2014-10-04

Lots of ground to cover, so we start with this from the Washington Post:

D.C., Maryland hospitals evaluating two patients who have Ebola-like symptoms

Two Washington area hospitals said within hours of each other Friday that they had admitted a patient with symptoms and travel histories associated with Ebola.

A patient, who had recently traveled to Nigeria, came to Howard University Hospital in the District overnight “presenting symptoms that could be associated with Ebola,” spokeswoman Kerry-Ann Hamilton said in a statement.

“In an abundance of caution, we have activated the appropriate infection control protocols, including isolating the patient,” she said. “Our medical team continues to evaluate and monitor progress in close collaboration with the CDC and the Department of Health.”

Just hours later, Shady Grove Adventist Hospital in Rockville, Md., confirmed that it is evaluating a patient who “presented with flu-like symptoms and a travel history that matches criteria for possible Ebola.”

Voice of America gets political:

Lawmakers Express Concern about US Readiness to Deal with Ebola

Democratic Representatives Henry Waxman, Frank Pallone and Diana DeGette asked why a Dallas hospital initially discharged the man and sent him home, even though he had told a nurse of his recent trip from Liberia.   The Democrats say the Dallas case should serve as a wakeup call of the need to address the ongoing public health crisis in Africa, and the possibility of more Ebola cases in the United States.

Republican Congressman Tim Murphy announced Friday that he will chair a hearing on the Ebola outbreak on October 16, with the two top U.S. health officials testifying:  the Director of the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC, Tom Frieden, and the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institute of Health, Anthony Fauci.

Murphy said the hearing would look into all aspects of the federal response, including airline passenger screening procedures by Customs and Border Control.

Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas sent a letter to the Federal Aviation Administration, asking that every available precaution be taken to prevent additional Ebola cases from arriving in the United States.

On to Texas with the New York Times:

Health Officials in Dallas Pinpoint 10 People Most at Risk for Ebola

Health officials said on Friday that they had identified 10 people who are most at risk of contracting Ebola after coming into contact with an infected African man now in isolation in a Dallas hospital.

Among them, health officials said, are the four people who shared an apartment with the patient, Thomas E. Duncan, and medical workers who came into contact with him. Another 40 people are being monitored daily but are considered at relatively low risk, officials said. No one has developed any symptoms of the disease.

For those who have been exposed to the virus, there is nothing to do but wait.

More from the Los Angeles Times:

Dallas Ebola case: 50 under daily checks, 10 are high risk

Fifty people in Texas will be monitored daily for possible Ebola symptoms, including 10 who are considered at high risk because of their exposure to a patient now being treated for the virus, public health officials said on Friday.

The larger group includes healthcare workers and the ambulance team that brought the patient, Thomas Eric Duncan, to Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, where he has been in isolation and undergoing treatment since Sept. 28. Included in the smaller group are four people who were in the apartment where Duncan stayed after his arrival from Liberia on Sept. 20.

The four — a woman, her 13-year-old son and two adult nephews — have been ordered to remain in the apartment and not have contact with other people. A hazardous materials team arrived Friday morning to begin cleaning the home, a process that was expected to take three hours, officials said. The family will remain in the apartment during the cleaning, though officials said they would like to move them to better quarters at some point.

BBC News cleans up:

Ebola crisis: US patient’s flat cleaned by specialists

A cleaning crew has begun sanitising the flat in Dallas, Texas, where a man stricken with Ebola spent several days before being taken to hospital.

The private hazardous materials contractors were expected to spend about three hours there.

Thomas Duncan, who caught the disease in his native Liberia, was the first person diagnosed with Ebola on US soil. Up to 10 people who had contact with him are at high risk of contracting the disease, Texas health officials said.

An admission, via the Guardian:

US Ebola case: hospital admits ‘flawed’ initial response as officials scramble

Hazardous materials team arrives to clean Thomas Duncan’s apartment as officials work to rehouse other residents in the complex in Dallas

Officials in Texas were still struggling to implement an effective strategy to manage the close associates of the first person to be diagnosed with Ebola outside Africa on Friday, as the hospital where he first presented himself admitted a “flawed” initial response.

