Ebola is a Horrific Virus with a 70% Mortality Rate.
Spread the word not the Disease
The true death toll from the Ebola epidemic is being masked by chaotic data collection and people’s reluctance to admit that their loved ones had the virus, according to one of west Africa’s most celebrated film-makers.
Sorious Samura, who has just returned from making a documentary on the crisis in Liberia, said it is very clear on the ground that the true number of dead is far higher than the official figures being reported by the World Health Organisation.
Liberia accounts for more than half of all the official Ebola deaths, with a total of 2,458. Overall, the number of dead across Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea has exceeded 4,500.
Samura, a television journalist originally from Sierra Leone, said the Liberian authorities appeared to be deliberately downplaying the true number of cases, for fear of increasing alarm in the west African country.
WHO has admitted that problems with data-gathering make it hard to track the evolution of the epidemic, with the number of cases in the capital, Monrovia, going under-reported. Efforts to count freshly dug graves had been abandoned.
Local culture is also distorting the figures. Traditional burial rites involve relatives touching the body – a practice that can spread Ebola – so the Liberian government has ruled that Ebola victims must be cremated.
“They don’t like this burning of bodies,” said Samura, whose programme will air on 12 November on Al Jazeera English. “Before the government gets there they will have buried their loved ones and broken all the rules.”
Kim West of MSF admitted that calculating deaths was “virtually impossible”, adding that only when retrospective surveys were conducted would the true figure be known.
Samura believes sexual promiscuity among westerners could play a role in the virus’s spread abroad. Almost immediately after the outbreak was reported in March, Liberia’s health minister warned people to stop having sex because the virus was spread via bodily fluids as well as kissing.“I saw westerners in nightclubs, on beaches, guys picking up prostitutes,” he said. “Westerners who ought to know better are going to nightclubs and partying and dancing. It beggars belief.It’s scary.”
He said another striking feature was that the ineffectiveness of years of aid had been laid bare: “Money has poured in from the west, but it has gone to waste. Ebola should make us think about how the west gives aid to Africa; aid has not been used to create a system able to cope with this challenge. Ebola has exposed the fact it is not working. That money has gone to waste.”
A committee of MPs recently criticised the Department for International Development and the EU for failing to address the problem of aid being misappropriated. It said just £2.4m of £37m of aid had actually made its way to Liberia’s health ministry.
(CNN) -- Concerns about even remote chances of Ebola exposure rippled Friday from a U.S. airline to a cruise ship off Belize, with Frontier contacting hundreds who flew with an infected nurse and Carnival quarantining a health worker only tangentially linked to an Ebola patient's care.
The airline's move relates to Amber Vinson, a Dallas nurse who treated an Ebola patient and then was diagnosed with the virus this week after flying round trip between Dallas and Cleveland. A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention official said Thursday she could have had symptoms earlier than believed -- a period possibly covering her two flights on Frontier Airlines.
Frontier spokesman Todd Lehmacher said that, by early Friday evening, airline officials had contacted as many as 800 passengers, including those on Vinson's October 10 flight to Cleveland, her October 13 return flight to Dallas and five other trips taken by the latter plane before it was taken out of service. The CDC, even as it said these passengers have an extremely low chance of getting Ebola, is reaching out to those on Vinson's flights.
Nina Pham's condition expected to worsen
Lab worker quarantined on cruise ship
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ep. King: 'The CDC has been so wrong'
Vinson is one of two nurses at Dallas' Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital who became ill with Ebola while treating Thomas Eric Duncan, a Liberian man who was the first person diagnosed with Ebola in the United States and died October 8.
She was hospitalized Tuesday, one day after her return flight from Ohio, where she was visiting family and planning her wedding. Vinson was moved Wednesday to Atlanta's Emory University Hospital. The other nurse,Nina Pham, is being treated at a National Institutes of Health facility in Maryland.
Authorities initially said Vinson had a slightly elevated temperature of 99.5 degrees Fahrenheit (37.5 Celsius), which was below the fever threshold for Ebola, but didn't show any Ebola symptoms on her Monday flight. This is significant because a person isn't contagious with Ebola, which spreads through the transmission of bodily fluids, until he or she has symptoms of the disease.
Her uncle, Lawrence Vinson, said Thursday night his niece didn't feel sick until the morning after her return to Dallas. And the CDC's Dr. Chris Braden said Friday that Vinson didn't have classic Ebola symptoms like a sore throat, fever or muscle aches on her trip.
