Hilo del ébola: de cómo la corrupción mata...literalmente

[Taliván Hortográfico]

No olviden que hace menos de cien años la gripe mató a más gente que toda la Primera Guerra Mundial.

[Hombre de paja]

Bueno pues según comunicaron técnicos en la materia en 15-20 días tras el contagio de Teresa se irían dando más casos con toda seguridad... 

Ingresan en el Carlos III tres personas más por sospecha de ébola

Pues no serán tan expertos cuando desconocen que para contagiarse de ébola hace falta un contacto directo con los fluidos de un enfermo sintomático. Con total seguridad, no se producirá contagio si no se ha producido ya.

Teresa Romero da por primera vez negativo de ébola en un análisis

• La auxiliar se someterá a una segunda prueba para confirmar que está libre del virus

No hace ni dos semanas teniamos dos positivos y hoy parece que tendremos dos negativos.

Éso es que hay vacuna ¿o no?

No, eso significa que el sistema inmunitario del paciente ha conseguido rechazar al virus.
Para esto hay que considerar que la mortalidad del ébola no es 1, sino que oscila entre 0.4 y 0.9 dependiendo de la zona, y la cepa.

Aunque el suero de la paciente puede sea empleado, no es mas que una solución provisional ya que este no puede obtenerse masivamente,y aun se desconocen que antígenos del ébola provocan una respuesta inmunitaria.

Para terminar un par de ideas respecto al alarmismo evolutivo del ébola: es imposible.
Dicho de otro modo, la probabilidad esta tan cercana a cero como queramos.

Para que sucediese tendrían que darse una serie de cambios radicales en el virus, que lo convertirían en algo muy distinto a lo que conocemos actualmente. Para empezar tendría que atacar el sistema respiratorio -el que mas anticuerpos genera-, modificar el cápside permitiendo una mayor resistencia fuera del organismo etcétera.

En suma, una serie de mutaciones estructurales importantes, dificiles de seleccionarse por separado, y aun mas de forma condicionada.

[Currobena]

Teoría del Caos, casualidad y el origen del Ébola. Un poquito más de humildad nos vendría bien.

Where Does Ebola Hide?

My nerve-wracking research with shrieking bats.
By Matt McCarthy


The first time I put a blowgun in my mouth, my focus wasn’t on hitting the target; it was on not swallowing the tranquilizer dart. I zeroed in, closed my eyes, and forcefully expelled a gust of air. So forcefully, in fact, that I sent the tiny missile 20 feet over the wooden bulls-eye. My instructor shook his head and moved his hands from his hips to my neck. “Aim low,” he said, inching my face downward, “if you’re gonna blow so hard.” It was the spring of 2004 and we were standing in an open field in Worcester, Massachusetts, where I was preparing to hunt the Ebola virus. 

I was a medical student at Harvard at the time, and I’d responded to a flier seeking an animal catcher willing to spend the summer in Africa. I had no such training, but I was interested in living abroad, so I contacted the group—the Consortium for Conservation Medicine—and told them I wanted in. A few weeks later, I began learning how to subdue wild animals that were thought to transmit lethal viruses. A few months after that, I traveled to Cameroon to attempt to answer a surprisingly difficult question: Where does Ebola go between human outbreaks?

The man hoping to answer this was Nathan Wolfe, a renowned virus hunter whom The New Yorker once referred to as “a swarthy man with a studiously disheveled look,” who “comes off as a cross between a pirate and a graduate student.” When I arrived in Yaoundé, the capital of Cameroon, I was driven by an armed guard to a two-story house in a wealthy part of town where Wolfe was planning his next move. The house was surrounded by barbed wire and guarded by a man in camouflage holding a rifle. I would not need my blowgun.

I was terrified. What if one of these things bit me?

Inside the house, I met my team: six animal handlers from around the world who were preparing to spend several weeks in the jungle. One of Wolfe’s colleagues explained the plan. The team in Cameroon—as well as scientists from rival groups in other countries—had a hunch that Ebola was living harmlessly inside of fruit bats. These creatures were known to harbor all kinds of deadly viruses, from rabies to Marburg, but no one had definitively shown that Ebola lived in bats. They wondered if fruit bats were somehow giving Ebola to humans.

A day later, we took our headlamps and backpacks and headed deep into the West African jungle, hoping to be the first to establish the link. Over the next few nights, we tracked the feeding patterns of fruit bats on the outskirts of a small village. Every night around dusk, hundreds of bats would fly in a V-formation over a large hill, searching for their next meal. (Fruit bats eat—you guessed it—fruit.) Once we understood their flight plan, we pulled out our nets, which were about 12-feet wide and resembled volleyball nets. But ours were made with a special mesh that couldn't be detected by the bats’ sonar.

