An Ebola outbreak appeal

The Ebola outbreak in West Africa has been declared an international health emergency by the World Health Organization.

More than 4,922* children and adults have so far been killed by the disease - mostly in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. Many other countries are on high alert.

Ebola is one of the most virulent diseases known. There is no vaccine or cure.

Plan is on the ground fighting the outbreak in communities across Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. Our response includes:

• Running public health information campaigns - including radio broadcasts
• Providing medical kits
• Distributing food aid
• Training health workers in effective infection control procedures
• Setting-up hand washing stations at schools, health posts and other public facilities to help keep families safe..

• Ebola outbreak appeal

  • 
    Put #HandsOnHearts on social media to show your support for children affected by Ebola.
  • 
    Plan is fighting the spread of Ebola through public health campaigns - including radio broadcasts.
  • 
    Washing hands can help kill the virus. Plan has set up hand washing stations in schools, health posts and other public facilities.
  • 
    A Plan staff member demonstrates how to use chlorine spray and hand washing points.
  • 
    Plan-supported youths launching an awareness raising campaign in their village.
  • 
    In partnership with the World Food Programme, Plan is distributing thousands of food rations to families affected by Ebola in Guinea.
  • 
    Each vital food ration contains rice, salt, sugar, oil and peas.
  • 
    Put #HandsOnHearts on social media to show your support for children affected by Ebola.
  • 
    Plan is fighting the spread of Ebola through public health campaigns - including radio broadcasts.

  ><

  1234567

  Start slideshow

  Help children, families and caregivers

  The Ebola outbreak in West Africa has been declared an international health emergency by the World Health Organization.

  More than 4,922* children and adults have so far been killed by the disease - mostly in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. Many other countries are on high alert.

  Ebola is one of the most virulent diseases known. There is no vaccine or cure.

  Plan is on the ground fighting the outbreak in communities across Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. Our response includes:

  • Running public health information campaigns - including radio broadcasts
  • Providing medical kits
  • Distributing food aid
  • Training health workers in effective infection control procedures
  • Setting-up hand washing stations at schools, health posts and other public facilities to help keep families safe.

  *According to World Health Organization, 25 October 2014.

  Donate to the appeal

  We urgently need funds to support our life-saving work. Please make a donation today.

Information by http://plan-international.org/

Ebola updates in the worse affected countries

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.

MAINE:NURSE TREATED PATIENTS IN SIERRA LEONE

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.

realhealthissues.blogspot.com

EBOLA VIRUS AND LIBERIA; A CASE STUDY

Thousands of new cases of Ebola are expected in the coming weeks as the disease spreads "exponentially" through Liberia, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned.

SHARE
More than 2,000 people have been killed in West Africa by Ebola since the outbreak began this year, including 79 health workers.

The UN's health agency has now warned that the response to the crisis is "not having an adequate impact" and efforts to contain the virus must be stepped up "three-to-four fold".

It added that a shortage of beds for infected patients in Liberia'sMontserrado county and the use of public transport by Ebola sufferers turned away from hospital would likely cause a surge in transmission rates.

"Transmission of the Ebola virus in Liberia is already intense and the number of new cases is increasing exponentially," WHO said in a statement.

"In Monrovia, taxis filled with entire families, of whom some members are thought to be infected with the Ebola virus, crisscross the city, searching for a treatment bed. There are none.

"As WHO staff in Liberia confirm, no free beds for Ebola treatment exist anywhere in the country.

"When patients are turned away, they have no choice but to return to their communities and homes, where they inevitably infect others."

The virus is transmitted through contact with infected blood or bodilyfluids, or through contact with areas where contaminated bodily fluids have recently been left.

The international response to the epidemic has been intensified in recent weeks, with more aid being pledged to affected countries and the imposition of stricter travel restrictions.

The British military has pledged to build a 50-bed centre in Sierra Leone and the US announced the construction of a 25-bed field hospital inLiberia at a cost of €24m.

Liberia has been the worst affected with 1,000 deaths from the virus so far, while hundreds have also died in Guinea and Sierra Leone. The outbreak has a mortality rate of 55pc.

Meanwhile, the fourth American aid worker ill with the Ebola virus arrived yesterday morning to a mostly calm scene at a US hospital, where two others have been successfully treated.

The patient walked from the ambulance to the hospital.