SOURCE FNurse released in New Jersey; boy under Ebola evaluation
in New YorkByAshley Fantz,CNNupdated 4:27 PM EDT, Mon October 27,
2014STORY HIGHLIGHTS Kaci Hickox is released from New Jersey
hospital after testing negative for Ebola A 5-year-old boy is being
tested for Ebola in New York, an official says Maryland to monitor
the health of travelers from Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea N.Y.,
N.J. implemented 21-day quarantine on workers who treated Ebola
patients(CNN)-- A nurse who was quarantined at a hospital in New
Jersey after returning from West Africa was released Monday, her
attorney said.Kaci Hickox, who told CNN the quarantine was
violating her rights, was discharged after testing negative for
Ebola.Also on Monday, a 5-year-old boy who recently visited West
Africa and has a fever was being tested for the virus in New
York.The boy, who was running a temperature, is with his mother at
New York's Bellevue Hospital Center, said Dr. Ram Raju, president
of the New York City Health and Hospitals Corp., which oversees
Bellevue.The boy's test results should be available within 12
hours, and officials are trying to find out whether the child, who
returned with his family recently from West Africa, came into
contact with anyone who has Ebola, Raju said.Quarantined nurse to
be dischargedPhotos: The Ebola epidemicCDC releases new Ebola
worker guidelinesEbola's ground zero still strugglingNurse to
return to MaineHickox was put in isolation Friday after returning
to New Jersey from a month in Sierra Leone.Her quarantine, part of
a days-old policy the governors of New York and New Jersey
instituted for all health care workers who've had contact with
Ebola patients in West Africa, has been criticized widely by health
care experts.On Sunday, she spoke by phone with CNN's Candy Crowley
and Elizabeth Cohen."This is an extreme that is really
unacceptable, and I feel like my basic human rights have been
violated," Hickox said. She said she was flummoxed as to how New
Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who has no medical training, could
describe her as "obviously ill."Hickox will return to Maine, and
arrangements for her travel are still being worked out, her
attorney, Stephen Hyman, told CNN."Her first priority is to get out
of the hospital and back to a normal life," he said.Hyman said
there's a "legal basis" to challenge the quarantine policies in New
Jersey and in New York, but the nurse isn't sure she wants to do
so.Each state has a different quarantine law, said Steven Gravely,
an attorney who helped rewrite Virginia's quarantine law so the
state could more easily respond to outbreaks.The U.S. Constitution
gives states authority over how to approach health matters, though
the federal government has control over what happens concerning
public health in airports and shipping ports, Gravely
said.Mandatory quarantines -- now what?What states are doingLast
week, the director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, Dr. Tom Frieden, said that active 21-day monitoring
would begin Monday in the six states where about 70% of air
travelers enter the United States from Liberia, Guinea and Sierra
Leone, hard-hit countries in West Africa. Those states are New
York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, New Jersey and Georgia.The
three-week period marks the maximum incubation time forEbola.State
and local officials will maintain daily contact with all travelers
from the three affected countries for the entire 21 days after the
last possible date of exposure to Ebola virus, Frieden
said.Authorities will require travelers to report their
temperatures and the presence or absence of Ebola symptoms aside
from a fever, he explained, and they will be required to coordinate
with public health officials if they intend to travel and to make
arrangements to have their temperatures monitored during travel in
a manner acceptable to state and local health officials.Relatives
afraid to take in Ebola orphansPentagon may quarantine Ebola
troopRead Frieden's full remarksNew York, New Jersey and Illinois
say anyone returning from having direct contact with Ebola patients
in West Africa will have to be quarantined for 21 days.Maryland
officials will monitor the health of all travelers returning from
Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, Gov. Martin O'Malley's office
said. The effort will build on state and local health departments'
outreach and monitoring,according to a statementthat explains more
about the process. Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn's office said the
quarantine would be a "home quarantine.""This protective measure is
too important to be voluntary," Quinn said.On Friday, Cuomo and
Christie announced a mandatory quarantine for people who had been
in West Africa and had contact there with people infected with
Ebola. Christie said such returning health care workers who are New
Jersey residents could be quarantined in their homes as long as
they did not have symptoms consistent with Ebola.Christie said
Monday that he was glad that Hickox had been released from
quarantine."The reason she was put in the hospital in the first
place was because she was running a high fever and was symptomatic.