But Braden said that she may have started feeling off on October 11, and investigators couldn't rule out her illness starting the previous day -- when she flew from Texas to Ohio.
"She rested for a long time on some days; she said she felt funny," he said of Vinson's state during her trip. "Those types of things, but nothing specific."
Belize refuses to let possible Ebola case disembark
The Frontier passengers and crew members aren't the only ones to find themselves thrust into the Ebola story.
So, too, are 16 people being monitored in northeast Ohio -- including two employees at a bridal store Vinson visited -- because they were in the vicinity of or had contact with her, health officials there say.
There also are 48 people who had contact with Duncan in Texas before he was hospitalized. Their 21-day monitoring period, during which their movement has been restricted, will end Sunday, at the latest.
"Monday afternoon is when we're going to start piecing our lives together," Aaron Yah said. Yah said he is the husband of Youngor Jallah, the daughter of Duncan's fiancee. Yah said he hadn't been able to go to work the past three weeks.
Then there are the 76 health care workers involved in Duncan's treatment, one of whom is now in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico and a diplomatic kerfuffle.
That Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital worker did not have direct contact with Duncan, but "may have had contact with his specimen," the U.S. State Department said on Friday. It has been 19 days since that may have happened -- two days shy of the maximum 21-day Ebola incubation period.
Carnival CEO Arnold Donald told CNN's Richard Quest the woman is a lab supervisor and "has no symptoms whatsoever." Even so, she was isolated on the ship.
Passenger on quarantine: We weren't aware
Whistle-blower nurse: 'I feel lied to'
Nurse may have been ill before diagnosis
Hospital 'deeply sorry' for Ebola mistakes
"We have a lot of experience in the cruise industry," said Donald, citing diseases such as SARS, H1N1 and the flu. "... The CDC has protocols in place; we're following those protocols."
The vessel is heading back to Galveston, Texas, with the passenger on board. But that's not what the U.S. government wanted.
U.S. State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said the plan was for the passenger to get on land in Belize, then be flown back to the United States. The Belize government refused to let the passenger leave the ship, given the potential Ebola exposure, despite a plea from U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to Belize Prime Minister Dean Barrow.
"There's a lot of misinformation out there and a lot of fear about this disease, much of it not rooted in actual facts," Harf said, adding that Belize authorities "could have handled (this situation) differently."
Belize's government responded Friday night, in a statement in which it also announced it is barring travel from Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea and Nigeria, by saying it "regrets (being) unable to move" the Dallas hospital worker "and her traveling companion" onshore for evacuation from an international airport.
"This decision was made out of preponderance of caution for the welfare of the citizens and residents of Belize," said the government, which didn't dispute that the passenger was low risk.
Nurse: My neck was exposed
All but a few of the thousands of documented Ebola cases originated in West Africa. Yet it's the two cases that spread here -- Vinson and Pham -- that have caused a fury in Texas, fueling fears and complaints about the procedures meant to keep health care workers safe.
One of those affected is Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital nurse Briana Aguirre. She said Thursday that the Dallas hospital didn't give her proper gear while she cared for Pham, even though it was more than a week into the Ebola response there.
Aguirre told CNN's Anderson Cooper that the gear she was given -- when she cared for Pham for one day -- included a Tyvex suit, gloves and booties that covered most of her body, but not her neck.
"I just told them, 'Why would an area so close to my mouth and my nose ... be exposed?' " Aguirre told Cooper. "And they didn't have an answer."
She said she asked supervisors about new gear and was told it had been ordered. But she said the better equipment should have been procured more quickly, and raised concerns for her colleagues who were more involved in Ebola care.
"I just know that the (two) nurses that have been infected, they were dealing with the same equipment while they were dealing with so much more than I dealt with personally," she said. "They put their lives on the line and without the proper equipment."
She also said that prior to Duncan's arrival in late September, nurses at the hospital had no mandatory Ebola training and only an optional seminar.
Nurse's uncle: CDC OK'd Vinson's flight
Nurse's Ohio family 'self-monitoring'
Gupta suits up in Ebola protective gear
The hospital has said its professionals wore equipment consistent with CDC guidelines at the time.
Dr. Tom Frieden, the CDC's director, admitted at a congressional hearing Wednesday that "some forms of" health care workers' protective equipment "did allow exposure of some parts of the skin."
