The rare virus that sickened children in California last year and slammed Kansas City a few weeks ago has now been found in ten states.
Doctors say the rare virus, Human Enterovirus 68, is related to rhinovirus which causes the common cold. The Centers for Disease Control says that 10 states have shown cases of the virus: Colorado, Missouri, Kansas, Illinois, Kentucky, Iowa, Ohio, Oklahoma, North Carolina and Georgia.
Dr. Richard Besser, the Chief Health and Medical Editor for ABC News, said that viruses “don’t respect borders” and that he expects it to appear across the country.
“If your state doesn’t have it now,” Dr. Besser said, “Watch for it, it’s coming.”
Doctors from Children’s Hospital Colorado in Denver said that the virus stats showing signs of a cold such as sneezing and coughing. The victims then start wheezing and have trouble breathing similar to an asthma attack.
Children under 5 and those with asthma are considered to be at highest risk. Some patients have to be in intensive care for 4-7 days to assist breathing until the virus clears the system.
An American doctor who became infected with the Ebola virus while working at an OB/GYN clinic in Liberia has been flown to Nebraska for treatment.
Dr. Rick Sacra, 51, is going to be held in a special isolation unit on the seven floor of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha. The unit is the largest of four such units in the United States.
Dr. Sacra is from the Boston area and went to Liberia after the two other American medical missionaries became ill from the virus. He worked with the Christian charity SIM, the same group that infected nurse Nancy Writebol had served with before her infection with the virus.
The media was screened from Dr. Sacra as he was brought to the hospital about 40 minutes after leading at Offutt Air Force Base near Omaha.
A team of 35 doctors, nurses and medical staff will be providing Dr. Sacra with substantive care including keeping him hydrated and vital signs stable.
Because the experimental drug ZMapp is not available, there are discussions about using blood serum from one of the other Americans who has recovered from the virus in an attempt to introduce antibodies in the system.
The head of the CDC is publicly stating that the outbreak of Ebola in West Africa is “spiraling out of control” as the death toll has topped 1,900 and another American missionary has been confirmed to be infected with the virus.
Dr. Tom Frieden reports many countries “turned their backs” on those coming form countries who have been hit hard by the virus and that containment measures are actually hurting relief efforts in effected areas.
Frieden attended a United Nations conference where the world agency says over $600 million will be needed in medication and supplies to stop the outbreak.
The health officials at the UN conference also warned of the increase in spread of the virus. Cases have been reported in Nigeria and Senegal adding to the number of nations treating patients.
“We are working intensively with those governments to encourage them to commit to the movement of people and planes and at the same time deal with anxieties about the possibility of infection,” UN Coordinator for Ebola Dr. David Nabarro said.
Meanwhile, another health worker for the Christian relief agency SIM has been confirmed as a victim of the virus. Details are still sketchy regarding the latest case but officials say the man was working with pregnant women in a wing of the hospital away from Ebola cases and it was not clear how he was infected.
A mysterious respiratory virus has been striking children in the Kansas City area.
Children’s Mercy Hospital has confirmed hospitalizing up to 30 kids a day with the virus and the hospital is as full as during the heights of flu season.
One woman whose son was struck by the virus says that he was fine when he went to pre-school on Tuesday but soon had trouble breathing.
“You could see his ribs, and his stomach was pushing out really hard… I thought it was an asthma attack,” Pam Sheldon told Fox Kansas City.
The virus has been identified as Enterovirus-68. The virus had been considered rare until the last few years when it had increased in worldwide appearance. The virus is suspected as the cause of a polio-like disease in California in 2009 and can cause symptoms that mimic asthma to central nervous system attacks.
In some rare cases, the virus can be fatal.
There is no vaccine or anti-viral medication for Enterovirus-68 and the only thing that doctors can do for victims is supportive care such as oxygen.
Nigeria has issued an order to shut all schools immediately out of fear the Ebola virus could break out in a student population.
“All state ministries of education are to immediately organize and ensure that at least two staff in each school, both private and public, are trained by appropriate health workers no later than Sept. 15 on how to handle any suspected case of Ebola,” said Education Minister Ibrahim Shekarau.
“And also embark on immediate sensitization of all teaching and non-teaching staff in all schools on preventive measures.”
Nigeria has reported five deaths from Ebola with most connected to a man who flew into the country after being infected in Liberia.
