And please do read the African coverage after the jump, featuring stories from newspapers in the Hot Zone. . .
First up, from BuzzFeed, alarms shrieking:
WHO Says Ebola Is The Worst Modern Health Emergency
The World Health Organization calls Ebola “unquestionably the most severe acute public health emergency in modern times” and says “the world is ill-prepared to respond to any severe, sustained, and threatening public health emergency.”
In a statement emailed to reporters on Monday, the World Health Organization (WHO) deemed Ebola “unquestionably the most severe acute public health emergency in modern times,” saying that most countries where Ebola has spread have failed “to put basic public health infrastructures in place.”
Encouraging people and health officials to get informed about how to prevent Ebola, WHO Director-General Margaret Chan explained that 90% of economic losses during the outbreak of any disease comes from “the uncoordinated and irrational efforts of the public to avoid infection.”
“We are seeing, right now, how this virus can disrupt economies and societies around the world,” she said.
More from the New York Times:
W.H.O. Chief Calls Ebola Outbreak a ‘Crisis for International Peace’
The Ebola outbreak in West Africa is “unquestionably the most severe acute public health emergency in modern times,” Dr. Margaret Chan, the director general of the World Health Organization, said Monday.
Dr. Chan, who dealt with the 2009 avian flu pandemic and the SARS outbreaks of 2002-3, said the Ebola outbreak had progressed from a public health crisis to “a crisis for international peace and security.”
“I have never seen a health event threaten the very survival of societies and governments in already very poor countries,” she said in a statement delivered on her behalf to a conference in Manila and released by her office in Geneva. “I have never seen an infectious disease contribute so strongly to potential state failure.”
More from BBC News:
Ebola epidemic ‘could lead to failed states’, warns WHO
The Ebola epidemic threatens the “very survival” of societies and could lead to failed states, the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned.
The outbreak, which has killed some 4,000 people in West Africa, has led to a “crisis for international peace and security”, WHO head Margaret Chan said.
She also warned of the cost of panic “spreading faster than the virus”.
The Nation goes for context:
How the World Let the Ebola Epidemic Spiral Out of Control
A swift international response could have contained the outbreak
Despite its frightening virulence, Ebola can be contained through robust public health efforts. It thrives in chaotic and impoverished environments where public health systems are frayed and international assistance weak. Though experts will debate the roots of this current crisis for years, one point on which many agree is that local poverty and global indifference played starring roles. “This isn’t a natural disaster,” international health crusader Paul Farmer told The Washington Post. “This is the terrorism of poverty.”
Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea are among the poorest countries on the planet, with health systems that have been shattered by years of neglect and conflict. As many as 90 percent of Liberia’s healthcare workers fled the country during its long civil war, and some 80 percent of its health facilities were closed. By the time the Ebola outbreak was declared an international emergency, Liberia had less than 250 doctors. Scientists could not have devised a more nurturing environment for a deadly virus if they had designed it in a laboratory.
But if local conditions created the opening for the epidemic, it was global inaction that helped it to flourish. For months, organizations like Doctors Without Borders begged the World Health Organization to begin marshaling resources to fight the crisis. But after years of budget cuts and the gutting of its epidemic-response unit, WHO failed to act with anything approaching the necessary speed and competence. Nor was it alone: governments around the world have stalled, unwilling to recognize this outbreak as the global humanitarian crisis it is. Even now, far too few have stepped up to provide the medical resources and technical expertise that are so desperately needed.
And the perspective on the handling of the outbreak from a German specialist on tropical diseases from Deutsche Welle:
The Global Fight against Ebola
Program notes:
Dr. Peter Tinnemann, head of the global health sciences unit at the Institute for Social Medicine, Epidemiology and Health Economics at the Charité University Medical Center in Berlin, offers insights into the global fight against Ebola and explains what the World Health Summit can do to help solve global health problems.
The New York Times raises questions:
New Questions of Risk and Vigilance After Dallas Nurse Contracts Ebola
Dr. Joseph McCormick, regional dean of the University of Texas School of Public Health in Brownsville, said he was shocked that none of those monitored by officials were hospital workers caring for Mr. Duncan after he was put in isolation. Dr. McCormick worked for the C.D.C. in 1976, when he helped investigate the first epidemic of Ebola in central Africa.
