Thread: Perry: In fight against Ebola, U.S. must set up quarantines at borders

Perry: In fight against Ebola, U.S. must set up quarantines at borders

. . . the virus killing thousands of people in West Africa, will likely continue crossing U.S. borders.

By Ben Brumfield, CNN
Mon October 6, 2014

VIDEO AT SOURCE

CNN) -- [Breaking News update 12:09 p.m.] Texas Gov. Rick Perry on Monday called for the federal government to enhance screening procedures at points of entry into the United States to check if someone might have Ebola. The procedures would include gathering more information about people coming from affected areas and, perhaps, taking temperatures, he said. He called for fully staffed quarantine stations anywhere people enter the country.

Perry has signed an executive order creating the Texas Task Force on Infectious Disease Preparedness and Response, he said Monday. The task force is charged with studying and improving the state's plans for dealing with outbreaks such as Ebola and enhancing Texas' ability to quickly and effectively halt the spread of disease.

[Previous story pubilshed at 8:42 a.m.]
Another American Ebola patient arrived in the United States on Monday, reminding the nation that the virus killing thousands of people in West Africa, will likely continue crossing U.S. borders.

As freelance cameraman Ashoka Mukpo -- who contracted it while covering the outbreak's carnage -- arrived for treatment in isolation at Nebraska Medical Center, government officials talked of shoring up defenses at airports.

"All options are on the table for further strengthening the screening process here in the U.S.," a federal official said. That includes thermometer checks for fever, something West African authorities are already carrying out.

But finding the right passengers to screen is not so simple.

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Direct flights from Ebola-affected areas are rare. Travelers typically take flights that connect through other countries. "Then they come here, so that makes it more of a challenge," the official said.

Mukpo, who worked for NBC, is not representative of that challenge. He was diagnosed on Thursday in Liberia and left there on a specially-equipped plane on Sunday.

But another patient, Thomas Eric Duncan, may be. To fly from Monrovia, Liberia, the country hit hardest by the epidemic, to Dallas, Texas, where he lies in an isolation unit in critical condition, he had to connect.

But even if Duncan had undergone a temperature screening, it would have turned up negative, and he would have made it into the country undetected.

His Ebola -- and his fever -- did not break out until he was within U.S. borders.
Who's in charge of stopping Ebola in the U.S.?

Screening and monitoring

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is considering enhanced screenings at major U.S. airports, a CDC official said. But it does not appear to have concrete plans in place yet.

Officials want to make sure that the gain of new screenings will be worth potentially disrupting air travel and that they don't unintentionally increase the risk of spreading the disease.

"The question that's being considered now and readdressed is that, should there be entry screening of some sort?," said Dr. Anthony Fauci, of the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. "If you do implement it, what would it look like and what would be the resources that are necessary to implement it?

That's the kind of thing that's being actively discussed right now."

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Director Dr. Tom Frieden has said that authorities are taking suggestions from Congress, the public and the media. He is expected to brief President Obama on Monday.


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CDC: Patient takes turn for the worse

Beyond screenings, Frieden is confident the U.S. can prevent an Ebola outbreak by following prevention and containment procedures.

In Duncan's case, family members who had close contact with him will be monitored constantly for at least 21 days. That's roughly the maximum amount of time it takes for the disease to break out.

And they are not allowed to leave their living quarters during that time. If any of them gets a fever, he or she will be isolated, Frieden said.

"That's how you stop it in its tracks. That's why we're confident we won't see a large number of cases from this."

Can you catch Ebola on a plane?

Containment delay

But when Duncan first fell ill, containment went wrong.

He had flown to the United States on September 20 with plans to get married, but started to feel sick days later.

When he first went to the hospital with Ebola like symptoms, he told staff that he had recently been in Liberia.

That should have raised a red flag.

They sent him home with antibiotics.

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Days later he went back and was quickly isolated. A blood test confirmed his Ebola infection.
Texas public health officials spent the next 24 hours tracking down anyone who may have come into contact with Duncan after his infection broke out.

In all, they found 50 people, 40 of whom they consider low-risk. Still, they are being monitored, too.
Duncan's is the first documented case of an Ebola infection breaking out in the United States, but there have been other scares, in which people checked into hospitals with suspicious symptoms.

None of them so far have turned out to be Ebola infections.

In Liberia and other West African countries, the outbreak has killed more than 3,400 people. Battling the disease will be a "long, hard fight," Frieden said.

"The virus is spreading so fast that it's hard to keep up."

http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/06/health...-us/index.html

CDC chief on Ebola: We can’t shut the border

We don't have to close the border, we just have to take sensible precautions regarding whom we'll allow to enter the United States.

