Health

The DRC outbreak, which began in August, involved a different strain of Ebola from the one that has claimed more than 5,100 lives in west Africa.

"The end of the epidemic... does not mean we are completely out of danger," said DRC Health Minister Felix Kabange Numbi. "Like every other nation, the DRC remains threatened by the possible import of the Ebola virus disease raging in west Africa."

The all-clear in the DR Congo came 42 days after the last recorded case of the virus, which has a 21-day incubation period.

The outbreak raging in west Africa stems from the Zaire species -- the deadliest of the five known distinct species -- which caused the world's first known Ebola outbreak in 1976 in what is now known as the DRC.

Until now that outbreak was the deadliest on record, with 280 deaths.

The disease takes its name from the DRC's Ebola River.

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Ngwa Bertrand

16.Nov.2014

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A surgeon who contracted Ebola while working in Sierra Leone was in extremely critical condition Sunday at a Nebraska hospital, his doctors said.

Dr. Martin Salia, who was diagnosed with Ebola on Monday, arrived in Omaha on Saturday to be treated at the Nebraska Medical Center's biocontainment unit that has successfully treated two other Ebola patients this fall.

Salia is "extremely ill," said Dr. Phil Smith, who is helping oversee Salia's treatment. The 44-year-old Salia might be more ill than the first Ebola patients successfully treated in the United States, according to the hospital.

"This is an hour-by-hour situation," Smith said Sunday, adding that a team of specialists is treating Salia's most serious issues. "We will do everything humanly possible to help him fight this disease."

Ebola has killed more than 5,000 people in West Africa, mostly in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leona. Of the 10 people treated for the virus in the U.S., all but one has recovered.

After Salia arrived in Omaha, his ambulance to the hospital was accompanied by a single Nebraska State Patrol cruiser and a fire department vehicle — a subdued arrival in contrast to the August delivery of Dr. Rick Sacra, whose ambulance was flanked by numerous police cars, motorcycles and fire vehicles.

Salia has been working as a general surgeon at Kissy United Methodist Hospital in the Sierra Leone capital of Freetown. It's not clear whether he was involved in the care of Ebola patients. Kissy is not an Ebola treatment unit, but Salia worked in at least three other facilities, United Methodist News said, citing health ministry sources.

Salia, a Sierra Leone citizen who lives in Maryland, first showed Ebola symptoms on Nov. 6 but tested negative for the virus. He eventually tested positive on Monday.

The U.S. State Department said it helped facilitate the transfer of Salia; the U.S. Embassy in Freetown said he paid for the expensive evacuation. The travel costs and care of other Ebola patients flown to the U.S. have been covered by the groups they worked for in West Africa.

Salia's wife, Isatu Salia, said in a telephone interview that when she spoke to her husband early Friday his voice sounded weak and shaky. But he told her "I love you" in a steady voice, she said.

The two prayed together, and their children, ages 12 and 20, are coping, Isatu Salia said, calling her husband "my everything."

Nebraska Medical Center spokesman Taylor Wilson said members of Salia's family were not at the hospital Saturday, but were expected to arrive "in the near future."

Sierra Leone is one of the three West Africa nations hit hard by an Ebola epidemic this year. Five other doctors in Sierra Leone have contracted Ebola, and all have died.

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Ngwa Bertrand

16.Nov.2014

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Ngwa Bertrand

16.Nov.2014

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Tambe Tanyi Cameroon Concord Bureau Deutschland

 In the last few months, a new wave of preventive medical consultation has been thriving Cameroon communities in Germany and even beyond. Without doubts Ask Docta has come to set a new trend and to impact the lives of patients around the world, says an active viewer of the program. Reiterating the vision of the program, Dr. Susan Aweh observed that Ask Docta envisages good health for all. Cameroon Concord understands that this revolutionized approach of preventive medical consultation is a healthy opportunity that needs attention. Taking medical diagnosis and knowledge transfer may proof to be worthwhile and commensurate to scale constructive progress, than reacting to patients during consultation while already in a state of sickness says Dr. Emmanuel Ngassa. This is exactly the new approach being implemented and led by Dr. Emmanuel Ngassa and Dr. Susan Aweh, all medical professionals in the federal republic of Germany.

