Ebola survivors afflicted by mysterious after effects

Hopes are rising that the worst of the Ebola epidemic in West Africa may finally be over. Liberia, once the worst affected country, has had no new case since March 27, and it is hoped it will be declared Ebola free this week.

But signs are emerging of a disturbing ‘post-Ebola syndrome’ which seems to be affecting some survivors, who are reporting a variety of symptoms such as loss of sight and hearing. A WHO official said she had come across two people who were now blind.

Other complaints include severe joint, muscle and chest pain, and extreme fatigue. Experts acknowledge that so far the focus has, understandably, been on trying to save people’s lives, and that little research has been done on the disease’s long term effects, so that it is not even clear whether the symptoms reported are caused by the illness or its treatment.

The current outbreak is by far the deadliest the world has ever seen, killing 11,000 people. The previous worst came in 1976 when 280 died.  (See also my blogs of April 4, June 7, Aug 8, Oct 30, 2014, and Jan 29, Feb 16, 2015.)

*Thanks to York Library, New Hampshire for this listing of my book Disaster!  http://www.seacoastonline.com/article/20150428/NEWS/150429058/101017/NEWS

Fight against Ebola hindered by attacks on aid workers

I have blogged a number of times about attacks on health workers vaccinating people against polio in Pakistan (24 February, 3 March, and 10 December, 2014), so how depressing to report that local people are attacking aid workers helping the fight against Ebola in Guinea.

The Red Cross says they are being subjected to about 10 assaults a month. The latest happened on Sunday when two volunteers were beaten while trying to conduct a safe burial. Traditional funeral rituals can help spread the virus. Last year eight aid workers were hacked to death in Guinea.

Apparently, many Guineans believe that those who come to bury the dead, disinfect areas and bring information about the disease are in fact spreading it.

And alarm bells are ringing. After several weeks of decline, the number of new cases is rising again. So far, in its deadliest outbreak ever, Ebola has claimed nearly 9,270 victims; more than 2,030 of them in Guinea. Liberia has been worst hit with nearly 3,860 while Sierra Leone has suffered more than 3,360.

Ebola virus mutates

Scientists at the prestigious Institut Pasteur in Paris believe the ebola virus has mutated during the current outbreak. Now they are trying to find out whether that has made it more contagious.

So far more than 22,000 people have been infected in this epidemic and 8,795 have died in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, making it by far the deadliest in history. The previous worst death toll came in 1976, when 280 people died in Congo and Zaire.

But for the first time since June last year, there were fewer than 100 new cases last week, leading to hopes the epidemic may finally be on the wane.

At present, it seems the virus can be passed only in bodily fluids. The great fear is that it may develop a means of infection through the air, though there is no evidence to suggest this is likely at the moment, and no similar virus has moved to this route of transmission.

Meanwhile, researchers at the Institut Pasteur are developing two vaccines they hope will be in human trials by the end of the year. (See also my blogs of 4 April, 7 June, 8 August, 8, 23 and 30 October, 2014.)

The cost of stopping Ebola

The current death toll of nearly 5,000 means more people have been killed in the present ebola outbreak than in all previous ones put together. If you're wondering why the stricken countries in West Africa have been finding it so difficult to halt the epidemic, the Economist has crunched some interesting numbers.

Experts reckon ebola could be brought under control if 70% of the sick could be got into clinics or treatment centres where the spread of the virus can be halted, but to deal with the kind of case numbers being predicted for the next few weeks, that would require tens of thousands of beds.

Medecins Sans Frontieres and other charities, as well as governments like those of the US and the UK, have been busily building, but the WHO calculates that running just a 50-bed ebola hospital would cost nearly $1 million a month. No wonder the UN says a 20-fold increase in aid is needed.

And it's not just the buildings. The three countries where most people have died - Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia - have only a few hundred doctors between them, and some of those have now died of the disease. 

The march of ebola

This is now by far the worst ebola outbreak the world has ever seen, with 3,400 people dead, and 7,500 confirmed cases, though the true figure is thought to be much higher. The deadliest until now saw 280 people die in 1976 in Zaire, now Congo.

