West Africa – 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

Spain a new link in AFRICOM

The US’ decision to beef up its military presence in southern Spain indicates that a new strategy towards Africa is well underway says Andrew Korybko.

Washington just clinched a deal with Madrid that will see it boosting its military footprint in the south of the country. According to the agreement, up to 2,200 Marines and possibly 40 military aircraft will be deployed within striking distance of all of West Africa, and this massive amount of firepower proves that the US is preparing its forces for engagement all across the continent in the years to come.

Its deployment along the African periphery in Spain complements the existing presence it has in Italy and Djibouti, to say nothing of its mobile naval capabilities, and this arrangement may actually be the most ‘efficient’ of AFRICOM’s speculated formations.

In the short term, it’s predicted that the US’ latest moves are in anticipation of an inevitable leadership transition that may soon take place in Algeria, while the constant, long-term interest is in controlling the transit of significant non-Russian gas supplies to the EU.

Spain’s leaders want US support against the Catalonian independence movement too. They fear that the independence of Catalonia could lead to a chain reaction of similar movements in Spain’s other regions.

AFRICOM is technically only a command and control center for US military operations in Africa, and due to advances in communication and transport technology, it doesn’t even have to be based in the continent itself. It’s currently headquartered in Germany.

US forces are predicted to operate as the storm troopers of unipolarity in Africa, but for prolonged occupation, the French are expected to shoulder the burden, which they’re already doing via their ground deployments in 10 African countries already (nearly a fifth of the continent’s total).

The US’ latest moves in Spain are likely aimed at ‘managing’ a forthcoming leadership transition in Algeria.

Aging President Abdelaziz Bouteflika suffered a stroke two years ago, and it’s not known who will succeed him if he dies in office. Bouteflika’s 15-year-long presidency has been a stabilizing factor in rebuilding Algeria since the decade-long Islamist-inspired civil war ended in 2002, and his death might make the country vulnerable to a Color Revolution, a jihadist uprising, and/or a destabilizing struggle between state security forces.

The chaos in Libya showed signs of seeping through to Algeria in January 2013 during the In Amenas hostage crisis. Terrorists took over a gas processing facility and killed 39 foreign hostages before being defeated by decisive government action.

Most important for the US is Algeria’s contribution to the EU’s gas supply, being the third-largest supplier to the bloc after Russia and Norway.

There’s also discussion of creating a Trans-Saharan Pipeline from gas-rich and under-processed Nigeria through Niger and Algeria to Europe, which would make the North African state the geo-energy ‘Ukraine’ of the Western EU. Because of this, the US must make sure that Algeria stays under Western influence and the pipeline routes are secured, hence the upcoming deployment of 2,200 Marines and 40 military aircraft within striking distance to ensure this.

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

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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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

Obama refuses travel ban on black ebola countries

Ann Coulter laments about Obama’s refusal to call a travel ban on black countries that export ebola:

There had never been a case of Ebola in the U.S. until a few months ago. Since then, thousands of people have died of the disease in Africa, and millions upon millions of dollars have been spent treating Ebola patients in the U.S. who acquired it there, one of whom has died.

But the Obama administration refuses to impose a travel ban.

This summer, the U.S. government imposed a travel ban on Israel simply to pressure Prime Minister Netanyahu into accepting a ceasefire agreement. But we can’t put a travel restriction on countries where a contagious disease is raging.

It’s becoming increasingly clear this is just another platform for Obama to demonstrate that we are citizens of the world. The entire Ebola issue is being discussed — by our government, not the United Nations — as if Liberians are indistinguishable from Americans, and U.S. taxpayers should be willing to pay whatever it takes to save them.

Maybe we should give them the vote, too! If Ebola was concentrated in Finland and Norway — certainly Israel! — we’d have had a travel ban on Day One.

She also singles out the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Tom Frieden, who likes to joke about ebola and zombies:

Dr. Tom Frieden justifies Obama’s refusal to prohibit flights originating in Ebola-plagued countries, saying, “A travel ban is not the right answer. It’s simply not feasible to build a wall — virtual or real — around a community, city or country.”

What is it with liberals living in gated communities always telling us that fences don’t work? THAT’S WHAT A QUARANTINE IS.

At the congressional hearing on Ebola last week, Republicans repeatedly pressed the CDC representative, Dr. Toby Merlin, to explain why Obama refuses to impose a travel ban.

In about 17 tries, Merlin came up with no plausible answer. Like Frieden, Merlin kept insisting that “the only way to protect Americans” is to end the epidemic in Africa.