A hazardous materials team arrived on Friday to clean the apartment where four people are under quarantine, a day after a cleaning crew was forced to leave, lacking the appropriate permit to dispose of the waste.

Sweat-stained sheets and towels remained in the apartment for four days since the Ebola sufferer, Thomas Eric Duncan of Liberia, was placed in isolation at the Texas Health Presbyterian hospital in Dallas.

The Los Angeles Times covers containment:

Dallas officials say they had to order Ebola family to stay home

Dallas officials said that relatives of the man infected with Ebola left their apartment after agreeing not to, which prompted officials to issue a confinement order overnight.

“They were noncompliant with the request to stay home,” Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins, the county’s highest elected official, said at a news conference Thursday.

He said the individuals needed to stay home so that they could be tested at the same time daily, to ensure they have not been infected with the Ebola virus that sickened Thomas Eric Duncan, the Liberian who traveled last month to Texas and began to show symptoms during his visit.

More from Sky News:

Ebola Patient’s Apartment Watched By Cops

Four people close to the infected man are ordered to stay at home as Liberian officials say he lied before leaving the country

Police and armed security guards are keeping guard at the apartment where the first man to be diagnosed with ebola in the US had been staying.

Four people close to Thomas Duncan have been quarantined, and cannot leave their home in the apartment complex in Dallas.

They were hit with a confinement order after they failed to comply with a request to stay home, according to Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins.

From BuzzFeed, covering up:

Ebola Patient In Texas Lied On Travel Paperwork When He Left Liberia

A Liberian man diagnosed in Dallas denied that he had contact with Ebola patients when he left Liberia, according to government officials

A Liberian man who has tested positive for Ebola in Texas lied on his exit form and may face prosecution, a Liberian official has said.

Thomas Eric Duncan left Liberia for the United States, via Brussels, on Sept. 19 and developed symptoms on Sept. 24. He was isolated at a hospital in Dallas, Texas, on Sept. 28, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The CDC confirmed an Ebola diagnosis on Oct. 1.

“False declaration is an offense here in Liberia; this man lied about his activities in a questionnaire screening form we have at the airport, so he must face prosecution,” Liberia Airport Authority Board Chairman Binyah Kesselly said at a news conference in Monrovia on Thursday.

China’s Global Times covers a consultation:

Obama discusses Ebola case with Dallas mayor: White House

US President Barack Obama called Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings Thursday afternoon to discuss the first Ebola case diagnosed on American soil and pledged full support to prevent the epidemic.

“The President called to make sure the mayor was getting the resources he needed from the federal government, including the Centers for Disease Control, to treat the patient safely, and control this case so that it does not spread widely,” White House spokesman Eric Schultz said.

The President pledged that federal agencies will remain in close coordination and reiterated his confidence in America’s doctors and national health infrastructure to handle this case safely and effectively, Schultz said.

Reassurance, via The Hill:

White House says it has Ebola virus under control

Top White House officials on Friday worked to reassure the American public that the national response to Ebola is under control.

Leaders of the country’s health, defense and military branches stressed that they are taking the right steps to contain the spread of the deadly virus, which was first diagnosed in the U.S. on Tuesday.

“We know how to do this, and we will do it again,” Lisa Monaco, assistant to the president for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, said at a press briefing.

From Punch Nigeria, lethally gaming the system:

Ebola: Travellers take ibuprofen to beat airport screening

The infection control specialist, and President of Behavioral-based Improvement Solutions in Atlanta, Sean Kaufman, on Friday said people who contracted Ebola in West Africa could get through airport screenings and onto a plane.

Kaufman said that more must be done to identify infected travelers who could lie and take a lot of ibuprofen to beat the airport authorities.

“People can take ibuprofen to reduce their fever enough to pass screening, and why wouldn’t they?”

Doubling down with the New York Times:

White House to Discuss Broader Efforts to Contain Ebola in United States and West Africa

The United States Army announced on Friday that it will more than double the number of soldiers it is sending to West Africa, to 3,200, to help contain the Ebola virus as White House officials prepared to confront concerns about the chaotic response to the disease’s arrival in the United States.

