Ένα κρούσμα της ασθένειας του ιού Ebola επιδεινώνεται στη Λαϊκή Δημοκρατία του Κονγκό και οι εργαζόμενοι στον τομέα της υγείας παλεύουν να εμβολιάσουν τα άτομα με υψηλότερο κίνδυνο με ένα πειραματικό εμβόλιο.
Κινούν επίσης να προσπαθήσουν να σταματήσουν οποιαδήποτε περαιτέρω εξάπλωση. Ο ιός, ο οποίος προσβάλλει συνήθως τους ανθρώπους που ζουν σε δασικές περιοχές, εμφανίστηκε στο πολυσύχναστο λιμάνι της πόλης Mbandaka.
"Η επιβεβαιωμένη υπόθεση στο Mbandaka, ένα μεγάλο αστικό κέντρο που βρίσκεται σε μεγάλα εθνικά και διεθνή ποτάμια, δρόμους και εσωτερικές αεροπορικές διαδρομές, αυξάνει τον κίνδυνο εξάπλωσης στη Λαϊκή Δημοκρατία του Κονγκό και στις γειτονικές χώρες", ανέφερε η Παγκόσμια Οργάνωση Υγείας την Τετάρτη.
"Ως εκ τούτου, η ΠΟΥ έχει αναθεωρήσει την αξιολόγηση του κινδύνου για τη δημόσια υγεία σε πολύ υψηλό επίπεδο σε εθνικό επίπεδο και υψηλό σε περιφερειακό επίπεδο".
Ο ΠΟΥ αναφέρει ότι έχουν αναφερθεί 58 επιβεβαιωμένες ή ύποπτες περιπτώσεις, με 27 θανάτους, με ποσοστό θνησιμότητας 47%.
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Και οι υπάλληλοι είχαν μια στιγμή πανικού όταν έμαθαν δύο ασθενείς που εγκατέλειψαν το νοσοκομείο στη Mbandaka τη Δευτέρα το βράδυ.
Κάποιος πέθανε στο σπίτι την επόμενη μέρα και θάφτηκε με τη βοήθεια των ιατρικών φιλανθρωπικών οργανώσεων Medecins Sans Frontieres (ΓΧΣ). Ο άλλος απεστάλη πίσω στο νοσοκομείο και πέθανε εκείνο το βράδυ, δήλωσε στο Reuters ο εκπρόσωπος του ΠΟΥ στο Κογκό, Eugene Kabambi.
Η Έμπολα απλώνεται ταχύτερα στους ανθρώπους που φροντίζουν τους άρρωστους χωρίς κατάλληλα προστατευτικά εργαλεία και μπορεί να εξαπλωθεί στις κηδείες όταν ομάδες ανθρώπων πλένουν και χειρίζονται τα σώματα των νεκρών.
Ο ΠΟΥ έχει προειδοποιήσει εννέα γειτονικές χώρες να είναι σε εγρήγορση για τις περιπτώσεις και λέει ότι οι άνθρωποι που εγκαταλείπουν τη Λαϊκή Δημοκρατία του Κονγκό (ΛΔΚ) θα πρέπει να εξετάζονται για ασθένειες.
"Οι χώρες με υψηλότερη προτεραιότητα είναι η Κεντροαφρικανική Δημοκρατία και η Δημοκρατία του Κονγκό (Κονγκό-Μπραζαβίλ), λόγω της εγγύτητάς τους στο σημερινό γεγονός", δήλωσε ο ΠΟΥ.
Πού είναι η πιο πιθανή διεθνής εξάπλωση του Ebola; Η Συμμαχία EcoHealth ανέλυσε τα πρότυπα πτήσεων από τα αεροδρόμια της περιοχής.
