Tag: Ebola

Humour

Anti Vaxxers Choose New Convention Site: Combining with organizations Andrew Bolt supports Climate Change Deniers and others makes economic sense to these wing nuts. Bolt has made a profitable career selling ignorance to the Australian public. After all science has been usurped by the enemies of the modern world.

creationmuseum3

THE CABIN ANTHRAX, MURPHY, N.C. (CT&P) – A statement released this morning from the Criminally Negligent Parents Association announced that the annual Anti-Vaccination Convention and Voodoo Science Expo will be moved to Petersburg, Kentucky this year. The group was forced to find a new site for the event when it became apparent that the original choice, Disneyland, had become too dangerous to visit.

creationmuseum2

The anti-vaxxers will join the Dumb Ass Conspiracy Theorist’s League, the Climate Change Denier’s Guild, and the Open Carry Accidental Gunshot Wound Alliance at the Creation Museum in mid September in one big celebration of ignorance. The American Family Association has also changed the dates of its annual “Jesus Hates Fags” Homosexual Hatefest and Chili Cookoff to coincide with the event.

“We thought that combining our convention with those of like-minded organizations just made economic sense, and as far as we have been able to determine, the measles outbreak currently ravaging the west coast has not yet spread to the backwoods of Kentucky, so it should be safe,” said Jenny McCarthy, spokesperson for the organization of twits.

“The Creation Museum was the perfect choice,” said Glenn Beck, keynote speaker for the event. “Ken Ham has built a veritable altar to ignorance there in Petersburg. He, like me, has managed to build a profitable career on the utter ignorance of the American public.”

Turd McPherson, president of the Climate Change Denier’s Club, agreed. “Ken has done a great job building a child-friendly environment that erases 300 years of scientific progress. He’s gone to great lengths to replace it with superstitious nonsense out of a book written before we knew our ass from a hole in the ground.”

“We all know that the Bible says we can’t change the climate, just like we all know that Noah put giant dinosaurs on a lifeboat along with every other species of animal on the planet. It’s just common sense. Science is the real enemy in the modern world, and we have to fight it tooth and nail,” said McPherson.

creationmuseum4

The convention, which was originally scheduled for June, had to be delayed because federal authorities insisted on the erection of a giant electric fence encircling the museum and the entire city of Petersburg.

“We can’t take the risk that any pathogens might escape,” said Dr. Tom Frieden, Director of the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta. “We’re coordinating with Homeland Security and FEMA in order to reduce the chance that we might have some sort of plague outbreak that could harm the citizens of our country who actually have functioning forebrains.”

“This combined convention will be the largest concentration of dolts, cretins, morons, and dunderheads in one location that the nation has seen since the 2010 National Tea Party Convention in Dimbulb, Texas,” said FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate. “We have to be prepared for the worst.”

Cuban doctors

US embargo delays Ebola doctors pay from Cuba – Middle East – Al Jazeera English

 

US embargo delays Ebola doctors pay from Cuba – Middle East – Al Jazeera English.

Abbott, Australian Shame, Fact

Cuban Medical Workers Fighting Ebola: Alexander Reed Kelly

Cuban doctors await travel to Liberia and Guinea in mid-October

The phrase “generosity of nations” is unlikely to appear in textbooks assigned to American political science and economics students. Nonetheless, the concept is visible in action in certain parts of the globe—perhaps most inspiringly in the countries of Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia in West Africa, where the Cuban government has defined itself as a world leader by providing hundreds of doctors and health workers to combat the raging, deadly Ebola virus.

As of mid-November, the tiny island state with a population of 11 million and an economy valued at slightly more than that of Belarus has provided more health care workers in the battle against Ebola than any other nation. That’s 256 doctors and nurses with an additional 200 professionals on their way. By comparison, the U.S. sent 3,000 military troops, none of them providing medical assistance, but instead focusing primarily on building treatment centers. It also pledged $400 million in aid. An article in The Wall Street Journal noted that “nations with some of the world’s most advanced health-care systems have come too late with too little to the crisis, said leaders from Ebola-affected countries.” China and India were reported to have contributed an “underwhelming” $5 million and $13 million, respectively.

Officials put the number of deaths caused by Ebola at over 4,000, but experts say the actual figure is twice as high. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said ending the outbreak would require “at least a 20-fold surge in assistance.”

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It is clear that money alone will not solve the problem. In mid-September, the World Health Organization issued a desperate plea for medical staff and supplies to resolve the outbreak. “Our response is running short on nearly everything from personal protective equipment to bodybags, mobile laboratories and isolation wards,” said Director-General Margaret Chan, calling for 500 to 600 foreign doctors, and at least 1,000 additional staffers. “But the thing we need most of all is people: healthcare workers. The right people, the right specialists—and specialists who are appropriately trained and know how to keep themselves safe—are most important for stopping the transmission of Ebola.” The WHO reported that all members of the first contingent of Cuban workers had more than 15 years worth of experience and had worked in other countries facing natural disasters and the outbreak of disease.For a new generation of observers, the Ebola response is helping Cuba make a name for itself as a force for global good. And the reputation is deserved. The WHO reports there are currently more than 50,000 Cuban-trained health care workers in 66 countries. By 2008 it was training 20,000 foreigners a year to be doctors, nurses and dentists, largely free of charge. The generous export is a function of the country’s publicly funded universal health care system, which was established by the Communist regime shortly after it overthrew U.S.-backed Fulgencio Batista in 1959 and enshrined as a human right in its 1976 constitution.

