Ebola – praag.org

New Ebola death in Sierra Leone

A woman who died last week in northern Sierra Leone tested positive for Ebola, the National Ebola Response Centre (NERC) said Monday, in a setback for the country’s bid to gain Ebola-free status.
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There had been celebratory scenes last week when the country’s last known Ebola patient was released from hospital in the central city of Makeni after being cured of the virus, raising hopes the west African nation may finally have beaten the devastating epidemic.

Sources contacted by AFP confirmed that the woman was in her mid-60s and lived in Sella Kafta village in Kambia District.

A swab taken after her death Friday confirmed she had contracted Ebola.

She had not travelled to either Liberia or Guinea, two other countries also blindsided by the worst outbreak of Ebola in history, which has killed some 11,300 people since first emerging in December 2013 in Guinea.

Ebola is back in Sierra Leone

Two new cases of the deadly Ebola virus have been recorded in Sierra Leone’s capital city of Freetown, about three weeks after the most recent new cases were found, underscoring the difficulty of ridding the region of the disease.

“This is worrisome because we had already closed all Ebola quarantine structures in Freetown since we had gone for weeks without a case,” Sidi Yahya Tunis, a spokesman for the National Ebola Response Centre (NERC) told Reuters. The cases were found in a densely populated slum called Magazine.

Sierra Leone, one of the three West African nations hit hardest during the outbreak, has so far experienced more than 13,000 cases and more than 3,900 deaths. Guinea is still struggling to hit zero cases; Liberia, which at one point last year led all three in the highest number of cases, was declared Ebola-free in May.

Altogether, the three countries have reported more 27,350 cases and more than 11,170 deaths. Overall infections are on the decline, with fewer than 25 cases in Ebola treatment units last week.

Source: Reuters

Bill Gates fears epidemic worse than Ebola

You would think that Bill Gates, the ever-so-friendly richest man in the world, wouldn’t be afraid of much.

But as he recently told Ezra Klein at Vox, he does have some major fears for humanity.

“I rate the chance of a nuclear war within my lifetime as being fairly low,” says Gates. “I rate the chance of a widespread epidemic, far worse than Ebola, in my lifetime, as well over 50%.”

Gates is 59 years old.

So that means an outbreak of sorts is possibly coming in the next few decades.

It’s especially terrifying, Gates says, given the way we reacted to the last epidemic: The Ebola outbreak of last year showed how unready the world is for dealing with infectious disease.

The last widespread killer epidemic was the Spanish Flu. Between 1918 and 1919, it killed between 20 million and 40 million people worldwide — more than World War I.

What’s even more frightening, Gates says, is that we don’t even know where the Spanish Flu came from — it was just called the “Spanish Flu” because the press in Spain were the first to report on it.

In many ways, we’re even more vulnerable to an infectious catastrophe today. Gates tells Vox that according to his modeling, 50 times more people cross borders today than they did back in 1918.

Because of that and other factors, Gates estimates that the next Spanish flu-like epidemic could kill 33 million humans in 250 days. That number of people would be about equal to the population of Canada.

“We’ve created, in terms of spread, the most dangerous environment that we’ve ever had in the history of mankind,” Gates tells Vox.

Source: Business Insider

Hundreds of new Ebola cases suspected in Sierre Leone

A three-day lockdown in Sierra Leone has exposed hundreds of potential new cases of Ebola, aiding efforts to bring to an end an epidemic that has already killed 3,000 people in the country.

Officials ordered the country’s 6 million residents to stay indoors or face arrest during the period that ended late on Sunday as hundreds of health officials went door-to-door looking for hidden patients and educating residents about the virus.

Reports to authorities of sick people increased by 191 percent in Western Area, which includes the capital, during the lockdown compared with the previous weekend, said Obi Sesay of the National Ebola Response Center.

“Tests are being carried out on their blood samples, and the results will be in by Wednesday,” Sesay said, adding that 173 of the patients in Freetown met an initial case definition for Ebola.

In the rest of the country, there was a 50 percent increase in sick people reported in the lockdown’s first two days, Sesay said.

Sierra Leone has reported nearly 12,000 cases since the worst Ebola epidemic in history was detected in neighboring Guinea a year ago. In all, more than 10,000 people have died in the two countries plus Liberia.