President Obama’s senior homeland security adviser and other top White House officials will hold an on-camera briefing at the White House late Wednesday afternoon, officials said. The briefing comes amid reports that a series of mistakes were made when Thomas E. Duncan, a Liberian man, arrived in Texas and was later told he had Ebola.

Television images from Monrovia, Liberia and Dallas during the last several days have raised new questions about the adequacy of the American response on both continents.

More from Reuters:

U.S. ramps up Ebola troop deployments, total may near 4,000

The Pentagon said on Friday it may send nearly 4,000 troops to West Africa to support America’s response to the Ebola crisis, almost 1,000 above its previous estimate, and cautioned its projections may change further.

The increased Pentagon forecast came as the World Health Organization hiked the estimated death toll from Ebola to 3,439 people, and as U.S. authorities scrambled to contain the spread of the virus after the first person was diagnosed with Ebola in the United States.

Rear Admiral John Kirby said American troops preparing to deploy to West Africa would take all the necessary precautions and added the Pentagon would disclose as much information as possible about the health of deployed forces, who are mainly headed to Liberia.

Another casualty from the north, via the New York Times:

Ashoka Mukpo, NBC Cameraman With Ebola, to Return to U.S.

NBC News on Friday identified the freelance cameraman who contracted Ebola in Liberia as 33-year-old Ashoka Mukpo, who had been working with Dr. Nancy Snyderman, the network’s top medical correspondent.

Mr. Mukpo is the fourth American known to have contracted the disease in Liberia.

Speaking on NBC’s “Today” show, the parents of Mr. Mukpo said their son was in good spirits. “Obviously he is scared and worried,” said the father, Dr. Mitchell Levy.

Mr. Mukpo’s mother, Diane Mukpo, said her son would be flown back to the United States this weekend for treatment. “I think the enormous anxiety that I have as a mother or that we share as parents is the delay between now and him leaving on Sunday,” Ms. Mukpo said.

More from the Associated Press:

Infection has news organizations looking at risks

For media covering the spread of Ebola in West Africa, the infection of a cameraman who works for NBC offers both a reason to emphasize precaution and to continue to bear witness.

The New York Times’ approach is emblematic of many news organizations: “We want to figure out a way to have maximum protection for people involved in the coverage and also to continue the coverage,” said Joseph Kahn, the newspaper’s international editor.

Other than NBC, no news outlet has publicly cited Ashoka Mukpo’s infection as the impetus for removing personnel from Liberia, where the freelance cameraman had been covering the disease’s rapid spread and the strains it placed on its health care system. CNN announced Friday that it was sending reporter Nima Elbagir to that country this weekend and Sanjay Gupta, its most visible medical correspondent, said he’s lobbying his bosses to send him there.

Mukpo, who previously covered Ebola for several news outlets, began working for NBC on Tuesday and fell ill the next day. NBC said Friday it was concentrating on how to get him and his colleagues out of the country before discussing future coverage plans. He was working with medical correspondent Dr. Nancy Snyderman, who said she and others with NBC feel fine, though the network ordered them to return to the United States and quarantine themselves until any danger has passed.

A Japanese pledge from the Yomiuri Shimbun:

Japan to extend $22 million for anti-Ebola measures

The government decided at a Cabinet meeting Friday to extend $22 million in emergency grant aid for combating the spread of Ebola hemorrhagic fever. The aid will be provided through organizations such as the World Health Organization.

The support is part of Japan’s $40 million assistance pledged by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at a high-level meeting at the U.N. headquarters in September.

Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida said at a press conference that Ebola is a threat to international security and peace and that Japan will cooperate further in efforts to contain the epidemic.

After the jump, on to Sierra Leone and an Australian effort under fire and a plea from Sierra Leone, Cuba sends doctors and aid, Muslims warned on Eid handshakes, new help for orphans, Ebola carriers criminalized, Ebola compared to terrorism, the sad story of aid delayed, on to Liberia and carriers criminalized, American military labs arrive, German aid arrives, press coverage regulated, a watchdog installed, and a look at the neighborhood America’s first Ebola fled, quarantines questioned, an Ebola scare in Denmark, and a look at the role of poverty in the epidemic’s spread. . .

