Posts Tagged ‘Liberia’
Cuba sent early on more Health workers to Ebola afflicted West Africa than the USA did
Posted on: October 27, 2014
Cuba sent early on more Health workers to Ebola afflicted West Africa than the USA did
What Guatemala, Pakistan, Indonesia, Haiti share?
These 4 different nations suffered calamities in the past decade: they were all struck by natural disasters which overwhelmed their under-staffed and under-funded public health systems.
Into the rubble, flooding, and chaos of these distinct cultures and contexts, Cuba dispatched a specialized disaster and epidemic control team to support local health providers.
It was a story of unprecedented medical solidarity by a developing country which few media outlets picked up – until now.
Conner Gorry in Havana posted in the Guardian Professional, Thursday 23 October 2014
The Henry Reeve Brigade, as it’s known, was established in 2005 by more than 1,500 Cuban health professionals trained in disaster medicine and infectious disease containment; built on 40 years of medical aid experience, the volunteer team was outfitted with essential medicines and equipment and prepared to deploy to US regions ravaged by Hurricane Katrina (the offer was rejected by the Bush administration). Today, Cuba’s Henry Reeve Brigade is the largest medical team on the ground in west Africa battling Ebola.
The small island nation has pledged 461 doctors and nurses to provide care in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia, the largest single-country offer of healthcare workers to date.
While United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon decried the pallid aid commitment from around the globe calling for “a 20-fold resource mobilisation and at least a 20-fold surge in assistance” Cuba already had 165 of these specially-trained healthcare workers on the ground in Sierra Leone.
Each of these volunteers, chosen from a pool of 15,000 candidates who stepped forward to serve in west Africa, has extensive disaster response experience.
Preparation for this mission required additional, rigorous training at Havana’s Pedro Kourí Institute of Tropical Medicine with biosecurity experts from the United States and the Pan American Health Organisation.
This rapid mobilisation of sorely-needed health professionals begs the question: how can a poor developing country spare qualified, experienced doctors and nurses?
By pursuing a robust medical education strategy, coupled with a preventive, community-based approach, Cuba, a country of just 11.2 million inhabitants, has achieved a health picture on par with the world’s most developed nations.
This didn’t happen overnight. Rather, Cuba’s admirable health report card results from decades of honing a strategy designed specifically for a resource-scarce setting.
By locating primary care doctors in neighbourhoods and emphasising disease prevention, the health system – which is universal and free at the primary, secondary and tertiary levels – makes care accessible and keeps people as healthy as possible, as long as possible, saving resources for more expensive treatments and interventions in the process.
But prevention and health promotion by community-based healthcare workers are only part of the story. Cuba’s policies and practices, both at home and abroad (currently more than 50,000 Cuban health professionals are serving in 66 countries) are built on several principles proven effective in resource-scarce settings.
First, coordinating health policies at the local, regional, and national levels is essential; this is particularly important where infectious diseases are concerned since uniform protocols are integral to containment.
Next, health initiatives must be cross-sectoral and based on integrated messages and actions. A fragmented, uncoordinated response by and among different agencies can prove dangerous and even deadly.
This was tragically illustrated by the death of Thomas Eric Duncan in Dallas and the US Centers for Disease Control allowing a nurse who has Ebola to travel on a commercial flight.
Finally, infectious disease outbreaks must be addressed quickly – easier said than done in poor settings, where public health systems are already strained or collapsing already.
The Ebola outbreak snaps the need for Cuba’s approach into sharp relief: only a coordinated response, provided by well-trained and – equipped primary healthcare professionals will contain this – and future – epidemics.
Indeed, policymakers such as World Health Organisation’s Margaret Chan and US secretary of state John Kerry have lauded the Cuban response, underscoring the importance of collaboration as the only solution to this global health crisis.
Forging this solution, however, requires harnessing the political will across borders and agencies to marshal resources and know-how. Havana took up the challenge by hosting a special Summit on Ebola with its regional partners and global health authorities on 20 October.
Noticeably absent were US health representatives; if we’re to construct a comprehensive, integrated, and effective global response, all resources and experiences must be coordinated and brought to bear, regardless of political differences. Anything less and Ebola wins.