New cases have fallen since a peak of more than 500 a week in December, but the government said the lockdown, its second, would help identify the last cases and reduce complacency.

A source who declined to be identified said there were 961 death alerts nationwide during the lockdown’s first two days and 495 reports of illness of which 235 were suspected Ebola.

Source: Reuters

Ebola is back

The number of new cases of Ebola rose in all three of West Africa’s worst-hit countries last week, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday, ending several weeks of encouraging declines across the region.

Suspicion of aid workers, especially in Guinea, and unsafe local practices were continuing to hamper efforts to halt the deadly virus, the United Nations agency said.

The WHO said a week ago that there had been 99 confirmed cases in the week to Jan. 25, the lowest tally since June 2014, raising hopes that the tide might have turned.

But its new figures, for the week ending Feb. 1, showed the first recorded rise in new cases across all three countries this year.

Sierra Leone, the worst hotspot, accounted for 80 of the 124 new cases of the disease, Guinea recorded 39 while Liberia had just five, all near the capital Monrovia, the report said.

Nearly one third of Guinea’s 34 prefectures had reported at least one security incident or other form of refusal to cooperate with health workers in the previous week.

Villagers are often alarmed by the approach of aid workers wearing space-age protective equipment and have resisted efforts to find cases, isolate those infected and chlorinate homes.

Meetings were planned between authorities from Guinea, Mali and Senegal to strengthen disease surveillance, the WHO said. A rapid response team has deployed in the border area with Ivory Coast, it added.

In all, 8,981 people have died of Ebola out of 22,495 known cases in nine countries since the outbreak began in December 2013, according to the agency.

Source: Reuters

A modest libertarian proposal: keep Jihadis OUT, not IN

He adopted the religion of peace and forthwith proceeded to shatter the peace of his countrymen.

In the waning months of 2014, Quebecker Michael Zehaf-Bibeau shot Cpl. Nathan Cirillo in the back, at Canada’s National War Memorial in Ottawa. Zehaf-Bibeau then stormed Parliament, but was dispatched by a sergeant-at-arms before he could do further harm.

The mother of the martyr, Susan Bibeau, is a “deputy chairperson of a division of Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Board.” Mrs. Bibeau has done quite well as a Canadian bureaucrat, acquiring “homes in Montreal and Ottawa.” Her errant son told mommy dearest of “his desire to travel to Syria,” a fact she revealed only after the butcher’s bill came due; following Zehaf-Bibeau’s lone-wolf, wilding rampage on Parliament Hill.

Why would a convert to Islam want to travel to Syria? To visit the ruins? And why would a Canadian civil servant, who described her son as a misfit, not report Zehaf-Bibeau’s destination of choice to the authorities? In any event, it transpires that said authorities had been investigating Zehaf-Bibeau, but had yet to determine whether or not to confiscate his passport.

Before Michael Zehaf-Bibeau came another Quebecer called Martin Couture-Rouleau. Like Bibeau, Rouleau went to war with his countrymen upon converting to Islam. He rammed his car into two Canadian Forces members near Montreal, one of whom died of his injuries.

According to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Couture-Rouleau was known to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, or CSIS, and had been closely monitored. These authorities were confident that Couture-Rouleau and 90 other suspected extremists “intended to join militants fighting abroad.”

So what did the Canadian security apparatus do to forestall an attack on Canadian soil? First, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police staged an intervention. The Mounties tried to “talk Couture-Rouleau down” from his murderous mindset. Convinced that the therapeutic intervention succeeded, the Mounties then stopped monitoring him. Oh, and they also took away Couture-Rouleau’s passport.

The New Year brought us the Brothers Kouachi, who carried out the assassinations at the Charlie Hebdo headquarters in Paris. The brothers ate, slept and breathed “radical Islam.” (is there any other?)

When Chérif Kouachi was not making a dash for Jihad Central in Syria—only to be stopped and arrested by the foolish French—or planning jail breaks for other Jihadis; he was recruiting French Muslims for no other than Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his Iraqi operation. Al-Zarqawi is the fellow who had been admonished by Ayman al-Zawahiri (Bin Laden’s Capo Bastone) for being too … ruthless. Yes, Chérif’s mentors and compadres inhabited the revolving door of mosque and prison.

