The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed that a traveler from Liberia is the first confirmed case of Ebola in the US. Reuters reports:
The patient sought treatment six days after arriving in Texas on Sept. 20, Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), told reporters on Tuesday. He was admitted two days later to an isolation room at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas.
U.S. health officials and lawmakers have been bracing for the eventuality that a patient would arrive on U.S. shores undetected, testing the preparedness of the nation’s healthcare system.
Frieden said a handful of people, mostly family members, may have been exposed to the patient after he fell ill. He said there was likely no threat to any passengers who had traveled with the patient. Asked whether the patient was a U.S. citizen, Frieden described the person as a visitor to family in the country.
“It is certainly possible someone who had contact with this individual could develop Ebola in the coming weeks,” Frieden told a news conference. “I have no doubt we will stop this in its tracks in the United States.”
The Texas Department of State Health Services said it was working with the CDC, the local health department and the hospital “to investigate the case and help prevent transmission of the disease.”
“The hospital has implemented infection control measures to help ensure the safety of patients and staff,” the statement said.
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Spotlight on PSI
The PSI Impact Magazine blog riffs off a recent Impatient Optimists blog, where Mariam Claeson, physician Atul Gawande and Aparajita Ramakrishnan wonder are checklists are a game-changer for saving lives at birth?. An excerpt:
PSI is a partner with this project, along with India’s Ministry of Health, the state government in Uttar Pradesh, WHO, Community Empowerment Lab and Ariadne Labs, a joint center of Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard School of Public Health, where Dr. Gawande is Executive Director. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is funding the study.
The 120 public sector facilities are scattered in rural areas across 20 districts that deliver at least 1,000 babies per year, and have been paired and randomized either to use the checklist or not. PSI/India will help clinics adopt checklist use and manage information for the 172,800 births that need to be monitored. The study is projected to be finished in 2015.
There are more than 130 million births each year worldwide. The highest incidence of maternal and perinatal mortality occurs around the time of birth, with the majority of deaths occurring within the first 24 hours after delivery. Will safe birth checklists help change the game?
Dr. Gawande, who also authored The Checklist Manifesto, has written previously about the massive benefits that checklists brought to the public sector health system in Michigan, in The New Yorker where he is also a staff writer.
We will know more about how they will do for childbirth in India in 2015, but in the meantime stay tuned to Impatient Optimists blog for more from Dr. Gawande on how checklists can help support health workers and save lives in those chaotic moments.
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Global Health and Development Beat
The UN’s Ebola Emergency Response Mission is officially up and running, announced the WHO. Its headquarters is in Accra, Ghana.
UNICEF issued a warning that Ebola orphans are being shunned by their communities.
The rainy season in West Africa is compounding difficulties in getting supplies delivered and new treatment centers built as donors rush to isolate people infected with the deadly Ebola virus and stop its rapid spread, US officials said.
Now, thanks to a digitized malaria mapping database that brings together all available malaria data, the disease no longer has the ‘blind killer’ status of past decades.
The Gavi Alliance took center stage during the live TV broadcast of Global Citizen Festival that brought together world leaders, celebrities and everyday people, to highlight the importance of child immunization.
WFP and UNICEF say they have assisted more than 500,000 people in parts of South Sudan hit hardest by the country’s nine-month conflict.
The UN’s humanitarian chief warned Tuesday that tens of thousands more people could be forced to flee Syria if Islamic State militants continue to make territorial gains.
Indigenous people experience dementia at a rate at least three times higher than the non-Indigenous population in Australia, but a lack of awareness of the seriousness of the issue means not enough is being done to combat a “looming epidemic”, the peak body for Alzheimer’s sufferers and their carers has said.
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Buzzing in the Blogs
A new USAID dispatch highlights the challenges on the challenges faced by health workers responding to the West Africa Ebola outbreak. An excerpt:
What do you say to a mother who just lost her child? To a neighbor who just lost her best friend? How do you comfort them before you carry away the body of their loved one in a black bag in the back of a dark green pick-up truck? Varbah Dolley faces these scenarios six days a week. Varbah is tough – like most Liberian women who have lived through two civil wars. She is now fighting another a war, against an enemy she can’t see.
Varbah is a member of a Liberian Red Cross burial team. Funding from USAID and support from the U.S.-based NGO Global Communities is providing burial-team support activities in all 15 counties of Liberia, as well as engaging with communities to share information on proper hygiene practices and preventing transmission through workshops, community meetings, and radio campaigns.
From the moment they start showing symptoms, someone who has contracted the Ebola virus is highly contagious. The virus is spread through direct contact with bodily fluids including vomit, diarrhea, blood, and saliva. After the person dies, the body is even more contagious.
In Liberia, rituals to prepare bodies for burial are contributing to the rapid spread of the virus. The dead body is typically washed and dressed by multiple people before being carried to a grave — a ripe situation for the virus to spread. Graves are also important landmarks for Liberians. Decoration Day, a government holiday, is dedicated to visiting and decorating family graves. It’s where they can speak with their ancestors and commune with them. As the burial team prepared to take one body, I heard a woman wail: “I will have nothing to decorate on Decoration Day.”
To stop the spread of Ebola, burial teams have been mobilized across Liberia to provide safe disposal of contagious bodies, which often includes cremation. With the epidemic on the rise, every dead body is now considered an Ebola body. Varbah’s team leaves central Monrovia every morning to respond to reports of deaths. These calls often lead them to communities deep in rural Liberia. Last week, we drove for more than two hours over rough dirt terrain to reach Arthington – which also happens to be the birthplace of former warlord Charles Taylor.
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Capital Events
Wednesday
9:00 AM – Bangladesh in Focus – Atlantic Council
2:00 PM – Urban Resilience and Institutions: How Local Governments in African Cities can Plan and Respond Better to Climate Change – AU School of International Service
Thursday
12:00 PM – India’s Achilles Heel: Failure to Deliver Public Services – CGD
Friday
12:00 PM – Harnessing the Power of Markets to Tackle Global Poverty: A Conversation with Jacqueline Novogratz – AEI
3:00 PM – From Copenhagen to Paris: Emerging Economies and the Challenges of Climate Change Diplomacy – Georgetown University
Wednesday – 8 October
10:00 AM – Turning the Tide for Girls and Young Women: How to Achieve an AIDS-Free Future – Kaiser Family Foundation and Population Council
Friday – 17 October
8:30 AM – Ensuring Equity for NCDs in Women’s Health Throughout the Life Course – FHI 360
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By Mark Leon Goldberg and Tom Murphy
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Disclaimer: Opinions presented in this email do not necessarily reflect the views of PSI.