The country has consistently extended this policy beyond its borders to other nations in need. Its medical missions began with a provision of aid to Chile after an earthquake in 1960. In the 1970s and ’80s it offered wartime assistance to South Africa, Algeria, Zaire, Congo and Ghana. More recently, Cuban doctors went to Sri Lanka after the 2004 tsunami and treated victims of the 2005 earthquake in Pakistan and the 2010 quake in Haiti. In 2013, Cuba sent 4,000 doctors to remote rural areas of Brazil. The government offered assistance to the U.S. in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, but the offer was apparently rejected.

Cuba’s medical tradition was partly inspired by Che Guevara, the Argentine physician-turned-revolutionary who helped foment the Communist uprising. The medical workers have been nicknamed the “ejército de batas blancas”—the “army of white coats.” The contingent in West Africa is known as The Henry Reeve Brigade. It was founded in 2005 and named after a Cuban soldier in the country’s first war of independence. The doctors take their mission seriously. A wall in Cuba’s most prestigious medical school, the Escuela Latinoamericana de Medicina, bears a quote by dictator Fidel Castro: “This will be a battle of solidarity against selfishness.” The workers are reported to be eager to risk their lives for what they regard as an obligation to people everywhere. Before departing for Liberia, 63-year-old doctor Leonardo Fernandez expressed resolve in the face of danger and uncertainty in an interview with Reuters. “We know that we are fighting against something that we don’t totally understand,” he is quoted as saying. “But it is our duty. That’s how we’ve been educated.”

And the doctors are suffering too. While consultants from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention enjoy the comfortable lodgings of a more than $200 a night resort, The Wall Street Journal reported, the Cuban medics “are living three to a room in one of Freetown’s budget hotels. The hotel’s toilets are broken. Flies buzz around soiled tablecloths where the Cubans eat in cafeteria-style shifts.”

Cuba’s efforts have received some praise from the U.S., which has maintained a destructive trade embargo against the island since 1960. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry praised the country for its work. And U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Samantha Power was “very grateful” to Cuba for its response. There was no question about working alongside the U.S. in the effort. “Against Ebola, we can work with anyone,” said Dr. Jorge Juan Delgado Bustillo, who has led Cuba’s response in West Africa. “The United States? Yes, we can.” In the state newspaper Granma, Fidel Castro wrote that he would be happy to put aside the country’s political differences to help nations afflicted with the virus. U.S. officials eventually confirmed they were willing to cooperate with Havana and the rest of the international community through organizations such as the WHO.

A tiny nation excluded from so many of the benefits of global trade is leading the humanitarian response to the Ebola outbreak. Cubans have every reason to glow with pride as their doctors and nurses undertake the grim work of attending the health of people of other countries that have been degraded by economic and often military aggression. Cuba’s officials and health care workers are our Truthdiggers of the Week.

38%, Funds, Roder

Only 38% of Australia’s Ebola funds have made it to Africa, group claims. Is there anything noble about this government?

A healthcare worker dressing in protective gear before entering an Ebola treatment center in the west of Freetown, Sierra Leone.

Advocacy group One says the global response to the virus has been too slow and funds are stuck in treasury departments

Only 38% of the funds pledged by Australia to fight the Ebola crisis have been distributed to stricken west African countries, an international advocacy organisation has claimed.

Campaigning group One, which boasts over six million members worldwide, has created an online Ebola tracker tool which shows how much funding, equipment and health personnel have been pledged by donor countries and large foundations.

Australia has committed a total of $42m to tackle the disease, $20m of which will go to private Australian company Aspen Medical to operate a UK-built medical centre in Sierra Leone. Another $18m has gone to the United Nations’ Ebola response.

Spokeswoman for One, Friederike Roder, has told Guardian Australia that less than 40% of the money Australia has already committed has made it to Ebola-stricken communities.

“We don’t need words, we need action,” Roder said. “Australia’s response, like the response of many other countries, has been too slow.”

But Roder admits there’s a “lack of clarity” around how and when the money is distributed, saying after countries make their pledges, “no one knows if it is then left in Treasury departments”.

Labor said the government’s response to Ebola leaves Australia in danger of being internationally isolated.

Tanya Plibersek, the opposition foreign affairs spokeswoman, said: ”As the current president of the UN security council, the Abbott government must explain exactly how it is providing leadership on the fight against Ebola, especially given the security council resolution Australia co-sponsored and voted for back in September calling on all nations to do more,”

Australia co-sponsored a UN bill to call for a better global response to the virus, which has killed more than 5,000 people worldwide.

“At the G20 in Brisbane last weekend, the world’s most powerful leaders called on the international community, including Australia, to do more to get the Ebola crisis under control,” Plibersek said.

