Ebola group response #2

Sierra Leone’s President Ernest Bai Koroma has widened a quarantine to include another one million people in an attempt to curb the spread of Ebola. The northern districts of Port Loko and Bombali, and Moyamba in the south, will be sealed off immediately. Tension is rising and people are fleeing. Nearly 600 people have died of the virus in Sierra Leone where two eastern districts are already blockaded.

President Obama spoke this week on nations coming to aid West Africa. “There is still a significant gap between where we are and where we need to be,” President Obama told a high-level United Nations meeting on Ebola. The death toll is climbing. New UN WHO research shows that 2,917 people have died in the outbreak, with Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea the worst affected. A third US aid worker, Dr. Rick Sacra, has recovered after becoming infected with Ebola in Liberia, and has been released from a US hospital.

Liberia with a 4.2m population: 51 doctors; 978 nurses and midwives; 269 pharmacists. Sierra Leone with a 6m population: 136 doctors; 1,017 nurses and midwives; 114 pharmacists. Not exactly the ratio you would hope for, but The World Bank just added another 9-figure sum to help combat Ebola in West Africa and make these ratios a little more livable. The current outbreak of Ebola is posting a 70% mortality rate with no vaccine or proven cure.

Ebola group response #2

Group links- Many want more information that that the government is clinging to stop panic and chaos. The sources describe what African nations are doing about containment and folks in Guinea don’t even believe there has been an outbreak. Equipment needed like suits and masks is not something these nations have lying around and they cannot easily contain the virus without outside help or suits. Wealthier countries have it good because they can get close to the virus with the suits and treat people at close range.

Personal experience links, it paints a cruder picture of what they are going thru and walking thru what is happening with their families. Many do not survive because they stay with their family, but the one’s that leave have made it to a hospital and at the moment are still being treated. A lot of these entries are acknowledgments and pain for groups to speak together online about family or friends that have been lost to the virus.

The consensus among African countries is that the community will find out, so we are going to fully disclose where the virus is. The countries with little resources are so much worse off than nations that have so few cases/people diagnosed with the virus. Countries are fighting their own battles with the world crisis ISIS and it is so monumental that private groups step in to help these African countries because countries who aren’t faced with the outbreak are basically losing patience and sympathy.

Ebola group links

Soccer-Ebola football ban on west African countries to remain

ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) – Bans on Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone hosting any international football because of fears of spreading Ebola were kept in place by the Confederation of African Football, its executive committee decided on Saturday. The three west African countries — at the epicentre of the outbreak of the highly contagious disease — had originally been banned from hosting all games until mid-September but has now been extended indefinitely, CAF announced. It means Guinea and Sierra Leone must again move scheduled African Nations Cup qualifiers to alternate venues next month. Guinea had to play their opening group game against Togo in Morocco earlier this month and also last weekend staged an under-17 qualifying tie in Casablanca. Sierra Leone could not find an alternate venue for their qualifier against the Democratic Republic of Congo 10 days ago and instead ceded home advantage to their opponents. Liberia have no scheduled international matches in the near future. Ebola has infected at least 5,357 people in West Africa this year, mainly in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia, killing 2,630 of those, according to the World Health Organization. The disease has also been reported in Nigeria and Senegal but these two countries have not been banned from holding games by CAF. The epidemic has brought sport to complete standstill in both Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Guinea were ironically on Saturday named as a future host of the Nations Cup finals in 2023 at the same meeting of CAF’s executive committee in the Ethiopian capital. Teams from the affected countries were also subjected to vigorous checks before being allowed to play matches in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ivory Coast and Uganda earlier this month.