Ebola Patient In Italy Gets Experimental Treatment

According to the AP, an Italian doctor who contracted Ebola while working in Sierra Leone arrived in Italy and is being treated with the same experimental drugs used in the U.S. and other European countries.

Rome doctors declined to identify the antiviral drug used for treatment, though they said the drug has been used before in the U.S. and Europe.

The doctor, whose name wasn’t released, is in his 50s and has Italy’s first confirmed case of Ebola.  He arrived at a Rome military air base early Tuesday and was transported in a hazard-safe equipped ambulance to Lazzaro Spallanzani hospital, a Rome hospital that specializes in infectious diseases.

His condition is ’’stable,’’ doctor Emanuele Nicastri said at a press conference at the hospital. ’’He’s conscious and collaborating’’ with the medical team.

More than 15,000 people have been infected with Ebola and 5,420 have died, according to the World Health Organization.

MSNBC: The Media’s Response To Ebola

Chris Hayes looks at the media’s response to Ebola.

MSNBC video.

More Ebola Hysteria: Threats Were Made Against Boyfriend of Hickox

Currently, there is only one diagnosed case of Ebola in the U.S. – that of Dr. Craig Spencer in New York.

Ebola first came to the U.S. on August 2nd, when Dr. Kent Brantly returned to the U.S. from working in West Africa.

That didn’t stop people from making threats against nurse Kaci Hickox and her boyfriend Ted Wilbur in Fort Kent, Maine.

Tom Pelletier, Fort Kent’s chief of police, said he had received calls from people who wanted him to arrest Hickox, local media reported.

Wilbur told the Press Herald newspaper that he has withdrawn from his nursing program at the University of Maine at Fort Kent because university officials were not doing enough to stop threats against him.

The couple has decided to move out of state.

Kaci Hickox, the nurse who defied a mandatory Ebola quarantine in Maine and cast a spotlight on what critics saw as an overreaction to the dangers posed by health workers returning from West Africa, plans to move out of state, it was reported Saturday.

Hickox and her boyfriend, Ted Wilbur, are leaving Fort Kent after Monday, the last day of the disease’s 21-day incubation period and the day when a judge’s order that she be monitored for the disease expires, The Associated Press reported.

The Portland Press Herald reported that the couple will move to another state, and that Wilbur recently withdrew from an accelerated nursing program at the University of Maine, also in Fort Kent.

Hickox has shown no signs of the deadly disease that has killed nearly 5,000 people in the West African countries of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.

She was briefly placed into isolation in New Jersey upon her arrival on Oct. 24 from Sierra Leone where she was treating Ebola patients, and then allowed to travel to Maine, where the governor and health officials had sought to impose a mandatory quarantine. But a judge refused to impose that order, and instead allowed her to leave her home as long as she was monitored for symptoms.

Kaci Hickox: Liberals Love Her. Conservatives Hate Her.

It is not clear what the reasoning would be behind quarantining people who aren’t sick.

In New Jersey, nurse Kaci Hickox tested negative for Ebola several times.

A faulty thermometer at the airport showed she had a fever, but she later tested normal for that as well.

According to the Washington Post, she may not have intended to become the center of a political debate, but she is one now.

When the registered nurse — fresh from fighting Ebola in Sierra Leone — spoke out against a mandatory quarantine in New Jersey, Gov. Chris Christie was the first Republican to intervene.

While refraining from attacking Hickox personally, Christie took up an unusual rallying cry for a member of the party of Reagan: the need for big government to contain a mess.

“The government’s job is to protect [the] safety and health of our citizens,” Christie said on “Fox News Sunday.” “And so we’ve taken this action, and I absolutely have no second thoughts about it.”

Christie then apparently had second thoughts on Monday, when he freed Hickox from quarantine after supposedly talking to, among others, President Obama.

The left took up her cause.  “When Kaci Hickox stood up to Governor Chris Christie for quarantining her against her will and claiming she was ‘obviously ill’ when she wasn’t, she did more than bring a little sanity to our Ebola-panic politics,” the Nation wrote. “She also struck a blow for all the teachers, nurses, public employees, minimum-wagers and workers of all kinds that Christie has bullied, belittled and silenced over the years.”

When back at home in Maine, Hickox defied another mandatory quarantine from another Republican governor, the partisan divide over her irresponsibility or moxie only deepened.

