First up, a new body count from CNN:
Ebola virus has killed more than 1,900, health officials say
More than 3,500 people have been infected by the Ebola virus in Liberia, Guinea, Sierra Leone and Nigeria since the first documented cases in December, according to new figures released Wednesday by the World Health Organization. More than 1,900 people have died.
There is also a smaller, unrelated outbreak in Congo and at least one confirmed case in Senegal, according to WHO Director General Dr. Margaret Chan.
She characterized the outbreak as a “global threat” and encouraged the international community to do more to combat it. Chan complimented the United States for its “very strong support” through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The Associated Press mulls:
Could the blood of Ebola survivors help patients?
As West Africa struggles to contain the biggest ever outbreak of Ebola, some experts say an unusual but simple treatment might help: the blood of survivors.
The evidence is mixed for using infection-fighting antibodies from survivors’ blood for Ebola, but without any licensed drugs or vaccines for the deadly disease, some say it’s worth a shot.
“This is something that’s fairly simple to do,” said Dr. Peter Piot, director of London’s School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the co-discoverer of the Ebola virus.
A video report from euronews:
WHO agrees to fast-track development of experimental vaccines to counter Ebola
Program notes:
The World Health Organisation has fast-tracked the development of eight treatments and two vaccines to counter the Ebola virus.
Experts have gathered in Geneva to discuss the new drugs. The meeting follows a recent decision by the WHO to allow the use of experimental pharmaceutical products in the current Ebola epidemic, given its high death toll.
As such, some companies, such as NewLink Genetics Corp, have been given the go-ahead to begin initial testing of the vaccines on humans.
From the New York Times, austerian costs:
Cuts at W.H.O. Hurt Response to Ebola Crisis
With treatment centers overflowing, and alarmingly little being done to stop Ebola from sweeping through West African villages and towns, Dr. Joanne Liu, the president of Doctors Without Borders, knew that the epidemic had spun out of control.
The only person she could think of with the authority to intensify the global effort was Dr. Margaret Chan, the director general of the World Health Organization, which has a long history of fighting outbreaks. If the W.H.O., the main United Nations health agency, could not quickly muster an army of experts and health workers to combat an outbreak overtaking some of the world’s poorest countries, then what entity in the world would do it?
“I wish I could do that,” Dr. Chan said when the two met at the W.H.O.’s headquarters in Geneva this summer, months after the outbreak burgeoned in a Guinean rain forest and spilled into packed capital cities. The W.H.O. simply did not have the staffing or ability to flood the Ebola zone with help, said Dr. Chan, who recounted the conversation. It was a fantasy, she argued, to think of the W.H.O. as a first responder ready to lead the fight against deadly outbreaks around the world.
Another tragedy, via Reuters:
Doctor with Ebola treated patients in Nigeria, left dozens at risk: WHO
A Nigerian doctor with Ebola carried on treating patients and met scores of friends, relatives and medics before his death, leaving about 60 of them at high risk of infection, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Wednesday.
Members of his church visited him in hospital in the oil hub Port Harcourt and performed a healing ceremony “said to involve the laying on of hands”, said the U.N. agency.
“Given these multiple high-risk exposure opportunities, the outbreak of Ebola virus disease in Port Harcourt has the potential to grow larger and spread faster than the one in Lagos,” the WHO said.
And from Deutsche Welle:
Nigeria steps up the fight against Ebola
Nigeria is fighting to become an Ebola-free country again. The government has now set up a free hotline. It is a place where phones ring nonstop.
Bodunrim Kehinde Paul is sitting in front of his computer. He is wearing his headset and holding a pen in his hand. The caller is talking about a neighbor who might have contracted Ebola. “What symptoms does the person have?” Paul asks. “Fever,” is the answer. “And his body itches.”
Paul is a doctor by profession and he now works at the Ebola hotline center in Lagos where a toll free number has been set up by the government, to raise awareness about the epidemic. He normally works at the University Hospital of Lagos. But four weeks ago, he decided to leave his working place and become a volunteer at the Ebola hotline center.
