Ebola outbreak: How Nigeria is beating the killer virus

[LynneSin]

Ebola outbreak: How Nigeria is beating the killer virus

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-29654002

A nightmare scenario of Ebola raging unchecked among millions of slum-dwellers in Africa's largest city has given way to a rare example of a victory over the virus.

Amid the gloom surrounding the escalating crisis in West Africa, developments in Lagos show how the right techniques at the right speed can bring about a welcome result.

With a population of more than 170 million, Nigeria is Africa's most populous nation and there were fears that Ebola would take hold when a Liberian-American arrived with the disease in July.

Instead, along with much smaller Senegal, Nigeria is now on the brink of being clear of the virus for a 42-day period at which point the World Health Organization (WHO) can declare it Ebola-free.

<<<snip>>>

What followed was a text-book case of one of the guiding principles of disease control: identifying and tracking down everyone who might possibly have been in contact with the patient.

<<<more>>>

This is a great read about how to stop a deadly virus right in it's track. Can you imagine something like the Ebola virus left unchecked in a city like Lagos, Nigeria which isn't just the most populous city in Africa but the 7th largest city in the world. A city of 21 million people their healthcare system track down and monitored everyone who came even remotely close to that first person Patrick Sawyer, the person who brought Ebola into Nigeria. One advantage healthcare workers in Nigeria did have is that they were probably more in tune to the fact that there was a good chance someone was going to stumble into their hospital with Ebola since they were so close to the Nations with the outbreak. Doctors in Dallas and Madrid were probably not expecting this but it was a wake-up calls to ERs everywhere. But it can be contained - they did it in Nigeria and it looks like they will soon hit that day 42 (I think it's October 18th - after 42 days with no outbreak they can consider the outbreak finished).

[valerief]

1. I think Nigeria has a better healthcare program than the U.S. nt

[elias7]

9. If you did any research into.... Oh forget it. You're right. It's better.

Life expectancy: 52 years
Maternal mortality per 100,000 births: 840
Lifetime risk of death for pregnant women: 1 in 23
Water supply and sanitation among the lowest coverage in the world.

But they did just open their 2nd bone marrow donation center. Not sure we can compete with that.

[valerief]

10. You're right. It's dirtier.

[kestrel91316]

2. When it hit Lagos I almost had heart failure. I was SURE it would quickly become a huge problem in

Nigeria and surrounding nations.

I was pleasantly surprised at how well they did. Maybe they should send some public health and hospital people over here to show Texass how it's done.

[LynneSin]

5. Like I said - they were kinda expecting it in Nigeria.

http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/outbreaks/history/chronology.html

Looking at the history of all the Ebola outbreaks this is the first time it's gotten into Nigeria. But many of the countries where the outbreak has occurred are neighboring ones so there is always an expectation. Perhaps if these serious outbreaks were in North Dakota, South Dakota and Nebraska then that hospital in Dallas might have been more aware of the possibility that someone might walk in there with a case of Ebola.



There has been one outbreak of Ebola before in the United States in Reston Virginia but it was a strain that only killed crab-eating monkeys. Ebola can be very species specific.

[kestrel91316]

11. I know all about that very famous Reston incident.

Dodged a bullet with that.

[seveneyes]

3. Border control?

Maybe they have very porous border control and it all leaks out?

[LittleBlue]

4. Border closings

Africa stems Ebola via border closings, luck

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AF_EBOLA_AFRICA_CONTAINMENT?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-10-16-14-24-38

How embarrassing after our president claimed border closings are ineffective. Apparently common sense is more common in Africa than here.

[jwirr]

6. An article I read today said they are guarding thier borders more. But there is a difference between

them and us. The countries over there are surrounded by thousands of people who are infected and it is just a matter of walking over the border. It is a little harder for them to walk into our country. So far we have one case that came from another country.

[locks]

7. The CDC and other international agencies sent teams to Nigeria

immediately after the first ebola instance to help them coordinate the massive contact effort and tighten their screening at airports and seaports. They do have a far better health system infrastructure than Liberia, Sierra Leone, or Guinea partly due to the huge polio project built with Gates and US help. But Nigeria is a developing country, even with lots of oil money, and the US should be so far ahead of Nigeria in our ability to control and prevent epidemics.

It is not the CDC or the administration that are failing us; it is the corporate system, the owners of for-profit hospitals and health care
facilities, the huge pharmaceuticals, and our elected reps who are bought and paid for by corporations and who are unwilling to spend enough to do the research, education and training needed to give all our people the health care they deserve.

[Warren Stupidity]

8. according to some people here we should help Nigeria by quarantining them

and wrecking their economy.

[Fred Sanders]

12. Some people here refuse to admit they are not experts at everything, and are prone to being made

fearful far too easily.
If you fear something so much please be prepared to say exactly why and not just use your own ignorance to ask doomsday questions to which you could easily find out the answer for yourself if you were not more happy with feeling the fear first.....people do not need to flock to the movie theatre for their dose of pretend fear, they can just turn on the TV and pretend to be in fear for free.

Just have to sit through the ads.....