“You know that once this guy is really ill and he’s hospitalized, there’s going to be a lot of contact, manipulation of blood specimens, cleaning up if he’s vomiting or if he’s got diarrhea,” Dr. McCormick said. “You certainly can’t assume that because he’s hospitalized and in this unit that everything is fine and everything that goes on will be without any risk. I mean that’s just ludicrous to think that.”
State and federal health officials seemed to be, in a sense, starting over, two weeks after Mr. Duncan’s diagnosis of Ebola on Sept. 30. They spoke of stepping up precautions and of conducting a new investigation, in order to evaluate and learn more about a group of health-care workers they had initially failed to regard as potentially at risk.
“So in light of this case, we’re looking at the ongoing monitoring of all health care workers and looking at going forward having an epidemiologist see them and more active surveillance for these individuals,” Dr. David L. Lakey, the commissioner of the Texas Department of State Health Services, told reporters Sunday.
The Washington Post assesses:
U.S. hospitals not prepared for Ebola threat
With reports that a nurse who treated Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan in Dallas has been infected, one thing urgently needs to be made clear: Our hospitals are not prepared to confront the deadly virus.
It is long past time to stop relying on a business-as-usual approach to a virus that has killed thousands in West Africa and has such a frighteningly high mortality rate. There is no margin for error. That means there can be no standard short of optimal in the protective equipment, such as hazmat suits, given to nurses and other personnel who are the first to engage patients with Ebola-like symptoms. All nurses must have access to the same state-of-the-art equipment used by Emory University Hospital personnel when they transported Ebola patients from Africa, but too many hospitals are trying to get by on the cheap.
In addition, hospitals and other front-line providers should immediately conduct hands-on training and drills so that personnel can practice, in teams, such vital safety procedures as the proper way to put on and remove protective equipment. Hospitals must also maintain properly equipped isolation rooms to ensure the safety of patients, visitors and staff and harden their procedures for disposal of medical waste and linens.
The Associated Press sets the healthcare frame:
CDC urges all US hospitals to ‘think Ebola’
The government is telling the nation’s hospitals to “think Ebola.”
Every hospital must know how to diagnose Ebola in people who have been in West Africa and be ready to isolate a suspected case, Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Monday.
He said the CDC is working to improve protections for hospital workers after a nurse caring for an Ebola patient in Dallas became the first person to become infected with the disease inside the U.S.
“We have to rethink the way we address Ebola infection control,” Frieden said, “because even a single infection is unacceptable.”
Fears from the Los Angeles Times:
Louisiana A.G. opposes burial of burned items linked to Ebola victim
Burned items associated with a Liberian man who died from Ebola in a Dallas hospital last week could be barred from a Louisiana landfill if the state’s attorney general gets his way.
Atty. Gen. Buddy Caldwell said he plans to ask for a temporary restraining order to keep the incinerated items out of Louisiana. The request could be filed as early as Monday, said a spokesman for Caldwell.
In a statement late Sunday, Caldwell cited reports that “six truckloads” of items from the Texas apartment where Thomas Eric Duncan was staying are set to be dumped at a Louisiana landfill after being burned at a Veolia Environmental Services plant in Port Arthur, Texas. Duncan fell ill with Ebola in Texas and died Wednesday.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said that incinerated Ebola-associated waste is no longer infectious.
More of the same from the Associated Press:
Company won’t take ash from Ebola victim apartment
A Louisiana waste disposal facility says it will not accept the ashes generated when a Texas Ebola victim’s belongings were incinerated, at least not until state officials agree that it would pose no threat to the public.
Chemical Waste Management Inc.-Lake Charles said in news release Monday that it is permitted to accept such material and that it poses no threat to the environment or human health.
But, the company says, “we do not want to make an already complicated situation, more complicated.”
The Hill covers troops dispatched:
‘Surge’ of Ebola personnel sent to Dallas
A “surge” of personnel and other resources has been sent to Dallas to help discover how a nurse was infected with Ebola, top health officials told President Obama during an Oval Office meeting on Monday.
The president stressed that the investigation into the second U.S. infection “should proceed as expeditiously as possible and that lessons learned should be integrated into future response plans and disseminated to hospitals and healthcare workers nationwide.” He said officials should move “as expeditiously as possible,” according to the White House.
