Government

Ebola Doctor: Media, politicians fueled the public's fears

Thu, 2015-02-26 11:35 — mike kraft

ASSOCIATED PRESS by Tom McElroy Feb. 25, 2015

NEW YORK — A doctor who contracted the deadly Ebola virus and rode the subway system and dined out before he developed symptoms said the media and politicians could have done a better job by educating people on the science of it instead of focusing on their fears.

"When we look back on this epidemic, I hope we'll recognize that fear caused our initial hesitance to respond — and caused us to respond poorly when we finally did," Dr. Craig Spencer wrote in an article published Wednesday in The New England Journal of Medicine. (See link below.)

Spencer, an emergency room physician, was diagnosed with Ebola on Oct. 23, days after returning from treating patients in Guinea with Doctors Without Borders. His was the first Ebola case in the nation's largest city, spurring an effort to contain anxieties along with the virus. He was treated at a hospital, recovered and was released on Nov. 11.

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Report Slams U.S. Ebola Response and Readiness

Thu, 2015-02-26 10:52 — mike kraft

NBC NEWS by Maggie Fox Feb. 26, 2015

The United States fumbled its response to the Ebola epidemic before it even began, neglecting experiments to make vaccines and drugs against the virus, and cutting funding to key public health agencies, a presidential commission said Thursday.

Americans focused on their own almost nonexistent risk of catching Ebola from travelers instead of pressing to help the truly affected nations, the scathing report from the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues says.

They've been acting against their own best interest, the commission said in its report.

"Both justice and prudence demand that we do our part in combating such devastating outbreaks. Once we recognize our humanitarian obligations and the ability of infectious diseases to travel in our interconnected world, we cannot choose between the ethical and the prudential," it reads.

"Ethics and enlightened interest converge in calling for our country to address epidemics at their source."

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Guinea's Conde replaces key minister to boost Ebola fight

Wed, 2015-02-25 20:01 — mike kraft

REUTERS Feb. 25, 2015

CONAKRY - Guinean President Alpha Conde on Tuesday replaced the minister of territorial administration with an army general in a move the government said was necessary to strengthen the fight against an Ebola outbreak in the West African nation.

A statement read on state-owned television announced the appointment of General Bourema Conde, considered to be among the president's closest allies in Guinea's army....

More than 14 months after the first Ebola case was reported in Guinea's forest region, the government still faces pockets of often violent resistance to the campaign against the epidemic, undermining its plans to rebuild the health sector and economy.

Bourema Conde replaces Alassane Conde, a civilian who had held the position since President Conde named his first government following his election in late 2010. He will continue to serve as a government minister with an advisory role to the president. None of the three men are related.
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New funding announced for US Ebola preparedness

Sat, 2015-02-21 13:25 — mike kraft

THE HILL by Peter Sullivan Feb. 20, 2015

WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration on Friday announced around $200 million in new funding to increase Ebola preparedness in the United States.

The Department of Health and Human Services is giving grants to states to help set up 10 regional Ebola treatment centers, as well as hospitals in every state that can safely care for an Ebola patient until he or she is transferred. Combined with other funds, the move brings the total for local Ebola preparedness to around $340 million.

"Important lessons were also learned during the response effort," HHS said in a statement Friday. "Safety of health care workers must be foremost in health care system preparedness and response activities."

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http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/233385-hhs-announces-new-funding-for-us-ebola-preparedness

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Finishing Off Ebola

Fri, 2015-02-20 10:10 — mike kraft

NEW YORK TIMES OP-ED BY Ron Klain, the former White House Ebola response coordinaor FEB. 20, 2015

...The world needs to do a better job of quickly detecting and responding to future outbreaks in unlikely places. The President’s Global Health Security Agenda, the government’s strategy to combat infection disease around the world, will help. But vulnerable countries, including those in Africa, need their own version of our Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, so that they are not so dependent on ours.

