'Explosive increase' in Ebola cases is feared

[schwartzie]

Plagues and diseases are increasing. Not only are antibiotics ineffective against many of them, but as Charlie Garrett says, imagine what it will be like during the Tribulation when NO medicine is available?  


'Explosive increase' in Ebola cases is feared as outbreak in Congo spreads to a CITY and UN considers whether to declare a 'health emergency of international concern'

Deadly virus has been detected in Mbandaka, Democratic Republic of Congo

Discovery in city of 1 million has sparked fears of an 'explosive increase' in cases

So far, 23 deaths have been recorded in the outbreak - mostly in isolated areas

WHO considering declaring 'public health emergency of international concern'

By Julian Robinson for MailOnline and Reuters



PUBLISHED: 05:16 EDT, 17 May 2018 | UPDATED: 14:05 EDT, 17 May 2018




Experts fear an 'explosive increase' in Ebola cases after an outbreak in Congo entered a 'new phase' and spread to a city.



The deadly virus was detected in the northwest city of Mbandaka, with a population of about 1 million people, the country's health minister revealed last night.



So far, the 23 deaths believed to have been caused by Democratic Republic of Congo's latest Ebola outbreak were in more isolated areas, giving authorities a better chance of ring-fencing the virus.



The first urban case to be announced threatens to change that. The World Health Organisation, which on Wednesday deployed the first experimental vaccines in the vast central African country, will decide tomorrow whether to declare a 'public health emergency of international concern'.



Such a declaration by the Emergency Committee would trigger more international involvement, mobilising research and resources, WHO spokesman Christian Lindmeier said.







Full article with pictures and video at link

[Midnight]

The Ebola superhighway: Why the new outbreak terrifies public health authorities

BY REID WILSON - 05/19/18 09:27 AM EDT 613




A new outbreak of the Ebola virus that has killed at least two dozen people has set public health officials scrambling to contain the epidemic as it threatens to spread far beyond the remote jungles of the Congo River Basin — and raises new questions about the World Health Organization’s (WHO) preparations for the next killer virus.



The U.S. government is preparing its most direct response yet to the outbreak that appears to have begun in April, readying staffers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to deploy to multiple communities in the Democratic Republic of Congo.



Ministry of Health officials first identified cases of viral hemorrhagic fever when it reached the town of Bikoro earlier this month. On Thursday, officials said a new case had been identified in Mbandaka, a city of 1.2 million.



The new case in Mbandaka has raised the alarm among public health officials because it is the first time the virus has ever landed in a city that sits directly on the Congo River.



In all eight of the previous known Ebola outbreaks in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the virus has been contained within remote jungle villages or relatively small towns, where isolated populations are less likely to spread the disease.



But the Congo River is effectively the region’s highway system. Barges and boats travel from Kisangani in the east through major cities including Bumba, Mbandaka — and eventually Kinshasa, the capital of the DRC and home to more than 11 million people, as well as Brazzaville, the capital of the Republic of Congo.



“The Congo River connects three national capitals and multiple other large cities,” said Jeremy Konyndyk, who served as head of USAID’s Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance during the 2014-2015 outbreak. “The fact that there are now several cases in an urban center of more than a million people underscores the potential for this outbreak to get out of control.”



If the Ebola virus traveled upriver from Bikoro to Mbandaka, some officials wonder, has it also traveled downstream toward Kinshasa, which offers direct air traffic to cities including Brussels, Paris, Dubai and Lagos, Nigeria?



“We don't know what's happening along the river, because the river is used by a lot of barges,” said Pierre Rollin, one of the world’s leading experts on the Ebola virus at the CDC. “None of the outbreaks have been by the river or in the big towns. So we have a lot of caution before claiming we know what's going on.”



Previous outbreaks have been snuffed out in the Congo, Rollin said, because the area is so remote that humans did not have a chance to travel far enough to transmit the virus before succumbing.



That was not the case four years ago in West Africa, where the virus spread widely across international boundaries. Commercial and cultural travel throughout Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone — across borders drawn a century and a half ago by colonizers with little regard for traditional tribal boundaries — is far more common than it is in the Congo.



The present outbreak has raised anew questions about WHO and its capacity to respond to deadly viral threats. In the wake of the West African outbreak ago, when the ill-prepared WHO endured withering criticism for its lackluster response to the initial round of cases, the agency has undergone a remarkable round of self-flagellation, reorganizing to prioritize emergency preparedness and response while cutting bureaucracy.