To the right, she was a do-gooder who fell from grace, trading praiseworthy humanitarian work for arrogant grandstanding as she and her boyfriend set off on a defiant bicycle ride with a group of TV camera crews in tow. To the left, she was a hero standing up to “bully governors.”

“There is something uniquely jarring about a display of selfish insolence from someone who is so praiseworthy in other respects,” Townhall wrote in a piece called “Kaci Hickox, Self-Absorbed Hero.” “Maddening traits usually come from maddening people, as their true character surfaces.”

Doctor In Sierra Leone Dies of Ebola

According to ABC News, a local doctor in Sierra Leone has died of Ebola. ABC claims he was the fifth local doctor in the West African nation to die of the disease.

ABC: “The death of Dr. Godfrey George, medical superintendent of Kambia Government Hospital in northern Sierra Leone, was a blow to efforts to keep desperately needed health care workers safe in a country ravaged by the deadly virus.”

Sierra Leone’s small health care system has been strained by the virus, making it difficult to care for patients.

Its health care system was already fragile before the Ebola epidemic because of past conflict and a lack of resources.

The country had two doctors for every 100,000 people in 2010, compared to about 240 doctors for every 100,000 people in the United States, according to the World Health Organization.

George’s overnight death was announced by Dr. Brima Kargbo, Sierra Leone’s chief medical officer. George had been driven to the capital, Freetown, after reporting that he was not feeling well.

Doctors and nurses have been particularly vulnerable to contracting Ebola, as the virus is spread through bodily fluids.  WHO chief Margaret Chan has talked about the disease’s “heavy toll on frontline domestic medical staff.”

Rachel Maddow: Stark Partisan Contrast In Ebola Response

Congressman Darrell Issa (R, CA) calls Guinea “Guyana” and Ebola “E.boli.” Video by Rachel Maddow.

Video: More Ebola Insanity?

Ebola hysteria still grips people across the country.

Sam Seder looks at Ebola vaccines, African Students, and free-market economics.

Nurse’s Discharge Leaves Just One Ebola Case In U.S.

A nurse’s release Tuesday from an Atlanta hospital leaves a single person in the United States now battling Ebola, though she and others — including President Barack Obama — stressed the fight against the deadly virus isn’t over.

“While this is a day for celebration and gratitude, I ask that we not lose focus on the thousands of families who continue to labor under the burden of this disease in West Africa,” said 29-year-old Amber Vinson.

Smiling broadly and occasionally brushing aside tears, Vinson was surrounded by relatives as well as Emory doctors and nurses.

Nurse Nina Pham from Dallas, who also had Ebola, was released Oct. 24 from a National Institutes of Health hospital in Bethesda, Md.

Meanwhile, on Monday, Kaci Hickox traveled from New Jersey to Maine, where her boyfriend is a senior nursing student at the University of Maine at Fort Kent.  Hickox, who spent the weekend in a quarantine tent in New Jersey, said she never had Ebola symptoms and tested negative in a preliminary evaluation. She also sharply criticized New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo for ordering mandatory quarantines.

Hickox, told CNN that her “basic human rights have been violated,” and was released Monday, two days after testing negative for Ebola.  She was seemingly powerless to challenge her banishment to a quarantine tent in Newark.

The nurse’s treatment, as well as the quarantine policies of New York and New Jersey, have been criticized as heavy-handed.

Former Ebola patient Rick Sacra, a doctor infected in Liberia, likened the mandatory quarantine for returning health-care workers in New York and New Jersey to a “police state approach.”

Ebola Hysteria? West Virginia Hospital Goes On Lockdown During False Ebola Scare

Cabell Huntington Hospital in West Virginia has released more information regarding the emergency room lockdown Saturday evening.

According to a press release, the female patient who presented to the hospital does not have Ebola or any other communicable illness.

After a thorough investigation and in consultation with public health officials and the Centers for Disease Control, it was verified that the patient had not traveled abroad since June 2014 and has never been in any regions where Ebola is a threat.

According to the CBS affiliate wowktv.com: “The patient presented with flu-like symptoms and reported having returned to the U.S. approximately 6 weeks ago from Nigeria. Although 6 weeks is outside the incubation period for an Ebola infection, appropriate precautions were implemented. The patient was not a direct medical care provider and had no confirmed exposure to an Ebola patient.”

The patient suffered from a minor illness and no public risk was identified.

