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WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 15, 2014
H E A LT H & S C I E N C E
Britain starts
Ebola screening
LONDON: Britain began screening passenger arrivals at London Heathrow Airport for
Ebola yesterday as the Royal Navy loaded a
ship with supplies for epidemic-stricken
Sierra Leone. The checks at Heathrow
Terminal One will be expanded by the end
of next week to the rest of Britain’s main air
hub, as well as London Gatwick Airport, and
Eurostar railway stations linking London and
southeast England to France and Belgium.
Although there are currently no direct
flights to Britain from the worst-affected
countries, passengers whose journeys originated there will have their temperature taken and be asked about any potential contact
with Ebola patients. Any possible carriers
will then undergo a clinical assessment and
if necessary be transferred to hospital.
Heathrow Terminal One receives around
85 percent of all arrivals from the hardest-hit
countries. The worst-ever Ebola epidemic
has already claimed more than 4,000 lives,
largely in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia.
Meanwhile British troops were loading up
the RFA Argus, which will set sail for Sierra
Leone later this week to help in efforts to
contain the outbreak. The civilian-staffed
military medical support ship is docked in
Falmouth, southwest England.
It will travel with three Merlin helicopters,
aircrew and engineers to provide transport
and support to medical teams and aid workers. Captain David Eagles, the ship’s commanding officer, said the vessel would be
used to transfer personnel, aid and equipment throughout the affected region. The
ship, with some 350 people on board, will
take around 10 days to reach west Africa, he
told Sky News television. Troops with landing craft will escort personnel ashore and
protect teams deployed on the ground.
Ebola patients will not be brought aboard,
and any member of the ship’s company
thought to have come into contact with victims would be sent to treatment facilities
onshore. —AFP
GERMANY: An ambulance enters the St Georg Clinic yesterday in Leipzig, eastern Germany, where a Sudanese doctor, a UN
employee infected with the deadly Ebola virus in West Africa, arrived for treatment six days before.
UN health worker dies of Ebola
in Germany ahead of UN talks
States must ‘rethink’ its approach to Ebola
BERLIN: A UN health worker has died of Ebola in
Germany as the international community prepared to hold talks on the crisis yesterday. The
death of the 56-year-old Sudanese man, who
arrived in Germany from Liberia last week for
treatment, highlighted the global struggle
against what officials have termed the worst
health crisis of modern times. The United
Nations was due to hold talks on the spread of
the hemorrhagic virus, a day after US President
Barack Obama and UN Secretary General Ban Kimoon called for the international anti-Ebola
drive to be stepped up.
The Ebola epidemic has killed more than
4,000 people this year, mostly in Guinea, Sierra
Leone and Liberia, prompting the World Health
during the night “despite intensive medical care
and the best efforts by medical staff”. A WHO
spokesman in Geneva said he was a UN volunteer. German health officials said last Thursday
he was Sudanese. The UN announced the following day that it had quarantined 41 personnel
from its Liberia mission, including 20 soldiers.
Germany has also treated two other Ebola
patients infected in Sierra Leone a Senegalese
expert who was treated in Hamburg and
released on October 4, and a Ugandan doctor
now being treated in Frankfurt.
‘No-one taking care of us’
After measures were introduced in the US
and Canada, Britain began screening for Ebola at
GERMANY: A photo taken on October 9, 2014 shows Chief doctor Bernhard Ruf and
senior physician Thomas Grunewald at a press conference at the St Georg Clinic in
Leipzig, eastern Germany, upon arrival for treatment of a Sudanese doctor, a UN
employee infected with the deadly Ebola virus in West Africa. —AFP photos
Organization (WHO) to brand it “the most severe
acute public health emergency in modern
times”. At least two cases of contamination have
been reported beyond west Africa, in the US and
Europe.
The German clinic in the eastern city of
Leipzig, one of three in the country to have
treated Ebola patients, said the man had died
Heathrow Airport, the first of a number of
London airports and Eurostar rail hubs where
travelers from the worst-hit countries of west
Africa will be questioned and have their temperature tested. Health workers in Liberia meanwhile pressed on with a strike demanding danger money to treat Ebola patients. Obama and
Ban called yesterday for “more robust commit-
ments and rapid delivery of assistance by the
international community”, the White House said
in a statement.
Obama and French President Francois
Hollande also issued a joint call for “stepped-up”
global efforts to combat the disease. In the face
of panic that was “spreading faster than the
virus”, the WHO issued a stark warning over the
crisis. “I have never seen a health event threaten
the very survival of societies and governments in
already very poor countries,” said WHO chief
Margaret Chan in a statement delivered on her
behalf at a conference in Manila.