“We’ve seen WHO activate much more quickly, at much larger scale, and in more effective partnership with players like” Doctors Without Borders, said Konyndyk, who sat on an independent panel that advised WHO on reforming its emergency functions after the West Africa outbreak.



The first WHO investigative team arrived in Bikoro on May 5, about a month after the first suspected cases are likely to have emerged in Ikoko Impenge. A logistics team arrived on May 9, and the United Nations began daily flights carrying supplies and personnel between Kinshasa and Mbandaka on May 13.



Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO’s director general, visited Bikoro on May 13, in part to show the urgency of the situation.



“A major lesson learnt from the West Africa Ebola outbreak was that WHO needed a flexible fund to rapidly respond to outbreaks and emergencies,” Tarik Jasarevic, a WHO spokesman, said in an email from Geneva. The agency’s new Contingency Fund for Emergencies, already activated in the Congo, has made cash available to responders far more quickly than in the case of West Africa.



Still, some wonder why it took the Congolese Ministry of Health and the WHO a month to spot the virus in the first place.



“We are doing better at response, but not much better at rapid detection, which is important,” said Tom Frieden, the former CDC director who now runs the public health organization Resolve to Save Lives. “This was spreading for a while before [it was] recognized.”



Aiding the response further is a new vaccine, finalized in the last days of the West Africa outbreak. About 4,000 doses of the vaccine are headed to the epicenter of the new outbreak, where they will be used in two ways: First, health care workers, those most vulnerable to exposure, will be vaccinated. Then, those who have come into contact with anyone infected, and the contact’s contacts, will be vaccinated, a practice known as ring vaccination.



“That part should really add another arm to the response. It's not the response by itself, because you still have to do all the rest,” Rollin said.



The Democratic Republic of the Congo is also far more prepared to respond to an Ebola outbreak because the virus is known to be endemic to the region. The first modern outbreak of the Ebola virus occurred in the village of Yambuku, about 370 miles from the site of the present one, back in 1976.


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[PurplePuppy]

EBOLA EPIDEMIC GETTING SCARIER IN CONGO

Death toll reaches 26 as fears increase of spread to neighboring nations

Published: 11 hours ago




The death toll from an outbreak of the Ebola virus in the Congo has hit 26 with fears it could spread to neighboring countries.



The country’s government has agreed to increase emergency-response funding to over $4 million, AP reported. Ebola victims are being provided with free health care. Some 4,000 vaccines were ordered Saturday – but officials may struggle to keep them cold enough to remain effective.



An emergency committee convened by the World Health Organization met but decided the situation didn’t yet merit being classed as a public health emergency and stopped short of calling for travel restrictions. However, WHO warned that nine neighboring countries are at a high risk of being affected.



The U.S. government is preparing its most direct response yet to the outbreak that appears to have begun in April, readying staffers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to deploy to multiple communities in Congo.



Ministry of Health officials first identified cases of viral hemorrhagic fever when it reached the town of Bikoro earlier this month. On Thursday, officials said a new case had been identified in Mbandaka, a city of 1.2 million. The new case in Mbandaka has raised the alarm among health officials because it is the first time the virus has ever landed in a city that sits directly on the Congo River.



In all eight of the previous known Ebola outbreaks in Congo, the virus has been contained within remote jungle villages or relatively small towns, where isolated populations are less likely to spread the disease.



“The Congo River connects three national capitals and multiple other large cities,” said Jeremy Konyndyk, who led the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance during the 2014-2015 outbreak. “The fact that there are now several cases in an urban center of more than a million people underscores the potential for this outbreak to get out of control.”



Aiding the response is a new vaccine, finalized in the last days of the West Africa outbreak. About 4,000 doses of the vaccine are headed to the epicenter of the new outbreak, where they will be used in two ways: First, health-care workers, those most vulnerable to exposure, will be vaccinated. Then, those who have come into contact with anyone infected, and the contact’s contacts, will be vaccinated, a practice known as ring vaccination.



Health workers in the Congo will begin a vaccination campaign on Monday aimed at containing an outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus, a spokeswoman for the health ministry said.



A previous outbreak of Ebola in west Africa in 2014 and 2015 killed more than 11,000 people. An unrelated outbreak in the Congo in 2014 killed 41 people. There have previously been eight outbreaks of the disease in Congo since 1976, which is when it was first identified.

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