Liberia: ‘Ebola like disease’ hits Monrovia; health authorities Close schools.

Liberia: ‘Ebola like disease’ hits Monrovia; health authorities Close schools. HT: Crofs.

Via GNN Liberia: ‘Strange Disease’ Hits Monrovia, Health Authorities Say 1 Pronounced Dead. Excerpt:

The outbreak of what medical authorities considered as ‘Strange Disease’ in Greenville, southeastern Liberia, Sinoe County,  has reportedly taken the lives of eleven person and several being placed on critical list has reportedly crept in the populated City of Monrovia with one been pronounced dead by health authorities in Monrovia on Friday evening, and several quarantined in an undisclosed location. 

According to health authorities in Monrovia those infected with the “strange” disease showed symptoms of severe stomach pain, vomiting, diarrhoea, fever and headaches, Liberia’s chief medical officer, Francis Kateh, said on national radio.  

Initial tests showed that the disease was not Ebola, said Dr. Francis Kateh, the Chief Medical Officer of Liberia during an interview with reporters in Monrovia recently. 

Liberia, as well as neighbouring Guinea and Sierra Leone, were the three countries most affected by an outbreak of Ebola, which killed more than 11 000 people between December 2013 and mid-2016. 

Blood samples have been sent for analysis to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the United States, said Kateh. 

Health authorities were made aware of the unknown disease on April 25, when several people died in south-eastern Sinoe County.  

Doctors suspect it is transmitted via body contact. 

The World Health Organization (WHO) said it had sent rapid response teams to the area to assist Liberian health officials with technical and logistical support.

2.  April 27 APA News report: Liberia: Authorities in Sinoe County shut down schools.

The local authorities in southeastern Sinoe County have shut down all schools in the county until the disease that has surfaced in the county is contained. 

According to a local radio report in Sinoe County, the residents of Greenville city are fleeing the city and seeking refuge in nearby villages apparently to escape the scourge of the disease.

At the same time, the spokesman of the Liberia National Police, Sam Collins, has disclosed that the Liberia National Police has dispatched a team of forensic officers to Greenville to help the ministry of health investigate the cause of the deaths from the strange disease.  

The Ministry of Health spokesman, Sorbor George, told Okay FM in Monrovia on Thursday that even though the symptoms of the strange disease resemble symptoms of the Ebola Virus Disease such as vomiting and abdominal pain, the strange disease is not Ebola.  

He, however, urged citizens to continue observing measures like hand washing, reporting deaths in communities and ill relatives in communities to prevent any disease outbreaks. 

Liberia’s Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Francis Kateh, told reporters in Monrovia on Thursday that the death toll from the strange disease has risen to 10, while another person has contracted the disease, bringing to 18, the number of persons who have so far contracted in disease.

Canada - WHO: "Previously Unknown variant to Measles Virus circulating in Ontario"

Canada - WHO: "Previously Unknown variant to Measles Virus circulating in Ontario" . HT: Crof.

Via The Globe and Mail, health reporter Kelly Grant writes: Measles virus circulating in Ontario is a variant previously unknown to WHO. Excerpt:

The measles outbreak in Canada’s largest city was already a minor epidemiological puzzle when scientists discovered something that deepened the mystery. 

Of the 11 Greater Toronto Area patients diagnosed with the highly contagious illness since the end of January, none are connected to each other in any way that public health staff could discover through interviews with the patients or their parents. None had recently travelled outside Canada to a place where they might have caught the measles. 

Public health officials had hoped that genetic analysis of the measles viruses in these cases might shed light on where the Toronto outbreak came from. 

Instead, scientists found something new: The version of the measles virus circulating in Ontario is a variant that has never before been reported to the World Health Organization database that contains descriptions of more than 22,000 slightly different viral sequences of the measles virus found across the globe. 

