Tag Archives: West Africa

Guinea, Origin of West Africa Ebola Outbreak, Now Free of Virus

Health officials say that Guinea is officially free of Ebola, a milestone achievement for the nation that was the original source of a deadly outbreak of the disease about two years ago.

The World Health Organization (WHO), an arm of the United Nations, made the announcement on Tuesday, saying it had been 42 days since test results on the West African nation’s final confirmed Ebola patient came back negative. The WHO said the outbreak that ravaged Guinea and the neighboring nations of Sierra Leone and Liberia, killing thousands of people and sickening scores more, originally began in Gueckedou, Guinea, late in 2013 before spreading.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the rare-but-often-fatal disease killed 2,536 people in Guinea, the vast majority of people who fell ill with it. The virus also killed 3,955 in Sierra Leone and more than 4,800 in Liberia. In isolated instances, Ebola arrived in seven other nations and killed 15 more people, including one in the United States.

Though the outbreak received widespread coverage from around the globe, 11,300 of the 11,315 Ebola deaths occurred in the three West African nations most severely impacted by the virus. Likewise, CDC data show 28,601 of the 28,637 suspected ebola cases occurred in those nations.

The WHO deemed Sierra Leone free of the disease in November, according to a statement at the time. The WHO had also declared Liberia free of the disease in September, according to the CDC, though three additional cases of the Ebola virus have surfaced in the past few weeks.

The WHO says that Ebola can linger in the bodies of some male survivors for up to one year, making monitoring important. The organization said officials would be on high alert for the next 90 days to ensure any potential new infections are rapidly discovered to prevent transmission.

Dallas Ebola Patient Originally Sent Home

Concerns about the health care system in Dallas is coming into question following reports that the confirmed Ebola patient was sent home initially from the hospital and was seen throwing up outside all over a common area of the apartment complex where he had been staying.

“His whole family was screaming. He got outside and he was throwing up all over the place,” resident Mesud Osmanovic, 21, said on Wednesday to Reuters.

The man, who has been identified by a family friend as Thomas Eric Duncan, reportedly helped transport a pregnant woman who suffered from Ebola to a hospital in Liberia before boarding a flight to the United States.  The woman was turned away from the hospital due to lack of space and Duncan transported her back to the family home where she died.

Texas health officials initially said 18 people had contact with the man but now reports say as many as 80 are under observation because of possible contact.

Hospital officials admitted when the man first came into a hospital on Thursday and was then sent home with antibiotics he had told a nurse that he had traveled to West Africa.

“Regretfully, that information was not fully communicated throughout the full teams. As a result, the full import of that information wasn’t factored into the full decision making,” Texas hospital official Mark Lester said.

UN Ebola Chief Fears Disease Could Go Airborne

The head of the U.N.’s Ebola response says that unless it’s brought under control quickly, the risk is growing likely the virus will mutate and become airborne.

Anthony Banbury said it would be a “nightmare” scenario if the virus were to mutate within new hosts to become airborne.

“The longer it moves around in human hosts in the virulent melting pot that is West Africa, the more chances increase that it could mutate,” Banbury told the London Daily Mail.  “It is a nightmare scenario, and unlikely [now], but it can’t be ruled out.”

Banbury also said it was the worst situation he’s ever seen.

“In a career working in these kinds of situations, wars, natural disasters – I have never seen anything as serious or dangerous or high risk as this one.”

The fears of the UN head come as Texas officials admit at least 80 people have been taken into quarantine because of contact with the confirmed Ebola patient in a Dallas area hospital.