Shortly before dusk, we scurried up the hill and tethered the nets in trees. Then we waited. As the sun went down, hundreds of bats flew over the hill in search of an evening feed, and dozens went careening into our nets. My job was to remove the potentially Ebola-infested fruit bats from the net. And I was terrified. What if one of these things bit me?

After untangling the bats from the netting—I wore thick gardening gloves throughout the nerve-wracking ordeal—I placed the screeching creatures in a sack and brought them to a small hut. Then I put on a surgical gown, face mask, latex gloves, and safety goggles and went to work. On a wooden table inside the hut, I took a large needle and plunged it into the bat’s heart to extract blood. (The bats did not survive the procedure.) The blood was then sent back to a laboratory in the United States, where it was tested for a number of viruses, including Ebola.

Once we were done collecting bat blood, we went into the neighboring village and met with the chief and a group of hunters to explain the concerns that had brought us there. The men sipped whiskey as we discussed the risks of eating bat, chimpanzee, and gorilla meat. One hunter brushed his teeth with one hand while holding a fresh primate carcass with the other as we spoke. The villagers were willing to listen, but most had spent their entire lives consuming this type of food without a problem. Why stop?

Well, it turns out Ebola virus does live in fruit bats, although other researchers beat us to this conclusion. What’s more, these mammals—also known as flying foxes—appear to be the primary reservoir from which humans acquire the infection. Scientists still haven’t worked out the details, but one theory is that bats transmit Ebola to chimpanzees and gorillas (and possibly other animals like dogs and pigs) through their droppings, and humans contract the virus by coming into contact with those infected animals. This is likely what happened in the Ebola outbreak of 1996 in Gabon, when an infected chimpanzee found in the forest was butchered and eaten by 19 people. People may also contract the disease directly from bats; researchers believe the current Ebola outbreak was caused by a toddler’s chance encounter with a single infected fruit bat. (It’s not known whether the toddler was bitten by a bat or ate an infected one.)
One of the bats McCarthy caught. One of the bats McCarthy caught.

So why bats? How come they can live with Ebola and so many other viruses, while humans can’t? Scientists bitterly disagree about this. One theory is that fruit bat chromosomes harbor more genes to repair damaged DNA than other species, which allows them to coexist with viruses that typically attack a host’s nucleic acids. Put simply, bats have more resilient DNA. Another theory, outlined in a terrific piece in Wired, is that bats have overactive immune systems. The idea is that the nightly trek to find food generates enough metabolic activity to mimic a fever, and that revs up the bat’s immune system enough to keep Ebola at bay. Other researchers suggest it’s just a numbers game: Bats make up nearly one-quarter of the mammalian species on Earth, and what we’re seeing is just the statistical inevitability that some bat species will be unharmed by these viruses. If we’re going to contract any disease from another species, there’s a decent chance it’ll be from a bat.

So other than slaughtering all of the fruit bats and primates in Africa—while simultaneously convincing rural Africans to stop eating them—what do we do about it? We have no cure for Ebola, and even the experimental treatment ZMapp has been used up. Are we simply left to play defense while the virus kills thousands of people in West Africa and spreads around the globe?

On Sept. 29, the World Health Organization convened an urgent meeting on how to produce an Ebola vaccine. The group discussed two vaccine candidates: cAd3 from GlaxoSmithKline and the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and rVSV from NewLink Genetics and the Public Health Agency of Canada.

Phase 1 studies (which determine the safety of a vaccine but not necessarily efficacy) of cAd3 have begun in the United States and the United Kingdom, and researchers plan to begin enrollment for trials of rVSV later this year. Both vaccine candidates have demonstrated 100 percent efficacy in studies in nonhuman primates, so there’s reason to be optimistic. But even if adequate safety and immunogenicity are demonstrated in humans, these vaccines will not be available until the first quarter of 2015.

Without a vaccine or an effective medication, we’re left with experimental blood transfusions from survivors and supportive care (oxygen, fluids, electrolyte repletion) in conjunction with infection prevention, surveillance, and control measures—which thus far have proven insufficient. If the situation continues to spiral out of control, we may see large-scale quarantines.

As of Oct. 14, the cumulative number of probable, suspected, and laboratory-confirmed cases attributed to Ebola virus is 9,216, including 4,555 deaths. The number of cases is predicted to exceed 20,000 by early November, which many believe is a conservative estimate. This Ebola outbreak—the 25th known outbreak since 1976—has already killed more than all of the previous outbreaks combined.

At some point, this outbreak will ebb and Ebola will fade from the headlines and our collective consciousness. But it won’t disappear. It will live on in the jungle—swimming in the blood of fruit bats and possibly other species—until it makes the leap back into humans for the next outbreak. Next time, let’s hope we’re more prepared.

Más de 20000 casos en dos semanas y todo empezó por un bebé que jugaba con un murciélago muerto. 

