CDC Confirms Patient In Dallas Has Ebola Virus

[The Bobster]

http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news...e-After-Nurse-Blasts-Treatment-280452692.html

Nurse Discharged From Ebola Quarantine in New Jersey
Monday, Oct 27, 2014 • Updated at 7:01 PM EDT

A nurse who spent the last several days in a New Jersey hospital isolation room after returning from an Ebola assignment in West Africa has been released, officials said.

Kaci Hickox, who was quarantined after arriving Friday at Newark Liberty International Airport under a new mandate issued earlier that day by Govs. Chris Christie and Andrew Cuomo, has been "symptom-free" and is being transported to Maine, per her request, the Health Department said.

Hickox left University Hospital in Newark shortly after 1 p.m. Monday in a private vehicle. Maine Gov. Paul LePage said his state's protocols require Hickox to be quarantined in her home for 21 days after her last possible exposure to the virus. He said he understands her desire to go home, but says "we must be vigilant" in safeguarding public health.

Hickox was monitored since being admitted to University Hospital Friday after getting off a plane following a Doctors Without Borders stint treating Ebola patients in Sierra Leone. She was initially asymptomatic, the Health Department said, but later developed a fever.

Hickox has said she was not feverish but merely became flushed because she was upset about how she was being treated -- like a criminal, she said. A preliminary negative test for Ebola was confirmed at CDC headquarters.

Earlier, lawyers for Hickox said they'd sue for her release, and that they planned to file a constitutional challenge to state restrictions for health care workers returning to New York and New Jersey after treating Ebola patients in West Africa.

Civil liberties attorney Norman Siegel and attorney Steven Hyman said she was being kept in a tented area on the hospital's first floor with a bed, folding chairs and little else; they said she was able to get a laptop computer with wi-fi access only Sunday.

New Jersey's Health Department said "every effort was made to insure that she remained comfortable" while in isolation. The agency said Hickox received a cellphone and reading material along with the laptop, along with "nourishment of choice."

In a first-person account in the Dallas Morning News, Hickox wrote that she encountered fear and disorganization.

She was stopped and questioned over several hours and was left without food for an extended period, she wrote. No one would explain what was going on or what would happen to her, she said in the piece, which was written with the help of a Dallas Morning News staff writer.

"This is not a situation I would wish on anyone, and I am scared for those who will follow me. ... The U.S. must treat returning health care workers with dignity and humanity," wrote Hickox. The Ebola quarantines established by governors in New Jersey and New York mandate 21 days of quarantine of medical workers who have had contact with Ebola victims. Illinois has imposed a similar policy.

On Sunday, Hickox told CNN by telephone that she felt her "basic human rights have been violated," and she called her isolation "inhumane." She also questioned why politicians are making decisions she said should be left up to health officials.

Christie defended the mandatory quarantine of returning aid workers.

"I don’t believe when you’re dealing with something as serious as this that we can count on a voluntary system," Christie told Fox News Sunday. "This is government’s job. If anything else, the government’s job is to protect the safety and health of our citizens."

A senior official with the Obama administration told NBC News that administration officials have informed Christie and Cuomo they have concerns about the "unintended consequences (that) policies not grounded in science may have on efforts to combat Ebola at its source in West Africa."

Christie said that he has not had any contact with the White House about the quarantine policy; he has said he believes that health care workers with an interest in volunteering will understand that quarantines are necessary.

The medical necessity of the quarantines has been called into question.

Doctors Without Borders issued a statement saying protective public health measures, while of "paramount importance," "must be balanced against the rights of health workers returning from fighting the Ebola outbreak in West Africa."

The statement called for "fair and reasonable treatment and the full disclosure of information to them, along with information about intended courses of action from local and state authorities."

Late Sunday, Cuomo clarified New York's protocols. He said they would be asked to remain in their homes for 21 days, not in a hospital, and health care workers would check on them twice a day for any symptoms. Cuomo said accommodations would be found for any health care worker who didn't have a place to stay. The state would pay patients' salaries for 21 days, if necessary.

