We begin with a brief video report from CCTV America:
More than 8,000 Ebola cases counted, half have died
Program notes:
The number of people infected with the Ebola virus has now risen above 8,000 according to the latest figures from the World Health Organization (WHO). Nearly half of those people have died. CCTV America’s Nathan King reports.
Al Jazeera English covers fears of spread:
WHO says East Asia at risk of Ebola
Warning comes as the Philippines considers a request to send health workers to Ebola-hit West African countries
East Asia, with its trade and transport hubs and armies of migrant workers, is at risk from Ebola but is improving its defences and may be more ready than other areas to respond if cases are diagnosed, the World Health Organization (WHO) has said.
Shin Young-soo, the WHO regional director for the Western Pacific, said on Friday East Asia had been a “hotspot” for emerging diseases in the past and had dealt with severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and avian flu, so it was more prepared than other regions to respond after learning the importance of public education, strong surveillance and transparency.
Shin said member countries were putting up strong infrastructure preparedness for Ebola and each had an emergency operating centre linked to the regional office in Manila and the WHO headquarters in Geneva
“All these travel, economic trade, and we have global hubs like Singapore, Hong Kong, and the Philippines is sending a lot of work forces all over the world,” make it a possibility for the virus to reach East Asia, Shin said. But “we are in a better shape than other regions,” he added.
Form the Mainichi, a troubling statistic:
UN envoy: Ebola cases doubling every 3-4 weeks
The number of Ebola cases is probably doubling every three-to-four weeks and without a mass global mobilization “the world will have to live with the Ebola virus forever,” the U.N. special envoy on the disease said Friday.
David Nabarro told the U.N. General Assembly that the response needs to be 20 times greater.
U.N. Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson said catching up with “the menacing exponential curve of the virus” demands a massive scale-up of financial resources, medical staff and equipment. He lamented that only one-quarter of the $1 billion that U.N. agencies have appealed for to tackle Ebola has been funded.
“I now appeal to all member states to act generously and swiftly,” Eliasson told diplomats from most of the 193 U.N. member states. “Speed is of the essence. A contribution within days is more important than a larger contribution within weeks.”
The United Nations Mission for Ebola Emergency Response issues a warning [PDF]:
UN Ebola official: ‘No country is safe’
The UN officials leading the anti-Ebola effort in West Africa appealed Friday to the international community to move quickly to provide more resources to battle the deadly outbreak.
“The world must now act to help the people and governments of Liberia, Sierra
Leone and Guinea and, by helping them, to help the rest of the world,” said Anthony Banbury, Special Representative and Head of the United Nations Mission for Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER), in a briefing to the General Assembly in New York.
“Everyone must play their part.” UNMEER cannot do it alone, said Banbury, who called for a broad global coalition to work together to halt the spread of the disease. “A failure to act now that we have the chance could lead to unpredictable but very dire consequences” not only for the three countries most affected now, but for the rest of the world, he said.
“No country is safe.”
More from Reuters:
Fears grow in United States over Ebola’s spread outside West Africa
Fears are growing in the United States about Ebola with about 200 airline cabin cleaners walking off the job in New York and some lawmakers demanding the government ban travelers from the West African countries hit hardest by the virus.
“The nation is frightened, and people are frightened of this disease,” the U.S. cabinet secretary for health, Sylvia Burwell, said on Thursday, a day after the death in Texas of the first person to be diagnosed with Ebola in the United States.
U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Burwell told a news conference that people were frightened because Ebola “has a very high mortality rate. They’re frightened because they need to learn and understand what the facts are about that disease.”
The New York Times covers a false alarm in Sin City:
Las Vegas Sounds False Alarm as Global Ebola Fears Spread
A commercial plane was briefly quarantined on a Las Vegas airport tarmac on Friday, sending airline shares down as worldwide fears increased that Ebola could spread outside West Africa, where it has killed more than 4,000 people.