G20 leaders issued a statement on Ebola following the two-day conference, despite Tony Abbott’s efforts to keep the international meeting focused on economic issues.

Roder welcomed the statement but said the meeting failed to deliver substantive goals in stopping the spread of the disease.

“It [Ebola] made it onto the G20 agenda way too late,” Roder said.

World leaders needed to set out a timetable for how services and resources would be delivered to disease-affected communities, she said.

The comments come as aid agencies defend the slow rollout of services at a newly-built hospital in Sierra Leone. The 80-bed facility, which has been functional for the last fortnight, has only seen 18 patients so far.

Roder said there needs to be more transparency of how resources are being used.

“We need better international coordination. There’s very little information about what’s happening on the ground in west Africa,” Roder said.

The advocacy group has released a video featuring celebrities such as Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon to raise awareness of the disease

Dr Martin Salia

Ebola-infected surgeon from Sierra Leone, Dr Martin Salia, dies at US hospital

Dr Martin Salia

A doctor from Sierra Leone infected with the Ebola virus has died after being flown to the United States for treatment, the Nebraska Medical Centre says.

“We are extremely sorry to announce that the third patient we’ve cared for with the Ebola virus, Dr Martin Salia, has passed away as a result of the advanced symptoms of the disease,” the hospital said in a statement.

Hospital officials had said he was seriously ill when he was airlifted to the United States from West Africa.

“Dr Salia was extremely critical when he arrived here, and unfortunately, despite our best efforts, we weren’t able to save him,” Dr Phil Smith, medical director of the Biocontainment Unit at Nebraska Medical Center, said.

Dr Salia, 44, was chief medical officer at United Methodist Kissy Hospital in Freetown, Sierra Leone, when he tested positive last week for Ebola, according to the United Methodist Church’s news service.

The news service said it was unclear how or where Dr Salia contracted the virus.

He worked at several other medical facilities in addition to Kissy Hospital.

The church’s news service said Dr Salia had never practiced medicine in the United States.

He trained as a doctor in Sierra Leone’s College of Medicine and Allied Sciences, his wife said.

His evacuation was at the request of his wife, an American who lives in Maryland and who has agreed to reimburse the US government for any expense, the State Department said.

Dr Salia was the third Ebola patient treated at the Nebraska Medical Center.

His treatment included a dose of convalescent plasma and ZMapp therapy, as well as being placed on dialysis, a ventilator and multiple medications to support his organs, the hospital said.

The two other Ebola patients treated by the hospital were infected in Liberia and recovered from the disease.

Dr Salia was the tenth person with Ebola to be treated in the United States, and the second to have died from the infection.

In October, Liberian man Thomas Eric Duncan died at a Texas hospital of the virus which has killed thousands of people in West Africa in the largest outbreak in history.

The World Health Organisation said Friday that 5,177 people are known to have died of Ebola across eight countries, out of a total 14,413 cases of infection, since December 2013.

Ivory Coast, Sierra Leone

Ebola is a public health issue yes and needs to be addressed but it’s not the issue that Malaria or Dengue Fever are globally and now in Australia

Ivory Coast Defeats Sierra Leone 5-1 In African Cup Of Nations Qualifier

Posted in humor, sports

bubble-soccer

THE CABIN ANTHRAX, MURPHY, N.C. (CT&P) – Sierra Leone suffered an embarrassing thrashing today when it was defeated by Ivory Coast 5-1 in an African Cup of Nations qualifying match in front of a nearly empty Felix Houphouet Boigny Stadium. Those fans brave enough to attend the match were given respirators and rubber gloves before entering the stadium.

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The game was tied 1-1 at halftime, but Ivory Coast came roaring to life in the second half as its players became accustomed to the giant protective bubble suits the Sierra Leone players were forced to wear by the FIFA officiating crew.

“They weaved and bobbed through our defense as if we were not even there,” said Coach John Sesay. “I think it’s highly irresponsible for the people in charge of this tourney to force our guys to wear these ridiculous suits. Not everyone in Sierra Leone has Ebola, you know.”

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The Sierra Leone players managed to hold off the unencumbered Ivory Coast players in the first half by forming a giant protective ring around their goal and knocking down opposing players with their huge inflated suits. However, at halftime Ivory Coast Coach Sabri Lamouchi devised a strategy that spelled doom for the potentially infected team from Sierra Leone.

“Coach told us to form a flying wedge and charge through their bubble-wrap defense, which allowed the player with the ball to dribble along behind it and kick the ball into the goal,” said Salomon Kalou, who scored two of Ivory Coast’s four second half goals. “The change in strategy worked wonders. We kicked their bloody, contaminated asses right off the field in the second period.”

Coach Sesay told reporters that he plans on filing an official complaint with FIFA and the governing board of the tournament as soon as he gets over a slight fever and stomach ailment that started plaguing him late last week.

Abbott

Once again, Abbott makes Australia look uncaring and stupid.

Once again, Abbott makes Australia look uncaring and stupid..