Obama was briefed on the Ebola case by Sylvia Mathews Burwell, the secretary of the Health and Human Services Department; Susan Rice, Obama’s national security adviser, and Lisa Monaco, the assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism. Tom Frieden, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, participated via telephone.
From The Hill, but of course:
GOP amplifies calls for Ebola czar
At least six lawmakers, including one Democrat, are now calling for a single Ebola authority to oversee the government’s efforts at home and abroad. The U.S. plan to combat Ebola costs at least $1 billion and crosses multiple layers of government, from the Department of Defense to airport security staff to local health departments.
Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings, who has worked closely with federal officials on the city’s Ebola cases, told reporters last week that the response had been “at best, disorganized.”
The White House maintains that it has a clear chain of command about how to confront Ebola, and it starts with Obama’s top homeland security adviser, Lisa Monaco. But Republicans believe the lack of a prominent point person who can focus solely on Ebola has slowed the nation’s response to the epidemic.
Salon lays some blame:
The right’s scary Ebola lesson: How anti-government mania is harming America
It’s time to admit the truth: People who cut health funding and don’t like government have not helped this crisis
If not for serial budget cuts to the National Institutes of Health, we would probably have an Ebola vaccine and we would certainly have better treatment, NIH director Dr. Francis Collins tells the Huffington Post’s Sam Stein. This comes on the heels of reporting that the Centers for Disease Control’s prevention budget has been cut by half since 2006, and new revelations about how botched protocols at the Dallas hospital that turned away Thomas Eric Duncan and then failed to treat him effectively also led to the infection of one of Duncan’s caregivers.
Yet most of the media coverage of the politics of Ebola to date has centered on whether President Obama has adequately and/or honestly dealt with the disease. “I remain concerned that we don’t see sufficient seriousness on the part of the federal government about protecting the American public,” Texas Sen. Ted Cruz told reporters. Cruz is probably the wrong guy to talk about seriousness: his government shutdown forced the NIH to delay clinical trials and made the CDC cut back on disease outbreak detection programs this time last year.
I find myself wondering: When, if ever, will the political debate over Ebola center on the way the right-wing libertarian approach to government has made us less safe?
A Dallas patient update from Sky News:
Ebola Infected Dallas Nurse Nina Pham ‘Stable’
Barack Obama urges health officials to quickly investigate how Dallas nurse Nina Pham became infected despite precautions
An American nurse who contracted ebola while treating a dying patient is in “clinically stable” condition, US health officials have said.
The healthcare worker, identified as 26-year-old Nina Pham, has been in isolation at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas since Friday.
Ms Pham was one of several caregivers who treated Thomas Eric Duncan, a Liberian national who succumbed to ebola on 8 October.
The White House said that the president wants an update on steps under way to ensure the national health system is prepared to deal with the disease, which has killed more than 4,000 people in West Africa.
A video report from Reuters:
CDC: Infected nurse “clinically stable,” others possibly at risk
Program note:
Dr. Thomas Frieden says CDC doesn’t know how nurse became infected with Ebola, and says staff are assessing care protocols, and materials used for protective suits and equipment.
Reconsideration from the New York Times:
C.D.C. Reviewing Procedures After New Case of Ebola in Dallas
Health authorities have expanded the number of health care workers who were part of a group that may have had contact with Mr. Duncan to at least 50 people, which doubles the number of those being monitored to more than 100.
The action comes as questions were being raised about why the hospital workers who had been caring for Mr. Duncan from Sept. 28 until his death last Wednesday had not been on the initial list.
Officials had previously never made it clear that the 48 people being evaluated did not include those treating him after his admission to the hospital.
On Monday, health authorities said they were conducting interviews with employees at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital to try to determine who might have come into contact with Mr. Duncan and were monitoring their health to ensure that they had not contracted the virus.
Unlike Spain, where the dog of a nurse who contracted from a patient was put down, via Reuters:
Dog of Ebola-infected Dallas nurse to be cared for, officials say
The dog of the Dallas nurse who contracted Ebola when treating a patient infected with the virus is still in the woman’s apartment and will be kept safe while its owner is in isolation at a local hospital, officials said on Monday.
The 1-year-old King Charles Spaniel will be moved to an undisclosed location where its health can be checked, Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins’ office said in a statement.