Most of the deaths have happened in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, with the World Health Organisation expressing concern at the poor state of the health services in those countries. Liberia says it is short of ambulances, and that it has only a third of the number of treatment centres it needs.

Now alarm is sweeping through Spain after a nurse who had been treating two missionaries who caught ebola in Africa, was found to be infected herself. It had been hoped that the stringent safety precautions available in modern hospitals would prevent the virus spreading.

Her husband and five other people are now in quarantine and another 50 are being monitored, while the European Commission has asked Spain for an explanation as to how the nurse became infected.

Current Ebola outbreak among worst ever

The current outbreak of Ebola in Guinea in West Africa is now perhaps the fourth deadliest ever. The World Health Organisation says it has so far registered 328 confirmed or suspected cases in the country, and that 208 people have died.

The worst ever outbreak so far was in Congo, then Zaire, in 1976, in which the death toll was 280. A further 245 died in the country in 1995.

As well as the cases in Guinea, the disease has cost 6 lives in Sierra Leone, where there are 79 known or confirmed cases, and there are also fears that Ebola has reappeared in Liberia, which suffered 9 deaths earlier this year.

There is no vaccine and no effective treatment for the disease, which causes fever, muscle pain, and severe bleeding.  Death rates can reach 80 per cent or more.

Ebola spreads

Mali is the latest West African country to go on alert against the Ebola virus, after three cases were reported close to the border with Guinea where 86 people have died. Another six people have died in Liberia, while Sierra Leone has also reported cases.

Senegal has now closed its border with Guinea, and controls are being imposed on people entering Mali’s capital, Bamako.  The virus first appeared in Guinea's remote south-eastern region of Nzerekore, where most of the deaths have happened, but it was not confirmed as Ebola for six weeks, and it has now reached the capital, Conarky.

This is the first known outbreak of the disease in Guinea. Most recent cases have appeared in Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and a sign of the alarm it is causing is that Saudi Arabia has suspended visas for Muslim pilgrims from Guinea and Liberia.

The virus is spread easily and kills 25-90% of those it infects. Just as with AIDS when it first appeared, there is no vaccine and no cure. The deadliest outbreak so far came in Congo (then Zaire) in 1976 (pictured), when 280 people died - about 88% of those infected.

Two war criminals sentenced

Two convicted war criminals have received long prison sentences.    The former president of Liberia, Charles Taylor, has been sent to gaol for 50 years for aiding and abetting rebels in Sierra Leone during the civil war of 1991-2002.

The judge at The Hague acknowledged that Taylor had never set foot in Sierra Leone, but declared he had ‘been found responsible for aiding and abetting some of the most heinous crimes in human history.’   

The former president backed rebels from the Revolutionary United Front, who killed tens of thousands of people, employing a strategy of murder, rape, and hacking off limbs. Taylor, who is 64, says he will appeal.  

Meanwhile, in Rwanda, Callixte Nzabonimana, a former youth minister, has been found guilty by a court in Tanzania of genocide and other crimes during the 100 days of madness in 1994, which saw 800,000 people murdered.   He was imprisoned for life, but he too says he will appeal.

Sierra Leone war crimes - call for 80 year sentence

Prosecutors at The Hague are demanding an 80 year prison sentence for former Liberian president, Charles Taylor, after his conviction last week for war crimes in Sierra Leone.

During the 1990’s, Taylor backed rebels from the country’s Revolutionary United Front, who killed tens of thousands of people, employing a strategy, say the prosecution, of  ‘murders, rapes, sexual slavery, looting’ and hacking off of limbs.  In return, he was given ‘blood diamonds’ collected by slaves. 

After his five year trial, Taylor became the first former head of state to be convicted by an international court since the Nuremburg trials following World War II.  He has the right to appeal against the verdict.

A former leader of the RUF, Issa Sesay, is in prison in Rwanda, serving 52 years for his part in the atrocities.  (See also my blogs of 4 March, 15 July and 26 Oct, 2009.)

Child soldiers

Just been to see Johnny Mad Dog – the story of a group of boy soldiers in an unnamed African country. It’s an odd thing to say about such an enveloping, gut-wrenching film but in some ways the story seemed to me a little sanitised.

