Sierra Leone: "Why should it be a crime to volunteer on the Safe and Dignified Burial Team?"

Before the outbreak of Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) in Sierra Leone, it was a taboo in most parts of the country for young people, especially those of child bearing age, to witness the washing and preparation of corpses for burial. In line with tradition, women prepared female corpses for burial and men would prepare male bodies. However, as the death toll from Ebola escalated and the majority of burial teams were composed of only men, such a provision could not be made for women.

Seeking to preserve the dignity of their deceased loved ones, some families objected to the all-male teams attending to a female corpse. Or, burial teams would arrive in a community to find that the deceased had already been washed and dressed. Such interaction with a potentially contagious body will have resulted in new chains of transmission. To counter this, the Sierra Leone Red Cross Society specifically recruited women to join its Safe and Dignified Burial teams. There are now more than 30 female volunteers embedded into these teams across the country.

Despite their heroic contributions, these courageous women, along with their male counterparts, have frequently been ostracized and stigmatized by their communities, and even loved ones.

Mariatu Kargbo shares her experiences as a member of the Sierra Leone Red Cross Society's Safe and Dignified Burial team, and talks about what motivates her to overcome these social challenges.

Mariatu Kargbo, 38, is married with five children. She became the second female volunteer for the Sierra Leone Red Cross Society's Safe and Dignified Burial (SDB) team serving the Western Rural Area.

"It is a taboo in my tribe for women within child bearing age to witness or wash dead bodies. This often lingers in my mind because I am still within the age of being a child bearer and I want to have another child," says Mariatu.

"It is not easy. Ebola is new in our country, it is contiguous and risky. But if you are self-disciplined and go strictly according to the standard operational procedures, you will never contract it." Mariatu can speak confidently based on her experience of collecting bodies. Sadly this confidence is not shared by her relatives. "All my friends and most of my family members are afraid to come closer to me, they refuse to eat the food I prepare, and some traders in my community don't sell goods to me because I am part of the SDB team." Mariatu poses the question, "Why should it be a crime to be a SDB volunteer?"

Wednesday 8 July 2015

http://allafrica.com/stories/201507070622.html

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Decoration day: Ebola leaves no graves to decorate in Liberia

An article on the importance of burial rituals following the ebola crisis.

Finda Fallah sat in her tiny one-bedroom apartment, boiling up rice and leftovers with one of the few children in her family still alive.

It was the night before Decoration Day, one of the nation’s most important public holidays, when Liberians clean, paint and decorate the graves of their relatives to honor lost loved ones.

But this year, after the Ebola outbreak decimated her family, there were no plots for Ms. Fallah to tidy. Burials were banned because of the highly contagious nature of corpses. The only grave Ms. Fallah could visit was that of her brother-in-law, whose funeral led to the infections in her family.

The thought of his grave made her angry, especially because her mother, sister, husband, two nephews and her 8-month-old baby, Fayiah, were cremated, leaving painfully little to mark their passing.

“I can’t go outside,” she said the next day, when the holiday came.

Decoration Day is a tradition adopted by freed American slaves who in the early 1800s settled in the area of West Africa that became Liberia. The national public holiday, which had its 99th anniversary on Wednesday, is often as much a celebration of life as a memorial to the dead.

But this year, it was a somber affair in the aftermath of the Ebola epidemic. The outbreak disrupted the intimate funeral practices that sometimes involve the bathing of dead relatives, the braiding of hair and the kissing and touching of bodies at burial services.

“May we pause to remember all of those who lost their lives during this Ebola crisis; I say they were heroes and not victims,” said the Rev. Christopher Toe, at a church service for Decoration Day on Wednesday. “Had they not died, the international community would not have come. Had they not died the U.S. government would not have sent all the U.S. Marines they sent.”

“They did not die in vain,” he added.

A handful of deputy ministers and ministry of health staff members sat in the pews of the half-filled Presbyterian church in the heart of the capital, Monrovia, for the national celebration. Members of the United Nations Ebola mission and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention joined them.

“Today is not an official government of Liberia memorial day ceremony for Ebola victims,” said Tolbert Nyenswah, the head of Liberia’s Ebola response. “Because Ebola is not over.”