CELAC, Havana, Sierra Leone

Cuba, the Empire and Ebola

Cuba, the Empire and Ebola. 53883.jpeg

The Ebola epidemic constitutes an enormous risk… we have to struggle so it does not become one of the greatest pandemics … by planning and working together … and this in turn requires political will, rigorous organisational discipline and efficiency.’

– José Ángel Portal Miranda, Cuban Vice Minister of Health

by Tim Anderson

In early October, as a first group of 165 Cuban doctors arrived in Sierra Leone, the Wall Street Journal recognised that Cuba was ‘at the forefront’ of the battle against Ebola in Africa. This was unusual North American praise for Cuba.

The reluctant admission shows some of the reasoning behind a semi-covert relationship which has developed between Cuba and Washington over the Ebola crisis. Nevertheless, stark differences in approach signal the deep ideological divide between the would-be global empire and the small socialist island.

The imperial approach has been to present a militarised and self-referential response to Ebola, as a security threat to ‘Americans’. Focus quickly moved to ill-conceived quarantine measures. In contrast, Cuba’s international solidarity approach was to send trained health workers and help build a coordinated social medicine response, which includes specialist training for local health workers.

Ebola haemorrhagic fever is transmitted by the bodily fluids of an infected person and has a fatality rate of from 25% to 90%. According to the WHO, 70% of affected people die because of the lack of proper treatment and facilities.

The Ebola outbreak in the West African countries of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone was declared in March 2014 and, by late October, almost 5,000 people had died, 10% of them health workers. The WHO calls it an international public health emergency.

 

Local health workers die due to lack of training and lack of protective equipment and facilities. One member of the Cuban team in Guinea, Jorge Juan Guerra Rodriguez, has already died, but from another deadly disease, cerebral malaria.

Margaret Chan, Director of the WHO, said: ‘What we need most are people, medical people … the most important thing to prevent the transmission of disease is to have the right people, appropriately trained specialists.’

Washington sent troops. US President Barrack Obama said: ‘we have to keep leading the global response, because the best way to stop this disease, the best way to keep Americans safe, is to stop it at its source – in West Africa.’ The US troops were directed to secure facilities and build treatment centres.

With more than 4,000 health workers already in Africa, Cuba by late October had sent another 350, most of them doctors and all with specialist training. Mexico, Venezuela and even Timor Leste are logistically and financially supporting the Cuban effort. After Cuba, the international organisation Médecins Sans Frontières also has 270 international health workers in the affected countries, while employing many locals.

By the end of October, dozens of the almost nine hundred US troops in ‘Operation Unified Assistance’ in Liberia and Senegal were being withdrawn from West Africa, to face a quarantine regime in Italy and leaving behind USAID branded tent-style treatment centres. Photos from Liberia show that Cuban doctors are now using those facilities.

That link is not an accident. A report in the New York Times observes that ‘a mid-level official’ from the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention attended a regional ALBA meeting on Ebola in Havana, and that Secretary of State John Kerry recently (and unusually) invited Cuba’s top diplomat in Washington (there is no ambassador, as the US and Cuba do not have diplomatic relations) to his speech on Ebola. The NYT writer aptly observes that the Ebola crisis ‘seems to be injecting a dose of pragmatism to Washington’s poisonous relationship with Havana’.

However we should not exaggerate the significance of this cooperation. The US and European relationship with West Africa has a dreadful history. Freed slaves from Britain and the US played a major role in the creation of both Liberia and Sierra Leone, the latter a British colony until 1961. Liberia became the focus of a ‘return to Africa’ movement in North America, after it became clear that the abolition of slavery in the US did not mean acceptance of African-Americans as equal citizens.

In more recent times western-controlled multilateral banks and aid agencies have made sure that these poorest of poor countries have not developed strong public education and health systems. The World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) says the Ebola epidemic exposes ‘the chronic and deep wounds in the African Continent [from] colonialism, by the continuous plundering of the wealth-producing resources and by the high public debts that keep African states and their economies enslaved to the IMF, the World Bank and monopolies cartels’.

The WFTU observes that Ebola is facilitated by ‘the poverty, the malnutrition, the lack of basic healthcare infrastructure and social welfare’, the absence of strong public and free education systems, and the prevalence of slum housing along with militarised and violent states, panicking in face of desperation. All this is in place of what they could have: strong ‘human development enabling’ states (see Anderson 2014).

On top of this, West African countries have become the preferred site for western countries to dump chemical, electronic and apparently even nuclear waste. This was ‘market forces’ at work, as a 1988 report in the New York Times observed: ‘As safety laws in Europe and the United States push toxic disposal costs up to $2,500 a ton, waste brokers are turning their attention to the closest, poorest and most unprotected shores – West Africa’. Toxic waste dumping, although to a large degree outlawed by international conventions, has become as lucrative a business as trafficking in drugs and human beings (Brooke 1988, Selva 2006 and Koné 2010).

Cuba, which has a very different history in Africa, decided to supplement its emergency brigades with four doctors for each of a range of African countries (not just the affected countries), for specialist Ebola training. This is consistent with its social medicine approach which emphasises promotion and prevention, as well as genuine capacity building through local empowerment.