This new attitude is directed to both the educated and the unschooled population capable of understanding spoken Pidgin English and English languages. In reactive consultative medicine, patients go to the health centers/clinics for specific examinations, tests or consultations when they are sick, including: coordinating all tests and arranging for an interpreter, where applicable. In this new dimension, everything is intrinsically priceless. The specialist Doctors breakdown to simple terms a particular disease and diagnostic pattern. The causes, the symptoms, diagnosis and possible preventive solutions and treatment are made available to the audience. With this first class valuable information, even the unschooled ones can follow-up and make prompt decisions accordingly. Why would a medical professional offer such costly medical consultation/service for free? Apart from taking medical diagnosis to the masses, Dr Emmanuel Ngassa says the goal is to raise health awareness on simple issues and make patients acknowledge that sickness isn´t the end of life. “When patients know about their health, they can circumnavigate difficulties and make plausible decisions that may earn them a better bill of health. And together we can collectively achieve good health”

For her part Dr. Susan Aweh hinted that healthcare is integral to economic development opportunity, as only a healthy nation can experience advances in economic productivity. She revealed that by bringing medicine closer to the masses, Ask Docta decomposes the barrier between the noble and high esteemed medical professionals and the patients. This method wins back the patient’s believe in health care and avoids the trap of ignorance and abuse by charlatans and bunkum pastors parading the streets, in the name of miracle makers. The program demystifies witchcraft on explicable medical cases, for example, a family with a genetical issue of stroke or high blood, that could be solved may tend to believe in witchcraft if they are unaware. These medical gurus have developed and are now implementing the preventive medical consultation program Ask Docta being streamed on YouTube, as a platform through which medical consultation is offered. Apart from answering pertinent questions regarding particular illnesses and providing core answers to complicated health issues, an interactive web interface http://www.askdocta.com/  has been put at the disposal of global  medical audience to facilitate interactivity.

While being optimistic Dr. Ngassa was as well realistic in his observation of the limitations imposed on Ask Docta, by the absence of internet access and services in interior regions of target audience. Nonetheless his team has already initiated partnership search for local Radio and television organizations to broadcast Ask Docta in the interiors. Camfomedics, an organization of Cameroon medical doctors in Germany is resourceful to the program. Specialists in different medical domains are respectively brought to Ask Docta to enlighten the audience with this innovative methodology. Discussing and explaining medicine in Pidgin English is not the only challenge facing Ask Docta. The success of Ask Docta relies invariable on the efficient consumption of this new brand conception. The platform Youtube and the web interface are efficient tools presented to us to make competent use of this great medical reserve, so that together we can achieve Good Health For All. So help us Ask Docta!

 

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Ngwa Bertrand

14.Nov.2014

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The death of a nurse in Mali from Ebola prompted the quarantine on Wednesday of more than 90 people in the West African country’s capital Bamako, as the World Health Organization said the disease had now claimed at least 5,160 lives. The worst outbreak on record has ravaged the impoverished West African countries of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea and led to a global watch for cases outside the region. Mali must now trace other people who had contact with the 25-year-old nurse and three others infected, just as an initial group of people linked to its first case completed their 21-day quarantine on Tuesday. Ebola’s maximum incubation period is 21 days. The more than 90 quarantined in Bamako included about 20 United Nations peacekeepers being treated at the capital’s Pasteur Clinic, where the nurse worked, officials said. Police locked down the clinic on Tuesday night. In Sierra Leone, more than 400 health workers at one of its few Ebola treatment centers went on strike over unpaid risk allowances, officials said. Some returned later in the day.

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Ngwa Bertrand

13.Nov.2014

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Patients suffering from chronic kidney problems are staging a strike presently in Bamenda, capital of the North West Region of Cameroon. In the last two weeks, all dialysis machines at the Bamenda General Hospital have all broken down leading to two deaths . The patients have blocked the finance junction in Bamenda requesting the government to show more concern and save their lives. 

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Ngwa Bertrand

12.Nov.2014

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