hstoday.us - by Anthony Kimery - September 9, 2014

An audit by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Inspector General (IG) of the department’s pandemic preparedness efforts to determine if DHS effectively manages its pandemic preparedness supply of personal protective equipment and antiviral medical countermeasures found that, “DHS did not adequately conduct a needs assessment prior to purchasing pandemic preparedness supplies and then did not effectively manage its stockpile of pandemic personal protective equipment and antiviral medical countermeasures.”

“Specifically,” the IG reported, DHS “did not have clear and documented methodologies to determine the types and quantities of personal protective equipment and antiviral medical countermeasures it purchased for workforce protection.”

submitted by Mike Kraft

Phoenix Air, which has equipped two Gulfstream III planes to accommodate Ebola patients, has so far transported 5 such patients.  Photo - Phoenix Air Group

cidrap.umn.edu - by Robert Roos - September 16, 2014

With West Africa's burgeoning Ebola epidemic expected to last at least 6 to 9 more months, the demand for evacuations of visiting medical workers who get infected seems likely to grow. That demand might well collide with a shortage of aircraft that are equipped to safely transport Ebola patients.

The four Ebola patients who have been evacuated from West Africa to the United States have all been flown by Phoenix Air of Carterville, Ga., which has two Gulfstream III business jets that are specially equipped to carry such patients at minimal risk to others on the plane.

Other aircraft that are properly equipped to transport Ebola patients are very scarce, according to US mission organizations that have arranged evacuations for a few of their workers in West Africa.

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http://foreignaffairs.house.gov/hearing/subcommittee-hearing-global-efforts-fight-ebola

House Committee on Foreign Affairs - Subcommittee Hearing: Global Efforts to Fight Ebola

2172 Rayburn House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 | Sep 17, 2014 10:00am to 1:00pm

Chairman Smith on the hearing: “This latest outbreak of the Ebola virus has far outpaced all previous outbreaks.  Because of various challenges heretofore unseen, such as urban infections, cross-border transmissions and increasing infections and deaths of health care workers, the current outbreak is expanding exponentially.  This hearing will examine the problems faced by the global coalition to fight Ebola. We will hear directly from the National Institutes of Health, the FDA and an American doctor who contracted and survived Ebola, and other witnesses.”

Witnesses

Panel I

submitted by Mike Kraft

homelandsecuritynewswire.com - September 17, 2014

A mathematical model that replicates Ebola outbreaks can no longer be used to ascertain the eventual scale of the current epidemic, researchers find. When applying the available data from the ongoing 2014 outbreak to the model, it is “out of all proportion and on an unprecedented scale when compared to previous outbreaks,” says the model developer.

A mathematical model that replicates Ebola outbreaks can no longer be used to ascertain the eventual scale of the current epidemic, finds research conducted by the University of Warwick.

Dr. Thomas House, of the University’s Warwick Mathematics Institute, developed a model that incorporated data from past outbreaks that successfully replicated their eventual scale.

submitted by Mike Kraft

washingtonexaminer.com - by Paul Bedard
September 15, 2014

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, warning hospitals and doctors that “now is the time to prepare,” has issued a six-page Ebola “checklist” to help healthcare workers quickly determine if patients are infected.

While the CDC does not believe that there are new cases of Ebola in the United States, the assumption in the checklist is that it is only a matter of time before the virus hits home.

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CLICK HERE - CDC - Information for Healthcare Workers

CLICK HERE - Detailed Hospital Checklist for Ebola Preparedness (6 page .PDF file)

whitehouse.gov - September 16, 2014

As the President has stated, the Ebola epidemic in West Africa and the humanitarian crisis there is a top national security priority for the United States.  In order to contain and combat it, we are partnering with the United Nations and other international partners to help the Governments of Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, and Senegal respond just as we fortify our defenses at home. Every outbreak of Ebola over the past 40 years has been contained, and we are confident that this one can—and will be—as well.