The countdown until Liberia is officially declared Ebola-free is on. It began on March 5, when the last known Ebola patient, Beatrice Yardolo, 58, an English teacher, was discharged from a Chinese Ebola treatment unit.

Ms. Fallah, who herself was infected with Ebola, had to care for her children, nieces and nephews in an elementary school that was turned into a makeshift holding center where people suspected of having Ebola were housed, in squalid conditions, before being taken to one of the few treatment centers in the city at the time.

In a damp blue classroom, Ms. Fallah fed and cared for them, trying to separate the sick from the well. She was the only adult caring for seven children. Then the center was ransacked by angry residents in August, and she and her children were left wandering through the vast neighborhood, known as West Point.

Ms. Fallah still dreams about her little nephew, Tamba Nilo, who died in a treatment center, rolling around in a long T-shirt, saying “I’m hungry.”

Ms. Fallah believes her psychological survival now depends on forgetting. She bows her head and passes through special routes in the narrow sandy alleyways to avoid the school and the cramped house where she and her family used to live. She tries not to let her eyes dwell on women who remind her of her mother.

While Ms. Fallah survived, she does not know how much longer she can last, having only limited support from a nongovernmental organization that is paying her rent and sponsoring her niece’s school fees. Ebola survivors are now lobbying for more support.

Friday 13 March 2015

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/13/world/africa/ebola-thief-of-rituals-leaves-no-graves-to-decorate.html?_r=0

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Ebola could be spread by victims even a week after death

Ebola can be contracted by people who come into contact with the body of someone who died from the disease up to a week before, according to a study conducted by researchers from the U.S. National Institutes of Health and published in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases in early February. The researchers collected viable virus samples from Ebola-infected monkeys that had been dead for seven days, and non-infectious RNA for up to 70 days.

The study helps reinforce the need for safe handling of the remains of Ebola victims — a practice considered essential in stemming the ongoing outbreak in West Africa.

The researchers infected five macaque monkeys with Ebola, then euthanized them once they began showing symptoms. The monkeys’ bodies were then placed in a special chamber designed to simulate the environmental conditions of West Africa. The chamber was “like a big deli fridge where you can manipulate the temperature and humidity,” co-lead author Vincent J. Munster said.

The bodies were left in the chambers for 10 weeks. Periodically, the researchers collected tissue samples from seven different bodily surfaces and four internal organs. These samples were tested for both live virus and for traces of RNA, which forms the virus’s genetic code.

“We’re wearing positive pressure suits,” Munster said. “We’re not breathing the air from the same room. If we could smell the corpses, there’s a chance we could be infected.”

The scientists found live virus on the bodies’ surfaces up to seven days after death. Traces of RNA, which were not capable of transmitting the disease, were found for up to 10 times as long.

According to the World Health Organization, funeral customs involving contact with bodies has been a major factor fueling the spread of Ebola across West Africa. Safe handling of an Ebola-infected body requires that all handlers be dressed in full protective gear, and that the body be sprayed with bleach, bagged, and then either cremated or deeply buried. More recent funerals in Ebola outbreak regions have allowed the display of bodies, but no one has been permitted to touch them.

The researchers noted that, due to the risk of contagion and the prevalence of Ebola samples throughout the monkeys’ bodies, health workers might be able to use oral swabbing as a faster, safer way to collect samples to test people for Ebola.

Just days after the new study’s release, World Health Organization head Bruce Aylward warned that the recent drop in Ebola cases has leveled off, raising concern that the outbreak may not yet be beaten.

“It’s what keeps me up at night right now,” Aylward said. “This is not what you want to see with Ebola.”

A sustained effort to implement safe burials and safe treatment protocols led to a large drop in new Ebola cases over the past few months. Health officials have warned that the outbreak will not be stemmed, however, until a comparable effort is made to trace the contacts of infected people in order to identify all new cases early.

So far, the ongoing outbreak has sickened nearly 24,000 people and killed over 9,800, according to WHO statistics.

