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Meet the new Ebola.

Well over a year since the global fears over the Ebola epidemic sent US stocks reeling in late 2014 ahead of an even sharper rebound, today the head of the World Health Organization delivered a very stern warning when she said that the Zika virus, a mosquito-borne pathogen that may cause birth defects when pregnant women are infected, has been “spreading explosively” in South and Central America.

“The level of alarm is extremely high,” WHO director general Margaret Chan said Thursday in an e-mailed statement according to Bloomberg. Chan said she will convene an emergency meeting on Feb. 1 in Geneva to consider whether to declare the outbreak a “Public Health Emergency of International Concern,” which can coordinate government responses to direct money and resources at the virus. She added that the spread of the mosquito-borne disease had gone from a mild threat to one of alarming proportions.

Bloomberg adds that according to Chan researchers are working to determine the exact link between the virus and birth defects such as microcephaly, which causes babies to be born with abnormally small heads and potential developmental problems. “The possible links, only recently suspected, have rapidly changed the risk profile of Zika, from a mild threat to one of alarming proportions,” Chan told members of the WHO executive board in Switzerland.

One way in which the Zika virus is comparable to Ebola is that in both cases there is no vaccine and it could take years before one is available.

Another way the Ebola scenario could come back with a vengeance is that the WHO said that it expects the infection to eventually become common in the U.S. Travelers from countries with outbreaks have already been diagnosed on their return to America.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Europe Question in 2016

January 4, 2016

The Europe Question in 2016

NEW YORK – At the cusp of the new year, we face a world in which geopolitical and geo-economic risks are multiplying. Most of the Middle East is ablaze, stoking speculation that a long Sunni-Shia war (like Europe’s Thirty Years’ War between Catholics and Protestants) could be at hand. China’s rise is fueling a wide range of territorial disputes in Asia and challenging America’s strategic leadership in the region. And Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has apparently become a semi-frozen conflict, but one that could reignite at any time.

There is also the chance of another epidemic, as outbreaks of SARS, MERS, Ebola, and other infectious diseases have shown in recent years. Cyber-warfare is a looming threat as well, and non-state actors and groups are creating conflict and chaos from the Middle East to North and Sub-Saharan Africa. Last, but certainly not least, climate change is already causing significant damage, with extreme weather events becoming more frequent and lethal.

Yet it is Europe that may turn out to be the ground zero of geopolitics in 2016. For starters, a Greek exit from the eurozone may have been only postponed, not prevented, as pension and other structural reforms put the country on a collision course with its European creditors. “Grexit,” in turn, could be the beginning of the end of the monetary union, as investors would wonder which member – possibly even a core country (for example, Finland) – will be the next to leave.

If Grexit does occur, the United Kingdom’s exit from the EU may become more likely. Compared to a year ago, the probability of “Brexit” has increased, for several reasons. The recent terrorist attacks in Europe have made the UK even more isolationist, as has the migration crisis. Under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, Labour is more Euroskeptic.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

New Ebola Cases Surface in “Ebola Free” Liberia: “The Threat Remains”

November 28, 2015

New Ebola Cases Surface in “Ebola Free” Liberia: “The Threat Remains”

ebola-suit

The threat from ebola remains quite real, and there is legitimate concern over whether or not the world’s health experts are really capable of containing it.

The West African nation of Liberia has once again been reminded that it must remain vigilant and mindful of the terrible power that ebola has in its capacity to transform into a deadly epidemic.

Just months after being declared ebola free – twice now – the country has again been plagued by new cases.

Authorities aren’t sure how the recent outbreak of ebola happened, but know that it could once again be spreading. Live Science reports:

The death of a 15-year-old boy from Ebola in Liberia — a country that has been declared free of the disease twice — raises the question of why cases are still popping up in the country, experts say.

The teenager, who died Tuesday (Nov. 24), tested positive for the disease last week. His brother and father are also infected, and more than 150 people with whom the boy may have come into contact are now being monitored, according to Reuters.