Airline and hospital officials said a Delta Air Lines plane was held at McCarran International Airport, but it turned out to be a false alarm and an all-clear was issued. A Delta spokesman said the concerns arose after a passenger on the flight from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport reported feeling unwell.
It was the second reported Ebola scare involving an aircraft this week. On Wednesday, a passenger on board a U.S. Airways flight from Philadelphia said he had Ebola.
Officials in the Dominican Republic investigated and cleared the aircraft, the airline said. Video from a passenger showed officials in blue-colored protective suits boarding the plane after landing and escorting a man off.
From Reuters, screening begins:
U.S. begins enhanced Ebola screening program at New York’s JFK airport
Stepped up efforts by the U.S. to halt the spread of the Ebola virus will start at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport on Saturday, where teams armed with thermal guns and questionnaires will screen travelers from West African countries hit hardest by the outbreak.
JFK Airport is the first of five U.S. airports to start enhanced screening of U.S.-bound travelers from Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, where most of the outbreak’s more than 4,000 deaths have occurred.
Nearly all of those traveling to the United States from those countries arrive at JFK, Newark Liberty, Washington Dulles, Chicago O’Hare and Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta. The new procedures will begin at the other four airports next week.
From Associated Press, enforcing isolation:
New Jersey enforces isolation order for NBC crew
New Jersey officials have issued a mandatory quarantine order for members of an NBC crew that was exposed to a cameraman with Ebola after they say a voluntary 21-day isolation agreement was violated.
The order went into effect Friday night.
Officials with the state Health Department told The Associated Press the crew remains symptom-free and there is no reason for concern of exposure to the deadly virus to the community.
The NBC crew included medical correspondent Nancy Snyderman, who lives in New Jersey. She was working with Ashoka Mukpo, a cameraman who was infected with the disease in West Africa. Mukpo is being treated in Omaha, Nebraska.
But there’s always that corporate silver lining, as in this video report from Bloomberg News:
Ebola Virus Scare Pushes Hazmat-Suit Maker to Record
Program notes:
Bloomberg’s Pimm Fox examines how the Ebola virus scare is benefitting Lakeland Industries, pushing shares to record highs for the manufacturer of hazmat suits. He speaks on “Market Makers.”
Another false alarm, via the New York Times:
Assurances Are Given and a Deputy Goes Home, but Ebola Fears Persist
DALLAS — So far, there is no evidence the Ebola virus has spread in this vast metropolitan area of 6.5 million people. But fear has.
Officials on Thursday announced that a local sheriff’s deputy examined for possible infection with the virus had tested negative and was sent home from the hospital.
None of the other 48 people who officials say had contact with Thomas Eric Duncan, the Liberian man who died of Ebola at a hospital here Wednesday, have showed symptoms of infection. Because no one has been exposed in 11 days, officials say, the likelihood of a new case is diminishing.
But live images on local television of an ambulance racing the deputy to the hospital on Wednesday were enough to convince many here that Ebola was more dangerous than officials were letting on.
From the Associated Press, troubling revelations:
Ebola patient’s temperature spiked to 103 degrees
Thomas Eric Duncan’s temperature spiked to 103 degrees during the hours of his initial visit to an emergency room — a fever that was flagged with an exclamation point in the hospital’s record-keeping system, his medical records show.
Despite telling a nurse that he had recently been in Africa and displaying other symptoms that could indicate Ebola, the Liberian man who would become the only person to die from the disease in the U.S. underwent a battery of tests and was eventually sent home.
Duncan’s family provided his medical records to The Associated Press — more than 1,400 pages in all. They encompass his time in the ER, his urgent return to the hospital two days later and his steep decline as his organs began to fail.
In a statement issued Friday, Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital said it had made procedural changes and continues to “review and evaluate” the decisions surrounding Duncan’s care.
