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-Signs, Portents, and the Weather-

West Africa Ebola death toll rises to 467: WHO

2014-07-02

[Iran Press TV] The corpse count from a deadly Ebola outbreak in West Africa has risen to 467, the World Health Organization (WHO) says.

The UN health agency said on Tuesday that there have now been 759 confirmed or suspected cases of Ebola, which has affected Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

The latest figures showed a 38-percent increase in the number of deaths and a 27-percent rise in the number of overall cases since the WHO's last update on June 24.

The data comes shortly before a meeting in Ghana by 11 West African health ministers who are seeking to find a way to contain the deadliest outbreak of the virus in history.

There is currently no known cure for Ebola, a form of hemorrhagic fever whose symptoms are diarrhea, vomiting and bleeding.

The virus spreads through direct contact with infected blood, feces or sweat. It can also be spread through sexual contact or the unprotected handling of contaminated corpses.

Ebola was first discovered in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
...formerly the Congo Free State, Belgian Congo, Zaire, and who knows what else, not to be confused with the Brazzaville Congo aka Republic of Congo, which is much smaller and much more (for Africa) stable. DRC gave the world Patrice Lumumba and Joseph Mobutu, followed by years of tedious civil war. Its principle industry seems to be the production of corpses. With a population of about 74 million it has lots of raw material...
in 1976 in an outbreak that killed 280 people.

Posted by:Fred

#7 (Reuters) - West African states lack the resources to battle the world's worst outbreak of Ebola and deep cultural suspicions about the disease remain a big obstacle to halting its spread, ministers said on Wednesday."In Liberia, our biggest challenge is denial, fear and panic. Our people are very much afraid of the disease," Bernice Dahn, Liberia's deputy health minister, told Reuters on the sidelines of the Accra meeting.

"People are afraid but do not believe that the disease exists and because of that people get sick and the community members hide them and bury them, against all the norms we have put in place," she said.

Authorities are trying to stop relatives of Ebola victims from giving them traditional funerals, which often involve the manual washing of the body, out of fear of spreading the infection. The dead are instead meant to be buried by health staff wearing protective gear.

Neighboring Sierra Leone faces many of the same problems, with dozens of those infected evading treatment, complicating efforts to trace cases.

The Red Cross in Guinea said it had been forced to temporarily suspend some operations in the country's southeast after staff working on Ebola were threatened.

"Locals wielding knives surrounded a marked Red Cross vehicle," a Red Cross official said, asking not to be named. The official said operations had been halted for safety reasons. The Red Cross later said only international staff were removed.

A Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) center in Guinea was attacked by youths in April after staff were accused of bringing the disease into the country.

WHO has flagged three main factors driving its spread: the burial of victims in accordance with tradition, the dense populations around the capital cities of Guinea and Liberia and the bustling cross-border trade across the region.

Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2014-07-02 23:46

#6 Last week (?) there was a report of about 35 or so victims missing; any ideas where they might have gone? With our wide open borders it would be easy to get a person in the early stages smuggled into Mexico and then into the US to spread this disease.

Posted by: USN, Ret. 2014-07-02 23:05

#5 Bats and monkeys are the suspects. Bat is a delicacy for where the outbreak started.

Posted by: DarthVader 2014-07-02 18:00

#4 Whoops, wrong article. Still good advice tho.

Posted by: Shipman 2014-07-02 16:20

#3 Better grab a quick snack SteveS.

Posted by: Shipman 2014-07-02 16:20

#2 There is some credence to the idea that bats are the reservoir.

Posted by: SteveS 2014-07-02 14:37

#1 Any ideas as to the reservoir organizm for the virus - where it hides between human outbreaks? Has to be something that has developed a significant immunity to it. Maybe chimp or gorilla? And the virus enters the human society through handling or consumption of contaminated bush meat?

Posted by: Glenmore 2014-07-02 12:37

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