Conner Gorry is senior editor of Medicc Review. Follow @ConnerGo on Twitter.
Looks bad and genetically modified virus? This Ebola plaguing western Africa
Posted on: September 28, 2014
Looks bad and genetically modified virus? This Ebola plaguing western Africa
And manufactured by Western Pharmaceuticals, and US DoD?
Ebola virus destroys peoples’ internal organs and the body deteriorates rapidly after death.
The organ softens and the tissues turn into jelly, even if it is refrigerated to keep it cold. Spontaneous liquefaction is what happens to the body of people killed by the Ebola virus!
I have read a number of articles from your Internet outreach as well as articles from other sources about the casualties in Liberia and other West African countries about the human devastation caused by the Ebola virus.
About a week ago, I read an article published in the Internet news summary publication of the Friends of Liberia that said that there was an agreement that the initiation of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa was due to the contact of a two-year old child with bats that had flown in from the Congo.
That report made me disconcerted with the reporting about Ebola, and it stimulated a response to the “Friends of Liberia,” saying that African people are not ignorant and gullible, as is being implicated.
A response from Dr. Verlon Stone said that the article was not theirs, and that “Friends of Liberia” was simply providing a service.
He then asked if he could publish my letter in their Internet forum. I gave my permission, but I have not seen it published.
Because of the widespread loss of life, fear, physiological trauma, and despair among Liberians and other West African citizens, it is incumbent that I make a contribution to the resolution of this devastating situation, which may continue to recur, if it is not properly and adequately confronted. I will address the situation in five (5) points:
Dr. Cyril Broderick, Professor of Plant Pathology published this 09/09/2014 –
Scientists allege deadly diseases such as Ebola and AIDS are bio weapons being tested on Africans.Other reports have linked the Ebola virus outbreak to an attempt to reduce Africa’s population. Liberia happens to be the continent’s fastest growing population.
1. EBOLA IS A GENETICALLY MODIFIED ORGANISM (GMO)
Horowitz (1998) was deliberate and unambiguous when he explained the threat of new diseases in his text, Emerging Viruses: AIDS and Ebola – Nature, Accident or Intentional.
In his interview with Dr. Robert Strecker in Chapter 7, the discussion, in the early 1970s, made it obvious that the war was between countries that hosted the KGB and the CIA, and the ‘manufacture’ of ‘AIDS-Like Viruses’ was clearly directed at the other.
In passing during the Interview, mention was made of Fort Detrick, “the Ebola Building,” and ‘a lot of problems with strange illnesses’ in “Frederick [Maryland].”
By Chapter 12 in his text, he had confirmed the existence of an American Military-Medical-Industry that conducts biological weapons tests under the guise of administering vaccinations to control diseases and improve the health of “black Africans overseas.”
The book is an excellent text, and all leaders plus anyone who has interest in science, health, people, and intrigue should study it.
I am amazed that African leaders are making no acknowledgements or reference to these documents.
2. EBOLA HAS A TERRIBLE HISTORY, AND TESTING HAS BEEN SECRETLY TAKING PLACE IN AFRICA
I am now reading The Hot Zone, a novel, by Richard Preston (copyrighted 1989 and 1994); it is heart-rending.
The prolific and prominent writer, Steven King, is quoted as saying that the book is “One of the most horrifying things I have ever read. What a remarkable piece of work.”
As a New York Times bestseller, The Hot Zone is presented as “A terrifying true story.” Terrifying, yes, because the pathological description of what was found in animals killed by the Ebola virus is what the virus has been doing to citizens of Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia in its most recent outbreak: Ebola virus destroys peoples’ internal organs and the body deteriorates rapidly after death.
The organ softens and the tissues turn into jelly, even if it is refrigerated to keep it cold. Spontaneous liquefaction is what happens to the body of people killed by the Ebola virus!
The author noted in Point 1, Dr. Horowitz, chides The Hot Zone for writing to be politically correct; I understand because his book makes every effort to be very factual.
The 1976 Ebola incident in Zaire, during President Mobutu Sese Seko, was the introduction of the GMO Ebola to Africa.
