Ebola crisis: Protesters attack Liberia quarantine centre

[EX500rider]

Source: BBC

A quarantine centre for suspected Ebola patients in the Liberian capital Monrovia has been attacked and looted by protesters, police say.

The incident happened in the densely populated West Point township on Saturday evening.

At least 20 patients who were being monitored for signs of the illness have left the centre.

Officials said blood-stained bedding looted from the centre posed a serious infection risk.

Read more: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-28827091

---

Wow, last place in the world I would want to attack or even be near!!!


A senior police officer said blood-stained mattresses, beddings and medical equipment were taken from the centre.

"This is one of the stupidest things I have ever seen in my life", he said.
Yikes!

[TwilightGardener]

1. That does take a special kind of stupid.

"Hey, free mattress!"

[In_The_Wind]

5. Those were my thoughts also.

... minus the "free mattress!"

[another_liberal]

2. They were most likely looking for our supposed "miracle cure vaccine". . .

Word on the street is that we are keeping it for ourselves and just letting Africans die.

It is a sad and very dangerous fabrication, but can you really blame them for suspecting Westerners of something underhanded?

[cosmicone]

7. That is exactly the word on the street in all of Africa

I just came back from four countries in Africa and when the MAbs magically appeared to treat the two Americans and a Spanish priest, that is exactly what I felt as well.

The word on the street in Africa is that US is stockpiling the ebola virus as a biological weapon and also stockpiling the treatment for American personnel. The more insane rumor is that the current outbreak was the CIA testing its bio-weapon stockpile.

[jakeXT]

13. Just a joke...

Dr. Charles Arntzen, head of The Biodesign Institute for Infectious Diseases and Vaccinology, responded to a question pertaining to whether feeding the 8 billion people of the world was worth it, or whether population reduction should be pursued. The scientist quipped: “Has anybody seen ‘Contagion’? That’s the answer! Go out and use genetic engineering to create a better virus… 25 percent of the population is supposed to go in Contagion.”

Charles Arntzen is the Regents' Professor and Florence Ely Nelson Presidential Chair of the Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University. Dr. Arntzen is known as a pioneer in the development of edible plant-based vaccines, and he has also been a key collaborator on what appears to be a promising new Ebola drug.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-08-07/did-creator-experimental-ebola-drug-joke-about-culling-25-worlds-population

[Igel]

8. Many like believing lies.

It gives their life purpose. They're wiser, smarter, and more "in the know" than others.

No matter. If there's a serious outbreak in that neighborhood, described as a "slum" by the BBC, the entire event will be re-imagined. It will then be an intentional act, putting the center there with Ebola-infected people in "quarantine," and the attack will have been staged for the purpose of destroying the African slum.


CTs are easy when one has limited information and an unlimited well of ill-well to justify one's squalid life. D students gone wild. Bleah.


That said I hope there's no outbreak. It's the last thing the families there need, or the country. Having committed one act of stupidity, there's nothing to keep them from committing more and fleeing when they see the outbreak in progress.

[PumpkinAle]

10. No I don't blame them and it is not surprising when we evacuate

three westerners to provide greater care and say nothing about what is happening and why we are doing this --- supposedly so we can gain greater understanding (bull shit meter off the scale)

It is cruel to do this to people who have very little but the understanding that the westerners always seem to have the best of things.

And we can't apply our western sensibilities to what happened - no way would we go near a place like that, but we don't know what has been said and how desperate these people are to raid and steal blood soaked items.

I guess until Ebola really hits the western world, the western world will continue to not do the right thing in Africa - the right thing includes education and getting people to where they can trust westernized medicine - we have treated the poor in Africa (and other poor countries) very badly"

Public announcements of drug donations to poor countries are often welcome, but sometimes the details reveal murkier intentions; some of the drugs are close to, or even past, their expiry date (and are expensive to dispose, adding more costs to recipient countries) for example.

Poorer countries encourage their drug companies to make cheaper generic alternatives to expensive branded ones or use other tools available at their disposal to help bring the price of medicines down to more affordable levels. But they face immense pressure from international institutions and multinational pharmaceutical corporations, even when generics and other options pursued are legitimate under international rules. For these multinationals, they’ve poured billions into some of these drugs and therefore want a patent system that will protect their investments for as long as possible.

