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The Problem With Ebola In The Media

MEDIA AND SOCIAL MEDIA      THREE PERSPECTIVES

FORBES                                       Oc. 11, 2014

By Alic G. Walton

The Ebola situation in West Africa is clearly not good. The death toll is rising, and people continue to become infected.....

But the reality is that for people in America and other places outside of West Africa, the risk is still quite low. Caution is important, obviously, and airports and hospitals are taking measures to screen people and protect the public.

 The real issue is a different one: Our fear of Ebola has become many times worse than the problem.

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http://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalton/2014/10/11/the-problem-with-ebola-in-the-media/

Mobile Phones, Social Media Aiding Ebola Fight

 U.S. NEWS AND WORLD REPORT         Oct. 20, 2014

By Tim Risen

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CDC Develops Ebola Modeling Tool While WHO Trains Health Workers

HOMELAND SECURITY TODAY               Oct. 9, 2014

 By Kylie Bull, Managing Editor

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has developed a dynamic modeling tool called Ebola Response that allows for estimations of projected cases over time in Liberia and Sierra Leone.

 The Ebola Response modeling tool can construct scenarios to illustrate how control and prevention interventions can slow and eventually stop the Ebola epidemic. Importantly, it can help public health and other planners make more informed decisions about emergency response resources to help bring the outbreak under control. The new tool allows input of data reflective of the current situation on the ground in affected countries and communities.

 The Ebola Response modeling tool is intended to help local governments and international responders generate short-term estimates of the Ebola situations in countries, districts and villages. The tool, in the form of a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, is to be made freely available online.

Meanwhile, in Liberia, the World Health Organization (WHO) has established a new training program for health workers on Ebola care.

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CDC director calls for action to stop Ebola from becoming “the world’s next AIDS”

WASHINGTON POST                                                   Oct. 9, 2014

WASHINGTON -- Tom Frieden, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, compared the Ebola outbreak in West Africa to the AIDS epidemic at a conference Thursday morning at the World Bank.

"In my 30 years in public health, the only thing that has been like this is AIDS," Frieden said at a conference at the World Bank attended by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon, Guinean President Alpha Condé, International Monetary Fund managing director Christine Lagarde and representatives of governments and not-for-profit organizations around the world....

"We have to work now so that this is not the world's next AIDS," Frieden warned....

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/10/09/cdc-director-compares-ebola-to-aids/

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In wake of Dallas patient death, health providers across US are reinforcing and testing infection control procedures

Associated Press
New York                              Oc. 9, 2014

... There hasn’t been a single confirmed case of an Ebola infection happening on US soil; the case confirmed in Dallas involves a man who, like several health care workers treated in the US, contracted the virus in Liberia. But health care providers are worried enough to take a wide variety of precautions.

 

    It isn’t yet clear whether these preparations are overkill, or not nearly enough. Photograph: Richard Drew/AP

It isn’t yet clear whether these preparations are overkill, or not nearly enough.

But health care experts say that at the very least, the scare is providing a chance to reinforce and test infection control procedures....

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http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/09/us-expand-ebola-precautions-dallas-patient-death?CMP=twt_gu

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John Kerry: World Must 'Step Up' Anti-Ebola Effort

Associated Press                                                         Oct. 8, 2010

By Mathew Lee

WASHINGTON (AP) — Secretary of State John Kerry made an urgent plea Wednesday for nations to step up their response to the outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus, saying more money, equipment and personnel are needed now.

        

In an impassioned appeal, Kerry said progress against the disease was being made, but far too slowly, and that the world is not where it needs to be in stemming Ebola's spread....

"We need people to step up now," he said. "Now is the time for action, not words. And frankly, there is not a moment to waste in this effort."

Speaking with British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond, Kerry added that it is essential for airlines to keep flying to West Africa and for borders to remain open to allow for the movement of assistance and medical staff.