“We are working to remove the dog from the apartment this afternoon,” the office said. Jenkins, the chief executive for Dallas County, is working to share photos of the patient’s dog with her family, it added.
American network talking head goes AWOL, gets whole crew confined, via News Corp Australia:
NBC News crew under quarantine after correspondent Dr Nancy Snyderman snuck out for soup
AN NBC News crew was ordered under mandatory quarantine for possible Ebola infection after the network’s chief medical correspondent was allegedly spotted on a food run to a New Jersey restaurant, according to a report.
Dr. Nancy Snyderman and her crew had agreed to a voluntary quarantine when they returned to the United States from West Africa last week following their exposure to a cameraman who contracted the deadly virus, The New York Post reports.
But Snyderman, who lives in Princeton, New Jersey, was spotted outside the Peasant Grill in nearby Hopewell on Thursday afternoon, according to Planet Princeton.
A screening update from The Hill:
CDC: 91 passengers at JFK airport flagged for Ebola screenings
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Tom Frieden said Monday that 91 passengers had been flagged for additional Ebola screening at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport.
“Ninety-one such individuals were identified, none of them had fever,” Frieden said during a press briefing. “Five of them were referred for additional evaluation for CDC. None were deemed to have exposure to Ebola.”
Kennedy airport is one of five in the U.S. where passengers arriving from West African countries battling the deadly disease receive extra checks for symptoms. The Obama administration has also implemented the additional screenings at Newark Liberty, Washington Dulles, O’Hare in Chicago and Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport.
From RT, vaccine hopes:
70-90% efficiency: Russia to send Ebola vaccine to W. Africa in 2 months
In two months, Russia is planning to send a new experimental vaccine against Ebola to Africa, according to the country’s health minister. The efficiency of the drug, which is to be tested on the ground, is about 70-90 percent.
“Today we are discussing that we will have enough of Triazoverin vaccine in two months so that we can send them to our personnel in Guinea and test its efficiency in clinical conditions,” Health Minister Veronika Skvortsova said.
The vaccine has so far proved efficient against various hemorrhagic fevers, including the Marburg virus which is very similar to Ebola. “The efficiency ranges between 70 and 90 percent and this is a very good indicator,” Skvortsova said.
Russia’ Virology Institute is preparing a whole group of drugs.”They are basically genetically engineered drugs which can work both for disease treatment and prevention,” Skvortsova said.
Another vaccine, via the Guardian:
Canadian-made Ebola vaccine begins human trials in US
Experimental vaccine has shown to be ‘100% effective’ in preventing spread of Ebola when tested on animals
An experimental Canadian-made Ebola vaccine that has shown promise in tests on primates is beginning clinical trials on humans in the US.
The vaccine will be tested on healthy individuals Monday to see how well it works, whether there are side effects and what the proper dosage is, Health Minister Rona Ambrose said.
“The Canadian vaccine provides great hope and promise because it has shown to be 100% effective in preventing the spread of the Ebola virus when tested on animals,” she said.
From the Guardian again, a defense:
Spain defends Ebola repatriations
We did what we had to do, says foreign minister, despite nurse becoming first person to contract virus outside of west Africa
Spain’s foreign affairs minister has defended the government’s decision to repatriate two Spanish nationals with Ebola, despite a nurse who treated them becoming the first person to contract the virus outside of west Africa.
“The government did what it had to do,” José Manuel García-Margallo told El País newspaper. “The duty of a state is to protect its citizens – and even more so when they are in difficult circumstances far from Spain. All the developed countries who have had this problem have done the same.”
The two missionaries, Miguel Pajares, 75, and Manuel García Viejo, 69, died in August and September, days after being evacuated to Madrid for treatment. Spanish nurse Teresa Romero Ramos tested positive for the Ebola virus shortly after. She remains in a stable but serious condition.
An Aussie nurse returns to Africa after a false alarm, via the Guardian:
Cairns nurse in Ebola scare urges volunteers to fight virus in West Africa
Sue Ellen Kovack says medical professionals thinking of travelling to West Africa to help in public health crisis should not be deterred
The nurse at the centre of the Australian Ebola scare has urged other health professionals to travel to West Africa to help fight the virus.
Sue Ellen Kovack, 57, was released from Cairns hospital on Monday after returning a second negative result for the virus. Kovack returned from treating Ebola patients in Sierra Leone last Tuesday and was taken to hospital on Thursday after developing a low-grade fever, sparking fears she could have brought the virus to Australia.