As to Saïd Kouachi: Other than welfare, the only thing he earned in France were frequent-flyer miles to Yemen. There he hung out with the would-be underwear bomber and the American al Qaeda preacher, Anwar al-Awlaki.

The Russian state security had informed the FBI and CIA that one of Boston’s own, Tamerlan Tsarnaev of the Boston Bombers Team Tsarnaev, undertook similar “vocational” training in Dagestan. The agencies, however, were more concerned about keeping terrorist tourism alive, than keeping Americans in the land of the living.

The point here is not to belabor well-known, accepted outrages. Instead, I’d like to float a modest proposal.

The Canadian government continues to “revoke passports from extremists so as to prevent them from traveling to-and-fro Syria and Iraq to join the Islamic State (ISIS).” Oddly, the same government will often opt to charge Jihad-minded men with “attempting to leave Canada to participate in terrorist activity.”

Why?

Revoking a home-based Jihadist’s travel documents is worse than dumb; it is a dereliction of duty. It demonstrates that whatever it does, the state acts irrationally—and certainly against the interests of those whose safety it has been entrusted to protect.

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Naturally, no individual should be arrested for harboring wicked thoughts or hanging with wicked people. But when he leaves the Occident with the intent to train to wage war on his neighbors—this Jihadi must be stopped from re-entering the good country.

Let the West’s homegrown Jihadis wander from the killing fields of one crap country to another, like the nomadic hired guns they are.

By nature, this modest proposal is defensive (not to mention decisive) and, thus, eminently libertarian.

There are well over 3,000 Western fighters that have traveled to assist ISIS and its offshoots in forging a caliphate. They return with murder on their minds. They must not be allowed back into Western countries.

Citizenship is nothing more than a political grant of government privilege; a positive, state-minted right. Citizenship is not a natural right. Yet these state-stamped licenses—citizenship and attendant travel documents—are honored, at the cost of innocent lives.

Alas, the Monster State is inherently both stupid and evil. Like a primitive organism, it answers to nobody and nothing but its reflexive need to grow.

To wit, the Monster State refuses to protect its people from plagues. It welcomes high-risk travelers from the Ebola hot-zones. Simultaneously, it quarantines aspiring fighters for Jihad here at home, in the West, so the homeland is the only arena in which they can act-out.

The nightwatchman state of classical liberalism would keep killers out of the country, not in the country.

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Tenth doctor dies from Ebola

More people in the US will die this winter from the flu than Ebola

The Sierra Leonean doctor that died from Ebola, is the 10th to succumb to the disease, in what the country’s chief medical officer on Sunday called a shocking trend.

Dr. Aiah Solomon Konoyeima died on Saturday, according to Chief Medical Officer Dr Brima Kargbo. His death came a day after two other doctors died from Ebola.

Konoyeima worked at a children’s hospital in the capital and was treated at the Hastings Ebola Treatment Centre in Freetown.

Because Ebola is transmitted through the bodily fluids of the sick and dead, it is sometimes called the “caretakers’ disease.” Hundreds of health workers have been infected in this outbreak, which overall has sickened more than 17 500 people, mostly in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. Of those, about 6 200 have died.

The disease has fallen off the front pages in recent weeks. Influenza is still a major killer in the United States. More people will die this winter from the flu than Ebola.

Antibiotic resistance is a major threat too. There are an estimated 75,309 cases of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, infection in the United States, according to CDC tracking data.

Since the Ebola outbreak began in February, around 300,000 people have died from malaria, while tuberculosis has likely claimed over 600,000 lives.

Ebola is not even close to being the biggest problem in Africa right now. Even Lassa fever, which shares many of the terrifying symptoms of Ebola (including bleeding from the eyelids), kills many more than Ebola – and frequently finds its way to the US.

In all, 11 Sierra Leonean doctors have been infected; only one has survived. That’s much higher than an overall fatality rate of 60% for hospitalised patients in the three most affected countries, according to the World Health Organisation.

Trying to explain why so many doctors have died, Kargbo said doctors may initially try to manage their symptoms at home and seek treatment later than other patients. He described as “shocking the continuing death rate among Sierra Leonean front-line medical doctors”.