For the hardest task of front-line epidemic fighting, our planet is too reliant on courageous and talented — but underfunded, under-equipped and volunteer-dependent — nongovernmental organizations. The world needs a permanent standing force — or a ready reserve that can be quickly organized — of public health emergency responders who have the training, gear and resources to race into a region in the early phases of epidemic control. The United States military cannot do that job every time; future outbreaks might occur in countries where our troops will not be welcomed as they were in West Africa.

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Sierra Leone Loses Track of Millions in Ebola Funds

Sun, 2015-02-15 09:39 — mike kraft

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE Dec. 14, 2015

FREETOWN, Sierra Leone — A report by Sierra Leone’s national auditor says government ministers lost track of more than $3 million in internal emergency funds to fight the Ebola virus, impairing the response to the disease.

There is no paperwork to support payments of 14 billion leones, or $3.3 million, from government Ebola accounts, while $2.5 million in disbursements had incomplete documentation, the country’s auditor general, Lara Taylor-Pearce, said in the report.

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Obama uses war on Ebola to illustrate fight against non-conventional threats

Fri, 2015-02-13 18:19 — mike kraft

WASHINGTON POST by Juliet Eilperin and Steven Mufson Feb. 13, 2015

WASHINGTON --If there is to be war, the fight against Ebola is President Obama’s type of war. The enemy fires no bullets and carries no bombs; it doesn’t use social media to recruit fighters and rally supporters. And the fighting can best be done by intelligent professionals who don’t try to kill people, but to save them.

On Wednesday, Obama celebrated the progress against the deadly virus since the administration launched a military and civilian effort in September. While the president emphasized it was too soon to declare “mission accomplished” — as President George W. Bush did about Iraq in 2003 — Obama said “we’re shifting our focus from fighting the epidemic to now extinguishing it.”

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Ebola-hit Sierra Leone announces disease control agency

Wed, 2015-02-11 10:46 — mike kraft

AFP by Rod Mac Johnson Feb. 10, 2015
Freetown -- Sierra Leone announced Tuesday the launch of an infectious diseases prevention agency, saying it would convert its Ebola clinics into treatment and research units for some of the world's deadliest viruses.

The organisation will follow the model of the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the leading American public health institute which has been at the forefront of the response the west African Ebola outbreak....

Although some Ebola units are temporary, Sierra Leone and its neighbours Guinea and Liberia have been looking for ways to continue using others launched at great expense at the height of the epidemic.

"We are now on the verge of constructing a permanent Centres for Disease Control in Sierra Leone, and also the introduction of an ambulance service in the country," government spokesman Abdulai Bayraytay told an online news conference.

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http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-hit-sierra-leone-announces-disease-control-agency-222729883.html;_ylt=AwrBJR7GdttUOCIA_kXQtDMD

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Effort on Ebola Hurt W.H.O. Chief

Wed, 2015-01-07 10:01 — mike kraft

NEW YORK TIMES by Somini Sengupta Jan. 7, 2015

....Now, Ebola is battering three fragile countries in Africa and with it, the W.H.O.’s standing — in large part, Dr. Chan’s critics say, because she let governments around the world steer the agency to fit their own needs, instead of firmly taking the helm as the world’s doctor in chief.

Diplomacy is an inevitable, even necessary, part of running the world’s main health organization, vital to getting fractious countries to cooperate for the sake of global health, her critics acknowledge.

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Ebola’s lessons, painfully learned at great cost in dollars and human lives

Mon, 2014-12-29 10:49 — mike kraft

In-Depth report on lessons to be learned from the Ebola crisis

THE WASHINGTON POST by By Lena H. Sun, Brady Dennis and Joel Achenbach Dec. 29, 2014

A year after it began, the Ebola epidemic in West Africa continues to be unpredictable, forcing governments and aid groups to improvise strategies as they chase a virus that is unencumbered by borders or bureaucracy.

The people fighting Ebola are coming up with lists of lessons learned — not only for the current battle, which has killed more than 7,500 people and is far from over, but also for future outbreaks of deadly contagions.