For the developing and poorer countries, as remote as these issues may seem, patents and intellectual property rights issues can mean life or death. (For example, at the end of the 1990s, the pharmaceutical industry lobbied the US government to threaten sanctions on South Africa for trying to produce generic drugs to fight its growing AIDS problem. It took huge public outcry to get the case dropped some 2 years later.)
http://www.globalissues.org/article/52/pharmaceutical-corporations-and-medical-research

[LisaL]

11. They are not going to find mircale cure vaccine in a blood stained mattress.

What they will find is ebola virus which will likely kill them.

[NickB79]

14. The article states these looters denied Ebola is even real there

They were telling the patients they only had malaria and forcing them to leave the clinic, while stealing anything that wasn't nailed down.

They weren't after a miracle cure; they were more akin to AIDS deniers than anything else.

[another_liberal]

18. So the article says . . .

And that is, no doubt, what motivated many.

[riversedge]

3. This is scary--"The incident happened in the densely populated West Point township

on Saturday evening."



More opportunity for exposure.

[ripcord]

4. Many there are convinced there is no ebola

They think people from the west are causing the sickness.

[seveneyes]

9. Reality is elusive for some and tragic for others

Superstition and faith have little place in science.

[Iliyah]

6. For the love of. . .

What a dumb thing to do and now the Ebola virus can spread even more so. Damn, ignorant f**ks.

[locks]

12. There are many kinds of stupid

After 14 years of a terrible civil war Liberia built a health system with the help of WHO and USAID of 5,000 health care workers, 50 doctors and 1 psychiatrist for 4 million people, 40% of whom had symptoms of depressive disorders and many severe diseases such as malaria, typhoid, HIV. 45% of the children suffer from malnutrition. There is little sanitation or safe water. Since the ebola outbreak the health care system has collapsed, hospitals have closed, people can no longer work or go to school. Worst of all, better-off countries in Africa like Kenya have suspended air travel so that Liberians cannot go anywhere for care and relief help is not getting in. Most of the international groups are bringing home their workers and students.

Last month in one hospital in a dense rainforest area with scattered remote villages 30,000 people were left with no care at all after 5 nurses and 1 doctor became infected with the virus and the staff left enmasse. Even if they get to a clinic where Doctors Without Borders or some other NGOs are still there the workers do not have the proper equipment, meds, or physical quarantine ability to stabilize the patient. They are left to die alone; often the bodies are left on the streets in the villages and even if victims are cured they are shunned due to fear and misinformation.

"There are religious practices, beliefs and long-held traditional values that are being challenged by the procedures to cure or at least prevent the spread of the disease. The crisis has shown how a disease can ravage a country's economic and morph into a national security threat." And international.

In the last 11 years of US wars we have spent trillions to kill; how much have we spent on world health?
One F-35 Lightning costs about 400 million; we are building 32 of them; wonder how many lives they will save. Used to say: "There but for the grace of...." Maybe we should be thinking "What goes around comes around" and singing "It's a small world after all."

[tjl148]

15. k/r

+1

[EX500rider]

19. "One F-35 Lightning costs about 400 million; we are building 32 of them"

No, one A model cost about $125 million and we are building over 2,000 of them and already have over 100.

Unit cost:
F-35A: US$124.8 million (2013)
F-35B: US$156.8M (2013)
F-35C: US$142.6M (2013)

The F-35 took its first flight on 15 December 2006. The United States plans to buy 2,443 aircraft.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning_II

[locks]

21. Ah, yes, I'm sure you're right, I get all those incredible warplanes we're paying for mixed up

I was thinking of the F-22 Raptor. After spending 67.3 BILLION on just 188 planes the DOD shut down production. Luckily, the early cancellation led directly to a new advanced warplane, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, that Lockheed Martin also produces. Today the nearly 400 BILLION system is headed in the same direction as the F-22, falling behind schedule, encountering serious software problems and suffering sharp cost growth.

I have an idea that might save Lockheed Martin. Just build a lot of planes that will fly over Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea and Nigeria and drop food, water, medical supplies like suits, gloves, and goggles, equipment for quarantine, and helicopters to drop off doctors and health care workers. The pilots who learned to fly all those fancy planes would feel good and not even have to get out of the planes.

If they prevent the spread of ebola we can use them to fight wildfires, or take relief to victims of the last hurricane, earthquake, mudslide or war.

[Demeter]

16. Compounding the tragedy

the US does NOT have clean hands, here. There is good reason to suspect our motives...the US has done terrible things all over the world, and still does, and that's okay with this Administration, apparently.

[deutsey]

17. That's wonderful

Just fucking wonderful.

[840high]

20. Ignorant fools - good way to spread Ebola.