Why, precisely, must we attack Ebola in Africa? Research on a cure doesn’t require cuddling victims in their huts. Scientists who discovered the AIDS cocktail didn’t spend their nights at Studio 54 in order to “fight the disease at its source.”

Until there’s a treatment, we can’t put out the disease there, or here. The only thing Americans will be doing in Liberia is changing the bedpans of victims, getting infected and bringing Ebola back to America. When there’s a vaccine, we can mail it.

Coulter believes American troops sent to Liberia are also in grave danger:

Naturally, Obama is sending troops from the 101st Airborne, the pride of our Army, to Liberia. Their general should resign in protest.

Merlin further explained the travel ban, saying that if West Africans can’t fly to America, “that would cause the disease to grow in that area and spill over into other countries.” So instead of infecting people in surrounding countries, our CDC wants them to come here and infect Americans.

But that won’t happen because the government assures us there’s nothing to worry about with Ebola. They’ve got it under control.

Unfortunately, everything the government says about this disease keeps being proved untrue — usually within a matter of days.

They told us that you’d basically have to roll in an infected person’s vomit to catch the disease. Then, nurses at two first-world hospitals in Spain and the U.S. contracted Ebola from patients.

With no evidence, the CDC simply announced that the nurses were not following proper “protocol.” The disease didn’t operate the way CDC said it would, so the hospitals must be lying.

The government told us that national quarantines won’t work, but then they quarantine everyone with Ebola — or who has been near someone with Ebola, such as an entire NBC crew. To me, this suggests that there’s some value in keeping people who have been near Ebola away from people who have not.

Quite obviously, the only way to protect Americans is to prevent Ebola from coming here in the first place. The problem isn’t that Ebola will leap across oceans to infect Americans; it’s that Obama doesn’t want to protect Americans.

At least he’s only putting expendable Americans on the frontlines of the Ebola epidemic — doctors, nurses, members of the 101st Airborne.

At the moment, more than 13,000 West Africans have travel visas to come to the U.S. Having just seen an Ebola-infected Liberian get $500,000 worth of free medical treatment in the U.S., the first thing any African who might have Ebola should do is get himself to America.

Of all the reasons people have for coming here — welfare, drug-dealing, Medicare scams — “I have Ebola and I’m going to die, otherwise” is surely one of the strongest. The entire continent of Africa now knows that this is a country that will happily spend half a million dollars on treating someone who just arrived — and then berate itself for not doing enough.

Thomas Eric Duncan’s family may be upset with his treatment, but they have to admit, the price was right. Medical bill: $0.00. Your next statement will arrive in 30 days.

And now we’re going to have to let in entire families with Ebola, because the important thing is — actually, I don’t know why. It’s some technical, scientific point about fences not working.

Coulter urges Republicans, as well as all Americans, to demand Frieden’s resignation.

Ebola threatens chocolate industry

Ebola is threatening much of the world’s chocolate supply.

Ivory Coast, the world’s largest producer of cacao, the raw ingredient in M&M’s, Butterfingers and Snickers Bars, has shut down its borders with Liberia and Guinea, putting a major crimp on the workforce needed to pick the beans that end up in chocolate bars and other treats just as the harvest season begins. The West African nation of about 20 million — also known as Côte D’Ivoire — has yet to experience a single case of Ebola, but the outbreak already could raise prices.

The world’s chocolate makers have taken notice.

The World Cocoa Foundation is working now to collect large donations from Nestlé, Mars and many of its 113 other members for its Coca Industry Response to Ebola Initiative. The initiative hasn’t been publicly unveiled, but the WCF plans to announce details Wednesday, during its annual meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark, on how the money will fuel Red Cross and Caritas Internationalis work to help the infected and staunch Ebola’s spread.

Ivory Coast, which produces about 1.6 million metric tons of cacao beans per year — roughly 33 percent of the world’s total, according to data from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization — closed its borders in August to Guinea and Liberia. More than 8,000 have been diagnosed with Ebola, and nearly 4,000 have died in those two countries and Sierra Leone. Next to Ivory Coast is Ghana, the world’s third-largest producer of cacao beans — 879,348 metric tons per year — or 15 percent of the world’s total.

Source: Politico

‘I have ebola, I’ve been to Africa’

Amid cries of racism from black leaders including Jesse Jackson, cases of Ebola have topped 8,000 now, according to official data from the World Health Organization, though many cases could actually be unreported.

