Africa Largely Stems Ebola Via Border Closings, Monitoring And Luck

[Purveyor]

Source: Associated Press

By TOM ODULA and LYNSEY CHUTEL | Associated Press | 5 minutes ago

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Health officials battling the Ebola outbreak that has killed more than 4,500 people in West Africa have managed to limit its spread on the continent to five countries — and two of them appear to have snuffed out the disease.

The developments constitute a modest success in an otherwise bleak situation.

Officials credit tighter border controls, good patient-tracking and other medical practices, and just plain luck with keeping Ebola confined mostly to Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea since the outbreak was first identified in March.

Senegal did so well in finding and isolating a man with Ebola who had slipped across the border from Guinea in August that the World Health Organization on Friday will declare the end of the disease in Senegal if no new cases surface.

Nigeria is another success story. It had 20 cases and eight deaths after the virus was brought by a Liberian-American who flew from Liberia to Lagos, Nigeria's commercial capital of 21 million people, in July. Nearly 900 people were potentially exposed to the virus by the traveler, who died, and the disease could have wreaked havoc in Africa's most populous nation.

Read more: http://www.newser.com/article/67c5056c64134171ba99d72c3029ac11/africa-largely-stems-ebola-via-border-closings-monitoring-and-luck.html

[louis-t]

1. Sadly, we may end up with more deaths.

But by year's end I believe we will have seen the last of this outbreak in this country.

[Yo_Mama]

2. I think the chances have gone up due to this debacle.

Now we are getting serious.

I am sick at the fact that at least two HCW's lives had to be endangered to get here.

[Fred Sanders]

3. OMG, are you trying to say America can do what the more "basic" health care systems of these

impoverished countries did do...stop Ebola in its tracks...what about The Panic In Ameirca, what will we then have to wring hands over and fear in the land of the brave?

ISIS fear is so yesterday, though the media is sure to come up with something else...what about Iran, always good for some fear mongering in a pinch.

Party pooper.

[Igel]

8. It's a matter of will.

It's the same problem in Ukraine and Iraq and Syria.

The problem's not with money, not with knowledge, not with available staffing. It's with the inability to make decisions with a view to reality and not ideology, optics, or fanciful ideas about how everybody's just like us--educated, Western, multicultural, progressive, and fairly well off.

[Hugabear]

4. Right-wingers are convinced that FEMA has set up death camps to deal with outbreaks like this

You are not going to convince them that West Africa seems to be doing a fairly decent job of containing the outbreak.

Even if they did, they would still tell you that Obama is intentionally bringing Ebola into this country so that he can declare martial law, herd people into concentration camps, and suspend elections indefinitely.

[SoapBox]

5. "Outbreak"

Pukers will be saying that O-bama will be dropping bombs on their homes.

[candelista]

6. This is the kind of thing the US should be doing.

Close the border to anyone with a passport or recent stamp on their passport from Liberia, Sierra Leone or Guinea.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

7. Yeah? Well, mention "border" and Republicans think "Mexican".

[candelista]

10. So what?

Who cares what crazy inferences they draw?

[Spitfire of ATJ]

11. They're the ones bringing shit to the floor.

[candelista]

13. I don't understand your logic.

But as long as it makes sense to you, that's what matters.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

14. With Republicans in control of the House they can set the agenda....

They're using Ebola to pander to their racist, nativist base with talk of "Obama and his open borders".

[candelista]

15. Thanks for your reply.

But I still don't get it. Have a nice day!

[fifthoffive]

9. That may help

However, consider this:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/10/141015-ebola-virus-outbreak-pandemic-zoonotic-contagion/

Nairobi Tabletop Scenario.

Imagine a doctor who departs from Monrovia, the capital of Liberia, feeling fine, on a flight to Nairobi, Kenya's capital, in East Africa. In transit he begins suffering a headache-nothing terrible yet, just discomfort, but it's the first hint of Ebola. At the Nairobi airport, in a café, the Liberian doctor coughs onto a table. Five minutes later, an American businessman touches that table. He rubs his eye. He departs to Singapore and spends three days there, in good health, discussing finance for his project in Kenya. Then he flies home to Los Angeles. To the screeners at LAX, he is an American businessman arriving from Singapore, with no history of recent travel in West Africa. But he's now infected with Ebola, carrying it into the United States.

How do you defend against the Nairobi Tabletop Scenario? By doing everything possible to end the epidemic in West Africa, and thereby to ensure that the Liberian doctor is healthy when he visits Nairobi.

Closing borders at the source is effective, but there are always ways around it. Unfortunately for the foreign nationals in the source countries, involuntary quarantine before traveling home may be a next step.

[candelista]

12. The perfect is the enemy of the good. nt

[yellowcanine]

16. "Nearly 900 people were potentially exposed to the virus by the traveler, who died"

Which should calm the hysteria a bit in this country about how easy it is to get this disease - so far only people who have had direct contact with actively symptomatic Ebola patients have been confirmed to have Ebola.