At around the same time as Aylward’s warning, a team of Ebola researchers published a paper in the journal mBio warning that limited airborne transmission of Ebola has already “very likely” happened. The vast majority of transmission has undoubtedly been through close contact with bodies or bodily fluids, they emphasized, but they warned that it is dangerous to assume that we know more about Ebola than we actually do.

“Important policies and biosafety regulations must be evidence-based, not [by] using opinions and beliefs as guiding principles,” said co-author Gary P. Kobinger of Canada’s Public Health Agency.

Tuesday 10 March 2015

http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/1278438-ebola-could-be-spread-by-victims-even-a-week-after-death/

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Bones, ashes at Liberia crematorium a reminder of Ebola trauma

The furnace has been extinguished at a crematorium for victims of the deadly Ebola virus near Liberia's capital Monrovia but a row of barrels filled with ash and charred bone are a reminder of the darkest days of the outbreak.

The seven barrels containing human remains are lined against a black wall. A sheet of paper taped to each says the date the bodies were incinerated but there is no way of identifying them. Small piles of ash lie scattered at other places on the site.

Authorities believe they are close to beating the Ebola virus in this poor West African nation, which together with neighbouring Guinea and Sierra Leone bore the brunt of the worst outbreak on record of the disease.

More than 3,500 people died of Ebola here over the past 10 months but now there are just 10 confirmed cases according to the government, which hopes that figure may fall to zero by the end of next month.

With the worst seemingly past, Liberia is gradually starting to deal with the loss, but for many people it is hard to properly mourn loved ones whose bodies may never be recovered.

Burial plays an important part in West African culture - with mourners often touching the corpse at funerals - in an intimate and spiritual farewell to their loved ones.

Dehmietay Dehmie, head of the volunteers who operated the crematorium, believes he burned the bodies of his three sisters, who died from Ebola, but has no idea where their ashes now lie.

"They were brought here but I could not recognise them because bodies are brought in body bags," said Dehmie, who - like other members of the cremation team in Boys Town - has been ostracised by the local community.

President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf's government decided to start mass cremation at the height of the epidemic in August after scores of people contracted Ebola at traditional burials.

The disease - which has no known cure - is spread by contact with the bodily fluids of the infected and mourners were exposing themselves to high risks of contracting the virus.

The decision received the backing of Medecins Sans Frontieres - the medical charity that took the lead in fighting Ebola - which provided the incinerator for the Boys Town site.

It sent shockwaves through communities, with some families interring their dead themselves rather than see them cremated. Nonetheless, the government says it helped to bring the outbreak under control in Liberia more swiftly than neighbouring Sierra Leone and Guinea - which did not take such action.

"Cremation is not our culture. It was due to necessity that we had to cremate people, but it worked very well," said Assistant Minister of Health, Tolbert Nyensuwah, the head of the government's Ebola taskforce.

With specialised teams trained in safe burial techniques to prevent infection, victims are now being interred in a 50-acre cemetery by the highway to the Roberts International Airport.

The ashes of victims at the crematorium will be transferred to the cemetery at a special ceremony, Nyensuwah said.

Residents of Boys Town - a coastal area 20 km southeast of Monrovia - want compensation for health risks, emotional trauma and social stigma after hundreds of victims were burnt at the crematorium, which stood largely unused since Liberia's brutal 1989-2003 civil war.

"We were not consulted," said spokesman Tibelrosa Tarponweh. He said armed police arrived on Aug. 2, sealed off the crematorium and started delivering corpses: "They intimidated us into submission."

"How can anyone feel witnessing on a daily basis the bodies of fellow citizens dumped and burned, and the smoke of their remains streaking our air and our homes?" he asked.

No-one knows exactly how many people were burned here, but the crematorium team say hundreds of bodies passed through between August and December, when the incinerator was shut down. An MSF spokesman said that the volume of bodies was so high it was impossible to identify them individually.

"We hope the government will dispose of the ashes in a dignified way, for instance with a memorial where the names of all the victims could be engraved," Yann Libessart said.

Estalla Nelson, speaking at a memorial service for her cousin Alexander Anderson who died of Ebola, said cremation could prolong the trauma for families.