The death toll continues to climb near 4,000, and officials have stressed the outbreak is unprecedented and may continue to get worse.

Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price made similar arguments this week that Thomas Duncan, the first patient diagnosed with Ebola in the United States, died because his race and lack of “privilege” kept him from receiving the care he needed.

“It is historical what has happened in this community,” said Mr. Price, who is black. “If a person who looks like me shows up without any insurance, they don’t get the same treatment.”

An American passenger was booted off a US Airways flight and screened after reportedly joking that he had Ebola and telling the rest of the flyers they were “screwed.”

During a flight from Philadelphia to the Dominican Republic, the 54-year-old American – who remains unidentified – reportedly yelled, “I have Ebola, you are all screwed,” according to the Dominican news outlet Diario Libre.

He also yelled out, “I’ve been to Africa!” an airport official told Fox News Latino.

He didn’t yell “bomb,” but he might as well have. After the supposed joke was aired, there was noticeable panic and concern on the airplane, which was carrying 290 passengers. The plane was isolated as soon as it landed in Punta Cana, where a medical team outfitted with hazmat suits boarded the aircraft and removed the passenger.

After conducting a medical check, the passenger was found not to be infected with the virus. Though he was coughing on the flight, he had no fever when he was inspected. He had never been to Africa, either.

In a video captured by a passenger, an African-American can be seen being taken out of the plane by medical officials.

Fifty-eight percent of Americans supported the flight ban, according to a poll conducted in a collaboration between NBC News and SurveyMonkey.

Only twenty percent of respondents did not support a travel ban from the likes of Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone.

As of earlier this week, neither the World Health Organization nor the White House endorsed an all-out travel ban to the US from affected nations.

Airplane cabin cleaning crews at New York’s LaGuardia International Airport began a 24-hour strike on Wednesday, citing, in part, possible exposure to the Ebola virus. Meanwhile, a poll found most Americans want flights banned from Africa.

“The whole country is shivering, worried about the problems of Ebola,” said Hector Figueroa, President of 32BJ Service Employees International Union, according to CBS New York.

Cabin cleaners per plane at LaGuardia have been reduced by up to half, and the time to clean planes has been cut down to as little as five minutes, workers said, as reported by CBS New York.

Ebola death toll nears 4 000 in West Africa: WHO

The worst Ebola outbreak on record has killed 3 879 people out of 8 033 cases by the end of Oct. 5, with no evidence that the epidemic was being brought under control in West Africa, the World Health Organization said on Wednesday.

Liberia and Sierra Leone, the two worst-hit countries, still only had 21 percent and 26 percent of the bed spaces they needed, and neighbouring countries had been told to prepare for the disease to spread across their borders, the WHO said.

Largest Liberian newspaper accuses US of creating ebola

The Liberian Daily Observer, which is the largest newspaper in Liberia, just published an article on their front page with the headline, “Ebola, AIDS Manufactured By Western Pharmaceuticals, US DoD?” The article accuses the US of manufacturing the Ebola outbreak in a scheme to use Africa as a testing ground for bioweapons.

SITES AROUND AFRICA, AND IN WEST AFRICA, HAVE OVER THE YEARS BEEN SET UP FOR TESTING EMERGING DISEASES, ESPECIALLY EBOLA

The World Health Organization (WHO) and several other UN Agencies have been implicated in selecting and enticing African countries to participate in the testing events, promoting vaccinations, but pursuing various testing regiments. The August 2, 2014 article, West Africa: What are US Biological Warfare Researchers Doing in the Ebola Zone? by Jon Rappoport of Global Research pinpoints the problem that is facing African governments.

Obvious in this and other reports are, among others:

(a) The US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID), a well-known centre for bio-war research, located at Fort Detrick, Maryland;

(b) Tulane University, in New Orleans, USA, winner of research grants, including a grant of more than $7 million the National Institute of Health (NIH) to fund research with the Lassa viral hemorrhagic fever;

(c) the US Center for Disease Control (CDC);

(d) Doctors Without Borders (also known by its French name, Medicins Sans Frontiers);

(e) Tekmira, a Canadian pharmaceutical company;

(f) The UK’s GlaxoSmithKline; and

(g) the Kenema Government Hospital in Kenema, Sierra Leone.