More from the Guardian:
Texas Ebola cases expose troubling contrasts and spark fears of race divide
The faltering response to a Liberian’s Ebola diagnosis in Texas contrasted starkly to the mobilization after the mere suspicion of the disease in a local law enforcement officer. Some wonder whether it was no coincidence
The 5,000- to 10,000-strong Liberian community in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex has noted shortcomings in the way Duncan’s case was handled. Official accounts suggest he first developed symptoms on 24 September and went to nearby Texas Health Presbyterian hospital two days later, where staff failed to take his travel history into account and sent him away with antibiotics. By 28 September he was so ill that an ambulance was called to take him back.
Without making any specific judgment on Duncan’s case, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) director Tom Frieden said at a media briefing on Wednesday that “the earlier someone is diagnosed, the more likely they will be able to survive.”
Three other patients hospitalised in the US after contracting Ebola in west Africa, including one man from Fort Worth, received experimental treatments and survived. On Tuesday, Dallas County commissioner John Wiley Price, who is black, told a court meeting that “if a person who looks like me shows up without any insurance, they don’t get the same treatment … It’s historically what has happened in this community.”
And another false alarm, ending behind an arrest, via the Associated Press:
Ga. prisoner accused of lying about possible Ebola
Prosecutors have accused a prisoner in Georgia of lying about potentially getting Ebola while traveling in Africa, a claim that triggered an emergency response at an Atlanta area jail and hospital.
Harry Randall Withers was indicted Thursday on three counts of making false statements. He was being held without bond Friday at a jail north of Atlanta.
After his arrest for drunken driving, Withers allegedly told officials that he left the United States on Sept. 10 to see a friend in Kenya. Officials said Withers claimed that he had traveled through Nigeria, Liberia and Belgium during his trip.
Authorities said a check of Withers’ passport showed he had not left the United States since 2005.
Hints that “Britain’s first case” may not be, via Reuters:
Alcohol, not Ebola, possible cause of Briton’s death in Macedonia
Doctors in Macedonia have “serious indications” that alcohol, not Ebola, may have killed a British man visiting the Balkan country, a senior health official said on Friday.
The official, who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity, said doctors who initially treated the man suspected haemorrhagic fever, given his symptoms of fever, vomiting and internal bleeding.
“The minute they (doctors) suspected that, they alerted supervisors, who isolated the body,” preventing doctors from carrying out an autopsy, the source said.
Now, he said: “We have serious indications from several places that he consumed large amounts of alcohol, so the theory that this might be the cause of death is very much in play.”
On to Spain and what remains for now Europe’s only case contracted in Europe, via El País:
Fear and panic rise among Madrid’s medical and cleaning staff
Nurses are resigning over what they claim are inadequate protection measures
Staff are also feeling the effects of the Ebola crisis in their personal lives
The cleaning staff at Carlos III Hospital in Madrid say they were not scared about contracting Ebola until Teresa Romero, the nursing assistant who they would see on a daily basis, caught the virus. The same goes for the nurses in the center, who took care of the two Spanish missionaries with Ebola who were brought back from West Africa for treatment at Carlos III, but died soon after.
The staff explain that the “respect” they had for the virus has turned to “fear.” And that fear has spread further than the hospital, which is Spain’s “Ground Zero” for Ebola – it is also to be found in Alcorcón Hospital, where cleaning staff refused to clean up the area in the emergency room where the nursing assistant, Teresa Romero, was treated for nearly the whole of Monday, before she was diagnosed with Ebola and transferred to Carlos III.
There is fear on the streets of Alcorcón too, where some residents are wearing facemasks to protect themselves from the risk of infection, as well as in healthcare centers throughout the region, which have been sent protective suits for staff. These suits, however, are the same ones used during the 2009 swine flu pandemic, and only two units have been sent to each center, where as many as 60 people can work.
One manifestation from Sky News:
Ebola Hospital Staff Throw Gloves At Spain PM
Questions are raised about safety measures at a Madrid hospital where a nurse with ebola is in a serious but stable condition
Angry staff have been filmed throwing medical gloves and shouting “go away” at the Spanish prime minister after his visit to a hospital where a nurse has ebola.