For now we should permit business travel. To be extra safe, we shoud require a test one week before the person is scheduled to leave the home country. Then we should require a second test on the day of departure. This would allow time for symptoms to become apparant. IMO we need our own people at the testing sites, until we're satisifed with their skill level and their refusal to take bribes.

At the moment there's no compelling reason to permit private travel to the United States from the source countries. If we become satisfied with the state of testing in the source countries, we can allow private travel. However we really should require two testing days, with a sufficient time between the days so that symptoms will have become obvious.
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Ebola Victim Rises From The Dead In Africa, Fear Of Zombie Apocalypse


For the first time in human history, confirmed footage is captured of a man who scientists watched die from Ebola then only several hours later, regain life and rise from the dead.

Isaiah 26:19-20
19 Your dead shall live; their bodies shall rise.

Ganta, Liberia – Officials in Liberia have released the first confirmed image of a captured Ebola victim who rose from the dead. The name of the victim has not been released by the WHO, and news of the patient rising from the dead comes only hours after the United States announced its First Ebola victim in Dallas, Texas.

The Liberian government is accusing the United States of creating Ebola as a bioweapon to use for future wars. Citizens of Liberia have expressed outrage and concern that the US may have tested an ‘evolved’ form of the virus on their nation’s populace, not forseeing the virus’ spread reaching beyond medical containment.



The first reports of Ebola victims rising from the dead was reported by Liberia’s National Newspaper. Initially, officials from the World Health Organization fled in shock and horror as the Ebola patients suddenly arose from the dead. After organizing military reinforcements and obtaining increased containment measures, World Health Organization’s special operations staff quickly responded with military assistance and quarantined the two Ebola victims who arose from the dead.

With Texas now infested with an unknown amount of Ebola patients, nearby Kansas has declared a state of emergency. Kansas Governor Sam Brownback has declared October “Zombie Awareness Month” and the state is on high alert for a zombie outbreak. Homes across the state are to receive pamphlets warning them of how to prevent the spread of Ebola and what to do if an Ebola Victim falls dead and then starts to show life again.

Updates will be made to this report as details become available. Please continue to watch television and online news sources for the latest details. Officials estimate the Ebola virus will spread to over 5 million people within two months. The virus is deadly if not treated. It is currently not known how many people the Dallas Ebola victim came in contact with before quarantine measures were put into place.

Stay tuned as the story develops….

Virologist: “It’s Too Late, Ebola Will Kill 5 Million”

Expert says virus will infect entire population of African countries

By Paul Joseph Watson
Global Research, September 12, 2014
Infowars

“The right time to get this epidemic under control in these countries has been missed,” said Schmidt-Chanasit. “That time was May and June. “Now it is too late.”

Image Credits: European Commission / Flickr

A top German virologist has caused shockwaves by asserting that it’s too late to halt the spread of Ebola in Sierra Leone and Liberia and that five million people will die, noting that efforts should now be focused on stopping the transmission of the virus to other countries.

Jonas Schmidt-Chanasit of the Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine in Hamburg told Germany’s Deutsche Welle that hope is all but lost for the inhabitants of Sierra Leone and Liberia and that the virus will only “burn itself out” when it has infected the entire population and killed five million people.

“The right time to get this epidemic under control in these countries has been missed,” said Schmidt-Chanasit. “That time was May and June. “Now it is too late.”

The current Ebola outbreak in West Africa has killed over 2200 people, with Liberia and Sierra Leone accounting for over 1700 of those fatalities.

While calling for “massive help” from the international community to prevent Ebola appearing in other countries like Nigeria and Senegal, Schmidt-Chanasit warns that getting a grip on the epidemic in Liberia and Sierra Leone is a departure from reality.

German aid organization Welthungerhilfe blasted Schmidt-Chanasit for his comments, with Sierra Leone based coordinator Jochen Moninger labeling his statements, “dangerous and moreover, not correct.” However, Moninger acknowledged that Schmidt-Chanasit’s assessment may be accurate in the case of Liberia.

The World Health Organization refused to comment on Schmidt-Chanasit’s remarks.

Although Ebola continues to rage in five African countries, media coverage of the epidemic has waned, despite evidence that the virus has mutated.

As we reported last month, former FDA official Scott Gottlieb, M.D. warned that if the virus was to hit the United States, the CDC would enact emergency procedures which could lead to healthy Americans who show no symptoms of the diseased being forcibly detained for an indefinite period of time.

Scientists in Canada and Canada’s Public Health Agency have both acknowledged that the virus has likely gone airborne at least to a limited degree, while the CDC has urged airline staff to take steps to prevent the airborne spread of the virus, including giving suspected Ebola victims surgical masks as well as directing staff to “not use compressed air, which might spread infectious material through the air.”