In her first public statement since being admitted to hospital Kovack urged Australians to donate to the Red Cross to send more help to West Africa.
“It has been so inspiring and it has really kept me going in the past few days to know there’s growing public support for action to help people affected by Ebola in West Africa,” she said.
The British numbers, via the Independent:
Jeremy Hunt: UK Ebola victims won’t exceed ‘a handful’
The Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt defended Britain’s response to the Ebola crisis which was described by the head of the World Health Organisation (WHO) as the biggest danger posed by a disease in modern times.
Unveiling new measures designed to halt the spread of the deadly virus from arriving in the UK and to identify those in the early stages of infection, Mr Hunt told MPs that he did not expect the number of victims to exceed a “handful of cases” – fewer than 10.
He was challenged by Labour to describe the “worst-case scenario” and sought to reassure the public that the risk posed by the disease was low. However he said it was possible that the number of infections could rise and the situation was likely to get worse before it improves.
Screens up, via BBC News:
Heathrow Ebola screening from Tuesday
Ebola screening will begin at London’s Heathrow Airport on Tuesday, Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt says.
Passengers from at-risk countries will have their temperature taken, complete a risk questionnaire and have contact details recorded.
Mr Hunt said screening at Gatwick and Eurostar terminals would start in the coming week.
The Chief Medical Officer says the risk to the UK is low, but expects a “handful” of cases.
Aerial Ebolaphobia, via the Guardian:
Ebola: UK cancels resumption of direct flights to Sierra Leone
Department of Transport cites deteriorating public health for revoking Gambia Bird’s licence to fly to Ebola-hit country
The first direct flights to resume from the UK to Sierra Leone have been cancelled after the British government revoked Gambia Bird’s recently granted permit because of fears over Ebola.
The Department of Transport cited the deteriorating public health situation for the revocation when it notified the German-owned airline on Friday evening.
The airline said it would appeal against the decision, especially as its licence was only granted on 26 September.
Spanish reassurance from El País:
Ebola outbreak is under control, says government spokesman
Scientific committee confirms that only nursing assistant can now transmit virus in Spain
“The patient is still in a very serious condition.” That was the latest news from the authorities on the health of Teresa Romero, the Spanish nursing assistant who was diagnosed with Ebola last week and has been receiving treatment in Carlos III Hospital in Madrid ever since.
The person delivering the message was Fernando Rodríguez Artalejo, a member of the scientific committee put in place by the government late last week, during a press conference at midday on Monday at La Moncloa prime ministerial palace.
Rodríguez went on to confirm that none of the people with whom Romero had come into contact, and who have been voluntarily put into isolation at Carlos III for monitoring, are showing any symptoms of the virus.
“Right now there is no other person in Spain who is capable of transmitting the virus other than the patient,” he said in reference to Romero, who contracted Ebola while caring for a Spanish missionary who had been repatriated from west Africa after becoming infected. “We are in a situation of total calm,” Rodríguez added.
TheLocal.es gives the date:
‘Spain Ebola-free in two weeks if no new cases’
Spain will be free from the threat of further contagion from Ebola on October 27th if all those who had close contact with an infected nurse remain without symptoms by then, a hospital director said on Monday.
Concerns that Ebola could spread in Spain have been high since the nurse, Teresa Romero, on October 6th became the first person diagnosed as having caught the deadly haemorrhagic fever outside of Africa.
A Czech Ebola alarm from RT:
Suspected Ebola carrier wrapped in plastic after Czech police seal off rail station
Czech police and hazmat suit-wearing doctors have seized a traveler from Ghana at Prague’s main railway station. The man, suspected of suffering from the Ebola virus, was wrapped in black plastic by the authorities and taken away.
The police dispatched some 15 officers from the capital’s rapid response squad to cordon off the station’s lobby, iDNES.cz news website reported. The operation didn’t interrupt the normal operation of the railway station, but probably scared passengers who were in the vicinity.
Footage from the scene showed a man wearing biohazard suit pushing a luggage cart with a person sitting on it almost completely covered by black plastic.
The target of the police operation was a student from Ghana, who arrived in Prague earlier Saturday evening. He managed to get through medical screening at the airport and was caught later at the railway station.