Ninety-five Liberian health workers have died
so far in the epidemic, and their surviving colleagues want pay commensurate to the acute
risk of dealing with Ebola, which spreads
through contact with bodily fluids and for which
there is no vaccine or widely available treatment.
In the Liberian capital Monrovia, a hospital
patient quoted on local radio described scenes
of desolation, with the sick deserted by striking
staffers. “We are at the Ebola Treatment Unit and
no-one is taking care of us,” the unnamed man
said. “Last night several patients died. Those
who can walk are trying to escape by climbing
over the fence.” Journalists have been banned
from Liberia’s Ebola clinics, making the situation
there difficult to ascertain.
US must ‘rethink’ approach
Both cases of contamination reported so far
outside Africa-in Spain last week and now in the
United States-have involved health workers who
fell ill despite stringent safety protocols surrounding Ebola. US health authorities said the
United States must “rethink” its approach to
Ebola after a female nurse in Texas contracted
the virus, in the first case of contamination on US
soil.
Health authorities said the woman-identified
by local media as 26-year-old Nina Pham-tested
positive after caring for a Liberian Ebola patient,
Thomas Eric Duncan, who died on Wednesday.
The nurse at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital
in Dallas is in isolation and said to be in a stable
condition.
Spanish Health Minister Ana Mato was due to
appear before parliament to face questions over
the infection of the nurse, Teresa Romero, who
caught the Ebola virus in a Madrid hospital after
caring for two missionaries with Ebola. She
remains in a “very serious condition”, according
to a crisis cell set up after the case —-AFP
China military-linked firm eyes
quick approval of drug to cure Ebola
SHANGHAI: A Chinese drugmaker with close
military ties is seeking fast-track approval for a
drug that it says can cure Ebola, as China joins
the race to help treat a deadly outbreak of a
disease that has spread from Africa to the
United States and Europe. Sihuan
Pharmaceutical Holdings Group Ltd has signed
a tie-up with Chinese research Academy of
Military Medical Sciences (AMMS) last week to
help push the drug called JK-05 through the
approval process in China and bring it to market. The drug, developed by the academy, is
currently approved for emergency military use
only.
“We believe that we can file to the Chinese
Food and Drug Administration (CFDA) before
the end of the year,” Sihuan’s chairman Che
Fengsheng said during an investor call last
week. “They are looking at this very seriously...
and we could get on the ‘green light’ track,” he
added.
Sihuan’s drug is only one contender
amongst a number of experimental cures
worldwide to treat Ebola, although if successful
it would be a huge boon for China’s developing
pharmaceutical sector and the country’s soft
power in Africa, an increasingly important partner for the world’s No.2 economy. The current
outbreak, the worst on record of the disease,
has killed more than 4,000 people, mostly in
West Africa.
Che said one of Sihuan’s strengths was its
close military ties. The firm, which claims to be
China’s third largest prescription drugmaker,
was originally a military scientific unit, which
was spun off into its current form in 2001. “We
have a myriad of connections with the military
medical science units and have developed lots
of products in cooperation with the AMMS,”
Che said. AMMS is a research unit of the
People’s Liberation Army, China’s armed forces.
Che pointed out that a Chinese vaccine
against a SARS outbreak a decade ago, also
developed by the military, was approved by
the drug regulator rapidly after its application,
signally that JK-05 could receive similar treatment. “At that time the whole approval
process, clinical components and the period
after was cut right down,” he said. Officials at
Sihuan, which is part-owned by Morgan
Stanley, were not available for further comment on yesterday.
Tested on mice
China’s Ebola cure bid still lags some way
behind US-developed ZMapp and TKM-Ebola,
but Sihuan management said the drug has
proven effective during animal testing on mice.
The drug, which AMMS has been studying and
developing already for five years, is similar to
Japanese flu drug favipiravir, developed by
Fujifilm Holdings Corp, which has been used
effectively to treat patients with Ebola.
ZMapp and TKM-Ebola have been tested on
monkeys, which give a closer immune
response to that of humans, and have been
used to treat human patients with the disease.
JK-05 has not yet undergone clinical trials, but
Sihuan management said the firm was actively
working towards clinical tests of the drug,
which could be shorter than normally required.
The drug has also shown promise against diseases such as influenza and yellow fever.
Chinese military doctor Wang Hongquan,
credited with inventing the drug, said on the
investors call that JK-05 would first be used to
treat Chinese nationals working in Africa with
the disease, but treating non-Chinese would
require further international approvals. There
are millions of Chinese nationals living in
Africa, with around 10,000 in the worst affected
countries - Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia.