Havana has a range of partners, most of whom, at this stage, seem to be financing the costs of its medical teams, particularly in transport and equipment. These teams include specialists in infectious disease, epidemiology and specialist nursing.

Plans for the Americas were high on the agenda of the eight-country ALBA (Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America) special Summit in Havana on 20 October. This group, affirming its basic principles of solidarity, cooperation and complementarity, agreed to support the western African missions while they developed their own regional protection plan. That plan includes taking coordination efforts to the wider 33-member CELAC group (Community of Caribbean and Latin American States). Venezuela committed several million dollars to Cuba’s West African mission.

The Government of Mexico also says it will ‘join forces’ with Cuba in the campaign against the epidemic, at first by WHO-channelled finance for ‘specialised equipment’ for the Cuban brigades. Doctors have to burn gloves, masks and other protective equipment after treating each patient.

Timor Leste, now benefiting from more than 800 Cuban-trained Timorese doctors, has decided to join in, by financing the costs of 35 of the Cuban doctors in West Africa.

A Cuban offer to cooperate directly with Washington seems to have been deflected in favour of low-profile discussions and cooperation through third parties, such as the WHO, the UN Ebola Mission (UNMEER) and the respective governments of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.

Cuban doctor Ronald Hernández Torres, now in Liberia, says the Cuba brigade is working well with professionals from other countries and that Cuban medical training, along with specialist Ebola training is going on in Liberia. Another group of Cubans is working in Guinea.

Cuban Ambassador in Liberia, Jorge Fernando Lefebre Nicolás, said the emergency brigade represented a strong sense of solidarity his government had for Liberia, and that it was help ‘improve the existing links between both countries … [and] mark the beginning of [further] health cooperation between Cuba and Liberia’.

Liberia’s foreign minister Augustine Kpehe Nga­fuan thanked Cuban Government for its ‘solid friendship and solidarity with needy people’, adding that he believed the epidemic would soon be eradicated in his country.

criticism, Tony Abbott

Ebola outbreak: Abbott urged to send Australian health workers

Volunteers in protective suits bury the body of a person who died from Ebola in a village outside Freetown, Sierra Leone - 7 October 2014

The Australian government is facing more criticism for not sending health workers to Africa to help fight Ebola.

A 25-bed US field hospital that will treat international health workers who contract the virus is due to open soon.

The Australian government now has no excuse not to fund health workers to travel to Africa, said Labor health spokeswoman Catherine King.

“It is now up to the Abbott government to act,” Ms King told journalists in Canberra on Friday.

Australia has so far refused to send health workers to Africa because it says it could not evacuate and treat them if they got infected with the virus.

It has provided A$8m (£4.4m) to frontline services and A$40m (£22m) to the World Health Organization and has not ruled out increasing that contribution.

‘A risky situation’

“We will not be putting Australian health workers in a risky situation in the absence of evacuation plans and an appropriate level of medical care and we cannot currently supply that,” Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said last month.

But the Australian Medical Association, the Public Health Association, the Healthcare and Hospitals Association and non-government organisation Medecins sans Frontieres have all called for the Australian government to substantially increase its contribution.

Sierra Leone and Amnesty International have condemned Australia’s decision to suspend entry visas for people from Ebola-affected countries in West Africa as “counterproductive” and “discriminatory”.

Ms King said there was a split in Cabinet about its response to the crisis, with Immigration Minister Scott Morrison “taking charge” and Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Health Minister Peter Dutton losing control of the debate.

Nearly 5,000 people have died of Ebola so far. More than 13,700 people have been infected in total, the vast majority in the West African countries of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea

Cuban doctors

U.S. and Cuba Come Together Over Ebola, Infuriating Republicans. However the US wont treat them should the contract the illness. Disgusting!!!

After some initial hedging, the United States seems to have embraced the idea of working closely with Cuba on the global response to the Ebola epidemic.

A mid-level official from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention attended a regional summit in Havana on Wednesday hosted by an association of left-leaning Latin American nations.

“This a world emergency and we should all work together and cooperate in this effort,” Nelson Arboleda, the CDC’s chief for Central America, told reporters at the conference.

The conference was hosted by the Bolivarian Alliance for the People of Our America, also known as ALBA, a regional group whose members include Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador. It’s fair to say the United States is not typically on the guest list of ALBA summits, since the group is led by countries with frosty relationships with Washington, and was formed partly to counterbalance its influence in the hemisphere.

But if there’s an upside to the Ebola crisis, it’s that it seems to be injecting a dose of pragmatism to Washington’s poisonous relationship with Havana.

Cuba has emerged as one of the leading players in the effort to contain Ebola in West Africa by pledging to deploy hundreds of doctors and nurses to treat patients in the three countries with the most cases.

As the first wave of Cuban doctors arrived in Africa, officials in the United States seemed unable to decide whether they would coordinate with them in the field. They later said they happily would, but have stopped short of offering to treat or evacuate Cuban medical personnel who may contract the virus.

Cuba’s state-run newspaper Granma noted Mr. Arboleda’s attendance in passing, but didn’t treat his visit like a watershed moment. Similarly, when Secretary of State John F. Kerry recently delivered a speech on Ebola, the State Department took the unusual step of inviting Cuba’s top diplomat in Washington, but didn’t draw attention to his attendance.

