Countries across the world battle to contain the spreads of the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD), the killer ailment appears to be devising means of circumventing efforts to stop it, researchers have said.

Experts claim that the virus is "rapidly and continually mutating, making it harder to diagnose and treat."

This is just as former President Olusegun Obasanjo declared, on Saturday, that the index case, Patrick Sawyer, in a "devilish" connivance with some Liberian authorities, intentionally brought the disease to Nigeria.

He also noted that the disease, which he said had become a global problem, had been taking a toll on Nigeria's economy, charging the Federal Government to partner the World Health Organisation (WHO), European Union (EU) and government of America in containing the virus.

Sunday Tribune's finding showed that result of a research by a team of American scientists indicates that the initial patients diagnosed with the virus in Sierra Leone revealed almost 400 genetic modifications, concluding that this could render current treatment ineffective and put vaccines that are being worked on for its cure in danger.

Swedish medical authorities are investigating a possible case of Ebola after a young man who recently had traveled to an Ebola-hit West African country was hospitalized in the capital Stockholm due to high fever and stomach pains.

According to local media, the unidentified man had developed high fever and stomach pains and was taken to Karolinska University Hospital in Stockholm on Sunday to receive medical care.

"Yes, we have a suspected [Ebola] case, but it's not confirmed," a spokeswoman for Stockholm County Council said on condition of anonymity.

Communicable disease specialist Ake Ortqvist said, "The risk that this is an Ebola case is minimal, but we are handling this with extreme care."

He further noted that that the probability for an Ebola outbreak in Sweden is very low."The virus is not airborne, but is spread among humans through direct or indirect contact via blood and other fluids," he pointed out.

The dreaded Ebola virus came to the children's hospital in the form of a 4-year-old boy.

His diagnosis became clear three days after he was admitted. The Ola During hospital - the nation's only pediatric center - was forced to close its steel gates. Fear swelled. The boy died. The 30 doctors and nurses who had contact with him were placed in quarantine, forced to nervously wait out the 21 days it can take for the virus to emerge. And remaining staff so far have refused to return to work. They, along with millions of others, are facing the worst Ebola outbreak in history. Already, the hardest-hit West African nations of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone have reported more than 3,000 cases, including the infections of 240 health-care workers.

Study found funeral in Guinea may have caused outbreak in Sierra Leone

Five co-authors of the latest study on Ebola were killed by the virus before their research was published, highlighting the huge risks undertaken by those working to combat its spread.

The study, published on Thursday, discovered the virus has mutated many times during the outbreak in West Africa, making establishing a treatment more difficult.

Mbalu Fonnie, Alex Moigboi, Alice Kovoma, Mohamed Fullah and Sheik Umar Khan worked with lead researchers at Harvard University to examine the current outbreak.

Science Magazine said all five were experienced members of the Kenema Government Hospital's (KGH) Lassa fever team. Lassa fever infections have similar symptoms to Ebola.

Their work sequenced the virus genomes from 78 patients and traced the outbreak in Sierra Leone to a funeral of a healer, which a pregnant Kenema Government Hospital Ebola patient and other women who were also infected had attended.

'Young girl' feeling sick after returning from trip to Sierra Leone
A young girl from Gatineau, Que., is in isolation after feeling sick upon returning from visiting family in Sierra Leone, one of the west African countries hard hit by this year's Ebola outbreak.

Dr. Jean-Pierre Courteau, medical officer of health for the Outaouais region, said in an interview with Radio-Canada they're being cautious because of her symptoms but couldn't go into detail. He said they don't believe she came into contact with anyone who had Ebola while in Sierra Leone. "The criteria that is missing is the history of contact with an Ebola case or contact with sick people in health facilities in Africa," Dr. Courteau said.

The girl is in isolation at an undisclosed hospital after coming with her family to a Gatineau emergency room earlier in the day Friday with flu-like symptoms. There is no risk of contamination for medical staff and other people there, Dr. Courteau said. He said testing is being done in Winnipeg and results should be known by Saturday afternoon.

No confirmed Canadian cases

Ebola is a viral disease spread by bodily fluids that causes fever, muscle pain, intense weakness and in some cases, both internal and external bleeding, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

Health authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have confirmed seven new Ebola cases in the northwestern Equateur Province, bringing up to 13 the number of people who had contracted the deadly virus in the province, a U.N.-run radio station said Friday. "There are now 13 cases affected by the virus...in addition to 16 other suspected cases," Health Minister Felix Kabange was quoted as saying by the Kinshasa-based Okapi radio. He asserted that the outbreak is still confined to Boende area in northern Equateur province, noting that Ebola cases reported recently in Kinshasa and Katanga proved negative. On Monday, Joseph Mboyo Limpoko, government medical inspector in Equateur, told Anadolu Agency that a total of four people countrywide had been confirmed dead from Ebola.