“This is concerning and somewhat surprising,” said Dr. Amesh Adalja, an infectious-disease specialist and a senior associate at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center’s Center for Health Security.

Among other factors, health workers learned during the most recent outbreaks that the virus for ebola can turn up in sperm long after the ordinary incubation period and/or recovery, and can be spread through sexual contact – even six months later:

Ebola could be sexually transmitted as much as six months or more after a patient has fully recovered from the disease, the World Health Organization (WHO) and U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) have now warned based on recent findings. Until further notice, the agencies said, Ebola survivors should make sure they use safer sex practices, such as those effective at protecting against the transmission of HIV.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

US Military Admits It “Misplaced” Black Plague Samples

September 11, 2015

US Military Admits It “Misplaced” Black Plague Samples

Back in May, the US military was forced to admit that it had done something really stupid and what’s great about the story is that it requires very little in the way of explanation and/or added color to explain why what happened can be fairly classified as an example of sheer governmental incompetence. Put differently: this story speaks for itself. Here’s a recap:

According to CNN, “four lab workers in the United States and up to 22 overseas have been put in post-exposure treatment, a defense official said, following the revelation the U.S. military inadvertently shipped live anthrax samples in the past several days.” The army apparently thought they were shipping samples rendered inactive by gamma radiation last year, but that clearly was not the case because when a Maryland lab received their sample last Friday they were able to grow live Bacillus anthracis. The lab reported their concerns to the CDC. By Saturday afternoon, labs in Maryland, Texas, Wisconsin, Delaware, New Jersey, Tennessee, New York, California and Virginia were notified that the US military had accidentally mailed them the deadly bacteria. A sample sent to a US base in South Korea was destroyed on Wednesday.

That came just a few months after the CDC admitted to mishandling an Ebola sample, potentially exposing a dozen people to the deadliest virus known to mankind.

Needless to say, the story grabbed headlines across the country as Americans struggled to understand how it’s possible that the US army could possible have managed to unknowingly jeopardize dozens of lives by FedEx-ing live anthrax to nine states and one foreign country.

Well don’t look now, but the DoD is out warning that the army might have also mishandled samples of the black plague which isn’t known to be dangerous unless you count the time it wiped out 60% of Europe’s entire population. Here’s more from CNN:

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Neoliberal Ebola: the Agroeconomic Origins of the Ebola Outbreak

July 29, 2015

Neoliberal Ebola: the Agroeconomic Origins of the Ebola Outbreak

The notion of a neoliberal Ebola is so beyond the pale as to send leading lights in ecology and health into apoplectic fits.

Here’s one of bestseller David Quammen’s five tweets denouncing my hypothesis that neoliberalism drove the emergence of Ebola in West Africa. I’m an “addled guy” whose “loopy [blog] post” and “confused nonsense” Quammen hopes “doesn’t mislead credulous people.”

Scientific American’s Steve Mirksy joked that he feared “the supply-side salmonella”. He would walk that back when I pointed out the largeliterature documenting the ways and means by which the economics of the egg sector is driving salmonella’s evolution.

The facts of the Ebola outbreak similarly turn Quammen’s objection on its head.

The virus appears to have been spilling over for years in West Africa. Epidemiologist Joseph Fair’s group found antibodies to multiple species of Ebola, including the very Zaire strain that set off the outbreak, in patients in Sierra Leone as far back as five years ago. Phylogenetic analyses meanwhile show the Zaire strain Bayesian-dated in West Africa as far back as a decade.

An NIAID team showed the outbreak strain as possessing no molecular anomaly, with nucleotide substitution rates typical of Ebola outbreaks across Africa.

That result begs an explanation for Ebola’s ecotypic shift from intermittent forest killer to a protopandemic infection infecting 27,000 and killing over 11,000 across the region, leaving bodies in the streets of capital cities Monrovia and Conakry.