Given such concerns and the fact Pham and Vinson got Ebola at work, the CDC "very soon" will put out updated guidelines on putting on and removing protective gowns, masks, gloves and other gear, agency spokeswoman Barbara Reynolds said Friday.
Kerry: 'We have to do more' in West Africa
There have been eight confirmed cases of Ebola in the United States: Duncan, three missionaries, an NBC News freelance cameraman and a World Health Organization doctor infected in Africa, plus the two Texas nurses. The missionaries have all been released from hospitals, while the others are being cared for at Atlanta's Emory University Hospital, Nebraska Medical Center and the National Institutes of Health hospital in suburban Washington.
U.S. authorities' response goes well beyond providing medical care. Federal, state and local governments, Customs and Border Protection, various health agencies and even the U.S. military have all played a part in the response so far.
Thousands of American troops will help in West Africa, performing duties such as flying in supplies, building field hospitals and helping local authorities with logistics. Several U.S. military officials told CNN on Friday that the Defense Department is considering sending anywhere from a dozen to 100 of its health care professionals to help CDC officials in the region.
There's also a press to recruit other countries to devote their own resources and money to help stem the months-long outbreak in West Africa, where all but a few of the roughly 9,200 reported Ebola cases and 4,555 deaths have occurred, according to the World Health Organization.
Kerry, the U.S. secretary of state, expressed disappointment Friday in the international response, saying "we are barely one-third of the way" to hitting the United Nations' $1 billion fundraising goal for the Ebola fight.
"We have to do more and we have to do it quickly," Kerry said. "... If we don't adequately address this current outbreak now, then Ebola has the potential to become a scourge like HIV or polio that we will end up fighting -- all of us -- for decades."
SOURCE: http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/17/health/us-ebola/index.html CNN's Rene Marsh, Nick Valencia, Carma Hassan, Gabe LaMonica and Susan Candiotti contributed to this report.
Self-improvement comes from within. People say "You can't change", lies you just haven't tried, I've changed multiple times, through self-improvement. Pity is evil, makes people lazy and unmotivated. They want the world to revolve around them, when in actuality, they are nothing to the universe (well they are, they just don't understand the magnitude of who they are), they are smaller than a grain of sand compared to the universe, SMALLER than an atom. Also Karma is a pain, everything comes back in the end, the universe is a wheel and it keeps on spinning, that's why I don't believe in redemption or revenge, just let the universe do what it does, It will happen eventually. Everything that happens, happens for a reason, there are either no or little coincidences. A thought/idea I have a lot helps me through hard times that I am having, whether that be me and my love of my life for 5 years breaking up, to getting fired from a job. I always look at it like this, if everything happens for a reason, then this thing that is happening to me is not a bad thing, it just seems that way as of right now, later on in the future I will see it for what it is and it will be beautiful. They say that a bad experience is just miscategorized as the start of a good experience. If you did stay with the person that broke up with you you might not have met the love of your life, OR if you stayed at that job, you wouldn't have found out you loved your CAREER as much as you do. Another point i wanna touch on is the fact you have most of the control of your destiny. Now things do happen for a reason in which we have no control of after the fact BUT you can change is your ending, whether that be you smoke cigarettes but you say well everything gives you cancer so what's the point,. If you change your bad habits you might just add years to your life (Now there are freak accidents that happen everyday, which are technically in our control for example you get into an accident on the highway, you choose to drive on the highway and not take the scenic route,). If you look throughout history, we have always evolved and adapted to stay alive. You choose your own fate, and it doesn't just change from what your doing.A BIG factor that people either cannot see or comprehend, or just don't believe, is your thoughts. Your part of the universe (I call it the YOUNIVERSE, you are the universe, we can make anything happen if we just put our mind to it, and not just how our mind is now, the mind is a muscle and you need to utilize and work it out, the stronger the mind the stronger the vessel. This is why some people are known to be able to speak with the dead or see into the future, MOST of the times its something that is given to them at birth, but I'M ALMOST positive, that if you work on your mind, using meditation and Chakra energizing, you can find some mystical powers DEEP down in you that have been dormant. If you have never done meditation or do not know what a Chakra is Here is a link for a little research you should do. Now I know what your saying, "But Anthony i'm a devout Christian, doesn't that go beyond my faith." Listen god wants your MIND BODY AND SOUL to be in the best shape it can be in, the crown Chakra is the one where you DIRECTLY connect with God, Food For Thought.
