Disaster Risk Reduction

HUFFINGTON  POST                     Oct.12, 2014      11:08 AM
By Ariel Edwards-Levy

The Texas health care worker who contracted Ebola after providing care for an infected patient likely breached safety protocols, health officials said Sunday.

"Certainly there has to have been an inadvertent, innocent breach of the protocol of taking care of the patient within the personal protective equipment -- that extremely rarely happens," Dr. Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told Martha Raddatz on ABC's "This Week" Sunday. "We've been taking care of Ebola patients since 1976. Groups like Doctors Without Borders who do that almost never have an infection, because of the experience of doing this."

USA TODAY                                   Oct. 12, 2014

by Larry Copeland

ATLANTA — As Thomas Eric Duncan's family mourns the USA's first Ebola death in Dallas, one question reverberates over a series of apparent missteps in the case: Who is in charge of the response to Ebola?

The answer seems to be — there really isn't one person or agency. There is not a single national response.

The Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has emerged as the standard-bearer — and sometimes the scapegoat — on Ebola.

Public health is the purview of the states, and as the nation anticipates more Ebola cases, some experts say the way the United States handles public health is not up to the challenge.

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http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/10/12/examining-the-nations-ebola-response/17059283/

CDC workers analyze Ebola details in the CDC's Emergency Operations Center in Atlanta.(Photo: David Tulis for USA TODAY)

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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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