But the branch of the country’s medical association that represents junior doctors has been pushing for better care for infected medical workers.

The group met on Saturday with President Ernest Bai Koroma and asked him to make sure the necessary life-saving equipment was available to treat doctors, according to Dr Jeredine George, the group’s president.

Koroma, according Kargbo, promised that a new unit to treat doctors would open soon. British army medics are already staffing a clinic dedicated to treating health workers.

In recent days, including Sunday, the World Food Program and the British military dropped food by helicopter to residents of Sherbro Island and surrounding islands who typically live by selling their fishing catch, but are struggling with so many markets shut because of Ebola.

The most real effect for millions of people reading about Ebola will be fear and stigma attached to Africa as well as blacks.

During the Sars outbreak of 2003, Asian-Americans became the targets of just that, with public health hotlines inundated with calls from Americans worried about “buying Asian merchandise”, “living near Asians”, “going to school with Asians”, and more.

Fear grips India after announcement of first ebola case

Fear has gripped India after an Indian national, returning from Liberia, tested positive for the Ebola virus. The person was isolated at the Health Organization Quarantine Center at Delhi Airport.

India’s Union Health Minister JP Nadda has said that things are under control and there is no need to panic after the first case of the Ebola virus has been detected in the country.

“I want to appeal to everybody that there is no need to panic. Things are well in control,” Nadda told reporters on Tuesday.

The first reported case of the Ebola virus has caused serious concern in India, especially because a lot of Indians live in the Ebola-affected West Africa, which may result in the deadly virus reaching India if these nationals decide to return.

The current Ebola outbreak occurred in southern Guinea at the end of 2013 and soon spread to Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria and Senegal. The latter two countries have recently been announced free of the virus.

According to estimates by the World Health organization (WHO), the virus resulted in the deaths of over 5,000 people and in over 14,000 confirmed, likely and suspected cases.

Obama Ebola doctrine: worship the saints in ‘spacesuits’

A few dead Americans is a small price to pay for the greater global good.

The tweets came fast and cynical: “That’s so science!” “I saw those white lab coats on the men behind [Obama], which pretty much convinced me.” “Another day, another POTUS presser on Ebola. If you missed it, here’s the summary: ‘White lab coats, science.’”

The Obama Ebola Doctrine (OED) was dictated during the second of two presidential addresses, this week, on Ebola. The message, delivered against a backdrop of demigods in freshly unpacked, white laboratory coats, was hardly subliminal. So serious was Obama, he even threw in references to a God not himself, something he rarely does.

The president used the word “troops” to describe the individuals stationed behind him. These public health workers were “serving” America (much like soldiers would). Theirs was a “sacrificial service” (much like that of saints). They were “citizens of the world, global citizens,” who were “leading globally” (as all you locals should strive to do).

Volunteering in Africa Obama has equated with American “patriotism.” Well, of course. If being “citizens of the world” is the in existential state-of-being – then patriotism must be redefined. No longer does it mean the love of one’s country and countrymen, but love of The World. Go to West Africa, and you are demonstrating “citizenship … and public service at its best.” In Africa, you will be serving America, “the country that we love.”

The medics who rush headlong into the Ebola maelstrom embody “American exceptionalism” (unlike all those Americans who run businesses they didn’t build).

To the extent America’s Ebola workers are motivated by “faith,” it is their “sense of faith and grace” Obama has commanded all Americans to emulate.

The president is now defining for his subjects the very meaning of worship.

Aversion to Ebola, Obama mocked as “hiding under the covers,” indirectly associating precautions with cowardice, even venality.

His Holiness “saluted” Dr. Craig Spencer for “his service” – Spencer is the saint in scrubs who lied to investigators about his whereabouts. He had been gallivanting around Manhattan when already symptomatic.

Is Nurse Kaci Hickox next to be canonized? Just back from treating Ebola-afflicted patients in Sierra Leone, Nurse Diesel – contempt dripping from every word disgorged – threatened: “If the restrictions placed on me by the state of Maine are not lifted by Thursday morning, I will go to court to fight for my freedom.” Paul Callan, a usually reserved, dignified, civil-rights attorney expressed his disgust: Hickox is “setting a bad example … for the rest of the public” in the event that “this thing gets out of hand,” and there’s a quarantine across the United States.

