. It holds the patents on a strain of the Ebola virus known as Bundibugyo (EboBun) that was found in Uganda. It is although not clear whether it is the same strain that has created the current epidemic. The patent, awarded in October 2012 to five scientists led by Jonathan S Towner, is now deposited with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
An example of how piss poor the continent of Africa is;
Under US/Europe/Israel direction, over 100M Africans were inoculated with perhaps, tainted smallpox vaccine thought to have triggered AIDS.
African rulers are so idiotic they act as if they have never read history books of America, Australia, China, or Japan and stupidly allowed the US & Europe to come in with vaccines as if they were harmless Christmas gifts.
The high mortality rate of this present Ebola epidemic suggest that it is a new strain.Mutations definitely drives the evolution process even in such a simple organism as a virus.It could be the virus has developed a new enzyme that enhances it's protein capsid envelope which is targeted by the specific antibodies of our immune system or it can withstand the interferon produced by uninfected cells.The scientist on the ground must do the clinical research on this strain.A new "strain" in a virus is similar in context to a new "race" in our specie.
Posted by IronLion (Member # 16412) on :
quote:Originally posted by Narmerthoth: An example of how piss poor the continent of Africa is;
Under US/Europe/Israel direction, over 100M Africans were inoculated with perhaps, tainted smallpox vaccine thought to have triggered AIDS.
African rulers are so idiotic they act as if they have never read history books of America, Australia, China, or Japan and stupidly allowed the US & Europe to come in with vaccines as if they were harmless Christmas gifts.
Do you know how many vaccines an American child receives before the age of 4?
America is one of the world's cancer melting ground. It comes from the cluelessness of its people, their lack of proper education and their lack of worth in the eyes of their leaders...
Posted by IronLion (Member # 16412) on :
quote:Originally posted by Ponsford: The high mortality rate of this present Ebola epidemic suggest that it is a new strain.Mutations definitely drives the evolution process even in such a simple organism as a virus.It could be the virus has developed a new enzyme that enhances it's protein capsid envelope which is targeted by the specific antibodies of our immune system or it can withstand the interferon produced by uninfected cells.The scientist on the ground must do the clinical research on this strain.A new "strain" in a virus is similar in context to a new "race" in our specie.
Stop rambling already! Gee!
We just showed you that Ebola can be cured with clean water. What the heck is wrong with your understanding?
Posted by mena7 (Member # 20555) on :
African doctors and biologists today are very good at defeating viruses. AIDS was suppose to kill 500 millions Africans by the year 2000 but African doctors biologists and shaman find a way to defeat the AIDS pandemic in Africa. I heard Doctor Psaly of Uganda discovered a cure for AIDS.
I am not surprise Nigerian doctors defeated the ebola outbreak with water. In Sierra Leone the doctors are controlling the ebola outbreak by isolating the infected people. My congratulation to Cuba a Caribbean country under USA embargo who sent 160 doctors and nurses to Sierra Leone, Guinae and Liberia to help fight the ebola outbreak.
Posted by Ponsford (Member # 20191) on :
@IronLion I made the very first comment about this on the thread.
Posted by IronLion (Member # 16412) on :
Ponsford, yes I realize that.
That is why your second comment lost me...
Posted by Narmerthoth (Member # 20259) on :
quote:Originally posted by IronLion:
quote:Originally posted by Narmerthoth: An example of how piss poor the continent of Africa is;
Under US/Europe/Israel direction, over 100M Africans were inoculated with perhaps, tainted smallpox vaccine thought to have triggered AIDS.
African rulers are so idiotic they act as if they have never read history books of America, Australia, China, or Japan and stupidly allowed the US & Europe to come in with vaccines as if they were harmless Christmas gifts.
Do you know how many vaccines an American child receives before the age of 4?
America is one of the world's cancer melting ground. It comes from the cluelessness of its people, their lack of proper education and their lack of worth in the eyes of their leaders...
You are right, but America is not an African continent where Africans are in charge. Or at least, are supposed to be in charge.
100 MILLION Africans put their blind trust in a country that has historically did it harm. What, did Africans just somehow believe that today they can trust Albino to inject substances they did not understand into 100 Million bodies?
Get real!
That Africa depends on America & Europe for Smallpox inoculations is telling in itself. A continent with some of the richest leaders on the planet has to take charity from countries that historically pillaged and colonized it and allowed 100 million of it's citizens to line up and be injected by the same colonizers who lust for their continent. How stupid is that?
As Dr. Winters and I were discussing earlier, the estimated number of Africans on the continent is extremely low. Since their is no continent wide census their is no way to determine the actual number, but by Albino count, it's surprisingly low relative to Asia. That the Americans and Europeans have free access to inoculate Africans with God know what, I seriously expect over the next 10-20 years to see further decreases in the African population.
Posted by the lioness, (Member # 17353) on :
quote:Originally posted by Narmerthoth:
You are right, but America is not an African continent where Africans are in charge....
100 MILLION Africans put their blind trust in a country that has historically did it harm.
Yet you choose to live in a country that's 70% white, run by whites and has the most Jews outside Israel Contrast that to a country like Zimbabwe where a vast majority of Black people can vote in the Black interest
So with your choice to live and pay taxes to a 70% white country how are you in a position to criticize Africans?
Posted by xyyman (Member # 13597) on :
Are you saying there is no mutation of these viruses or that there is no experimentation to develop deadly virus?
Of course there is.
Why do you think Tishkoff, and Henn spend so much time trying to diffrentiating African genes from "Caucasian" genes. There is one theme with all these published studies. that is to isolate African ie SSA.
But there will have a hard time...I beleive..... because ALL genes are African. And Europeans are a subset of Africans.
Founder mutations in Tunisia: implications for diagnosis in North Africa and Middle East - lia Romdhane
quote:Originally posted by IronLion:
quote:Originally posted by IronLion: Lioness
There are no new diseases. Just new re-search and re-discovery.
Lion
LoL, Honey can you name three new diseases for me so we can discuss them...
Posted by the lioness, (Member # 17353) on :
quote:Originally posted by xyyman: [QB] Are you saying there is no mutation of these viruses or that there is no experimentation to develop deadly virus?
Of course there is.
Why do you think Tishkoff, and Henn spend so much time trying to diffrentiating African genes from "Caucasian" genes. There is one theme with all these published studies. that is to isolate African ie SSA.
What about Hap L?
Posted by xyyman (Member # 13597) on :
Hap L????
Posted by the lioness, (Member # 17353) on :
yes Haplogroup L
Posted by xyyman (Member # 13597) on :
Still don't get it. What does Hap L have to do with Euros engineering viruses? YDNA is non-coding and most of mtDNA is also non-coding.
Posted by xyyman (Member # 13597) on :
Engineering a virus to attack will probably involve attaching to autosomal STRs/SNP etc. Problem is …it cannot be selective or targeted. Since ALL European genes have an African origin and Europeans are a sub-set of Africans.
I hope some of you get the point of my cited paper on Tunisia. Many of the genetic ailments found in Europeans have a founder effect IN Tunisia and. Tic! Toc!
@ Narmerthoth - Lack of sunlight may not be the driving force as I first thought. …but 1000’s of years of in-breeding.
Posted by Narmerthoth (Member # 20259) on :
quote:Originally posted by the lioness,:
quote:Originally posted by Narmerthoth:
You are right, but America is not an African continent where Africans are in charge....