3. SITES AROUND AFRICA, AND IN WEST AFRICA, HAVE OVER THE YEARS BEEN SET UP FOR TESTING EMERGING DISEASES, ESPECIALLY EBOLA
The World Health Organization (WHO) and several other UN Agencies have been implicated in selecting and enticing African countries to participate in the testing events, promoting vaccinations, but pursuing various testing regiments. The August 2, 2014 article, West Africa: What are US Biological Warfare Researchers Doing in the Ebola Zone? by Jon Rappoport of Global Research pinpoints the problem that is facing African governments.
Obvious in this and other reports are, among others:
(a) The US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID), a well-known centre for bio-war research, located at Fort Detrick, Maryland;
(b) Tulane University, in New Orleans, USA, winner of research grants, including a grant of more than $7 million the National Institute of Health (NIH) to fund research with the Lassa viral hemorrhagic fever;
(c) the US Center for Disease Control (CDC);
(d) Doctors Without Borders (also known by its French name, Medicins Sans Frontiers);
(e) Tekmira, a Canadian pharmaceutical company;
(f) The UK’s GlaxoSmithKline; and
(g) the Kenema Government Hospital in Kenema, Sierra Leone.
Reports narrate stories of the US Department of Defense (DoD) funding Ebola trials on humans, trials which started just weeks before the Ebola outbreak in Guinea and Sierra Leone.
The reports continue and state that the DoD gave a contract worth $140 million dollars to Tekmira, a Canadian pharmaceutical company, to conduct Ebola research. This research work involved injecting and infusing healthy humans with the deadly Ebola virus.
Hence, the DoD is listed as a collaborator in a “First in Human” Ebola clinical trial (NCT02041715, which started in January 2014 shortly before an Ebola epidemic was declared in West Africa in March. Disturbingly, many reports also conclude that the US government has a viral fever bioterrorism research laboratory in Kenema, a town at the epicentre of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.
The only relevant positive and ethical olive-branch seen in all of my reading is that Theguardian.com reported, “The US government funding of Ebola trials on healthy humans comes amid warnings by top scientists in Harvard and Yale that such virus experiments risk triggering a worldwide pandemic.” That threat still persists.
4. THE NEED FOR LEGAL ACTION TO OBTAIN REDRESS FOR DAMAGES INCURRED DUE TO THE PERPETUATION OF INJUSTICE IN THE DEATH, INJURY AND TRAUMA IMPOSED ON LIBERIANS AND OTHER AFRICANS BY THE EBOLA AND OTHER DISEASE AGENTS.
The U. S., Canada, France, and the U. K. are all implicated in the detestable and devilish deeds that these Ebola tests are. There is the need to pursue criminal and civil redress for damages, and African countries and people should secure legal representation to seek damages from these countries, some corporations, and the United Nations. Evidence seems abundant against Tulane University, and suits should start there. Yoichi Shimatsu’s article, The Ebola Breakout Coincided with UN Vaccine Campaigns, as published on August 18, 2014, in the Liberty Beacon.
5. AFRICAN LEADERS AND AFRICAN COUNTRIES NEED TO TAKE THE LEAD IN DEFENDING BABIES, CHILDREN, AFRICAN WOMEN, AFRICAN MEN, AND THE ELDERLY. THESE CITIZENS DO NOT DESERVE TO BE USED AS GUINEA PIGS!
Africa must not relegate the Continent to become the locality for disposal and the deposition of hazardous chemicals, dangerous drugs, and chemical or biological agents of emerging diseases.
There is urgent need for affirmative action in protecting the less affluent of poorer countries, especially African citizens, whose countries are not as scientifically and industrially endowed as the United States and most Western countries, sources of most viral or bacterial GMOs that are strategically designed as biological weapons. It is most disturbing that the U. S. Government has been operating a viral hemorrhagic fever bioterrorism research laboratory in Sierra Leone. Are there others?
Wherever they exist, it is time to terminate them. If any other sites exist, it is advisable to follow the delayed but essential step: Sierra Leone closed the US bioweapons lab and stopped Tulane University for further testing.
The world must be alarmed. All Africans, Americans, Europeans, Middle Easterners, Asians, and people from every conclave on Earth should be astonished. African people, notably citizens more particularly of Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone are victimized and are dying every day.
Listen to the people who distrust the hospitals, who cannot shake hands, hug their relatives and friends. Innocent people are dying, and they need our help.
