#SSU #TRENDING #NEWSUPDATE Dallas - A patient being treated at a Dallas hospital has tested positive for Ebola, the first case of the disease to be diagnosed in the United States, federal health officials announced on Tuesday. Officials at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital say the unidentified patient is being kept in isolation and that the hospital is following Centres for Disease Control and Prevention recommendations to keep doctors, staff and patients safe. The hospital had announced a day earlier that the patients symptoms and recent travel indicated a case of Ebola, the virus that has killed more than 3 000 people across West Africa and infected a handful of Americans who have travelled to that region. The CDC has said 12 other people in the US have been tested for Ebola since 27 July. Those tests came back negative. ----------- Monrovia - American mobile Ebola labs should be up and running in Liberia this week, and US troops have broken ground for a field hospital, as the international community races to increase the ability to care for the spiralling number of people infected with the disease. Liberia is the hardest hit in the Ebola outbreak, which has touched four other West African countries. More than 3 000 deaths have been linked to the disease across the region in the largest outbreak ever, according to the World Health Organisation. But even that toll is likely an underestimate, partially because there arent enough labs to test people for Ebola. The numbers for Liberia, in particular, have lagged behind reality because it takes so long to get test results, WHO has warned. ------------ Tokyo - Seven more bodies have been found by rescuers combing the peak of a Japanese volcano that erupted at the weekend, officials said Wednesday, taking the death toll to at least 43. The seven are in addition to the 36 already known to have died when Mount Ontake burst angrily to life during the busy hiking season. Rescuers found seven more people in cardiac arrest near the mountain top, and are now carrying them down, an official in Otaki village, where one mountain trail begins, told AFP. Only doctors can declare someone officially dead, so first responders typically report that someones heart has stopped and they are not breathing. The find comes after media reports suggested as many as 20 people remain unaccounted for, with an area of the volcano still out of bounds to rescuers as it continues to billow toxic gas and steam. ---------- Polokwane - EFF leader Julius Malema has told hundreds of supporters in Polokwane that he is ready to stand trial, after his case was postponed on Tuesday. - Are you there? Send us your eyewitness accounts and photos. I tried to plead with them that I should be separated... and tried alone, he said. If others are not ready I am, the State must bring this case closer. The trial against Malema and his co-accused was earlier postponed in the Limpopo High Court to 3 August 2015 because not all counsel were available. ------------- Freetown - Sierra Leones government was forced to issue a statement on Tuesday denying that Ebola had been defeated, after hundreds to took to the streets in provinical towns to celebrate what they thought was the end of the epidemic. Witnesses reported crowds surging into the streets of the northern commercial hub of Makeni, chanting Ebola is no more and Ebola has been defeated. Locals said celebrations began late on Monday when a group of suspected Ebola victims were released from a holding centre with negative lab test results. This was misinterpreted to mean that the township was totally free from Ebola and the news, which spread like wildfire, sent hundreds into the streets to celebrate, said resident Moiwo Sesay. Commercial bike riders and taxi drivers honked their horns and people embraced each other while some kissed the ground. Riot police dispersed the crowds and slapped a dusk-till-dawn curfew on residents, witnesses told AFP. There were no reports of deaths or serious injuries.
Posted on: Wed, 01 Oct 2014 07:16:16 +0000