100 MILLION Africans put their blind trust in a country that has historically did it harm.
Yet you choose to live in a country that's 70% white, run by whites and has the most Jews outside Israel Contrast that to a country like Zimbabwe where a vast majority of Black people can vote in the Black interest
So with your choice to live and pay taxes to a 70% white country how are you in a position to criticize Africans?
Your failed assumptions once again reveal your profound ignorance.
Posted by the lioness, (Member # 17353) on :
quote:Originally posted by Narmerthoth:
quote:Originally posted by the lioness,:
quote:Originally posted by Narmerthoth:
You are right, but America is not an African continent where Africans are in charge....
100 MILLION Africans put their blind trust in a country that has historically did it harm.
Yet you choose to live in a country that's 70% white, run by whites and has the most Jews outside Israel Contrast that to a country like Zimbabwe where a vast majority of Black people can vote in the Black interest
So with your choice to live and pay taxes to a 70% white country how are you in a position to criticize Africans?
Your failed assumptions once again reveal your profound ignorance.
what failed assumptions?
you're bluffing now. no specifics
Posted by Narmerthoth (Member # 20259) on :
quote:Originally posted by the lioness,:
quote:Originally posted by Narmerthoth:
quote:Originally posted by the lioness,:
quote:Originally posted by Narmerthoth:
You are right, but America is not an African continent where Africans are in charge....
100 MILLION Africans put their blind trust in a country that has historically did it harm.
Yet you choose to live in a country that's 70% white, run by whites and has the most Jews outside Israel Contrast that to a country like Zimbabwe where a vast majority of Black people can vote in the Black interest
So with your choice to live and pay taxes to a 70% white country how are you in a position to criticize Africans?
Your failed assumptions once again reveal your profound ignorance.
what failed assumptions?
you're bluffing now. no specifics
You're a dunce making foolish assumptions based on ignorance.
I practice what I preach, so are you really so stupid to believe I would pay tribunes to Albinos to use against me. Shows how ignorant you truly are.
My suggestion to all Africans worldwide is to never ever pay a dime of taxes to the Albino countries/states in which they reside until Albinos agree to compensate Africans with reparations.
Go play with someone else who may be fooled by your transparent deceitful tactics.
Posted by IronLion (Member # 16412) on :
quote:Originally posted by xyyman: Are you saying there is no mutation of these viruses or that there is no experimentation to develop deadly virus?
Of course there is.
Why do you think Tishkoff, and Henn spend so much time trying to diffrentiating African genes from "Caucasian" genes. There is one theme with all these published studies. that is to isolate African ie SSA.
But there will have a hard time...I beleive..... because ALL genes are African. And Europeans are a subset of Africans.
Founder mutations in Tunisia: implications for diagnosis in North Africa and Middle East - lia Romdhane
quote:Originally posted by IronLion:
quote:Originally posted by IronLion: Lioness
There are no new diseases. Just new re-search and re-discovery.
Lion
LoL, Honey can you name three new diseases for me so we can discuss them...
There are no new diseases that I am aware of.
Perhaps you care to take my challenge to Lionese...
I will be very thankful to receive more teachings from you.
Posted by Ponsford (Member # 20191) on :
First Ebola case in America,Breaking News on CNN.
Posted by IronLion (Member # 16412) on :
From The New York Times:
With quick and coordinated action by some of its top doctors, Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, appears to have contained its first Ebola outbreak, the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Tuesday.
As the epidemic rages out of control in three nations only a few hundred miles away, Nigeria is the only country to have beaten back an outbreak with the potential to harm many victims in a city with vast, teeming slums.
“For those who say it’s hopeless, this is an antidote — you can control Ebola,” said Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, director of the C.D.C.
Although officials are pleased that success was achieved in a country of 177 million that is a major transport and business hub — and whose largest city, Lagos, has 21 million people — the lessons here are not easily applicable to the countries at the epicenter: Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. Public health officials in those countries remain overwhelmed by the scale of the outbreak and are desperate for additional international assistance.
Nigeria’s outbreak grew from a single airport case, while in the three other countries the disease smoldered for months in remote rain-forest provinces and spread widely before a serious response was mounted.
Ebola, Dr. Frieden said, “won’t blow over — you have to make a rapid, intense effort.”
While the danger in Nigeria is not over, the health minister, Dr. Onyebuchi Chukwu, said in a telephone interview that his country was now better prepared, with six laboratories able to make diagnoses and response teams and isolation wards ready in every major state.
After the first patient — a dying Liberian-American — flew into Lagos on July 20, Ebola spread to 20 other people there and in a smaller city, Port Harcourt.
They have all now died or recovered, and the cure rate — 60 percent — was unusually high for an African outbreak.
Meanwhile, local health workers paid 18,500 face-to-face visits to repeatedly take the temperatures of nearly 900 people who had contact with them. The last confirmed case was detected on Aug. 31, and virtually all contacts have passed the 21-day incubation period without falling ill.
The success was in part the result of an emergency command center financed in 2012 by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to fight polio. As soon as the outbreak began, it was turned into the Ebola Emergency Operations Center.
Also, the C.D.C. had 10 experts in Nigeria working on polio and H.I.V., who had already trained 100 local doctors in epidemiology; 40 of them were immediately reassigned to Ebola and oversaw the contact tracing.
The chief of the command center, Dr. Faisal Shuaib, gave credit to a coordinated effort by the Health Ministry, the C.D.C., the World Health Organization, Unicef, Doctors Without Borders and the International Committee for the Red Cross.
Also, he noted, Nigeria has significant advantages over poorer countries where the outbreak is out of control.
It has many more doctors per capita, some educated abroad at top medical schools.
Continue reading the main storyContinue reading the main storyContinue reading the main story It has standing teams of medical investigators, with vehicles and telephones, who normally trace outbreaks of other ills like cholera or Lassa fever.
Lagos University Teaching Hospital was able to do Ebola tests in six hours.
The hospitals where patients were isolated were equipped to do tests for electrolytes and blood proteins, both of which must be kept in balance as patients are fed orally or intravenously to replace fluids lost to diarrhea and vomiting.
And air-conditioned hospitals let people wearing protective gear work longer without overheating.
Nigeria also had some luck. Although the first patient, a businessman named Patrick Sawyer, was vomiting on his flight in, none of the roughly 200 others on the plane fell ill. Others did after helping him into a taxi to a hospital.
And a patient in Port Harcourt went to her church and became violently ill during a ceremony in which the congregation laid hands on her. But none became infected.
Dr. Sue Desmond-Hellmann, the Gates Foundation’s chief executive, said she was “heartened to see this positive result of the efforts of so many in Nigeria.”
On July 17, Mr. Sawyer defied medical advice and left a hospital in Monrovia, Liberia, where he was being held for observation after caring for his sister, who died of Ebola, although it was unclear whether he knew what she had.
Nigerian news reports said he used Liberian government contacts for permission to leave, flying to Lagos by way of Ghana and Togo. He planned to go to an economic development conference there and then fly back to Coon Rapids, Minn., for his children’s birthdays, according to media interviews with his widow.
Taken to a small private hospital after he collapsed, he denied any contact with Ebola victims and was initially treated for malaria. He died on July 25.
“That hospital had zero infection control,” Dr. Frieden said.
A nurse who helped reinsert an IV line when Mr. Sawyer was delirious and bleeding wore no gloves, had a cut on her hand and did not wash it, he said. She later died.
After malaria treatment failed, Ebola was “high on the index of suspicion,” Dr. Shuaib said.
He learned about Mr. Sawyer’s diagnosis as he sat chatting in his office with a colleague.
“I thought: ‘Oh, my God, not Nigeria. Not Lagos.’ I knew the potential for it to spread in a densely populated place.”
