American nurse with Ebola to leave Liberia Tuesday

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP-Excite

By BILL BARROW and KRISTA LARSON

ATLANTA (AP) — A second American medical missionary stricken with the often deadly Ebola virus is expected to be flown Tuesday to the U.S. for treatment, following a colleague who was admitted over the weekend to Emory University Hospital's infectious disease unit.

Top American public health officials continue to emphasize that treating Nancy Writebol and Dr. Kent Brantly in the U.S. poses no risks to the public as West Africa grapples with its worst recorded Ebola outbreak in history.

"The plain truth is that we can stop Ebola," said Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, speaking Sunday on ABC's "This Week. "We know how to control it: hospital infection control and stopping it at the source in Africa."

Brantley and Writebol served on the same medical mission team that was treating Ebola patients in Liberia. Also spreading in Guinea and Sierra Leone, the outbreak has infected more than 1,300 people in West Africa, killing at least 729 of them.

FULL story at link.



A plane taxies after arriving at Dobbins Air Reserve Base in Marietta., Ga., Saturday, Aug. 2, 2014. Officials at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta expect an American who is infected with the Ebola virus to be transported for treatment today. (AP Photo/John Bazemore)


Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20140803/us--ebola_americans-35ff43dfd1.html

---

5 things to know about Ebola outbreak in W. Africa: http://www.wthr.com/story/26182596/2014/08/02/5-things-to-know-about-ebola-outbreak-in-w-africa

Posted: Aug 02, 2014 8:41 PM CDT
Updated: Aug 02, 2014 8:41 PM CDT
By The Associated Press
Three West Africa nations are struggling to control an outbreak of Ebola. The virus was first discovered nearly four decades ago in Congo in a village near the Ebola River. Since then there have been sporadic outbreaks.

Five things to know about Ebola and how it is spread:

1. WEST AFRICA OUTBREAK NOW LARGEST IN HISTORY. The current outbreak in the neighboring countries of Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone has sickened more than 1,300 people and killed more than 700 since March. The outbreak is unusual for West Africa as the disease is typically found in the center and east of the continent.

2. SOME PEOPLE HAVE SURVIVED EBOLA. While the fatality rate for Ebola can be as high as 90 percent, health officials in the three countries say people have recovered from the virus and the current death rate is about 60 percent. Those who fared best sought immediate medical attention and got supportive care to prevent dehydration even though there is no specific treatment for Ebola itself.


FULL story at link.

[randys1]

1. Imagine this scenario

A deadly disease with no cure that is airborne like a cold is airborne

then

Teaparty takes over America and decimates the entire govt, all entities that track, treat disease, all entities that make rules about food safety, airport safety, i.e. there is NOTHING stopping the disease from spreading instantly

The teaparty (moron) utopia is no govt, no rules, no taxes, no nothing...idiots

[Earth_First]

8. That's some script you have there...nt

[GusBob]

14. ammosexuals wet dream

[raccoon]

20. THe survivors would envy the dead! nt

[mike_c]

2. it's interesting that this less virulent outbreak is proving to be more difficult to control...

...from a public health standpoint. That's pretty textbook epidemiology, although not what one would normally expect from a virus as virulent as Ebola.

[Divernan]

4. There are 5 different strains of Ebola, & the current outbreak is thought to be Zaire.

However, it has a different mortality rate and a different incubation time then Zaire has exhibited in the past, so obviously it is mutating - the big question is whether it as gained a new vector (method of transmission), i.e., has become airborne. There are some posters here who claim that hasn't happened and accuse others of air-on-fire panic. However, according to the class I took a few years ago at Univ. of Pittsburgh on infectious diseases, it IS a possibility, and could explain why so many medical personnel are becoming infected. Another strain, the Reston strain, IS airborne, but has not infected humans. What that tells us is that Ebola CAN become airborne.

[Warren DeMontague]

17. I think if it was easily transmitted by air, we'd know it by now.

You had that guy who flew to Nigeria, started vomiting on the plane, and died in Lagos.

From what I understand, they've been watching something like 60 people with whom he may have had close contact. The thing to see is whether any of them get sick.

If they don't, I think it's fairly safe to put to bed any arguments that it has 'gone airborne'. Let's hope, really hope, they don't.

[dixiegrrrrl]

5. One reason for control difficulty:

From Reuters Breaking News blip:

Bodies of 2 men previously showing symptoms of Ebola lay in the streets of Monrovia, Liberia, for 4 days before being collected by health workers, residents say - @Reuters

[LisaL]

10. Sounds like the public is getting educated to not move/touch the bodies.

[dixiegrrrrl]

13. Problem is....what is history of those dead people?

Who dumped them?
Who are the family members who may have been contaminated?

Quarantine is the only way to limit an outbreak like this, and difficult to do, as history has shown us.

[LisaL]

9. It actually makes perfect sense.

Less lethal means more people are exposed to the virus.

[mike_c]

12. that's what I meant by "textbook epidemiology...."

Interesting to see something as virulent as Ebola perhaps moderating in favor of increasing host longevity, isn't it?

[paleotn]

15. Evolution at work before our very eyes. (nt)

[LuvNewcastle]

3. I hope she and Dr. Brantley pull through this.

They've done excellent work over there, and they deserve a chance to keep helping others. God knows we can't afford to lose people like that. There are too few of them as it is.

[Warpy]

6. They're probably going to try heroics like ECMO

which is what people think of as a heart-lung machine, oxygenating the blood and giving them the best chance for survival. It's likely available in one or two places in South Africa, not sure about anywhere else on that continent.