 

[The Bobster]

http://nypost.com/2014/10/27/5-year-old-nyc-boy-tests-negative-for-ebola/

5-year-old NYC boy tests negative for Ebola
By Bob Fredericks
October 27, 2014 | 6:10pm

Firefighters help EMS worker put on hazmat suits before they went to pickup the boy who had Ebola-like symptoms on Sunday night.
Photo: Peter Gerber


A 5-year-old Bronx boy has tested negative for the deadly ​Ebola virus, city health officials announced Monday.

“The result of the test is negative. Out of an abundance of caution, further negative Ebola tests are required on subsequent days to ensure that the patient is cleared.

The patient will also be tested for common respiratory viruses. The patient will remain in isolation until all test results have returned,” the Health and Hospitals Corporation said in a statement.

The family returned Saturday night from Guinea, one of three West African countries ravaged by the disease.

The child became sick Sunday night, and was rushed to Bellevue Hospital by an EMT crew in Hazmat suits, as shown in a neighbor’s video.

The city said did not have a fever when he was initially examined Sunday night at Bellevue, according to the New York City Health and Hospitals Corp. and that he developed the fever about 7 a.m. Monday.

But the boy’s father insisted he had a 103-degree temperature Sunday, though he was not vomiting or showing other symptoms.

Last week, a Harlem physician, Dr. Craig Spencer, who had been treating Ebola patients in West Africa was diagnosed with the spreading contagion.

He remains in serious but stable condition at Bellevue.

 

[The Bobster]

http://nypost.com/2014/10/27/my-name-is-not-ebola-african-children-bullied-at-school/

‘My name is not Ebola': African children bullied at school
By Elizabeth Hagan
October 27, 2014 | 4:18pm

http://thenypost.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/ebola-bullying.jpg?w=720&h=480&crop=1

“My name is not Ebola. It’s Amadou.”

That’s what young Amadou Drame told his adolescent tormentors​​ before they attacked him and his brother at a Bronx middle school infected with fear and apprehension, ​the boys’ dad said Monday.

Taunted with chants of “Ebola” from the moment they enrolled​ — just weeks after they emigrated from west Africa​ — ​​Amadou, 11, and his brother Pape, 13, were attacked Friday at IS 318 in Tremont, punched in the face and relentlessly bullied by a group of mean classmates​, all because they are from Senegal, one of several west African nations where Ebola cases have been reported.

“They call me from the school, tell me come, they’re beating your children,” said distraught dad Ousmane Drame, a cab driver who is raising the two kids on his own.​ “​I rush, go there, and my children were very hurt, Amadou was crying, laying on the floor, more than 10 children on top of him, beating him.”

Ousmane, 62, who has lived in New York for 25 years, said he brought his sons to America for the opportunity of a better education, but this was not the lesson he had in mind.

“If they go to the gym, they say​,​ ‘​O​h​,​ you don’t play. Don’t touch the ball,” Ousman said.. “`You have Ebola. Sit down there.’ For two days, they don’t touch nobody, they just sit down.

“It’s not just them. All the African children suffer this.

“I spent seven years in college. I went to school all my life. They’re born in a teacher’s family. They have to go to school.”

Ousmane said he met with the school’s principal Monday after Amadou and Pape were kicked and punched on a concrete floor at the school​ last week​.

He also reached out to the Bronx​’s​ African Advisory Council, which is pressing the district for a solution.

“On Friday, while the younger one was in the gym, he was assaulted,” said Charles Cooper, president of the council. “They came to him calling​,​ ‘Ebola, Ebola, get out of here,’ punched him several times all over. They then went to lunch. During lunch, they were outside in the yard, which is supposed to be a safe place. There’s supposed to be someone looking over them and making sure they’re safe. That was not the case.

“The kids were yelling, ‘Ebola​​ Ebola get out of here,’ and they rushed him, threw him on the ground, kicked him, punched him. He was screaming. His brother heard him screaming from across the yard, so his brother ran to him.

“The other kids jumped on him also and started beating on him as well. The school tried to say it was a fight,” Cooper said, “We made it very clear to them. This was not a fight. This is assault. This is bullying.”

​The Department of Education ​did not immediately comment.

Senegal is one of several west African countries where Ebola cases have been reported, but there have been no new cases in that country since late August, according to the CDC.