Al Jazeera America conveys a rebuke:

DWB rebukes Australia for pledging cash instead of medics in Ebola fight

Australia was hit with a sharp rebuke from the medical aid agency Doctors Without Borders (DWB, also known as Médecins Sans Frontières) over what it views as its tepid response to the Ebola crisis in West Africa.

Reacting to the government’s announcement on Thursday that it would be donating an additional $8.8 million (bringing its total contribution $15.8 million) to the global response to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, but not any medical personnel, DWB said “Australia must stop making excuses to join the fight against Ebola.”

“Countries like Australia with the capacity to make a real difference on the ground are looking at each other to take responsibility, and are refusing to send their own personnel to help,” DWB Australia’s executive director, Paul McPhun, said in a statement on the organization’s website.

From the Guardian, a plea:

Ebola: Sierra Leone president makes personal appeal for Australian help

Ernest Bai Koroma writes to Tony Abbott to ask for medical personnel and engineering expertise to help build wards

The president of Sierra Leone has sent a personal plea to Australia to send medical and engineering assistance to help the country deal with the outbreak of Ebola in the country.

Ernest Bai Koroma wrote a letter to Tony Abbott, dated 18 September, which asks for specific help to deal with the “outbreak of this dreadful disease”, which has caused more than 3,300 deaths in west Africa.

Koroma’s letter reportedly admits that Sierra Leone’s health system is “overwhelmed” by the disease, with the president requesting “military health units, logisticians and engineers” to help isolate and treat infected people.

And from the Government of Sierra Leone via AllAfrica, a comparison:

Sierra Leone: ‘Ebola Is Like an International Terrorist’- Says President Koroma

As government continues to enhance an effective approach towards the Ebola outbreak, President Dr Ernest Bai Koroma on 2nd October described the Ebola virus as an international terrorist.

He made this allusion at State House while addressing contributors to the fight against the deadly Ebola virus disease. President Koroma stated that Ebola is not only a sub-regional issue but has posed a serious threat to international health and security.

The President lamented the fact that Ebola has not only been a distraction to government, but also led to the country being isolated. He stated that Ebola struck at a time when the country was moving forward in terms of increased economic activities. President Koroma also mentioned the effects of the outbreak on the country’s cultural practices, and urged all Sierra Leoneans to adhere to preliminary warnings by the Ministry of Health and Sanitation. “The fight against Ebola is not limited to treatment centres, we have to monitor the situation, traced the infected and treat the already affected persons.”

Star Africa News covers help arriving:

Cuban medical personnel arrive in Sierra Leone

A group of 165 medical personnel sent by the Cuban government to help in the fight against the Ebola epidemic finally arrived in Freetown on Thursday.

The group comprises 63 doctors of different specialties and 102 nurses. They were received on arrival at the Lungi International Airport by the Deputy Minister of Health, Mrs Madina Rahman.

She told journalists that the Cuban intervention would help ease the pressure the Ebola epidemic has exerted on the country’s health system.

And from the Guardian, tragic lack:

Ebola: Sierra Leone hospitals running out of basic supplies, say doctors

Despite promises of western aid, local health workers are short of everything from paracetamol to protective clothing

Doctors fighting Ebola in one of Sierra Leone’s biggest towns have said they are running out of basic supplies of medicine and protecting clothing, despite promises of international aid.

The UK has said it is committed to boosting public health provision across Sierra Leone, building at least four new Ebola treatment facilities near urban centres, including one in Makeni, a large commercial hub about 120 miles north of Freetown.

But with a 600% increase in cases, locals health workers say they can’t wait and are in desperate need of rudimentary supplies ranging from mattresses to paracetamol.

“We have almost no protective equipment,” said Adam Goguen, director of academic affairs at the University of Makeni. “Hundreds of PPEs (personal protective equipment) a day are needed just to keep the primary holding centre stable.”

