Contagion

What Did the U.S. Learn from Ebola? How to Prepare for Bioterrorist Attacks

Thu, 2015-04-23 16:16 — mike kraft

FOREIGN POLICY by Siobhán O'Grady April 13, 2015
When the Ebola virus spread from Guinea to Sierra Leone and Liberia last spring, the initial international response was labeled a failure. By the time President Barack Obama ordered troops to the affected countries in September, more than 2,400 people were dead.

But in the United States, where major hospitals prepared for an outbreak, there were only four in-country diagnoses, one of which resulted in a death. And some see the urgency of that response as a lesson in how the government can prepare for another public health hazard: a bioterrorist attack.

Arizona Rep. Martha McSally chairs a House subcommittee that will examine over the next few months the threat of bioterrorist attacks and U.S. preparedness to respond to them. She told Foreign Policy that even if a disease outbreak and the use of a biological agent in a coordinated attack are not completely analogous, the response strains similar systems.

“We can learn lessons from other outbreaks that are naturally occurring,” she said. “We can identify weaknesses in our response and even if it wasn’t terrorism, it presses the system at the same level....”

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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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COMMENTARY: When the next shoe drops — Ebola crisis communication lessons from October

Wed, 2014-12-10 18:00 — mike kraft

CENTER FOR INFECTIOUS DISEASE AND POLICY Dec. 9, 2014
By Peter M. Sandman, PhD, and Jody Lanard, MD

In contrast to the Ebola crisis in West Africa, which started in late 2013 and will last well into 2015 or longer, the US "Ebola crisis" was encapsulated in a single month, October 2014. But there may well be US Ebola cases to come, brought here by travelers or returning volunteers. And other emerging infectious diseases will surely reach the United States in the months and years ahead.

So now is a propitious time to harvest some crisis communication lessons from the brief US Ebola "crisis."

We're putting "crisis" in quotation marks because there was never an Ebola public health crisis in the United States, nor was there a significant threat of one. But there was a crisis of confidence, a period of several weeks during which many Americans came to see the official response to domestic Ebola as insufficiently cautious, competent, and candid—and therefore felt compelled to implement or demand additional responses of their own devising....

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Rapid Ebola test is focus of NIH grant to Rutgers scientist

Mon, 2014-12-08 17:11 — mike kraft

REPORTS Of RESEARCH ON TWO METHODS OF RAPID TESTING FOR EBOLA

(Two items, scroll down)

MEDICAL PRESS Dec. 8, 2014

Rutgers researcher David Alland, working with the California biotechnology company Cepheid, has received a grant of nearly $640,000 from the National Institutes of Health to develop a rapid test to diagnose Ebola as well as other viruses that can cause symptoms similar to Ebola.

Researchers will adapt this cartridge, now used worldwide for tuberculosis screenings, to collect and test samples from potential Ebola patients. Credit: John Emerson

Alland, a professor of medicine and associate dean for clinical research at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School and the principal investigator of the project, says health workers would be able to take the test to small villages and other remote locations where the spread of Ebola has been especially rampant and diagnose patients where they live...

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Notable Absence of New Ebola Quarantines at New York Area Airports

Mon, 2014-11-24 10:36 — mike kraft

NEW YORK TIMES By Anemona Hartocollis NOV. 24, 2014

NEW YORK ...since Kaci Hickox, a nurse, flew into Newark’s airport on Oct. 24 and was kept at a hospital for three days, no one else has been caught up in the quarantine dragnet at the New York and New Jersey airports.

The absence of quarantines is striking, not only because both governors emphatically defended the policy as a necessary precaution, but also because most people returning from Ebola-stricken countries arrive in the United States through Kennedy and Newark Liberty International Airports.

...New York and New Jersey officials say no one coming through the two airports since Ms. Hickox has reported direct contact with Ebola patients.

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357 people now being monitored for Ebola in New York

Thu, 2014-11-06 09:39 — mike kraft

LOS ANGELES TIMES Nov.5, 2014
By Michael Muskal
The number of people who are being actively monitored for Ebola in New York has tripled to 357 people, none of whom has displayed any symptoms, city health officials announced Wednesday.

The vast majority of those being monitored arrived in New York in the last 21 days from West Africa, the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation said in a statement. Those under monitoring are being checked out of “an abundance of caution,” the statement said.

The latest announcement comes as Ohio said it was officially Ebola-free and Texas prepared to end its observation period for the last 27 healthcare workers. The Texas group will complete its 21-day monitoring period on Friday, according to state officials.

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http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-ohio-ebola-free-monitoring-20141105-story.html

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New York doctor with Ebola improves, nurse reunited with dog

Sat, 2014-11-01 17:22 — mike kraft

REUTERS Nov. 1, 2014
By Jill Serjeant

NEW YORK --A New York doctor with Ebola, who triggered a national debate over mandatory quarantines for health workers returning from West Africa, was upgraded to stable condition on Saturday after nine days of treatment.

Dr. Craig Spencer, 33, the only person in the United States currently being treated for Ebola, will remain in isolation, New York City's Bellevue Hospital said in a statement. He has improved to "stable" from "serious but stable...."

...Texas nurse Nina Pham, 26, who recovered from Ebola last week after treating a Liberian patient in a Dallas hospital, was reunited on Saturday with her dog, which had been quarantined for three weeks as a precaution.

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http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/01/us-health-ebola-usa-idUSKBN0II1SP20141101

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Analysis: Alarmed by Ebola, Public Isn’t Calmed by ‘Experts Say’

Sat, 2014-11-01 15:52 — mike kraft

NEW YORK TIMES NOV. 1, 2014
By RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA
When public health leaders and government officials make the case against isolating more people returning from the Ebolahot zones in West Africa, or against imposing more travel restrictions from that region, time and again they cite science and experts. It isn’t working very well.

Many support the efforts of Gov. Paul R. LePage of Maine to isolate a nurse who treated Ebola patients in West Africa. Credit Craig Dilger for The New York Times

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Judge rejects strict limits on U.S. nurse who treated Ebola patients

Fri, 2014-10-31 16:36 — mike kraft

REUTERS
By Joe Page Oct. 31, 2014

(FORT PAGE, Maine) Declaring Ebola fears in the United States "not entirely rational," a judge rejected Maine's bid for a quarantine on a nurse who treated victims of the disease in West Africa but tested negative for it, and instead imposed limited restrictions.

Nurse Kaci Hickox (L) joined by her boyfriend Ted Wilbur speak with the media outside of their home in Fort Kent, Maine October 31, 2014.Credit: Reuters/Joel Page

Nurse Kaci Hickox's challenge of the Maine quarantine became a key battleground for the dispute between officials in some U.S. states who have imposed strict quarantines on health workers returning from three Ebola-ravaged West African countries and the federal government, which opposes such measures.

Maine Governor Paul LePage said that while he was disappointed by the order from Charles LaVerdiere, the chief judge of Maine District Court, the New England state would abide by it.

Hickox, 33, said she was pleased with the ruling and said people need to "overcome the fear."

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