So listen up, petty, provincial Americans: These are your new deities. Worship the saints in “spacesuits”!

Ultimately, Americans are meant to forget that the duty of the U.S. government is to its people, first. Obama is obligated by the Constitution to protect the liberties of his constituents. Without life there is no liberty.

But not according to the Obama Ebola Doctrine, which is this:

The health of West Africa is the health of America.
Those serving as healers in Africa are serving as healers in America.
Africa’s medicine men are America’s medicine men.
Local yokels dare not “discourage” these new deities, “disincentivize” or inconvenience them. Rather, the “health-care workers” who are sacrificing for us must be lauded and “applauded,” and should certainly not be made to bear the brunt of our scientific ignorance.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, parroted the president: “By going over there, they are helping us to protect America.” Therefore, the lives of doctors fighting Ebola in West Africa must not be “disrupted” on return.

This means no quarantines, cretins.

There you have it. Funded by Americans, the role of the president of the U.S. is to engineer desirable political, social, medical and financial outcomes for the world.

What else does the OED imply?

Preparing Americans for the inevitable sacrifice for the greater global good is essential. As we move to eradicate Ebola “at the source,” we, concomitantly, must maintain the unfettered movement of people in and out of the U.S. Consequently, our prejudiced, unworldly citizens must be conditioned to accept “the few Ebola cases that we see here.”

A few dead Americans is a small price to pay for the greater global good.

The Bush Terrorism Doctrine was as follows: We’re fighting them over there, so we don’t have to fight them over here.

The Obama Bioterrorism Doctrine runs parallel. BHO’s express objective is to convince Americans that if we fight Ebola in West Africa, it won’t threaten America: “If we [don’t] deal with this problem there, it will come here,” he asserted.

However, as revealed by State Department documentation marked “Sensitive But Unclassified, Predecisional,” the policy is as fluid as the “liquefying” internal organs of a hapless Ebola patient.

Prior to being petitioned by a Judicial Watch Freedom of Information Act Request and subsequently exposed by Fox News – the knaves at State were considering the “expeditious” “medevacing” of Ebola-infected non-citizens into the United States for treatment.

If Ebola doesn’t “come here” in a big way, Obama may just introduce it to you by hook or by crook.

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Immigrants, Muslims and pregnant teens seen as threats

Americans, Italians and the French clearly see immigrants, Muslims and pregnant teens as threats.

They vastly overestimate the proportion of the population that are immigrants or Muslims and they have no idea what percentage of teenage girls get pregnant.

Swedes and Germans do best, although even they consistently get things wrong, according to a survey of 14 industrialized countries released on Wednesday.

The analysis by market research organization Ipsos MORI shows how far perceptions stray from reality across a range of issues as people struggle to get a precise handle on aspects of society that are seen as risks or worries.

Levels of immigration — a hot-button topic in many developed countries — are overestimated everywhere but the United States veers further from reality than most, with an average guess that 32 percent of the population are immigrants when the reality is 13 percent.

Italy fares even worse, with an average guess of 30 percent against a real figure of only seven percent.

Italians are also spectacularly bad at estimating the number of old people in the country, believing that 48 percent are over 65 years old. In reality, oldies make up only a fifth of the population.

Teenage pregnancy, an problem in mainly black neighborhoods, is another issue where people everywhere get it badly wrong.

Americans think 24 percent of girls aged 15 to 19 give birth each year, when the real figure is just 3 percent, and even the sensible Swedes are badly out, believing the annual teenage pregnancy rate is 8 percent compared to the actual 0.7 percent.

The current Ebola outbreak was not covered in the survey, which was conducted in August among more than 11,000 people across the 14 countries.

People hugely overestimate the proportion of Muslims living in their country, with the French putting the figure at 31 percent, when the real figure is 8 percent. The British guess at 21 percent (real figure 5 percent) and Americans estimate 15 percent (real figure 1 percent).

Even in countries such as Hungary, Poland, South Korea and Japan, where fewer than one percent of the population is Muslim, people put the figure at four to seven percent.

By contrast, majority-Christian countries tend to underestimate how many people count themselves as Christian.