Star Africa News discourages:

Sierra Leone Muslims warned to avoid handshakes during Eid prayers

Imams in Sierra Leone have cautioned Muslims against shaking hands during the Eid prayers scheduled for Saturday, as a way of avoiding contracting the Ebola virus disease.

Sierra Leone is expected to join the rest of the Muslim Ummah to observe the feast which coincides with the annual pilgrimage to Mecca.

There have been concerns over the risk involved in having the usually large gathering that is seen during this occasion which is also characterized by handshakes and hugs at the end of prayers.

Scientists say the Ebola disease is transmitted by bodily contact.

The United Council of Imams, the second most senior religious body in the country after the Inter-Religious Council, said Imams have been among the hardest hit category of people by the disease with a total of 24 deaths.

Help for those left alone from Star Africa News:

Sierra Leone sets up interim care center for Ebola orphans

Sierra Leone’s Ministry of Social Welfare, Gender and Children’s Affairs has announced the establishment of a temporary childcare center for Ebola orphans.

The announcement on Thursday came two days after the UN children’s agency (UNICEF) released a report warning of the dangers faced by children who have lost their parents to the rampaging epidemic.

Over 3000 people have so far died of the disease in Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea and Nigeria, with about twice that number infected.

On to Liberia and criminalization from the New Dawn:

Ebola carriers to face trial

Liberia’s Justice Minister, Cllr. Christina P. Tah, has begun discussion with prosecutors and justice sector stakeholders here to enforce a decision to prosecute Ebola infected persons who may knowingly infect others after being exposed to the disease.

Launching the “Protection Cluster” on Thursday, October 2, 2014 at the Ministry of Justice on 9th Street Sinkor, in Monrovia, the Attorney General described as “serious for Liberia”, the Ebola infected American-Liberian Patrick Sawyer’s travel to Nigeria and the Eric Thomas Duncan scenario in the United States.

“For rule of law, for example, it’s taking a different dimension. Just this morning I called the assistant minister for litigation and [told] him to call the SG (Solicitor General) who is abroad, and ask her about some public announcement some time ago about people who might be prosecuted for knowingly infecting others,” she said.

Another aid arrival from Star Africa News:

US installs two additional mobile Ebola testing labs in Liberia

Two additional mobile testing labs from the US Government have been installed and are up and running at the Ebola Treatment Units at Island Clinic in Monrovia and Bong County in central Liberia.

The US Navy laboratories which are part of the ongoing Joint Forces Command-United Assistance, reduce the time needed to determine if a sick person has Ebola from several days to just a few hours, and are capable of processing up to 80 samples a day.

According to a US Embassy release, members of a US Navy Medical Research Unit will operate both laboratories.

While the New York Times offers context:

U.S. Aid Effort in Liberia Barely Off the Ground as Ebola Rages

Two weeks after President Obama announced that time was running out in the fight to stem the epidemic, the American treatment centers planned here in the center of West Africa’s Ebola crisis are still a long way off.

The beds for the first field hospital, flown in by the military from Kelly Air Force Base near San Antonio, remained in a hangar at Liberia’s main international airport, wrapped in plastic alongside the tents, generators and the medical equipment needed to set up the facility. Military planners say it will probably be another 10 days before even this first 25-bed treatment center is up and running.

And that unit is meant to be used solely by health care workers who become infected — not for the hundreds of new Ebola cases that have sprung up in this country in recent weeks. They will have to be served by the other 17 centers further back in the pipeline.

More aid arriving from Deutsche Welle:

Germany’s first Ebola aid arrives in Liberia

Germany’s first installment of medical aid to fight the Ebola epidemic has arrived in Liberia. According to World Health Organization’s new estimates, the world’s worst-ever outbreak of the virus has killed 3,439 people

The German government’s first tranche of medical support arrived in the Liberian capital of Monrovia on Friday. A spokeswoman for the Defense Ministry told the news agency DPA that a German air force plane had delivered supplies from the Senegalese capital of Dakar to the virus-stricken country.

German health officials confirmed Friday that a Ugandan doctor who contracted Ebola in Sierra Leone had been admitted to a hospital in the city of Frankfurt. He is the second Ebola victim to be treated in the country.

