The Ebola Thread: Ebola is an economic black swan - outbreak is out of control.; What if Ebola hits Australian shores? Race to notify 131 passengers on flight that carried second infected nurse
Tweet Topic Started: 11 Aug 2014, 01:48 PM (5,782 Views)
The Queensland nurse at the centre of an Ebola scare felt well but was still in isolation in a Cairns hospital as she awaited test results on Thursday evening, according to the Red Cross.
Queensland Health confirmed a 57-year-old woman Sue Ellen Kovack was being assessed in Cairns Hospital for the deadly Ebola virus, after she volunteered with Red Cross to help combat the outbreak in west Africa.
Red Cross Australia international program head Peter Walton said he and his colleagues had been in touch with Ms Kovack on Thursday. Woman tested for Ebola in Cairns
Mr Walton said Ms Kovack had gone to Sierra Leone as a "very well regarded professional" clinical nurse.
"She's in good spirits," he said.
"She's obviously aware of the significant media interest around this and she knows that she's just followed normal sensible protocol, but is feeling well."
Queensland Chief Health Officer Jeanette Young said Ms Kovack had recently returned from a month in Sierra Leone, where she has been working in a hospital treating Ebola victims.
Dr Young said Ms Kovack had been in home quarantine since she returned home to Cairns, in far north Queensland. on Tuesday.
"She's been in home isolation, home quarantine, since then following the protocols we put in place, which were nationally agreed to," she said. Queensland Chief Health Officer Jeanette Young speaks to the media about the North Queensland Ebola scare.
Queensland Chief Health Officer Jeanette Young speaks to the media about the North Queensland Ebola scare. Photo: Cameron Atfield
Dr Young said Ms Kovack had phoned authorities on Thursday morning after she developed a "low-grade fever" of 37.6 degrees.
She was admitted to Cairns Hospital about 1pm and blood was taken, which was taken to Forensic and Scientific Services in Brisbane, for testing.
Test results could be known late Thursday evening or early Friday, Dr Young said.
Dr Young said Ms Kovack was "perfectly well" when she arrived back in Australia on the weekend and even if it she was diagnosed with Ebola, there was a "very, very low" risk that others were exposed.
"There's no need for any community concern at all because this particular individual only recently got any sort of symptom and she's been in her own home, isolated there," she said.
Concerned residents where Ms Kovack is listed as a property owner said they were yet to hear from health authorities. One said they were told of the case by journalists. Nurse Sue Ellen Kovack has been taken to Cairns Hospital amid fears she has been infected with Ebola.
Nurse Sue Ellen Kovack has been taken to Cairns Hospital amid fears she has been infected with Ebola. Photo: Facebook
"It is a little too close to home," another resident told Fairfax Media.
A Cairns nurse who was hospitalised on Thursday has tested negative to the deadly Ebola virus, authorities say.
Sue Ellen Kovack presented herself to the Cairns Hospital on Thursday afternoon after complaining of a fever. She had previously been volunteering in Sierra Leone treating Ebola victims in a hospital.
In a statement, Queensland Health chief health officer Dr Jeanette Young said Ms Kovack would remain under observation for at least another 24 hours.
"This is a necessary precaution given the patient has been to West Africa and has had a fever within the incubation period of 21 days. For the sake of her health and to follow due diligence, we want to be sure she is clear of Ebola virus disease as well as any other disease."
On Friday morning, Dr Young said Ms Kovack's fever had improved but she was still feeling "a bit unwell".
"At this point there's no virus detected in her blood stream," Dr Young told the Nine Network's Today show.
Wash your hands, use an alcho hand wash and you'll have no problems.
Good idea Zaph. I am going to buy a years supply tonight. If it hits big, this stuff will sell out immediately and there will be such a demand for it you may not be able to get it for months.
If it it doesn't hit you can add the handwash to your property investment portfolio and have all your rotting eggs in one basket.
Seriously this ebola is just like sars and bird flu and a dozen others at this stage. I'm sure when the time is ripe the pharmaceutical that created it will come out with the shot that prevents it and we can all line up like sheep again.
Infected pigs can transmit virus to primates without contact, study finds
BY Tina Hesman Saey 11:39am, November 15, 2012
The Ebola virus can spread through the air from pigs to macaques, a new study suggests.
Transmission of the virus — which causes an often fatal hemorrhagic fever in people and primates — was thought to require direct contact with body fluids from an infected animal or person. But in the new study, published online November 15 in Scientific Reports, piglets infected with Ebola passed the virus to macaques housed in the same room even though the animals never touched.
“The evidence that the virus got from a pig to a monkey through a respiratory route is good,” says Glenn Marsh, a molecular virologist at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization’s Animal Health Laboratory in Geelong, Australia. Marsh was not involved in the new study but has investigated Ebola and other viruses in pigs.