On average, the doctors and medical students at the hotline center receive about 500 calls a day. Two Ebola cases have already been identified thanks to the helpline. That makes Paul proud.
From the Guardian, bearing the burden:
Thankless, dangerous – the task of the Ebola burial boys in Sierra Leone
Workers, paid $100 a month, toil to bury the bodies in order to stop the virus spreading – but they pay a heavy price
The night after Alfred Jusson buried his first Ebola victim he had a nightmare: the corpse sat on the edge of his bed, blood dripping from her nostrils. When he got up to run away, she chased him.
Three months ago, Jusson had never heard of Ebola, one of the world’s most lethal viruses. Now he volunteers to collect corpses, a job that puts him at the frontline of battle as the disease is spread by contact with bodily fluids.
“Sometimes when I think of it at home when I’m alone, I become scared. It’s not easy to just [handle] a dead body like that,” the 22-year-old said one evening after carrying out four burials in Kailahun, the remote, forested district at the heart of Sierra Leone’s Ebola outbreak. Malaria, cholera and tuberculosis – endemic diseases that fell tens of thousands annually in Sierra Leone – used to be the illnesses that filled Jusson’s days as he worked in his parents’ tiny, dusty pharmacy and dreamed of one day becoming a doctor. In his spare time, he worked on the family’s farm, saving and studying every day, until he was able to sit pre-university exams in December.
Punch Nigeria advocates:
Experts preach abstinence to male survivors
Experts are advocating abstinence from sexual activities for at least eight weeks for male survivors of the Ebola Virus Disease. According to the World Health Organisation, male survivors still have a considerable amount of the virus in their semen up to six weeks after being cured.
Medical doctors who spoke with our correspondent however advised survivors to imbibe appropriate public health behaviour so as not to infect their partners. In extreme situations, they also advocated barrier methods such as use of condoms in order to minimise the risk of infection during sexual intercourse.
A consultant in Fetal Medicine and Genetics, Dr. Femi Oloyede, urged the men to abide by what counsellors told them before being discharged from the isolation centre.
From the Guardian, a call to serve:
UK government urged to allow NHS staff to help Africa’s fight against Ebola
Most cost-effective way ‘to control our health is control health of those around us’, say tropical disease experts in the Lancet
Leading tropical disease experts have called on the government to free up NHS staff to help fight Ebola, which is continuing to spread across west Africa.
Prof David Moor, of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and two of his senior colleagues say it is incumbent on the UK to share the burden that is crippling the already weak health systems in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea – the three countries worst affected by the deadly virus.
“We believe that in order to support the UK’s response, the NHS must allow staff temporary leave of absence from their post to contribute to the global response.
“Consultant physicians, specialty trainees, and specialist nurses in specialties including infectious diseases, microbiology, virology, public health, intensive care and infection control are well placed to offer assistance and should be supported,” Moore said in a letter to the Lancet. It is co-signed by Catherine Houlihan, a senior research fellow and Dr Ron Behrens, a clinician at the college.
The Associated Press chips in:
US to provide $75M to expand Ebola care centers
The U.S. aid agency is providing $75 million to fund 1,000 more beds in Ebola treatment centers in Liberia and tens of thousands of protective suits for health care workers.
An Ebola outbreak in West Africa has killed 1,900 people already and officials say it is out of control.
The U.S. Agency for International Development on Thursday also urged American medical workers to respond to the outbreak, saying several hundred more international experts are needed.
The Hill does the politics:
House Dems request hearing on Ebola
A group of House Democrats is asking for a hearing on the Ebola outbreak in West Africa as global health officials issue increasingly desperate cries for help.
House Energy and Commerce Committee Ranking Member Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and two other key members of the panel, Reps. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) and Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), urged GOP leaders to schedule the event soon.
“The House is scheduled to be in session only ten days this month. We should use this time wisely and hold hearings on this important global health issue as expeditiously as possible,” they wrote.