Οι κορυφαίες 10 συνδέσεις τους:
1. Pointe-Noire, Δημοκρατία του Κονγκό
2. Αντίς Αμπέμπα, Αιθιοπία
3. Brazzaville, Δημοκρατία του Κονγκό
4. Lubumbashi, Λαϊκή Δημοκρατία του Κονγκό
5. Βρυξέλλες, Βέλγιο
6. Κινσάσα, Λαϊκή Δημοκρατία του Κονγκό
7. Παρίσι, Γαλλία
8. Ναϊρόμπι, Κένυα
9. Γιοχάνεσμπουργκ, Νότια Αφρική
10. Kisangani, Λαϊκή Δημοκρατία του Κονγκό
Η ΛΔΚ είναι μια πρώην βελγική αποικία και, ως εκ τούτου, έχει συχνές συνδέσεις με τις Βρυξέλλες, ενώ η Δημοκρατία του Κονγκό, γνωστή και ως Κονγκό-Μπραζαβίλ, είναι μια πρώην γαλλική αποικία και συνεπώς έχει συνδέσεις με τη Γαλλία.
"Δεν υπάρχουν αμερικανικές πόλεις στην κορυφή των 20", δήλωσε η μη κερδοσκοπική ομάδα, η οποία επικεντρώνεται στις αναδυόμενες ασθένειες.
Στην επιδημία Ebola 2014-2016, μόνο ένας ταξιδιώτης έφερε τυχαία την Έμπολα στις ΗΠΑ. Ήταν ο Thomas Eric Duncan , ένας πολίτης της Λιβερίας που επισκεπτόταν την οικογένεια στο Ντάλας. Πέθανε και δύο νοσοκόμες που τον αντιμετώπισαν μολύνθηκαν, αλλά ανακτήθηκαν.
Άλλοι ασθενείς με Ebola που υποβλήθηκαν σε θεραπεία στις ΗΠΑ ήταν εργαζόμενοι στον τομέα της υγείας και ένας δημοσιογράφος που μεταφέρθηκαν για θεραπεία υπό προσεκτικές συνθήκες μετά τη διάγνωσή τους.
Λιγότερο από το 1% των ταξιδιωτών από την περιοχή του Κονγκό κατευθύνονται προς τις ΗΠΑ, ανέφερε η ομάδα.
Η Νέα Υόρκη, το Μαϊάμι, η Ατλάντα, η Βοστώνη και το Λος Άντζελες είναι οι πιο πιθανές πόλεις των ΗΠΑ για να πάρουν επιβάτες από την περιοχή.
Ενώ οι ανησυχίες για την εξάπλωση είναι υψηλές, οι ειδικοί στην υγεία λένε ότι η επιδημία αυτή δεν είναι τόσο κακή όσο η επιδημία Ebola 2014-2016 που σκότωσε 11.000 ανθρώπους στη Λιβερία, τη Σιέρα Λεόνε και τη Γουινέα. Αυτό συμβαίνει επειδή η ΛΔΚ έχει λιγότερες διεθνείς συνδέσεις.
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"Ένα από τα πράγματα που έκανε τη Δυτική Αφρική μια τέλεια καταιγίδα ήταν ότι ... συνέβη όταν υπήρχε τεράστια δραστηριότητα μεταξύ των ανθρώπων", δήλωσε ο Δρ. Jonathan Epstein, κτηνίατρος και επιδημιολόγος στην EcoHealth Alliance στη Νέα Υόρκη.
"Ήταν στα σύνορα τριών χωρών, και υπήρχαν αρκετά καλά δρόμοι και συνδέσεις σε πρωτεύουσες".
Έμπολα μεταδίδεται από πολύ κοντά πρόσωπο-με-πρόσωπο επαφή και συνήθως μεταδίδεται μόνο όταν ο ασθενής εμφανίζει ήδη συμπτώματα, έτσι ώστε ο ιός δεν θα εξαπλωθεί τόσο γρήγορα όσο γρίπης ή της ιλαράς μπορεί.