The countries are poor and cannot afford the whole lot of personal protection equipment (PPE) that the situation requires.
The threat is real, and it is larger than a few African countries. The challenge is global, and we request assistance from everywhere, including China, Japan, Australia, India, Germany, Italy, and even kind-hearted people in the U.S., France, the U.K., Russia, Korea, Saudi Arabia, and anywhere else whose desire is to help. The situation is bleaker than we on the outside can imagine, and we must provide assistance however we can.
To ensure a future that has less of this kind of drama, it is important that we now demand that our leaders and governments be honest, transparent, fair, and productively engaged. They must answer to the people. Please stand up to stop Ebola testing and the spread of this dastardly disease.
About the Author:
Dr. Broderick is a former professor of Plant Pathology at the University of Liberia’s College of Agriculture and Forestry. He is also the former Observer Farmer in the 1980s.
It was from this column in our newspaper, the Daily Observer, that Firestone spotted him and offered him the position of Director of Research in the late 1980s.
He is a scientist, who has taught for many years at the Agricultural College of the University of Delaware.
Note: Why Obama is sending 3,000 US troops to Liberia? To contain a civil unrest and protect the US bioterrorism research centers?
Tags: adonis49, American Military-Medical-Industry, bio weapons, bioterrorism research laboratory, Cyril Broderick, Ebola outbreak, Ebola virus, Fort Detrick, Jon Rappoport, Kenema, Lassa viral hemorrhagic fever, Liberia, Plant Pathology, Richard Preston, Robert Strecker, Spontaneous liquefaction, Verlon Stone, West African countries
Kid-Soldiers
Posted on: October 30, 2009
Kid-Soldiers; (October 30, 2009)
The last two decades witnessed recruiting kids to joining guerillas and armies in the various civil wars in Africa. The UN estimates that more than 300,000 kids played soldiers in various functions. Since many kid girls were also swiped into “the war efforts” and be used mainly as “sexual slaves” and partners in many other tasks then the UN decided to name these kids “Kids associated with armed groups”.
Over thirty conflicts in the Congo, Chad, Sudan, Uganda, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Sierra Leon, Mozambique, Angola, Burundi, Darfur, and Myanmar (former Burma) made the forced recruiting of children a way of life; many kids who grew up quickly by committing murder and learning to survive are still carrying arms after the cessation of hostilities. The task of re-integrating these kids into their communities is turning to be a daunting effort. Communities had to re-create rituals of purification so that the kids feel comfortable when welcomed in their families. The UN is doing its best in that regard under the various MINU* missions.
Isolating these kid-soldiers is not the solution: families and communities have to be encouraged to taking these kids back within society. The main difficulty is that families have greater need for psychological supports then the kid-soldier since families will have the burden of assimilating and controlling aggressive kids who turned out to be “best soldiers” for killing and executing their “enemies”. Many of the kid-soldiers were forced to mutilate members of their families to discourage them from escaping the military group and going back to their communities. The kid-soldiers had the opportunity to realize their dreams of omni power status; they feel immortal with power to back it up.
These kid-soldiers would not go into agriculture or solitary jobs outside urban environments: they have dreamt of getting out of their former peasant or tribal restrictions and will not return. Kid-soldiers like driving taxis in cities, mixing with people, and get remunerated as adult soldiers when disbanded. Kid-soldiers are mostly ready as reservists for regular armies: fighting is their main job and they learned it better than adult soldiers.
International Justice failed to sent the strong right signal to those who hired and recruited kid-soldiers; actually, many of those recruiters were elevated to ranks of Generals after the civil wars. What the UN is doing for re-inserting these kid-soldiers is not enough and short on target: the specialists are still in the phase of learning what to do with kid-soldiers before they can measure successes of re-insertion programs. The governments offering funds for re-integrating kid-soldiers are doing it to relieve their bad conscience and care less for effective results.
Tags: adonis, adonis49, and Myanmar (former Burma), Angola, books, Burundi, Chad, Congo, Darfur, International Justice, Ivory Coast, Kid-Soldiers, Liberia, Mozambique, politics, Sierra Leon, Sudan, Uganda, UN, women, writing
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