Guest essay by Eric Worrall
While the world’s politicians focus on the witterings of child climate prophets, a real global crisis could be brewing in Africa.
Possible cover-up of Ebola outbreak in Tanzania prompts travel warnings
Travelers should stay informed and avoid contact with sick people, CDC says.
BETH MOLE – 9/30/2019, 11:54 PMUS and UK government officials are warning travelers of the possibility of a concealed Ebola outbreak in Tanzania after the World Health Organization reported that the government there is withholding information about possible cases of the deadly virus.
On September 21, the WHO released an unusual statement outlining a series of unofficial reports from the country. The first was that a doctor who had recently traveled to Uganda had returned to Tanzania with a “suspected” case of Ebola. Testing performed by the Tanzanian National Health Laboratory reportedly indicated that the doctor was positive for the virus. She died on September 8 in Dar es Salaam, the largest city in Tanzania, after traveling extensively throughout the country. Subsequent unofficial reports to the WHO indicated that there were several other suspected cases as well as contacts in quarantine in various sites in Tanzania.…
The US Centers of Disease Control and Prevention and the State Department updated their travel advisories for Tanzania late Friday, September 27.
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The UK’s warning notes that the WHO declared the current Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) in July and that cases have spilled over to Uganda.
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Read more: https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/09/possible-cover-up-of-ebola-outbreak-in-tanzania-prompts-travel-warnings/
The statement from the WHO;
Cases of Undiagnosed Febrile Illness – United Republic of Tanzania
Disease Outbreak News21 September 2019
The following is a description of the current situation in the United Republic of Tanzania regarding unofficial reports of a number of cases of illness and a summary of WHO efforts to obtain information about this situation.
As specified in Article 9 of the International Health Regulations (IHR), WHO may take into account reports from sources other than notifications from Member States and shall assess these reports according to established epidemiological principles under the IHR.
On 10 September 2019, through its regular event-based surveillance process, WHO was made aware of unofficial reports regarding the death of a person with suspected Ebola Virus disease (EVD) case in Dar es Salaam, United Republic of Tanzania. The identified contacts of the deceased were unofficially reported to be quarantined in various sites in the country. Under the IHR Articles 9 and 10, WHO immediately sent a verification request to the National IHR Focal Point (NFP) of the country.
On 11 September, through its regular event-based surveillance process, WHO was made aware of unofficial reports that a RT-PCR test performed at the Tanzanian National Health Laboratory was positive for EVD for this patient. On the same day, WHO received unofficial reports regarding another suspected EVD case in Mwanza, located in the northern region of the United Republic of Tanzania, who later tested negative for EVD. WHO continued to reach out under the IHR to the health authorities of the United Republic of Tanzania to verify these signals.
On 12 September 2019, WHO was informed by unofficial sources of a 27-year-old patient suspected of EVD admitted in a hospital of Dar es Salaam without further information regarding laboratory tests and results
Despite several requests, WHO did not receive further details of any of these cases from Tanzanian authorities.
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Read more: https://www.who.int/csr/don/21-september-2019-undiag-febrile-illness-tanzania/en/
Tanzania, like China, is a country in transition from Communism to Capitalism. Per capita GDP is $3200 – not a wealthy country by Western standards, but not a basket case either. Tanzania is substantially richer than Congo, the center of the current Ebola outbreak.
Although Tanzania has elections, Human Rights Watch alleges cases of abusive enforcement of communication laws by security forces against people who criticise the government or criticise the conduct of elections.
Tanzania is heavily dependent on agriculture. The USA imports small volumes of agricultural and textile goods from Tanzania.
Tanzania is also the leading source for Tanzanite. Though the Tanzanians only see a very small fraction of their value
An outbreak occurs in the Congo. That is bad enough, but these things happen. A PHEIC was issued in July. Despite best efforts at containment, the outbreak spread to neighboring Uganda. This increases the difficulty of continuing containment geometrically.
The outbreak spreading to Tanzania is very bad news. If this thing gets out to Kenya, the situation could get very ugly very fast.
“…could get very ugly very fast”
Fusion breakthrough any day now…
“…could get very ugly very fast”
Climate catastrophe is just around the corner…
I was going to say just wait until they attribute the outbreak to GW/CC
Climate Change: the Theory of Everything.
Perhaps one should not be quite so sanguine on the topic.
As far a Climate Change goes, one of the worst predictions surrounding this issue has come to pass.
That prediction is one I made (Yes, your truly, and possibly many other as well) that all of the entire Scientific Endeavour would be discredited because of the well publicized antics of a few in a very narrow field .
Consider where we are now, with a broad swath of the general public.
