I’ve said: this is all it would take. Discovered yesterday in Mali.
And it has now occurred.
Were the tests accurate?
You’d best hope so, with every fibre of your being.
BZ
From USAToday.com:
DAKAR, Senegal — The rising death toll in West Africa’s Ebola outbreak has sparked fear across the region with at least 80 already having died from the nearly always fatal virus.
“Every day we’re reading about it in the newspaper, hearing about it on the radio, and wondering when it’s going to come here,” said 32-year-old Mossa Bau, who lives in Dakar, Senegal. “Everyone is very scared because, really, it’s a dangerous disease and no one has the means to stop it.”
The World Health Organization says that as many as 125 people across three countries are now believed to have contracted the highly contagious disease. Senegal shut its border with Guinea, where the outbreak is believed to have originated, in the hopes of keeping the disease from spreading its way.
Guinea shares borders, as you can see, with Guinea-Bissau, Senegal, Mali, Ivory Coast, Liberia and Sierra Leone. These borders should likely be shut, I would suggest.
This is the first time an Ebola outbreak has occurred in West Africa. Countries in central Africa, such as Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, where the virus is endemic, typically see outbreaks every two to three years.
The WHO needs to ensure that the virus is not transported to another continent.
BZ
Predominantly unreported in US news but incredibly important, from YahooNews.com:
Conakry (AFP) – Aid organisation Doctors Without Borders said Monday an Ebola outbreak suspected of killing dozens in Guinea was an “unprecedented epidemic” as Liberia confirmed its first cases of the deadly contagion.
Guinea’s health ministry this year has reported 122 “suspicious cases” of viral haemorrhagic fever, including 78 deaths, with 22 of the samples taken from patients testing positive for the highly contagious tropical pathogen.
“We are facing an epidemic of a magnitude never before seen in terms of the distribution of cases in the country: Gueckedou, Macenta, Kissidougou, Nzerekore, and now Conakry,” Mariano Lugli, the organisation’s coordinator in the Guinean capital, said in a statement.
Of significant import is this fact: the virus has crossed into Monrovia, Liberia.
I wrote about the original outbreak here, on Monday the 24th.
“MSF has intervened in almost all reported Ebola outbreaks in recent years, but they were much more geographically contained and involved more remote locations,” Lugli said.
“This geographical spread is worrisome because it will greatly complicate the tasks of the organisations working to control the epidemic.”
“Geographically isolated” is not what Guinea and Liberia are. Let’s look:
Above Guinea is, of course, North Africa — Morocco, Algeria, Egypt and Libya. It is a short step from North Africa and on into Spain and the rest of Europe.
The World Health Organization (WHO) and local health authorities have announced two Ebola cases among seven samples tested from Liberia’s northern Foya district, confirming for the first time the spread of the virus across international borders.
Liberian Health Minister Walter Gwenigale told reporters the patients were sisters, one of whom had died.
The surviving sister returned to Monrovia in a taxi before she could be isolated and the authorities fear she may have spread the virus to her taxi driver and four members of her family.
The woman and those with whom she has come into contact are in quarantine in a hospital 48 kilometres (30 miles) south-east of Monrovia, Gwenigale said.
And that’s how it starts. Please note the above.
One of the two sisters already died (Ebola can have up to a 90% fatality rate), and the one survivor has already stepped into a taxi where transfer could easily have occurred. From there, what of the taxi driver’s family and the individuals who sat in the cab after the sister? And their families?
That is how contagion spreads.
Let one of those infected persons get into a westernized country where transportation is readily available, or a major city with a high population, and transmittal can be geometric.
From there all it would take is one nice plane flight to another continent entirely.
Ebola, incidentally, has no vaccine and there is no treatment.
BZ
From the Seemingly Small But Potentially Shattering Epidemiological Department:
From YahooNews.com:
By Mouctar Bah
Conakry (AFP) – Aid workers and public health officials battled Monday to contain west Africa’s first outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus as tests on suspected cases in Conakry allayed fears that it had spread to the capital.
At least 59 people have died in an outbreak of the virulent virus raging through Guinea’s southern forests but tests on three haemorrhagic fever cases — two of them fatal — in Conakry were negative, the government said.
“The Pasteur Institute in Dakar worked urgently all last night on samples taken from suspected cases here in Conakry, which were all negative,” said Sakoba Keita, the health ministry’s chief disease prevention officer.
“So for now, there’s no Ebola in Conakry, but haemorrhagic fever whose nature remains to be determined.”
If one wishes to discover how incredibly deadly and communicably-ravaging the Ebola virus can be, I highly recommend The Hot Zone by Richard Preston. Ebola has roughly a 90% fatality rate in humans.
From Wikipedia:
Ebola virus (EBOV) causes an extremely severe disease in humans and in nonhuman primates in the form of viral hemorrhagic fever. EBOV is a select agent, World Health Organization Risk Group 4 Pathogen (requiring Biosafety Level 4-equivalent containment), National Institutes of Health/National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Category A Priority Pathogen, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Category A Bioterrorism Agent, and listed as a Biological Agent for Export Control by the Australia Group.
Again, from Wikipedia:
Manifestation of Ebola begins with a sudden onset of an influenza-like stage characterized by general malaise, fever with chills, arthralgia, myalgia, and chest pain. Nausea is accompanied by abdominal pain, diarrhea, and vomiting. Respiratory tract involvement is characterized by pharyngitis with sore throat, cough, dyspnea, and hiccups. The central nervous system is affected as judged by the development of severe headaches, agitation, confusion, fatigue, depression, seizures, and sometimes coma.
Cutaneous presentation may include: maculopapular rash, petechiae, purpura, ecchymoses, and hematomas (especially around needle injection sites). In general, development of hemorrhagic symptoms is indicative of a negative prognosis. However, contrary to popular belief, hemorrhage does not lead to hypovolemia and is not the cause of death (total blood loss is low except during labor). Instead, death occurs due to multiple organ dysfunction syndrome (MODS) due to fluid redistribution, hypotension, disseminated intravascular coagulation, and focal tissue necroses.
For a glimpse into the potential lethality of Ebola, see the movies Outbreak (1995), and Infection (2004).
This does not bode well, as both Ebola and Marburg are terrific killers.
BZ