Ebola obviously is not under control there must be more resources applied to care and cure
Fighting Ebola in Western Africa will take a long time.
Liberia now has an upper hand against Ebola, but Sierra Leone is experiencing a rapid spread of the virus, as is Conakry, the capital of Guinea. The World Health Organization today announced that the number of cases and deaths in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea — the epicenter of the outbreak — has risen to 19,340 and 7518, respectively.
Although some infection control education and implementation will curb the spread of the Ebola virus, the processes aren't curing new outbreaks.
The head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently came back from a tour of Ebola-ravaged West Africa with stories that made him feel both optimistic about defeating the virus and somber about the long-term nature of the struggle.
In a news conference yesterday, CDC Director Thomas Frieden, MD, MPH, recalled visiting a cemetery in Liberia where gravediggers once struggled to keep up with burying the bodies of Ebola victims. Now the number of deaths is quickly tapering off, so much so that gravediggers are using some of their time to make furniture for survivors, said Dr Frieden. He returned from his trip on December 20.
However, Dr Frieden said he also witnessed scenes suggesting that healthcare workers might let victory slip through their hands. He described how a nurse in Guinea acquired the Ebola virus from a patient — and survived — after she started an intravenous line on him without wearing any gloves. "Getting good infection control practices up and running is not easy," said Dr Frieden.
"The bottom line is, there's been real momentum and real progress," Dr Frieden said. "I'm hopeful about stopping the epidemic, but I remain realistic that this will be a long, hard fight."
Dr Frieden surveyed a public health battleground in which Liberia now has an upper hand against Ebola, but Sierra Leone is experiencing a rapid spread of the virus, as is Conakry, the capital of Guinea. The World Health Organization today announced that the number of cases and deaths in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea — the epicenter of the outbreak — has risen to 19,340 and 7518, respectively.
Healthcare workers from the CDC, the 54-nation African Union, Great Britain, France, Switzerland, and other countries, along with their West Africa colleagues, represent a "world working together to make a difference" in stopping the virus, Dr Frieden said. He thanked Congress for recently budgeting roughly $5 billion to battle Ebola, money that "allows us to move faster, allows us to do more, allows us to see the possibility of an end to this epidemic more clearly."
The ultimate challenge, he said, is reducing the number of Ebola cases to zero. Doing that will require the continued painstaking work of tracing contacts of every infected person, monitoring them for signs of illness, and isolating and treating them if they turn out to have the virus. That job of sleuthing is harder, said Dr Frieden, in urban areas such as Freetown, Sierra Leone, and Monrovia, Liberia, which have more mobile populations than rural areas.
The CDC director said he is looking forward to the arrival of several public health tools to help Ebola fighters in their work. A point-of-care diagnostic test for the virus would eliminate having to transport blood samples by jeep, helicopter, and canoe back to a laboratory. Such a test might become available in a matter of months, he said. Likewise, Dr Frieden said testing an experimental vaccine on healthcare workers could begin as early as January in Sierra Leone. Meanwhile, researchers are assessing experimental Ebola treatments such as plasma therapy.
"Scientific studies don't know if [experimental Ebola treatments] work or save lives," said Dr Frieden. "That's got to happen very quickly."
Liberia now has an upper hand against Ebola, but Sierra Leone is experiencing a rapid spread of the virus, as is Conakry, the capital of Guinea. The World Health Organization today announced that the number of cases and deaths in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea — the epicenter of the outbreak — has risen to 19,340 and 7518, respectively.
Although some infection control education and implementation will curb the spread of the Ebola virus, the processes aren't curing new outbreaks.
Ebola Remains a 'Long, Hard Fight,' CDC Chief Says
In a news conference yesterday, CDC Director Thomas Frieden, MD, MPH, recalled visiting a cemetery in Liberia where gravediggers once struggled to keep up with burying the bodies of Ebola victims. Now the number of deaths is quickly tapering off, so much so that gravediggers are using some of their time to make furniture for survivors, said Dr Frieden. He returned from his trip on December 20.
However, Dr Frieden said he also witnessed scenes suggesting that healthcare workers might let victory slip through their hands. He described how a nurse in Guinea acquired the Ebola virus from a patient — and survived — after she started an intravenous line on him without wearing any gloves. "Getting good infection control practices up and running is not easy," said Dr Frieden.
"The bottom line is, there's been real momentum and real progress," Dr Frieden said. "I'm hopeful about stopping the epidemic, but I remain realistic that this will be a long, hard fight."
Dr Frieden surveyed a public health battleground in which Liberia now has an upper hand against Ebola, but Sierra Leone is experiencing a rapid spread of the virus, as is Conakry, the capital of Guinea. The World Health Organization today announced that the number of cases and deaths in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea — the epicenter of the outbreak — has risen to 19,340 and 7518, respectively.
Healthcare workers from the CDC, the 54-nation African Union, Great Britain, France, Switzerland, and other countries, along with their West Africa colleagues, represent a "world working together to make a difference" in stopping the virus, Dr Frieden said. He thanked Congress for recently budgeting roughly $5 billion to battle Ebola, money that "allows us to move faster, allows us to do more, allows us to see the possibility of an end to this epidemic more clearly."
The ultimate challenge, he said, is reducing the number of Ebola cases to zero. Doing that will require the continued painstaking work of tracing contacts of every infected person, monitoring them for signs of illness, and isolating and treating them if they turn out to have the virus. That job of sleuthing is harder, said Dr Frieden, in urban areas such as Freetown, Sierra Leone, and Monrovia, Liberia, which have more mobile populations than rural areas.
The CDC director said he is looking forward to the arrival of several public health tools to help Ebola fighters in their work. A point-of-care diagnostic test for the virus would eliminate having to transport blood samples by jeep, helicopter, and canoe back to a laboratory. Such a test might become available in a matter of months, he said. Likewise, Dr Frieden said testing an experimental vaccine on healthcare workers could begin as early as January in Sierra Leone. Meanwhile, researchers are assessing experimental Ebola treatments such as plasma therapy.
"Scientific studies don't know if [experimental Ebola treatments] work or save lives," said Dr Frieden. "That's got to happen very quickly."
Labels: infection control
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