Στην περιοχή του Κονγκό, οι δρόμοι και τα αεροδρόμια είναι λιγότερα.
"Η υποδομή στη Λαϊκή Δημοκρατία του Κονγκό δεν είναι τόσο καλή", δήλωσε ο Epstein.
Οι αρχικές περιπτώσεις ήταν σε μια πολύ απομακρυσμένη περιοχή και το ταξίδι στην πολυσύχναστη πρωτεύουσα, Κινσάσα, είναι δύσκολη. Ωστόσο, η Mbandaka έχει αεροδρόμιο, κάθεται σε ποτάμι και είναι κοντά σε πορώδη σύνορα. Γι 'αυτό και μια περίπτωση είναι ανησυχητική.
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"Ας ελπίσουμε ότι αυτό θα περιοριστεί έτσι ώστε οι περιπτώσεις να μην φτάσουν στην Κινσάσα", ανέφερε ο Εστέιν. Τα αεροδρόμια εκεί και το γειτονικό Μπραζαβίλ θα μπορούσαν να επιτρέψουν στους ανθρώπους να ταξιδεύουν πολύ γρήγορα. Η περίοδος επώασης για το Ebola είναι οπουδήποτε μεταξύ δύο και 21 ημερών, έτσι ώστε οι άνθρωποι να μπορούν να ταξιδεύουν προτού παρουσιάσουν συμπτώματα.
"Με περίπου μισό εκατομμύριο επιβάτες που ταξιδεύουν από τη Λαϊκή Δημοκρατία του Κονγκό κάθε χρόνο, η ασθένεια απαιτεί μόνο έναν μολυσμένο ταξιδιώτη να προκαλέσει παγκόσμια έκτακτη ανάγκη για δημόσια υγεία και αυτό μας βοηθά να είμαστε προειδοποιημένοι και προετοιμασμένοι", δήλωσε ο Δρ Peter Daszak, πρόεδρος της Συμμαχία για την οικολογία.
Αλλά οι προετοιμασίες στη ΛΔΚ ήταν καλύτερες από ό, τι στη Δυτική Αφρική.
Η Έμπολα δεν είχε δει ποτέ στη Δυτική Αφρική. Οι αρχές του Κονγκό συνηθίζουν. Ο ιός ανακαλύφθηκε στη χώρα το 1976, όταν ονομάστηκε Ζαΐρ.
"Η αντίδραση σε αυτό το ξέσπασμα τόσο από τον Κονγκό και τη διεθνή κοινότητα ήταν καλύτερη και οι πόροι χτύπησαν το έδαφος γρηγορότερα", δήλωσε ο Epstein.
Οι ΗΠΑ έχουν δεσμευτεί τουλάχιστον 8 εκατομμύρια δολάρια για να βοηθήσουν και η ΠΟΥ αναπτύσσει εμβόλια. Η Merck, ο κατασκευαστής εμβολίων, έχει στείλει 8,600 δόσεις με 8,000 ακόμη έρχονται, δήλωσε ο ΠΟΥ.
DUBLIN — Rita Harrold's decision to end her pregnancy turned her into a criminal in the eyes of the law.
More than four decades after being legalized in the U.S., abortion remains illegal in almost all cases in the Irish Republic.
Five years ago, Harrold took abortion pills that had been smuggled into the country.
“I was dating somebody new and we were really happy together, but we weren't living together and we were both unemployed,” said Harrold, now 28. “I literally had 90 euros ($110) in the bank. … I was not in the best place to have a child.”
Catholicism has traditionally played a powerful role in Irish society, and abortion remains such a taboo that it's rare for women to speak openly about it. Such a public admission could result in Harrold being imprisoned for 14 years.
But change may be in the air. Ireland is due to hold a referendum on liberalizing the country’s abortion laws on Friday.
The country has some of the most restrictive abortion legislation in the European Union, with Malta — where abortion is banned under all circumstances — the only member of the 28-country bloc with tighter laws.
