NBC medical correspondent Dr. Nancy Snyderman apologizes for violating quarantine. The husband of the Ebola-stricken Spanish nurse lashes out. A United Nations worker being treated for the disease in Germany dies. And the World Health Organization tweets that 8,914 Ebola cases and 4,447 deaths have been reported.
With multiple developments under way, here’s what you need to know to get caught up on the latest on the Ebola outbreak:
U.S. DEVELOPMENTS
Race against time
United Nations Special Envoy on Ebola Anthony Banbury told a meeting of the Security Council that time is “our biggest enemy.”
“Ebola got a head start on us. It is far ahead of us. It is running faster than us and it is winning the race. We cannot let Ebola win,” he said.
Banbury called for more patient beds, diagnostic laboratories, burial teams, protective suits, vehicles and training.
“We either stop Ebola now or we face an entirely unprecedented situation for which we do not have a plan,” the envoy said.
Obama: ‘The world … is not doing enough’
U.S. President Barack Obama said he’d be reaching out directly to heads of state to encourage other countries to do more concerning the issue of Ebola.
“The world as a whole is not doing enough. There are a number of countries that have capacity that have not yet stepped up. Those that have stepped up, all of us, are going to have to do more,” he said.
The President also vowed to get to the bottom of a case in Texas.
“We are surging resources into Dallas to examine what exactly has happened that ended up infecting the nurse there,” Obama said. “Obviously, our thoughts and prayers are with her.”
The nurse was a member of the medical team that treated Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan, who died last week.
CDC forms Ebola response team
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is establishing an Ebola response team composed of experts, said CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden. “For any hospital anywhere in the country that has a confirmed case of Ebola, we will put a team on the ground within hours,” Frieden said.
A team like that may have prevented a Dallas nurse from contracting the disease, Frieden said.
“I wish we had put a team like this on the ground the day the first patient was diagnosed. That might have prevented this infection,” Frieden said. “But we will do that from this day onward with any case anywhere in the U.S.”
There were at least 76 health-care workers who may have come into contact with Texas Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan after he was hospitalized, Frieden said. “Once he was hospitalized, there were at least 76 people who might have come into contact with him or his blood and are being monitored now,” Frieden said.
Duncan died last week at a Dallas hospital.
Kansas patient likely does not have Ebola
A medic who’d been working on a ship off the coast of west-central Africa came to the University of Kansas Hospital on Monday with possible Ebola symptoms.
Early testing shows he likely does not have the disease, Dr. Lee Norman, chief medical officer at the hospital, told reporters Tuesday. However, the hospital is still waiting on the final word from the CDC, which has more sensitive and specific testing.
“Big sigh of relief from him (the patient) and those that love him and care for him, and all of us really,” Norman said. “And I’m just going to be glad when the next result comes in and — knock on wood on his behalf — I hope it’s negative.”
An apology for breaking quarantine
NBC medical correspondent Dr. Nancy Snyderman has issued an apology after she reportedly violated the quarantine her team was placed in when their cameraman contracted Ebola. “As a health professional I know that we have no symptoms and pose no risk to the public, but I am deeply sorry for the concerns this episode caused,” she said in a statement.
Cameraman says thank you
The NBC freelance cameraman who’s recovering at the Nebraska Medical Center after contracting Ebola thanked everyone for their support in a Facebook post Monday. “There have been some dark and profoundly frightening moments in this ordeal,” Ashoka Mukpo wrote. “I won’t ever know exactly when I slipped up and contracted the virus. I had been taking precautions but obviously they weren’t enough.”
Dallas nurse is ‘clinically stable’
Officials are still trying to figure out how a Dallas nurse who cared for Duncan was infected. Nina Pham, a recent nursing college graduate, got her certification less than two months earlier. On Monday, she got a blood transfusion from American Ebola survivor Kent Brantly and is “clinically stable.”
Duncan’s waste disposal blocked
A judge has granted a temporary restraining order blocking the disposal in a Louisiana hazardous waste landfill of incinerated waste from the Texas apartment where Ebola patient Duncan stayed. The company that incinerated the waste told CNN it had followed CDC guidelines and had no plans to move the waste to Louisiana.
The blame game begins
The Agenda Project, a liberal advocacy group, has released an online ad that interlaces self-described “disturbing footages of the Ebola outbreak” with a mash-up of top Republicans — including those tied up in crucial midterm contests and potential 2016 candidates — saying the word “cut.” The ad describes how the CDC saw its discretionary funding cut by $585 million from 2010 to 2014 and the National Institutes of Health has faced $446 million in cuts during the same period.
WEST AFRICA DEVELOPMENTS
WHO: 5,000 to 10,000 new cases weekly by December
The World Health Organization estimates that there will be 5,000 to 10,000 new Ebola cases weekly in West Africa by the first week of December, Dr. Bruce Aylward, WHO assistant director-general, told reporters.
Officially, WHO has reported only 8,914 Ebola cases total in the entire months-long outbreak, but it has said that the total is under-reported. The mortality rate in this outbreak is about 70%, he said.
To start to decrease the rate of infection, the WHO says it hopes to isolate 70% of Ebola patients and have 70% of Ebola victim burials performed safely by December 1. Aylward said getting responders, facilities and plans in place to meet the goal will be very difficult. Missing the goal will mean that more people will die than should have and that even more resources will be needed because the infection rate will continue to climb, he said.
Chocolate companies join fight
Much of the production of the world’s largest chocolate companies comes from West Africa, and the companies are worried the virus will disrupt production. Nestlé and Mars say they have already responded to a call from the World Cocoa Foundation, a nonprofit that helps small cocoa farmers. The group plans to disclose Wednesday how much it has raised. Others in the group include Hershey, Godiva, Ghirardelli, General Mills and Mondelez International.
IN OTHER COUNTRIES
Ebola patient dies in Germany
A U.N. worker being treated for Ebola in Germany has died. The Sudanese man had contracted Ebola while working in Liberia, the St. Georg clinic in Leipzig said.
Husband pens scathing letter
Teresa Romero Ramos, a nurse’s assistant in Spain who contracted Ebola, is in critical condition and is having trouble breathing, authorities said. In a scathing letter, her husband said she received only 30 minutes of training in putting on protective gear and called for the resignation of Madrid’s regional health minister. “Please explain to me how one puts on a protective suit, since unfortunately my wife doesn’t have a master’s degree in that,” he wrote.
