On Friday,it was announced that Dr. Sheik Umar Khan had caught the
virus,he contacted the disease despite
wearing protective gear when treating patients. He passed away on the 29th
of this month.
The 39 year old Sheik who was credited
with treating more than 100 patients, was infected with Ebola this month and
had been moved to a treatment ward run by medical charity Medecins Sans
Frontieres in the far north of the country.Before his diagnosis, he told
reporters:
"I am afraid for my life, I
must say, because I cherish my life.Health workers are prone to the disease
because we are the first port of call for somebody who is sickened by disease.
Even with the full protective clothing you put on, you are at risk,"
His death comes
days after a senior doctor at Liberia's largest hospital, Samuel Brisbane, died
on Saturday at an Ebola treatment centre in Monrovia. 3 nurses working in the
same Ebola treatment centre alongside Khan also died from the disease last
week. Several other medics have been infected.
1 comment:
I got this from rebroadcast from my blackberry
In order to help our Embassy Community better understand some of the key points about the Ebola virus we have consulted with our medical specialists at the U S State Department and assembled this list of bullet points worded in plain language for easy comprehension. Our medical specialists remind everyone that they should be following the guideline from the center for Disease Control and the World Health Organisation.
• The suspected reservoirs for Ebola are fruit bats.
• Transmission to humans is thought to originate from infected bats or primates that have become infected by bats.
• Undercooked infected bat and primate (bush) meat transmits the virus to humans.
• Human to human transmission is only achieved by physical contact with a person who is acutely and gravely ill from the Ebola virus or their body fluids.
• Transmission among humans is almost exclusively among caregiver family members or health care workers tending to the very ill.
• The virus is easily killed by contact with soap, bleach, sunlight, or drying. A washing machine will kill the virus in clothing saturated with infected body fluids.
• A person can incubate the virus without symptoms for 2-21 days, the average being 5-8 days before becoming ill. THEY ARE NOT CONTAGIOUS until they are acutely ill.
• Only when ill does the viral load express itself first in the blood and then in other bodily fluids (to include vomit, feces, urine, breast milk, semen and sweat).
• If you are walking around you are not infectious to others.
• There are documented cases from Kikwit, DRC of an Ebola outbreak in a village that had the custom of children never touching an ill adult. Children living for days in small one room huts with parents who died from Ebola did not become infected.
• You cannot contract Ebola by handling money, buying local bread or swimming in a pool.
• There is no medical reason to stop flights, close borders, restrict travel or close embassies, businesses or schools.
• As always practice good hand washing techniques, but you will not contract Ebola if you do not touch a dying person.
• US EMBASSY
Please share this information with your friends and families and try not to spread panic on social media.
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