Voters will be asked to decide whether they want to repeal the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution, which enshrines the equal right to life of the mother and fetus. Repealing it would open the door to more liberal laws.
Prime Minister Leo Varadkar's government said it will begin drafting legislation to allow women access to unrestricted abortion up to the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. (In the U.S., abortion is generally restricted between 20 weeks and "viability," depending on the state, according to the Guttmacher Institute. However, Mississippi recently introduced a bill to prohibit abortion after 15 weeks.)
"I believe that this is a decision about whether we want to continue to stigmatize and criminalize our sisters, our co-workers and our friends, or whether we are prepared to take a collective act of leadership to show empathy and compassion," Varadkar said.
Harrold says she is not afraid of speaking openly about her illegal actions. “It’s essential to break unjust laws, to show that they need to be changed,” she said.
'EITHER WE ARE FOR CHRIST OR WE ARE AGAINST HIM'
Anti-abortion protesters were bused in from all over the country for a Rally for Life in Dublin in March. Many prayed or said the rosary as they walked the streets.
The turnout was not unexpected. Some 78 percent of the country's population identify as Catholic, according to Ireland’s 2016 census.
However, the Roman Catholic Church’s authority and reputation has been damaged in a series of scandals over the past 20 years. They include the sexual abuse of children by priests, the exploitation and abuse of unmarried and "fallen women" at Catholic-run workhouses, and the forced adoptions of children of unmarried parents.
As he stood in the sun watching marchers pass by, James Mary McInerney, a friar at the Church of Visitation in north Dublin, said that as a Catholic it was his obligation to protect life.
“We believe all life is sacred and comes from God and is a gift from God,” he said. “From conception in the womb to our natural end, all life has to be protected, loved and cherished.”
Addressing his congregation at Mass the next day, McInerney did not mince his words, saying no Catholic could vote yes on the referendum and "be in union" with Christ.
"We don’t have a choice,” he told attentive faces in the church's busy pews. “Either we are for Christ or we are against him.”
Members of the congregation let out audible gasps when the friar said he was aware of Catholics who will vote "yes" to repealing the Eighth Amendment. “You can’t do that and remain a Catholic," he said to murmurs of agreement.
After his homily, McInerney said he believed there were no circumstances in which abortion could be morally justifiable.
“There are some things that never change, and one of them is 'Thou shalt not kill,'” he said.
A SURREAL JOURNEY
Harrold is not the only Irish woman to have been affected by the Eighth Amendment.
Seven years ago, Siobhan Donohue was just under 22 weeks pregnant when she traveled to England — where abortion is legal — to terminate her third pregnancy.
At 20 weeks, her unborn son, T.J., was diagnosed with anencephaly, a fetal anomaly in which he was missing a large part of his brain, skull and scalp. Donohue and her husband were told that if T.J. survived birth, he would not live for long.
Due to her baby bump, the doctor said she could foresee uncomfortable conversations in the supermarket and her children’s day-care center and couldn't ignore "the fact that my baby was going to die."
Donohue, who is now 46, decided to travel to Liverpool. Describing the journey as "surreal," she recalled boarding a flight with her husband alongside bachelorette parties and tourists jetting off for a weekend away.
“It felt like we’d been sent out of our country, we’d been told go somewhere else if you want to do this,” she said, sitting at the kitchen table of her family home in the seaside town of Bray, south of Dublin. “It was a very isolating experience, a very lonely journey.”
Abortion is only permitted in Ireland if a woman’s life is in danger, which includes the risk of suicide. It is not permitted in cases of rape, incest or fetal abnormalities.
In 2013, the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act reduced the maximum prison sentence for procuring an illegal abortion in Ireland from life imprisonment to 14 years.No one has been convicted under the new law, according to the Irish Courts Services' records.
However, Irish customs officials regularly seize abortion pills at the border. And anyone who helps a woman procure an illegal abortion can also face up to 14 years in jail.
