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What's New In W. Africa (Nigeria)

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What's New In W. Africa (Nigeria)

Old 29th Aug 2014, 05:13
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Boudreaux Bob,

Where do you get that Nigeria ranks 75th in the world for deaths from malaria? I'm just looking at the WHO Excel spreadsheet which shows that in 2012 there were an estimated 180,000 deaths from malaria in Nigeria out of a total 627,000 worldwide, making Nigeria the number one. In fact Nigeria and Democratic Republic of Congo together have around 40% of malaria deaths worldwide.
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Old 29th Aug 2014, 09:14
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Unhappy Ebola Virus is Rapidly Mutating - WHO

The WHO now reports that the present strain of Ebola is mutating rapidly and could infect up to 20,000 people before it is contained, but this could take as long as 6 - 9 months.

Rapidly mutating Ebola could infect up to 20,000

The Ebola outbreak sweeping through West Africa will get significantly worse before it subsides, infecting as many as 20,000 people, the World Health Organisation said, even as US researchers announced plans to begin human safety trials next week in a race to develop an effective vaccine.
Adding more urgency to the crisis, new research detailed how the virus at the heart of the outbreak has mutated repeatedly in recent months, a fact that could hinder diagnosis and treatment of the devastating disease the longer the crisis stretches on. Five of the paper's 50 co-authors died of Ebola before they could see their findings about the sequencing of the virus' genome published.

Despite the bad news continuing to flow out of West Africa – of overfilled and understaffed treatment centres, of airlines suspending service into affected areas, of controversial quarantines, of body counts climbing by the day – Thursday also brought a sense that the international response to the crisis, widely criticised as slow and inadequate, is shifting into higher gear.

The World Health Organisation issued a "roadmap" aimed at stopping the Ebola outbreak within the next six to nine months. It includes dramatically scaling up efforts to contain the spread of the disease and treat those stricken by it, increased resources at hospitals and isolation centres, ensuring safe burials and more aggressive public awareness campaigns.
The agency said it also will work to clear logistical "bottlenecks" that have made it difficult to get disinfectants, body bags, gloves and other medical supplies to the areas where they are desperately needed.

The plan will cost an estimated $US490 million ($524 million) over the next six months and require thousands of experts and local volunteers, the agency said. That doesn't include support for other essential services or helping West African health systems recover from the epidemic.
The organisation also offered sobering new numbers of Ebola's toll in West Africa. At least 1552 deaths and 3069 people infected have been recorded in the four countries battling the virus – Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria – though the actual totals almost certainly are higher.
Scientists from the National Institutes of Health, in collaboration with British drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline, said the experimental vaccine that will undergo human trials beginning next week has shown promising results in non-human primates. If the trials are successful, officials said, they could have 10,000 doses available in short order to immunise health workers and others at risk of contracting Ebola.

The NIH and other groups, such as the British public health charity Wellcome Trust, are trying to line up similar human Ebola vaccine trials in Britain, Gambia and Mali beginning as early as next month. And the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention is in talks with Nigerian officials about conducting trials in that country.
As researchers work toward effective treatments for Ebola, the study published on Thursday in Science offered new insights into the origins of the outbreak and how it ended up in West Africa. By genetically sequencing samples of the Ebola Zaire strain – one of five types known to infect humans – researchers said the virus appears to have diverged about a decade ago from a related strain in Central Africa, where previous outbreaks have occurred.
Ebola's arrival in Sierra Leone this spring appears to have begun with a single funeral, according to the findings. A young woman who had recently suffered a miscarriage arrived at Kenema Government Hospital in Sierra Leone in May with a high fever. During her treatment, doctors discovered she had been infected with Ebola, becoming the country's first diagnosed case.
The woman recovered, but health workers who traced her contacts discovered that she and more than a dozen other women recently had attended the burial of a traditional healer who had been treating Ebola patients near the Sierra Leone-Guinea border. All had been infected.
The study also details more than 300 genetic mutations that make the present Ebola outbreak different from any in the past.
Washington Post
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Old 29th Aug 2014, 14:09
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Phone,

It was some sort of report that popped up while googling. I did not retain the source for that.

