Plagues
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Clock

Italy stages Ebola evacuation drills - Las Vegas nurses union says U.S. not ready, an outbreak would be 'pure pandemonium'

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The patient, a slight woman in her 30s, lay motionless on the stretcher as a half-dozen men in biohazard suits transferred her from a C-27J cargo plane into an ambulance and then into a mobile hospital isolation ward, never once breaking the plastic seal encasing her. The exercise put on Wednesday was just a simulation of the procedures that would be used to evacuate an Ebola patient to Italy. But for Italian military, Red Cross and health care workers, it offered essential experience, especially for those on the front lines of the country's sea-rescue operation involving thousands of African migrants who arrive here every day in smugglers' boats. Italian authorities and medical experts insist that the risk of Ebola spreading from Africa to Europe is small, given that the virus only spreads by direct contact with infected blood or other bodily fluids. They say Italy's first case of Ebola will probably be an Italian doctor or missionary who contracts the disease while caring for patients in Liberia, Sierra Leone or Guinea - the three hardest-hit countries - and is airlifted home for treatment.

Yet concern runs high: EU health ministers who met this week in Milan spent an entire session discussing Ebola and the EU. They concluded that, while the risk of the disease coming to Europe is low, the EU must improve coordination and prevention measures to better diagnose, transport and treat suspected cases. "There is an emergency," said Dr. Natale Ceccarelli, who heads the infirmary at the Pratica di Mare air force base south of Rome, where the training course was staged. "If one person is infected, he infects everyone."

Source: News OK

Life Preserver

Ebola mortality rate climbing: Ebola virologist warns outbreak could lead to 'complete breakdown of society'

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In a grim assessment of the Ebola epidemic, researchers say the deadly virus threatens to become endemic to West Africa instead of eventually disappearing from humans. "The current epidemiologic outlook is bleak," wrote a panel of more than 60 World Health Organization experts in a study published Tuesday by the New England Journal of Medicine. "We must therefore face the possibility that Ebola virus disease will become endemic among the human population of West Africa, a prospect that has never previously been contemplated." In the absence of new control measures, the authors estimated that the total case load would exceed 20,000 by Nov 2. "The numbers of cases of and deaths from EVD are expected to continue increasing from hundreds to thousands per week in the coming months," the authors wrote. As of Monday, the United Nations health organization reported that out of a total of 5,864 confirmed and probable cases, 2,811 deaths have resulted.

"The true numbers of cases and deaths are certainly higher," the authors wrote. "There are numerous reports of symptomatic persons evading diagnosis and treatment, of laboratory diagnoses that have not been included in national databases, and of persons with suspected Ebola virus disease who were buried without a diagnosis having been made." When a virus is slow to mutate, as Ebola appears to be, the pathogen steadily wanes as the number of people who have developed immunity increases. With proper controls, experts say the virus would find it increasingly difficult to spread among the population until it eventually disappeared from humans and survived only in its so-called animal reservoir, which is believed to be a fruit bat. In this case however, epidemiologists fear that the virus could continue to linger in small pockets, extending its life in humans and potentially mutating in a way that makes fighting it more difficult. In an accompanying editorial, Dr. Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust, and Dr. Peter Piot, director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said the epidemic has helped to degrade an already meager system of healthcare.

Syringe

The link between Enterovirus D68 and contaminated vaccines

oxygen mask
© unknown
It's being considered a severe respiratory virus known as EV-D68. It hits hard and fast and has already created an outbreak in Colorado, Missouri, Utah, Kansas, Illinois, Ohio, and four more states in the Midwest. It has also crossed over the Canada with confirmed cases in Alberta, British Columbia and Ontario. Although there is no known vaccine for the virus, ironically a common theme has been discovered in those who have been infected...they have all been vaccinated.

The symptoms can mimic those of the influenza virus, but can have a much more dire impact on those that fall ill. Dr. Mary Anne Jackson, the hospital's division director for infectious disease shared her concern withCNN.

"It's worse in terms of scope of critically ill children who require intensive care. I would call it unprecedented. I've practiced for 30 years in pediatrics, and I've never seen anything quite like this."

The Enterovirus D68 (EV-D68) has infected more than 150 children in the U.S., and has recently spread to Canada with 18 confirmed cases in three provinces.

So far, no one has died from the virus but dozens of children have had to be treated in intensive care units.