In 2016, 3,265 Irish women journeyed to England or Wales to terminate their pregnancies, the equivalent of around nine women a day.
A few weeks after Donohue had the procedure, TJ’s cremated remains were delivered to her door by courier.
“You move on from a grief, you get over a bereavement eventually, you learn how to live with it, but the rejection I felt having to leave my own country, that’s the bit that’s really hard to swallow,” she said.
'THEY WANT TO LIVE, THEY FIGHT TO SURVIVE'
While Donohue’s experiences inspired her to campaign for the Eighth Amendment to be repealed, others who have been through difficult pregnancies say they feel differently.
Kate Lawlor, 52, says even as a child she knew abortion was wrong. That sense was solidified when anti-abortion groups visited her school to display pictures of the process when she was a teenager.
Then came the birth of her twins. They were born at 29 weeks, 11 weeks premature.
“I remember thinking, this is life, whether they’re due or not due, whether it is several weeks before they’re due, whether they’re still forming, it’s a natural process, they want to live, they fight to survive,” she said.
Lawlor feels that life begins at conception, but like many people who describe themselves as anti-abortion in modern-day Ireland, she said her beliefs are not grounded in religious faith but in human rights.
A HEARTBREAKING SECRET
Sinéad — who did not want to use her real name because her family does not know she had an abortion — knows how black and white the Catholic faith can be on abortion.
“My family are quite Catholic and incredibly pro-life,” said Sinéad, who found herself pregnant midway through her entry exams for law school.
Having spoken to her parents about abortion previously, Sinéad said she knew she would have to go it alone.
“They turned around to me and said that in their views abortion, no matter how many weeks in, will always be murder and they could never allow me to go through with something like that, and they would be incredibly disappointed if it I did,” she explained.
The 25-year-old said not being able to tell her parents was heartbreaking.
Sinéad eventually discovered the Abortion Support Network, which helps women in the Irish Republic travel to England for the procedure. The now-trainee lawyer explained how they helped her gather money, book flights and arranged to have a volunteer pick her up on arrival in Liverpool.
“They couldn’t have been any better," she said. "Thank God an organization like that exists."
Mara Clarke, the founder of the Abortion Support Network, has received calls from thousands of women like Sinéad. “You can just feel it, the minute you say, 'Yes, we can help.' It's like you can feel her spine untensing and her shoulders going down,” she said.
TWO MEDICAL PERSPECTIVES
As the head of the National Maternity Hospital in Dublin, Dr. Rhona Mahony has dealt with some of the most complex pregnancies in Ireland.
Her experiences have left her in no doubt that the Eighth Amendment should be repealed, arguing that it poses an “unacceptable risk” to women’s health and places undue pressure on her staff.
“At what point does a risk to health become a risk to life and what is the risk to life? Is it 10 percent chance of dying, 20 percent?” Mahony asked, sitting on the bed of what was seemingly the only empty delivery room in the buzzing hospital.
“We’re making very complicated clinical decisions in the shadow of a custodial sentence of 14 years,” she said. “I think this distorts and potentially delays clinical decision-making, which is really not good for women.”
Dr. Orla Halpenny, a general practitioner, disagrees that repealing the Eighth Amendment is the answer for reproductive rights.
While she says obstetrics is clear that if the mother’s life is in danger it will not always be possible to treat both patients equally, the constitutional amendment ensures that the life of the unborn child is protected.
“My perspective on it would be that there are two lives in the case of a pregnancy,” she said. “The fact that one life is inconvenient, or has a disability, or even has a terminal illness, doesn't make it any the less deserving of respect and care.”
Instead of opting for abortion, Halpenny said society should do more to support women financially and socially to at least go through with their pregnancies and then decide on keeping the child or putting them up for adoption.
'WE REFUSE TO SHIP OUR SHAME ACROSS THE SEA'
An anti-abortion rally in March was distinctly patriotic.