"It is going to linger in the minds of people that your loved one died and you could not see the body," she said.

The government is discussing compensation with the community. The toll has been heaviest on 28 men who volunteered at the crematorium and say they have been ostracised by residents.

"People take us not to be normal humans .... People are threatening to chase us out of the community," said J.T. Josiah. "We have been sleeping here in the crematorium."

Tuesday 20 January 2015

http://www.trust.org/item/20150118121151-gempq/?source=dpagehead

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Liberia Ebola victims can be buried after cremation decree relaxed

Liberia's government has purchased a plot of land to form a graveyard for Ebola victims, relaxing a much-contested order that all Ebola victims' bodies must be cremated.

Ciatta Bishop, head of the national Ebola burial team, said on Tuesday that the government has secured a 25-acre site when victims of the deadly disease can now be buried, Associated Press reports.

The decree which made disposing of deceased Ebola victims through cremation compulsory has been highly unpopular in Liberia, where funeral traditions are carefully followed and are considered a sacred obligation to the deceased.

The Liberian government ordered victims must be cremated, because corpses of Ebola victims remain highly contagious. Many healthcare workers in the affected West African state have contracted the virus after washing or moving dead bodies.

The new burial site in Liberia's capital has been created on land acquired from the Disco Hill district at a cost of $50,000 (£32,000).

Mr Nyenswah said the new site would be staffed by trained burial teams and would accommodate Muslim and Christian ceremonies.

He said the site would allow "dignified and safe burials, where people can practise their rituals but not touch dead bodies".

A memorial to Ebola victims who have been cremated will also be erected there, he added.

More than 2000 corpses of suspected Ebola victims had been cremated after the decree was ordered at the height of the crisis in Liberia several months ago.

The corpses of Ebola victims are highly contagious, and many of those who washed or touched bodies before their burials contracted the disease.

Bishop warned the public that in returning to normal burials "we have to be careful now" so that the process does not lead to a flare-up in Ebola cases.

"They just must not touch bodies otherwise... we will have problems again and the number (of Ebola cases) will rise," Bishop said.

The cremation decree is highly unpopular in Liberia, where funeral traditions are carefully followed and are considered a sacred obligation to the deceased.

Many families have tried to secretly bury their relatives' bodies to avoid them being taken away by burial teams for cremation.

The number of people infected by Ebola in the three countries worst affected by the outbreak has passed 20,000, with more than 7,842 deaths in the epidemic so far, according to the World Health Organisation. Cumulative case numbers in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea stood at 20,081, WHO said in a statement.

Wednesday 31 December 2014

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/liberia-ebola-victims-can-be-buried-after-cremation-decree-relaxed-1481362 https://au.news.yahoo.com/world/a/25880934/liberia-eases-up-on-ebola-cremation-order/

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Dozens of bodies found 'piled up' in Sierra Leone hospital after unreported Ebola outbreak

Dozens of bodies were discovered in a Sierra Leone hospital on Wednesday after an Ebola outbreak went unreported by health officials.

By the time the World Health Organisation (WHO) was called in, 87 people were dead, and the virus had hit eight of the area's 15 chiefdoms.

The WHO response team arrived on Wednesday, and what they found was disturbing. "They uncovered a grim scene," the agency said in a statement.

The local hospital had curtained off a section of the facility where 25 bodies were found. The organisation buried 87 people in 11 days, "including a nurse, an ambulance driver, and a janitor drafted in to removing bodies as they piled up."

The district had only reported 119 Ebola cases through December 9, and only 24 cases were reported last week. Over 350,000 people live in Kono District.

"We are only seeing the ears of the hippo," feared Sierra Leone Director of Disease Prevention and Control Dr Amara Jambai.

Sierra Leone recently overtook Liberia as the country with the highest number of reported Ebola cases with 7,897 infections since the outbreak began early this year.

However, Liberia reported 3,177 deaths from the virus, while Sierra Leone reported just 1,768.

Sierra Leone Health Minister Abu Bakarr Fofanah said that only laboratory-confirmed deaths are being recorded by the West African nation.