Teresa Romero, 44, caught the deadly disease while treating a missionary there. He had flown to Madrid after becoming infected in West Africa and later died.
Questions have been raised about safety measures at Carlos III hospital where Mrs Romero is in a stable but serious condition.
And a video report from euronews:
Amid anger, Spanish PM visits hospital where nurse became infected with Ebola
Program note:
Amid growing questions about how a nurse was able to be infected with the Ebola virus while treating patients in Madrid, the country’s prime minister has visited the hospital where it happened.
Mariano Rajoy is under pressure over the case of Teresa Romero who is now in a critical condition. Her dog has been put down and her husband is one of those hospitalised.
The prime minister spoke to the media after his visit but did not take any questions.
El País covers a political response:
Five days after Ebola case confirmed, Deputy PM takes control of crisis
Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría replaces Health Minister at helm of government response
Deputy Prime Minister Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría on Friday took control of the government’s management of the Ebola crisis, which began on Monday when a nursing assistant was confirmed to have contracted the virus while caring for an infected Spanish missionary.
Five days after the news of Teresa Romero’s condition was made public, and with Health Minister Ana Mato yet to give any explanations regarding the chain of errors that have characterised the crisis, the government appeared to be taking control of the situation on Friday, announcing that it would be creating a committee of scientific experts on the virus.
Sáenz de Santamaría will take charge of the crisis committee that will be formed by representatives from the ministries of Defense, Interior, Presidency, Economy and Justice. What’s more, it will be made up of a representative from the Madrid regional health department, the president of the Scientific Committee for Ebola and a representative from Carlos III Hospital, where confirmed patients and suspected cases are being treated. The committee will meet at least once a day and a number of its members will be dedicated exclusively to the crisis.
From the Guardian, pondering precautions:
Ebola: European food safety experts to assess risk of bushmeat to EU countries
Scientists said risks were low in April but persistent claims that illegally smuggled meat evades controls prompt fresh evaluation
European food safety experts have been asked to assess the risk of Ebola being spread in EU member states through eating contaminated bushmeat.
The assessment is expected by the end of the month. In April, scientists said the risks were very low but also admitted high uncertainty about their estimate.
There is extremely little data about just how much bushmeat, often from primates but also other wildlife hunted in Africa, is illegally imported into the EU or how it is treated, handled and cooked.
And TheLocal.fr covers another false alarm:
American tests negative for Ebola in Paris
Testing has revealed an American woman being treated at a Paris hospital is not, as was feared, infected with the Ebola virus. It’s the second false alarm in as many days in France.
Just a day after fears a case of Ebola had been detected near Paris proved to be a false alarm, testing revealed a second suspected case was in fact not the deadly disease, French Health Minister Marisol Toraine said.
According to French media reports the American patient had been under observation because doctors considered her to be potentially infected and she was placed in an sterilized isolation room as a precaution while awaiting the results.
While Punch Nigeria reports on a Latin American concern:
Brazil records first Ebola suspect, quarantines Guinean
Brazil says it has identified a suspected Ebola case who arrived in the country on Thursday.
The patient, Souleymane Bah from Guinea, presented himself after coming down with a fever at a public health centre in the town of Cascavel in the southern state of Parana.
He has been flown to Rio de Janeiro to the National Institute of Infectology. Doctors say he no longer has a fever and blood test results are expected on Saturday.
Health Minister Arthur Chioro said the situation was under control and “all health protocols and procedures were applied efficiently and with great success.”
From the Guardian, so much for the intrepid Aussies:
Australia believes it’s still too risky to send health workers to Ebola zones
Julie Bishop will not let the workers go to west Africa until treatment and evacuation plans are in place
Australia will not send health workers to Ebola outbreak zones until their welfare can be guaranteed.