Amadou has since told his father he wants to go home to Senegal, where their mother stayed behind. That, Ousman said, is not an option.

Ousman said the boys are American citizens, born in New York and raised in Senegal so they could learn French and math.

“This,” he told the boys, “is your home.”

 

[The Bobster]

http://nypost.com/2014/10/27/manage...d-with-ebola-doctor-is-under-home-quarantine/

Manager claims tenant who bowled with Ebola doctor is under home quarantine
By Priscilla DeGregory, Ben Feuerherd and Bruce Golding
October 27, 2014 | 5:47am

The manager of a Brooklyn apartment building where a resident is under quarantine for possible exposure to Ebola complained Sunday that the feds have kept everyone else there in the dark since visiting last week.

The building manager, who gave her name only as Monica, said she thinks she knows which tenant went bowling with Ebola patient Dr. Craig Spencer before his diagnosis with the deadly virus last week.

She said workers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention visited the building without notice on Friday.

But she said that “the CDC is not even informing me. They are keeping it confidential, and I don’t think it’s right because it’s in my building and I think I have the right to know.

“I have been trying to contact him myself via e-mail and phone call, telling him it’s very important. I can’t get him,” she added.

A neighbor in the building said he was told by a city official that tenant is a doctor who hasn’t suffered any symptoms of the virus.

The neighbor said he was also told that the man had voluntarily quarantined himself, but noted that the official he spoke with was carrying “several pairs of plastic handcuffs.”

A second Brooklyn resident is also under quarantine after spending time with Spencer.

The CDC declined to comment.

Meanwhile, a Health Department worker dropped off a black duffel bag full of supplies Sunday morning for Spencer’s fiancée, Morgan Dixon, who’s quarantined inside the couple’s Harlem apartment.

Cops were also standing guard outside the building, where Dixon returned after being discharged Saturday from Bellevue Hospital, where Spencer is being treated inside a special Ebola ward.

 

[The Bobster]

http://nypost.com/2014/10/29/ebola-doctor-lied-about-his-nyc-travels-police/

Ebola doctor ‘lied’ about NYC travels
By Jamie Schram and Bruce Golding
October 29, 2014 | 3:21am

New York City police officers enter the building where Dr. Craig Spencer (inset with fiancée Morgan Dixon) lives in New York on Oct. 24.
Photo: Reuters/Mike Segar


The city’s first Ebola patient initially lied to authorities about his travels around the city following his return from treating disease victims in Africa, law-enforcement sources said.

Dr. Craig Spencer at first told officials that he isolated himself in his Harlem apartment — and didn’t admit he rode the subways, dined out and went bowling until cops looked at his MetroCard the sources said.

“He told the authorities that he self-quarantined. Detectives then reviewed his credit-card statement and MetroCard and found that he went over here, over there, up and down and all around,” a source said.

Spencer finally ’fessed up when a cop “got on the phone and had to relay questions to him through the Health Department,” a source said.

Officials then retraced Spencer’s steps, which included dining at The Meatball Shop in Greenwich Village and bowling at The Gutter in Brooklyn.

 

[The Bobster]

http://nypost.com/2014/10/30/ebola-nurse-breaks-quarantine-and-goes-for-bike-ride-with-boyfriend/

Nurse breaks Ebola quarantine for bike ride with boyfriend
By Yaron Steinbuch
October 30, 2014 | 9:28am

Kaci Hickox takes a bike ride on October 29.
Photo: WLBZ 2


Kaci Hickox, the combative nurse who vowed to defy Maine’s quarantine for health-care workers who’ve treated Ebola patients, has hit the streets Thursday morning for a bike ride with her boyfriend.

Police are in hot pursuit to monitor her escapade, but can’t detain her without a judge’s court order.

Hickox argues there’s no need for quarantine because she’s showing no symptoms of the deadly virus.

State officials were going to court in an effort to detain Hickox for the remainder of the 21-day incubation period for Ebola that ends on Nov. 10.

Hickox threatened to sue when she was forcibly quarantined in New Jersey after landing at Newark Airport from Sierra Leone on Friday.