Predictably, a couple of Republican lawmakers from South Florida have been critical of the Cuban medical mission. Representative Mario Diaz-Balart blasted the C.D.C. on Thursday for sending Mr. Arboleda to the meeting.

“It’s a disgrace that the United States sent a representative to an ALBA meeting in Havana and praised the Cuban dictatorship for sending forced medical labor to West Africa,” he said in a statement.

Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen warned earlier this month that the Cuban doctors serving in Africa could bring the virus to Latin America, posing a threat to her community.

“The Castro regime’s decision to send Cuban doctors in a thinly disguised propaganda attempt may put South Florida at risk,” she warned.

Thankfully, theirs are becoming increasingly lonely voices in the debate over Cuba policy.

Sierra Leone, Tony Abbott

Sierra Leone makes personal plea for Ebola help to Prime Minister Tony Abbott

http://www.news.com.au/video/id-I1czl1cDqZfLEBcMEncKNYEcvJ5cJFvm/Sierra-Leone-makes-personal-plea-to-PM

HE president of Sierra Leone has made a desperate plea for Australia to scale up its response to the Ebola crisis, including sending military aid, as the deadly virus continues to ravage West Africa.

In a letter addressed to Prime Minister Tony Abbott, which arrived this week, President Ernest Bai Koroma says his country is counting on Australia and specifically requests military aid, warning Sierra Leone is losing the battle against Ebola.

The development came as Foreign Minister Julie Bishop on Thursday announced Australia would immediately boost its financial contribution to fighting the worst ever outbreak of the deadly disease by another $10 million, taking the total commitment to $18 million.

THE FACTS: Scientists answer your Ebola questions

EBOLA CRISIS: Liberia to prosecute US Ebola man

PM under pressure to act on ebola

Financial backing … Australia has committed $18 million to fighting the ebola disease. Source: Supplied

However, the Australian government has so far ruled out sending medical experts and logistical support.

The refusal by Australia to provide medical experts and logistic support has prompted criticism from aid organisations, including Save the Children and Medecins Sans Frontieres.

In the letter dated September 18, sent through diplomatic channels, Mr Koroma warns the nation’s health system had already been overwhelmed by the virus which, according to the World Health Organisation, has claimed 3338 lives and infected 7178 since the beginning of the year.

Call for help … Sierra Leone President Ernest Bai Koroma, left, pictured with former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown says his country is counting on Australia to fight ebola. Source: AFP

“While we are doing everything possible to stop the outbreak, further support is urgently needed from your friendly government to scale up our national response with … education efforts, as well as infection control measures,” the letter says.

Mr Koroma makes a specific request for Australia to deploy military health units, logisticians and engineers.

“Having watched the response of the Australian military to similar humanitarian emergencies, most recently Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines, I know that it is uniquely placed to help us in the fight against Ebola.”

Deadly encounter ... a resident sick from Ebola virus arrives at the "Island Clinic", a n

Deadly encounter … a resident sick from Ebola virus arrives at the “Island Clinic”, a new Ebola treatment centre in Monrovia, Sierra Leone. Source: AFP

Mr Koroma says in the letter that Australian military aid could potentially help save thousands of lives.

“We are counting on Australia to send us the military personnel we so desperately need to fight back against the virus and prevent the positive developments of the last 10 years from being undone.”

Ms Bishop on Thursday said the government has assessed that financial contributions were the best and most efficient way Australia could make a rapid contribution to the global response to the crisis.

Quick response ... healthcare workers spray disinfectant to prevent the spread of the Ebo

Quick response … healthcare workers spray disinfectant to prevent the spread of the Ebola virus in Kenema, Sierra Leone. Source: AP

But Save the Children and Medecins Sans Frontieres, while welcoming the additional aid money offered on Thursday, criticised the Australian government’s refusal to do more, as other world leaders deploy troops and medical experts in their thousands.

The US has committed up to 3000 troops while the UK will spend $185 million on its mission, including supporting 700 Ebola treatment beds across Sierra Leone.

“Make no mistake, this crisis is at tipping point. We need to act urgently and decisively,” Save the Children acting chief Mat Tinkler said.

The UN is seeking $US50 million ($A54 million) from donors to meet immediate needs over the next four weeks, including for logistics to deliver equipment, materials and supplies to Ebola response operations.

Facing criticism ... Tony Abbott is under international pressure to contribute more to th

Facing criticism … Tony Abbott is under international pressure to contribute more to the ebola fight. Source: News Corp Australia

Australia's Shame

Red Cross medical leader embarrassed by Australian Government’s Ebola response

Red Cross leader Amanda McClelland

By David Mark, Sarah Sedghi and Eleanor Hall

Updated about 2 hours ago

The senior health adviser for the Red Cross in Sierra Leone says she is embarrassed by the Australian Government’s response to the Ebola crisis.

Australian Amanda McClelland runs the organisation’s treatment Centre in Kenema, and told The World Today she was surprised the Government was not sending medical teams into Sierra Leone, and by its blanket ban on issuing visas to people travelling from those countries.