Even though the emergency center swung into action quickly and aggressive contact tracing was possible because Nigeria’s Port Health Services obtained records of Mr. Sawyer’s travel, there were still problems.
It took 14 days, Dr. Frieden said, for the first isolation ward to open in a former tuberculosis ward.
“Health workers initially wouldn’t go in,” he said. “They were afraid. We ultimately trained 1,800 staff.”
Wards were reconfigured to add space between beds, put in washing stations with chlorinated water and create rooms where doctors and nurses could carefully don and remove protective gear. The worked in teams of two so they could watch each other and prevent mistakes.
Also, according to a C.D.C. study released Tuesday in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, inaccurate news media reports before the government began offering official information “created a nationwide scare.”
Sales of false cures, including “Blessed Salt,” shot up, and two Nigerians died of drinking large amounts of saltwater.
But Dr. Shuaib emphasized that even terrified Nigerians did not deny the virus’s existence or attack health workers, as happened in the other countries. “No conspiracy theories entered the debate,” he said.
Nigeria’s success shows how important preparation is, said Dr. Frieden, adding, “Some countries that could well be the next Lagos still don’t have a clue about how to deal with this.”
quote:Originally posted by Ponsford: First Ebola case in America,Breaking News on CNN.
Bring in the Nigerian Doctors to save America from its worst nightmares...
Posted by IronLion (Member # 16412) on :
Nigeria to be certified Ebola virus disease free
WITH the last patient under surveillance for Ebola completing the mandatory 21-day monitoring period yesterday, the United States Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said that Nigeria should be declared Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) free.
A report on Nigeria's response to the outbreak, which appears in a September 30 early release issue of CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), noted that Nigeria's success story was due to her strong emergency operations centre and polio eradication experience.
The CDC report reads: "...There have been no new cases since August 31 and the last three patient contacts will exit their 21-day follow-up on October 2 - strongly suggesting the outbreak in Nigeria has been contained."
According to the MMWR, Nigeria's decision to use the emergency operations' centre to respond to the Ebola outbreak resulted in a rapid, effective and coordinated response.
The CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) described how Nigeria contained the virus. It reads: "The Ebola outbreak in Nigeria appears to be nearing a possible end due to a rapid response coordinated by Nigeria's Emergency Operations Centre with assistance from international partners, including the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. The official end to an Ebola outbreak comes when two of the 21-day incubation periods for Ebola virus have elapsed without any new cases.
"During the outbreak, there were 19 laboratory-confirmed and one probable Ebola cases in two Nigerian states. Nearly 900 patient contacts were identified and followed; all but three have completed 21 days of follow-up period without Ebola symptoms. There have been no new cases since August 31 and the last three patient contacts will exit their 21-day follow-up on October 2 - strongly suggesting the outbreak in Nigeria has been contained."
CDC Director, Dr. Tom Frieden, said: "Although Nigeria isn't completely out of the woods, their extensive response to a single case of Ebola shows that control is possible with rapid, focused interventions," adding that "Countries throughout the region as well as Nigeria need to take rapid steps to prepare for possible cases of Ebola in order to prevent outbreaks in their country."
Meanwhile, contrary to reports that the first case of Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) in the United States was in a man diagnosed with the illness on September 30, 2014, former researcher with the United States Defence, Prof. Maurice Iwu, told The Guardian yesterday that it was in a macaque monkey on October 4, 1989.
In a telephone interview, Iwu also told The Guardian that the Lagos State government was yet to communicate with him officially on its reported plan to support the continuation of his research on bitter kola treatment for EVD.
Lagos State Governor, Babatunde Fashola, had on Monday called on Iwu to continue with the research on bitter kola cure for EVD and promised the support of the government.
The professor of pharmacy said that the National Expert Committee on Ebola would meet on October 8, 2014, and that it was set to announce a plan to support the continuation of the work on bitter kola cure for Ebola.
Iwu is part of a six-man working group, inaugurated by the Federal Government in August to carry out research on the treatment of Ebola virus.
The terms of reference of the committee, among others, are conducting research into the treatment of the Ebola virus and receiving and verifying claims relating to the treatment of the disease, including uncompleted researches carried out in 1999 in the U.S. by Iwu and his team.
The Minister of Health, Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu, has inaugurated the committee co-chaired by Prof. Karniyus Gamanie, Director-General, National Institute for Pharmaceutical Research and Development (NIPRID), Abuja.
The other co-chair is the Director-General of Nigerian Institute for Medical Research, Prof. Innocent Ujah.
Chukwu said researches were going on across laboratories worldwide on vaccines for the treatment of the virus.
The team, he said, should collate and analyse related research findings worldwide, adding that the committee was free to collaborate with similar centres around the world in the discharge of its mandates.
Meanwhile, the Federal Government through the Federal Ministry of Health and the Lagos State Government have continued to get global commendation for the handling of EVD in the country.
The Guardian learnt that in contrast to the World Health Organisation (WHO)'s established 70 per cent global average fatality rate for EVD, Nigeria was able to reduce it to 36.8 per cent with only seven deaths in 19 confirmed cases.
To prove that the first Ebola case in the U.S. came from a monkey in 1989, Iwu referred The Guardian to a story, 'The True Story of Ebola in Reston, Virginia', published by Dr. Ileana Johnson Paugh on August 5, 2014 in Canada Free Press with link- http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/65053#.VCwwBEiWpQA.email.
The story reads: "... Hazelton Research Products, a division of Corning, Inc. was importing and selling lab animals. On October 4, 1989, the monkey house called Reston Primate Quarantine Unit located not far from Leesburg Pike, received a shipment of one hundred crab-eating monkeys (a type of macaque) from the Philippines, caught on the island of Mindanao. Two of the monkeys were dead in their shipping crates. By the first of November, 29 of the monkeys were dead, most of them in Room F. The heating and air system had failed so it was assumed the deaths had occurred from ambient conditions. Each night more macaques died. By November 16, a tentative diagnosis was given as 'simian hemorrhagic fever.'
"Thomas Geisbert, an intern at the institute discovered under his electron microscope the dreaded Ebola virus. Dr. Jahrling tested the virus cultures from the macaques against three known blood serums: Musoke (test for Marburg virus); Boniface (test for Ebola Sudan); and Mayinga (test for Ebola Zaire).
"The virus cultures glowed brightly against the Mayinga blood serum indicating that the monkeys in the Reston house died of Ebola Zaire strain, the deadliest of all filoviruses (Ebola).
"The institute is short for the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) located at Fort Detrick, Maryland. Its 'mission is medical defense' with specialty in 'drugs, vaccines, and biocontainment.' The institute's Army and civilian personnel were instrumental in the containment of the Ebola Reston virus in Reston, Virginia monkey holding facility.
"To contain the spread of Ebola Reston, the mutated strain of Ebola Zaire, the Army chose the bio-hazard operation of killing all the monkeys, bagging them, incinerating their carcasses, and chemically cleaning and fumigating the building with formaldehyde gas. Their mission was to safeguard the population, euthanize the animals humanely (anesthetic, sedative, and a lethal drug), and gather samples for research from liver and spleen in order to identify the strain and how it traveled. The entire operation was done in biohazard Level 4 suits. To a trained eye, the badly liquefied organs and tissues, the red eyes, frozen faces, and slacking muscles left no doubt that the monkeys died of Ebola. By December 7, 1989, four hundred and fifty monkeys were euthanized, some already very sick and some harboring the virus.
