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Nigeria also tackled this thing head on.  They did a full assault with public education on the disease & proper hygiene, & followed every single lead & contacted over 18,000 people personally in order to evaluate their health status & aid them if they needed to be quarantined.  They moved quickly & followed standard containment protocols, which is something all the bureaucrats in the US could learn from.

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Nigeria also tackled this thing head on.  They did a full assault with public education on the disease & proper hygiene, & followed every single lead & contacted over 18,000 people personally in order to evaluate their health status & aid them if they needed to be quarantined.  They moved quickly & followed standard containment protocols, which is something all the bureaucrats in the US could learn from.

they had to get it right the first time. they have MANY other infectious dz issues there(wild type polio, schistosomiasis, malaria, etc) and if another got out of hand it would decimate their population.

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I received an email from partners in health after I submitted my info to the foreign disaster relief office. The website they directed me to says they're only looking for "physicians, nurses, and lab techs"

yup. the one I posted earlier (post #36) specifically states PA/NP.

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they had to get it right the first time. they have MANY other infectious dz issues there(wild type polio, schistosomiasis, malaria, etc) and if another got out of hand it would decimate their population.

 

I would like for the U.S. to get it right the first time too.  The CDC is loaded with leftist ideologues, so I don't have much confidence they will.

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I would rather pass on any book in which the anarchist Noam Chomsky is a part of. He should stick to linguistics.

No doubt Paul Farmer is a dedicated physician and public health administrator. I would never want to discredit his efforts in that arena. Unfortunately he lives in a dark, conspiratorial world surrounded by like-minded left-wing colleagues. His book is a long rant against the "evils of America." A review of his sources in "Uses of Haiti" reads largely like a list of grocery store check-out line tabloids. I expect to read in an upcoming book that "American jet-trails are purposely poisoning the Haitian poor."
There is little mention of the Haitian-bred despots that have terrorized their own people and pocketed the foreign aid sent (in my naive opinion) in good will toward alleviating suffering. Also, there is little mention of the goods the Western world have brought to them. How did we Americans make leader after leader so fantastically greedy and blood thirsty? We may well have assisted Papa Doc to remain in power to stave off the perceived communist threat. If so, that was a tragically monumental mistake. Remember though that the media between 1957 and 1971 was not what is today. Remember also that we did not know of the atrocities of Nazi Germany until the end of WWII. The human rights abuses briefly elucidated by Graham Greene were likely largely unknown.
No matter how you spin it, the liberation theologist, Aristide, was no better than the rest. In fact, history shows he was worse as he selfishly dashed the hopes of the poor and sponsored murders like his predecessors. He is likely laying on a beach in South Africa (not Central African Republic) spending Haiti's aid money as I write this. This book is a virtual extollation of this erratic leader. One might expect Dr Farmer's next book to be a tome worshipping Jeremiah Wright's avid protege, Barack Obama.
My recommendation is to not read this book in isolation. Don't read it as factual, he's not a historian nor a foreign or public policy expert and  an introduction from Noam Chomsky speaks volumes of this ill-informed read. This is a far left, conspiracy theory demonizing American foreign policy, an arena that is far more complex than it seems. There may be some truth within its bindings but it is steeped with endless rants and accusations.

 

ANYONE who thinks Haiti "earned" their current place in the world needs to read The uses of Haiti by Paul Farmer. It is a 400+ page book on how the western world has systematically screwed over Haiti for over 3 centuries. It's a tough read, but a great history lesson.

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Aristide lives back in Haiti and has since 2011. Baby doc moved back too and just died there last week....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Bertrand_Aristide

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_Doc

 

P.S. Farmer's "next book" is Haiti : After the earthquake. also a good read. I'm guessing Farmer is on a short list for the Nobel Peace and medicine prizes every year. He was nominated for a Nobel Peace prize in 2007. he won the Macarthur fellowship AKA "Genius award" in 1993. he has served as a UN Deputy Special Envoy. His protocols for treating infectious disease in the developing world have revolutionized how we deal with TB, HIV, Malaria and other neglected tropical diseases.

A bit more on Farmer  " A man who would cure the world":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Farmer

 

excellent book on Farmer and his organization:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountains_Beyond_Mountains

 

His work in Haiti, Rwanda, and in the Russian prison system is the stuff of legend. He's also been at ground zero in Liberia dealing with Ebola. This guy spends 1/2 of each year living in a tin roofed house in Haiti and a similar house in Rwanda. The other 1/2 of the year he teaches at Harvard where he has 2 appointments in the depts of medicine and anthropology( also has a PhD in medical anthro). If I had to write a fantasy list of 3 folks I would like to spend the day with, this guy would certainly make that list. He would also be on my short list of "people I would like to be when I grow up".

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Two more excellent short videos from the international medical corps site in Liberia shot inside their Ebola tx unit:

https://internationalmedicalcorps.org/2014_08_04_ebola-hub-page

 

and another from ABC news inside a Liberian ETU where ZERO staff members have become infected:

http://abcnews.go.com/International/video/life-inside-liberian-ebola-treatment-unit-25873937

 

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some resources:

CDC – LINKS AND RESOURCES
A comprehensive list of the most up-to-date resources as provided by the CDC
 
Personal Protective Equipment to be used by Healthcare Workers During Management of Patients with Ebola Virus Disease, Including Procedures for Donning/Doffing
 
CDC Infection Prevention and Control Recommendations for Hospitalized Patients with Known or Suspected Ebola Virus Disease in U.S. Hospitals
 
CDC FAQ: Safe Management of Patients with Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) in US Hospitals
 
CDC  Checklist for Patients Being Evaluated for Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) in the United States
 
EXCELLENT INSTRUCTIONAL VIDEOS
Available through Emory Healthcare Website
Emory Healthcare has created an informational and instructional online resource within their Healthcare Network website. Once you register (see the link below - it only takes a few seconds and requires minimal information), you will have access to a great deal of information on Ebola to include instructional videos demonstrating the process of Donning and Doffing PPE, Useful Equipment, Cleaning Spills, etc.
 
Simply click on this link to agree to their terms of use and register.  Once you gain access, select "Videos" from the menu on the left.
 
Being prepared and knowledgeable is our best defense against the potential spread of EBOLA in the US.  We appreciate your attention to this public health emergency and hope that you find this to be useful resources for this ongoing problem.


 

 

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I've come to a compromise with my family. If my regular team goes to Africa, I will go with them. If they don't go, neither will I. They don't want me to take on something of this magnitude with an organization and with people I don't have a history with. My team has said that they will give me a go/no go by mid-november. New quarantine requirements may limit the potential size of a team willing to go. we'll see. I am in the fortunate position that I could take 2 months off and cover it with accumulated vacation time.

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Spoke with my team director of operations today. They are close to signing an affiliation agreement with another large NGO to work alongside their team. I hope this works. I would really like to go.

news today that a new inhalational vaccine may be effective. This would be huge if approved for mass distribution. we could treat all family contacts of ebola pts and then expand out from there to everyone in w. africa.

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Keep us posted! I'm still waiting to hear back from them, no one else I've found will work with medics

I know part of their criteria will be "prior disaster experience" because of a USAID requirement. we had to turn down an ICU nurse with I.D. experience because she had never deployed to a disaster before.

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I had to schedule January shifts by noon today if there was no firm mission plan so it looks like I'm going to miss volunteering this time around. I'm pretty bummed about it as it looked like a great mission profile with a solid chance to help folks. I have several friends going with other organizations.

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