Guinea Shuts Border Over Ebola
Offline The WHO is declaring a global medical emergency on this one :
www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-28723977
Guinea has closed its borders with Liberia and Sierra Leone to contain the spread of Ebola, which has killed 959 people in the three countries.
The latest outbreak is thought to have begun in Guinea, but Liberia and Sierra Leone are currently facing the highest frequency of new cases.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday the spread of the virus was a global health emergency.
The Ebola virus is transmitted between humans through bodily fluids.
Animals such as fruit bats carry the virus, which can be transmitted to humans through contact with blood or consumption of bushmeat.
In recent weeks, countries around the world have advised their citizens not to travel to the affected countries.
The infections have spread to Nigeria, which has recorded two deaths and several more cases.
The total number of cases in the current outbreak stands at 1,779, the WHO said on Friday.
The most recent figures from 5 and 6 August showed 68 new cases and 29 deaths.
They included 26 new cases in Sierra Leone and 38 in Liberia, but no new cases in Guinea, where the outbreak began.
Guinea said it was closing its borders in order to stop people from entering the country.
"We have provisionally closed the frontier between Guinea and Sierra Leone because of all the news that we have received from there recently," Health Minister Remy Lamah told a news conference.
He added that Guinea had also closed its border with Liberia.
Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia have already declared varying levels of emergency over the spread of the virus.
The most intense outbreak in Guinea was located in the region along the border with Liberia and Sierra Leone.
The WHO had said the worst-affected area, which straddles the borders between the three countries, would be isolated and treated as a "unified zone".
It is not clear what effect Guinea's announcement will have on the strategy.
In other developments:
- http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/view/3_0_20/cream/hi/shared/img/story_sprite.gif); background-position: -1200px 5px; background-repeat: no-repeat;">Nigeria allocates more than $11m (£6.5m) for isolation centres and treatment facilities
- http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/view/3_0_20/cream/hi/shared/img/story_sprite.gif); background-position: -1200px 5px; background-repeat: no-repeat;">Zambia bars travellers from affected countries from entering its territory
- http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/view/3_0_20/cream/hi/shared/img/story_sprite.gif); background-position: -1200px 5px; background-repeat: no-repeat;">Two Americans being treated with an experimental drug in Atlanta are apparently improving
- http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/view/3_0_20/cream/hi/shared/img/story_sprite.gif); background-position: -1200px 5px; background-repeat: no-repeat;">Canada isolates a patient in Brampton, Ontario, suffering flu-like symptoms, as a precaution.
The WHO said a co-ordinated response was essential.
"The possible consequences of further international spread are particularly serious in view of the virulence of the virus," WHO said after a meeting on Friday.
The Ebola virus was first discovered in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1976.
Experts say the current outbreak is unusual because it started in Guinea, which has never before been affected, and is spreading to urban areas.
Jump media playerMedia player help
“It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority is the majority. Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people.”
― Giordano Bruno
- Login to post comments
The fucking locals who eat the monkey meat, to name just one, is the cause of this outbreak. Then the fucking locals kiss and do stupid shit to the dead. WTF? Seriously? If they don't want to listen to us on the causes and effects of this infection then oh fucking well.
My brother is a researcher in infectious shit like this; he travels to India, Africa, etc all the time in relation to his research. He told me that the #1 reason for these widespread epidemics is ignorance. The locals never listen to them and many of them think of Americans has being evil. Guess who tells them that shit? The fucking extremist islamic leaders.
So it sucks that many people who die are innocent but to be honest, there is only so much you can do when a person is overweight, smoking, drinking, not exercising and also using too much salt. They are a timebomb waiting to explode and if they won't listen you can't make them quit.
I thought fruit bats were the common carrier?
Anyway, this sprung up in Feb and it wasn't until March that anyone even knew what it was. By then it had already spread. Plus, these people don't have the resources to deal with such an epidemic. You can't just leave bodies lying around or shit will get even worse. Contact with carriers and corpses cannot be avoided. It may be there's more contact than necessary, but when your kids are in danger of being kidnapped and drafted into some assholes army, and the organisation putting the most resources into the continent is the catholic church, you can't really blame the locals for not knowing what to do.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
Bats are included, but as well, monkey meat and as well, hooved animals.
http://www.irinnews.org/report/96160/drc-bushmeat-blamed-for-ebola-outbreak
As for the locals, I'm not blaming all of them, but it is the ignorant folks who ignore the attempts at training them not to eat the bush meat. My brother said they educated but when 10% of the people ignore the rest of the population suffers. Along with the crazy traditions they have when dealing with the dead, I blame the local government. Bodies should be bagged and burned.
I wonder what monkey tastes like...
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
Like humans?
http://cryptoforest.blogspot.com/2011/01/humans-taste-like-monkey-meat.html
Thats a dead on accurate figure. It only takes about a 10% minority to shift the opinion of the majority.
The real problem here though is that it's extremely hard to educate people on a single extremely rare disease when there are far more dangerous things those people need to be concerned about on a daily basis. What government in the midst of drought, famine, and civil war has time to concern themselves with an invisible virus until it's in an outbreak and really too late to do anything?
We in the West have allowed the continent to fester and slide ever further into a cesspool, simply because noone there is a military threat of any kind. Even the help we offer is rarely effective, as it consists mostly of corrupt christian charities and aid packages given to equally corrupt governments who probably couldn't use them efficiently even if they wanted to.
If there's a WW3 it'll probably erupt in the middle east. But if a virus suddenly wipes out much of the human population of Earth it'll probably originate in Africa. Both scenarios would be as a result of ineffective Western meddling.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
My brother said the governments are corrupt. What money is made is kept and not distributed to the people. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer.
I believe we are already in WW3, we just don't know it yet.
Yep that's basically what happens there.
I don't think WW3 has started yet. It'll get closer if Russia conquers the Ukraine, but even that won't do it by itself. I think China is where the real action will begin, but they'll wait until war has already started or they get to the point noone can do anything to them. They've been on the losing side too many times to stick their necks out. But the moment everyone's attention is elsewhere BAM they'll take Tibet and the Philippenes and Japan and Korea before anyone can stop them.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
Oops. Apparently the outbreak has been traced to a 2 year old boy in Guinea who died in December, thus it didn't begin in February as I had thought. There is no conclusion as yet on how he contracted it, but since he afterwards infected his mother, sister, and grandmother; it is unlikely to have been caused by food such as a monkey, which one would think the family would have shared. The suspicion is on contaminated fruit or medical equipment.
http://www.ibtimes.com/patient-zero-deadly-ebola-outbreak-africa-was-likely-2-year-old-boy-guinea-researchers-say-1654008
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
They already have Tibet, in fact it isn't on the world maps any more.
I meant Thailand. > >
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.