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/08/john-kerry-ebola_n_5952798.html?utm_hp_ref=politics

Text of full remarks, with charts

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More Ebola screening to begin at five US airports

Associated Press                          October 8, 2014 updated 3:43 PM

By Licia A. Caldwell

WASHINGTON (AP) - The government will begin taking the temperatures of travelers from West Africa arriving at five U.S. airports as part of a stepped-up response to the Ebola epidemic.

President Barack Obama said the new efforts would provide yet another tier of protection at key U.S. points of entry.

However, the focus is still on stopping the epidemic in West Africa, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Thomas Frieden, said in Atlanta.

At the White House, spokesman Josh Earnest said the additional layer of screening would begin at New York's JFK International and the international airports in Newark, Washington Dulles, Chicago and Atlanta. He said the new steps would include taking temperatures and would begin Saturday at JFK.

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http://www.philly.com/philly/news/nation_world/20141008_ap_4142a3851ff8431eacb7c7a0515d6611.html

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How Many Ebola Patients Are Being Treated Outside of West Africa?

NEW YORK TIMES          Oct. 7, 2014

At least 14 Ebola cases have been treated outside of West Africa in the current outbreak. Most of these involve health and aid workers who contracted Ebola in West Africa and were transported back to their home country for treatment.

Two people were diagnosed outside of West Africa: one, a Liberian man who began showing symptoms four days after arriving in Dallas, and the other, a Spanish nurse who became ill after treating a missionary in a Madrid Hospital. These cases are compiled from reports by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the World Health Organization, Doctors Without Borders and other official agencies.

See chart and full article

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/07/31/world/africa/ebola-virus-outbreak-qa.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=HpSum&module=photo-spot-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

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The Fight Against Ebola Is a Fight Against Inequality

Commentary by Jim Young Kim, President of the World Bank Group 
                                                              Oct. 6, 2014

As the spread of the Ebola virus in West Africa shows, the importance of reducing inequality could not be more clear. The battle against the virus is a fight on many fronts -- human lives and health foremost among them.

But the fight against Ebola is also a fight against inequality. The knowledge and infrastructure to treat the sick and contain the virus exists in high- and middle-income counties. However, over many years, we have failed to make these things accessible to low-income people in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. So now thousands of people in these countries are dying because, in the lottery of birth, they were born in the wrong place.

See full article

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jim-yong-kim/the-fight-against-ebola-i_b_5938716.html

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Obama: U.S. Will Beef Up Airport Screenings for Ebola

UPDATED  With additional information  (Scroll below).

TIME

By Zeke J. Miller                              Oct. 6. 2014                5:24 PM

President Barack Obama said Monday that the U.S. is working on additional passenger screenings for airline passengers flying from Ebola-stricken West Africa, two weeks after a Liberian man infected with the disease entered the country.

Officials are “going to be working on protocols to do additional passenger screenings both at the source and here in the United States,” Obama said, addressing reporters following a briefing on his administration’s response to the epidemic in Africa and efforts to keep the disease from spreading to the U.S. “All of these things make me confident that here in the United States at least the chances of an outbreak, of an epidemic here are extraordinarily low.”

The president did not give specifics on the new screening measures, and Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) declined to elaborate further in an interview with CNN after the meeting.

 

 

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As Ebola patient in Texas fights for his life, his family copes with stigma and isolation

EBOLA VICTIM IN DALLAS IS IN CRITICAL CONDITION WHILE FAMILY MEMBERS SUFFER FROM STIGMA AND ISOLATION

WASHINGTON POST

By DeNeen L. Brown, Abby Phillip and Sean Sullivan October 5 at 8:05 PM

DALLAS — As a Liberian man diagnosed with Ebola was fighting to survive Sunday in a Texas hospital, his worried family members and others who were in contact with him said they are being ostracized by the local Liberian community, which is struggling to cope with fear, isolation and the stigma associated with the deadly disease.

A cleanup crew on Sunday sanitizes the apartment where Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan was staying before being admitted to a hospital in Dallas. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

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