Black boys attacked at NY school and called ‘Ebola’

A group that advocates for Africans in the Bronx is calling for action after it says two brothers who had recently immigrated to the borough from Senegal were beaten and badly injured by several people who called them “Ebola” in school.

The 11- and 13-year-old boys, in sixth and eighth grade, respectively, were attacked Friday afternoon at I.S. 318 in Tremont, according to the African Advisory Council. Their father, Ousame Drame, said they were pummeled by other students in the schoolyard during lunch after enduring weeks of taunts.

The boys, who have been in the U.S. for about a month, were taken to the hospital after the attack.

Drame said his sons have been cruelly harassed for two weeks over Ebola. Days after news broke that the deadly disease was in the United States, he said students, whispering the word, “Ebola,” told other students not to talk to the boys. They were treated like cancers, he said.

“If they go to the gym they don’t want them touching the ball – ‘Oh, you have Ebola, don’t play with us,'” Drame said.

Though the children were raised in Senegal, they were born in America — and have every right to be here, their father said.

But Drame didn’t blame the students.

“They don’t know nothing. They’re babies,” he said.

Instead, Drame insisted the school system wasn’t doing enough to protect his children and others like them. He called on politicians and educators to spread awareness about the disease — and to step in when necessary.

Calling the attack “unacceptable,” advocates say it is just the latest incidence of disrespect and bullying of Africans since the outbreak of Ebola in West Africa.

“Where was the school administrators, where was the school staff when all of this was happening?” asked Charles Cooper of the African Advisory Council as he demanded more action.

Drame said his sons will return to school, but he wants confirmation they’ll be safe — physically and emotionally.

The Department of Education says it’s aware of the complaint and that it dispatched additional security to the boys’ school. The agency said it would instruct teachers and principals to be on high alert for any potential instances of bullying or discrimination. It also said it would send information to parents to help them better understand the issue and dispel any misconceptions their children might have.

“We will not tolerate intimidation or bullying of our students, especially in this moment when New Yorkers need to come together,” Schools Chancellor Carmen Farina said in a statement.

Senegal is one of several West African countries where Ebola cases have been reported, but there have been no new cases in that country since late August, according to the CDC. The World Health Organization has declared the country “Ebola-free.”

Cases continue to be reported in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. A few health care workers and travelers coming from those countries have also been diagnosed with the disease in other countries, including one person in New York City.

Source: nbcnewyork.com

Oz shuts the door on ebola

Australia has issued a blanket ban on visas from West African nations affected by the Ebola outbreak to prevent the disease reaching the country, Immigration Minister Scott Morrison said, becoming the first rich nation to shut its doors to the region.

Australia has not recorded a case of Ebola despite a number of scares, and conservative Prime Minister Tony Abbott has so far resisted repeated requests to send medical personnel to help battle the outbreak on the ground.

The decision to refuse entry for anyone from Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia, while touted by the government as a necessary safety precaution, was criticised by experts and advocates as politically motivated and short sighted.

“The government has strong controls for the entry of persons to Australia under our immigration programme from West Africa,” Morrison told parliament on Monday.

“These measures include temporarily suspending our immigration programme, including our humanitarian programme from Ebola-affected countries, and this means we are not processing any application from these affected countries.”

All non-permanent or temporary visas were being cancelled and permanent visa holders who had not yet arrived in Australia will be required to submit to a 21-day quarantine period, he added.

A number of US states, including New York and New Jersey, have also imposed mandatory quarantines on returning doctors and nurses amid fears of the virus spreading outside of West Africa. Federal health officials say their approach is extreme.

The Ebola outbreak that began in March has killed nearly 5 000 people, the vast majority in West Africa. The disease has an incubation period of about three weeks, and becomes contagious when a victim shows symptoms.

Ebola, which can cause fever, vomiting and diarrhoea, spreads through contact with bodily fluids such as blood or saliva.

Australia has contributed A$18 million to help fight the disease but has been criticised by medical groups, opposition lawmakers and rights groups for not sending teams to affected regions.

The risks to Australia were already small due to its geographical isolation, said Dr Adam Kamradt-Scott, a senior lecturer at the University of Sydney’s Marie Bashir Institute for Infectious Diseases and Biosecurity.

