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Concern grows as Ebola spreads

By Brian E. Muhammad -Contributing Writer- | Last updated: Oct 23, 2014 - 9:02:43 AM

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In this photo released via Twitter by the City of Dallas Public Information Managing Director Sana Syed, members of Dallas Fire- Rescue haz-mat Unit prepare to decontaminate common areas near the The Village Bend East apartment of a second health care worker who has tested positive for Ebola, Oct. 15, in Dallas. The worker at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital was monitoring herself for symptoms, Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins said. The unidentifi ed woman reported a fever Oct. 14. She was in isolation within 90 minutes, Judge Jenkins said. Photo: AP/Wide World photos

(FinalCall.com) - The Ebola virus that some maintain is a man-made product established in biological warfare research is still overwhelming Liberia, Guinea, Sierra Leone and now has spread to Europe and America.

Experts are calling Ebola the worst outbreak of disease in recent times. At Final Call press time, according to the World Health Organization, over 4,500 people have perished including Thomas Eric Duncan, the Liberian national and first person diagnosed with Ebola in the United States.   At least two hospital nurses who treated him have now contracted the virus.

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In the early hours of Oct. 12, Dallas city officials and Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital spokespersons greeted America in a press conference with the news that Nina Pham, 26, a nurse who treated Mr. Duncan was diagnosed with Ebola, causing the facility to be locked down with Hazmat professionals decontaminating the property and emergency patients diverted to other area hospitals. Ms. Pham is being treated in a Special Clinical Studies Unit at the National Institute of Health in Bethesda, Maryland.

Meanwhile another nurse, Amber Vinson, 29 is fighting the virus at Emory Hospital in the CDC Atlanta headquarters. Public alarm intensified after she flew round trip on Frontier Air from Dallas to Cleveland OH. According to reports Ms. Vinson had no symptoms until after her return. But controversy loomed around the question of travel clearance for anyone who had contact with Mr. Duncan—especially healthcare providers— vulnerable because of sustained contact.

When Mr. Duncan’s diagnosis became known it set off anxiety nationwide by a public who previously only watched the fatal effects of the virus thousands of miles away from its epicenter in West Africa. Mr. Duncan died, Oct. 8. With thousands dead and thousands more carrying the virus, worry and panic is surging in America.

 “It’s turning into chaos; if your intelligence is based on lies than that’s what you have,” said Dr. Leonard G. Horowitz, globally known advocate for public health and author of the book, “Emerging Viruses: AIDS & Ebola—Natural, Accident or Intentional?”

“The fundamental lie is that it’s all a commercial manipulation and intoxication for depopulation,” Dr. Horowitz told The Final Call.

The diagnosis of the nurses and Mr. Duncan’s death increased fear levels about the actual threat and if the U.S. is adequately equipped to mitigate an Ebola outbreak. 

 “Absolutely not,” said Dr. Abdul Alim Muhammad, Minister of Health and Human Services for the Nation of Islam during an interview on Global Peeks, a Blogtalk Radio show.

“Since the Nixon administration going back to the 70s there has been a wholesale dismantling of the public health sector in the United States.”

He said budget cuts systematically eliminated the means and methods that a full scale epidemic could be contained.

Trained personnel; highly specialized equipment, isolation units, and intensive care beds required to handle a large epidemic, “simply do not exist,” said Dr. Muhammad.  Major medical centers can manage 2 to 4 cases, but 40 cases they are overwhelmed; 100 cases—no chance; 1,000 to 10,000 cases, it’s everyone for themselves, he said. 

It’s the right social and environmental context for mass chaos and disease. “If you have healthcare professionals as the highest risk group who are supposed to care for the people that are affected; now you have major problems,” said Dr. Horowitz. He said these conditions; especially in heavily populated urban areas can lead to 60 percent of the people decimated.

Figures from the World Health Organization reveals more than 240 health care workers have caught the disease in Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone, and more than 120 have died.

