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NEW YORK TIMES OP-ED By BERNICE DAHN, VERA MUSSAH and CAMERON NUTT April 7, 2015
MONROVIA, Liberia — The conventional wisdom among public health authorities is that the Ebola virus, which killed at least 10,000 people in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, was a new phenomenon, not seen in West Africa before 2013. (The one exception was an anomalous case in Ivory Coast in 1994, when a Swiss primatologist was infected after performing an autopsy on a chimpanzee.)
Assa Ariyoshi
The conventional wisdom is wrong. We were stunned recently when we stumbled across an article by European researchers in Annals of Virology: “The results seem to indicate that Liberia has to be included in the Ebola virus endemic zone.” In the future, the authors asserted, “medical personnel in Liberian health centers should be aware of the possibility that they may come across active cases and thus be prepared to avoid nosocomial epidemics,” referring to hospital-acquired infection.
What triggered our dismay was not the words, but when they were written: The paper was published in 1982....
Part of the problem is that none of these articles were co-written by a Liberian scientist. The investigators collected their samples, returned home and published the startling results in European medical journals. Few Liberians were then trained in laboratory or epidemiological methods. Even today, downloading one of the papers would cost a physician here $45, about half a week’s salary.
Read complete article
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/08/opinion/yes-we-were-warned-about-ebola.html?_r=0
Comments
A Serological Survey on Viral Haemorrhagic Fevers in Liberia
Supporting documentation for the article above is within the links below . . .
STUDY - Annals of Virology (Annales de l'Institut Pasteur / Virologie) - A Serological Survey on Viral Haemorrhagic Fevers in Liberia
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0769261782800282
CIDRAP - 1982 study suggested Ebola was in Liberia then
http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2015/04/1982-study-suggested-ebola-was-liberia-then
Les Roberts – “What if the baseline does not equal zero?”
submitted by Stephen S. Morse
pfmhcolumbia.wordpress.com - Les Roberts – Freetown, Sierra Leone – April 4, 2015
I had a call from our alum Laura Miller this morning. She was bummed… and a little freaked out about an infant case that arose in Kailahun where there has not been a case for quite a while. This is where the outbreak seems to have entered Sierra Leone. The child’s parents are EVD negative. Something similar (psychologically but not epidemiologically) has happened in Liberia in recent days, and if I believe the newspapers, perhaps those are linked to sexual transmission. Laura and thousands of others have been really demoralized by embers of Ebola arising where we thought the outbreak had come and gone.
I think in part this is because everyone around me has been promoting this phrase “Getting to Zero.” It is driving me crazy, as it is probably an impossible concept. It strongly appears that Ebola has been present in the region for years and was simply unrecognized. Evidence of this includes:
Analysis of hundreds of frozen blood samples from 2011 – 2014 at the Kenema Hospital Lassa Fever Ward found 22% of Lassa Negative patients were EVD +. See: Boisen ML et al. Multiple circulating infections can mimic the early stages of viral hemorrhagic fevers and possible human exposure to filoviruses in Sierra Leone prior to the 2014 outbreak. Viral Immunol. 2015 Feb;28(1):19-31. doi: 10.1089/vim.2014.0108.
A 1996 WHO press release described a 25 year old male on the Liberia / Cote d’Ivoire border “was confirmed by serological tests carried out at the Institute Pasteur in Paris” as EVD positive. See: http://www.who.int/csr/don/1996_01_22c/en/
A population-based random blood sample of 433 residents “in rural areas” of Liberia in 1978-’79 found 6% to be EVD positive. They tested for anti-bodies (range of positives 1/16 to 1/1024). See: Knobloch J. A serological Survey on Viral Hemorrhagic Fevers in Liberia. Ann. Virol. 1982, 133E, 125 – 128.
Frozen sera from 592 residents of mining company settlements were taken in 1973 and analyzed in 1986 and 14% were EVD positive and 21% positive for Marburg. See Neppert J et al. No evidence of LAV infection in Liberia, West Africa, in the year 1973. Blut (1986) 53: 115-117.
(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)
[5 other groups] Yes, We Were Warned About Ebola
More on the history of Ebola infections.
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099%2815%2970092-7/fulltext
Mike Kraft
-----Original Message-----
From: Kathy Gilbeaux via admin
Sent: Wednesday, April 08, 2015 6:56 PM
To: global-health@m.resiliencesystem.org ;
guinea-resilience-system@m.resiliencesystem.org ;
health_liberia@m.resiliencesystem.org ;
health_sierra_leone@m.resiliencesystem.org ;
public-health-conakry@m.resiliencesystem.org ;
public_health_guinea@m.resiliencesystem.org
Subject: Re: [global-health][5 other groups] Yes, We Were Warned About Ebola
submitted by Stephen S. Morse
pfmhcolumbia.wordpress.com - Les Roberts – Freetown, Sierra Leone –
April 4, 2015
I had a call from our alum Laura Miller this morning. She was bummed… and
a
little freaked out about an infant case that arose in Kailahun where there
has not been a case for quite a while. This is where the outbreak seems to
have entered Sierra Leone. The child’s parents are EVD negative. Something
similar (psychologically but not epidemiologically) has happened in Liberia
in recent days, and if I believe the newspapers, perhaps those are linked to
sexual transmission. Laura and thousands of others have been really
demoralized by embers of Ebola arising where we thought the outbreak had
come
and gone.
I think in part this is because everyone around me has been promoting this
phrase “Getting to Zero.†It is driving me crazy, as it is probably an
impossible concept. It strongly appears that Ebola has been present in the
region for years and was simply unrecognized. Evidence of this includes:
*Analysis of hundreds of frozen blood samples from 2011 – 2014 at the
Kenema Hospital Lassa Fever Ward found 22% of Lassa Negative patients were
EVD +.* See: Boisen ML et al. Multiple circulating infections can mimic the
early stages of viral hemorrhagic fevers and possible human exposure to
filoviruses in Sierra Leone prior to the 2014 outbreak. Viral Immunol. 2015
Feb;28(1):19-31. doi: 10.1089/vim.2014.0108.
*A 1996 WHO press release described a 25 year old male on the Liberia / Cote
d’Ivoire border “was confirmed by serological tests carried out at the
Institute Pasteur in Paris†as EVD positive*. See:
http://www.who.int/csr/don/1996_01_22c/en/ [1]
*A population-based random blood sample of 433 residents “in rural
areasâ€
of Liberia in 1978-’79 found 6% to be EVD positive.* They tested for
anti-bodies (range of positives 1/16 to 1/1024). See: Knobloch J. A
serological Survey on Viral Hemorrhagic Fevers in Liberia. Ann. Virol. 1982,
133E, 125 – 128.
*Frozen sera from 592 residents of mining company settlements were taken in
1973 and analyzed in 1986 and 14% were EVD positive and 21% positive for
Marburg.* See Neppert J et al. No evidence of LAV infection in Liberia, West
Africa, in the year 1973. Blut (1986) 53: 115-117.
(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE) [2]
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[1] http://www.who.int/csr/don/1996_01_22c/en/
[2] https://pfmhcolumbia.wordpress.com/2015/04/