Plainly, your information paints a far greater risk of dying from Malaria in Nigeria than mine did.

My direct experience was we always seemed to have someone ill with Malaria and as Stacy confirmed, some Deaths within our company staff.

I would suggest there is a greater risk of dying from Malaria than there is Ebola but that if One contracts Ebola that chance of dying is much worse than from a case of Malaria.

Either illness can lead to Death, just with a much greater certainty the One over the Other.
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Old 29th Aug 2014, 18:37
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AGIP was closed for a few hours. They are restricting access to essential personnel only but a large crowd wanted in. I would expect they wanted the security and access to the clinic after the latest E scare. Security forces were alerted, the gate closed, and mother nature brought in the downpour to disperse the mob.

The gate was reopened by evening.

There are still plenty of malaria cases ongoing at nearly all times as well. As for the stats, one is total deaths and one is rate. Both could be correct. Even a low rate will create a lot of deaths in a country with this many people!
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Old 30th Aug 2014, 23:19
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Schools closed

On August 26, 2014, the Ministry of Education in Abuja announced that all primary and secondary schools throughout Nigeria, both public and private, are to remain closed until Monday, October 13, 2014. The Ministry announced that these measures are being taken to prevent the introduction of Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) into school communities. In addition, the Ministry requires that all private primary and secondary schools and summer classes currently being conducted be suspended immediately until October 13, 2014. The Minister of Education and all state commissioners of education will meet again on September 23, 2014 to review the situation in all states.
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Old 2nd Sep 2014, 17:48
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It has been rather quiet on pprune on the happenings at PH. Anyone still there with an update?

No information from management on what is happening. They were big on sending three mails and more a day when Ebola was still far away, but now Ebola is at PH and it got quiet! Hello!! Anybody home? What is happening?

Heard that all Agip expats were flown out to a safe location. Who is running the show now?
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Old 3rd Sep 2014, 07:32
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Unhappy Ebola in Zaria, Boko Haram in Bama

Kaduna State has just had its first possible case of Ebola, in Zaria. A law student from ABU is presently quarantined pending the results of tests to confirm if he has the virus or not.

Yesterday the Director of the CDC gave a warning that EVD is spiralling out of control. He said that if the international acts quickly, it can be contained but the window of opportunity is closing rapidly. He is predicting a rapid increase in cases before it can be brought under control because it is moving faster than anyone anticipated. He also warned that the longer it continues the greater the likelihood that it will spread to more countries.

Meanwhile in the north east of my country, Boko Haram has now seized the strategically important town of Bama, despite denials from the military that government forces are losing control. Initially the BH fighters were driven back, but Nigeria Air Force pilots, mistaking the Nigerian army troops for BH, bombed our own forces, many of whom abandoned their guns and even their boots and joined the thousands of civilians fleeing to Maiduguri. Some Nigerian soldiers stationed in Maiduguri recently refused to deploy to Gwoza in an apparent mutiny, claiming they lacked the weapons to tackle the better-armed insurgents. It seems highly likely that BH are trying to encircle Maiduguri and capture it to make it their new capitol in a copy of what Islamic State has done with Mosul. If BH take over Borno State, it is also likely to take over a lot of territory in northern Cameroon. UNHCR now estimates that there are now 39,000 Nigeria refugees in Cameroon, 50,000 in Niger and 1,500 in Chad.