Explaining the Rise of Ebola

The answer, little explored in the scientific literature or the media, appears in the broader context in which Ebola emerged in West Africa.

The truth of the whole, in this case connecting disease dynamics, land use and global economics, routinely suffers at the expense of the principle of expediency. Such contextualization often represents athreat to many of the underlying premises of power.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

UN says Ebola outbreak ‘not yet finished’

July 13, 2015

The worst recorded outbreak of Ebola has already killed more than 11,200 people across West Africa [AP]

Africa’s Ebola outbreak has not run its course and about 30 people are still getting infected each week, the United Nations’ special envoy for the deadly disease has said.

Under normal circumstances, such an infection rate would be considered “a major, major outbreak,” David Nabarro said on Monday.

“Probably about one third of these people are not coming from the contact list, which means they are surprise cases, and that’s a big worry,” Nabarro told a conference organised by the World Health Organization in Cape Town.

The worst recorded outbreak of Ebola has already killed more than 11,200 people across West Africa.

Infection rates are down from the peak of the crisis. But Liberia reported a 17-year-old boy tested positive for the virus on June 30 – almost two months after the country was declared free of Ebola.

Liberia, the country worst hit by the virus, had been hailed as an example for neighbouring Guinea and Sierra Leone, which are also struggling to stop the spread.

Source: Reuters

Peabody Energy’s Insincere ‘Energy Poverty’ Campaign Takes Major Hit

May 31, 2015

Peabody Energy’s Insincere ‘Energy Poverty’ Campaign Takes Major Hit

Two stories out late last week in the Guardian will seriously test the resolve of Peabody Energy’s “Advanced Energy for Life” campaign.

The first Guardian article’s title says it all: “Exclusive – Energy giant exploited Ebola crisis for corporate gain, say health experts.”

Ouch.

Journalist Suzanne Goldenberg reports that as part of a “PR offensive to rebrand coal as the ’21st century fuel’ that can help solve global poverty” Peabody Energy’s CEO Greg Boyce claimed in a powerpoint presentation that more energy would “have spurred the distribution of a hypothetical Ebola vaccine.”

Reacting to Peabody’s Ebola claim, public health experts described it as “ludicrous, insulting and opportunistic.”

The second Guardian article, also by Suzanne Goldenberg, exposes a questionable video interview posted on Peabody Energy’s Advanced Energy for Life campaign site.

The video, titled: “From Candles to Computers” is the of story Linda Jing, a woman growing up in rural China who only has candles available to do her schoolwork. As the story goes, Ms. Jing is saved from a life of impoverished living by the wonders of coal.

As the Guardian reports, it turns out that Ms. Jing, who is now an executive at Monsanto, actually grew up in relative prosperity in China. Ms. Jing’s late father was appointed to a senior position at the Dantong coal mining sector in rural China. Her two elder brothers and sisters-in-law still work at the Dantong mine, which also just happens to be the same region that Peabody Energy recently completed a major new deal.

Jing says she was recruited to do the video after she was approached by Peabody at a women’s networking event.

Ebola: Is it Already Here ?

March 8, 2015

Ebola: Is it Already Here ?

Ebola is rarely in the news these days. What we should be asking is why it isn’t in the news. It hasn’t gone away, in fact, cases are actually on the increase. The World Health Organisation states:

The steep decline in case incidence nationally in Sierra Leone from December until the end of January has halted. Transmission remains widespread, with 8 districts reporting new confirmed cases. A significant proportion of cases are still arising from unknown chains of transmission.

The report covers the 7days up to the 22nd February and was published on March 4th. The CDC lists almost 24,000 cases and almost 10,000 deaths and both organisations accept that many of the cases have an unknown outcome, that is, they have no idea if the victims lived or died which could mean the death rate from the outbreak is far higher than the official figures suggest.

So why is this not in the news? Have mainstream media outlets been ‘advised’ to reel in their coverage?

