SIERRA LEONE: DOCTOR DIED ON
SATURDAY
GodfreyGeorge, a medical superintendent at the Kambia Government Hospital in the north
of the country, died after he tested positive for Ebola on Saturday, according
to Sierra Leone’s Chief Medical Officer Brima Kargbo.
“He
drove himself from Kambia on Friday after he started feeling unwell and checked
himself into the Chinese hospital at Jui outside Freetown,” Kargbo said. He
added that George did not treat Ebola patients and might have contracted the
virus through a patient he treated for another illness.
Sierra
Leone is one of the countries worst affected by the largest outbreak of Ebola on record. Some 120 health workers – including nurses and other medical staff –
have tested positive for the disease in Sierra Leone, with about 100 dead. With
its healthcare system still reeling from a 1991-2002 civil war, Sierra Leone
had only just over 100 doctors for its six million people before the outbreak
struck.
Many
rural clinics lacked even basic medical supplies, such as plastic gloves,
leaving medical staff vulnerable to infection by Ebola, whose early symptoms
resemble cholera and malaria, common diseases in the region.
Monday's
settlement, filed in nurse Hickok’s home town of Fort Kent, in Maine’s far
north, where she returned after being briefly quarantined in New Jersey, keeps
in effect through Nov. 10 the terms of an order issued by a Maine judge on
Friday.
Hickoxreturned to the United States last month after treating Ebola patients in
Sierra Leone and was quarantined in a tent outside a hospital in New Jersey for
four days despite showing no symptoms. She sharply criticized the way both New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and Maine Governor Paul LePage responded to her
case. Christie and LePage have defended how they handled it.
“The
Governor was outspoken in his views on the case. He was speaking for people in
the state that had real fear about the risks,” said Eric Saunders, an attorney
for Hickox. “It’s hard to deny the fear and the safety concerns. But at the
same time, we have to bear in mind what the law and the science says.”
A
spokeswoman for LePage’s office declined to comment on the case, as did the
office of the Maine Attorney-General.
UNITED
STATES: PATIENT BEING MONITORED AFTER RETURN FROM LIBERIA
Officials
in North Carolina are monitoring and testing a patient who arrived in the
United States last week from Liberia for Ebola, health authorities said on
Sunday.
“The
individual did not have any symptoms upon arrival,” the state’s Department of Health and Human Services said in a statement, adding the person had developed
a fever on Nov. 2 after arriving in North Carolina.
The
person does not have any additional symptoms and had no known exposure to Ebola
in Liberia, the department said, stressing that the fever could indicate other
illnesses. It said the patient would be evaluated for possible causes of fever,
including testing for Ebola.
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