Here’s the raw footage, via Media News:
After the jump, on to Africa with a bankster’s alarm and a regional economic alert, on to Sierra Leone and football affected, Liberia next, with journalistic accusations, a strike averted — or was it?, an account from one facility, a protest over dismissals, clinic expansions, a new outbreak reported, an innovative clinic covered, justices pledge salaries to the Ebola fight, And a warning against healthcare worker abuse, then on to Nigeria and anti-Ebola measures in schools, and an Ebola drugs medical trial, plus high praise in Gambia. . .
From FrontPageAfrica, a bankster’s alarm:
World Bank Chief Calls for New Pandemic Emergency Facility
In the wake of a “late, inadequate and slow” global response to the Ebola outbreak, World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim today called for the creation of a new pandemic emergency facility that would rapidly respond to future outbreaks by delivering money to countries in crisis.
Speaking before the Annual Meetings plenary, a meeting of the governors of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank Group, Kim said he would like to develop the proposals for a financial instrument with the United Nations, the IMF and regional development banks. He said even as the focus should now be intensely on doing everything possible to stop Ebola, planning must also begin for the next pandemic, which “could spread much more quickly, kill even more people and potentially devastate the global economy”.
“The world has an IMF to coordinate and work with central banks and ministries to respond to financial crises,” he said. “When it comes to health emergencies, however, our institutional toolbox is empty: There’s no such center of knowledge and skill for response and coordination.”
A regional economic alarm from the Associated Press:
Ebola deflating hopes for 3 poor African economies
Just as their economies had begun to recover from the man-made horror of coups and civil war, the West African nations of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone have been knocked back down by a terrifying force of nature: the Ebola virus.
In addition to the human toll — more than 4,000 dead so far — the outbreak has paralyzed economic life. Across the Ebola zone, shops are closed, hotels vacant, flights cancelled, fields untended, investments on hold.
In Conakry, capital of Guinea, stray dogs, goats and sheep are plopping down next to empty stalls in street markets devoid of shoppers.
About the only things people want to buy are products meant to guard against Ebola — antiseptic gels and devices that attach to faucets and add chlorine to the water.
On to Sierra Leone and football affected from the New York Times:
Sierra Leone’s Soccer Team Struggles With Stigma Over Ebola Outbreak
Fans taunt them with chants of “Ebola.” Some opponents have hesitated to shake their hands or engage in the traditional swapping of jerseys. Humiliating medical screenings have become routine.
And in Cameroon, when the players on Sierra Leone’s exiled national soccer team checked into their hotel to prepare for an important match Saturday, some guests grew alarmed, and the police were called, a team spokesman said.
The Leone Stars then moved to a newly built hotel where they remain the only occupants, on the advice of Cameroon soccer and health officials.
“You feel humiliated, like garbage, and you want to punch someone,” John Trye, a reserve goalkeeper, said after hearing “Ebola” shouted at the players during a training session Thursday. “No one wants to have Ebola in their country. Sierra Leone is struggling. And they shove it in our face. That’s not fair.”
Liberia next, with journalistic accusations from Voice of America:
Liberian Media Accuse Government of Restricting Ebola Coverage
As Liberia tries to end a monthslong Ebola crisis, local and international media rights groups report an intensifying crackdown on journalists in the country.
But some of those journalists say this is only a continuation of Liberia’s bad record on press freedom, which taints the West’s positive image of President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who was Africa’s first elected female head of state and the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011.
Seven months into the worst Ebola outbreak on record, several media rights groups accuse the Liberian government of preventing journalists from reporting the magnitude of the crisis.
A strike averted from the Associated Press:
Liberia avoids mass hospital strike amid Ebola
Health workers reported for duty at Liberia’s hospitals on Monday, largely defying calls for a strike that could have further hampered the country’s ability to respond to the worst Ebola outbreak in history.
Nurses and other health workers — though not doctors — had threatened to strike if they did not receive the higher hazard pay they had been promised by the government. That would have made the already difficult care of Ebola patients even harder, since the bulk of the staff at clinics and hospitals is made of up of Liberia’s nurses, physician assistants and community health workers.
Underscoring how overwhelmed the health system is, one patient in Liberia’s capital complained Monday about a lack of food and water.
