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DOCTORS AND MEDICAL workers are continuing to fight an Ebola outbreak in Uganda.
Nine of the 14 reported deaths were members of the same household.
Médecins Sans Frontières is one of the groups on the ground dealing with the situation.
Henry Gray, MSF’s logistics emergency coordinator for the outbreak in Uganda, said that the organisation has a lot of experience in dealing with the deadly disease.
MSF is in the process of installing a treatment centre in Kagadi, where patients can be treated in isolation, helping to reduce the risk of contagion in the community.
Challenges
Gray said that it’s not just about reacting to the physical challenges of an outbreak, and that educating people is also vital.
Health workers are particularly susceptible to catching it so, along with treating patients, one of our main priorities is training Ugandan health staff to reduce the risk of them catching the disease whilst caring for patients. We have to put in place extremely rigorous safety procedures to ensure that no health workers are exposed to the virus – through contaminated material from patients or medical waste infected with Ebola.
He said that the general public is understandably concerned, because this isn’t a disease that they regularly encounter.
This is the biggest Ebola outbreak in Uganda since 2007, and lots of people don’t really understand what Ebola is. While they know how to recognise malaria or cholera, Ebola is much more frightening for them – partly because the early symptoms can be very similar to well-known diseases.
Symptoms
Symptoms of Ebola can include fever, vomiting, sore throats and headaches and, in severe cases, internal or external bleeding. Patients with a severe case of the disease will need intensive care, said Gray.
Unfortunately there is no specific treatment or vaccine for Ebola – several vaccines are in development, but it’s likely to be several years before one is available.
Gray said that Ebola spreads quickly and can be deadly, so the social effects can be very severe.
The patients we are treating are very frightened, for obvious reasons. Their families are also very scared, so as well as our treatment centre, we are setting up psychosocial support for the patients, their families and also our own staff, who may also be traumatised by what is happening.
Although people are only actually infectious when they have Ebola symptoms, Gray said that many people have stopped kissing or shaking hands when they greet each other.
There’s a lot of media publicity about how to reduce the risk of catching the disease and to seek medical help immediately if someone becomes ill, and these public messages are vital.
Hoping for the best
The new treatment centre will have the capacity to treat and care for between 50 and 60 patients at a time. Said Gray:
At the moment we’re hoping for the best but preparing for the worst.”
In this clip, Gray demonstrates to health staff how to correctly dress in protective clothing to treat patients who may have ebola.
The Ministry of Health in Uganda has said it is working to control the outbreak. The WHO has been notified but has not yet recommended any travel restriction be applied to Uganda.
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He hasn’t turned out to be as bad as predicted. Does what he says he’ll do. The world feels a bit safer today than it did a couple of weeks ago.
@Niall Quinlan: Careful now, that kind of talk doesn’t go down well around here.
@Sheldon: I know, it’s just my opinion on how his presidency is panning out. The doomsday scenario painted by the anti-Trump brigade was nothing but fear mongering. Hillary would have started WW3 by now had she won IMO.
@Niall Quinlan: I want a poll on whether or not we should have repeal the 8th murals on the Korean demilitarized zone
@Sheldon: Do you keep that response in your copy and past section…….Yawn.
@Niall Quinlan: “Doomsday scenario painted by [...]”
“Hillary would’ve started WW3 by now”
Right. Bit of a doomsday-monger yourself, aren’t you?
@Jack Jackson: Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
@ihcalaM: I welcome peace, I’m relieved as a human-being that the Koreans are entering a new positive phase of peace negotiations. How does that make me a war monger? You appear to be upset at my comment about the Don. You’ll get over it.
@Sheldon: And there’s another one.
@Sheldon: Us humans have always repeated the mistakes made by our ancestors, correct. History doesn’t repeat itself, humankind just never learns.
@Jack Jackson: Here’s my favourite .
“We sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm “
@Niall Quinlan: Don’t forget how dangerous the world felt a few weeks ago and remember the role Trumpet played in that, goading the protagonist. This peace breakthrough in Korea probably has more to do with the Chinese than anyone else and the Duck is going around crowing about it as if he did it singlehanded. Don’t buy his hype. I can’t even begin to imagine how he would have responded if he got the same kicking Putin and Russia got a few weeks ago, meted out by himself and his allies, UK and France.
