Ebola Tag

Judge Charles C. LaVerdiere ruled Hickox must continue daily monitoring and cooperate with health officials if she chooses to travel. The judge said there’s no need to restrict her movements because she’s not showing symptoms of Ebola. In his ruling, the judge thanked Hickox for her service in Africa and wrote that “people are acting out of fear and that this fear is not entirely rational.” Maine Gov. Paul LePage disagreed with the judge’s decision, but said the state will follow the law... The judge...acknowledged the gravity of restricting someone’s constitutional rights without solid science to back it up. “The court is fully aware of the misconceptions, misinformation, bad science and bad information being spread from shore to shore in our country with respect to Ebola,” he wrote. “The court is fully aware that people are acting out of fear and that this fear is not entirely rational.”

It may not be absolutely true that those without symptoms can’t transmit the disease, because we don’t have the numbers to back that up,” said Beutler, “It could be people develop significant viremia [where viruses enter the bloodstream and gain access to the rest of the body], and become able to transmit the disease before they have a fever, even. People may have said that without symptoms you can’t transmit Ebola. I’m not sure about that being 100 percent true. There’s a lot of variation with viruses.”

“Today, EMS HAZ TAC Units transferred to Bellevue Hospital a patient who presented a fever and gastrointestinal symptoms,” New York City officials said in a statement. “The patient is a health care worker who returned to the U.S. within the past 21 days from one of the three countries currently facing the outbreak of this virus.” Spencer, who is a physician in his 30s and works with Doctors Without Borders, came back a week ago from Guinea, where he is believed to have been treating Ebola patients. “A person in New York City, who recently worked with Doctors Without Borders in one of the Ebola-affected countries in West Africa, notified our office this morning to report having developed a fever,” Doctors Without Borders said in a statement. “As per the specific guidelines that Doctors Without Borders provides its staff on their return from Ebola assignments, the individual engaged in regular health monitoring and reported this development immediately. While at this stage there is no confirmation that the individual has contracted Ebola, Doctors Without Borders, in the interest of public safety and in accordance with its protocols, immediately notified the New York City Department of Health & Mental Hygiene, which is directly managing the individual’s care.”

"While at this stage there is no confirmation that the individual has contracted Ebola, Doctors Without Borders, in the interest of public safety and in accordance with its protocols, immediately notified the New York City Department of Health & Mental Hygiene, which is directly managing the individual’s care," Doctors Without Borders said in a statement. Health care workers are among those at highest risk of being infected, because they work so closely with very ill patients and are in frequent contact with infectious bodily fluids such as vomit. “The patient was transported by a specially trained HAZ TAC unit wearing Personal Protective Equipment (PPE),” the city health department said in a statement, adding that after consultation with the hospital and the CDC, they would test for Ebola. They are also checking him for malaria, salmonella and stomach viruses because they can all cause similar symptoms.

Dallas nurse Amber Vinson is free of the Ebola virus and will be transferred from isolation at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, her family said Wednesday. The family also said that the 29-year-old nurse, who contracted the virus from Liberian Thomas Eric Duncan, was regaining strength and that her spirits were high. "We are overjoyed to announce that, as of yesterday evening, officials at Emory University Hospital and the Centers for Disease Control (and Prevention) are no longer able to detect virus in her body," the family said in a statement hours after Vinson spoke with her mother, Debra Berry.

As the 48 patients exposed to the first U.S. Ebola patient near the end of their 21-day incubation period on Sunday, Oct. 19, a new study is questioning whether that period is sufficient to keep the public safe. "Twenty-one days has been regarded as the appropriate quarantine period for holding individuals potentially exposed to Ebola Virus to reduce risk of contagion, but there does not appear to be a systemic discussion of the basis for this period," lead researcher Charles Haas, an environmental engineering professor at Drexel University, wrote in the study paper.

"This is a situation where the DHS had to work with the airlines that are flying passengers from a wide variety of countries from Europe to the United States. It did require some work with the State Department to inform other countries. So there’s a lot of coordination that had to go into developing and implementing this policy." The White House said it remains opposed to a flight ban, which the president and health officials argue would be counterproductive. "The fact of the matter is giving individuals an incentive to conceal their travel history only puts the American public at risk. ... It makes it harder for us to determine which individuals need to be subjected to the screening that we’ve described," Earnest said.

Who knew this hotel chain was prophetic?...

President Obama has asked Ron Klain, who served as chief of staff to both Vice President Biden and former vice president Al Gore, as his Ebola response coordinator, according to a White House official. "He will report directly to the president’s homeland security adviser, Lisa Monaco, and the president's national security adviser, Susan Rice, as he ensures that efforts to protect the American people by detecting, isolating and treating Ebola patients in this country are properly integrated but don’t distract from the aggressive commitment to stopping Ebola at the source in West Africa," a White House official wrote in an e-mail. Klain, a longtime Democratic operative, served as Biden's chief of staff from 2009 to 2011 and as Gore's from 1995 to 1999. He helped oversee the Democratic side in the 2000 presidential election recount as its lead lawyer, a role that Kevin Spacey portrayed in the HBO film "Recount."

Breaking: Obama signs executive order authorizing DOD to call up selected reserve and ready reserve for Ebola response

— Zeke Miller (@ZekeJMiller) October 16, 2014

Second Health Care Worker Tests Positive for Ebola News Release Oct. 15, 2014 A second health care worker at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital who provided care for the first Ebola patient diagnosed in the United States has tested positive for the disease. The health care worker reported a fever Tuesday and was immediately isolated at the hospital. Health officials have interviewed the latest patient to quickly identify any contacts or potential exposures, and those people will be monitored. The type of monitoring depends on the nature of their interactions and the potential they were exposed to the virus. The worker was among those who took care of Thomas Eric Duncan after he was diagnosed with Ebola. The preliminary Ebola test was run late Tuesday at the state public health laboratory in Austin, and results were received at about midnight. Confirmatory testing on a separate specimen will be conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. Ebola is spread through direct contact with bodily fluids of a sick person or exposure to contaminated objects such as needles. People are not contagious before symptoms such as fever develop.

Dallas nurse Nina Pham tested positive for the Ebola virus over the weekend. Pham was one of the medical workers who administered treatment to Ebola patient Thomas Duncan, who died from the virus last week. Pham first noticed that she had some of the symptoms on Friday, and her diagnosis was confirmed on Sunday.