Celtic bands played as tens of thousands walked from the Garden of Remembrance — dedicated to those who gave their lives in the cause of Irish freedom — across the River Liffey to the Irish Parliament. Many were draped in the Irish tricolor and at one point the crowd began singing the national anthem.
But the crowd was also diverse, with Catholics from Ireland to India, young and old, and feminist campaigners also present.
Helen Seagrave, 66, had come with her daughter and five of her grandchildren. “I don’t think it’s right that you should kill babies,” she said, holding a poster displaying pictures of her grandchildren as newborns. “Any human being worth their salt would stand up for that.”
The pro-abortion rights rally held on International Women’s Day was smaller but more vocal. The spirit was defiant, and the crowd was younger and consisted primarily of women.
“Hey mister, hey mister, get your laws off my sister,” went one chant, as the marchers walked from the Garden of Remembrance to the Customs House on the banks of the river.
A line of young women wheeled suitcases, their luggage a symbol of the women who have to travel abroad to terminate their pregnancies.
Stickers stuck to the bags read: “We refuse to ship our shame across the sea any longer.”
Harrold, who took the abortion pill, was among the protesters leading the charge and as the speeches finished on the steps of the Customs House she began the unified chanting.
“Hear our voices, respect our choices,” she shouted through a megaphone. “Not the Church, not the state, women should decide their fate.”
It was one of those more-than-hectic days. Erin Holley and her husband were building a new house and dealing with a newborn along with their 4-year-old daughter.
“The baby and the move came all at the same time,” said Holley, who lives in Charleston, S.C.
“Last summer is a blur of storage units and moving into the new house and nursing the baby.” He didn’t sleep well. “I was exhausted and delirious,” she said.
A family trip to the park sounded like just the break they needed.
“We were moving things from one storage unit to the next. At some point we both thought we had moved the baby to the first car,” Holley remembered.
Two kids — two car seats. One facing forward, one facing back, with a high back that protects the infant in a crash, but makes him invisible to anyone in the front.
“We dropped my husband’s car in a parking lot at noon, in June, in Charleston. Then we drove to the park. When I went to take the baby out and put him in a stroller, I screamed, ‘Oh my god, where is the baby?’”
Holley’s moment of terror did not end in tragedy, but on average, 37 kids left in cars die of hyperthermia in the United States every year.
A new study from Arizona State University and the University of California San Diego quantifies just how long it takes for cars to reach killer temperatures in either the sun or the shade.
It isn’t long on a hot summer day.
The team tested six cars, including two sedans, two economy cars and two minivans.
Left in the sun on a 100-degree day in Arizona, it took just an hour for the interior temperature to hit 116 degrees. Dashboards heated up to a stinging 157 degrees and seats hit 123 degrees in that time.
The shade wasn’t much better. Interior temperatures reached 100 degrees after one hour and seats were 105 degrees.
“These tests replicated what might happen during a shopping trip,” said Nancy Selover, an Arizona State University climatologist and research professor.
“We wanted to know what the interior of each vehicle would be like after one hour, about the amount of time it would take to get groceries. I knew the temperatures would be hot, but I was surprised by the surface temperatures.”
Holley felt sick and panicked when she realized her infant son was not in his car seat.
“You read the statistics about how fast it happens. At that point it had probably been about 10 minutes,” she said.
They raced back, calling paramedics on the way to meet them.
Luckily, the baby was OK. “The car was still cool and our son was still sound asleep quietly. The paramedics arrived right behind us. They checked his vitals. They should have checked ours,” she said.
Had it not been for her quick reaction time, all may not have been well.
“We’ve all gone back to our cars on hot days and have been barely able to touch the steering wheel,” Selover said. “But, imagine what that would be like to a child trapped in a car seat.”
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Heatstroke starts to cause damage when a child’s body temperature rises above 104 degrees.