"Two monkey handlers got sick, one had a heart attack and another one was sent to the Fairfax Hospital with flu like symptoms and vomiting. For unknown reasons, although both had been exposed to the Ebola virus, neither had contracted Ebola.
"After the three-day decontamination, the building was turned back over from the Army custody to the Hazleton Research Products who bought more macaques from the Philippines from the same source in Manila. By the middle of January 1990, monkeys in Room C started to die with bloody noses. It was Ebola again from the Philippines, not Africa. The monkeys were destroyed and the company vacated the building.
"According to Richard Preston, the disaster in that 'building was a kind of experiment.' 'Now they would see what Ebola could do naturally in a population of monkeys living in a confined air space, in a kind of city, as it were. The Ebola Reston virus jumped quickly from room to room... Ebola apparently drifted through the building's air-handling ducts.'
"Strangely, an animal caretaker, 'John Coleus,' who was doing a necropsy on a dead monkey, cut his thumb with a bloody scalpel, which is a major exposure to Ebola. Everyone expected him to die, but he never got sick. The virus entered his blood stream. The other two animal caretakers, however, did not cut themselves. The virus entered their bodies through 'contact with lungs; everyone at USAMRIID concluded that Ebola can spread through the air.'
"Peter Jahrling, who actually 'whiffed the Ebola and lived to tell about it,' wondered, 'Why is the Zaire stuff hot for humans? Why isn't the Reston hot for humans, when the strains are so close to each other? The Ebola Reston virus is almost certainly transmitted by some airborne route. Those Hazleton workers who had the virus-I'm pretty sure they got it through the air.'
"Pictures of the lungs of a monkey infected with Ebola Zaire are fogged with Ebola... You can see Ebola particles clearly in the air spaces of the lung,' said LTC Nancy Jaax, chief of pathology at USAMRIID in 1989, a participant in the Reston biohazard operation.
"The four strains of Ebola filoviruses (string viruses) are: Marburg, Ebola Sudan, Ebola Zaire, and Ebola Reston. They are named for Ebola River, 'a tributary of the Congo, or Zaire, River.' The most virulent of the viruses, the Zaire strain first appeared in September 1976 in 55 villages around the Ebola River. The kill rate is 90 per cent."
* One minute silence observed for dead Ebola victims
*Affected hospitals to receive govt grant
* Nigeria ready to send 600 volunteers to endemic countries
*Chukwu leaves cabinet
"WHO officially declares that Nigeria is now free of Ebola virus. The virus is gone for now. The outbreak in Nigeria has been defeated. This is a spectacular success story that shows to the world that Ebola can be contained."
With the above words, Country Representatives of the World Health Organisation ( WHO) in Nigeria, Dr Rui Vaz, Monday officially declared Nigeria free of the Ebola Virus Disease.
Nigeria was the cynosure of all eyes Monday, as the World Health Organisation ( WHO) certified the country free from the Ebola Virus Disease.
With no case of Ebola Virus Disease ( EVD) recorded for 42 days and the intense follow-up of those discharged concluded, Nigeria is now the pride of the international community on how to curtail Ebola.
"If a country like Nigeria can do this, that it eradicates Guinea worm disease, contains Ebola, makes significant progress towards interrupting polio transmission all at the same time, any country in the world experiencing an imported case is just an handful of cases," WHO Director General, Margaret Chan, said in a statement read on her behalf in Abuja.
quote: An example of how piss poor the continent of Africa is; Under US/Europe/Israel direction, over 100M Africans were inoculated with perhaps, tainted smallpox vaccine thought to have triggered AIDS.
This happen back in 80's etc. when africa did become mostly poor again and at the time africa did not have the the know how and the doctors like they do today and most of africa is not poor any more.
As you could see above nigeria and and number of african countries have the know how to deal with ebola,even the congo.
The problem is not all of west africa,it's the those three african countries because of the civil war that they recently came from and not updating themselves on ebola etc...
EVEN SOUTH SUDAN WAS ABLE TO DEAL WITH IT BUT THEY KNEW ABOUT IT BECAUSE OF LIVING NEXT DOOR TO THE CONGO.
quote:Originally posted by mena7: African doctors and biologists today are very good at defeating viruses. AIDS was suppose to kill 500 millions Africans by the year 2000 but African doctors biologists and shaman find a way to defeat the AIDS pandemic in Africa. I heard Doctor Psaly of Uganda discovered a cure for AIDS.
I am not surprise Nigerian doctors defeated the ebola outbreak with water. In Sierra Leone the doctors are controlling the ebola outbreak by isolating the infected people. My congratulation to Cuba a Caribbean country under USA embargo who sent 160 doctors and nurses to Sierra Leone, Guinae and Liberia to help fight the ebola outbreak.
Good point mena. Some folks need to updated themselves. Things have change and the african population is still growing looking at population lists.
The african doctors/countries that do have the know how should be going to the places more often that lack it.
They need to be more proactive and the countries that need the help to fight these outbreaks need to learn to ask the african countries that have the more advanced know how because when some of these other african countries go running to the west it makeS it look like the other african countries like nigeria,ghana,south africa,gabon,kenya etc..have no know how etc...,
Of course they have their own problems they still have to deal with but still they have to try more often to reach out to african COUNTRIES that need IT help or any help in the future.
They need to trust each other more and that's still a major problem that africans have to over come in the future.
Posted by Firewall (Member # 20331) on :
quote:Originally posted by IronLion:
quote:Originally posted by Ponsford: First Ebola case in America,Breaking News on CNN.
Bring in the Nigerian Doctors to save America from its worst nightmares...
Those nigerian doctors need to go to those other three west african countties too.
They might be there anyway but the west is only going to tell about their own stories and make it seem africans are not helping each other.
That's why folks need to check out the african media to see the other side of the story.
Posted by xyyman (Member # 13597) on :
Any links of the African media? Agreed. Western media like to show Africa as so backwards but we know it is not like that throughout. The " white savior" plays well on TV.
On the Entero Virus. Are westerns being banned from entering Africa. Symptoms checked. What about SARS were Asians banned? How many died?
Posted by Firewall (Member # 20331) on :
Here is one link.
allAfrica.com: Home allAfrica: African news and information for a global audience.
I posted some links in other threads but i will have find them later.
I had some links saved too but i will have to look them up later also.
You could check youtube and nigeria the good news,south africa the good news ,africa the good news etc...
For youtube and google etc..you could type in african news stations,nigerian news papers,african news papers etc..
Posted by Firewall (Member # 20331) on :
Ethiopia to deploy about 200 volunteer health professionals to Ebola affected countries Ethiopia Reaches Out to West Africa
quote:
According to the recent twitter post by the Minister of Health of Ethiopia Dr. Kesete Admasu Ethiopia is going to contribute 200 Brave Volunteer Health professionals to the Ebola affected countries. Here is the post by Dr. Kesete Admasu.
Ethiopia is going to deploy about 200 volunteer health professionals to #Ebola affected countries. This is in response to the call by AU
And here is more details from his page.... Details
Ethiopia donates half a million dollar, 200 health professionals to Ebola affected countries By Elias Meseret
The Ethiopian Government has pledged today to deploy 200 volunteer health professionals to West Africa and also has donated 500,000 USD to Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone. The announcement was made today at the Ministry of Health.
The health professionals comprises medical doctors, nurses, field epidemiologists, environmental health personnel and public health specialists.
These medics will engage in Ebola case management/treatment, surveillance, contact tracing, social mobilization, and community engagement, and will also assist national health systems in the affected countries to continue their essential and basic health, food, water and sanitation services.