JK-05 could also be used if Ebola spreads to
China. “We can’t rule out the possibility that it
will spread to Asia. Particularly in China now
we have lots of connections with different
international cities and many people coming
and going across our borders,” he said on the
call. Company management and analysts said
an Ebola outbreak in China would further
speed up the approval process and development of the drug. “It is highly likely the Ebola
indication could be approved very quickly if
Ebola was to spread to China,” said Deutsche
Bank analyst Jack Hu in an analyst note on
Sunday. —Reuters
DALLAS: Protect Environmental workers move disposal barrels to a staging
area outside the apartment of a healthcare worker who treated Ebola patient
Thomas Eric Duncan and tested positive for the disease, Monday. —AP photos
Health officials urge
hospitals to ‘think Ebola’
DALLAS: Federal health officials on
Monday urged the nation’s hospitals to
“think Ebola” and launched a review of
procedures for treating patients, while
medical records showed that an infected
Texas nurse repeatedly visited the room of
a Liberian man as he was dying from the
disease. The World Health Organization
called the outbreak “the most severe,
acute health emergency seen in modern
times.” Nurse Nina Pham was among
about 70 staff members at Texas Health
Presbyterian Hospital who were involved
in Thomas Eric Duncan’s care after he was
hospitalized, according to the records.
They drew his blood, put tubes down his
throat and wiped up his diarrhea. They
analyzed his urine and wiped saliva from
his lips, even after he had lost consciousness.
The 26-year-old was in his room often
from the day he was placed in intensive
care until the day before he died last
week. Pham and other health care workers
wore protective gear, including gowns,
gloves, masks and face shields - and sometimes full-body suits - when caring for
Duncan, but Pham became the first person to contract the disease within the
United States. Her family told Dallas television station WFAA on Monday that she
was the health care worker with Ebola. A
rector at her family’s church, Hung Le, told
The Associated Press that Pham’s mother
told him Pham has the virus.
The Texas Christian University nursing
school graduate was monitoring her own
temperature and went to the hospital
Friday night when she discovered she had
a low fever. She was in isolation and in stable condition, health officials said. By
Monday evening, she had received a
transfusion of plasma from Kent Brantly, a
Texas physician who survived the virus,
according to her pastor and the nonprofit
medical mission group Samaritan’s Purse.
Since she tested positive for the disease, public-health authorities have intensified their monitoring of other Dallas hospital workers who cared for Duncan.
Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention Director Tom Frieden said he
would not be surprised if another hospital
worker who cared for Duncan becomes ill
because Ebola patients become more contagious as the disease progresses. Pham’s
name appears frequently throughout the
hundreds of pages of records provided to
The Associated Press by Duncan’s family.
They show she was in his room Oct 7, the
day before he died.
Her notes describe nurses going in and
out of Duncan’s room wearing protective
gear to treat him and to mop the floor
with bleach. She also notes how she and
other nurses were ensuring Duncan’s “privacy and comfort,” and providing “emotional support.” Frieden has said a breach
of protocol led to the nurse’s infection, but
officials are not sure what went wrong.
Pham has not been able to point to any
specific breach. The CDC is now monitoring all hospital workers who treated
Duncan and planned to “double down” on
training and outreach on how to safely
treat Ebola patients, Frieden said.
When asked how many health care
workers are being checked, Frieden said
officials “don’t have a number.” Health officials have relied on a “self-monitoring” system when it comes to U.S. health care
workers who care for isolated Ebola
patients. They expect workers to report
any potential exposures to the virus and
watch themselves for symptoms.
Protective gear
Besides the workers, health officials
continue to track 48 people who were in
contact with Duncan before he was admitted to the hospital and placed in isolation.
They are monitoring one person the nurse
was in contact with while she was in an
infectious state. None has exhibited symptoms, Frieden said. The case involving
Pham raised questions about assurances
by American health officials that the disease will be contained and that any US
hospital should be able to treat it. Dr
NEW YORK: This 2010 photo provided
by tcu360.com, the yearbook of Texas
Christian University, shows Nina
Pham, 26, who became the first person to contract the disease within the
United States.
Anthony Fauci, director of the National
Institute of Allergy and Infectious
Diseases, told ABC ’s “Good Morning
America” that federal health authorities
should consider requiring that Ebola
patients be sent only to highly specialized
“containment” hospitals.
Duncan, who arrived in the US from
Liberia Sept 20, first sought medical care
for fever and abdominal pain Sept 25. He
told a nurse he had traveled from Africa,
but he was sent home. He returned Sept
28 and was placed in isolation because of
suspected Ebola. Among the things the
CDC will investigate is how the workers
took off protective gear, because removing it incorrectly can lead to contamination. Investigators will also look at dialysis
and intubation - the insertion of a breathing tube in a patient’s airway. Both procedures have the potential to spread the
virus. —AP