The measles virus is constantly mutating, meaning subtly distinct versions are regularly added to the global storehouse, said Matthew Gilmour, the new scientific director general who oversees Canada’s National Microbiology Laboratory (NML) in Winnipeg, where the genetic sequencing was done. 

“It’s new to us now, but as other countries uncover this virus as well, they’ll have a chance to put it in the same database,” Dr. Gilmour said. “The puzzle will start to become clear then as to what the actual origin of this strain is.”

Saudi Arabia says 4 more die from new respiratory virus MERS related to SARS.

Saudi Arabia says 4 more die from new respiratory virus MERS related to SARS.(Yahoo).

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - Saudi Arabia says four more people have died from a new respiratory virus related to SARS, bringing the total number of deaths to 32 in the kingdom at the centre of the growing crisis. 

Overall, nearly 40 people have died from the virus since September, mostly in Europe and the Middle East. That's according to local officials and the World Health Organization. The Saudi Health Ministry also said on Monday that it confirmed three more cases of the virus, including in a 2-year-old child. Officials are still seeking clues on how easily it is spread between humans.
The virus continues to spread into new countries, raising concern ahead of the Islamic pilgrimage periods which will occur this summer and autumn.
Most of the victims suffered from underlying medical conditions. The WHO says the virus spreads by means including interpersonal contact, and possibly via airborne transmission between people in closed quarters. 

It doesn’t appear to spread easily in communities at large, but what about transmission between travelers in airports and planes?
Authorities believe initial transmission of the virus was from animal to human, but the animal source remains unidentified. The European Center for Disease Prevention and Control noted the many unanswered questions about the Middle East-based virus, issuing a statement saying, “It is unusual to have such a degree of uncertainty at this stage in an outbreak.”
The new virus is related to SARS, which killed some 800 people in a global epidemic in 2003, and belongs to a family of viruses that most often causes the common cold.Read the full story here.

New mysterious 'Bat' respiratory virus on the loose?

New mysterious respiratory virus on the loose?(IMRA).
SOURCE: Naharnet (Lebanon) 1 Dec.’12: 2 more Cases of New Virus in Jordan”, Associated Press.

SUBJECT: New mysterious respiratory virus 

QUOTE:” World Health Organization recommends that countries test any persons with unexplained pneumonia” 

FULL TEXT: International health officials have confirmed two more fatal cases of a mysterious respiratory virus in the Middle East.

The virus has so far sickened nine people and killed five of them. The new disease is a coronavirus related to SARS, which killed some 800 people in a global epidemic in 2003, and belongs to a family of viruses that most often causes the common cold. The two cases date back to April and are part of a cluster of a dozen people, mostly health workers, who fell sick in an intensive care unit at a hospital in Zarqa, Jordan. Officials are investigating whether the 10 other people who grew sick in Zarqa also were infected and how the virus might have spread. "It's too early to say whether human-to-human transmission occurred or not, but we certainly can't rule it out," said WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl. One of the Jordanian cases was a 40-year-old female. All of the other patients to date have been men. The new virus has so far been identified in patients from Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Scientists haven't found any links between the sporadic cases of the coronavirus so far, first detected in September. "We don't know how the virus gets around and there are more questions than answers right now," Hartl said. Several of the patients sickened by the new coronavirus have had rapid kidney failure and others have suffered severe pneumonia and respiratory illnesses. The virus is most closely related to a bat virus and scientists are also considering whether bats or animals like camels or goats are a possible source of infection. Scientists are also considering whether fruit contaminated by animal droppings may have spread the virus.
Still, not all of the cases had contact with animals and WHO said it was possible the virus was spread between humans in the Jordan hospital and in a cluster of cases in Saudi Arabia, where four members of the same family fell ill and two died. WHO says the virus is probably more widespread than just the Middle East and recommended that countries test any people with unexplained pneumonia. ========== Sue Lerner - Associate, IMRA.

Related : H1N1 cases in Saudi Arabia kept silent to avoid panic among haj pilgrims.