Oops…Still-Quarantined Nurse In New Jersey Does Not Have Ebola

According to the Wall Street Journal, a Doctors Without Borders nurse who tested negative for Ebola after being put under mandatory quarantine in New Jersey lashed out Saturday at the move to force her detainment.

Kaci Hickox, a 33-year-old nurse from Maine who had been working with Ebola patients in Sierra Leone, was detained Friday at Newark Liberty International Airport under stepped-up protocols ordered by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo .

In an essay published by The Dallas Morning News on Saturday, Ms. Hickox wrote that being quarantined at University Hospital in Newark “is not a situation I would wish on anyone, and I am scared for those who will follow me.”

Ms. Hickox said a forehead scan taken by an official at the airport initially said her temperature was 98 degrees. But hours later, after she said she became upset about being held without explanation, a forehead scan found her temperature to be 101 degrees.

A worker at the airport “barked questions at me as if I was a criminal,” she wrote.

At the hospital, her temperature was recorded at 98.6 degrees on an oral thermometer, and she said a doctor told her, “There’s no way you have a fever. Your face is just flushed.” After that, she said, her blood was taken and came back negative for Ebola after a test.

“I am scared about how health-care workers will be treated at airports when they declare that they have been fighting Ebola in West Africa,” Ms. Hickox wrote. “I am scared that, like me, they will arrive and see a frenzy of disorganization, fear and, most frightening, quarantine.”

Ms. Hickox’s mother, Karen Hickox, said in an interview that her daughter was being held in an “isolation tent” that has an air system and a portable toilet, but no shower. She said her daughter has been given hospital food by attendants dressed in full protective suits—the uniforms Ms. Hickox wore to treat sick patients on a five-week trip to Sierra Leone.

“There is no TV, no books, no magazines, nothing,” said Karen Hickox, who lives in Rio Vista, Texas, a city roughly 40 miles south of Fort Worth. Her daughter called on Saturday morning in tears.

“That’s not her normal demeanor,” her mother said. “If you knew her, she’s a very positive, everything-is-going-to-be-OK person.”

Doctors Without Borders said the tent wasn’t heated and that Ms. Hickox was forced to wear uncomfortable paper scrubs.

The organization said she hasn’t been informed about what comes next and has been issued an order of quarantine that doesn’t indicate how long she will remain in isolation.

The group also said in a statement, “While measures to protect public health are of paramount importance, they must be balanced against the rights of health workers returning from fighting the Ebola outbreak in West Africa to fair and reasonable treatment and the full disclosure of information to them, along with information about intended courses of action from local and state health authorities.”

New Jersey Governor Christie said Saturday that his heart goes out to Ms. Hickox. He said it was a “difficult situation” and that steps were taken to make her comfortable.

“My first and foremost obligation is to protect the public health and safety of the people of New Jersey,” Mr. Christie said while campaigning in a governor race in Sioux City, Iowa.

New Jersey Governor Christie also said: “But you know I feel for her,” and “I hope she recovers quickly and we’re going to do everything we can in New Jersey and in our public health system to make sure that she does.”

Of course, she doesn’t seem to actually have Ebola.

Ms. Hickox was scheduled to remain under 21-day quarantine and may undergo further testing, officials said.

The quarantine was part of more stringent screening guidelines instituted in New Jersey and New York after another Doctors Without Borders worker, Craig Spencer, tested positive for the virus. Dr. Spencer was in stable condition in Bellevue Hospital Center in Manhattan.

The mandatory quarantines apply to any medical workers who had performed services to individuals infected with the Ebola virus, officials said.

Individuals who had traveled to Ebola-affected regions of West Africa and returned through New York or New Jersey would be actively monitored by public-health officials even if they didn’t have direct contact with an infected person.

CDC guidelines had called for humanitarian aid workers to monitor their own temperature for 21 days after returning from West Africa.

The federal guidelines don’t call for any movement restrictions as long as they exhibit no symptoms of the disease.

Ms. Hickox’s mother said her daughter took previous missions with Doctors Without Borders.  “She loves the organization. She loves what they do,” her mother said.

In other news, it was announced that the US Ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, is traveling to Guinea on Sunday. She will also visit Liberia and Sierra Leone, making the trip despite calls by some US lawmakers for a travel ban on the three West African countries worst-affected by Ebola.

Ms Power, a member of President Barack Obama’s cabinet, left Washington on Saturday.