Reports narrate stories of the US Department of Defense (DoD) funding Ebola trials on humans, trials which started just weeks before the Ebola outbreak in Guinea and Sierra Leone. The reports continue and state that the DoD gave a contract worth $140 million dollars to Tekmira, a Canadian pharmaceutical company, to conduct Ebola research. This research work involved injecting and infusing healthy humans with the deadly Ebola virus. Hence, the DoD is listed as a collaborator in a “First in Human” Ebola clinical trial (NCT02041715, which started in January 2014 shortly before an Ebola epidemic was declared in West Africa in March. Disturbingly, many reports also conclude that the US government has a viral fever bioterrorism research laboratory in Kenema, a town at the epicentre of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. The only relevant positive and ethical olive-branch seen in all of my reading is that Theguardian.com reported, “The US government funding of Ebola trials on healthy humans comes amid warnings by top scientists in Harvard and Yale that such virus experiments risk triggering a worldwide pandemic.” That threat still persists.

UN Security Council declares ebola security threat

The UN Security Council has declared the outbreak of the Ebola virus in West Africa a “threat to international peace and security”.

The council unanimously adopted a resolution calling on states to provide more resources to combat the outbreak.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon warned an emergency meeting of the council that the number of Ebola infections was doubling every three weeks.

More than 2,600 people have now died in the worst Ebola outbreak on record.

Cases doubling
Mr Ban said the “gravity and scale of the situation now require a level of international action unprecedented for a health emergency”.

He announced the establishment of an “emergency UN mission” working with the World Health Organization (WHO) to combat the crisis, saying he would convene a “high-level meeting” next week.

The council heard that the international response had to be three times bigger than it was now to contain the crisis – the number of cases is doubling every two weeks in west Africa.

The resolution attracted 130 co-sponsors – a UN record – and calls on countries to provide urgent aid, such as medical staff and field hospitals.

The resolution also calls for travel bans imposed by some states to be lifted, saying the countries need to have access to aid instead of being isolated.

Council members heard that the international response would need to be 20 times greater than it was now, if the outbreak were to be controlled.

The Security Council has never previously met to confront a public health crisis, reports the BBC’s Nick Bryant from New York.

It is only the second time that a public health issue has been addressed at the council, the first instance being HIV/Aids, our correspondent adds.

A doctor appearing via video link from Liberia warned that if the international community did not step up its response, “we would be wiped out”.

Officials in Guinea searching for a team of health workers and journalists who went missing while trying to raise awareness of Ebola have found several bodies.

A spokesman for Guinea’s government said the bodies included those of three journalists in the team.

They went missing after being attacked on Tuesday in a village near the southern city of Nzerekore.

Meanwhile Sierra Leone President Ernest Bai Koroma said the disease would be soon be a thing of the past within the next couple of weeks.

Smiling broadly, the president said the international community “are not only in the fight but also involved in the preparation work”.

He said Britain was establishing an Ebola treatment centre at Kerry Town on the Freetown peninsula, the Chinese were setting up one at Jui just outside Freetown and the Americans had “increased their presence” through the Centres for Disease Control.

“I will say that their presence has improved” he said, and the collaboration would continue to “ensure that [by] the next couple of weeks we will be able to contain Ebola”.

“I am sure that we will get Ebola behind us very soon” he said, assuring the country would get back to “normalcy in December”.

By normalcy, he explained, Ebola would be contained and his government would return to implementing those “development programmes we were carrying out before the May outbreak” .

He said Ebola would be a thing of the past earlier than the six-month timeframe given by the French charity MSF and other agencies.

Sierra Leone: China to send ebola mobile lab

Mr. Xu Zhou, spokesman of the Chinese Embassy announced in Freetown on Monday, 15th September that China will send a China Center for Disease Control (CDC) medical expert team comprising of 59 personnel and a mobile laboratory to Sierra Leone on Wednesday, 17th September by chartered airplanes to strengthen Sierra Leone’s endeavour to contain Ebola.

He indicated that this was a decision made in consideration of the continuous spread of Ebola in the country and upon the request of the Sierra Leonean government, and it is another veritable gesture of solidarity of the Chinese government and people to the Sierra Leonean government and people.

He noted that this is the third batch of China’s humanitarian aid to support Sierra Leone in fighting against Ebola. Previously, China provided two batches of emergency medical materials valued at RMB 11 million Yuan (equally 1.8 million USD) to Sierra Leone and sent two teams of medical experts to the country.

He added that China announced on 12th September a further 200 million Yuan (equally 32.54 million USD) package of humanitarian aid including food, supplies for disease control, emergency treatment facilities and capital support to African countries and international organizations to help control Ebola. In addition, China will also promote long-term medical cooperation with African countries to help them raise their disease control and response abilities and improve public health systems.