Ebola Cases On The Increase In Sierra Leone & Guinea- WHO

The World Health Organisation (WHO), confirmed on Tuesday that the Ebola virus is still raging in Sierra Leone and Guinea.

Bruce Aylward, WHO Special Representative for Ebola in Geneva, told a technical briefing attended by health ministers that there were 36 new cases in the past week, which is four times as many cases as the week before.

Aylward said the findings were an indication that the virus would not go quietly and it would take painstaking efforts.

Nigerian Solider Tests Positive To Ebola

A Nigerian soldier in Liberia has contracted Ebola. According to U.N mission who announced this, the soldier would be flown to Netherlands this weekend for treatment.

The Nigerian soldier will go into isolation at a "calamity unit" at the University Medical Center Utrecht. He is expected to arrive in Amsterdam over the weekend and be transferred by ambulance to nearby Utrecht, the statement said..

The mission has so far identified 16 people who came into contact with the recently infected soldier, and they have been quarantined.

We Are Being Stigmatized Due To Ebola – First Consultant Lagos CMD

First Consultant Hospital’s Chief Medical Director has revealed that despite the hospital heroic work in stopping the spread of Ebolavirus in Nigeria, they are not being appreciated.

CMD Dr Benjamin Ohiaeri told The Tribune yesterday that his staff and their families still face firsthand stigmatization even after being certified free of the Ebola virus.

He said: “Since re-opening, we have witnessed firsthand what it means to be stigmatized. At a time when you would think we would be appreciated for our professionalism in containing Ebola, we are enduring a significant depletion in patient-turn up.

We are down on numbers by a factor of about 90%. But for the generosity of friends and family, Aledo Peterside, Tunde Ayeni, Diamond Bank, etc., this business would have collapsed. Even now, we are struggling to stay afloat. It has been very tough indeed.”

“The loss of Dr Adadevoh, Dr Abaniwo, Evelyn Uko and Ejelonu, four key members of our team, the first two of who were the most senior of our medics and members of the Hospital Executive Committee, has been hard.

They were colleagues, they were family. We are talking of a lifetime of working as a close team – as confidantes, as family. So, yes it’s been very tough. As well as our fallen heroes, we have many of the survivors here.
:
Medics, who placed their lives on the line to avoid Ebola spreading to the general public; they suffered the trauma of threats to their lives and the horror of rejection, in many cases, simply because they once had Ebola.

The families of our people have suffered horrendous victimisation too. Children of the dead hounded out of rented homes just when they needed compassion; the husband of a sufferer thrown out of his job simply because the employer learned of his wife’s condition. The pain, the suffering, the horror goes on and on.

Still, our people are back at work, doing what they do best – caring for the ill. For the hospital, we are inching back to life. As you know, the place was shut down for nearly three months while it was decontaminated by the WHO. So, our business was essentially shut in all that time, though our expenses, salaries, among others, continued to run” he said.

The Ebola virus was introduced into the country by Patrick Sawyer, A Liberian American who intentionally flew into Nigeria with the virus.

He was first admitted into First Consultant Hospital, where he was held down and not allowed to leave.

First Consultant Hospital lost some of their staff members to the cold hands of death including Dr Adadevoh.

Thousands Break Ebola Quarantine To Find Food In Sierra Leone

Thousands of people in Sierra-Leone are being forced to violate Ebola quarantines to find food because deliveries are not reaching them, aid agencies have said. According to reports many left places where they have been quarantined due to hunger to hit town to find food.

Health officials have ordered that those within the areas should stay at home in order not to get infected.

The government also announced yesterday that it would keep a state of emergency, which includes restrictions on large gatherings in country for a full year.

Briton with Ebola arrives in London from Sierra Leone

A British nurse who contracted the Ebola virus in Sierra-Leone arrived in London by military plane on Sunday, the ministry of defense said.

The patient, who is not "seriously unwell" according to the Department of Health, is to be treated at an isolation unit at a London hospital.

The patient's bed will be sealed off with a tent with its own ventilation system. Only trained staff can enter the unit.

A spokesman for Sierra Leone's Ministry of Health, Yahya Tunis, said the man was a volunteer nurse working in Kenema in eastern Sierra Leone, one of the areas hardest hit by Ebola which has now been quarantined.

POSSIBLE CURE FOR HIV/AIDS?

A group of Nigerian scientists have found what could be a novel treatment for Human Immune-deficiency Virus, HIV, infection that may slash the cost of treatment. The team of scientists, including graduate students and researchers from the Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike, Abia state, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, and the Federal Medical Centre, Umuahia, Nigeria have been able to show that synthetic Aluminum-magnesium silicate (AMS) has antiretroviral effects that could lay a perfect track for affordable and effective therapy for HIV.

Results of their work titled "Assessment of Antiretroviral Effects of a Synthetic Aluminum-magnesium Silicate" published in the British Journal of Medicine&Medical Research and featured on nd featured on SCIENCEDOMAIN international shows a significant reduction in the titres of the virus when HIV positive plasma was incubated with AMS. Head, Department of Veterinary Medicine at Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, and the lead scientist, Professor Maduike Ezeibe, said the discovery could provide an ultimate cure for the virus that has defiled so many scientific efforts to curtail it in the past.
Ezeibe reacted aluminium silicate with magnesium silicate to obtain the synthetic aluminum-magnesium silicate devoid of impurities. Giving further details Ezeibe noted: "Molecules of aluminum-magnesium silicate have platelets that possess both negative and positive electrical charges on their surfaces and their edges. HIV on the other hand is negatively charged.
So the simple scientific understanding that opposite charges attracts ensures that the HIV virus binds to the AMS and is discharged from the body alongside." "AMS is normally used as a stabilizing medicine that does not really have toxic effect on the patient, so it makes it a suitable agent for mopping up HIV virus from the body," he said. Ezeibe stated that "possession of both negative and positive electrical charges makes AMS a broad spectrum antiviral medicine." "AMS, if used in combination of selected antibiotics and immune stimulant may achieve a 'cure' for HIV," the lead researcher of the work said. "When a significant number of particles of invading viruses adsorb onto its (AMS) molecules instead of onto their hosts cells, viral infections are terminated," Ezeibe noted.
The author noted also that "Adsorbing out HIV means that millions of new virions usually released from each infected cell would be inhibited from establishing new infections in more cells," adding, "Thus, HIV would be prevented from overwhelming the body immune systems and the Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) stage may be prevented.which case Ezeibe said a cure could be achieved.