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US Health Care Unprepared for Ebola

      

The U.S. health care apparatus is so unprepared and short on resources to deal with the deadly Ebola virus that even small clusters of cases could overwhelm parts of the system, according to an Associated Press review of readiness at hospitals and other components of the emergency medical network.

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Exclusive: New test for diagnosing Ebola goes unused

WABC NEWS                                          Oct. 28 2014
By Jim Hoffer

NEW YORK

Report says that when a 5-year-old boy who came back from Guinea was admitted to New York's Bellevue hospital  recently,  city officials stopped the use of a a one-hour testing device although it had received the FDA's emergency approval.

As a result, it took 10 hours from the time he spiked a fever till his parents, medical staff, and the public found out, he did NOT have Ebola.

Read complete article.

http://7online.com/health/new-test-for-diagnosing-ebola-goes-unused/369875/

Direct link - BioFire Defense
http://biofiredefense.com/

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Obama Defends C.D.C.’s Ebola Rules as ‘Sensible, Based in Science’

WHITE HOUSE SUPPORTS CDC GUIDELINES FOR CIVILIANS, EXPLAINS DIFFERENT TREATMENT FOR U.S. TROOPS

NEW YORK TIMES                                                              Oct. 28, 2014
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WASHINGTON — President Obama on Tuesday said that new Ebola guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were “sensible, based in science” and would help keep Americans safe while not discouraging volunteers from traveling to West Africa to battle the disease at its source....

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Seeking Unity, U.S. Revises Ebola Monitoring Rules

UPDATE WITH DETAILS OF MARYLAND AND VIRGINIA MONITORING  (Scroll down)

ROUNDUP OF DEVELOPMENTS IN THE QUARANTINE  DISPUTE
NEW YORK TIMES                        Oct. 28, 2014

By , and

The federal government on Monday tried to take charge of an increasingly acrimonious national debate over how to treat people in contact with Ebola patients by announcing guidelines that stopped short of tough measures in New York and New Jersey and were carefully devised, officials said, not to harm the effort to recruit badly needed medical workers to West Africa.

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Quarantine debate turning into a chaotic brawl

THE WASHINGTON POST                    0ct, 27, 2014
By Joel Achenbach, Brady Dennis and Lena H. Sun

The Ebola quarantine controversy has become a chaotic brawl involving politics, science and the law. The rules on quarantining health-care workers returning from West Africa are changing almost daily and varying according to geography and political climate.

The Pentagon announced Monday that Army personnel returning to their home base in Italy from Liberia will be held in quarantine for 21 days — even though none have symptoms of Ebola or were exposed to patients infected with the virus.

The military’s policy does not appear to track new guidelines announced Monday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which called for “high-risk” individuals and health-care workers without any symptoms to be directly monitored by state and local health authorities.

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Insurance companies now write Ebola exclusions into policies; offer Ebola-related products

HOMELAND SECURITY NEWS WIRE                Oct. 27, 2014

U.S. and British insurance companies have begun to write Ebola exclusions into their policies for hospitals, event organizers, airliners, and other businesses vulnerable to disruption from the disease.

As a result, new policies and renewals will become more expensive for firms looking to insure business travel to West Africa or to cover the risk of losses from Ebola-driven business interruptions (BI).The cost of insuring an event against Ebola, for example, would likely be triple the amount of normal cancellation insurance — if the venue was in a region not known to be affected by the virus.

Read complete article

http://www.homelandsecuritynewswire.com/dr20141027-insurance-companies-now-write-ebola-exclusions-into-policies-offer-ebolarelated-products

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White House Presses States to Reconsider Mandatory Ebola Quarantine Orders

UPDATE:    Under Pressure, Cuomo Loosens Policy for Ebola Quarantines in New York

NEW YORK TIMES                                                             Oct. 26, 2014

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MSF Nurse Held in Isolation in New Jersey

doctorswithoutborders.org - October 25, 2014

NEW YORK – Kaci Hickox, a Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) nurse who returned to the United States from Sierra Leone on October 24, 2014, is being held in a medical isolation facility at Newark University Hospital in Newark, New Jersey.  

Preliminary blood tests reveal that she does not have the Ebola virus.

Upon arrival at Newark Liberty International Airport at approximately 1:00 PM yesterday, Ms. Hickox was taken aside for screening. Her temperature was measured and was shown to be normal. She was nonetheless held at the airport. After three hours her temperature was again taken with a forehead temperature reader. The device revealed a slight elevation in temperature. After being left alone in a room for an additional three hours, she was transported by police escort to Newark University Hospital by medical personnel in full protective gear.

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New Ebola Quarantine Protocol Seen as Barrier to Volunteers

NEW YORK TIMES               Oct. 25, 2014
by David W. Shin and Liz Robbins

The surprise decision by the governors of New York and New Jersey yesterday to impose a mandatory quarantine on persons who arrived at area airports and had contact with Ebola infected persons has touched off concern that it will deter people from volunteering to work in West Africa.

"Among medical professionals who have been fighting Ebola in West Africa, the restrictions only intensified the debate. While a few of those interviewed said an overabundance of caution was welcome, the vast majority said that restrictions like those adopted by New York and New Jersey could cripple volunteers’ efforts at the front lines of the epidemic."

" Dr. Rick Sacra, who contracted Ebola in Liberia and was flown back to the United States to be treated in September, said...many doctors and nurses who volunteered would spend about three weeks in Africa and then return to their regular jobs. The requirement that they be quarantined at home upon their return “will effectively double the burden on those people, on the loss of productive time,” Dr. Sacra said.

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Extra caution amid Ebola screening at NYC airport

USA  TODAY                    Oct. 12, 2014

Melanie Eversley and Marisol Bello,

NEW YORK — As federal officials at New York's Kennedy International Airport stepped up efforts to stop the spread of the deadly Ebola virus with extensive screening of passengers arriving from countries hit hardest by the outbreak, passengers and employees were taking their own precautions.

Maria Uruchimadecriollo cleans a bathroom JFK Terminal 4 international arrivals in Jamaica, NY. Uruchimadecriollo is wearing a mask that her husband bought for her yesterday, with the hope that it would keep her safe from the Ebola virus. This is the first day that the airport will begin screening passengers for Ebola coming in from the affected areas in Africa.(Photo: Jennifer S. Altman, for USA TODAY)

Agents with the Department of Homeland Security's Customs and Border Protection screened travelers from Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, taking their temperature and observing them for other Ebola symptoms.

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