Tag: fight ebola

Sierra Leone’s president calls for week of fasting, prayer over Ebola

(Reuters) – Sierra Leone President Ernest Bai Koroma asked the country to begin a week of fasting and prayers on Thursday to end the Ebola virus that has killed more than 2,700 of his countrymen. The worst outbreak on record of the virus is still spreading in West Africa, especially in Sierra Leone, and the number of known cases globally has exceeded 20,000, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday. In a New Year’s Day...

Continue reading

Liberia lifts curfew for New Year’s Eve

(BBC News) Worshippers should avoid over-crowding and touching to prevent contagion, the deputy information minister said. Health agencies did not comment directly on the one-night suspension, but warned against complacency. Liberia’s government had hoped for an Ebola-free Christmas, but the disease has continued to claim lives. The virus has killed nearly 8,000 people, mostly in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea, where it was first identified...

Continue reading

Experimental drug for Scottish Nurse battling Ebola

(BBC NEWS) Specialists at the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead, where the nurse is being treated, did not name the drug. Dr Michael Jacobs said Ms Cafferkey was in isolation and was sitting up in bed, talking and reading. As the disease has no known cure and is unpredictable, Dr Jacobs said they would know more in a week’s time. He said Ms Cafferkey had agreed to all the treatments and her family had been to see her. “She’s a...

Continue reading

Ebola crisis back in focus as UK case confirmed

(Katy Barnato -CNBC) The international Ebola epidemic made headlines again on Tuesday after the U.K. announced its first in-country case of the deadly virus and two other patients underwent tests. Ebola continues to rage in West Africa, and the British government said on Monday that a healthcare worker had been diagnosed with the disease one day after flying from Sierra Leone to Glasgow. The nurse has since been transferred to the Royal Free Hospital...

Continue reading

Process at Britain’s airports to be reviewed after Doc says ‘inadequately prepared’

The screening process for the deadly Ebola virus at Britain’s airports is to be reviewed after a doctor who travelled back to the UK with the Scottish nurse suffering from the disease described staff as “disorganised” and “inadequately prepared”. Dr Martin Deahl sat next to Pauline Cafferkey on a flight to Heathrow as they returned from five weeks tackling Ebola in Sierra Leone. Mrs Cafferkey, a 39-year-old public health nurse, became ill on...

Continue reading

Scientists trace Ebola outbreak to a 2 year old boy

The two-year-old boy whose death started the current Ebola outbreak may have contracted the deadly virus by playing with bats in a hollow tree, a study has found. Scientists who visited the village of Meliandou, in Guinea, found that Emile Ouamouno and other children used to play with and sometimes hunt the bats, which are believed to carry Ebola. A team of researchers from universities in Germany, Sweden, the Côte d’Ivoire, Canada and the...

Continue reading

Scottish Ebola Nurse transferred to London hospital

A Scottish Ebola nurse was on the way to specialist facilities in London on Tuesday morning after being diagnosed with the Ebola virus. The woman had been treated in an isolation unit in Glasgow after being diagnosed hours after arriving home from west Africa via a British Airways flight from Heathrow. She was later transferred from Glasgow airport on a military-style plane in a quarantine tent surrounded by a group of health workers in full protection...

Continue reading

CDC: Lab tech may have been exposed to Ebola.

Experts say “We can’t afford these mistakes” By Steve Almasy, CNN — A lab tech from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will be monitored for three weeks after possibly being exposed to the Ebola virus at one of the agency’s Atlanta labs, the CDC said Wednesday. The CDC said in a written statement that a small amount of material from an experiment was mistakenly transferred from one lab to another and it...

Continue reading

Untested Ebola drug given to patients in Sierra Leone causes UK walkout

(The Guardian – Sarah Boseley/Freetown) Ebola patients at a treatment centre in Sierra Leone have been given a heart drug that is untested against the virus in animals and humans, a move that has been deemed reckless by one senior scientist and has prompted UK medical staff at the centre to leave. A 14-strong team of British doctors, nurses and paramedics stopped working at the Lakka treatment centre in Freetown because of their concerns...

Continue reading

Could Christmas Worsen Ebola’s Spread?

Christmas is coming. Around the world, people who celebrate the end of the year holidays are taking time off and heading home to see friends and relatives. They include aid workers fighting Ebola in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea. And they include residents of the three countries hardest hit by the Ebola epidemic. It worries Dr. Dan Kelly. And officials in Sierra Leone were concerned enough to limit public gatherings for the holidays. “The...

Continue reading