Although pigs transmitted Ebola in the laboratory, there is still no evidence that anyone has been sickened from contact with infected pigs in Africa, where the virus occurs naturally, or that the virus passes through the air under normal conditions, says study coauthor Gary Kobinger, an infectious disease researcher at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada. “It’s definitely not an efficient route of transmission.”
Only 13 of the more than 2,200 human cases of Ebola documented since the virus was discovered in 1976 cannot be traced to direct contact with an infected person, animal or body fluid, he notes. If Ebola were able to spread easily through the air, many more cases might result.
The new study raises questions about whether humans can also transmit Ebola by respiratory routes, says Pierre Formenty, of the World Health Organization’s Control of Epidemic Diseases Unit. That is something that will have to be investigated in future outbreaks, he says.
Kobinger became interested in Ebola in pigs after investigating an outbreak in 2007 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Villagers mentioned that some pigs had gotten sick and died early in the outbreak. At the time, there was no evidence that Ebola could infect pigs. Kobinger and his colleagues have since demonstrated that the virus causes disease in pigs in the lab, but no cases have been confirmed in livestock.
“This is all story-telling. Nobody has isolated virus or even detected antibodies from pigs in Africa,” Kobinger says.
But other researchers discovered that pigs on farms in the Philippines could contract a form of the virus known as Reston Ebola. The Reston strain causes disease in macaques but has not been shown to make people sick. Some pig farmers in the Philippines have antibodies in their blood against Reston Ebola, indicating that infected pigs may have exposed farmers to the virus.
Kobinger wanted to know whether pigs could also pass along the form of Ebola found in Africa. Working in a lab designed to contain the most dangerous pathogens, Kobinger and his colleagues infected piglets with the strain known as Zaire Ebola. The piglets were housed next to four cynomolgus macaques, primates often used as stand-ins for humans. A barrier prevented the animals from coming into direct contact with each other.
After about a week living next to infected piglets, two of the macaques fell ill with Ebola. Those two animals were in cages in the path of air flowing from the pigs’ enclosure. It took several more days for the other two macaques to develop the disease.
While the finding could indicate that the virus spread through the air, the researchers can’t rule out that virus may have infected the macaques via water droplets scattered while cleaning the pig cage.
No one is blaming pigs for Ebola outbreaks in Africa now, but Kobinger says the growing pig industry on the continent might want to take a few simple steps to protect their animals. Keeping fruit trees, which attract fruit bats that carry Ebola, away from pig farms is one such measure.
Ebola viruses related to the African strains have been found in orangutans in Indonesia, raising the possibility that other unknown Ebola-like viruses could spill over into pigs and then humans, Marsh says. “That’s concerning.”
Briton dies of suspected Ebola in Macedonia - despite NOT having been to Africa: Armed guards outside hotel after virus 'claims first British victim'
The unnamed man is the first UK victim of Ebola, if disease is confirmed The epidemic has killed 3,800 and infected at least 8,000 so far Macedonian authorities confirmed the dead man's nationality this evening Health officials have also quarantined his friend, who has symptoms The friend said the two travelled to Skopje directly from Britain This raises the terrifying prospect that they contracted it in the UK Paramedics and staff at Skopje hotel where men stayed also in quarantine
A British man has died of suspected Ebola in the Macedonian capital of Skopje.
If confirmed, the unnamed 58-year-old is the first British victim of the Ebola outbreak that has killed thousands in West Africa and has spread to North America and Europe.
A second man, a friend of the deceased, has also shown symptoms of the disease. The man's death and nationality was confirmed by the Macedonian Foreign Ministry this evening.
The spokesman said the friend told the authorities there they had travelled to Skopje directly from Britain and had not been in any country known to have Ebola outbreaks - raising the terrifying possibility that he contracted the disease in the UK or Macedonia.
The UK Foreign Office says it is investigating the incident. So far the epidemic, the worst on record since Ebola was discovered in 1976, has claimed 3,800 lives and infected at least 8,000 people.
our health officials know very little about how its spread. I am shocked at the absolutely hopeless response to containing it. The Nigerian governments response makes our government look like a bunch of monkeys. They are doing next to nothing to stop it entering and spreading in Australia. Either (A) they are total morons, or (B) they want it to enter Australia. If it's B, maybe they already have the vaccine/cure handy, and are waiting for the most profitable/opportune time to release it. A few people will need to die first. Then everyone will want to buy the new vaccine/drug.
You guys and your conspiracy theories - honestly! There is no way that the global medical community would participate in a deliberate deception about what they understand re the transmission mechanism of the ebola virus. To lie about it and induce false complacency would increase massively the risk of an epidemic breaking out - that's last thing that *anyone* would want.
And I note that we know now the Aussie nurse hasn't got it after all.
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