Off to Asia and another outbreak from News On Japan:
Tokyo closes part of Yoyogi Park after dengue-carrying mosquitoes found
The Tokyo Metropolitan Government closed part of Yoyogi Park on Thursday after confirming that mosquitoes caught in traps earlier this week were carrying the dengue virus, metropolitan officials said.
The discovery confirmed the park as the site of infections for dozens of people over the past several weeks. Four traps out of the 10 placed by metropolitan officials contained mosquitoes carrying the virus, the officials said.
Since the first domestic outbreak of dengue fever since 1945 was confirmed last week, the number of patients has risen to 49, according to the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry.
The Los Angeles Times covers another kind of plague:
Halliburton agrees to pay $1.1 billion in Deepwater Horizon spill
Halliburton has agreed to a $1.1-billion settlement stemming from its involvement in the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion that spewed more than 4 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico and killed 11 people, attorneys for the company and plaintiffs said Tuesday.
The settlement seeks to put to bed most of the claims filed against the oil field services giant by individuals and businesses affected by the spill, including commercial fishermen and charter boat operators and individual fishermen or hunters in certain areas who depended on their catch for subsistence, attorneys with the Plaintiffs’ Steering Committee in the Deepwater Horizon litigation said.
“Halliburton stepped up to the plate and agreed to provide a fair measure of compensation to people and businesses harmed in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon tragedy,” attorneys Stephen J. Herman and James P. Roy said in a statement from the committee.
From Reuters, the codependent/codefendant:
BP found ‘grossly negligent’ in 2010 U.S. spill, billions in fines loom
BP Plc was “grossly negligent” for its role in the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico four years ago, a U.S. district judge said on Thursday in a ruling that could add billions of dollars in fines to the more than $42 billion in charges taken so far for the worst offshore disaster in U.S. history.
U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier in New Orleans held a trial without a jury last year to determine who was responsible for the April 20, 2010 environmental disaster. Barbier ruled that BP was mostly at fault and that two other companies in the case, Transocean Ltd (RIG.N) and Halliburton (HAL.N), were not as much to blame.
“The Court concludes that the discharge of oil ‘was the result of gross negligence or willful misconduct’ by BP, the ruling said.
From the Guardian, potential costs:
Deepwater Horizon: gross – more than £9bn hangs on that one short word
BP had made a provision of $3.5bn for simple negligence, but the gross variety could take the penalty to almost $18bn
One of these decades, the size of BP’s final bill for the Deepwater Horizon disaster of 2010 may become clear. In the meantime, weary shareholders – who include almost everyone in the UK saving for retirement via a company pension – will reflect that the running total only ever seems to go up, despite constant expressions of confidence from the boardroom that this time the corporate lawyers really are sure of the strength of their case.
The company will appeal against the ruling in the US district court that it was guilty of “gross” negligence for the accident that killed 11 people and caused 2.5m or 4.2m barrels of oil (that’s another dispute) to spill into the Gulf of Mexico.
On that word “gross” could hang about $15bn (£9bn). BP had made a provision of $3.5bn for simple negligence, but the gross variety could take the penalty to almost $18bn under the clean water act if the number of spilled barrels is indeed shown to be 4.2m. There is no point in trying to guess whether BP’s appeal will succeed. All one can say is that Thursday’s £5bn fall in BP’s stock market value fairly reflects the increased legal risks: this ruling is a serious setback.
After the jump, Japan’s whaling decision, and the last, eventful chapter of Fukushimapocalypse Now!. . .
From the Guardian, more of the despicable:
Japan set to wade into diplomatic row by bypassing ban on whaling
Tokyo poised to submit plan for ‘scientific’ programme of whale slaughter in Antarctic to get round ban on commercial whaling
Japan is expected to spark a fresh round of diplomatic tension after revealing plans to bypass a UN ban on the slaughter of whales in the Antarctic with a new, scaled-down “scientific” programme that limits its catch to minke whales.
