Yet Another Ebola Case In Dallas (With Addendum)

Confirmed: another healthcare worker who took care of pathogen-carrying, pathogen-spreading criminal Thomas Eric Duncan has Ebola.

Now there are two cases from an individual index patient. An outbreak is not contained until there are fewer than two additional cases from any one individual index case.

As if the above isn't bad enough...No hospital 'protocols' for Ebola treatment: US nurses' group.

Nurses Union Releases Statement That Ebola Patient Duncan Was Left In Open Area of the ER For Hours

FoxNews

A statement from National Nurses United also says Thomas Eric Duncan was left in an open area of an emergency room for hours. 

A spokesman for the group says nurses were forced to use medical tape to secure openings in their flimsy garments. It's said that the patient had explosive diarrhea and projectile vomiting. 

In a conference call with reporters executive director RoseAnn DeMoro says the allegations are based on revelations from "a few" nurses and that the claims were vetted. 

The nurses also said that Duncan's lab samples were allowed to travel through the hospital's pneumatic tubes, opening the possibility of contaminating the specimen delivery system. The nurses also alleged that hazardous waste was allowed to pile up to the ceiling.

AND HERE'S THE GUY WHO IS LEADING US:

CDC Director Frieden: If the US Bans Travel From West Africa Ebola Will Spread



Meanwhile, some 4500 West Africans with visas enter the United States every month. How many new index cases are among them?

Additional reading...Ebola Preparation ‘Will bankrupt my hospital!’ Director Reacts to CDC Prep Call.

ADDENDUM

Tammy Swofford's comment this morning at my blog site:

I have discussed with AOW for literal weeks (since the Ebola numbers climbed in W. Africa) that we were unprepared for Ebola in America.

This morning I called her. Tears are streaming down my face and I do not cry easily. When I saw images of nurses with their necks exposed on videos, supposedly "ready" for Ebola, I knew we were doomed. Having trained constantly and consistently in the USNR for chem-bio scenarios wearing MOPP IV gear in sweltering heat, I KNOW what it takes to train and be safe. The military, does it right. Period. They set the standard. They set the standard in many things in medicine.

For weeks, I have brought this concern to my own hospital. Finally, we will provide training for critical care nurses. Now that a unit of labor is down, and nurses may flee the hospitals in Dallas, we will train. And then, in an act of bureaucratic genius, we will have "daily briefings" on Ebola.

We cannot talk Ebola to death. We can only contain Ebola by proper gear, worn by healthcare workers with weeks (not one damn session) of training in wearing the gear.

How many nurses will die because of bureaucratic incompetence and callous disregard for our lives? Naturally, my own hospital will continue along with their yearly holiday tradition of gratitude for our labor. We get a fifteen dollar Target card to cover Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Yeah, now you understand the sacrifices that nurses make for you every day.

And how many clients did the nurses infect after they cared for Mr. Duncan?

Tammy Swofford
Reporting from the hot zone

Obama's Ebola Negligence

A team of scientists at Northeastern University in Boston have used air travel information to predict where the deadly Ebola virus could reach in the next three weeks 

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2783332/Husband-Spanish-nurse-contracted-Ebola-quarantine-health-authorities-admit-DON-T-KNOW-contracted-virus.html#ixzz3FSXk1EBf
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

From the Daily Mail:

...Professor Alessandro Vespignani of Northeastern University in Boston, who led the research [about Ebola-spread patterns], said: 'This is not a deterministic list, it's about probabilities – but those probabilities are growing for everyone.

'It's just a matter of who gets lucky and who gets unlucky.

'Air traffic is the driver.'...

By not banning incoming flights from the Ebola Hot Zone in Africa, Obama will become Murderer-In-Chief if there is an Ebola pandemic here in the United States.

Of Hijabs, Burqas, And Rickets

Muslimatoon on Fleet Street in London

As mentioned back in 2007:

Hijab and burka-wearing Muslim women are putting their health at risk because they do not get enough sunlight, doctors have warned.

An alarming number of Muslim women who wear headdresses such as the hijab, which covers the head, neck and shoulders, and the burka, which covers everything except the eyes, are suffering from bone deficiencies due to lack of vitamin D.

Most of the body’s vitamin D, which helps calcium absorption and prevents the bone disorder rickets, is obtained through sunlight acting on the skin. Only a very small amount comes from food.

Women with darker skin are most at risk because it takes their bodies longer to produce the vitamin.

The NHS wants to encourage women from communities that embrace the hijab, such as those from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Somalia, to increase their vitamin D intake.

A Department for Health spokesman said: ‘For ethnic groups there is an increased risk of vitamin D deficiency.

Studies have shown low levels in Asian women in the United Kingdom – particularly among those who cover most of their skin for cultural reasons.’...

Now in 2013:

LONDON (AP) -- Rickets, the childhood disease that once caused an epidemic of bowed legs and curved spines during the Victorian era, is making a shocking comeback in 21st-century Britain....

No mention this time of hijabs and burkas. Mustn't ever insult Muslims, you know.

New Virus Originated In The Middle East

A bit of a medical mystery and a deadly one:

A mysterious new respiratory virus that originated in the Middle East spreads easily between people and appears more deadly than SARS, doctors reported Wednesday after investigating the biggest outbreak in Saudi Arabia.

[...]

...[Experts]couldn't nail down how it was spread in every case -- through droplets from sneezing or coughing, or a more indirect route. Some of the hospital patients weren't close to the infected person, but somehow picked up the virus....

[...]

Cases have continued to trickle in, and there appears to be an ongoing outbreak in Saudi Arabia. MERS cases have also been reported in Jordan, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Tunisia. Most have had a direct connection to the Middle East region.

In the Saudi cluster that was investigated, certain patients infected many more people than would be expected, Perl said. One patient who was receiving dialysis treatment spread MERS to seven others, including fellow dialysis patients at the same hospital. During SARS, such patients were known as "superspreaders" and effectively seeded outbreaks in numerous countries.

[...]

...Compared to SARS' 8 percent death rate, the fatality rate for MERS in the Saudi outbreak was about 65 percent, though the experts could be missing mild cases that might skew the figures....

More information HERE.

The CDC has information HERE.