Nigeria has issued an order to shut all schools immediately out of fear the Ebola virus could break out in a student population.
“All state ministries of education are to immediately organize and ensure that at least two staff in each school, both private and public, are trained by appropriate health workers no later than Sept. 15 on how to handle any suspected case of Ebola,” said Education Minister Ibrahim Shekarau.
“And also embark on immediate sensitization of all teaching and non-teaching staff in all schools on preventive measures.”
Nigeria has reported five deaths from Ebola with most connected to a man who flew into the country after being infected in Liberia.
The World Health Organization admitted the current Ebola outbreak is out of control and has asked governments to take extraordinary steps to stop the virus from spreading. Even though Nigeria has only confirmed five cases, the government felt the shutting of the schools would be a prudent move to eradicate the outbreak in their country.
Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan declared a state of emergency over Ebola earlier this month.
The World Health Organization says the world’s largest historical outbreak of Ebola is likely to grow significantly bigger.
The WHO announced a $490 million dollar program to attempt to contain the virus and quell the outbreak. Doctors said it would take nine months at a minimum to get the outbreak under control and that 20,000 people could be confirmed to have contracted the virus by that point.
However, the WHO doctors admitted the likely amount of patients already infected is two to four times as high as the 3,069 officially listed cases because of patients that contracted the disease and died in rural villages.
The fatality rate of 52 percent, which has resulted in 1,552 deaths as of August 26th, has brought the total almost as high as all previously recorded outbreaks of the virus since its discovery in 1976.
British drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline has announced an experimental Ebola vaccine is being pushed into human studies in conjunction with the National Institutes of Health. If the results are good, they plan to send 10,000 doses immediately to infected countries.
The World Health Organization is warning the deadly Ebola virus has spiraled out of control in West Africa and could be a threat to other nations.
WHO Head Margaret Chan said the epidemic is moving faster than the ability of international groups to be able to control it. She said the response to the virus has been “woefully inadequate.”
‘If the situation continues to deteriorate, the consequences can be catastrophic in terms of lost lives but also severe socio-economic disruption and a high risk of spread to other countries,” Dr. Chan said. ‘It is taking place in areas with fluid population movements over porous borders, and it has demonstrated its ability to spread via air travel, contrary to what has been seen in past outbreaks. Cases are occurring in rural areas, which are difficult to access, but also in densely populated capital cities. This meeting must mark a turning point in the outbreak response.”
The outbreak how has over 1,200 confirmed cases and over 720 deaths.
African countries that have airlines flying into those cities are now either cancelling flights or conducting all passengers to health screenings before boarding flights. The appearance of an infected person in Nigeria who had been in the region is being cited as cause for alarm.
A doctor with the Christian humanitarian organization Samaritan’s Purse has been confirmed as a victim of the Ebola virus.
Dr. Kent Branley has been heading up one of the relief and treatment centers hosted by Samaritan’s Purse since last October. He had been in Liberia with his wife and children, who have since been evacuated to the United States.
“Samaritan’s Purse is committed to doing everything possible to help Dr. Brantley during this time of crisis,” the organization said in a statement. “We ask everyone to please pray for him and his family.”
The group has been working with the Centers for Disease Control, Doctors Without Borders, the World Health Organization and Liberia’s Ministry of Health to control the outbreak that has infected almost 1,100 people and killed 660.
A second American doctor, Nancy Writebol, is suspected to have contracted the disease as well and is undergoing confirmatory testing.
The United Nations has declared the world is now officially in the post-antibiotic age.
The World Health Organization said Wednesday that the discussion regarding the emergence of antibiotic resistant bacteria is no longer a theoretical discussion and a harsh reality that the world needs to confront.
“The implications will be devastating,” the WHO said in a report.
The WHO report included shocking information. The report shows that the most well known of the “superbugs”, MRSA, will kill more people in the United States than AIDS. The report says a similar situation will occur this year in Europe.
International aid groups are joining the WHO in raising the alarm.
“We see horrendous rates of antibiotic resistance wherever we look in our field operations, including children admitted to nutritional centers in Niger, and people in our surgical and trauma units in Syria,” Jennifer Cohn of Doctors Without Borders told Fox.
Saudi Arabia fired Health Minister Abdullah al-Rabiah in the mist of the largest outbreak of the killer MERS virus since its discovery two years ago.
The news comes as two more people were confirmed to have died from the virus. A 73-year-old Saudi man died in Riyadh and a 54-year-old man in Jeddah died on Monday.
Saudi Arabia has been dealing with a major outbreak of the virus with over 20 infections discovered in the last week. The country’s death toll climbed to 83 and the total number of cases jumped to 261. The outbreak of the last week was more than ten percent of the total cases.
The now-former Health Minister had said on Monday he didn’t know why there was a sudden rise in the virus other than noting there was a small increase the previous April.
The World Health Organization confirmed the first cases of the virus in Southeast Asia. There is no vaccine for MERS.
By blade
Created 16/02/2013 – 22:57
The World Health Organisation on Saturday urged countries to be vigilant over the spread of a potentially fatal SARS-like virus after a new case in Britain brought the global number to 12.
“Based on the current situation and available information, WHO encourages all Member States to continue their surveillance for severe acute respiratory infections (SARI) and to carefully review any unusual patterns,” the United Nations health agency said in a statement. Continue reading →
The 2009 swine flu pandemic killed an estimated 284,500 people. The total is more than 15 times the number confirmed by laboratory tests at the time, according to a study published in the Lancet Infectious Diseases journal.
The study indicates the toll could be as high as 579,000. The original count from the World Health Organization was 18,500. The WHO had initially warned the count would be low because deaths of people without access to health care does not get counted and that the virus cannot always be found in the body after death. Continue reading →