“Since this morning we have not eaten any food, there is no water, no medicine. We are dying,” Junior Flomo, a patient at John F. Kennedy Memorial Medical Center in Monrovia, told The Associated Press by phone.
Or was it? From StarAfrica:
Liberian health minister confirms nationwide strike by medics
Liberia’s health minister Dr. Walter Gwenigale Monday confirmed a nationwide strike by health workers.
The health workers last week issued an ultimatum to the health ministry to pay them their hazard benefits and reinstate officials of the Health Workers’ Association who were dismissed last February for calling for a strike action that paralyzed the country’s health system, or they will go on strike.
Addressing the regular information ministry press release Dr. Gwenigale promised the health workers that their just benefits would be paid, but ruled out any possibility of reinstating the two officials.
The health minister has at the same time threatened to dismiss health workers who refuse to return to work. “Those health workers who are insisting that their officials will have to be reinstated before they return to work should prepare to stay at home forever,” Gwenigale insisted.
An account from one facility, via the Monrovia Inquirer:
What Happens To Ebola Center At JFK…Health Workers Demand Pay; But Gov’t Strikes A Deal With Them
News of the John F. Kennedy ETU being closed met up with serious reaction when several patients who were taken there were refused by nurses who were demanding better working condition from the Government of Liberia, leaving one person dead and another patient abandoned by the strike action.
One of the nurses, (name withheld) who spoke to the INQUIRER complained that they have been working under very deplorable condition which they have since complained to the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, but with no redress.
“We believed, going on strike is the right decision to claim the attention of relevant authorities,” the nurse stated.
A protest over dismissals from the Analyst:
FIND Boss Lambasts IMC
The Executive Director of the Foundation for International Dignity (FIND) Roosevelt Woods has condemned the decision of the International Medical Corps to dismiss Martha Morris from the Bong County Ebola Treatment Unit.
The group’s decision against the Bong County Health Workers President came as a result of a recent go-slow action by nurses and support staff at the center over salary incentives owed them by the organization.
The workers told The Analyst that clothing to protect them was inadequate and there was only one broken stretcher to carry both patients and corpses, increasing the risk of infection. The aggrieved health workers claimed that the International Medical Corps (IMC) – the group managing the ETU – has refused to pay their arrears in the tone of US$ 560 as per their contracts signed.
Another account from the Sun:
Ebola: Some Liberian health workers defy strike call
Some health workers in Liberia have turned up for work, defying calls for a strike amid the Ebola outbreak, a BBC reporter says.
However, the picture is still unclear, as there are also reports of workers heeding the strike call, the BBC’s Jonathan Paye-Layleh in Liberia says.
The National Health Workers Association wants an increase in the monthly risk fee paid to those treating Ebola cases.
In Liberia, 95 health workers have so far died from Ebola, and the National Health Workers Association has accused the government of not doing enough to protect them.
From the Monrovia New Republic, clinic expansions:
Gov’t To Build 16 More ETUs Nationwide
Government has disclosed plans to construct sixteen new Ebola Treatment Units (ETUs) to increase the total number of ETU beds to over 2,000 across the country.
Making remarks on behalf of the government at the formal opening of the October Term of the Supreme Court of Liberia Monday, acting Justice Minister and Attorney-General of Liberia, Cllr. Benedict F. Sannoh, said a new Community Care Center (CCC) is being developed to cater for patients who may not yet be showing symptoms of Ebola.
He said patients who are suspected of contracting the Ebola disease can also be isolated and given care at the Center, while waiting to be transferred to an ETU, if necessary.
The provision of psycho-social support to individuals, families and communities affected by the Ebola virus and to frontline workers, Cllr. Sannoh said, is ongoing with every ETU having at least one mental health professional and two social workers.
A new outbreak reported, via the New Dawn:
Ebola saga hits Cinta Township
Cinta Township Commissioner in Margibi County has reacted to allegations in the township that he failed to act promptly in making beneficial decision in a suspected Ebola case currently creating panic among citizens of the township.
Commissioner William Julye said he is not a health practitioner that people should expect to examine sick people. He made the statement on October 6, 2014 via mobile phone in interview with a local radio station in the area.
It can be recalled that many residents of Cinta recently claimed that Commissioner Julye was paying deaf ears to concerns over an Ebola suspected situation around the German Camp Junction.