Selover’s team calculated that a 2-year-old child left in any of the cars in their study would get that hot in an hour in the sun, and within two hours in the shade.
MEMORY FAILURES HAPPEN TO EVERYONE
Often, parents whose children die after being left in cars are charged with manslaughter or prosecuted for neglect. But Gene Brewer, an ASU associate professor of psychology who studies memory, says it’s very easy to become distracted.
“Memory failures are remarkably powerful, and they happen to everyone,” he said. “There is no difference between gender, class, personality, race or other traits. Functionally, there isn’t much of a difference between forgetting your keys and forgetting your child in the car.”
Janette Fennell, president and founder of the car safety group Kids and Cars, agrees.
“If it was useful to charge parents, I think these cases might have ended. What people don’t understand is this has everything to do with failure of memory. It’s not a failure of love,” she said.
“It’s convenient for others to blame the parent rather than understand how this really happens,” Fennell added. “It can and does happen to absolutely anyone.”
That’s why Holley has decided to go public with her story.
“We were never going to tell a living soul that this happened to us,” she said.
“We were so ashamed. We were afraid people would doubt our parenting skills. I felt like, ‘Do I really deserve this gorgeous, gorgeous son?’”
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Then tragedy did hit.
“Both our children go to a daycare where our son was in a classroom with a little boy that was 10 days younger than him, and his dad recently drove to work without dropping him off,” Holley said.
“His mom came to pick him up at the end of the day and they said, ‘He’s not here.’”
The baby died, strapped into a rear-facing carseat.
She sobs as she remembers the story.
“It should not be possible that this could happen. We are too technologically advanced to have this kind of thing be possible,” Holley said.
Fennell’s website, KidsAndCars.org, shares stories of children who have died in hot cars and has a page devoted to advice on how to prevent such a tragedy. Her group has helped lobby for legislation requiring back-up cameras and interior trunk releases in cars.
LOWER ODDS OF A FORGOTTEN CHILD
Now the organization is pressing for federal legislation requiring car seat alerts in all new vehicles, so that babies are never left behind by mistake. Two similar bills are being wrapped into driverless car legislation in the House and Senate.
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“You can’t buy a car today that doesn’t automatically turn off your headlights or remind you to turn off your headlights. Who decided it’s more important to not have a dead car battery than have a dead baby?” Fennell asked.
In the meantime, her site offers ways to help lower the odds that a child will be forgotten in the back seat of a car.
- Get in the habit of always opening the back door to check the back seat before leaving your vehicle.
- Put something you'll need like your cell phone, handbag, employee ID or brief case, etc., in the back seat so that you have to open the back door to retrieve that item every time you park.
- Keep a large stuffed animal in the child's car seat. When the child is placed in the car seat, place the stuffed animal in the front passenger seat. It's a visual reminder that the child is in the back seat.
- Make sure you have a strict policy in place with your childcare provider about daycare drop‐off. Everyone involved in the care of your child should always be aware of their whereabouts.
- Never leave children alone in or around cars; not even for a minute.
Holley is looking forward to seeing cars equipped with fail-safes to make it impossible to forget a child.
“I have purchased a gorgeous, beautiful minivan that has any technology that a parent could want. And it’s not ok that it doesn’t have the technology to prevent this,” she said.
“It has all the bells and whistles and technology, except what you would need to prevent walking away with a human being in it.”
Nipah virus is suspecting of killing at least 10 people in southwestern India, including a nurse caring for patients, according to officials there.
The little-known virus has never been seen in this part of India before and that’s got global health officials worried. It’s one of the deadliest viruses known.
Just what is Nipah virus and why is it on the priority disease watchlist of the World Health Organization?
IT’S ONE OF THE DEADLIEST VIRUSES OUT THERE.
“It’s the worst disease no one has ever heard of,” said Dr. Jon Epstein, wildlife veterinarian and epidemiologist for the EcoHealth Alliance.
