Ebola deaths in Africa, 1,013, Europe 1, U.S. 0

Spanish priest becomes first European to die in Ebola outbreak

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Aid workers and doctors transfer Miguel Pajares, a Spanish priest who was infected with the Ebola virus while working in Liberia. (Spanish Defense Ministry / Associated Press)

By LAUREN FRAYER

Europe records its first Ebola death

Spanish priest is first European to die from current outbreak of Ebola virus

Elderly Spanish cleric who died from Ebola was to have been treated with experimental drug


A 75-year-old Spanish priest suffering from the Ebola virus died Tuesday in an isolation ward in Madrid -- the first European death from the outbreak that has killed more than 1,000 people in West Africa and the first known death on European soil.

Miguel Pajares died around 9:30 a.m. Tuesday at Madrid's Carlos III Hospital, Spanish officials announced.

We had hoped that he would be able to overcome the disease. But it was as God wished.- Carmen Romo, sister-in-law of Spanish priest who died from Ebola

A Roman Catholic missionary, Pajares was airlifted Aug. 7 from Liberia, where he is believed to have contracted the deadly virus at a hospital where he worked. Thousands of Spaniards had joined a social media campaign urging their government to rescue and repatriate him. He was the first Ebola patient evacuated to Europe amid the current, fast-spreading outbreak in Africa, which is already the worst in history.

"We had hoped that he would be able to overcome the disease," the priest's sister-in-law, Carmen Romo, told a Spanish radio station. "But it was as God wished."

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AFRICA Ebola emergency in West Africa: What you need to know SEE ALL RELATED

Spanish health officials sparked controversy over the weekend when they obtained a batch of a rare experimental U.S.-made drug to treat Pajares. Zmapp, made by San Diego-based Mapp Biopharmaceutical Inc., is the same drug being used to treat two American Ebola patients in Atlanta, who were also evacuated from West Africa.

In extremely short supply, the drug is unproven for use on humans, but has shown promise in animal tests. The company hadn't planned to begin human testing until next year. But the drug has nevertheless been given to a small number of Ebola patients, all of them Westerners working for foreign aid agencies, rather than Africans, who comprise the vast majority of Ebola's victims.

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CAPTIONEbola checkChoe Jae-koo / Associated Press
A quarantine officer checks the body temperature of a passenger as a precaution against the Ebola virus at the Incheon International Airport in South Korea. South Korea has stepped up monitoring of citizens returning from West Africa.

After convening an ethics panel to discuss the distribution of such experimental drugs, the World Health Organization on Tuesday endorsed their use, saying "it is ethical to offer unproven interventions with as-yet unknown efficacy and adverse effects, as potential treatment or prevention," according to a statement posted on its website.

The government of Liberia also announced Tuesday that it was acquiring doses of Zmapp to treat two Liberian doctors. The experimental serum should arrive in Liberia within 48 hours, the Liberian government said on its website.

Citing health privacy rules, hospital officials would not disclose whether Pajares had already received his Zmapp dose, or whether he died before he could be treated with it.

Two of the priest's coworkers in Liberia have also died of the virus. All belonged to the Order of San Juan de Dios, a Catholic humanitarian group that runs hospitals around the world. Pajares was repatriated to Spain with a nun, Juliana Bohi, 65, who is a dual citizen of Equatorial Guinea and Spain. She is still being kept in isolation at the same Madrid hospital, but has so far tested negative for Ebola.

The WHO says at least 1,013 people have died from Ebola in Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone.

http://www.latimes.com/world/europe/...812-story.html

Ebola fears infiltrate African sports

By GERALD IMRAY, AP Sports Writer
August 13, 2014 | Updated: August 13, 2014 3:02pm

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  In this photo taken Monday, Aug. 11, 2014, a health worker examines patients for Ebola inside a screening tent, at the Kenema Government Hospital situated in the Eastern Province around 300 km, (186 miles), from the capital city of Freetown in Kenema, Sierra Leone. Over the decades, Ebola cases have been confirmed in 10 African countries, including Congo where the disease was first reported in 1976. But until this year, Ebola had never come to West Africa.
  

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CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — It started when the small Indian Ocean island of Seychelles refused entry to Sierra Leone's soccer squad, fearing that the deadly Ebola virus would arrive from West Africa along with the players.

The decision by Seychelles health authorities two weeks ago gave its team no choice but to forfeit the game against Sierra Leone and withdraw from qualifying for the Africa Cup of Nations, the continent's main football competition.

"We cannot let down our guard," Seychelles health commissioner Dr. Jude Gedeon said after Sierra Leone's players were prevented from leaving Kenya for the flight to the Seychelles. Some had already boarded their plane before being informed they wouldn't be allowed to make the flight.

The Confederation of African Football was powerless to act.

Sierra Leone and Liberia, two of the four soccer-mad West African countries affected by the worst Ebola outbreak ever recorded, have now stopped all football in their countries. Health officials say there is a lethal risk in allowing people to gather in large groups.

Togo said it would not travel to Guinea, another Ebola-affected country, for a game at the start of the final round of Africa Cup qualifying in the first week of September. That forced CAF to relocate that match.

The disease has no licensed vaccine, has killed over 1,000 people in West Africa at the World Health Organization's latest count and has spread through three countries and into a fourth, Nigeria. Controlling it takes priority over sport.

But if other nations follow the lead of Seychelles and Togo, as many as 18 games in the final qualifying competition starting next month could be affected. The qualifiers determine which teams get the 16 spots in the tournament, which is held every two years.

The 2015 Africa Cup will be held in Morocco in January and February.
The CAF is facing a logistical nightmare over the fixtures involving Guinea, Sierra Leone and African champion Nigeria in September, October and November. Liberia is not part of the qualifiers.

Those games might have to be moved to other sites or canceled.

"We continue to monitor the situation of the Ebola outbreak," CAF said in a statement to The Associated Press on Tuesday, promising to clarify in the coming days its revised plans for the qualifiers.

CAF said it was in contact with WHO and authorities in the countries affected. The CAF confirmed that Sierra Leone, where over 300 people have died in the outbreak, can't host games.

Sierra Leone's government banned all football there until further notice. Sierra Leone wants to play its 'home' matches against Ivory Coast, Cameroon and Congo in Accra, Ghana, CAF said.

Ghana hasn't yet confirmed if it'll allow that to happen. Some countries don't want to allow people from Ebola-affected countries to enter.

Sierra Leone Football Association spokesman Abu Bakarr Kamara told the AP that it would get WHO emergency health certificates for home-based players to show they had not contracted Ebola.

Unlike Sierra Leone, Guinea, the suspected source of the Ebola outbreak, says it still wants to play host to matches.

Guinea is the only one of the four countries not to have declared a public health emergency despite the deaths of 373 people there — the most of all the countries.

Opponents say they don't want to travel to Guinea.

"We are scared by the situation prevailing in that zone," the Togo Football Federation said.

Guinea's football federation said on Tuesday that it had been instructed by CAF to move its home game against Togo, although it said it hasn't chosen a venue.

The move by the Seychelles government last month to block Sierra Leone's squad set a possible precedent for countries to refuse to host the Sierra Leone and Guinea teams. The bans could spread to Nigeria if Ebola spreads rapidly there.

The nine countries set to host teams from Ebola-hit areas haven't yet said they'll refuse to let players and officials into their country. If they banned players from the four nations, it would throw the Africa Cup into complete chaos.

The CAF doesn't want to wait, and says it will announce later this week details of a plan to keep the qualifiers going.

http://www.chron.com/news/article/Ebola-fears-infiltrate-African-sports-5685248.php