A doctor with the Christian humanitarian organization Samaritan’s Purse has been confirmed as a victim of the Ebola virus.
Dr. Kent Branley has been heading up one of the relief and treatment centers hosted by Samaritan’s Purse since last October. He had been in Liberia with his wife and children, who have since been evacuated to the United States.
“Samaritan’s Purse is committed to doing everything possible to help Dr. Brantley during this time of crisis,” the organization said in a statement. “We ask everyone to please pray for him and his family.”
The group has been working with the Centers for Disease Control, Doctors Without Borders, the World Health Organization and Liberia’s Ministry of Health to control the outbreak that has infected almost 1,100 people and killed 660.
A second American doctor, Nancy Writebol, is suspected to have contracted the disease as well and is undergoing confirmatory testing.
The United Nations has declared the world is now officially in the post-antibiotic age.
The World Health Organization said Wednesday that the discussion regarding the emergence of antibiotic resistant bacteria is no longer a theoretical discussion and a harsh reality that the world needs to confront.
“The implications will be devastating,” the WHO said in a report.
The WHO report included shocking information. The report shows that the most well known of the “superbugs”, MRSA, will kill more people in the United States than AIDS. The report says a similar situation will occur this year in Europe.
International aid groups are joining the WHO in raising the alarm.
“We see horrendous rates of antibiotic resistance wherever we look in our field operations, including children admitted to nutritional centers in Niger, and people in our surgical and trauma units in Syria,” Jennifer Cohn of Doctors Without Borders told Fox.
Saudi Arabia fired Health Minister Abdullah al-Rabiah in the mist of the largest outbreak of the killer MERS virus since its discovery two years ago.
The news comes as two more people were confirmed to have died from the virus. A 73-year-old Saudi man died in Riyadh and a 54-year-old man in Jeddah died on Monday.
Saudi Arabia has been dealing with a major outbreak of the virus with over 20 infections discovered in the last week. The country’s death toll climbed to 83 and the total number of cases jumped to 261. The outbreak of the last week was more than ten percent of the total cases.
The now-former Health Minister had said on Monday he didn’t know why there was a sudden rise in the virus other than noting there was a small increase the previous April.
The World Health Organization confirmed the first cases of the virus in Southeast Asia. There is no vaccine for MERS.
By blade
Created 16/02/2013 – 22:57
The World Health Organisation on Saturday urged countries to be vigilant over the spread of a potentially fatal SARS-like virus after a new case in Britain brought the global number to 12.
“Based on the current situation and available information, WHO encourages all Member States to continue their surveillance for severe acute respiratory infections (SARI) and to carefully review any unusual patterns,” the United Nations health agency said in a statement. Continue reading →
The 2009 swine flu pandemic killed an estimated 284,500 people. The total is more than 15 times the number confirmed by laboratory tests at the time, according to a study published in the Lancet Infectious Diseases journal.
The study indicates the toll could be as high as 579,000. The original count from the World Health Organization was 18,500. The WHO had initially warned the count would be low because deaths of people without access to health care does not get counted and that the virus cannot always be found in the body after death. Continue reading →