EBOLA INFORMATION RESOURCES FOR A GLOBAL CRISIS

For a long time, while Ebola was dreaded by the Western world the impact on the general populace was quite minimal mainly because the consensus was that the disease was confined mainly to Africa.

This however is no longer the case because not only has Ebola spread with a tenacity never seen before, but it has gone far beyond its borders, reaching the US and European shores as well.

Just a little over 24 hours ago, all the news agencies in the United States went crazy with the news that the US had its first Ebola patient and that the CDC was about to hold a high priority news conference.

After the conference, this much is clear; the US Ebola patient was basically walking around for 4 days sans isolation during which the patient was highly contagious. This is an epidemiologists nightmare and has exposed the potentially lethal chinks in the purported US armor against the disease.

In view of this very serious development, the next 2 weeks will be critical in showing the direction of Ebola in the US. Consequently, it is best to be on top of the situation by monitoring key sources of information.

Here are some valuable resources for the current Ebola crisis:

CDC Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Ebola Resources

United Nations WHO Global Alert and Response Resources for Ebola

US Department of Health and Human Services Ebola Outbreak 2014 Resources

The Lancet Ebola Resource Center

The New England Journal of Medicine Ebola Outbreak page

Link to the Ebola Response Roadmap download page from the World Health Organization 

 Ebola Educational Materials from International SOS

Information Graphic from the National Post

H5N6 Warning

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization or FAO has issued a warning regarding a new variant of bird flu that is emerging.

Called H5N6, it is considered virulent among animals but the bulletin stressed that the danger to humans is low.

Despite these assurances, if you are located in Asia, it is best to monitor the virus given the demonstrated ability of the bird flu virus to mutate. There are several variants now as well as many cases with the different strains. In the virus world, it takes just one roll of the genetic dice to come up with a variant that jumps species and becomes virulent among humans.

Click here for the article on the FAO

MERS COV - A very serious concern

The Philippines just had a bad scare recently with the entry of an OFW who was diagnosed in UAE as infected with MERS COV.

This resulted in a massive operation by the DOH to recall all the passengers who rode the plane with said OFW.

As of this writing, more than a hundred passengers have yet to be contacted for testing but since all tests administered so far have been negative, the Philippines remains MERS free as per the DOH advisory.

Here are some links to the news stories about the MERS scare in the Philippines:

http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/video/global-filipino/04/21/14/why-etihad-flight-passengers-need-take-mers-cov-test

http://www.doh.gov.ph/top/node/11654.html

http://www.president.gov.ph/gov_at_work/important-health-advisory-mers-corona-virus/

http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/nation/regions/04/19/14/doh-tracking-14-passengers-mers-cov-testing


** THIS IS THE LINK TO THE LIST OF PASSENGERS THAT HAVEN'T BEEN CONTACTED YET**

If you know anyone on this list, please ask them to contact the DOH immediately via the numbers shown in the document

http://www.doh.gov.ph/sites/default/files/List_of_Passengers_that_Cannot_be_Contacted.pdf

Since MERS is a very serious threat to the world now, I will be posting more information about this deadly coronavirus in my next posts.

The MERS Coronavirus

Its been around for sometime now and for a while it seemed as though it had faded away but it seems that it was just lying in wait to reappear again.

What I am referring to is the MERS or Middle East Respiratory Virus which as the name implies originated from the Middle East.

The scary thing about this virus is aside from attacking people with seemingly healthy immune systems, the mortality rate is 50% or 1 of every 2 people who get it will die.

There have been 114 documented cases so far on the CDC website and 54 of these have died.

For more info check out the CDC page on the MERS Coronavirus

NDM-1 Super Bug

Since August of this year, the medical world has been buzzing with reports about a superbug NDM-1 believed to have originated in India.


This is pretty alarming on several fronts.
1. NDM-1 has shown resistance to every antibiotic known to man
2. India is a popular destination for medical tourism
3. Cases have already begun to crop up around the globe including Japan, Europe and Canada.

Scientists have long been apprehensive about common bacteria combining with other bacteria which have developed resistance to antibiotics. These so-called superbugs are the stuff apocalyptic scenarios are made of, and for good reason. They can actually happen.

The hope for mankind lies in the creation of new antibiotics which the present and coming superbugs have not encountered yet. Another avenue that could be explored is to synthesize a bacteria that will hunt down and kill the superbugs. While such a scenario seems promising, this is truly a case where the cure might become worse than the disease. After all, we would be breaking new ground and there is no way to tell if the synthesized bacteria will have adverse effects that extend way beyond just killing the NDM-1 organisms.

The bacteria involved at this time are in the intestinal tract.

If you wish to read more about the superbug, here are some links:

An Authoritative Article from The Lancet
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099%2810%2970143-2/abstract

Article on Medical News Today:
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/197616.php

Article on NDTV (New Delhi)

http://doctor.ndtv.com/storypage/ndtv/id/004672/type/feature/Superbug-is_it_really_from_India.html

High Mortality of H5N1

Was going over the reports from PROMED and WHO when a statistic caught my eye.

The average global mortality rate of H5N1 is 59 % while in Indonesia, the rate is 83%.

The WHO has a regular status report about H5N1 and H1N1. You can access the H5N1 page here