Month: August 2014

India's airports went on alert and the government opened an emergency helpline Saturday as part of measures to tackle any outbreak of the deadly Ebola epidemic in the country of 1.25 billion people. India has nearly 45,000 nationals living in the four Ebola-affected West African nations and health officials said there was a possibility of some of them returning to their home country if the outbreak worsens. India's Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said in a statement the country has "put in operation the most advanced surveillance and tracking systems" for the hemorrhagic virus. "There is no need to panic," Vardhan said, calling risk of Ebola cases in India "low".

PHOENIX (AP) — Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert McDonald visited a VA hospital Friday for the first time since taking over the embattled agency last month, meeting with veterans and health care providers and vowing to restore trust in the organization.

TORONTO (Reuters) – A Toronto-area hospital is treating a patient with fever and flu-like symptoms who recently visited Nigeria, where a state of emergency has been declared over the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. CBC News said on Friday that the patient has been isolated at the Brampton, Ontario hospital, as a precautionary measure. The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday that West Africa’s Ebola epidemic constituted an international health emergency and the virus, which has killed nearly 1,000 people, could continue spreading for months.

(Reuters) – ArcelorMittal SA, the world’s largest steelmaker, said contractors at its iron ore mine in Liberia have declared force majeure due to the Ebola outbreak in the West African country. The company said contractors, working on an expansion project at its Yekepa and Buchanan operations, were evacuating workers out of the country. ArcelorMittal said it was assessing the impact on the project’s schedule.

ABUJA (Reuters) – Nigeria’s state oil company NNPC said on Friday it had shut down its own clinic in Lagos’ commercial district of Victoria Island, after a suspected Ebola case was admitted there. The patient who arrived there sick had previously visited the First Consultant Medical Centre, also now shut, where the country’s first case of Ebola was recorded. “In the meantime, all contacts with this case are being traced and adequate precautionary measures instituted to contain the possible spread of the disease,” NNPC spokesman Ohi Alegbe said in an emailed statement. …

Contractors at ArcelorMittal SA's iron ore mine in Liberia are evacuating the country and other miners are sending staff home to prevent the spread of the deadly Ebola virus. Mining companies in West Africa are acting swiftly to keep Ebola at bay, screening employees and restricting access to remote mining camps while keeping production of iron ore and gold ticking. A prolonged outbreak, however, will threaten mineral production in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea if essential supplies are disrupted and employees stay away from work too long.

By Kate Kelland and Felix Onuah LONDON/LAGOS (Reuters) – The world's worst outbreak of Ebola that has killed nearly 1,000 people in West Africa represents an international health emergency and could continue spreading for months, the World Health Organization said on Friday. Nigeria became the third African nation, after Sierra Leone and Liberia, to declare a national emergency on Friday as the region's healthcare systems struggle to cope with the advance of one of the deadliest diseases known to man. "The outbreak is moving faster than we can control it," WHO Director-General Margaret Chan told reporters on a telephone briefing from her Geneva headquarters. The U.N. agency said all states where Ebola had passed from one person to another should declare a national emergency.

SAO PAULO (AP) — The devastating news didn't make sense to Brazilian Pierre Freitaz. How was it possible that, at age 17, he was infected with HIV if his only boyfriend seemed fit and healthy?

Replacing gluten-containing processed foods with foods such as beans, … The reality is that you can lose weight on just about any diet that requires …

Nigeria became the latest country to declare a national emergency over the deadly Ebola virus on Friday, as the World Health Organisation called the epidemic that has claimed nearly 1,000 lives a global health crisis. Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan ordered the immediate release of 1.9 billion naira ($11.7 million, 8.7 million euros) to fund the fight against the disease as Africa’s most populous nation confirmed two more Ebola cases, bringing the total number of infections to nine — including two deaths. It stopped short of calling for global travel restrictions, urging airlines to take strict precautions but to continue flying to the west African countries hit by the outbreak. WHO director-general Margaret Chan appealed for greater help for those worst hit by the “largest, most severe and most complex outbreak in the nearly four-decade history of this disease”.

Luckily, the two Americans who received ZMapp, the new experimental drug for Ebola, seem to be improving, which holds great promise and hope for thousands of other people but also raises broader ethical issues and questions.The virus was first discovered by scientists in 1976, and several outbreaks of Ebola in the developing world killed 1,000…

Dr. Kent Brantly Wrote an Updae From His Isolation Room