If you live in New Jersey, you're quarantined in your home. That's
always been the policy. If you live outside the state, and you're
symptomatic, we're not letting you go onto public transportation.
It makes no common sense. The minute she was no longer symptomatic,
she was released."Virginia is implementing an "active monitoring
program" for all returning passengers from Guinea, Liberia and
Sierra Leone, "with a special emphasis on returning health care
workers," Virginia governor's spokesman Brian Coy has said.Should
health care workers be quarantined?Could quarantines
backfire?Arguments against the quarantines are that they could
deter health care workers from traveling to West Africa to fight
Ebola and could greatly hurt their livelihoods."I'm concerned of
the disincentive for the health care workers" to travel to West
Africa, said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute
of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of
Health."If I lose three weeks on my return and don't get to do the
work I'm supposed to do ... means this wouldn't be workable for
me," said Dr. John Carlson, a pediatric immunologist at Tulane
University.Frieden has long argued against travel restrictions,
saying they could hurt the global health community's effort to tamp
down the West Africa outbreak. "It makes it hard to get health
workers in, because they can't get out," he has said.An expert who
has studied Ebola for more than a decade, Purdue University's David
Sanders, told CNN on Monday that he feels the policy on mandatory
quarantines in New York and New Jersey are "largely political"
rather than medical fact and that leaders are acting based on the
desire to calm a panicked public rather than to do what's most
beneficial.Doctors Without Borders was even more direct."Forced
quarantine of asymptomatic health workers returning from fighting
the Ebola outbreak in West Africa is not grounded on scientific
evidence and could undermine efforts to curb the epidemic at its
source," the group said.Doctor with Ebola at BellevueBellevue
Hospital Center is also where Ebola-positive New York doctor Craig
Spencer, 33, is in isolation. He is in serious but stable condition
Monday, according to Raju.Spencer arrived home in the United States
on October 17 after spending time in Guinea.Because he'd had
contact with Ebola patients, Spencer took pains to limit his
interaction with others, but he did go places and spend time with
friends.Spencer's fiancee, Morgan Dixon, had been under quarantine
at Bellevue, but doctors said she did not have the virus and has no
symptoms, said Jean Weinberg, the city Health Department
spokeswoman."We learned a lot from Dallas," Raju said, referring to
all that went wrong in Texas when a Liberian national arrived from
West Africa with Ebola and two nurses treating him contracted the
virus.How the Ebola virus spreadsEbola and the U.S. militaryOn
Sunday, the Pentagon would not say whether it's willing to still
send an active-duty militaryEbola response teamto states ordering
mandatory quarantine for Ebola health care workers.The 30-person
team finishes training Monday and will then be ready for deployment
on 72 hours' notice. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel would have to
approve any deployment.On Monday, CNN learned from military
officials that Army Maj. Gen. Darryl A. Williams, who's commander
of U.S. Army Africa, and about 10 other personnel are now in
"controlled monitoring" in Italy after landing there following a
West Africa trip over the weekend.Italian authorities met Williams'
plane "in full CDC gear," an official said, referring to the type
of protective equipment health care workers wear when dealing with
Ebola.There is no indication that any team members have the
virus.They will be monitored for 21 days at a separate location at
a U.S. military installation in Vicenza, Italy, according to
military officials. It's not yet clear if family members can visit
them.CNN's Ralph Ellis, Elizabeth Cohen, Joshua Berlinger, Joe
Sutton, Daniel Burke,Greg Botelho, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Poppy Harlow,
Haimy Assefa, Kristina Sgueglia, David Shortell, Barbara Starr and
Josh Levs contributed to this report.