"It is difficult to put an exact figure on the deaths," he told Reuters. "They are adding suspected cases, so that is causing the discrepancies in the results. We are going by the textbook."

As of December 7, over 6,000 people have died from the Ebola outbreak that began in Guinea this spring. There have been nearly 18,000 confirmed or suspected cases of Ebola infection this year.

Saturday 13 December 2014

http://www.christiantoday.com/article/dozens.of.bodies.found.piled.up.in.sierra.leone.hospital.after.unreported.ebola.outbreak/44362.htm

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Benin closes all traditional morgues citing Ebola threat

The Beninese government has ordered the closure of all traditional morgues across the country to protect its population against the Ebola virus disease.

The illegal structures that operate under poor hygienic conditions could result in a number of contagious diseases.

Benin has had a long tradition of preserving dead bodies such as using palm wine or coal dust, and some of the methods can help preserve a dead body for almost a week.

The majority of the Beninese rural population uses traditional methods to preserve the bodies of their loved ones in the homes while morgues are only used in the urban centres before burial.

Over the past four months, 2,127 people have been infected with the virus in West Africa, of whom 1,145 have died.

Ebola, which is transmitted through direct contact with blood or body fluids of infected people or animals, causes serious haemorrhaging and can have a 90 percent mortality rate.

This is the first time that the disease has been identified and an epidemic has been confirmed in West Africa, with outbreaks to date having been confined to Central Africa.

Tuesday 19 August 2014

http://www.bignewsnetwork.com/index.php/sid/224855181

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Looting of Ebola clinic in Liberia sparks fresh infection fears

A quarantine centre for suspected Ebola patients in the Liberian capital Monrovia has been attacked and looted by protesters, police say.

Liberian health officials are worried the deadly Ebola virus will spread after mattresses and sheets with suspected patients’ blood stains were stolen from a quarantine center late Saturday.

The incident happened in the densely populated West Point township on Saturday evening.

At least 20 patients who were being monitored for signs of the illness have left the centre.

Officials said blood-stained bedding looted from the centre posed a serious infection risk.

The protesters were unhappy that patients were being brought in from other parts of the capital, the assistant health minister said.

Other reports suggested the protesters believed Ebola was a hoax and wanted to force the quarantine centre to close.

The centre was set up to observe suspected Ebola patients and then transfer them to a main treatment centre if they prove positive, assistant health minister Tolbert Nyenswah told.

It is not known if those at the centre were infected with the virus, though one report suggested they had proved positive.

A senior police officer said blood-stained mattresses, beddings and medical equipment were taken from the centre.

"This is one of the stupidest things I have ever seen in my life", he said.

He said the looting spree could threaten to spread the virus to the whole of the West Point area.

Described as a slum, there are an estimated 50,000 people in the West Point neighbourhood.

The Ebola epidemic began in Guinea in February and has since spread to Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria.

On Friday, the death toll rose to 1,145 after the WHO said 76 new deaths had been reported in the two days to 13 August. There have been 2,127 cases reported in total.

The attack at the Monrovia centre is seen as a major setback in the struggle to halt the outbreak

Health experts say that the key to ending the Ebola outbreak is to stop it spreading in Liberia, where ignorance about the virus is high and many people are reluctant to cooperate with medical staff.

More than 400 people have already died of Ebola in the country, according to the World Health Organization. The “looting spree,” as one police official described it, has raised concerns about the country’s ability to contain the virus.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the continent, Kenya has barred the entry of passengers traveling from certain countries in West Africa, where the virus has had a recent outbreak. The ban, effective Tuesday at midnight, applies to Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. Kenya Airways previously announced it would suspend flights to some of those countries.

Sunday 17 August 2014

http://time.com/3131025/ebola-looting-kenya-flights/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+timeblogs%2Ffashionweek+(TIME%3A+Fashion+Week+)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-28808832

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A Médecins Sans Frontières specialist on how the unprecedented spread of the ebola virus in west Africa makes the work of medics tougher than ever

I received a message at home in Brussels about this strange disease which had broken out in Guédeckou, in southern Guinea. They thought that perhaps it was Lassa fever, but when I received a description of the patients' symptoms, it was clear to me that we were talking about ebola. A couple of days later I was in Guinea.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has described the West Africa Ebola outbreak as one of the "most challenging" incidents the world has ever seen. So far, Guinea has counted close to 160 suspected cases of Ebola; more than 100 people have died from the disease. In neighboring Liberia, there have been 10 fatalities so far, with 21 other infections linked to the disease.