Making the announcement, the Ethiopia Minister of Health Dr. Kesetebirhan Admasu said “This new commitment of deploying medical staff can be considered as a continuation and commitment of Ethiopia’s firm stand for African solidarity. Ethiopia shall and will continue to support all efforts until this dreadful crisis is over”
In related news, African Union Chairperson, Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, has been greeted with no handshakes after she touched down at the Sierra Leone’s Lungi international airport. The AU said today, "they were greeted with no handshakes and officials bowed, in gentle reverence as they ushered the guests and members of the delegation, one after the other."
Zuma also announced France, the UK and the US have pledged to provide support with screening facilities at the ports of entry and departure in the three West African countries, to step up already existing facilities.
Aid workers see hope as Ebola body count drops in Liberia
quote: Monrovia (AFP) - The Red Cross offered hope Tuesday of a turning point in the battle against the deadly west African Ebola outbreak, saying it had seen a dramatic drop in bodies collected in Liberia's capital.
The aid group announced its workers were now picking up little over a third of the late September peak of more than 300 bodies a week in and around Monrovia -- an indication, it said, that the outbreak was retreating.
The announcement appears at odds with the assessment of UN chief Ban Ki-moon, who warned Tuesday at a crisis meeting in Ethiopia that the spread of the virus continued to outpace the response, while the head of the World Bank appealed for thousands more medics.
The Red Cross comments came a week after the World Health Organization (WHO) concluded in an update on the crisis that transmission "remains intense" in the capitals of Liberia and neighbouring Guinea and Sierra Leone.
Fayah Tamba, head of the Liberian Red Cross, said his workers collected 117 bodies last week from Montserrado county, which includes Monrovia, noting a steady decline from the high of 315 from September 15 to 21.
"I am sure you don't need a rocket scientist to tell you that the cases are dropping," he told private radio station Sky FM.
The Ebola outbreak has left almost 5,000 dead, nearly all in west Africa. It has led to cancelled flights, border closures and a firestorm of criticism in the United States over its treatment of returning health workers.
Another country in west Africa, Mali, is scrambling to prevent a full-blown outbreak after a two-year-old girl died from an Ebola infection following a 1,000-kilometre (600-mile) bus ride from Guinea.
Health workers wearing protective equipment stand outside an Ebola treatment center run by MSF in Mo …
- 'Global crisis' -
Liberia has been hit worst, with 4,665 recorded cases of infection and 2,705 deaths, according to the WHO, relying on figures however which are now 10 days out-of-date.
Ban told reporters in Addis Ababa he was planning to visit Liberia and its stricken neighbours at an "opportune" time. He urged the international community to send more medical teams to fight the epidemic.
"Transmission of the virus continues to outpace the response effort of the international community," he said after a meeting of the heads of the UN, African Union and the World Bank in the Ethiopian capital.
Ban, who on Monday had criticised the enforced quarantine in the United States of an American nurse who had returned from Sierra Leone, said the only way to stop the epidemic was "at its source".
"The longer the epidemic rages, the greater the risk of spread to other countries. Mali is the latest example in this regard," he added.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon speaks during a press conference on the Ebola virus at the African …
World Bank chief Jim Yong Kim echoed the warning in an apparent swipe at developed countries which have not sent medical teams to the region, saying Ebola was "not an African crisis... it is a global crisis".
"We'll need a steady state of at least 5,000 health workers from outside the region... those health workers cannot work continuously -- there needs to be a rotation," he told reporters.
Kim said medics should remember their vocation and their professional oath to save lives, and not shy away from going to a problem area.
"Right now, I'm very much worried about where we will find those health workers," he said.
Shortly after Kim's plea, France pledged 20 million euros ($25.4 million) to fight Ebola, including opening several care centres in Guinea.
- American solidarity -
Ebola can fell its victims within days, causing severe fever and muscle pain, weakness, vomiting and diarrhoea. In many cases it shuts down organs and causes unstoppable bleeding.
Ebola can fell its victims within days, causing severe fever and muscle pain, weakness, vomiting and diarrhoea. In many cases it shuts down organs and causes unstoppable bleeding.
Samantha Power, the US ambassador to the UN, travelled from Sierra Leone to Liberia on Tuesday for the third leg of a tour of the three worst-hit nations aimed at garnering global support for the Ebola response.
"My main message is that we will beat Ebola," Power said after meeting Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.
"America will work with Liberia to end the stigma on the country," she said. "We got our forces on the ground, we have our military and experts...to contain the virus."
In America meanwhile, a Texas nurse who was the second US healthcare worker infected with Ebola while caring for a deceased Liberian patient left hospital after being declared cured of the virus.
DRC getting ready to send another team of volonteers to Liberia/SL/Guinea ...... According to national Health Minister Dr. Numbi at Radiookapi.net
In other news, it been over 21 days without decting a single case of Ebola in North Western DRC.... According to the National Health Minister Dr. Numbi. Tele50.com
DRC getting ready to send another team of volonteers to Liberia/SL/Guinea ...... According to national Health Minister Dr. Numbi at Radiookapi.net
In other news, it been over 21 days without decting a single case of Ebola in North Western DRC.... According to the National Health Minister Dr. Numbi. Tele50.com
Nigeria pledges 600 volunteers as Africa steps up Ebola fight
By Felix Onuah and Umaru Fofana October 23, 2014 4:07 PM
quote:
ABUJA/FREETOWN (Reuters) - Nigeria pledged on Thursday to send a contingent of 600 volunteers to help fight the worst ever outbreak of Ebola on record which has killed nearly 5,000 people in West Africa.
With financial pledges flowing in from around the world but trained doctors and nurses scarce in the three worst effected countries -- Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, the African Union appealed last week to member states to urgently fill the gap.
African nations' response to the crisis has drawn criticism, with officials in Liberia bemoaning a lack of African solidarity. The World Health Organization (WHO) has rebuked some African countries for closing borders to Ebola-hit states, saying this worsened their suffering by cutting off supplies.
Nigeria, the continent's largest economy and top oil producer, gained experience in containing Ebola after an air traveler imported the virus from Liberia in July, infecting 20 people and killing 8.
"Nigeria has 600 health workers who have been trained in the field of Ebola containment who are ready to go to other affected African countries to help them in containment of Ebola spread," acting health minister Khaliru Alhassan told Reuters.
"The first contingent of 250 Nigeria experts will be deployed soon," he said but did not provide a date.
Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, Chairperson of the African Union Commission, told reporters in the Sierra Leone capital Freetown that countries in East Africa had responded with a pledge of 600 health workers.
Democratic Republic of Congo, which has suffered six outbreaks of Ebola since the disease was first detected there in 1976, had also pledged to train 1,000 volunteers, she said.
The WHO originally appealed for 12,000 local staff and 750 foreign experts but has raised those targets to 20,000 and 1,000 respectively. WHO assistant director general Keiji Fukuda said there were now only 600 foreign experts.
AU STILL WAITING FOR RESPONSES
The WHO declared Nigeria Ebola-free on Monday but Alhassan said the outbreak remained a threat to the country until it was completely neutralized.
The international community has ramped up aid including sending some medics and supplies to Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia, where the epidemic has crippled poor and under-equipped health systems.
The United States is deploying a 3,000-strong military mission to build up to 17 Ebola Treatment Units (ETUs) and train local doctors, while Cuba has dispatched hundreds of medical personnel.
Alhassan said the Nigerian Center for Disease Control would also support Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea in training their health workers. "What we are waiting for now is that the request has to come through (West African regional bloc) ECOWAS and has to be coordinated by WHO," he said.