SOURCE GCDC Chief Announces New Shift in Ebola ProtocolsbyBILL
CHAPPELLOctober 27, 20145:00 PM ET
Members of a cleaning crew wearing personal protective equipment
push a barrel to be loaded in a Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention truck on Friday after cleaning the New York apartment of
Dr. Craig Spencer, who has been diagnosed with Ebola.In the latest
tweak to America's plan to prevent the spread of the deadly Ebola
disease, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention leader Dr. Tom
Frieden announced changes to the U.S. response to Ebola and the
guidance federal agencies are giving to state and local
governments.The new protocol stops short of the mandatory 21-day
quarantines that some states have begun requiring. Instead, Frieden
said, it relies on individual assessment and close monitoring. He
also detailed several categories of risk among both airline
passengers and the medical volunteers who he said have been doing
"heroic work" in West Africa."High risk" individuals, Frieden said,
include those who have cared for an Ebola patient and were
accidentally poked by a needle or lacked protective gear. Those
people, Frieden said, should isolate themselves in their homes and
avoid all forms of mass transit and large gatherings.Those in the
group would also undergo "direct active monitoring," in which a
medical worker watches as the person's temperature is taken and
speaks with him regularly about his condition.The "some risk"
category, Frieden said, includes those who have lived in the same
household as an Ebola patient but haven't had direct contact with
him, as well as health care workers who have cared for patients
without any equipment problems. He stressed that it would be
dangerous to treat such medical workers as "pariahs," as it might
discourage staff who are trying to prevent the disease's
spread.Frieden also gave more details about people who enter the
U.S. after being in countries where the outbreak poses the greatest
threat.Each day, slightly fewer than 100 people travel to the U.S.
from Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone, he said, citing the
airport-arrivals screening program that began this month. Most of
those travelers, he added, are either U.S. citizens or legal
residents. Of more than 807 people who have been evaluated, Frieden
said, 46 of them are health workers.The CDC chief noted that Monday
marks the start of an increase in post-arrival monitoring that his
agency recommended last week for incoming passengers. That program
covers six states (New York, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, New
Jersey and Georgia) where the CDC says some 70 percent of incoming
travelers are headed after landing in the U.S.Frieden opened his
remarks by citing previous scientific studies about the disease,
saying that they had proven the disease is transmissible only via
direct contact with an infected person's bodily fluids."At CDC, we
base our decisions on science and experience," he said.Frieden
spoke after a weekend in which a new public debate erupted over how
to treat returning American health workers who have volunteered to
fight the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.Earlier Monday, New Jersey
officials said they would allowKaci Hickox, a Texas-born nurse
based in Maine, to leave the hospital where she's been under a
mandatory quarantine since she arrived at Newark's airport from
Sierra Leone Friday.Hickox landed as New Jersey, New York and
Illinois were installing new policies requiring a 21-day quarantine
for anyone who had potential contact with Ebola patients in West
Africa. Hickox has maintained that she hasn't had any symptoms of
the disease, and a preliminary blood test was negative for the
disease. On Sunday, shehired a civil rights attorneyto help secure
her release.The nurse works with Doctors Without Borders, which
issued a statement Monday saying, "Forced quarantine of
asymptomatic health workers returning from fighting the Ebola
outbreak in West Africa is not grounded on scientific evidence and
could undermine efforts to curb the epidemic at its source."The
agency also warned that if U.S. officials took such steps, they
would likely be mirrored in other countries.The CDC has adjusted
its guidelines several times in the past few weeks, as the U.S. has
recorded its first case of a Ebola patient being treated
domestically and its first death from the disease that has killed
more than 4,900 people.Earlier this month, the agency issued new
protocols for Ebola screeningat five U.S. airports: New York's JFK,
New Jersey's Newark, Chicago's O'Hare, Virginia's Washington-Dulles
and Atlanta's Hartsfield.SOURCE HTracking Ebola in the
U.S.INFOGRAPHICHealthDiseaseHealthcareISSUE 5042Oct 20, 2014
With eight confirmed cases of the highly fatal Ebola virus in
the U.S. and revelations that health care workers potentially
exposed to it have traveled on passenger flights and cruise ships,
fears that the disease will spread across the country have grown.