Despite talks with European nations, the UK and the US, Australia has been unable to shore up a treatment or evacuation plan for its personnel should they be sent to west Africa, the minister for foreign affairs, Julie Bishop, says.
“I do not have in place a guarantee that should an Australian health worker – sent there by the Australian government – contract Ebola, they would be able to be transported or treated in a hospital either in the region or in Europe,” she told reporters in Launceston on Saturday.
“And until I have that in place we will not be sending Australian health workers.”
From Sky News, not the way to leave ‘em laughing:
Ebola ‘Joke’ Sees Hazmat Crew Board Plane
A coughing man shouts that he recently visited Africa as his flight lands in the Dominican Republic, reports say
Officials in protective suits boarded a US aircraft after a passenger reportedly joked about suffering from ebola.
The US Airways Flight 845 from Philadelphia to the Dominican Republic remained on the tarmac for over an hour after landing as the hazmat crew in blue suits filed past passengers.
The airline said in a statement that the flight “was met yesterday by local officials upon landing due to a possible health issue on board”.
According to Fox News Latino, a passenger screamed “I’ve been to Africa!” just before the flight landed in Punta Cana. Initial reports in the Dominican press and on social media suggested the passenger had shouted: “I have ebola!”
After the jump, on to Africa and an epidemic of fear, American aid expedited, on to Sierra Leone, first with a spike in cases, saving an Ebola-free district, the deadly job of grave-digging, and a blast at Western media, on to Liberia and a rebuke to a presidential power grab, hospitals overwhelmed, another doctor falls, and a chief justice’s driver quarantined, then on to Nigeria and a reassurance to the tourism trade, vaccine trials in Mali, and wise words from Unganda. . .
The Sun in Lagos, Nigeria, covers another contagion:
“Epidemic of fear” could hurt Africa more than Ebola
An Ebola victim who travelled to the United States and a case of contagion in Europe have triggered a global frenzy to act. While Africa welcomes a real international response at last, there are also fears the reaction may be more damaging than the disease.
No one can minimise the horror of the daily deaths and suffering in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, as the silent but aggressive sickness wipes out families and communities, nor the health risk the virus poses to an interconnected global village.
But Africans at many levels are bristling at an unfocused and lop-sided view of the health emergency they say ignores geography, distorts reality and will set back the real development advances made by a continent in the last decade.
Voice of America covers aid expedited:
US Speeds Up Aid to West Africa in Ebola Crisis
As the Ebola crisis mushrooms in West Africa, the Obama administration is expanding its efforts to help defeat the deadly virus.
American military troops are deploying in Liberia, the country hardest hit by the outbreak. Their mission includes building at least 17 treatment centers with thousands more beds – aimed to provide hope, or at least comfort, for infected people sometimes left to die untended on the street.
Most U.S. activities in the region are less obvious, yet they’re as vital and far-reaching as the emergency food and medical supplies delivered to treatment centers or the radio programing advising remote villagers how to guard against a stealthy killer.
Next, Sierra Leone, first with a spike in cases, via StarAfrica:
S/Leone: High Ebola cases in Freetown concern authorities
A sharp rise in Ebola cases in Sierra Leone’s capital, Freetown, has raised authorities’ concern, an official warned Friday.The western area, which includes Freetown, was reported to have taken over as the place with the highest number of cases. And the capital is reported to be having a huge chunk of the cases.
As of Thursday, cases in the western region had reached 575, according to figures from the Ministry of Health and Sanitation. This compares to 533 and 431 for Kailahun and Kenema in the east of the country, which used to be epicenters and origin of the Sierra Leone outbreak.
The western region is competing with the northern region as the areas fast growing in cases.
From the Washington Post, saving an Ebola-free district:
The fight to save the last Ebola-free district in Sierra Leone
One man’s campaign to keep his home free of Ebola has been a resounding success — and a curiosity to researchers.