Speaking in Freetown, Dlamini Zuma said the AU had felt obliged to make a direct plea to members in mid-October because it realized that appealing for volunteers to come forward individually was not enough for the scale of the crisis.
"We wrote to all our heads of state asking them to give us health workers who would be deployed here in these three countries... We are still waiting for responses," she said.
"East Africa has responded and they have pledged more than 600 health workers, DRC has also pledged about 1,000 but they will bring them in phases," she said. "They say they will start probably with about 200. So we are waiting for those to come and also pledges to come from other countries."
Congo Health Minister Felix Kabange told Reuters in mid-October the government aimed to train more than 1,000 volunteers to fight Ebola, which he hoped would inspire "African solidarity". He invited other countries to send volunteers to new training centers in the capital Kinshasa.
(Additional reporting by Camillus Eboh in Abuja and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; Writing by Bate Felix and Daniel Flynn; Editing by Mark Heinrich)
Responses to the Ebola virus epidemic in West Africa
quote: Organizations from around the world have responded to help stop the ongoing Ebola virus epidemic in West Africa. In July 2014, the World Health Organization (WHO) convened an emergency meeting with health ministers from eleven countries and announced collaboration on a strategy to co-ordinate technical support to combat the epidemic. In August, they declared the outbreak an international public health emergency and published a roadmap to guide and coordinate the international response to the outbreak, aiming to stop ongoing Ebola transmission worldwide within 6–9 months. In September, the United Nations Security Council declared the Ebola virus outbreak in the West Africa subregion a "threat to international peace and security" and unanimously adopted a resolution urging UN member states to provide more resources to fight the outbreak; the WHO stated that the cost for combating the epidemic will be a minimum of $1 billion.
The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the World Bank Group have pledged aid money and the World Food Programme announced plans to mobilize food assistance for an estimated 1 million people living in restricted access areas. Several Non-Governmental Organizations have provided assistance in the efforts to control the spread of the disease. Up until the end of September, the humanitarian aid organisation Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) is the leading organization responding to the crisis, with several treatment centers in the area. Samaritan's Purse has also provided direct patient care and medical support in Liberia. Many nations and charitable organizations, foundations, and individuals have also pledged assistance to control the epidemic.
As of September 2014[update], a massive international response to the crisis is under way. The United Nations Mission for Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER) has the task of overall planning and coordination, directing the efforts of the UN agencies, national governments, and other humanitarian actors to the areas where they are most needed.
United Nations UN Mission for Ebola Emergency Response
quote:
UNMEER has been tasked to coordinate all relevant United Nations actors in order to ensure a rapid, effective, efficient and coherent response to the Ebola crisis. UNMEER's objective is to work with others to stop the Ebola outbreak. UNMEER will work closely with governments, regional and international actors, such as the African Union (AU) and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), and with UN Member States, the private sector and civil society. Accra, in Ghana, will serve as a base for UNMEER, with teams in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. A United Nations General Assembly document, the Report of the Secretary-General on UNMEER and the Office of the Special Envoy on Ebola (A/69/404), issued on 24 September 2014, details UNMEER's proposed mission, budget, and structure.
International organizations
quote: African Development Bank The African Development Bank has contributed over $220 million.
African Union In October the African Union appealed for its members to send health-care workers to the three West African countries. On October 28th it was announced that they had received substantial pledges; among others, the East African Community has promised 600 personnel, Ethiopia 210, and Congo 200. In total it is hoped that Africa’s contribution will reach 2,000 personnel, of whom one-sixth are currently ready for deployment.
Economic Community of West African States In March, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) disbursed US$250,000 to deal with the outbreak. In response to the ECOWAS Special Fund for the Fight Against Ebola, in July the Nigerian government donated us$3.5 million to Liberia, Guinea, Sierra Leone, the West African Health Organization, and the ECOWAS Pool Fund, to aid in the fight against the epidemic.
National responses
quote:
A number of governments across the world have put measures in place to protect their populations from Ebola. These include:
* Advisory notices to warn travellers of the potential risk of travel to countries affected by the epidemic. (Germany, Spain, UK, USA, Colombia, Philippines, Saudi Arabia.)
* Withholding visitor visas from nationals of the affected countries, closing borders and cancelling flights. (Equatorial Guinea,Kenya, Sri Lanka,[48] Nigeria, South Africa, Chad, Seychelles,[Mauritania, Belize, Guinea-Bissau)
* Precautions such as isolation facilities, training of staff, biocontainment exercises, and health screening for incoming travellers. (Malta, Colombia, India, South Africa, Morocco, Mali, Germany, Philippines, Mauritania, United States, Canada, Rwanda, UK)
Ethiopia In October 2014 it was announced that Ethiopia would send approximately 200 volunteer health workers to West Africa. The country also donated $500,000 to affected countries.
Ghana On 30 August, the Ghanaian Presidency released a press statement, announcing the country's willingness to use Accra as a support base to help fight Ebola in the stricken countries. This agreement follows a telephonic meeting with the United Nations chief, Ban Ki-moon and John Dramani Mahama, the President of Ghana. Accra will serve as a base for air lifting medical and other supplies to countries affected by the Ebola outbreak, as well as personnel to curtail the disease. In the coming months Ghana will play a major role in the fight against the disease in the region. The city of Accra will be the designated base for UNMEER, the newly formed mission by the UN.
Uganda In August 2014 a team of 14 health workers from Uganda, which has "strong experience" of working with domestic Ebola outbreaks, had been deployed by the WHO to JFK Hospital in Monrovia, Liberia. On 27 October 2014 it was announced that a further 30 health workers had been dispatched to affected countries in West Africa.
Individual contributors
quote: On 14 August, the Nigerian government said Aliko Dangote had donated $1 million to halt the spread of the Ebola virus outbreak.
On 29 October a South African businessman, Patrice Motsepe, donated $1 million dollars on behalf of the Motsepe Foundation and African Rainbow Minerals (ARM) to Guinea to help fight the disease.
Travel Restrictions Hamper African Medical Staff in Ebola Fight Delays Point Up Dilemma Between Wanting to Help and Fears of Contraction
quote: A health-care worker on Oct. 17 took a 2-month-old child from his mother to carry him to a reopened Ebola holding center in the West Point neighborhood of Monrovia, Liberia. Getty Images
NAIROBI, Kenya—Scores of African doctors and nurses—many of them with experience treating Ebola—have experienced delays getting to affected regions because of flight bans and travel restrictions, an African Union official said on Thursday.
The African Union said in early September that it would send volunteer health workers to Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea to help fight the outbreak. But the first teams only arrived last week in Liberia and Sierra Leone and a Guinea team has yet to depart, said Olawale Maiyegun, the African Union’s Director of Social Affairs, who is overseeing the deployment.
“It has been a logistical challenge getting them there,” Mr. Maiyegun said. “Even when we went for an assessment, we thought it should not be more than five days. It took us 13 days. Why? Because Senegal closed its airspace. We had to go through Marrakesh.”
The delays illustrate the difficulties facing an African continent torn between the desire to help and the fear of the virus spreading across porous borders into countries with health systems as weak as those already battling an epidemic.
Last week, the African Union finally got 28 medical volunteers on the ground in Liberia and 21 in Sierra Leone. About 40 more doctors, nurses and other health-care workers are departing in the next few days, many of them headed to Guinea, Mr. Maiyegun said, adding that it will take days longer for them to arrive because of circuitous flights through Europe. The largest number of volunteers dispatched are from Uganda—doctors and nurses who have had experience putting down Ebola outbreaks in that country, he said.