I worked for many years in the National Health service here in the UK, and I have been told, several times, by several people that are still working in the NHS that Ebola cases are currently being treated in UK and US hospitals, and that this has been the case in the US since the death of Thomas Duncan in October of last year. The first UK case arrived a short time later and the patient died. William Pooley, the public face of Ebola in the UK was apparently not the first case as stated but was the first survivor and he also returned to West Africa, which made him the ideal poster boy for the ‘we cured Ebola’ brigade.

I can’t verify that hospitals in the UK and the USA, and in a single instance Australia are reporting Ebola cases as malaria cases to avoid a pubic scrutiny in their handling of Ebola cases. The Australian case was listed as Dengue fever according to these sources.

– See more at: http://undergroundmedic.com/?p=7244#sthash.cyE6HNkL.dpuf

Nearly Halted in Sierra Leone, Ebola Makes Comeback by Sea

March 1, 2015

Nearly Halted in Sierra Leone, Ebola Makes Comeback by Sea

FREETOWN, Sierra Leone — It seemed as if the Ebola crisis was abating.

New cases were plummeting. The president lifted travel restrictions, and schools were to reopen. A local politician announced on the radio that two 21-day incubation cycles had passed with no new infections in his Freetown neighborhood. The country, many health officials said, was “on the road to zero.”

Then Ebola washed in from the sea.

Sick fishermen came ashore in early February to the packed wharf-side slums that surround the country’s fanciest hotels, which were filled with public health workers. Volunteers fanned out to contain the outbreak, but the virus jumped quarantine lines and cascaded into the countryside, bringing dozens of new infections and deaths.

“We worked so hard,” said Emmanuel Conteh, an Ebola response coordinator in a rural district. “It is a shame to all of us.”

Public health experts preparing for an international conference on Ebola on Tuesday seem to have no doubt that the disease can be vanquished in the West African countries ravaged by it in the last year. But the steep downward trajectory of new cases late last year and into January did not lead to the end of the epidemic.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Ebola-Like Symptoms At London, Ontario Hospital Prompt Lockdown

February 11, 2015

Ebola-Like Symptoms At London, Ontario Hospital Prompt Lockdown

The London Health Science Centre said late Tuesday night that two patients had been admitted to the city’s Victoria Hospital with Ebola-like symptoms.

“As a designated treatment hospital, at approximately 9:45 p.m. this evening, two patients currently under investigation for Ebola Virus Disease were referred to LHSC,” according to a hospital statement. “The patients were not admitted through the Emergency Department and were placed directly in isolation in a negative pressure room at LHSC’s Victoria Hospital. All safety precautions are fully in place to contain risk.”

It was not clear if the patients were related, or what their symptoms were.

The hospital said in a tweet that there was “no impact to patient and visitor activity” as a result of the admissions.

There have been no confirmed cases of Ebola in Canada.

In previous cases, including at least 10 in Ontario, patient samples were sent to the National Microbiology Lab in Winnipeg for testing.

The World Health Organization said earlier this week that there have been 22,828 cases and 9,152 deaths as a result of the Ebola outbreak, which has been heavily concentrated in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.

Ebola outbreak: Virus mutating, scientists warn

January 29, 2015

Ebola outbreak: Virus mutating, scientists warn

Scientists tracking the Ebola outbreak in Guinea say the virus has mutated.

Researchers at the Institut Pasteur in France, which first identified the outbreak last March, are investigating whether it could have become more contagious.

More than 22,000 people have been infected with Ebola and 8,795 have died in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia.

Scientists are starting to analyse hundreds of blood samples from Ebola patients in Guinea.

They are tracking how the virus is changing and trying to establish whether it’s able to jump more easily from person to person

“We know the virus is changing quite a lot,” said human geneticist Dr Anavaj Sakuntabhai.

“That’s important for diagnosing (new cases) and for treatment. We need to know how the virus (is changing) to keep up with our enemy.”