“I don’t plan on sticking to the guidelines,” she told the “Today” show via Skype on Wednesday. “If the restrictions placed on me by the state of Maine are not lifted by Thursday morning, I will go to court to fight for my freedom.”

Maine Gov. Paul LePage vowed to enforce the 21-day quarantine.

Hickox’s lawyer, civil-rights attorney Norman Siegel , has said he hoped to avoid a court fight.

“We’re still trying to negotiate to see if we can resolve it,” Siegel told The Post.

 

[The Bobster]

http://nypost.com/2014/10/31/city-tracking-117-peoples-body-temperatures-for-signs-of-ebola/

City tracking 117 people for signs of Ebola
By Yaron Steinbuch and Post Wires
October 31, 2014 | 12:16am

Bellevue Hospital nurse Belkys Fortune (left) and Teressa Celia, Associate Director of Infection Prevention and Control, pose in protective suits in an isolation room during a demonstration of procedures for possible Ebola patients, Oct. 8.
Photo: AP


The city is tracking 117 people for Ebola symptoms by issuing free thermometers and trusting them to relay their temperatures to the Health Department twice a day, officials said Thursday.

No one on the list has shown any symptoms, and all are being monitored “out of an abundance of caution,” said City Hall spokeswoman Marti Adams.

About 470 Health Department workers are responsible for calling all those being monitored twice a day and keeping a log of their temperatures.

“It ensures that health officials can respond rapidly in case a person who is at risk becomes ill, so they can be isolated and evaluated before they become contagious,” Adams said.

The number of people being “actively monitored” will fluctuate on a daily basis, according to the Mayor’s Office.

The list includes Bellevue Hospital workers caring for Dr. Craig Spencer, who contracted the disease after treating Ebola patients in Guinea. New York City’s first and only confirmed case of Ebola was listed in serious but stable condition Thursday.

Also being actively monitored are the FDNY EMS workers who took Spencer to the hospital, the workers who handled his blood, his fiancée and two friends.

The fiancée and friends are under home quarantine and are being checked in person, the Health Department said.

Spencer tested positive for the disease on Oct. 23, just days after returning to his home in Harlem.

His case highlighted the behind-the-scenes work of the city’s team of disease detectives.

They used information from his credit cards, MetroCards and his cellphone records to piece *together an hour-by-hour timeline of his movements since returning to the city.

In other developments on Thursday:

•The 5-year-old boy who was treated for a respiratory illness at Bellevue after testing negative for Ebola was released from the hospital. He will be actively monitored along with his mother and a sibling, officials said.

• Mayor de Blasio and Gov. Cuomo announced a program to encourage health-care workers to travel to West Africa to treat Ebola patients by offering them job and health-care protections upon their return. The state and city will ensure they will not lose their jobs or benefits while abroad. The state also will reimburse those who are quarantined and their employers. The program is modeled after benefits offered to military reservists returning from war.

• The CDC has yanked a poster off its Web site describing how Ebola can be spread by droplets just a day after The Post reported on the frightening revelation. The CDC did not immediately respond to a request for an explanation of why the poster was taken off its Web site.

 

[voiceofreason]

Md. Doctor With Ebola Has Died In Neb. Treatment Center

http://baltimore.cbslocal.com/2014/11/17/md-doctor-with-ebola-has-died-in-neb-treatment-center/

Md. Doctor With Ebola Has Died In Neb. Treatment Center
November 17, 2014 9:34 AM

OMAHA, Neb. (WJZ/AP)—The Maryland doctor who contracted Ebola while treating patients in Sierra Leone has died of the disease at a Nebraska treatment facility.

Nebraska Medical Center said in a news release that Dr. Martin Salia died as a result of the disease. Hospital spokesman Taylor Wilson said Salia died shortly after 4 a.m. Monday.

Salia, who was diagnosed with Ebola last Monday, arrived in Omaha on Saturday to be treated at the Nebraska Medical Center’s biocontainment unit that has successfully treated two other Ebola patients this fall.

“Dr. Salia was extremely critical when he arrived here, and unfortunately, despite our best efforts, we weren’t able to save him,” said Dr. Phil Smith, medical director of the biocontainment unit.

Doctors reported the 44-year-old as “extremely ill” on Sunday.