“This is the reality when you don’t tell the truth about the fact that you have military biological weapons contractors creating these plagues,” he argued. Dr. Horowitz said the current pandemic is intentional to serve global commercial interests.

Dr. Horowitz has presented research over the last twenty years that pointed to viruses like Ebola and HIV being man-made biological-weapons and he said there is sufficient evidence that the current outbreak and spread was planned for a long time.

The CDC has been the authoritative narrator in the fight against the deadly virus and the main voice for information and guidance. But Dr. Horowitz charges the CDC with being less than trustworthy and concealing information and contradicting earlier research showing the ability of transmitting Ebola airborne; a claim the CDC rejects. He also categorically criticized the CDC for shifting blame toward healthcare providers, the vanguard fighting the disease.  CDC director Tom Frieden caught the ire of healthcare professionals after he asserted possible professional neglect by Ms. Pham in contracting the disease.

“We don’t know what occurred in the care of the index patient (Duncan) in Dallas but at some point there was a breach in protocol and that breach in protocol resulted in this infection,” Mr. Frieden said. Clarifying himself, he later called Ms. Pham a “brave person who put herself at risk to do something good for society, and is now ill.”

Dr. Daniel Varga of Texas Health Resources, which owns Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, disclosed during the October 12 press conference that Ms. Pham wore required protective gloves, facial mask and full body gear while treating Mr. Duncan.

 However in a statement provided by National Nurses United, the largest U.S. organization of nurses, unnamed whistleblowers at Texas Health Presbyterian said supplies were inadequate and there weren’t clear protocols. 

The organization advocates all hospitals implement the “highest standard of optimal protections,” including Hazmat suits, and hands-on training to protect Nurses and other hospital personnel.

“There is no standard short of optimal in protective equipment and hands-on-training that is acceptable,” said RoseAnn DeMoro, executive director of the organization at an October 12 rally in Oakland, California.

In a formal letter to President Barack Obama following an October 15 conference call with 11,500 RNs, Ms. DeMoro wrote, “We know that without these mandates to health care facilities we are putting registered nurses, physicians and other healthcare workers at extreme risk.  They are our first line of defense. We would not send soldiers to the battlefield without armor and weapons.”

With the pandemic primarily in Africa, anxiety remains high that Ebola afflicted people will come to America from affected countries. Experts say prevention is easier said than done because of the 21 day period when symptoms don’t emerge upon infection.  In a joint statement, The CDC and Department of Homeland Security’s Customs and Border Protection announced new layers of entry screening at five U.S. airports that receive 95 percent of travelers from the Ebola-affected nations of Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone.

Enhanced screening procedures began at Washington-Dulles, Newark, Chicago-O’Hare, Hartsfield-Jackson-Atlanta, and New York’s JFK International Airports. Over 12 months ending in July 2014, JFK received nearly half the travelers from the three West African nations according to the agencies.

The measures add to current screening of outbound passengers in the affected countries. The CDC reported since August when outbound screening began, out of 36,000 people screened, 77 people were denied boarding a flight and none diagnosed with Ebola. The outbound screening at airports is the chief means of keeping travelers from spreading Ebola internationally.

As Washington debates fumes concerning travel restrictions, some Caribbean and South American nations opt for imposed travel limits. Jamaica issued an immediate ban against persons travelling directly or indirectly from or through Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Mexico and Belize flatly denied U.S. requests to allow the Texas based Carnival Magic cruise liner to dock and disembark a lab technician to board a private plane back to Texas. The technician may have handled clinical specimens taken from Thomas Eric Duncan and was one of nearly 100 people self monitoring for symptoms.

“We believe these new measures will further protect the health of Americans, understanding that nothing we can do will get us to absolute zero risk until we end the Ebola epidemic in West Africa,” said Mr. Frieden

If Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital is an indicator of the infrastructure of the American healthcare system, despite CDC assurances, distrust and fear is growing.

“Just as Ebola is overwhelming the healthcare systems in Africa, Ebola will easily overwhelm the healthcare system in any country—there’s nobody that’s equipped to handle this,” said Dr. Abdul Alim Muhammad.