Around 65 percent of those infected don't survive the virus, said WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic. There is no vaccine or cure. It's crucial to quickly detect an infection - also to stop the disease from spreading any further, Jasarevic added.

I've worked in every major outbreak of ebola since 2000. What makes this one different is its geographical spread, which is unprecedented. There are cases in at least six towns in Guinea, as well as across the border in Liberia. The problem is that everybody moves around – infected people move from one village to another while they're still well enough to walk; even the dead bodies are moved from place to place. So, as an epidemiologist tracking the disease, it's like doing detective work.

The other problem is that ebola has never been confirmed before in Guinea, so you can be blamed for being the messenger – you're the guy bringing the bad news that the village has been touched by ebola. To them it means death, so people often refuse to believe the reality.



We were tracing a patient who we finally found staying with family members in a very small village. He was an educated man – a professor. He'd become infected while caring for a colleague, who had caught the disease by caring for his sick uncle – when somebody is sick in Guinea, they are always cared for by people of the same sex.

The professor realised it was probably better for him to come with us to the MSF centre, but his nephew and an elderly female relative suddenly appeared and took the sick patient off into the forest. They had no confidence in the health system, and believed that people were killed in our centres, so they decided to keep their relative in the forest and cure him with leaves and herbs.

I followed them into the forest. They were very aggressive – the nephew took a big stick and was hitting the ground – but behind the aggression you could hear the pain in his voice. Eventually, we got a sample from the sick man, to make a proper diagnosis. The next day he asked us to come and collect him.



Patients are cared for in the MSF centre. For health staff, it is normal to feel some kind of fear when you enter the isolation area for the first time, even if you are well protected. But you follow a kind of ritual – for dressing and undressing, and for all the activities you perform inside – little by little, you gain confidence.

You never enter the isolation area alone – you always enter in pairs. And you only go in for short periods, because it is very hot in Guinea and even hotter inside the yellow protective suits. It is tiring, especially if you are doing physical work. We always write our names on the front of our aprons so that the patients know who is in front of them.

Inside the centre, we try and make the patients as comfortable as possible. Sometimes we bring the parent of a sick person in to visit them. They have to wear a protective suit with a mask and goggles and gloves. The relatives are supervised, so there is no possibility of any contact with a patient's bodily fluids.

Patients who are deeply affected by the disease do not have a lot of energy to communicate. The mood can be very sombre with those in a terminal stage, who have only a few hours left before they die.



When a patient dies, we put them in a special body bag so that the burial can be done according to family traditions. If the patient comes from a village, we take the body back and advise relatives about what they can do – and what they should not be afraid to do – during the funeral. Once the body bag has been sprayed, it can be handled with gloves, so the mourners can wear their normal clothes to the funeral. We do not steal the body from the family; we try to treat it with dignity, and respect their traditions as much as possible.

The mortality rate for ebola is high, but there are survivors. Just before I left Guinea, our first two patients left the MSF centre cured of the disease: Théréèse, 35, and Rose, 18. Both are from the same extended family, which had already seen seven or 10 deaths from the disease.

Their relatives were overjoyed. There was a huge celebration in the village when they returned. They come from a family of local healers, so the news that they were cured will spread to other villages, and I hope this will create further trust.

People can survive; as the patients left, our teams were cheering. To know that they survived helps you forget all the bad things.

The Ebola virus is spread through the exchange of blood or other bodily fluids. Initial symptoms resemble those of the flu or malaria: Between two and 21 days after becoming infected, patients start to feel weak and experience headaches, muscle aches and chills. They develop high fever paired with diarrhea and nausea. The infected die of severe internal bleeding, in particular of the gastrointestinal tract, spleen and lungs.