All Biology, all chemistry, all physics, and all of everything else you can name, absolutely trashed, all because people are tired of hearing about Global Warming.
Study a history of pandemics. Things do not go well for populations that do not have resistance to infectious agents which are new to them. The situation is not as if the threat is purely theoretical, abstract, or has never happened. Great plagues have happened, and we know quite a lot about them. In ancient times, a few plagues hit the ancient Romans and Greeks. Historians long thought the agent might have been Bubonic Plague. A closer consideration of the details now indicate those plagues may well have been one of the hemorrhagic fevers from Africa. Then, of course, we saw the European plagues of the middle ages, Smallpox with the native Indians of North America, and finally the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918.
You want to see fear, I mean real terror? Take a course in Public Health. Study the panic in the students faces when the Prof talks about infection vectors and containment strategies in an age of commercial air travel.
Have a nice day.
“You want to see fear, I mean real terror? Take a course in Public Health. Study the panic in the students faces when the Prof talks about infection vectors and containment strategies in an age of commercial air travel.”
I’d be laughing at him. His head would explode at the questions I’d ask him.
All that is true. On the other hand, deadly epidemics mostly occur in weakened populations. link This isn’t to say that the developed world can’t have a deadly epidemic, but it’s less likely.
CB: I would suggest that we in developing countries are the weakened populations. Africans are very tough. I worked there for 4 years. Some will just work right through a malaria attack as though it was a common flu.
Cheers
M
Never heard of that author before, but based on the reviews, I bet I’d like him.
“Michael Carter October 1, 2019 at 3:11 pm
“Africans are very tough. I worked there for 4 years. Some will just work right through a malaria attack as though it was a common flu.”
Agreed because they know if they took time off work to seek medical advice, someone else would be given their job!
“Tanzania, like China, is a country in transition from Communism to Capitalism.”
That statement makes no sense. Communism is a political system. Capitalism is an economic system.
China is not in transition “from Communism.” They may be adopting some elements of capitalism into their economy to allow efficiencies of competition and free enterprise/entrepreneurs to keep some of what they make, but China is not backing away from authoritarian controls on most aspects of life there.
If Jack Ma, the Alibaba billionaire, were to speak out against the Chinese government and urge pro-democracy movements onwards, he’d find himself in a Chinese prison and his assets seized.
Joel O’Bryan, I think you are putting rather too fine an edge on things. Communism is absolutely an economic system. The proletariat own the means of production, and therefor all the wealth creation for the entire society. So the common man holds all the economic power and can not be taken advantage of, or otherwise abused. Purely economic.
Unfortunately, in all cases tried, a brutal dictatorship willing to slaughter millions of it’s own people was found necessary to make the transition to the new economic order. The resulting economic system is clear to observe, as there are several case studies out there. In all cases, the resulting society resembles a nightmare from feudal Europe. Then, it was the landed aristocracy ruling over the serfs and the peasant masses. Under communism, it is the Party ruling over the serfs and peasant masses.
TonyL
Whilst I’m not inclined to entirely disagree with you, I think a few things must be borne in mind.
My understanding is that Mao’s disastrous agricultural policy which did kill millions was an attempt to elevate a poverty stricken, largely agricultural population from poverty by using agriculture as a tool. Quite how he imagined that would work I have no idea however, it was a mistake, it wasn’t a genocidal decision of any sort.
I listened to a commentator on the BBC today discussing Hong Kong and the rise of China over recent decades. He described the Chinese economic miracle today as extraordinary. He stated China has grown economically by 10% per year for the last generation at least and has liberated 800,000 people from poverty.
He also stated that whilst the west believes China doesn’t understand it, China has a long and distinguished history and believes that, in contrast, the west doesn’t understand it.
What is usually cited as a criticism of China is their human rights record, judged from a western perspective. But whilst China has withdrawn the death penalty for many offences, it still retains a culture entirely removed from ours that enjoys cities without graffiti, and with clean streets which are safe to walk through at any time.
Wouldn’t it be nice if western cities could enjoy the same level of civility within their cities. And wouldn’t it be nice if Africa could somehow transform itself into an economic model as successful as China?
I taught a young Chinese student visiting the UK to study, how to drive. He was astonished at the number of road works on our streets. I asked him what else we could do and he told me that Chinese workers, will work round the clock to ensure their roads are clear every day, as a matter of pride, not compulsion.
It’s interesting to note, is it not, that this peculiar hybrid Communist/Capitalist economic/social model is the first of it’s kind, and it’s doing rather well, being that China was an economic backwater a mere generation ago, and is now threatening the USA for the title of wealthiest country in the world.
I hasten to add, that I am no expert here. Just a casual observer.