The visa ban, he said, would do nothing to protect the country from Ebola while potentially having a negative public health impact by unduly raising fears about the disease and creating a general climate of panic.

“This blanket ban actually does very little to reduce the risk of Ebola arriving in Australia. It also sends a very bad message both in terms of our humanitarian assistance programme as well as Australia’s attitude towards West Africa at the moment,” he told Reuters.

“This is purely just a political decision. There is very little scientific evidence or medical rationale why you would choose to do this, and this is the type of politics we find starts to interfere with effective public health measures.”

Earlier in October, it was revealed that Australia had turned down requests from Britain and the United States to send personnel to Sierra Leone to assist in combating the outbreak there, as well as additional funding.

Australia’s “narrow approach” to Ebola makes no sense from a health perspective, given that applicants for humanitarian visas are already screened and monitored for illnesses, said Graham Thom, a spokesperson for Amnesty International Australia.

Refusing to send healthcare workers while at the same time refusing entry to those most in need will further damage Australia’s reputation, already under fire over its tough asylum seeker policies, he said.

“There are ways and means in which people can be monitored, quarantined to insure that those who come are free from the disease,” he told Reuters.

“All it does is insure that already exceedingly vulnerable people are trapped in a crisis area and sends a signal about Australia’s commitment to actually dealing with this crisis in a responsible way as a member of the international community.”

Source: Reuters

Ebola translator steals the show

This is not the first time that has sign language translator has grabbed the headlines at a major event.

While an Ebola news conference should have been grabbing the headlines, a signer stole the show. The signer has now gone viral on social media, with some even questioning whether he was a legitimate interpreter.

The media conference was headed by New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and health officials, who were giving updates on the city’s first case of Ebola on Friday. However, as the officials continued, attention started to be diverted to a man sitting on the very left of the platform.

At Nelson Madela’s funeral in December 2013, South African Thamsanqa Jantjie appeared on stage and proceeded to conduct fake sign language gestures during the dignitaries’ speeches – including by US President Barack Obama – in an event that was watched by 95,000 mourners at Soccer City stadium in Johannesburg and millions around the world.

“There was zero percent accuracy. He couldn’t even get the basics right. He couldn’t even say thank you,” Delphin Hlungwane, a South African sign language interpreter at DeafSA, told Reuters.

Jantjie later claimed he was suffering a schizophrenic episode at the Mandela memorial service.

South African broadcaster, eNCA investigations, discovered that Jantjie, who is receiving treatment for his schizophrenia, has also faced rape (1994), theft (1995), housebreaking (1997), malicious damage to property (1998), murder, attempted murder and kidnapping (2003) charges.

Guinean attacked ‘for having ebola’

A Guinean woman has been attacked in a bus in Rome by angry passengers who told her she was infected by Ebola and had to get off the bus, Italian media reports. She was taken to hospital suffering from multiple bruises.

Fataomata Sompare, 26, was about to get off the bus on Monday, said Il Messaggero, an Italian newspaper, as cited by the Local.

A teenage girl who was on the bus with her friends saw Sompare and began accusing her of having the deadly virus. Then some of the teen’s relatives started beating the woman.

“They told me that I had Ebola and that I had to get off the bus,” said Sompare, who has been living in Italy for four years.

People at a bus stop near Grotte Celoni Metro station in the east of the city managed to save the woman, who suffered multiple bruises after being beaten by passengers. The police arrived and she was taken to hospital.

The incident was reported to public prosecutors by Sompare’s lawyer.

“[She is] a victim of racism, which is now rampant in this city,” the Sompare’s partner Alessandro Corbelli told Il Messaggero. He added that the incident was “shameful” and she had been attacked “only because she’s black.”

The incident is not the only example of Ebola hysteria in recent days. In the US, Ebola-phobic parents sent a Maine teacher on mandatory leave after he returned from Dallas, where first victim of the virus in the country died. In Mississippi, parents pulled their kids out of school because of the principal’s trip to Zambia.

The death toll from the Ebola virus has reached 4,877 people for far, the World Health Organization said on Wednesday.

According to the UN health body, 9,936 people in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, the three countries worst-affected by the virus, have contracted the disease.

Source: RT