@Clinton Baptiste: the problem with the world is powerful countries visiting violence on countries that do no harm.
@Kieran Woods: Which is why we need to remain neutral and protect our borders , and the people within .
We are a small country , we’re used as a backdoor into Europe by multinational corporations , if they decided to leave tomorrow , what type of mess do you think we’d be in .
@Niall Quinlan: Didn’t say you didn’t welcome peace.
What you did was criticise anti-Trump people for their wild speculation before the election, then you wildly speculated about Hillary and WW3 if she were President.
Make sense? Thought not.
@ihcalaM: Re-read the opening comment,
‘He hasn’t turned out to be as bad as predicted’
Hillary would have been a disaster IMO, she is still crying like a little snowflake since her election defeat and yes I would not trust her with the big red button…..
@ihcalaM: Mindreading now are we? Thought so.
Great President is Trump.. 50 years in the making and he gets if somewhere at last .. Nobel peace prize on the way
@cormac o neill: NRA & Weapon Manufacturers are unlikely to allow the puppet to have anything to do with peace, he is more divisive than Nitroglycerin.
@Anthony John Cotter: So you’re saying Obama’s strategic patience plan was a load of bollocks too?!
@Anthony John Cotter: If Obama got one for destroying Libya and funnelling weapons to Isis , what’s the benchmark for getting a Nobel peace prize .
@cormac o neill: I’d kill for one of those Nobel peace prizes
@cormac o neill: Kim has played Trump so well
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/28/us/politics/trump-north-korea.html?mtrref=www.google.ie
Hopefully the important work will be well done before Trump gets a chance to interfere.
@Michael Lang: I think it’s a bit late to say that , if he hadn’t stood up to the North Koreans when they were firing rockets towards Japan , this would wouldn’t be happening now .
@Clinton Baptiste: Spot on.
The only reason North Korea are, for the time being, behaving themselves is because the severe sanctions are beginning to bite
@Michael Dowd: Indeed , if embargoes weren’t in place , fat boy there would have eaten himself to death .
This came about because of South Korean protests, then a change of President who went about calling for dialogue and it had feck all to do with Trump or the US. But if/when Trump talks with Kim, there will be breaking news like it was all his doing.
@Daniel J. Somers: So no other SK president ever tried dialogue with the North Koreans ?
If that’s true , I can’t understand why .
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/2381967/kim-jong-un-cackles-as-he-watches-his-troops-blow-up-mock-up-of-south-koreas-presidential-blue-house/
And the actual attack .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_House_raid
@Clinton Baptiste: A Sun reader, bwahahaha.
@Daniel J. Somers: Great reply , you have me there , it must be fake news if the sun reported it .
And I’m sure Wikipedia can also be dissed , but where’s your evidence to support your claim that no SK president tried to have a dialogue with the North .
P.S , as you’re obviously a cultural snob .
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-southkorea/north-koreas-kim-guides-special-operations-drill-targeting-south-idUSKBN14004J
@Clinton Baptiste: Never said it was fake news.
P.S. yourself
@Daniel J. Somers: But never put up a defense of your point of view .
Another Trump success must be killing the lefties.
To what extent this has to do with Trump is anyone’s guess. As usual there’s several factors and perspectives. It’s possible that the ‘fire and fury’ rhetoric played a part, but there’s also word that Kim was watching him anyway as he thought Trump’s so-called unpredictability might also land him at a summit table.
And note that before the Olympics Trump nearly messed up North and South nudging up to each other by making fresh threats, God knows why, but he wasn’t paying attention and shut Pyongyang up for days. Sheer diplomatic effort brought them back together.
Kim is no fool. He’s Swiss-educated and will have been aware that if he’s to pull the country out of isolation, that’s a long and dangerous project. He wasn’t the only one with power when he inherited that country, and if he’d steered away from the nukes programme immediately he might’ve been fed to the dogs.
I guess it also helps that North Korea blew its nuclear test facility to smithereens. There’s all sorts of factors involved here, but so far the outcome seems promising.
I wouldn’t trust that Kim lad as far as he could be flung! Very sudden change of heart from wanting to obliterate the South a few weeks ago. I’d say USA went in the back door and put a gun to his head to get this. Sounds like good news but this is another USA invasion of a sovereign state. Pity they wouldn’t target Dail Eireann with a missile of some sort when in full session.
We’re all doomed the world is coming to an end
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