Tag: ebola

Today marks Anniversary of Ebola in Sierra Leone

Last year on May 24, a pregnant woman and a friend stagger in to a hospital in Kenema, They were diagnosed as Sierra Leone’s first Ebola cases. International Development Secretary Justine Greening said “A year ago today it was confirmed that the deadly Ebola virus had reached Sierra Leone. In the months that followed this terrible disease swept across the country claiming thousands of lives, devastating communities and temporarily crippling...

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Ebola case numbers quadruple in Guinea

Today, Sierra Leone berated the “selfish and shameful” behavior of people risking a resurgence of the Ebola virus by ignoring quarantine restrictions, as authorities announced a spike in cases. Already devastated by Ebola, Guinea and Sierra Leone saw a spike in new cases last week, the World Health Organization said Wednesday, crushing hopes that the deadly outbreak was petering out. The country’s National Ebola Response Centre...

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Italian Healthcare Worker Tests Positive for Ebola

On May 12th 2015, The World Health Organization (WHO) received notification of a laboratory-confirmed case of the Ebola virus disease in Italy. The nurse had worked with an Italian aid group in Sierra Leone, one of the West African countries hit by the outbreak last year. He started showing the first symptoms two days after his return last Sunday to his home in Sassari, Sardinia. He immediately isolated himself in his room and was safely transferred...

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Liberia Cautiously Celebrates End of Ebola

Saturday marks 42 days since Liberia’s last Ebola case — the benchmark used to declare the outbreak over because it represents two incubation periods of 21 days for new cases to emerge. The World Health Organization on Saturday called the milestone a “monumental achievement for a country that reported the highest number of deaths in the largest, longest, and most complex outbreak since Ebola first emerged in 1976.” Just...

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Ebola found living in Eye of US Doctor

Before he contracted Ebola, Dr. Ian Crozier had two blue eyes. After he was told he was cured of the disease, his left eye turned green. The medic, who caught the bug while working in Sierra Leone, had blurred eyesight and pain two months after being declared Ebola-free. The announcement on Thursday said the virus reappeared in Crozier who was diagnosed with Ebola in September 2014 while working with the World Health Organization. The test results...

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Bushmeat is Back

Bushmeat was a popular fare in Nigeria, but with the threat of Ebola people have been less interested in it. Wild animal meat is thought to be the origin of the current Ebola outbreak. Now the the Ebola scare is dying down, hunted animals are once again being seen along roadsides for sale. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) says… The term “bushmeat” refers to meat that comes from wild animals captured in developing regions of the world...

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Ebola can spread through sex

Health officials now think Ebola survivors can spread the disease through unprotected sex nearly twice as long as previously believed. A Liberian woman appears to have contracted Ebola from unprotected sex with a man who survived the virus, health officials said today. Scientists thought the Ebola virus could remain in semen for about three months. But this case in West Africa suggests infection through sex can happen more than five months later. Based...

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Is Influenza worse than Ebola?

Influenza Worse Than Ebola?   Despite the heavy media coverage and widespread concern surrounding the Ebola virus, Americans face a more serious health threat — influenza or as what we like to call it the Flu.   “It’s complicated. It’s exotic. It’s something you hear about on the news every day,” said Dr. Edward Waltz, director of the Center for Public Health Preparedness at the University at Albany, of the...

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The next Ebola?

Since the first outbreaks of Ebola virus disease in 1976, there have been numerous other outbreaks in humans across Africa with fatality rates ranging from 50% to 90%. Humans can become infected with the Ebola virus after direct contact with blood or bodily fluids from an infected person or animal. The virus also infects and kills other primates, though fruit bats are suspected to be the most likely carriers of the virus in the wild. In the countries...

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Where did the Ebola Virus come from?

WHERE DID THE EBOLA VIRUS COME FROM?   Ebola is one of about 177 pathogens that are considered to be newly emerging diseases. These diseases are generally zoonotic diseases.  Animal diseases that have jumped species. A familiar example of a zoonotic disease is measles, which is derived from dog distemper.   For the past thirty years, forty-one previously unrecognized human infectious diseases have jumped from their normal animal hosts to human...

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