The African Union has loudly criticized member states that have closed their borders to travelers from Ebola-affected countries but its remonstrations have had little effect.
Rwanda—one of the countries with the strictest entry rules—even briefly added a requirement this week for travelers from the U.S. and Spain to report their medical condition with a daily phone call. Both the U.S. and Spain have had Ebola cases, while Rwanda has had none. The requirement was lifted after four days, but Rwanda still bans travelers who have recently been in Guinea, Liberia or Sierra Leone.
Senegal, Ivory Coast, Chad, South Africa, Cameroon, Cape Verde and Kenya have all have either closed borders or issued restrictions on travelers arriving from affected countries. Connections between East Africa and West Africa have become particularly difficult because Kenya—a major regional hub—blocked flights to or from the affected countries. Currently, the only countries with flights to Liberia, for example, are Morocco and Belgium.
In many African countries, the restrictions on flights and travelers reflect an acknowledgment of weak health care systems that could easily be overrun by Ebola. There are nine countries world-wide with a life expectancy of less than 55 years—all of them in sub-Saharan Africa, according to the World Health Organization.
The health workers that make up the African Union teams are all individual volunteers, Mr. Maiyegun said. The African Union has also appealed to African states to send health workers but has received few commitments from governments.
That may be changing. Nigeria on Thursday said it plans to send 506 medics to Ebola-affected countries, which will make it one of the biggest contributors of health care workers fighting the epidemic. Though with Arik Air, a major Nigerian carrier, still not flying to Ebola-affected countries, they may also face complicated flight routes.
The Nigerian workers follow in the footsteps of Uganda, which sent its first 20 health workers to West Africa in July in collaboration with the World Health Organization and has since continued to rotate people through, spokeswoman Rukia Nakamatte said.
As Ebola declines in Liberia, health officials reassess response plans
MONROVIA, Liberia — The rate of new Ebola infections here has declined so sharply in recent weeks that even some of the busiest treatment facilities are now only half-full and officials are reassessing the scale of the response needed to quell the epidemic.
The turnaround has occurred without the provision of a single treatment bed by the U.S. military, which has promised to build 17 Ebola facilities containing 100 beds each across Liberia. Those treatment units will be constructed, said Bill Berger, head of the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Disaster Assistance Response Team here. But the option of initially opening some with as few as 10 beds is “being discussed,” he said.
That would provide people in all parts of the country access to a nearby treatment unit should they become infected in the months to come. And each facility would be constructed so that it could be quickly expanded to as many as 100 beds if the need arises, he said. The United States has spent $360 million so far fighting Ebola in West Africa.
No one tracking the outbreak is close to declaring the deadly hemorrhagic disease vanquished, and all are wary that the virus, which has receded at times over the past seven months, could suddenly flare again in this impoverished country, the epicenter of the West African Ebola catastrophe.
But five days after the World Health Organization said new infections were declining in Liberia, a 157-bed treatment center in the city of Foya, where the epidemic began seven months ago, held no patients Monday, according to a nurse there. The same facility received no new admissions last Wednesday, the most recent day for which government statistics were available.
Here in the hard-hit capital, Island Clinic — whose official capacity is 150 and which housed 215 Ebola patients on its worst day in September — had 89 patients Sunday, according to its director, Attai Omorutu. At ELWA 3, the Doctors Without Borders facility that has scaled up to handle 250 people, 65 beds were occupied Monday.
Only at ELWA 2, the last of the city’s three open treatment centers, was there anything close to a full house: 64 patients in a facility that can handle about 80 and where an expansion is underway.
“I will be home for Christmas,” said Omorutu, who lives in Uganda. “And there will be no Ebola here for Christmas.”
Most experts are not as optimistic as Omorutu, and some worry that this is just the latest temporary lull in the worst Ebola outbreak on record. Since the start of the outbreak late last year, the virus has infected 13,567 people in eight countries, killing 4,951 of them, with the vast majority of cases occurring in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.
Nevertheless, just about everyone here acknowledges that current conditions are a welcome improvement from the devastating height of the epidemic just over a month ago.
At that time, critically ill Ebola victims lay outside the gates of overwhelmed treatment centers, unable to gain entry. Corpses were routinely collected from roadsides and homes. Body-retrieval teams and the city’s tiny ambulance corps had no hope of keeping up with calls for their services. The World Health Organization predicted the possibility of 10,000 new cases a week in the region by early December.
No longer. Now, a state-of-the-art treatment center set to open soon on Monrovia’s main road is expected to see few patients, at least in the immediate future.
Residents in parts of Liberia form their own task force to stop the spread of Ebola. “It’s remarkably down, but it’s not over,” said Frank Mahoney, who leads the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention team here. “There are tremendous challenges still.”
The sharp decline makes this a deceptively dangerous time, a period when the virus may infect a few individuals here and there, instead of racing through whole communities, said Hans Rosling, a Swedish physician and statistician who has been serving as an adviser to the Liberian government. In far-flung communities, one infection can soon lead to dozens more, as Liberia has learned painfully, he said.
Indeed, the CDC is dispatching teams to hot spots around the country, hoping to stop the virus after a single reported case, through contact tracing and isolation of patients.
“We’ve won the first phase of the epidemic. We are now in a different phase that is not so visual, but it’s just as dangerous,” Rosling said. “In September, this city was under attack by an army of virus. We defeated that army. But now we have terrorists in every part of the country.”
Doctors Without Borders, which led the fight against Ebola in the darkest days of the epidemic, has no plans to reduce the size of its treatment center, although it is was only about one-third full Monday.
“We really want to keep this up for now, because we don’t know what’s going to happen,” said Natasha Reyes, medical coordinator for the facility. “The numbers have gone down, it’s quite clear. But we have seen in Guinea and Sierra Leone that the numbers go down and come back up.”
Instead, the organization is using the time provided by its declining caseload to reduce the length of shifts medical personnel must serve in stifling hot moonsuits and to step up prevention and education efforts in the community.
Rosling said the virus “plateaued” at about 80 confirmed cases a day across Liberia during the last week of September and the first week of October. Had there been time and resources to test more of the dead, he said, the total might have been 50 or even 100 percent higher.
The numbers have steadily fallen since, and now there are about 20 to 30 confirmed cases a day, he said.
Theories abound about the reasons for the newfound success against Ebola, but most people involved mention a potent combination of several factors: the opening of more treatment beds, breakthroughs in convincing Liberians that Ebola is real and very dangerous, widespread acceptance of “safe burials” and cremations that prevent families from touching highly infectious corpses, and the mobilization of entire communities to quickly identify and isolate infected individuals before they can transmit the virus.
“The virus is in the community, and the best way to take it from the community is for the community itself” to take charge, said Archie C. Gbessay, coordinator of the Active Case Finders and Awareness Team in West Point, a vast Monrovia slum. “That is what we thought.”
Huge obstacles remain. Travel between Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, especially now that the rainy season is ending, means that the virus can repeatedly reenter places that have stamped it out, experts said. The outbreak cannot be considered eliminated until it has been stopped in all three countries, the CDC’s Mahoney said.
Liberia’s non-Ebola health system, which virtually collapsed at the height of the epidemic, must be rebuilt in a way that protects health workers from infection by the virus. And even the smaller number of infections seen here now remains a sizable problem.