Western societies have more crime because they are not governed by the draconian laws and punishments of dictatorships. Would you wish the UK implementing such laws? Would you be happy to live under that kind of rule ( think Tianamen Square)?
I would not.
You and Trudeau – admiration for a system that controls everything. The Green Machine would also support such a system.
NB. if visiting China, make sure all your devices are brand new and only contain the necessary contacts. Avoid accessing sites they could conceivably object to while there, and make sure you do not talk to anyone critical of the government.
Tanzania is trying to be a social democratic system à la Europe and is not communist, at least it was when I was there in the 1980s. There is always the danger, of course, of such a system tipping to a totalitarian one.
China is unabashedly communist and only decided to experiment with capitalist economics after the scare they got from the sudden collapse of rhe USSR. They needed to be bold because their system was heading for the same collapse.
This kind of reporting by the “progressive” media is always deferential to China (their building thousands of coal fired plants at home and elsewhere in the 3rd World doesn’t even attract criticism even with the world to be wiped out in a decade). There was no need whatsoever to mention China in this article.
TonyL, you missed the fundamental distinction. Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it’s exactly the opposite.
You lost me … under capitalism, each party has the ability to not trade or provide services if the conditions aren’t acceptable. In communism you get no say in any of that and everyone gets totally exploited because in theory you don’t get any advantage by being good at something.
Communism is a socio-political system which adopts the economic system devised by Karl Marx which is usually abandoned after a few years after failure. China has a communist government which dumped Marxist economics for capitalism. Capitalism is a purely economic term which can be adopted by any political system.
Send in the IPCC team to investigate.
Here, here!!
Moderators, Can you please advise why I continue to be unable to post here?
If Greta could stare down carbon polluters in the United Nations she could make ebola wither away. Let’s take up a donation and send her straight down to Africa. There, problem solved. Fun fact: Greta can see ebola virus without the aid of a microscope!
I hear the African Queen is still available for charter on the river.
As intellectual & emotional maturity continues to plummet, why not this:
Chuck Norris’ beard can kill Ebola…
Send in Greta!
If the Church of Sweden is correct that she is the second coming of Christ, she should be able to cure the Ebola victims by the laying on of hands.
I have no idea.
“WHO Accuses Tanzania of Withholding Details of a Potential Ebola Outbreak”
I have no idea.
It is me! I accused Tanzania of withholding those details.
No, Who is on first.
🙂
Would a medical Mann write a paper dismissing the existence of an ebola outbreak?
Only if it could be confirmed through extensive modeling that increased CO2 is toxic to Ebola
He’d find a way to demand that we spend trillions of dollars doing something that would have zero effect.
Eric Worrall While the world’s politicians focus on the witterings of child climate prophets,
———————–
Eric my Guinea Pig died last night and I was wondering if you could write a posting on how Miss Thunberg is associated with this? You are obviously well practiced in this sort of thing.
DH
ghalfrunt, you must know by now it was climate change killed your poor guinea pig.
Once again, the troll attacks the author because he knows he can’t refute any of the facts.
Regarding China, study History. We have had many political and economic systems in the past, most had a leader, call him or her a King,, Queen, Cease, President. Makes mo difference. Its the way.
Why should China change, it works, so if it aunt broke don’t fix it.
Just because some people of odd thoughts in the West don’t like it, i.e. they are not yet the Boss, does not mean that it, the Chinese system should ever change.
The word Communism is just a word, here in Australia we have the words “”Commonwealth of Australia “” in our constitution, yet we are not known as a Communist country. Its just words, whereas it should be by their deeds they areca known..
Sadly just as with Empires in the past, including China, the rot usually starts internally. “”The decline and fall of the Roman Empire”” is sometimes blamed on Christianity, but it was more probably other people who wanted to be Boss, an that then led to civil war.
MJE VK5ELL
China has their dragons. The biggest problem I encountered in Chinese society is it seems very difficult to tell the boss they made a mistake.
I was once hired by a Chinese company as a consultant. For two years they had been working 18 hour days, 7 days a week, because the boss had grossly under-resourced the project. They spent thousands of dollars on me, flew me halfway around the world, so I could tell the boss they needed more resources.
here in Australia we have the words “”Commonwealth of Australia “” in our constitution, yet we are not known as a Communist country. Its just words
Yeah, well, except that words matter and Commonwealth doesn’t mean communist. It means an independent country, usually a democratic republic.
consider why? theyd cover up n refuse to send data?
tourism n loss of business
lousy health care would be exposed
assuming they have any/much anyway
not wanting the WHO to enter their country and maybe find other problems
would appear theyre fairly controlling of the people or word from Inside would be getting out
and so far?
no alt net word of it.