Today Is September 29th, 2014 Time: 16:25 Hrs. PDT HEADLINE: Physician Credits Ebola Survival To Experimental, Canadian-Developed Drug Transcript: âThe weakness â I canât even describe it,â says Senga Omeonga, a Congolese surgeon who became infected with Ebola in a hospital in Monrovia last month. âThe feeling in your body is horrible. You feel that your whole body system has stopped working. You become hopeless. Youâre just thinking about death.â In his many years of medical work in Liberia, Congo and elsewhere, Dr. Omeonga has suffered bouts of malaria and has seen almost everything in tropical medicine. But nothing, he says, feels like Ebola. He was feverish, vomiting, diarrheal and unable to eat. âYou canât even get off the bed. When you get Ebola, you only think youâre going to die.â Two things helped him survive the lethal illness. One was ZMapp, the experimental Canadian-developed Ebola treatment. He was one of just seven Ebola victims worldwide who received ZMapp before supplies ran out. He believes that the three doses of ZMapp he received intravenously in Monrovia last month were among the keys to his recovery. The 53-year-old surgeon feels even more certain that ZMapp was crucial in saving a Liberian health worker, Kyndy Kobbah, who was in a coma in critical condition when she received it. âIf it wasnât for ZMapp, she wouldnât have made it,â he said. âEverybody was amazed. Nobody gave her a chance to survive. She got her recovery because of ZMapp. If they can expedite the production of it, they should try, because we really need it.â Dr. Omeonga still sometimes feels weak and tired these days, about four weeks after his discharge from hospital, but he says he is gaining strength every day. And he is determined to return to work as a doctor in Monrovia, at the same Catholic hospital, St. Josephâs, where he has served for the past three years. The hospital was closed in August after nine of its staff and patients died of Ebola, but it is expected to reopen next month or in early November. It didnât even cross his mind to abandon Liberia after surviving Ebola. âNow that Iâve recovered from Ebola, it wouldnât make sense to be selfish,â he said. âI feel strongly that I want to keep helping the people here. Now that I have a second chance, Iâll use it to help others. They really need us.â He has already volunteered to donate blood to Ebola patients. âThe recovery period is the best time to donate blood, because thatâs when you have the full antibodies,â he explains. Dr. Omeongaâs experience reveals the desperately weak state of Liberiaâs health system. His hospital director, Patrick Nshamdze, caught the Ebola virus from a patient in July, but his blood results gave a âfalse negativeâ â probably because of poor labelling or specimen collection in the testing process, Dr. Omeonga believes. So as the hospital staff provided care to the dying director, they didnât take enough precautions, believing that he didnât have the Ebola virus. Several staff â including Dr. Omeonga â caught the virus from him, and Dr. Nshamdze died. Health workers are among the most vulnerable in the Ebola epidemic. As of last week, 375 health workers had been infected with Ebola in four West African countries, and 211 had died. This is because of three key factors, Dr. Omeonga said. First, there are severe shortages of protective equipment for health workers. Second, health workers have almost daily exposure to the Ebola virus. And third, their patients often conceal the fact that they have the virus. âSome patients donât tell the truth,â he said. âThey come to you with a different story, like âabdominal pain.â Itâs because of the stigma of Ebola. They think they wonât be treated and theyâll be sent away.â Global efforts to fight Ebola are falling far short, he said. âWhen I discuss it with my colleagues, we donât feel the impact of the international help. Itâs not coming fast enough. The numbers of cases and deaths are just going up. The international community needs to do more â and fast. A lot of hospitals are closed, and thousands of patients are in the community. Even if we go house-to-house, where are we going to put them?â Yet his own story is an inspirational sign that the Ebola epidemic can be beaten. âThere is a lot of hope,â Dr. Omeonga says. âIâd like to spread the message of hope. Itâs a deadly disease, but it doesnât kill everyone. The key is to diagnose it early and go to treatment early. If you do that, you can survive.â Follow Geoffrey York on Twitter: @geoffreyyork Source: theglobeandmail/news/world/physican-credits-ebola-survival-to-experimental-canadian-developed-drug/article20822168/?cmpid=rss1&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheGlobeAndMail-Front+%28The+Globe+and+Mail+-+Latest+News%29
Posted on: Mon, 29 Sep 2014 23:28:43 +0000
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