That plus very careful medication might buy them enough time to have their immune systems destroy the virus. The long term plan might be to harvest some of their antibodies after they have recovered for replication and possibly a better treatment. Right now, there is nothing.

I sincerely hope the strategy works and they recover.

Am I terrified about having Ebola onshore? No, it's been here for at least a couple of decades while virologists have worked on a vaccine.

[jwirr]

7. That is what I was thinking. 2 dedicated medical professionals who know the odds against them and

they are taken to a hospital just across the street from CDC. They would not be the first to volunteer.

[VA_Jill]

19. Actually not

They have an experimental serum. If you've been following the story, one dose made it to Liberia and Dr. Brantly insisted that it go to Ms. Writebol (she may have been sicker than he was). He got it in Atlanta yesterday. He walked off the plane with assistance and is said to be recovering. Hopefully they both do.

[Warpy]

21. Good.

I was unaware that they'd gotten that far.

[Submariner]

11. I wonder if we could Trump to lend his plane for a humanitarian flight

that would be a nice gesture from this 1%er trust fund baby.

[Divernan]

18. Wee Donald's plane is the biggest phallic symbol ever!

Wee Donald is what the Scots call Trump, following his failed, bullying, anti-environment efforts re Scottish wind farms and his luxury golf courses there.

Given his miserly history when it comes to charity, I'm not holding my breath.

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/celebrity/trump-least-charitable-billionaire-109247
Trump: The Least Charitable Billionaire
The Donald is a miser, not an “ardent philanthropist.”
-The Smoking Gun has examined how the 64-year-old developer has spent some of that massive fortune. Specifically, Trump’s philanthropy over the past 20 years, which has been channeled through the Donald J. Trump Foundation.

A TSG review of the group’s Internal Revenue Service returns dating back to 1990 reveals that Trump, the foundation’s president, may be the least charitable billionaire in the United States.

Following are excerpts from a report published in the NPQ (Non Profit Quarterly) titled: The Charitable Bona Fides of Donald Trump. I suggest a more appropriate title woud be The Charitable Mala Fides of Donald Trump. For non Latin scholars, Full Definition of MALA FIDES. : bad faith : purpose to deceive or defraud.
(And they told me I'd never use my Latin studies!)


https://nonprofitquarterly.org/philanthropy/19783-the-charitable-bona-fides-of-donald-trump.html

But despite Trump’s characteristic bombast, one never hears much or anything about his charitable or philanthropic giving. During his putative campaign run, while he demanded disclosure of President Obama’s birth certificate and college records, Trump himself never disclosed his tax return, though he promised to do so when President Obama authorized the release of his birth certificate, so we don’t know exactly how much of “the Donald’s” taxable income was reduced by charitable deductions.

But we do know what the Trump Foundation does and where it gets its money. The Smoking Gun calls Trump a “miserly billionaire,” noting that the foundation’s 2010 990 shows that he has donated just $675,000 to his foundation in the past five years,including nothing in the past two years. In fact, the interesting aspect of the Trump Foundation is that its most significant source of contributions hasn’t been Trump, but Vince McMahon of Worldwide Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). Over the years, Trump has hosted WWE WrestleMania events at his properties in Atlantic City. He has also participated in WrestleMania events (such as appearing in the corner of a wrestler whose opponent had McMahon in his corner in a hair vs. hair event) and story lines (such as purportedly buying WWE Raw from McMahon). The $5 million in donations from WWE to the Trump Foundation is by far its largest source of income and rumored to be a tax-avoiding payment from McMahon to Trump for Trump’s involvement in a 2006 WrestleMania event. Out of a little more than $1 million in grants in 2010, the foundation gave $110,000 to the American Heart Association, $100,000 to the American Red Cross and that same amount to his son Eric’s foundation.

We looked at a couple of the previous years’ 990PFs for the Donald J. Trump Foundation just to check the pattern spotted by the Smoking Gun. In 2009, the largest donation by far was $1 million from WWE. No donations were listed from Trump himself. Out of total grant making of $926,750, the foundation’s six-figure grants went to the Police Athletic League, the Tiger Woods Foundation, the William F. Clinton Foundation, New York Presbyterian Hospital, and the Arnold Palmer Medical Center Foundation. In 2008, the largest donations to the foundation were $250,000 from the Willard TC Johnson Foundation and $150,000 from the Celebrity Fight Night Foundation; Trump was listed as donating $30,000 to his foundation. Its only six-figure grant that year (out of $731,000 in total grants) was $107,000 to the Gucci Foundation.

This Washington Times article by “the Donald” extols Romney’s Trump-like virtues as a tough-minded businessman and suggests Romney is best suited to do battle with China, Trump’s bête noire that he says is “cleaning America’s clock.” With his, Trump adds, “Mitt Romney does have his shortcomings: He’s never built a Mitt Romney Tower in New York City or 12 Mitt Romney championship golf courses. Not everyone can be a Donald Trump.”

What Trump didn’t add is that Romney, as the NPQ Newswire has detailed, uses a significant portion of his wealth for charitable and religious contributions. Whether one likes Romney’s choices or not, there’s no denying that he tithes to his religion and gives millions to public charities. It would appear that Donald Trump the businessman might have a little to learn from Mitt Romney the businessman philanthropist. —Rick Cohen

[VA_Jill]

22. Your tongue

WAS firmly planted in your cheek when you wrote that, one assumes?

[herding cats]

16. Good.

I wish her well and fully understand she has a better chance at survival here in the states.