 

[The Bobster]

http://nypost.com/2014/12/15/schumer-fed-money-should-pay-off-hospitals-ebola-bills/

Schumer: Fed money should pay off hospitals’ Ebola bills
By Kathleen Culliton and Yaron Steinbuch
December 15, 2014 | 3:30pm

Sen. Charles Schumer is calling on Washington to use earmarked funds to reimburse NYC hospitals for costly Ebola treatments.
Photo: Getty Images


The US Department of Health and Human Services has 30 days to develop a spending plan for $733 million earmarked for response to the Ebola treatment in the US and Sen. Charles Schumer Monday called for the department to fairly reimburse several New York City Hospitals that have shelled out money for treatment and training.

Schumer said he would like Bellevue Hospital and three others to get about $50 million of the funds.

“Our city government has done a superb job doing all of this. However, it doesn’t come without cost,” Schumer said at a press conference outside Bellevue. “Up to now, including of course Bellevue, New York City has spent 30 million dollars to do this.”

Schumer recognized that New York City has already reimbursed Bellevue $20 million for what it spent to treat Dr. Craig Spencer, who contracted the virus in West Africa and was diagnosed after returning home.

He said more support from the federal government is needed for Bellevue and the three other Ebola centers: Montefiore Medical Center, New York Presbyterian Hospital and Mount Sinai Hospital.

Montefiore Medical Center spent about $8 million on a bio-containment unit and training, Mount Sinai Hospital has spent about $7 million and New York Presbyterian Hospital has spent about $3.3 million, according to Schumer’s office.

The 10 Ebola-designated hospitals in New York have spent a total of between $50 million and $75 million on construction, protective gear and training, said Ken Raske, president of the Greater New York Hospital Association, according to capitalnewyork.com.

 

[The Bobster]

http://nypost.com/2014/12/23/man-exhibiting-ebola-like-symptoms-rushed-to-bellevue/

Man exhibiting Ebola-like symptoms rushed to Bellevue
By Jamie Schram and Christina Monello
December 23, 2014 | 4:04pm

A man suffering from Ebola-like symptoms was rushed from an Upper West Side apartment building to Bellevue Hospital on Tuesday — but officials determined that he did not have the disease, authorities said.

The patient recently returned from Liberia and started suffering symptoms such as high fever Saturday night, sources said.

Hazmat, police officers, EMS and fire officials helped transport the man from the building at 201 W. 70th St. near Amsterdam Avenue just before noon, FDNY said.

The patient was given a blood test at Bellevue and it showed negative for Ebola.

He was given an alternative diagnosis and is currently in critical condition.

 

[The Bobster]

http://www.myfoxphilly.com/story/27728684/united-kingdom-confirms-first-ebola-case

United Kingdom Confirms First Ebola Case
Posted: Dec 30, 2014 9:28 AM EST
Updated: Dec 30, 2014 9:28 AM EST

Health officials in the United Kingdom confirm its first case of Ebola, after a health care worker returned from Sierra Leone, and tested positive for the disease.

Authorities say, the female worker is now being treated at a Glasgow Hospital.

Officials say, she traveled on a British Airways flight from Casablanca to Glasgow.

Passengers, will be contacted as a precaution, but officials say there's little risk of it spreading.

Officials say they are prepared to handle the situation.

 

[The Bobster]

http://nypost.com/2015/01/02/isis-fighters-may-have-come-down-with-ebola-report/

ISIS fighters may have come down with Ebola
By Beckie Strum
January 2, 2015 | 11:40pm

Demonstrators chant pro-Islamic State slogans as they carry the group's flags in front of the provincial government headquarters in Mosul in this June 2014 photo.
Photo: AP


Islamic State fighters are no match for Ebola.

The World Health Organization is investigating whether some ill jihadists have contracted the killer disease, two sources at the agency told The Post.

Agency officials are checking if there are Ebola patients at a Mosul hospital 250 miles north of Baghdad, sources said.

Al-Sabah, an Iraqi pro-government newspaper, reported this week that the fighters were being treated for Ebola, while some of their comrades have come down with HIV brought by foreign extremists “coming from many countries, particularly those in Africa.”