The World Health Organization admitted the current Ebola outbreak is out of control and has asked governments to take extraordinary steps to stop the virus from spreading. Even though Nigeria has only confirmed five cases, the government felt the shutting of the schools would be a prudent move to eradicate the outbreak in their country.
Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan declared a state of emergency over Ebola earlier this month.
The World Health Organization says the world’s largest historical outbreak of Ebola is likely to grow significantly bigger.
The WHO announced a $490 million dollar program to attempt to contain the virus and quell the outbreak. Doctors said it would take nine months at a minimum to get the outbreak under control and that 20,000 people could be confirmed to have contracted the virus by that point.
However, the WHO doctors admitted the likely amount of patients already infected is two to four times as high as the 3,069 officially listed cases because of patients that contracted the disease and died in rural villages.
The fatality rate of 52 percent, which has resulted in 1,552 deaths as of August 26th, has brought the total almost as high as all previously recorded outbreaks of the virus since its discovery in 1976.
British drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline has announced an experimental Ebola vaccine is being pushed into human studies in conjunction with the National Institutes of Health. If the results are good, they plan to send 10,000 doses immediately to infected countries.
West Africa already had some of the poorest nations in the world. Now, experts are saying the Ebola outbreak is driving so much business and commerce away from the region it endangers some of the nations.
African Development Bank head Donald Kaberuka said that the economic growth of most of the infected countries has already been slashed 4% and could increase the longer the outbreak is uncontained.
“Revenues are down, foreign exchange levels are down, markets are not functioning, airlines are not coming in, projects are being canceled, business people have left – that is very, very damaging,” Kaberuka told Reuters.
Kaberuka said that most of the countries involved have total GDP each year of around $6 billion U.S. dollars, so they’ve already been impacted around $240 million U.S.
Sierra Leone and Liberia have fragile economies after years of civil war.
Albanian officials are downplaying the fact that five of 40 illegal immigrants caught sneaking into the country on Thursday are showing signs of being infected with Ebola.
Officials say that the immigrants arrived from Eritrea by sneaking into Europe through Greece. The immigrants have been taken into quarantine at a hospital about 85 miles from Italy’s closest port.
The revelation of the possible infections comes hours after finding out that one person in Montenegro has been forced into quarantine with symptoms of Ebola. The person reportedly had entered legally into Montenegro from a West African nation.
European nations are starting to announce steps to protect their countries from Ebola. Serbia has announced 21-day medical surveillance for anyone who enters the country from Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea or Nigeria.
Guinea has declared a nationwide public health emergency because of the current outbreak. Liberia announced they have obtained doses of the experimental Ebola drug ZMapp and have started giving it to victims.
Nancy Writebol, the missionary with SIM USA who became infected with Ebola while working in a relief hospital in Liberia, has arrived in Atlanta to be treated at Emory University Hospital.
Doctors at Emory University Hospital have confirmed that Writebol and Dr. Kent Brantly, who was transported last week, are being given a very experimental vaccine for Ebola that had never been tested in humans.
Officials say that both Writebol and Brantly agreed to be “human guinea pigs” for the vaccine and went into it knowing the side effects of the drug would be unknown.
A spokesman for Samaritan’s Purse said that both patients saw marked improvements in their conditions after undergoing the experimental treatment. Dr. Brantly has even been able to visit with his family although separated by several layers of thick glass.
SIM USA released information that said Writebol became infected while she was working to disinfect the protective suits worn by the doctors and nurses inside the isolation ward.
The World Health Organization’s assurances that the Ebola virus would not spread from an American man who contracted the disease and then flew to Nigeria where he died has been shown to be false.
Nigerian health officials confirmed Monday that one of the doctors who was treating Patrick Sawyer as he died is now infected with the deadly virus.
Nigerian officials now say they’re doing all they can to track down health workers who had contact with Sawyer and also those who flew with him on the flight to Lagos, Nigeria. Lagos is Nigeria’s most populous city.
Nigerian Health Minister Onyebuchi Chukwu revealed that three other people have been showing signs of Ebola and are currently awaiting test results.
Authorities in Liberia ordered Monday for all the bodies of Ebola victims to be cremated in an attempt to stop the virus from spreading to family members at funerals or during transport to burial sites.
Doctors Without Borders says this is the first time Ebola has been able to entrench itself in major African cities.