One Chatham house researcher thinks that unless the military changes its strategy it will be faced with an interminable insurgency:
In a paper for the Chatham House international affairs thinktank, Marc-Antoine Perouse de Montclos said Nigeria’s military faced fighting “an interminable insurgency” unless its strategy changed.
Military force should combine with police, judicial and local government reform as well as social and economic development to win hearts and minds in the troubled, impoverished region, he added.
But greater, direct military involvement from foreign powers, including neighbouring countries, “could incite the movement to open another front”, the researcher said.
The whole country is becoming destabilised just as we're in the period running up to our next presidential elections. This is not good. If GLJ is blocked from the presidency in 2015, or runs and loses, there is a real danger the country could erupt. On the other hand, if Jonathan runs and wins, the violence in the north will continue to burn, and very likely escalate.
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Old 3rd Sep 2014, 11:15
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Thumbs up

I'm happy to say that the student who was quarantined in Zaria has tested negative for Ebola
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Old 3rd Sep 2014, 12:43
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Ahhhh, Nigeria, what a wonderful place....
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Old 3rd Sep 2014, 19:19
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EM: RIP

Engineering Manager for WASBU died of an apparent heart-attack in a Lagos hospital parking-lot on Monday. Voodoo worshipers refused to let him in the building for fear of Ebola; that's the state of affairs in this screwed-up country!

Rest in peace Kevin Furlong -
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Old 3rd Sep 2014, 21:20
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Time has come.
Fly back to Nigeria or not?
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Old 3rd Sep 2014, 22:21
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Is the Paycheck worth it?
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Old 4th Sep 2014, 05:53
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Thumbs down Boko Haram Takes Bama

Boko Haram has now also overrun the town of Bama. Marte, Dikwa, Ngala, Gwoza, Madagali, Damboa, Buni Yadi and Banki were already under their control. If Maiduguri falls it will be very bad news and the whole of Borno, Yobe, Adamawa states and north west Cameroon could rapidly be taken by them.

The foreign ministers of Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon, Benin, plus representatives from USA, Britain, France, Canada, the African Union and the UN are reported to have been in urgent talks as to what action can be taken to halt the advance as the whole region could become destabilised. Our government has pretty much lost control of the whole of north east Nigeria
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Old 6th Sep 2014, 11:22
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Boko: INDIFFERENCE

No one will care or change until or unless these NUTS come south to oil-country.

Even though the Italian expats have scampered away from AGIP base in PH, life goes on from NAF. (Bristow pilots forced to move out of own accommodation and sleep in empty pasta-eater's beds!)

Neither the world or our company gives a toss until killings or kidnaps happen again in Eket, Port Harcourt, or Lagos.

R U OK day on September 11th; wonder if anyone has the guts to stand-up and say "Hell No"!

(Or be like me and just keep whoring for the money with no expectation that any improvement will occur until further death, disease, or destruction?)
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Old 7th Sep 2014, 04:06
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Any Good Rumours ?

Seems this thread has become a bad news notification and a "let's slate the company", whichever company that may be, board.

Surely there must be some good or at least fairly good news to post ?

Don't get me wrong, if something is bad then a fair broadcast is proper, but looking back over the past few pages it seems nothing is right at all !

NEO
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Old 7th Sep 2014, 09:45
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Unhappy

NEO,
If you have any good news, please post it. Me, I fear for the safety of my family and the future of my company. I think we work for the same company, which used to be fairly good, but now all I see is chaos and confusion. I certainly have no idea of what's happening. A$$lick decimated the company when he was MD and now he's even more powerful, he's decimated it even more on his recent culling visit. Do you know what's happening with PAAN or BATS? One of my good friends works for BATS and he has no idea .
ACN seems to be going down the toilet. The GM left and even JVdeM after 30 years of working for them has abandoned ship and gone to Caverton .
I'm not from the north, but I have friends there who are seriously scared and with good reason. They see BH as an unstoppable force like Islamic State. Many of their weapons are taken from our demoralised army who just abandon weapons and uniform and rain away from them like the civilians in Gwoza, Banki and Bama. They are destroying bridges to stop the army getting into many areas near Maiduguri and most of the residents of Maiduguri are also in fear that it will soon be overrun and become the capital of a new caliphate. Even many Muslims there fear the arrival of BH and what will happen to their sons and daughters. More than 50,000 of mt countrymen are now refugees in Niger, a country much poorer than Nigeria and tens of thousands are refugees in Camerron, a country which is also likely to become seized and part of a new Islamic caliphate. Our army in the north has only managed to terrorise the population even more, and turn and run whenever they are attacked.
I don't know if you're in Lagos at the moment, but most people have given up shaking hands. More than 200 people in PH are being monitored for Ebola. A diplomat fled Lagos and infected a doctor in PH and at least 60 of his contacts there are classed by the WHO as 'high risk' contacts
It all started at the beginning of August, when a diplomat in Lagos violated a quarantine order and fled to Port Harcourt. That man infected a doctor at the port city, who then had contact with more than 200 people, the World Health Organization said Wednesday. About 60 people had what WHO calls "high-risk exposure" — they were in direct contact with the doctor or his bodily fluids.