“The Ebola virus could be in any area in the world, including Mosul, where they don’t have the measures or techniques to diagnose the virus,” ministry spokesman Ahmed Rudaini told Iraqi media Thursday. “They are incapable to detect it.” 

 

[voiceofreason]

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-30666265

4 January 2015 Last updated at 02:58 ET


UK Ebola nurse Pauline Cafferkey 'in critical condition'

A British nurse who was diagnosed with Ebola after returning from Sierra Leone is now in a critical condition, the London hospital treating her has said.

The Royal Free Hospital said it was "sorry to announce that the condition of Pauline Cafferkey has gradually deteriorated over the past two days".

Ms Cafferkey, from South Lanarkshire, was given an experimental anti-viral drug and blood from disease survivors.

Meanwhile, a patient who was tested in Swindon for Ebola has tested negative.

Ms Cafferkey, a public health nurse, was diagnosed with Ebola in December after volunteering with Save the Children in Sierra Leone.

 

[The Bobster]

http://nypost.com/2015/02/06/ebola-doc-rips-cuomochristie-quarantine-orders/

Ebola doc rips Cuomo, Christie quarantine orders
By David K. Li
February 6, 2015 | 12:18am

Dr. Craig Spencer
Photo: Getty Images


The Harlem doctor who contracted and beat Ebola lashed out at Gov. Cuomo and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie on Thursday, saying they acted out of fear and without knowing all the facts when they ordered mandatory quarantines of health-care workers returning from west Africa.

“What I think and what I know is what happened after my sickness was . . . many politicians [had] a convenient chance to appear presidential,” Dr. Craig Spencer, who treated Ebola victims in Guinea, said on WNYC radio.

He said politicians threw out “public-health principles at the expense of political expediency.”

Before coming down with a fever, indicating Ebola, the doctor was out and about in the city — jogging, dining out, bowling and riding subways.

Spencer insisted he didn’t do anything wrong.

“At no point would I have put . . . the safety of my loved ones and my community at risk,” he said.

 

[The Bobster]

http://nypost.com/2015/02/25/ebola-doc-speaks-out-i-was-never-a-public-hazard/

Ebola doc speaks out: I was never a public hazard
By Laura Italiano
February 25, 2015 | 11:34pm

Craig Spencer, who was diagnosed with the Ebola virus while in New York in October, says he posed no risk to the public.
Photo: AP


I was neither a hazard nor a hero, says New York’s first and only Ebola patient.

Speaking out Wednesday in an online essay in the New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Craig Spencer said he was reviled as a reckless public health risk by some, and praised as a selfless, super-hero physician by others.

“The truth is, I am none of those things,” Spencer, 33, wrote.

“I’m just someone who answered a call for help and was lucky enough to survive.”

As he lay in Bellevue Hospital last October, in the first days of his illness, he was too weak to see the news and learn these wildly differing characterizations.

“I was being vilified in the media even as my liver was failing and my fiancee was quarantined in our apartment,” he recalled, with some bitterness.

Surviving Ebola was no picnic. “One day, I ate only a cup of fruit — and held it down for less than an hour,” he wrote.

“I lost 20 lb, was febrile for 2 weeks, and struggled to the bathroom up to a dozen times a day.”

But his own struggle paled compared to that of the impoverished West Africans, he noted — some of whom died on the doorsteps of treatment centers.

“No matter how exhausted I felt when I woke up, an hour of profuse sweating in the suit and the satisfaction I got from treating ill patients washed away my fear and made me feel new again,” he said of his work treating Ebola patients in Guinea through Doctors Without Borders.

“Yet I also remember the calm that settled over me the last time I left the center, knowing that I’d no longer be exposed to Ebola,” he admitted.

“The suffering I’d seen, combined with exhaustion, made me feel depressed for the first time in my life,” he said of his return to New York.

“Twice a day, I held my breath in fear when I put a thermometer in my mouth,” he added.

“I did all this worrying well before I ever had a fever or showed any symptoms of Ebola,” he wrote.

Once diagnosed, “My activities before I was hospitalized were widely reported and highly criticized,” he wrote.