So far, Ebola outbreaks have only been recorded in Central Africa, such as in Sudan, Congo or Uganda. The disease was named after a river in the Democratic Republic of Congo where it was discovered in 1976. According to the WHO, there have been 15 epidemics in Africa killing more than 1,300.

Not only humans can contract the virus - wild animals such as gorillas or chimpanzees can fall ill to Ebola as well. Experts have pointed to a certain type of bat as a suspected carrier of the virus.

"There are many people in West and Central Africa who are dependant on protein from bush meat," Sebastien Calvignac-Spencer said, a scientist working for the renowned Robert Koch Institute in Berlin.

The virus could spread to primates and humans who handle infected meat. As a reaction to the outbreak, Ivory Coast outlawed sales and consumption of bush meat.

Sunday 13 April 2014

http://www.dw.de/ebola-virus-continues-to-rage-in-west-africa/a-17554825

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/exclusive-a-mdecins-sans-frontires-specialist-on-how-the-unprecedented-spread-of-the-ebola-virus-in-west-africa-makes-the-work-of-medics-tougher-than-ever-9256670.html

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Ebola Outbreak in Uganda Kills 14

The deadly Ebola virus has killed 14 people in western Uganda this month, health officials have said, ending weeks of speculation about the cause of a strange disease that has prompted many people to flee their homes.

The officials and a World Health Organisation representative confirmed the outbreak at a news conference in Kampala on Saturday.

In a joint statement, the Ugandan government and WHO said: "Laboratory investigations done at the Uganda Virus Research Institute… have confirmed that the strange disease reported in Kibaale is indeed Ebola haemorrhagic fever." .

Kibaale is a district in mid-western Uganda, where people in recent weeks have been troubled by a mysterious illness that seemed to have come from nowhere.

Ugandan health officials had been stumped as well, and spent weeks conducting laboratory tests that were at first inconclusive.

Health officials told reporters in Kampala that the 14 dead were among 20 reported with the disease. Two of the infected have been isolated for examination by researchers and health officials.

A clinical officer and, days later, her four-month-old baby died from the disease caused by the Ebola virus, officials said.

There is no cure or vaccine for Ebola, and in Uganda, where in 2000 the disease killed 224 people and left hundreds more traumatised, it resurrects terrible memories.

There have been isolated cases since, such as in 2007 when an outbreak of a new strain of Ebola killed at least 37 people in Bundibugyo, a remote district close to the Congolese border, but none as deadly as in 2000.

Ebola, which manifests itself as a haemorrhagic fever, is highly infectious and kills quickly. It was first reported in 1976 in Congo and is named for the river where it was recognised, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

A CDC factsheet on Ebola says the disease is "characterised by fever, headache, joint and muscle aches, sore throat, and weakness, followed by diarrhoea, vomiting, and stomach pain. A rash, red eyes, hiccups and internal and external bleeding may be seen in some patients". Scientists don't know the natural reservoir of the virus, but they suspect the first victim in an Ebola outbreak gets infected through contact with the blood or other bodily fluids of infected animal, such as a monkey—who may have become infected by bats, researchers hypothesize.

Once the virus infects a human, it spreads to others through contact with the blood, urine, or other bodily fluids of the infected person, putting family members, hospital staff, and others who tend to the ill at risk.

Infected people remain contagious even after they are dead—a challenge because traditional funeral rites in Uganda call for touching a loved one's body. The virus can be transmitted through direct contact with the blood or secretions of an infected person, or objects that have been contaminated with infected secretions. During communal funerals, for example, when the bereaved come into contact with an Ebola victim, the virus can be contracted, officials said, warning against unnecessary contact with suspected cases of Ebola.

In Kibaale, some villagers had started abandoning their homes in recent weeks to escape what they thought was an illness linked to bad luck, because people were quickly falling ill and dying, officials said. "Being a strange disease, we were shocked to learn that it was Ebola," Byaruhanga said. "Our only hope is that in the past when Ebola broke out in other parts of Uganda it was controlled."

Officials also worry that other villagers suffering from other diseases might be afraid to visit the hospital for fear of catching Ebola, he said.

Monday 30 July 2012

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jul/29/uganda-ebola-outbreak-confirmed

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