Here is an up-to-date map that can help you track the proliferation
of Ebola across the United States:1. Location where faith in the
U.S. health systems preparedness passed away on Oct. 82. CDC
headquarters: Researchers working around the clock on an
experimental press statement3. Official CDC quarantine zone4.
Airspace that plane carrying Ebola-infected nurse traveled cordoned
off up to 38,000 feet5. Future location of Incineration Pit 17B6.
Man lying about his travel history to get past customs screening7.
Ebola czar Ron Klain carefully loading single bullet into
revolver8. Mechanics working nonstop to tune up CDCs corpse
bulldozers9. Byram, MS: Ebola virion chased out of town by angry
mob10. Just enough Ebola serum for Sheldon Adelson, Richard
Branson, Koch brothers, and their respective families11. Severely
symptomatic man who thankfully only has highly fatal yellow
fever12. Taylor Allderdice High School: Hasnt been cancelled yet or
anything. Sucks.13. Newspaper with headline Ebola Outbreak Hits
America! being blown along vacant Manhattan streets14. Site that
will be referred to by the roving post-epidemic tribes as the
darkness lands15. CEO of hazmat suit manufacturer Lakeland
Industries going to sleep with huge smile on his face16. 1,000 more
men, women, and children diagnosed with Ebola in West Africa (not
pictured)
SOURCE IHealth Officials Release Chart Of Those Currently
Monitored ForEbolaOctober 22, 2014 5:40 PMView Comments
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VirusCBS DFW (con't)Affordable Care Act
Updates:CBSDFW.com/ACAHealth News &
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Follow CBSDFW.COM:Facebook|TwitterDALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) While the
conditions of two North Texas nurses who contracted Ebola continue
to improve, federal and local health officials say they continue to
monitor dozens of other people who may have been exposed to the
virus.On October 22 the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
joined Dallas County and the City of Dallas to release an Ebola
monitoring graph.Officials said their hope is for those in the
public to have a better understanding of the number of private
citizens and healthcare workers who are still in isolation or under
surveillance.As of October 22, sixty-six people have completed
their isolation and/or monitoring and 108 are still being actively
monitored.Doctor Lyle Peterson, the Senior CDC official in Dallas,
said, As the graph shows, the number of people at risk for
contracting Ebola is decreasing each day. Although we are not out
of the woods yet, it is very encouraging we have not seen any other
cases.The graph also has a date progression, through November 6,
that shows when surveillance will be complete.Dallas Mayor Mike
Rawlings said, There are still more hurdles to overcome, but weve
reached a significant milestone in this difficult journey.The mayor
spent part of Wednesday afternoon on a conference call talking to
other mayors across the country about the lessons learned since the
Ebola virus presented in Dallas.(2014 CBS Local Media, a division
of CBS Radio Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be
published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
SOURCE JWhere's the empathy for Ebola's African victims?ByJohn
D. Sutter, CNNupdated 9:00 AM EDT, Mon October 20, 2014STORY
HIGHLIGHTS The world's response to Ebola is its own tragedy, writes
CNN's John Sutter He argues race and geography play a role in the
inaction Kofi Annan: If Ebola hit another region, "it probably
would have been handled very differently" (CNN)-- The world's
response to Ebola is its own sort of tragedy.Two facts make the
point clear:John D. Sutter-- The United Nations has asked for $1
billion to fight the spread of the virus. As of Friday, it had
collectedonly $100,000-- or 0.01%. An additional $20 million has
been pledged but not received, according to CNN Money. "We need to
turn pledges into action," the U.N.'s Ban Ki-moon told reporters.
"We need more doctors, nurses, equipment, treatment centers."--
Liberia, meanwhile, which is hardest hit by the virus,says it
requires 2.4 million boxes of protective gloves -- and 85,000 body
bags, to be able to fight the virus in the next six months.