The residents disclosed that there are about four people, who are seriously ill in the township and they need to be taken to the Ebola holding center for proper attention and to also save the lives of other people who are residing in the area.
An innovative clinic covered by the Inquirer:
More Empty Beds At Bong County ETU
As health workers at Ebola Treatment Unit (ETU) in Monrovia complain about the unit being full and no bed available to accept patients that are showing symptoms of the Ebola virus, the Ebola Treatment Unit in Suakoko, Bong County have 70 beds and there are always beds available because once you are tested and you are negative; you will be treated quickly and released to avoid the patient coming in contact with the Ebola virus.
At the ETU that was built by Save the Children and funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), both international and local journalists observed on Tuesday that the ETU is at an isolated area where one has to drive fifteen minutes from the main road before he/she could arrive there.
The ETU is being run by International Medical Corps, a non- governmental organization and the team’s director for Liberia Ebola Emergency Response, Sean Casey stressed that test results to come in after 3 or 5 days now takes 3 to 4 hours and patients are informed if they are positive or negative.
Justices pledge salaries to the Ebola fight, via the New Republic:
Supreme Court Justices Pledge One Month Salary to Ebola Trust Fund
Justices of the Supreme Court have resolved to contribute 25 percent of their monthly salaries and allowances to the Ebola National Trust Fund for four months.
Disclosing this at the formal opening of the October Term of Court of the Supreme Court on Monday, Chief Justice Francis Saye Korkpor said this was the Court’s way of identifying with the government in the fight to eradicate the Ebola disease from the country.
Justice Korkpor also said the Supreme Court Bench has conferred with Judges of lower Courts, as well as senior and support staff of the Judiciary to make similar contributions, noting that theirs will be half of their monthly salaries and allowances over the same period.
Justice Korkpor believes such contribution should be made by all Liberians, including members of the Legislative branch of government, civil servants, private and public corporations as well as self-employed citizens with the exception of doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers who are considered foot-soldiers in the fight against Ebola.
And a warning against healthcare worker abuse from StarAfrica:
Liberia: MSF official warns against stigmatization of health workers
The Mental Health Activities Manager of Medicines Sans Frontier (MSF) at the ELWA III Ebola Treatment Unit (ETU) in the Liberian capital, Althena Viscusi, has warned against the “stigmatization” of ETU staff by community dwellers.
She said local staffs working with the ETU are being stigmatized by their community members because they have volunteered their services to the center to save lives.
“When our staff go to their own communities, people run away from them and even call them Ebola carriers and restrict they and their families from getting around them, this is very disturbing because it has the propensity to stop people from working at the various Ebola Treatment Units,” Madam Viscusi, pointed out.
On to Nigeria and anti-Ebola measures in schools via Punch Nigeria:
Ebola: Sokoto earmarks N200m
Sokoto State Government on Monday said it has set aside N200m to purchase thermo-scanners, sanitisers and other items for the prevention of Ebola.
State Commissioner of Education, Alhaji Yusuf Danchadi, told the News Agency of Nigeria in Sokoto that the preventive measures were being put in place to ensure a safe learning environment in schools.
NAN reports that public primary and post-primary schools reopened on Monday for the new academic session.
And an Ebola drugs medical trial from Punch Nigeria:
Research centers shop for Ebola trial coordinators
International organisations, partnering on the development of potential Ebola drugs, have called for experienced trial coordinators.
The Ebola Virus Disease is presently ravaging Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea with a death toll of more than 4,000 people.
The clinical trial, expected to commence in a few weeks, is being coordinated by the University of Oxford in partnership with international donor agencies.
And we conclude with high praise from AllAfrica:
Gambia: Waho Boss Extols Gambia’s High Political Commitment Towards Ebola
The director general of the West Africa Health Organisation (WAHO), has extolled The Gambia government’s high political will towards the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, which has so far claimed the lives of more than 3000 people in Guinea Conakry, Liberia, and Sierra Leone.
Dr. Crespin Xavier was speaking on Thursday afternoon during a courtesy call on the vice-president and Minister of Women’s Affairs, Her Excellency Dr. Aja Isatou Njie-Saidy, at State House in Banjul.
Dr. Crespin Xavier, who was making his first official visit to the Smiling Coast, also used the opportunity to thank the vice-president, the president and government of The Gambia for receiving him in this great country, where there has not been any reported Ebola case so far.
