6000 Ebola Vaccines ready in Sierra Leone

Nurses COVID

Published

Specializes in L&D, Women's Health.

It will be very interesting to see how this plays out. Thanks for posting.

Specializes in L&D, Women's Health.

Ebola has already slowed a lot in W Africa. US troops pulled out of Liberia last month and their government stated there is better adherence (FINALLY, huh) to guidelines and reporting. Liberia, which had just under half of all deaths in the area, now has less than 50. However, it was down to ten at one time and then started increasing again this month. In the "heaviest" hit area, the reemergence is believed due to two cases that ran away from a treatment center. How said is that?

LATEST NEWS (Full source: https://www.internationalsos.com/ebola/index.cfm?content_id=396&language_id=ENG)

26 February: The World Health Organization confirmed that Margibi county is again affected in their latest situation report.

25 February: Media sources have reported four new cases of Ebola in Margibi county. This has yet to be confirmed by the World Health Organization but would represent a recurrence of Ebola in the county which had previously gone more than 21 days without a confirmed case.

24 February:In the latest World Health Organization situation summary report, 133 new cases and 85 new deaths were reported from Liberia. Only one new case was confirmed and the others are classed as either suspected or probable. It is also not clear whether these additional cases are newly discovered or have been found as a result of data cleaning or review of previously unexplained illness or deaths.

16 February: A suspected case has been recorded in Sinoe, according to the latest update from UMEER (PDF).

Media sources report that all school that have received preventive materials on Ebola from the education ministry and are ready will reopen today ie., 16 February 2015. The rest of the school will resume on 2 March 2015 after they receive the same. Schools were shut down last year after the Ebola outbreak in the country.

15 February: Media reports informed of two cases of Ebola who ran away from St Paul's bridge Key Hold community to Lofa and Margibi exposing many others to infection. They sought medical help at a number of clinics under false names.

11 February: The weekly WHO Situation Report says there were three cases of Ebola confirmed for the week ending 8 February, all witha single chain of transmission. One of the three was a known contact of an Ebola case. These cases all occurred in Monteserrado, the only area in Liberia currently reporting infections. Eleven of the nation's 15 counties have been case-free for over 42 days.

8 February: Lofa county has detected a case of Ebola, in a person who travelled from Montserrado. According to news sources, there are 18 contacts identified. Official information shows that Lofa's last case was 99 days prior to 1 February.

7 February: News sources are reporting two recent fatal cases in Margibi. Official information indicates Ebola cases in only Montserrado and Grand Cape Mount as at 31 January.

5 February: An Ebola outbreak situation report issued by UN Mission for Ebola Emergency Response states an increase in number of cases in Zuman town in Montserrado county. Until 31 January, Montserrado and Grand Cape Mount were the only counties that have reported confirmed cases in the last 21 days.

4 February: WHO's Situation Report shows an increase in cases in the final week of January. There were 5 new confirmed cases in Montserrado, all of who were registered contacts of Ebola cases. This compares to 4 the previous week. Encouragingly there were no security incidents or episodes of community resistance to response measures recorded. There are 18 operational ETCs around the country, with 5 more under construction.

The increase in cases reported in the latest WHO report are largely due to 15 suspected cases and 7 more people have died. The number of confirmed cases is unchanged.

3 February: In the latest World Health Organization situation summary report, 61 new cases and 29 new deaths were reported nationwide. These figures are cumulative through 31 January. Yesterday's numbers were only through 28 January, so today's 61 new cases span three days. Media stories say at least five of these were from a single community in Montserrado.

2 February: In the latest World Health Organization situation summary report, 25 new cases and 10 new deaths were reported from Liberia.

30 January: Liberian schools will remain closed for a further two weeks in order for authorities to prepare for students to return. Plans had been advanced to reopen schools on 2 February but this has been deferred by the Ministry of Education.

28 January: The latest World Health Organization situation summary reports four new confirmed cases from Liberia in the week ending 25 January. All were in Montserrado. Some were not "registered" contacts of known Ebola cases. This shows that there are undetected chains of transmission in the country.The Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) ELWA-3 treatment facility in Monrovia is rapidly scaling back the number of beds as cases there have slowed significantly. The unit originally had 120 beds when it first opened, which decreased to 60. It will now be further decreased to 30 beds.

27 January: Some sources reported that there are only 5 Ebola cases left in the nation. Data available on 25 January shows 2 more confirmed cases and 10 more 'probable' cases as compared to figures from 20 January. The President stated yesterday that there are 1 or 2 new cases daily. (At the peak of the epidemic, there were over 300 new cases every week.) Regardless of exact numbers, the Ministry of Health confirmed that new cases are down substantially and a revised Ebola strategy is needed. Only two of the nation's 15 districts reported cases the week of 11 -18 January. Lofa county, once a hotbed of activity, has not recorded a single case in over 70 days. Doctors without Borders will decommission its treatment centre in Monrovia, illustrating how much the situation has improved there.

Montserrado remains the worst affected county, and has adopted a new sector approach. The region has been divided into four sectors, each with an assigned team of specialists. The aim is to achieve faster response times and more efficient case management.

Of concern, about half of all recent Ebola cases in Liberia have no known contact with a person who had Ebola. This means that some people are infected but not in the ‘contact tracing' system. These ‘hidden' cases can lead to ongoing disease spread.

FLAlleycat, I'm not surprised. When all the hysteria about bringing infected HCW to Emory started, people who KNOW EBOLA, those who have studied it for decades and worked with for decades said that WE would not experience these types of epidemics because we understood the concept of contact tracing, our citizens respected the need for intensive treatment, etc, so these kinds of disasters wouldn't happen here. But no, many people rejected everything they had to say and proclaimed doom and worse.

Amazing, look what happened. It went EXACTLY as the experts predicted. Ebola basically went nowhere in the US. It proved itself to be far less contagious than the hysterical element claimed (When Dr. Spencer was diagnosed, many insisted that his sweaty bowling shoes would infect the next customer and Ebola would rage throughout NYC as a result). No one in the community who was exposed to Mr. Duncan even after he became very symptomatic was infected, not even his closest contacts! Amber Vinson "exposed" at least one plane full of people and NOT ONE person was infected. Dr. Spencer, in spite of sweating into his bowling shoes, turned out to have infected ZERO people, not even his fiancee!

Yes, that's because these people were isolated immediately after becoming symptomatic, no one was washing the bodies of the dead without protection, the infected individuals didn't run from treatment but instead sought it out from the first sign of symptoms, etc. That's what it takes to stem the tide with regard to EBOLA.

Education, education, education has proved yet again to be a very important tool.

Now that certain communities in Africa have begun to take these lessons to heart, we see the infection stopped in its tracks. Education, people.

Specializes in L&D, Women's Health.

When the first doctor with Ebola was transported to the US, I couldn't believe the public's reaction . . . even the reaction of many on this forum. I personally felt that ANY infected healthcare provider fighting this disease should've been transferred to a country better capable of caring for them so they could then return and continue their work rather than die and not be replaced. I'm glad to see education is FINALLY taking hold, not just in West Africa, but in the US and even, I hope, on this forum. It is NOT airborne, it is NOT mutating into an airborne visus, Kaci Hickox was right to fight mandatory quarantine, and Dr. Spencer proved self-monitoring does work. Yea, science!

+ Add a Comment