“People feared riding the subway or going bowling because of me. The whole country soon knew where I like to walk, eat, and unwind. “People excoriated me for going out in the city when I was symptomatic, but I hadn’t been symptomatic,” he stressed.

Still, the media “spent hours retracing my steps … and debating whether Ebola can be transmitted through a bowling ball.”

 

[The Bobster]

http://www.myfoxphilly.com/story/28230914/sierra-leones-vice-president-in-quarantine-for-ebola

Sierra Leone's vice president in quarantine for Ebola
By Associated Press
By CLARENCE ROY-MACAULAY

FREETOWN, Sierra Leone (AP) - Sierra Leone's vice president has put himself in quarantine following the death from Ebola of one of his security guards.

Vice President Samuel Sam-Sumana is set to become acting president later Sunday when President Ernest Bai Koroma leaves Sierra Leone to attend a European Union conference on Ebola in Belgium. Sam-Sumana will carry out his duties as president from his home.

He is the highest ranking African official to be in quarantine in this Ebola outbreak, which is fast approaching a death toll of 10,000.

Sam-Sumana voluntarily decided to quarantine himself for 21 days following the death from Ebola last Tuesday of one of his security personnel, according to the Sierra Leone Broadcasting Corporation.

Sam-Sumana called on all those who have been in contact with the dead man to also put themselves in quarantine, said the report.

"The Vice President opted to quarantine himself because he wants to lead by example," Sierra Leone's Deputy Minister of Information and Communications Theo Nicol told the Associated Press.

Sam-Sumana's dramatic quarantine comes as Sierra Leone is experiencing a rise in new Ebola cases which prompted President Ernest Bai Koroma to reinstate restrictions on Saturday.

Sierra Leone recorded 18 new cases of Ebola in the week ending Saturday, up from 16 new cases last week. This breaks the trend of declining cases in Sierra Leone. Many of the new clusters of cases are related to the capital's fishing industry.

The measures re-imposed include a nighttime ban on all boats launching from shore and from commercial vehicles off-loading goods in western market areas. Naval vessels will patrol the shore and wharves.

In addition there will be restrictions on ferries and health checkpoints by the police will be strengthened. Public transportation will be reinstated which limit the numbers of passengers in taxis to two in cars and four at the back of large taxi vans to reduce physical contact between passengers.

 

[The Bobster]

http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news...hheld-Ebola-Protocol-Documents-294933971.html

ACLJew Sues New Jersey Over Withheld Ebola Protocol Documents
Published at 8:48 PM EST on Mar 3, 2015

The American Civil Liberties Union has sued the state to get documents related to how the Christie administration developed its policies and protocols for handling Ebola.

The group's New Jersey chapter says it filed the lawsuit late Monday in state Superior Court, after the state Health Department rejected a request made last October under the state's Open Public Records Act.

The ACLU is seeking emails and other correspondence from specific department officials that contained several key words, including Ebola, EVD, quarantine, isolation or screening. It also wants correspondence with county health departments.

Their request was rejected Jan. 14. The group says it was told its request was overly broad and required research.

A health department spokeswoman declined comment Tuesday, saying the department does not comment on pending litigation.

 

[The Bobster]

http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/14/health/cdc-americans-ebola/

11 Americans return from Sierra Leone for Ebola concerns
By Elizabeth Cohen and Steve Almasy, CNN
Updated 1:20 PM ET, Sun March 15, 2015

(CNN)—Eleven Americans have been flown back to the United States :crazy: as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention investigates the possibility they might have been exposed to Ebola in Sierra Leone.

The number could change as the investigation continues, Tom Skinner, a spokesman for the CDC, told CNN on Saturday.

The news came one day after an American health care worker who came down with Ebola while volunteering in West Africa arrived at a National Institutes of Health hospital for treatment, the NIH said.

"(The) CDC and the State Department are facilitating the return of additional American citizens who had potential exposure to the index patient or exposures similar to those that resulted in the infection of the index patient," the CDC said in a written statement.

The CDC said none of these individuals returning from Africa has been diagnosed as having Ebola, including one who had "potential exposure to the individual being treated at NIH" and was "transported via charter to the Atlanta area to be close to Emory University Hospital" on Friday. That person is voluntarily self-isolating and will be monitored over the 21-day incubation period, the CDC said.