“ It's like fighting a wildfire when the wind picks up. When embers start hopping to new places, you have to redistribute your resources when you'd prefer to focus all of them on a single front.
- Epidemiologist John Brownstein of Harvard University, on the spread of Ebola in Nigeria
The doctor secretly treated the diplomat in a Port Harcourt hotel room. The diplomat reportedly has survived.

The doctor developed symptoms — and thus became contagious to others — on Aug. 11. But for the next two days, he continued to treat patients in his private clinic, performing surgery on two.

As his Ebola symptoms worsened, but before he went into the hospital, the doctor had "numerous contacts" with relatives and friends who came to his home to celebrate the birth of a baby, the WHO said.

After he was hospitalized, the doctor was treated by the majority of the staff at the hospital's clinic over a six-day period, plus doctors at an outside ultrasound clinic. He also had contact with many members of his church, who visited to perform a healing ritual "said to involve the laying-on of hands," the WHO reports.

The doctor died on Aug. 22. His wife got Ebola but has survived. On Thursday the Nigerian Federal Ministry of Health reported that the doctor's sister has Ebola.

Air traffic connections from West Africa to the rest of the world: While Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone don't have many flights outside the region, Nigeria is well-connected to Europe and the U.S.
Goats and Soda
A Few Ebola Cases Likely In U.S., Air Traffic Analysis Predicts
The WHO currently reports 21 cases of Ebola and seven deaths in Nigeria. According to Nigerian Health Minister Onyebuchi Chukwu, five of these cases — two of whom have died — are in the Port Harcourt cluster.

But WHO officials are very worried that Nigeria could see many more cases. "Given these multiple high-risk exposure opportunities, the outbreak of Ebola virus disease in Port Harcourt has the potential to grow larger and spread faster than the one in Lagos," the WHO said.

I know that after your own recent survival you may be feeling invulnerable now. I can't imagine what you went through and survived. Most of us hope that will never happen to us, but many of us are afraid of what's happening in our country, militarily, health-wise and politically. I'd love to send my family away, but then I'd be accused of taking advantage of the fact that I'm in a well paid job and running scared. It's getting close to the point where I'm ready to take the criticism of friends and other family members to protect my family though.

If I hear some good news, I'll post it, but right now, the short term future is looking rather bleak
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Old 7th Sep 2014, 10:38
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The only good news for most is the homeward bound flight at the end of a hitch.

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Old 7th Sep 2014, 14:18
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Smile Masochist....

It seems most pilots, be it FW or RW, are a bunch of "Masochist".
Just read this thread or that of Arik or Max Air.
They still return and ask for more maltreatment!

The problem when you finish your tour and go home you know that you will return!

I had the same experience when living in Camp 10 in Warri.
I also returned despite all the kidnappings, power failures, etc.

Good luck to all of you.
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Old 7th Sep 2014, 14:37
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For those in Nigeria, or returning soon, the best website for genuine information on the Ebola outbreak, collating reports from a number of other organisations is
International SOS, Ebola in Africa
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Old 7th Sep 2014, 15:05
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The problem when you finish your tour and go home you know that you will return!
My next is my last.

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