Our strategy is predicated on four key goals:

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http://www.help.senate.gov/hearings/hearing/?id=9522d319-5056-a032-5290-5a537121c053&autoplay=true&utm_source=September+17+2014+EN&utm_campaign=9%2F17%2F2014&utm_medium=email

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http://www.c-span.org/video/?321494-1/awaiting-hearing-ebola-threat-west-africa&live

Federal health officials and health workers testified at a joint hearing of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee and Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on the Ebola outbreak in West Africa and the possible risk to the U.S.

un.org

15 September 2014 – The United Nations Security Council will hold an emergency meeting on Thursday to discuss the Ebola outbreak that has gripped West Africa, the president of the 15-member body announced today.

The outbreak, affecting Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone, is unprecedented in scope – with more than 4,000 cases having been reported across the region and over 2,200 deaths. It has also dealt a major blow to the already fragile health care systems in West Africa.

“The trend lines in this crisis are grave and without immediate international action we are facing the potential for a public health crisis that could claim lives on a scale far greater than current estimates and set the countries of West Africa back a generation,” Ambassador Samantha Power of the United States, which holds the Council’s presidency for September, told reporters at UN Headquarters.

The meeting – requested by the US owing to the “increasingly grim situation,” particularly in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea – is expected to hear from Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, as well as senior UN officials dealing with the Ebola crisis.

REUTERS/KEVIN LAMARQUE

Reporting by Rodrigo Campos in New York; Editing by Eric Walsh

Respiratory Virus Enterovirus D68 Spreads to the Northeast (ABC News)

ABC News - by Geetika Rudra - September 14, 2014

Enterovirus D68, the respiratory illness suspected of hospitalizing hundreds of children across the nation, has now spread to the Northeast and is likely to hit the whole country. . .

. . . As of Saturday, enterovirus D68 had spread to 21 states across the Midwest and East Coast, with confirmed cases spanning from New Mexico to Montana to Delaware.

The virus is likely to spread across the country, ABC News' Dr. Richard Besser said Sunday morning.

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Image:  It is the sad legacy of our response to 9/11 that bin Ladenism has spread far beyond Osama bin Laden’s wildest dreams. Illustration: Steve Haske for Guardian US Opinion

theguardian.com - September 11th, 2014 - Ali Soufan

In the years leading up to the attacks of 11 September 2001, the west saw al-Qaida rising but didn’t address the threat in time. My colleagues and I in the FBI and over at the CIA had been focused on al-Qaida since the mid-1990s. The true threat, however, came from the ideology, not the group.

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huffingtonpost.com - August 29th, 2014 - Yasmine Hafiz

The World Council of Churches, which represents over 500 million Christians in more than 110 countries, has decided to divest from fossil fuels, reports The Guardian.

The WCC Central Committee, which includes religious leaders from around the world, voted to include fossil fuel companies in the sectors that WCC will not invest in on ethical grounds, according to a statement from 350.org, an international enviromental campaign.

A report from the WCC's finance policy committee simply states, "The committee discussed the ethical investment criteria, and considered that the list of sectors in which the WCC does not invest should be extended to include fossil fuels."

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Image: A woman in Monrovia, Liberia, passed a man believed to be infected with Ebola. Researchers say it could take 12 to 18 months to bring the epidemic under control. Credit Abbas Dulleh/Associated Press

nytimes.com - September 12th, 2014 - Denise Grady

The deadly Ebola outbreak sweeping across three countries in West Africa is likely to last 12 to 18 months more, much longer than anticipated, and could infect hundreds of thousands of people before it is brought under control, say scientists mapping its spread for the federal government.

“We hope we’re wrong,” said Bryan Lewis, an epidemiologist at the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute at Virginia Tech.

The Obama administration’s decision to enlist the Defense Department in responding to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa is raising concerns that the task is pulling the already-stretched military away from other missions, including vital counter-terrorism operations.

According to a senior military official, General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, said at a recent meeting: "The Department of Defense's number one priority is combating Ebola."

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/09/14/it-doesnt-make-sense-concerns-over-tasking-dod-with-ebola-mission-amid/