Japan was forced to end its hunt in the Antarctic in March after the international court of justice (ICJ) in the Hague challenged Tokyo’s contention that its annual pursuit of hundreds of whales in the area was necessary to conduct scientific research.
The country’s whaling fleet has sought to catch around 900 minke whales, and a much smaller number of fin and humpback whales, every winter after the International Whaling Commission (IWC) banned commercial whaling in 1986.
On to Fukushimapocalypse Now!, first with the Japan Times:
New environment chief Mochizuki takes on Fukushima radiation woes
New Environment Minister Yoshio Mochizuki on Thursday stressed the ministry’s commitment to speeding up efforts to reduce Fukushima’s radiation woes and vowed to get the prefecture’s radioactive waste storage facility up and running.
Mochizuki’s appointment comes after Fukushima Mayor Yuhei Sato on Saturday officially agreed to let the government build a storage facility near the crippled Fukushima No. 1 power plant, where contaminated waste will be kept for 30 years until the government can figure out a way to safely dispose of it.
The exact location of the facility hasn’t been decided yet, but it will be somewhere within the boundaries of Okuma and Futaba, the two tainted towns hosting the wrecked plant.
Jiji Press avers:
New Japan Industry Minister Vows to Work on Nuclear Waste Disposal
The Japanese government intends to choose candidate sites early for facilities for final disposal of radioactive waste from nuclear plants, new industry minister Yuko Obuchi said in an interview Thursday.
The government will form a ministerial conference soon to discuss the matter, said Obuchi, who took over as minister of economy, trade and industry Wednesday when Prime Minister Shinzo Abe reshuffled his cabinet.
Noting that there is 17,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel in the country, Obuchi said “it is the responsibility of the current generation to solve the issue of final disposal.”
NHK WORLD covers a leak:
Radioactive water leaking from Fukushima tank
The operator of the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant has reported yet another leak of highly radioactive water from its storage tanks.
Officials of Tokyo Electric Power Company say workers found a leak from piping connecting two tanks around noon on Thursday.
The officials say a drop of water was leaking from a valve every few seconds. They found what looked like a crack in it.
From the Japan Times, a shutdown ahead:
NRA’s final ruling on fault to force scrapping of Tsuruga reactor
A panel convened by the Nuclear Regulation Authority said Thursday its opinion that a fault beneath a reactor at the Tsuruga nuclear power plant is active has not been swayed by the additional data provided by its manager.
The move leaves Japan Atomic Power Co. no choice but to scrap the No. 2 reactor at the two-unit Tsuruga complex, which sits on the Sea of Japan coastline of Fukui Prefecture.
The NRA acknowledged last year that the fault is active, but Japan Atomic later submitted additional data to overturn the regulator’s judgment, which the panel rejected at its meeting on Thursday.
From NHK WORLD, the predictable:
Utility defends safety of Tsuruga power plant
The operator of the Tsuruga nuclear power plant in Fukui Prefecture has presented new data to challenge the finding by Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority that a fault beneath the plant could move in the future.
The authority determined in May of last year that the fault beneath the plant’s No.2 reactor has the potential to shift in the future. The finding has prevented the restart of the reactor and may lead to its decommissioning.
Utility officials explained at a meeting with experts from the authority on Thursday that a new analysis of deposits in a geological formation in the compound shows that the fault has not shifted over the past 120,000 years or so.
For our final item, the Japan Times precludes:
New METI chief Obuchi rules out new nuclear power plants
Newly appointed trade and industry minister Yuko Obuchi on Thursday ruled out the construction of new nuclear power plants anytime soon.
“Safety checks of existing nuclear plants are being conducted now, so I’m not expecting to see new plants built at this point,” the first woman ever to head METI said in a group interview with the media. But Obuchi, 40, said the government will support restarting Japan’s existing reactors once the Nuclear Regulation Authority confirms they meet its new safety standards.
In July, reactors 1 and 2 at the Sendai plant in Kagoshima Prefecture became the first to pass the stricter safety standards drafted after the Fukushima nuclear crisis emerged in 2011, making them the closes to being restarted.
