The Briefing Room
General Category => World News => Topic started by: EC on September 17, 2014, 02:36:27 pm
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Ebola has infected nearly 4,800 people. It has killed more than 2,400. And a black market for the blood of its survivors is emerging in the epicenter of the outbreak in West Africa, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
Convalescent serum — serum collected from someone who has survived an infectious disease — has been used to treat Ebola victims. Most recently, it was given to 51-year-old American aid worker Rick Sacra from survivor Kent Brantly. Blood from Ebola survivors is rich with antibodies against the deadly virus, and since there is currently no approved drug to fight it, some have become desperate enough to take fate into their own hands and turn to the black market for the experimental serum.
But WHO is concerned about the illicit trade, since giving a patient someone else’s blood can cause anaphylactic shock and death or infect with other diseases such as HIV if the blood is tainted. For that reason, the United Nations health agency said it will work with governments to stamp out the black market, WHO Director-General Margaret Chan said, and establish a safe system for collecting, storing and re-injecting blood.
The black market also has some worried about the fate of supplies shipped in from the outside. On Tuesday, as President Obama was set to announce a 3,000-troop commitment to Africa, Laurie Garrett, senior fellow for global health at the Council for Foreign Relations, told the Hill she was concerned the airdropped supplies might turn up on the black market. Officials did not say in which country the black market was found.
Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/09/17/the-black-market-for-ebola-survivors-blood/
Said that would happen.
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Ebola has infected nearly 4,800 people. It has killed more than 2,400. And a black market for the blood of its survivors is emerging in the epicenter of the outbreak in West Africa, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
Convalescent serum — serum collected from someone who has survived an infectious disease — has been used to treat Ebola victims. Most recently, it was given to 51-year-old American aid worker Rick Sacra from survivor Kent Brantly. Blood from Ebola survivors is rich with antibodies against the deadly virus, and since there is currently no approved drug to fight it, some have become desperate enough to take fate into their own hands and turn to the black market for the experimental serum.
But WHO is concerned about the illicit trade, since giving a patient someone else’s blood can cause anaphylactic shock and death or infect with other diseases such as HIV if the blood is tainted. For that reason, the United Nations health agency said it will work with governments to stamp out the black market, WHO Director-General Margaret Chan said, and establish a safe system for collecting, storing and re-injecting blood.
The black market also has some worried about the fate of supplies shipped in from the outside. On Tuesday, as President Obama was set to announce a 3,000-troop commitment to Africa, Laurie Garrett, senior fellow for global health at the Council for Foreign Relations, told the Hill she was concerned the airdropped supplies might turn up on the black market. Officials did not say in which country the black market was found.
Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/09/17/the-black-market-for-ebola-survivors-blood/
Said that would happen.
Does anyone else see a Zombie Apocolypse on the horizon with this ebola thing?
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Does anyone else see a Zombie Apocolypse on the horizon with this ebola thing?
More The Stand, the way I'm looking at it. Or the Andromeda Strain.
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More The Stand, the way I'm looking at it. Or the Andromeda Strain.
I can't help but feel that the timing of this ebola breakout is suspect. But that's my guts speaking.
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I can't help but feel that the timing of this ebola breakout is suspect. But that's my guts speaking.
Just remember the most beautiful thing about disease and pestilence, it is an equal opportunity predator. The Plague did more for the rights of man than the Magna Carta.
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Just remember the most beautiful thing about disease and pestilence, it is an equal opportunity predator. The Plague did more for the rights of man than the Magna Carta.
True that ONC, if you can make it out alive.
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True that ONC, if you can make it out alive.
Bring out your dead!
(https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTnb6W7b1IBNqY6Szmu9fTiGWViaL43dpblcBuLLDIQdhYjif8POw)