Only in Koinadugu does he relax. That’s where his fears of Ebola fade.
John Caulker, executive director of the nonprofit Fambul Tok, travels across Sierra Leone these days tense with worry about contracting the dreaded disease. He worries in the bustling capital of Freetown and in the smallest villages. But not in Koinadugu.
“It’s a sense of relief,” Caulker says, “a sense that here you are going to be okay.”
The last region in Sierra Leone untouched by Ebola sits in the rugged, mountainous north, in a place called the Koinadugu district. It is a poor place, dependent on small farms and gold mines, the largest of the country’s 14 districts by land size and home to 265,000 residents. The district borders Guinea, where the current Ebola outbreak began and first spilled over into Sierra Leone. Koinadugu is surrounded by districts dealing with hundreds of Ebola cases.
But Koinadugu has kept the virus at bay.
From Agence France-Presse, the deadly job of grave-digging:
Grave diggers risk their lives to bury Ebola victims
Program note:
As the Ebola virus continues to ravage west Africa, grave diggers in Sierra Leone risk contamination to bury the dead.
StarAfrica delivers a blast at Western media:
Ebola: S/Leone minister condemns western media reportage
The Deputy Minister of Information in Sierra Leone Friday criticized the “unprofessional” manner in which the western media is covering the Ebola outbreak in his country.Theo Nicol said foreign based reporters were more concerned about bad publicity and in the process deliberately leave out other aspects of the stories.
He said Sierra Leone has a huge number of Ebola survivors but when foreign reporters work, they prefer focusing on the huge death toll from the epidemic.
The minister also criticized suggestions that the government was giving out false figures in terms of the number of cases and deaths linked to the epidemic.
On to Liberia and a rebuke to a presidential power grab via FrontPageAfrica
Legislature Overturns President’s Cancellation of Election
A joint resolution of the Senate and House of Representatives of Liberia’s 53rd Legislature unanimously voted Friday to overturn a Presidential decision to cancel indefinitely, the scheduled midterm Senatorial elections this year.
“Now, therefore, be it resolved, that the 53rd National Legislature through its special session during its extraordinary sitting mandates the National Elections Commission(NEC) to set a date in consultation with stakeholders for the conduct of the 2014 Mid Term Senatorial Elections not later than December 20, 2014. In overturning the presidential mandate, the joint legislature said their action was in keeping with Article 86(a) and (b) of the Liberia Constitution as they resolved that the Mid Term Elections be postponed.
Members of the lower house also voted against the president’s quest for absolute power and suspension of portions of the constitution. The Senate concurred with the lower house on the election issue with a slight modification, adding that the elections should be postponed, but the Elections Commission in consultation with political parties come up with a date that would be approved the body. A vote on the absolute power request was tabled for Monday by the Senate.
From Reuters, hospitals overwhelmed:
Healthcare crippled as Ebola overwhelms hospitals in Liberia
The two women came from opposite ends of Liberian society – one a beauty queen and daughter of a prominent lawmaker, the other an ordinary home maker from a remote northern town.
When they both needed urgent healthcare, however, these differences meant little. Neither had the deadly Ebola infection, but both were turned away from hospitals overrun by an outbreak that has killed more than 3,800 people, 2,200 in Liberia alone.
In the end, it was Comfort Fayiah, the ordinary 27-year-old, who survived, giving birth to twins in the street as passers by did what they could to provide some privacy.
Nikita Forh, 21, died at her father’s plush Monrovia home, unable to secure the treatment she needed to fend off an asthma attack because doctors at the JFK hospital in the capital requested a certificate proving she did not have Ebola.
Another doctor falls, via FrontPageAfrica:
Dr. Dada Falls: Ebola Kills Ugandan-Born Liberian Doctor
A Uganda-born doctor, Dr. John Taban Dada, has become the latest health worker to fall died early Thursday of Ebola at the ELWA II Treatment Center.