“Starting from where we came from, [current conditions] look like a cakewalk,” Mahoney said. “But in any other country, this would be a crisis of enormous proportions.” http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/...2d5_story.html Posted by Firewall (Member # 20331) on :
Nigeria, Ebola and the myth of white saviours
Nigeria, Ebola and the myth of white saviours Robtel Pailey Robtel Neajai Pailey is a Liberian academic, activist and author based at SOAS, University of London. Contrary to the dominant Ebola foreign intervention narrative, Africans are not waiting to be rescued by white saviours.
An employee of a factory tries on special Ebola gear in Berkel en Rodenrijs, The Netherlands [EPA]
In a 2012 article published by The Atlantic, Nigerian writer Teju Cole exposed the white saviour industrial complex for what it is: a pathology of white privilege.
According to Cole, white saviours fundamentally believe they are indispensable to the very existence of those on the receiving end of their "interventions". Like some potted plants, they tend to bloom in "exotic" environments far removed from their natural habitats.
At the height of Ebola, the myth of the white saviour has resurfaced again and again, framing Africans as infantile objects of external interventions. The white saviour complex has placed a premium on foreign expertise, while negating domestic capabilities.
We've been assailed with images of mostly white foreigners flown out of the Ebola "hot zone" with the promise of expert care abroad. As spokespersons for the thousands "left behind", they have been catapulted into the heady limelight of overnight stardom.
We've been bombarded with a cacophony of non-African "expert" opinions about how to "save" Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone from Ebola. Yet, Ugandan and Congolese specialists, who contained the virus repeatedly in their own countries, have been sidelined in the mainstream international press.
Deliberately silenced
Indian writer and human rights activist Arundathi Roy once said, "there is no such thing as the voiceless, only the deliberately silenced or the preferably unheard". Indeed, narratives about African ingenuity, African agency, and African heroism in the age of Ebola have been preferably unheard. As an African proverb aptly puts it: "Until the lion learns to write, tales of the hunt shall always glorify the hunter."
Most recently Nigeria positioned itself as a lion that completely unsettled the narrative around Ebola and the white saviour complex. As the regional West African hegemon and Africa's fastest growing economy, Nigeria contained Ebola in three months without foreign intervention.
While the US has been scrambling to address the few cases of Ebola on its shores with a series of policy missteps, Nigeria showed that it could be done by an African country on its own terms.
Ebola outbreak: Recap of events
With 31 percent of overall healthcare spending accounted for by the federal government in 2012 alone, Nigeria used infrastructure and systems already in place to fight polio, to contain Ebola. Institutions such as the Nigerian Center for Disease Control, the Nigerian Field Epidemiology Training Program, and the Lagos State Ministry of Health responded quickly by quarantining and treating suspected Ebola patients, tracing the contacts of those infected, and launching a massive public awareness campaign about how to avoid further transmission of the virus. With more doctors than Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone combined, Nigeria also galvanised the support of healthcare workers who had previously been on strike.
Beyond Nigeria's technical expertise and rapid response, equally important is the country's unique brand of superiority that fundamentally challenges the white saviour complex.
Quite naturally, detractors attempted to undermine Nigeria's success. When the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the country Ebola-free a few weeks ago, the fanfare around this feat was short-lived. I even sensed some unspoken incredulity. Folks were quick to react that Nigeria wasn't completely out of the woods yet, that there could be a resurgence of Ebola.
Local, not international efforts
Some narratives erroneously attributed Nigeria's success to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the WHO, and the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Yet, Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie responded with a sharp smack-down of this "lie". She openly criticised The Washington Post and The New York Times for deliberating concealing the fact that local, not international efforts, had contained Ebola. For instance, it was a Nigerian woman, Dr Ameyo Adadevoh, who insisted on isolating the country's first Ebola patient before eventually succumbing to the virus herself.
Less incredulous individuals praised Nigeria, wondering why they weren't being consulted about the do's and don'ts of Ebola containment. Consultations with Nigerians were largely shirked to the side because they invalidated the white saviour complex.
One thing Ebola has exposed about the white saviour complex is that it is voracious and unapologetic. It simplifies complexity, appropriates ideas without crediting the source, upstages local efforts that preceded it, thrives on "I" statements, and soaks up media attention.
In her celebrated essay, "Can the subaltern speak?", Gayatri Spivak rails against the problematic narrative of "white men saving brown women from brown men". In actuality, no one has the capacity to "save" another human being. Believing that one can is the greatest form of self-delusion and narcissism.
Contrary to the dominant Ebola foreign intervention narrative, Liberians, Guineans, and Sierra Leoneans are not waiting around idle, eager to be rescued by white saviours. While we welcome genuine collaboration, we remain our own heroes and heroines. The fact that more than 200 local healthcare workers died from Ebola is a testament to that heroism. They risked their lives long before international actors woke up from their slumber.
No externally driven intervention narrative can change that fact, as Nigeria has proven. So, thank you, Nigeria, for completely exposing the white saviour complex for being a figment of western imagination. Like other psychological disorders, it must be treated with regular doses of reality, now and after Ebola.
This is the highest profile news report on Liberia at the moment and another story follows that the reporter has been quarantined for 21 days.
On the program Logan interviews the head of the American medical team Pranav Shetty, who trained in emergency medicine at UCLA.
Not exactly a white savior but I do get the point of the Al Jazera piece
However the big problem with the program is that she did not interview one Liberian
It's good countries are trying to show off, save the Liberians. It's good because by any means necessary, for self interested reasons, if they don't stop it in the hot zones it can always travel in a plane to their country. The person might not show symptoms until they have arrived in some other country in any part of the world
Well maybe Nigeria should send over their experts if they haven't alreaday
Posted by IronLion (Member # 16412) on :
Ethiopians health workers arrive in W’Africa to fight Ebola
by aljazeera
Almost 200 Ethiopian health workers have arrived in West Africa to bolster the response to Ebola, a disease that has ravaged weak health care systems and killed more than 300 medical staff.
The African Union (AU)said in a tweetthat the Ethiopian government sent a total of 187 personnelto the region without giving a breakdown of how many would go to which countries.
The doctors and nurses will join an AU mission against the worst Ebola outbreak on record, which has killed more than 6,800 people in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.
They will join more than 175 Nigerian medics deployed to Liberia and Sierra Leone earlier this month.
Ebola has torn through some of West Africa’s weakest health systems, killing nearly 350 medical personnel.
This month, two doctors died of Ebola in Sierra Leone on the same day, bringing to 10 the number of doctors killed in by the virus in one of the worst-affected countries.
Other countries have also sent medical staff to West Africa, notably Cuba, which has sent 256 staff, with 165 in Sierra Leone andthe rest in Guinea and Liberia.
“The aim of the AU is to support the government on the progress so far made. We want to expand on it, to make sure that the community also supports it,” Major-General Julius Oketta, who head’s the AU Ebola mission, said upon the arrival of 87 of the Ethiopian health workers to Liberia.
The bulk of the African Union’s efforts in Liberia focus on Montserrado County, which is home to the country’s capital and largest city Monrovia.
Once the country hardest hit by the disease, Liberia has seen a sharp decline in new infections, spawning optimism that the outbreak there may be coming to an end.
“The campaign, getting to zero before Christmas, continues,” said Liberia’s assistant health minister Tolbert Nyenswah.
“We are still having between five to 10 cases per day in Liberia, and that is huge.”
Posted by Firewall (Member # 20331) on :
Bump.
Posted by Child Of The KING (Member # 9422) on :
Dem a Try a Ting
Posted by IronLion (Member # 16412) on :
^Keep shaming all vaccine peddlers and abortionists...
Posted by Child Of The KING (Member # 9422) on :
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Klick here: 