Nipah rarely infects people, but when it does, it can make them very, very sick. “This is a virus that when it gets into people, in Bangladesh, it kills them on average three-quarters of the time and in some cases 100 percent of the time,” Epstein said. It causes encephalitis, a brain inflammation that is often fatal and that can cause long-term disabilities in survivors.
In some outbreaks, it has also caused severe respiratory infections, according to the World Health Organization. It can also infect some people without causing any symptoms at all, but it’s almost impossible to know how often that happens.
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Each outbreak is different. In some of the earlier outbreaks, Nipah virus infection killed 40 percent of people. It can also remain in the body for months and even years, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
WHERE DID NIPAH VIRUS COME FROM?
Nipah virus is carried by fruit bats. These bats don’t bite people or even come into contact with people. Instead, the problem comes when people and livestock share fruit with bats.
Nipah was first identified in Malaysia in 1999. It’s named after a Malaysian village called Sungai Nipah where pig farmers started developing encephalitis.
“The reason Nipah virus emerged in the first place was the pig farming system had gotten so large and industrialized,” Epstein said. Many farmers also grew mango trees near the pig pens. “It was an all-you-can-eat buffet for the bats,” Epstein said.
Bats would drop pieces of mango into the pens, and the pigs would grab them. Some bits were infected with Nipah from the bat saliva. Nipah does not make bats sick, but the pigs got a severe respiratory infection that spread as one farmer sold pigs to another. Making a buffer between fruit trees and pig pens stopped the spread in Malaysia.
HOW DO PEOPLE GET NIPAH VIRUS?
In Malaysia, pig farmers caught the virus from their pigs.
In Bangladesh and India, the source is different. There, people harvest date palm sap and sell it as a drink. “It is a bit like sugar cane juice – very sweet,” said Epstein.
“People aren’t the only ones who like sweet drinks.” Bats, do, too, and when people slash palm trees to make the sap run out — a little bit like harvesting maple syrup — the bats land on the trees and lick it up. Saliva, urine or feces can all get into the sap that’s collected, and when people drink it unheated, they can get infected.
It’s not yet clear what’s happening in Kerala, India. It’s far from the area of West Bangladesh and bordering areas of India where other outbreaks of Nipah have been seen.
“There are some media reports of people eating dropped fruit,” Epstein said. Fruit contaminated with bat saliva could in theory transmit it to people.
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People can also pass the virus to other people, although it doesn’t go from person to person to person the way flu or measles does. It requires fairly close personal contact to spread Nipah, so caregivers can get infected.
CAN IT COME HERE?
As WHO, the CDC, and other public health agencies love to say, any virus is just a flight away from anywhere in the world. International travel is becoming more common and people can be halfway around the world within hours — quickly enough to get to a new city before they ever show symptoms of an infection.
At present, Nipah has been seen in remote areas. But big cities are not far, Epstein noted. Outbreaks in Bangladesh have not been far from Dhaka, the capital. “Dhaka airport connects people to London, to New Delhi,” he said.
And although Nipah does not cause epidemics, that could change. “We know there are a variety Nipah virus strains that circulate in these bats,” Epstein said.
“Every outbreak is a potential for a new strain to emerge.” Eventually, a strain might emerge that does spread easily from person to person.
IS THERE A CURE?
The only treatment for Nipah at present is supportive care — putting people with respiratory disease onto ventilators and providing fluids while the body recovers.
There is no vaccine to prevent Nipah, although there is a vaccine to protect horses against Hendra, a related virus that causes outbreaks among horses in Australia. It can also infect dogs and people and killed four people in Australia. WHO has asked researchers to work on a Nipah vaccine and treatments.
It is not possible or desirable to kill the bats that can spread Nipah and Hendra, said Epstein.
“These are really important animals,” he said. They spread seeds and pollinate flowers. “They are responsible for 50 percent of the world’s rain forest,” Epstein said.
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