It’s not unusual for viruses to change over a period time. Ebola is an RNA virus – like HIV and influenza – which have a high rate of mutation. That makes the virus more able to adapt and raises the potential for it to become more contagious.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Davos: Western world ‘vulnerable’ to epidemics, warns Ebola expert

January 21, 2015

Davos: Western world ‘vulnerable’ to epidemics, warns Ebola expert

The Western world is “vulnerable” to epidemics such as Ebola, and must invest more in researching vaccines, a leading scientist has warned.

Prof Peter Piot told the BBC that developed nations would be in “deep trouble” if they failed to adequately prepare for another outbreak.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum, in Davos, he urged global leaders to take a “long-term view”.

Public health policies must “transcend politics and borders”, he said.

Prof Piot co-discovered the Ebola virus in 1976, and is now in charge of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.

He said the UK was relatively well prepared for an outbreak, and praised NHS staff who travelled to West Africa to combat the recent Ebola epidemic.

The threat of Ebola, and other infectious diseases such as influenza and Sars, are set to be discussed in Switzerland this week, as politicians and business leaders from around the globe gather for the annual WEF.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

RT trails Ebola’s path of devastation in Liberia

January 8, 2015

RT trails Ebola’s path of devastation in Liberia

Behind the stark headlines of the Ebola outbreak, which has killed thousands of people in Western Africa, are endless tales of hope and courage as average people do what they can to help others.

On March 31, 2014, the West African country of Liberia confirmed its first two cases of Ebola. One month later, six people had already succumbed to the deadly disease and dozens more were infected. Some of the fatalities included unsuspecting doctors, who initially thought their patients were suffering from malaria.

RT met with members of the Liberian Red Cross, many of them volunteers with little or no previous medical experience who, nevertheless, want to do what they can to help their country in this time of emergency.

alvin, for example, is an artist who used to decorate the tombstones of Ebola victims before the government started cremating the bodies out of safety concerns. As he and several other Red Cross volunteers prepare to remove a body of an Ebola victim from a street in Monrovia, the Liberian capital, Malvin explains that his work is for the living not the dead.

He tells relatives and friends of the Ebola victims, “If you keep the body of a [Ebola victim] in your house for 2, 3, 4 days, even the community will get concerned. So we talk to them and calm them down so we can remove the body.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Ebola outbreak: Quarantine ‘just like a jail’ in Sierra Leone

January 6, 2015

Ebola outbreak: Quarantine ‘just like a jail’ in Sierra Leone

For 18 days, Alieru Deen Bangura’s family has been quarantined in a slum in Sierra Leone’s capital of Freetown.

As part of the West African city’s efforts to stem the spread of the deadly Ebola virus, the family lives under the watchful eye of armed guards 24 hours a day.

Seventeen families are cordoned off with a thin, orange, plastic rope, a constant reminder that they are not free to go about their daily business.

“I would say it’s just like a jail for someone to be sitting down the whole day,” Bangurasays.

From behind the plastic rope, he is mourning his brother’s death from Ebola.

So far, none of the rest of the family has shown signs of illness. But their conditions are wearing on them.

Food and water, which are supposed to be delivered daily, are sometimes late and often not enough, Bangura says.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Ebola crisis: Experts warn against complacency in fight to contain worst outbreak in history – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

January 4, 2015

Ebola crisis: Experts warn against complacency in fight to contain worst outbreak in history – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation).

It has been one of the biggest stories of 2014 and it does not look like it is going anywhere.

The Ebola crisis in West Africa has killed thousands of people and it will continue to do so in 2015.

Given the Ebola story has been a constant on the news for the best part of a year, some of the interest has gone. But ignoring the disease is fraught with danger.

On a US talk show recently, White House Ebola response coordinator Ron Klain warned the world against complacency.

“I think we’re nearing a pivot point in this, where the number of new cases overall in West Africa has somewhat stabilized,” he said.

“But this won’t be done until we get all the way to zero. It’s like a forest fire: a few embers burning, and the thing can reignite at any time.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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