There was almost no examination of the way their kidnappers turned terrified children into terrifying killers. The boys also seemed to have something of a charmed life. We did not see them being wounded, maimed and killed in the numbers that surely would have been inevitable, nor, therefore, the effect this would have on their comrades. Nor did we see the fate of those who are captured. Nonetheless it is an extremely powerful film on an important subject.

The Brookings Institute have estimated that child soldiers fight in about three quarters of all the world’s wars, while in 2007, Human Rights Watch put their number at up to 300,000.

Among those currently on trial who are alleged to have used child soldiers are former Liberian president Charles Taylor (see my blog of July 15) and Congolese warlord Thomas Lubanga (see my blogs of Jan 29 and March 23). While in February, three rebel commanders in Sierra Leone were convicted of forcing children to become soldiers. (see my blog of March 4)

Also called to account

While the trial of former Liberian President Charles Taylor on war crimes charges continues at the Hague (see yesterday’s blog), the former governor of the Rwandan capital Kigali has been gaoled for life for his role in that country’s genocide in 1994.

The court decided that Lt Col Tharcisse Renzaho, aged 65, had incited soldiers and Hutu extremists to build roadblocks where they could intercept and kill fleeing Tutsis. He was also convicted of being involved in the killing of more than 100 Tutsis at a church. Many victims of the genocide were killed in churches, including 5,000 at Ntarama. Altogether 800,000 people were slaughtered in 100 days – most of them hacked to death with machetes.

Lt Col Renzaho’s lawyer said he would appeal. So far the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda has convicted 33 defendants and acquitted six. (see also my blogs of January 23, March 1, 4, 23, 25, and April 9)

**Spanish-speaking readers of this blog, please note that A Disastrous History of the World has just been published in Spain as Historia mundial de los desastres (Turner ISBN 978-84-7506-879-4)

Called to account

Former Liberian President Charles Taylor has been in the witness box at the Hague, defending himself against 11 charges of war crimes. Taylor, a Baptist lay preacher, is accused by the UN-backed tribunal of directing and arming rebel groups in Sierra Leone in return for diamonds, as they committed murder, rape and torture, and terrorised the civilian population.

An estimated half million people suffered in these atrocities, many of which were committed by child soldiers who had often been drugged. Taylor, the first African leader to be tried by an international court, has dismissed the charges as “lies”. He said he only wanted to bring peace to Liberia’s neighbour.

Back in 1985, Taylor made an astonishing escape from an American prison by sawing through the bars of a laundry room, climbing 12 feet to the ground on knotted sheets, and then climbing a fence. He had been detained there pending extradition to Liberia for allegedly embezzling nearly $1 million from its government and then fleeing the country.

Four others who escaped with Taylor were caught, and only he got away from the USA, leading to claims that there was some collusion from American interests who wanted to see him overthrow the existing Liberian government, which he did in 1990. In the present trial, the prosecution has called 91 witnesses, and the defence says it may call 249. (see also my blog of May 6)

War crimes

Following the conviction of a former priest (see my blog of March 1), now a woman MP has been gaoled for life for her part in the Rwanda genocide of 1994. Beatrice Nirere was found guilty of setting up road blocks where victims were detained.

Last week, three rebel commanders in Sierra Leone were convicted of crimes against humanity for systematically mutilating civilians and forcing children to become soldiers, while former Liberian dictator Charles Taylor is also on trial, and the International Criminal Court may soon issue a warrant for the arrest of President Omar Bashir of Sudan for alleged war crimes in Darfur. If this happens, it will be the first time a serving head of state has been indicted.

Meanwhile in Cambodia, the trial has begun of Kaing Guek Eav, also known as Duch, who ran the notorious S-21 prison in Phnom Penh – now a genocide museum – where at least 14,000 “enemies of the revolution” were tortured and killed in the 1970’s, and former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic is facing a UN tribunal at The Hague.

Many, many war criminals, of course, still escape justice, but these developments surely represent some cause for optimism that at least some of the guilty will be called to account.