Rocket

The slaughter begins: 8 civilians (3 children) killed in U.S. airstrikes in Syria

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© Reuters/StringerPeople inspect a shop damaged after what Islamist State militants say was a U.S. drone crashed into a communication station nearby in Raqqa September 23, 2014.
Eight civilians, three of them children, have been killed in the US-led air strikes on Al-Qaeda Nusra front positions, Reuters reported, citing Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Washington carried a series of airstrikes on the city of Raqqa in the early hours of Tuesday. At least 30 militants died in the strikes, which were carried out on IS positions in Syria. Washington informed Damascus about the operation, according to a representative of Syrian Foreign Ministry.

"There is an exodus out of Raqqa as we speak. It started in the early hours of the day after the strikes. People are fleeing towards the countryside," one local resident told Reuters.

The strikes targeted residential buildings in Aleppo allegedly used by Al-Nusra Front, according to Rami Abdulrahman, who runs the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The US-led coalition's targets also included training camps, headquarters and weapon supplies in northern and eastern Syria, with many IS locations "destroyed or damaged" around the cities of Raqqa, Deir al-Zor, Hasakah and the border town of Albu Kamal, Reuters reported.

In particular, "[Islamic State] fighters, training compounds, headquarters and command and control facilities, storage facilities, a finance center, supply trucks and armed vehicles" were hit.

Comment: The first pointless deaths in yet another pointless war led by the United States. Utterly shameful.


Attention

CDC: If trends continue, the number of Ebola cases could reach 1.4 million by January

Ebola patient
© www.liberianobserver.comLiberian nurses tend to one of a thousand patients with Ebola.
The number of Ebola cases in West Africa could reach 1.4 million by the end of January if trends continue without an immediate and massive scale-up in response, according to a new estimate by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The report released Tuesday is a tool the agency has developed to help with efforts to slow transmission of the epidemic and estimate the potential number of future cases. Researchers say the total number of cases is vastly underreported by a factor of 2.5 in Sierra Leone and Liberia, two of the three hardest-hit countries. Using this correction factor, researchers estimate that approximately 21,000 total cases will have occurred in Liberia and Sierra Leone by Sept. 30. Reported cases in those two countries are doubling approximately every 20 days, researchers said

Comment: The CDC can make all the reports they want. They are obviously not in control of this outbreak.

Humanity in denial: What we're afraid to say about ebola -- Mother Nature is in charge, and she's not pleased

Ebola outbreak: Now 'out of all proportion' and on an 'unprecedented scale'


Ambulance

Liberia's Ebola death rate actually 84%?

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1. So far, nearly 2,500 suspected cases have been reported in what the WHO says is the worst known outbreak of the disease. However, the WHO's website says the survival rate for people with Ebola in this outbreak has been 47%, which is a substantial improvement over the disease's survival rate, historically.

2. There is a 47% survival rate with this outbreak.

3. Approximately 300 infected patients have survived Ebola treatment in Liberia since the outbreak here from March to September, Assistant Health Minister for Preventive Services, Tolbert Nyenswah, has announced.

The above comment (#1) is from an August 26 media report noting that 47% of Ebola cases in the current outbreak survive, in spite of the fact it is the worst known outbreak of Ebola. The same figure is currently cited on the Canadian Infection Prevention and Control site on Ebola (#2).

This survival number is from the WHO Ebola website, which had listed three bold headings characterizing Ebola in the current outbreak. The first headline, "H2H" reflected the fact that virtually all cases were due to human to human transmission. The second headline "2 to 21 days" reflect the wide range of reported incubation times. The third headline "47% survive" was followed by a claim that the survival rate was higher than most prior outbreaks (this headline was removed last week).

Comment: Put simply, 47% of cases at any given time are alive. That does NOT mean they will all recover. Based on these numbers, around 84% of all those infected will die from Ebola. If the CDC's reported projections are accurate, that could mean almost 1.2 million dead among those infected by the end of January.


Newspaper

Ebola epidemic far worse than reported: Sierra Leone running out of space in cemeteries to bury bodies

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© Samuel Aranda for the New York TimesThe grave of Marion Seisay at King Tom Cemetery in Freetown, Sierra Leone. Area residents say animals dig near the graves, creating dangers for the living.
The gravedigger hacked at the cemetery's dense undergrowth, clearing space for the day's Ebola victims. A burial team, in protective suits torn with gaping holes, arrived with fresh bodies.

The backs of the battered secondhand vans carrying the dead were closed with twisted, rusting wire. Bodies were dumped in new graves, and a worker in a short-sleeve shirt carried away the stretcher, wearing only plastic bags over his hands as protection. The outlook for the day at King Tom Cemetery was busy.

"We will need much more space," said James C. O. Hamilton, the chief gravedigger, as a colleague cleared the bush with his machete.

The Ebola epidemic is spreading rapidly in Sierra Leone's densely packed capital - and it may already be far worse than the authorities acknowledge.