West African states have criticised the decision to shut Australia’s border, saying the move stigmatises healthy people and makes the fight against the disease more difficult.

“I am surprised … but more embarrassed, to be honest,” she said.

“It’s difficult to be here and sit with the Sierra Leone government and have them today ask me, ‘am I going to be allowed to come home?'”

She said it was particularly galling for her as she was desperately short staffed and was now calling on Ebola survivors to help.

“I’m asking taxi drivers and students to deal with Ebola, and the Australian Government is not sending doctors and nurses with 16 years of education,” she said.

“And to be honest, I’m a bit embarrassed that we don’t feel that our health system and our health personnel are qualified and professional enough to manage this.

“I mean, the Australian health care system is more than robust enough to respond quickly – if and when – a case came.

“And I think we have some of the best medical professionals in the world and experience in working in these types of environments.”

Ms McClelland was training Ebola survivors to help treat their country men and women with the deadly disease.

One of the nurses, Hawa Jollah, told The World Today she feared she would die when she caught the virus in June.

“I was vomiting profusely. I was having red eyes. I cannot recognise people. I can recognise you from your voice, but I cannot see you,” she said.

Survivors fighting spread of Ebola

Edwin Konuwa, an Ebola survivor and nurse, was working in the Kenema Ebola centre.

“Everybody was crying for me and were told I am dead. Overnight my condition changed and I could eat and have water,” Mr Konuwa said.

He said he was not scared of Ebola anymore and wants to help patients.

“It’s not difficult for me because I know procedures and my precautions.”

Amanda McClelland told The World Today 12 of the new trainees were former nurses, all of whom were Ebola survivors.

“And we’ve actually had several survivors, [who] are not nurses, come back to the unit in the last two days and ask if they could help as well.”

The great advantage of training survivors was that they had more immunity to the disease, and could help others, particularly the children of Ebola victims, without as much fear of infection.

“We had a terrible situation last week where we had a mother with two small children, there was no-one left in the family,” Ms McClelland said.

We had a large cluster of cases after an unsafe burial, and the whole family was sick or had already died. And no-one in the community would take these children.

Amanda McClelland

“We had a large cluster of cases after an unsafe burial, and the whole family was sick or had already died. And no-one in the community would take these children.

“The mother was dying and the children were in there. We saw the children were covered in their mother’s faeces, and we went straight in and we cleaned them up.

“The little boy is Ebola free – amazingly enough – which is a huge benefit for us morally and amazing for the kids involved.”

Ms McClelland had a full staff roster but that was a week-to-week proposition.

“To be honest, we’re ok for this week but we’re not ok for next week. And we’re definitely not ok as we get closer to Christmas,” she said.

The Sierra Leone and Liberian governments condemned the Australian Government for generating unnecessary panic about Ebola.

Ms McClelland said she was concerned at least three health professionals, who were due to fill her roster next week, may now not come.

But she said health professionals knew the science and were not put off by the scare-mongering, though their families were.

“I feel quite safe here. It’s not like Mogadishu or other places I’ve been. It’s not so much ‘brave’ as ‘just needs to be done’, I guess.”

Australia's Shame, Climate Change, USA

Abbott seems to have crossed the road on seeing the USA coming down the street when it comes to Ebola and Climate Change

Samantha Power meets officials at the Guinea Ebola Co-ordination Centre in Conakry.

Samantha Power begins tour of worst-affected countries with criticism of international efforts

Ebola: US ambassador hits out at countries failing to help west Africa

The US ambassador to the United Nations has criticised the level of international support for nations hit by Ebola as she begins a tour of west African nations at the epicentre of the deadly outbreak.

Samantha Power said before arriving in Guinea on Sunday that too many leaders were praising the efforts of countries like the US and Britain to accelerate aid to the worst-affected nations, while doing little themselves.

“The international response to Ebola needs to be taken to a wholly different scale than it is right now,” Power told NBC News.

She said many countries were “signing on to resolutions and praising the good work that the United States and the United Kingdom and others are doing, but they themselves haven’t taken the responsibility yet to send docs, to send beds, to send the reasonable amount of money”.

Besides Guinea, Power will travel to Sierra Leone and Liberia – the three nations that account for the vast majority of the 4,922 deaths from the Ebola epidemic.

More than 10,000 people have contracted the virus in west Africa, according to the latest World Health Organisation figures.

Another country in the region, Mali, is scrambling to prevent a wider outbreak after a two-year-old girl died from her Ebola infection following a 600-mile bus ride from Guinea. She was Mali’s first recorded case of the disease.

An adviser to the Malian health ministry said the 43 people placed under medical observation in Kayes in western Mali – where the girl died on Friday – showed no signs of the illness.

About a dozen other people were also being observed in the capital, Bamako, where the girl had spent about three hours visiting relatives on the way to Kayes.

Mauritania meanwhile reinforced controls on its border with Mali, which effectively closed the frontier, according to local sources.

Andrew Bolt, Dutton, Plibersek

The Hysterical Tania Plibersek
Pyne-tongue
It’s always worth remembering the origins of the word “hysteria”.