More on that newest patient from TheLocal.de:

Doctor hospitalized for Ebola in Germany

A Ugandan doctor who contracted Ebola in Sierra Leone was hospitalized on Friday in Frankfurt, becoming the second victim of the deadly virus to be treated in Germany.

“The patient is an employee of an Italian NGO, he has Ugandan nationality and has worked as a doctor in Sierra Leone,” said Stefan Gruettner, social affairs minister for the Hesse region where Frankfurt is located. “He worked over there with people affected by the Ebola virus and was infected,” he told Hessische Rundfunk radio station.

The man’s health is “very serious but stable”, said Timo Wolf, head of the infectious disease centre at Frankfurt University Hospital.

From the Independent, medical stress:

Medics on Monrovia’s Ebola frontline are being overwhelmed…as the world looks on

There are many layers of tragedy to the Ebola epidemic that is sweeping parts of West Africa. The way the virus has struck a region where it has not hit before, and one already shattered by conflict and corruption, and the fact that it took almost four months to identify it. The way it began in the border zone of three countries, a place filled with mobile populations that carried it for the first time into crowded urban areas. And, perhaps most terrible of all, the way the disease carves with such deadly cruelty through families and close-knit communities.

Standing beside the Island Clinic gates in Monrovia last week, I was aware of two simple yet devastating facts. First, that most of those displaying signs of the dreaded sickness will be dead by the time you read this. And second, that before dying they will have passed the virus to others in their homes and streets. Little wonder the number of cases doubles every three weeks – official statistics putting the death toll at more than 3,300 are thought to be just a third of the real number.

The Monrovia Inquirer covers another arrival:

UN Ebola Response Official In Town

The Special Representative and Head of the United Nations Mission Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER), Anthony Banbury says they are in Liberia to save lives and end the Ebola crisis.

Speaking with reporters at the James Spriggsfield Airport in Monrovia yesterday, Mr. Banbury said his team in Liberia will focus on four main issues by working with the health sector to know what they can do to quickly stop the virus.

He stated that President Sirleaf along with the Presidents of Sierra Leone and Guinea wrote the United Nations to help end the Ebola crisis that is causing chaos in their respective countries.

He stressed that logistic is one of the challenges health workers are face with and UNMEER will fill in the gap by providing transportation.An other point of focus will be community awareness and prevention, let communities know how deadly the virus is.

From Punch Nigeria, imposing de factor censorship on Liberian journalists:

Liberia places restrictions on Ebola coverage

Liberia’s government has said that journalists will now need official permission to cover the Ebola outbreak under new rules aimed at protecting patient privacy.

The move was announced on Thursday, the same day an American cameraman working for NBC News in Liberia became the first foreign journalist to test positive for Ebola. There was no indication that the new rules were related to that case.

Growing international media interest in the outbreak, which has killed nearly 2,000 people and infected 3,696 in Liberia, has highlighted the challenges to the West African country’s health-care system.

Journalists could be arrested and prosecuted if they fail to get written permission from the health ministry before contacting Ebola patients, conducting interviews or filming or photographing health-care facilities, officials said.

Imposing oversight on Liberian aid, officials, with the Monrovia Inquirer:

LACC To Monitor Ebola Resources; Probe Lawmakers, Others

In an effort to ensure transparency, accountability and integrity in the management of Ebola resources, the Liberia Anti-Corruption Commission (LACC) has embarked on a program to monitor and make sure that adequate internal controls and systems are instituted in the administration of said resources.

The LACC has therefore requested the National Ebola Task Force to furnish the   list of all monetary contributions and payments made to the National Ebola Trust Fund, along with information of all other related resources. Additionally, the Commission has entreated the National Ebola Task Force to provide a full list of all administrators of Ebola resources.

Meanwhile, the LACC informs the public that it is investigating alleged acts of impropriety involving some members of the National Legislature and a Consultant regarding a contract to review the Petroleum Law of Liberia. The Commission hereby assures the public that the investigation will be conducted with the utmost degree of professionalism.