Ebola - a contagious disease for which there is no known treatment or cure - has claimed 1,552 lives in West Africa since the outbreak began in January. Most of the deaths were registered in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia. Six fatalities have also been confirmed in Nigeria. The tropical fever, which first appeared in 1976 in Sudan and the DRC, can be transmitted to humans from wild animals. It also reportedly spreads through contact with the body fluids of infected persons or of those who have died of the disease.

NTA

An unusual respiratory virus is striking children in the metro in big numbers. Children's Mercy Hospital is hospitalizing 20 to 30 kids a day with the virus. The hospital is as full now as it is at the height of flu season. This is not the same virus we told you about several weeks ago that can cause meningitis. This one can cause severe breathing trouble. Children's Mercy has seen more than 300 cases in recent days in kids of all ages. Preston Sheldon's mom says he seemed fine when she took him to pre-school Tuesday.

But minutes later, the Grain Valley mom got the call. Her three-year-old son was having trouble breathing. "You could see his ribs, and his stomach was pushing out really hard... I thought it was an asthma attack," said Pam Sheldon. But it was a virus that is inundating Children's Mercy with patients. "To be at winter census is quite unusual in August obviously. To see a virus we've not seen before is unusual, too," said Dr. Mary Anne Jackson, an infectious disease specialist.

It is enterovirus 68. The doctor says it's well-known around the world, but cases have not been seen in Kansas City before. "We have about 10 to 15 percent who have severe illness from this virus which actually acts like asthma exacerbations," said Dr. Jackson. She says about two-thirds of the hospitalized cases are in children like Preston who have a history of asthma or wheezing. But others are having trouble breathing, too. She says the virus will produce an ordinary cold in many kids. What should parents watch for? "The difficulty breathing is a very obvious tip-off sign they need to come into the hospital," said Dr. Jackson.

To try to stop the spread, Children's Mercy has posted signs at security entrances saying children 12 or younger should not visit in-patients. Nor should those with symptoms visit. Dr. Jackson says good hand washing, covering your cough and not sending your child to school if he or she appears sick can help control the spread. There's no anti-viral medicine for enterovirus 68 and no vaccine. Supportive care, including oxygen, has helped Preston. His mom is glad they didn't wait to go to the emergency room. "Cause it can hit really fast. And without medical treatment, it could get really bad," she said. - Fox 4 KC

West African state of Senegal has become the region's fifth country to confirm a case of the deadly Ebola virus that has killed more than 1,500 people with the WHO warning that five more states are at risk for spread of the outbreak.

A university student from neighbouring Guinea first asked for medical treatment in Dakar on Tuesday but gave no sign of Ebola, Health Minister Awa Marie Coll Seck told reporters. The student was quarantined the next day after scientists in Guinea notified Senegalese authorities that they are unaware of whereabouts of one person who had had contact with sick people, Seck said.

Seck told the press that the student's condition is "satisfactory," after being tested positive with the deadly virus, but it is still unclear when or how the new victim came to Senegal after the country sealed off its border with Guinea last week. The World Health Organisation has been alerted of the new case.

Meanwhile, some 160 people are being monitored in Nigeria's Port Harcourt after a doctor died from the virus on Thursday.

The Ebola outbreak ravaging West Africa began last year in Guinea. Since then, the disease has spread to Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria and now Senegal. Five more countries were identified as at risk of contracting the virus, the United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday.

"The following countries share land borders or major transportation connections with the affected countries and are therefore at risk for spread of the Ebola outbreak: Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, and Senegal," the agency said, adding it will aid the new states with "surveillance, preparedness and response plan."

Two Japanese citizens with suspected Ebola symptoms were taken from Chisinau airport to a Moldovan clinic on Friday, Moldovan border guard police said.

The passengers had signs similar to the Ebola virus-caused disease, including a high temperature. They confirmed that they began feeling unwell after returning from southern Africa where they were on a business trip, the border guard press service said.

The Japanese citizens flew from Japan to Moldova via Istanbul.

They were taken to the Moldovan National Public Health Centre.

A third top doctor has died from Ebola in Sierra Leone, a government official said Wednesday, as health workers tried to determine how a fourth scientist also contracted the disease before being evacuated to Europe.

The announcements raised worries about Sierra Leone's fight against Ebola, which already has killed more than 1,400 people across West Africa. The World Health Organization said it was sending a team to investigate how the epidemiologist now undergoing treatment in Germany may have contracted the disease that kills more than half its victims.

"The international surge of health workers is extremely important and if something happens, if health workers get infected and it scares off other international health workers from coming, we will be in dire straits," said Christy Feig, director of WHO communications.

Dr. Sahr Rogers had been working at a hospital in the eastern town of Kenema when he contracted Ebola, said Sierra Leonean presidential adviser Ibrahim Ben Kargbo on Wednesday. Two other top doctors already have succumbed to Ebola since the outbreak emerged there earlier this year, including Dr. Sheik Humarr Khan, who also treated patients in Kenema.