I admit sometimes i wish I could go back and change a few things, and then i remember, it wouldn't matter, life moves on. I always ponder the thought if you could go back in time and changed something would it REALLY change in the future? I always thought no, it would just create a parallel universe with a different outcome than we were all used to. I'm not so sure about that nowadays. If stars and black holes can warp time that means something with a lot of mass can alter the complete fabric of space and time. Maybe you can alter the past with something with a large sum of mass. Life is starting to come into focus and I can feel the time just slipping away, its sort of a grim thought, but it makes life complete and should cause you not to take it for granted, and be grateful for this wonderful life that we have been blessed with. I just hope were not stuck on a certain path, if we are that's cool and all, but we were taught our whole life that life is what we make it, and every action we do, consciously or subconsciously, creates a concequece, either a good one or not. Deep thought and reasoning makes me think otherwise that we create our own destiny's, that there are no such thing as coincidences. Some people believe that God (Or the universe, if you don't believe in God) has a certain path for us, that no matter how hard we try and veer off, we will always return to this set course. If so though i hope my path is beautiful and full of meaning, if it isn't i will try my hardest to make it beautiful and full of meaning. We (for the most part), have along time on this earth, I don't want to look back on my life and feel like I have not created a great impact on others around me, didn't do my hardest to help others and that i wasted my time. We have along life span but not a second to spare, god giveth and god taketh away, Food For Thought.
Why are we here? What is the purpose of life? Is time real? Are we alone in the universe? Ground breaking advances in technology have brought us closer than we've been since the ancient ancestors that have unexplained knowledge. Day to day I ponder the unexplainable with plans on helping solve one of them one day. A lot of the time it feels like my thoughts are blocked from unanswered questions and I need to do a lot of soul searching through thought and meditation to be able to even ponder on them. One thought that I fully cannot comprehend, that I have thought of since my earliest memory is unexplainable through words. I can only come close to explain it (which can give dismal comparison to its vast and complex idea. What is this existence. And I cannot help but feel that reality could possibly not even exist. But what does that make of me, who feels and thinks and believes I'm in the middle of space, on a planet called earth, that is conveniently just the right amount of distance away for life to be sustained. http://www.nbcnews.com/id/50232422/ns/technology_and_science-science/t/reality-unreal-scientists-work-way-find-out/
That is a link to a notable news and trusted source for
News and information. They talk about a theory that has been
Around since existence started, that this could all be
A simulation. Nowadays they think we could be
Just a simulation at the hands of a kid from the future.
It's a crazy thought to process, but when done makes
I'm glad you broke my heart, I needed to feel something. I was so numb with you. We were in love and incompatible, HOW does that even work? I don't care you've found some one else, you use it to hurt me and i laugh! The only thing we ever had in common was our son, and you can never take that away. Obviously we were all wrong for eachother, Cant you see it? Obviously you did, you tried break my heart. You were being so evil in the end, and that's cool, you say i was evil the whole time, that's cool too. Really its not, obviously your mom never taught you two wrongs don't make a right. I fought to keep you in the beginning, laughing my ass off, Yeah well after i won i gave up on you. I wasn't ever going to fight for you again. I didn', not when my "friends" tried to fuck you, and not when your friends tried to fight me, i just laughed. One good thing that came from you is i learned that i need to pick my battles more wiser, i thank you for that, Food for Thought. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImUonNgFi_0
"If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits, there are only plateaus, and you must not stay there you must go beyond them." Bruce Lee. I wake up everyday and say think it, feel it, know it, own it and manifest it. Trust deeply with all your heart and say to your self with an indestructable confidence, TODAY is going to be AMAZING. One day i told my teacher i was having a bad day. What he responded to me changed my life forever. . . The only bad day you can have is one you allow. For a while i did not completely understand what he had meant by it. We can and do have complete outcome of everyday. Our thoughts and energy have a real effect on our lives, day by day. We are made of 70% - 90% of water throughout our lives. Water has a photographic memory and changes its structure to thoughts and even words. I know, sounds crazy right? Here's the link to a 100% Legit science experiment http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAvzsjcBtx8 it will blow your mind. Anyway, you need to put positive vibes into the universe. We do not fully understand what happens after life, but i bet our energy and impact on the universe, even the people in it has a big portion to do with our after life.
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