Currently, it only has 18,000 boxes of gloves andless than 5,000
body bags.Let that second number sink in.Eight-fivethousandbody
bags needed.But what is actually-really-truly behind the lack of
helpfulness on the part of the international community? If you
listen to right-wing pundits in the United States, we should blame
Obama -- who they say is having his "Katrina moment."Those jabs are
fueled more by upcoming midterm elections than reality. And they
won't likely be quieted by Obama's announcement on Friday that he
hasappointed an "Ebola czar"to manage the U.S. response.The true
devastation, however, has been unfolding in West Africa for months.
And it's the subject of far less outrage in the United States.A
more rational and deep-seated critique of the international
community's relative inaction emerged in arecent BBC interviewwith
Kofi Annan, the former U.N. secretary general, who is from
Ghana."If the crisis had hit some other region," he's quoted as
telling that news organization, "it probably would have been
handled very differently."In fact when you look at the evolution of
the crisis, the international community really woke up when the
disease got to America and Europe."It's hard not to agree that race
and geography do play a role in the world's callousness. They help
explain why "some other region" -- any other region, really --
would get more help.Science tells part of the story.There's
evidence lighter skinned people have trouble "feeling" the pain of
those with darker skin. Researchers at the University of
Milano-Bicocca, in Italy,tested thisin by showing a group of
Caucasian people video clips of people of various races being
pricked with a needle. They monitored the viewers to see how their
bodies responded to the sight of another person being hurt. The
white viewers reacted more strongly -- or showed more physical
empathy -- when white people were hurt than Africans.In another
study, "researchers found that white participants, black
participants, and nurses and nursing students assumed that blacks
felt less pain than whites,"Slate writes.Except for a handful of
health workers, nearly all of Ebola's 4,400 casualties have been
black Africans -- and these simmering biases are deeply
troubling."Ebola is now a stand-in for any combination of
'African-ness', 'blackness', 'foreign-ness' and 'infestation' --
poised to ruin the perceived purity of Western borders and bodies,"
Hannah Giorgiswrote for The Guardian.There's a long, ugly history
of this sort of thing.Consider the 1994 Rwanda genocide, or the
HIV/AIDS epidemic."In the case of AIDS, it took years for proper
research funding to be put in place and it was only when so-called
'innocent' groups were involved (women and children, haemophiliac
patients and straight men) that the media, the politicians and the
scientific community and funding bodies took notice," John Ashton,
president of the UK Faculty of Public Health,wrote for The
Independent.The headline of his piece: "They'd find a cure if Ebola
came to London."Maybe some blame should fall on geography, as well.
Americans, in particular, know very little about Africa (just try
this quiz on African geography from the Washington Post). The
physical distance between Africa and North America or Europe -- two
global centers of financial and political power -- also could lead
people to feel emotionally distant from the crisis."I don't know
about racism, but I do know when (Ebola) was only in Africa, hardly
anyone in the U.S. cared that it was killing thousands," a friend
wrote in response to aquestion I posed on Facebook. "But now that
like four people have it in the U.S., it is all-out panic."Whatever
the reason, a lack of empathy is clearly at play.Too many people
panic when Ebola hits Dallas but shrug at thegruesome reality in
Monrovia. Too many worry that someone whomight have been in contact
with an Ebola patienthas boarded a cruise ship bound for Belize --
but we don't feel forEbola's child orphans.I hope shining light on
these realities can help change them.I'll leave you with a passage
from anessay by Leslie Jamison, a woman who worked as a "medical
actor," meaning she faked illnesses for emotionally tone-deaf
medical students. As she listened to the sometimes hard-headed
students interrogate her about her made-up illnesses, she learned a
thing or two about what it means to actually empathize with a
person."Empathy isn't just something that happens to us -- a meteor
shower of synapses firing across the brain -- it's also a choice we
make: to pay attention, to extend ourselves," she wrote.Take that
as a challenge.Pay attention. Extend yourself.And demand world
leaders do the same.