I actually can’t at the moment, but I do know that it stems from the same word family as hysterectomy. And, just as a man can’t have one of those, we should remember that only women can be hysterical.

So, Mr Dutton – who clearly can’t be accused of hysteria, because he’s a man – calls for a measured response to the Ebola crisis. After all, it’s not like the “debt crisis” or the “budget emergency”, this is only killing a few thousand people in Africa, so there’s really no problem.

Mr Dutton – for those of you who’ve never heard of him – is our Health Minister, and as such is a very measured person. He’s so measured that he didn’t ask a single question about his portfolio while he was Shadow Minister for Health.

Mr Dutton pointed out the problems with Tania Plibersek’s response:

“This has to be done in a sensible, rational way, not an emotional way that put people in harm’s way … Mr Shorten seems to have maintained his composure, whereas Ms Plibersek is quite hysterical, which is not the leadership you need in these crises.”

Plibersek, on the other hand, urged immediate action, suggesting:

“The predictions are that if we don’t get Ebola under control in the next two months or so, the spread of the virus will be completely unpredictable and very difficult to handle. We’ve had calls from around the world for Australia to send help.

“We must stop this in West Africa, and Australia must be part of an international effort. If Ebola gets to Asia there’s no guarantee of Australia’s safety.”

See, hysteria!

But that’s just typical of the Labor Party! I mean in Parliament today, they were rabbiting on about Mr Abbott’s so called promise about not changing the GST. As Mr Abbott suggested, they are incapable of having a mature, adult conversation about broken promises without tossing words like “broken promises” into the discussion. How childish!

No, we need less hysteria about things like Ebola and climate change. After all, hysteria about the end of the planet led to the carbon tax which nearly wiped Whyalla off the map and if it wasn’t for its abolition Australia would have had all its mines shifted offshore.

As Andrew Bolt wrote today, while singing the praises of another Dutchman, Van Gogh (It’s a shame these people from other countries can’t actually praise good Australian artists. Pro Hart, for example, sold more paintings than Van Gogh, so surely he must be better. If Van Gogh were in Australia today, he’d want a subsidy, but thankfully we could just say piss off back where you came from, Dutchie!):

“I quit journalism twice, thinking I’d never get the hang of it.”

Of course, once he realised that he could write for the Murdoch press without the need for journalism, he became the man he is today. Which, of course, means that he could never be called hysterical.

After all, as I just said, he’s a man. And an adult.

Unlike Tania Plibersek, who seems to think that Ebola would be a problem if it spread to Asia. Doesn’t she realise that we have much better ways of dealing with Ebola and it’d be no problem if it spread to Australia. It’d only be a problem if one of the volunteers in Africa contracted it, because we don’t have any agreement for evacuation, and, as we should have learned from World War Two, Britain’s entry into the Common Market and Tony Abbott, when it comes to helping out Australia, there’s no way we should rely on the English.

Abbott, Scott Morrison

Scott Morrison/Tony Abbott conflict

Decisions on Ebola according to Scott Morrison are not the governments. The government  must be given the lead by health professionals before it can act. No special border protection measures are in place at air or seaports to the extent that they are in the USA.

Abbott on the other hand says we have made border protection the first line of defence and  we have secured ourselves against Ebola. We are fully prepared.

Whilst medical professionals are ready, eager and prepared to go Abbott refuses to support them because legal protocols and guarantees aren’t in place. They can go privately if they wish  but not with government support.

Looking at these two positions and their public statements the two seem diametrically opposed  We are and aren’t ready when it comes to the border protection from Ebola and  who actually leads  the decision-making process. Scott is passing the buck to health  and Abbott says all the decisions regarding Ebola rest with the government ,protocols and legal guarantees.

I’m sorry  are they mugs or feeding us political bullshit as usual

Corman, Tony Abbott

Finance Minister Mathias Cormann defends calling Bill Shorten an ‘economic girlie-man’. Stole it from Arney…so original. Just like a financial adviser a (rip off)

Mathias Cormann at press conference

Deputy Labor leader Tanya Plibersek said Senator Cormann’s comments detracted from issues surrounding the budget.

“I think it is extraordinary that we have a PM who talks about shirtfronting the leader of [another] nation and we now have a Finance Minister who thinks he is Arnold Schwarzenegger,” Ms Plibersek said.

“What Mathias Cormann is missing is that this budget hurts vulnerable Australians.”

Labor’s trade spokeswoman Penny Wong told Sky News the phrase sends a worrying message to younger Australians.

“If we use girl as an insult what are we telling our sons and our daughters about being a girl? You’re saying it’s somehow less confident, weak, whatever the imputation,” Senator Wong said.

“I just don’t think that’s sensible. Imagine if we used any racial term in the way it was used. I think we would all be outraged for the same reasons.”

On Sunday the Finance Minister defended himself, saying that “‘economic girlie-men’ has come to adopt its own meaning”.

“It is not in any way intended as a reflection on girls, it is entirely intended as a reflection on Bill Shorten,” Senator Cormann said in a statement.

Tony Abbotts charm like Ebola  is soooooo  infectious.