Four people who had "more exposure than the others" to the patient with Ebola will isolate themselves in housing on the campus of the University of Nebraska Medical Center, said Nebraska Medicine spokesman Taylor Wilson. They arrived on the medical campus Saturday evening, Wilson said.

The other six were scheduled to fly into Washington on Sunday to go to the NIH, and into Atlanta on Monday to go to Emory, Skinner said. While neither the NIH nor CDC reported when those six landed in the United States, Dent Thompson, COO of Phoenix Air, said his company had transported all of those potentially exposed to their destinations in Washington, Atlanta and Omaha, Nebraska.

Skinner said the Americans will stay at hotels and other housing near the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, the National Institutes of Health in Maryland or Emory University Hospital in Atlanta.

The heath care worker with Ebola was in serious condition Friday, the NIH said. Details about the patient's identity weren't released.

The patient and all but one of the Americans being sent home work for Partners in Health, which provides health care "in settings of poverty," according to a news release from the group.

"Ten clinicians who came to the aid of their ailing colleague were subsequently identified as contacts of the evacuated clinician," the statement said. "These clinicians are being transported to the United States via non-commercial aircraft. They will remain in isolation near designated U.S. Ebola treatment facilities to ensure access to rapid testing and treatment in the unlikely instance that any become symptomatic."

The NIH patient is the second with Ebola admitted to the NIH hospital. Nina Pham, a nurse at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas, was admitted to NIH in October after she contracted the disease while treating Liberian national Thomas Eric Duncan. Pham recovered and was released free of disease. Duncan died.

The hospitals mentioned by the CDC are three of only four hospitals in the United States that have biocontainment units to deal with a highly infectious disease such as Ebola.

But between those four hospitals, there are only about 18 beds in the specialized areas: 10 at Nebraska, three at Emory, two at NIH and three at St. Patrick Hospital in Missoula, Montana.

More than 10,000 people have died in a West Africa epidemic of Ebola that dates back to December 2013, according to the World Health Organization. Most of the deaths have been in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Ebola is spread by direct contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person.

 

[The Bobster]

http://news.yahoo.com/another-four-u-ebola-aid-workers-flown-back-204250158.html

Another four U.S. Ebola aid workers flown back to U.S. for monitoring
(Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Another four U.S. healthcare workers were flown back to the United States for monitoring for possible exposure to the Ebola virus, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Tuesday.

The return of the four U.S. healthcare workers brings to 16 the number of Americans who have returned to the United States from Sierra Leone since Friday, the CDC said.

That includes a healthcare worker in critical condition who is being treated for Ebola in a Maryland biocontainment unit run by the National Institutes of Health.

Most of the healthcare workers are employed by the aid group Partners in Health.

Only one of the 16 has tested positive for Ebola. The rest are being flown to Atlanta and Maryland, which have special biocontainment units. They are all undergoing monitoring for Ebola in self-imposed isolation as they wait out the remainder of the 21-day Ebola incubation period.

CDC spokesman Tom Skinner said the agency is still investigating the circumstances surrounding the exposures.

 

[The Bobster]

http://www.myfoxphilly.com/story/28808543/ebola-monitoring-costs-in-new-jersey-since-october-26m

Ebola monitoring costs in New Jersey since October: $2.6M
Posted: Apr 15, 2015 9:55 AM EDT
Updated: Apr 15, 2015 9:55 AM EDT

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) - It has cost New Jersey more than $2.6 million to monitor passengers arriving at Newark Liberty Airport for possible Ebola virus since October.

The state Health Department says 1,408 passengers arrived in Newark between October and last month from Guinea, Sierra Leone or Liberia. Of those, 641 were considered to have some risk of contracting the disease and were monitored by local health officials for 21 days.

Twenty-one of the passengers were sent to a hospital for evaluations because they had Ebola-like symptoms. None of the cases turned out to be the disease.

The state has not placed anyone in homes it set aside for quarantine at the former Fort Monmouth Army post.

The data were first reported by NJ.com (http://bit.ly/1CN2ph5 ).