And from FrontPageAfrica, a look at the neighborhood America’s first Ebola patient fled:

In Duncan’s Old Neighborhood: Panic, More Deaths, Infections

Following news of his illness in the U.S., people in Thomas Eric Duncan’s community are panicking. Already three people linked to the pregnant woman he helped take to the hospital have died and several others quarantined. But as a closely knit Community, the Block C area of the 72nd SKD Boulevard area, where Duncan lived many, are scared to death about who will be next in the clutches of Ebola.

Monrovia – Nine-year-old Mercy Kennedy sobs as her neighbors tell her about her mother’s death. She had gone happily to fetch water with her friends and some women in the community yelled at her to leave the neighborhood well for fear she might infect the well and their children with Ebola.

Mercy’s mother, Marie Wreh, is among a string of deaths traced to the 19-year-old pregnant woman that Thomas Eric Duncan came in contact with before leaving Liberia to visit family in the US. Mercy’s mother Wreh had taken care of patient zero Marthaline Williams, who was six months pregnant in the Duncan Ebola saga before she died. She washed Williams’ clothes and even fell over her corpse when she died on September 16, 2014 according to family members.

From FrontPageAfrica, a report from the neighborhood:

FPA WEB TV: Voices from Eric Thomas Neighborhood in Liberia:

Program notes:

Residents in the rented property where the first diagnosed case of the deadly Ebola virus in America, the 72nd SKD Boulevard neighborhood resides, explain how he may have gotten infected, the contacts he made and their own fears of a trail of infections he may have left behind, leading to possibly ten infections amongst those he came in contact with prior to his departure for America, including a pregnant friend who died on September 16, and her brother who died Wednesday, October 1, 2014.

Homeland Security News Wire raises quarantine questions:

Quarantine works against Ebola but over-use risks disaster

Quarantine, in the form of isolation, is an important component of the response to Ebola infection. As people are infectious only once they develop symptoms, isolating them and having health-care workers use personal protective equipment significantly reduces the risk of onward transmission.

While quarantine is an important weapon in our arsenal against Ebola, indiscriminate isolation is counterproductive. The World Health Organization has warned that closing country borders and banning the movement of people is detrimental to the affected countries, pushing them closer to an impending humanitarian catastrophe.

Still, this didn’t stop Sierra Leone from imposing a stay-at-home curfew for all of its 6.2 million citizens for three days from 19 to 21 September. Quarantine is an excellent measure for containing infectious disease outbreaks, but its indiscriminate and widespread use will compound this epidemic with another humanitarian disaster.

From TheLocal.dk, a Danish Ebola scare:

Denmark has its first ebola scare

A patient who had been in west Africa was isolated in a suburban Copenhagen hospital late on Thursday for displaying symptoms consistent with ebola.

Denmark had its first ebola scare late on Thursday night in what turned out to be a false alarm, Ekstra Bladet reports.

The department of infectious medicine at Hvidore Hospital was closed down late on Thursday after a patient who had been in west Africa displayed symptoms consistent with ebola. Medical staff moved other patients in order to isolate the suspected ebola victim, but within a few hours doctors were able to rule out an infection.

And to close, Voice of America makes a telling point:

World Bank Chief: Fighting Poverty Helps Fight Ebola

World Bank President Jim Yong Kim says the fight against Ebola is a key part of the struggle against poverty and inequality, giving special urgency to the October 6 gathering of top economic officials from around the world in Washington.

With Ebola and other issues in mind, the head of the International Monetary Fund is urging member nations to step up efforts to overcome what she called “mediocre” economic growth.

Ebola’s devastating impact on West African nations is well understood by World Bank President Jim Yong Kim, an expert in infectious diseases who also heads a global lender with the mission of ending poverty.

Dr. Kim says poverty and inequality contribute to the spread of the killer virus.

“The knowledge and infrastructure to treat the sick and contain the virus exists in high and middle-income countries,” he said. “However, over many years, we have failed to make these things accessible to low-income people in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.”

In a speech at Washington’s Howard University he said inequality isn’t just unfair – it’s deadly.

“So now, thousands of people in these countries are dying because, in the lottery of birth, they were born in the wrong place,” he said.

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