Mr. Tolbert Nyenswah, Assistant Minister for Curative and Preventive Services at the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare told FrontPageAfrica Thursday that the gynecologist and surgeon was immediately buried Thursday in accordance with policies requiring quick interment of victims.
Dr. Dada reportedly tended to Rev. Napoleon Braithwaite, a Special Assistant to the Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Bernice Dahn, who died from the deadly virus on September 24, 2014. Dr. Dahn immediately placed herself under a 21-day quarantine.
Dr. Dada’s death brings to four the number of doctors who have died in Liberia since the outbreak. Over ninety health workers, including nurses and physician assistants, have also died.
Striking close to power, from FrontPageAfrica:
Chief Justice Driver Quarantined After Wife Falls to Ebola
Isaac Audrick one of the drivers assigned to Chief Justice Francis S. Kporkor has been quarantined for a period of 21 days after the death of his wife who is reported to have died of illness suspected to be that of the deadly Ebola virus.
News of Isaac’s quarantine first broke out on Wednesday on the ground of the Temple of Justice but kept secret until it was confirmed by the Public Relations Department the high court Thursday morning to reporters seeking clarification on the matter.
Singbe Johnson, the Chief spokesperson for the department told reporters that news that one of the drivers to the Chief Justice has been quarantined for 21-days for observation as a preventive measure to establish whether the driver is in contact or not of the virus was true.
Johnson claimed that Isaac was quarantined because his wife had died from the virus while taking care of her sick mother who she did not observe that she was ill with the sickness that was discovered lately. The Judiciary Spokesperson Johnson said that Isaac was a weekend driver for the Chief Justice who had no interaction with the Chief Justice for the last two weeks when he observed that his wife had contracted the deadly virus.
On to Nigeria and a reassurance to the tourism trade via the Sun in Lagos:
Lagos allays fears on Ebola, reassures hoteliers
The Lagos State Government has allayed fears about the outbreak of the Ebola Virus Disease resurfacing, stressing that the state was safe for business and tourism.
Commissioner for Tourism and Inter-Governmental Relations, Mr. Disun Holloway made this assertion while meeting with representatives of some large hotels in the state who were in his office to rub minds on how to develop the hospitality business in Lagos.
According to him, the state had developed the Infectious Disease Hospital (IDA) at Yaba to a modern facility for research and development of other contagious diseases apart from Ebola, as a measure of being prepared for any eventuality in future.
From the Guardian, vaccine trials in Mali:
Ebola vaccine trials under way in Mali
Country has no cases of disease, but researchers hope tests will succeed in protecting health workers on epidemic frontline
Health workers in Mali have been given an experimental vaccine against Ebola designed to boost the immunity of those on the frontline of the battle against the disease, which has so far claimed more than 3,800 lives in west Africa.
Mali has no Ebola cases but it borders Guinea, where the outbreak began. The trials are taking place to determine whether the potential vaccine is safe and that it does at least have some sort of protective effect.
It is particularly important to test its effects on health workers, who in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia are at the sharp end of the battle against the virus.
For our final item, words of wisdom from Uganda via the Daily Monitor:
Museveni: Stop eating wild animals
President Museveni has warned the public against forest encroachers saying they are to blame for emerging disease outbreaks such as Marburg and Ebola
Mr Museveni said the viruses have existed but in forests and they are now affecting human beings as a result of human activity on natural forests which harbour the reservoirs of the virus.
“These viruses have existed for a long time but the invasion of forests has invoked the viruses. People should stop this bad practice which provokes the viruses,” the President said while presiding over the 52nd Independence Day Ceremony in Kampala yesterday.
He also warned against the habit of eating wild animals and birds such as monkeys and fruit bats which are said to harbour these deadly highly contagious viruses.
“It is not a good practice to eat monkeys. They are our cousins and it’s not a good cultural practice to eat our relatives,” said the President, calling on scientists to do further research and use these animals to develop a vaccine against the viruses.