Since the beginning of the outbreak more than six months ago, the Sierra Leone Health Ministry reported only 10 confirmed Ebola deaths here in Freetown, the capital of more than one million people, and its suburbs as of Sunday - a hopeful sign that this city, unlike the capital of neighboring Liberia, had been relatively spared the ravages of the outbreak.

But the bodies pouring in to the graveyard tell a different story. In the last eight days alone, 110 Ebola victims have been buried at King Tom Cemetery, according to the supervisor, Abdul Rahman Parker, suggesting an outbreak that is much more deadly than either the government or international health officials have announced.

Comment: As Pierre Lescaudron outlines in his book, Earth Changes and the Human-Cosmic Connection, sooner or later civilizations degenerate to the point where Mother Nature has to step in and provide a population-reducing plague. If humanity won't take a stand against evil being perpetuated on this planet, the Universe will.


Ambulance

Man bitten by child with Ebola flown to Switzerland

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© www.expansion.comTransport of man bitten by Ebola patient flown to Switzerland.
Swiss authorities say a male nurse who was bitten by an Ebola patient while working in West Africa has been flown to Switzerland as a precaution.

The health ministry says the unidentified man was working for an international organization in Sierra Leone when he was bitten by a child infected with Ebola on Saturday.

The ministry says the nurse was wearing protective gear and is unlikely to have contracted the disease.

It said the man, who was flown to Switzerland by a private transport company Monday, will be kept under observation at Geneva's University Hospital for the incubation period of three weeks.

The ministry said it was the first medical transport to Switzerland from the Ebola-affected region.

Comment: According to latest numbers, more than 5800 people have been infected in West Africa. That is not to say there aren't multiple times that number in populations that haven't yet displayed symptoms. A recent culling of 100 exposed persons in Monrovia, Liberia, resulted in nearly 50% testing positive while the remainder are being held for observation. WHO warns we will soon face thousands of new cases.

Reason would have it that the protective gear worn by the male nurse either did not rupture, thereby insulating the victim from the virus...or...the gear is not as good as it is made out to be. Many uninfected countries now have Ebola workers under observation and the potential for new pockets of hemorrhagic fever to latch onto greater populations. Additionally, WHO has stated that there should be no travel bans to countries impacted by the outbreak. "Flight cancellations and other travel restrictions continue to isolate affected countries, resulting in detrimental economic consequences, and hinder relief and response efforts risking further international spread." "The Committee strongly reiterated that there should be no general ban on international travel or trade..." Does this sound like containment? What is the real plan here?


Ambulance

Over-medicated and immunosuppressed Americans will fall like dominoes in the wake of Ebola

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The mass medication of Americans has created a nation of immunosuppressed individuals who are unique vulnerable to an Ebola outbreak. That's because medications rob the body of essential vitamins and minerals as documented in the book "Drug Muggers" by pharmacist Suzy Cohen.

All the popular mass medications, it turns out, deplete the body of precisely the same crucial nutrients needed to activate the immune system to fight off viral infections. These includes minerals like zinc; pre-hormones like vitamin D; and common vitamins such as thiamine and niacin.

The full title of the book is Drug Muggers: Which Medications Are Robbing Your Body of Essential Nutrients - and Natural Ways to Restore Them. Authored by a well-informed pharmacist I've known for years, the book reveals exactly which nutrients in your body are depleted by each popular medication being prescribed today.

Comment: For more on ways to prepare yourself for Ebola see:

Pestilence, the Great Plague, and the Tobacco Cure

Natural treatments for Ebola virus exist, research suggests

Natural allopathic treatment modalities for Ebola virus

And of course there is the matter of strengthening the immune system through adopting a Ketogenic Diet.


Eggs Fried

Unknown avian virus strikes Bhaktapur, Nepal farmers

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Poultry farmers of Bhaktapur district are once again worried after mysterious disease started killing adult fowls.

An epidemic of unknown disease has hit farms of Broiler poultry for the past one month. The disease which has not been yet identified has caused nervousness among poultry keepers, said poultry entrepreneur Laxman Gwachha.

The new disease shares the symptoms of the new castle disease. The Bhaktapur poultry farmers, who had been adversely affected by the outbreak of bird flu in the district a year ago, are worried as the mysterious disease is again likely to ruin their business.

Live fowls have also lost their weight. Chickens completing 30-35 days are dying due to the unknown disease . Generally, they become ready for supplying in 45-50 days of rearing.

Comment: On September 16, 2013 it was reported that crows and pigeons in Bhaktapur dropped dead in flight:

Terror grips Bhaktapur folk as birds drop dead in Nepal