Evening Update, Sun, 11/9: See Ebola Tx Ctr photo in Monrovia/Graphic to calculate EBOV by January

11/9/14

Dear Colleagues:

Today is Sunday in the U.S. so the medical journals and lay magazines/media are ‘resting’ today.  There is some news from Dr. Flanigan’s blog and NY TImes:

1.  Dr. Flanigan is now isolating himself in Rome, but he still blogs about matters in Monrovia, Liberia.  Today he has a photo of the Ebola Treatment Center that the U.S. troopers built to treat HCW who are infected with EBOV while in Liberia.  Note in the photo that the treatment tents have canvas floors to contain bodily fluids within the tent.  However, the patient beds do not have openings to contain diarrheal fluids, and there are no trenches around the outside of the tents to contain bodily fluids that leak from the tents.  See the blog and photos at: https://col128.mail.live.com/?tid=cmIAUU0WJo5BG9vQAeC8v9Cg2&fid=flinbox

2.  NY Times contains a graphic showing how the date on which 70% of the EBOV cases in a country were under treatment determines the upper and lower estimates of EBOV caseload in January, 2015.  The graphic was published on November 3rd, but it took until tonight for Dr. Bob to figure out how to work the graphic.  (Hint: Move the ‘blue circle’ on the horizontal dateline to automatically change the date of the 70% under treatment parameter).  This graphic explains how very high estimates of EBOV caseload in January, 2015 have been generated: very late attainment of the 70% under treatment parameter.  See: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/11/04/health/visuals-ebola-model.html?ref=health&_r=0 for the graphic.

RGL, MD