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2014/10/ebola_animal_reservoir_between_outbreaks_bats_gorillas_chimpanzees_dogs.single.htm

[Currobena]

Fragmentos de mensajes de un estudiante de medicina liberiano.

JULY 28
“Hi Mom and Dad, hope all is well with you. It’s not that good here. The Ebola virus has everyone living in fear. One of our professors, a doctor, died from the virus yesterday. Imagine? So much fear. Please keep us in your meditations. Your son
AUGUST 6
 These have been some of the worst days we have witnessed.
Public facilities and gatherings have been discouraged, schools have been closed, some marketplaces and even clinics closed just to curb the incursion of this virus. Worst of all, some heartless people have been poisoning pumps and wells.
Medical students have only been used to sensitize communities on the outbreak and prevention. There was not much we could do due to lack of medical supplies. This virus mostly affects health workers and caregivers.
We could have done much better to stop this virus from killing so many people if not for denial that the virus exists. You won’t believe this: in the midst of all these deaths, people still doubt that this virus exists! In fact, people are blaming the West, while others say it’s government propaganda. Others are even claiming that health workers are deliberately killing people to extract body organs.
Family members and loved ones do not easily accept when their relatives are diagnosed. People consider the virus more a stigma than a sickness.
 As a medical student Eman can’t treat people, so he is a “sensitizer,” educating people on how to avoid infection. I’ve been working with a local organization that I chair to sensitize people in my community. It’s been a huge job with little material to work with but overall, it’s been great.
The family is fine and we are all keeping safe. It’s only Larry that has not been doing that well. He got sick, been vomiting, red eyes and high temperature. We got so afraid and had to call the Ebola response unit because these are all signs and symptoms of the virus. We are relieved that he’s negative and is being treated.
Hugs, Eman
AUGUST 7
Ebola is on the rise day by day. The death toll keeps mounting. President Sirleaf has declared a 90-day state of emergency.
Fear of the virus has prompted many hospital workers to abandon clinics – many are now shut. Because of this, many diseases like typhoid and malaria that are prevalent during the rainy season are untreated and there could be preventable deaths. We are living in fear.
Public transport vehicles have been ordered to reduce the number of passengers. Also, physical contact sports have suspended all practices and games, but more awareness needs to be done. During my organization’s community awareness campaigns, we noticed that some people hardly even know of the virus. Unhealthy practices that might spread the virus are still done.
Basically, the message here is to wash our hands as often as possible. Go to public places and you will see buckets with chlorinated water to wash your hands before entering.
Mom, this situation is very serious and the outside world might not know it.
 (Wikimedia Commons) AUGUST 10 (I tried to interest editors in Eman’s story, but got resounding rejection. This is his response to news of my failure.)
Tell them that our hospitals have closed due to their inability to tackle this virus, that even our medical doctors and nurses have fallen to this virus, and that our schools are closed and we live under a state of emergency, meaning our rights are suspended. Above all, tell them that we lack the experts to conquer this virus. Make them understand that this is no fiction or fairy tale. This is reality and people are dying and desperately need help.
(I quoted a short Eman email here mid-August, because media reports were so oversimplified, mixing up RNA and DNA, genome sequences and genetic code, that I felt I had to spell out the science, in “How Ebola Kills.”)
AUGUST 11
 Two of my ex high school mates have died of the Ebola virus as have nurses from St. Joseph Catholic hospital. This hospital has been hit the hardest with more than 6 health workers dead from the virus and 10 more positive. It just doesn’t get better. More needs to be done, I keep saying. Our health system is just too weak for this outbreak. It was too weak before the outbreak.
The state of emergency has made things tough. The prices of food have skyrocketed and if something is not done, it might be another emergency! The health authorities have put into place measures to curb the spread of the virus but the cases keep coming. Among these measures are:
• Every business has chlorinated water in buckets outside for washing hands for those entering. This includes banks, churches etc.
 • Schools are closed indefinitely
 • Taxis are only allowed three persons in the back.
 • Checkpoints have been set up to control the movement of people.
Sadly, there has been no decrease in the number of cases. My family has decided to send the younger kids up country to our mom where they will be monitored. Also, due to the increase in food prices, we have to reduce the number of people. Food is in short supply. We have heard that health experts are coming from the US and Nigeria, but none yet.
AUGUST 12
I am using a phone to email you. Public gatherings are not encouraged, so I don’t see an Internet cafe as safe.
I just lost my elementary health science teacher to Ebola. It hurts so much. We can’t give up though.
Today, another Ebola case made health workers abandon an entire clinic. Two patients in critical condition were taken to the Goodwill clinic. Upon finding out they had Ebola, the workers escaped. This shows how unequipped and unprepared our health workers are to tackle this outbreak. Also, families knowingly keep love ones in their homes attempting to treat them, infecting themselves.
A friend from my community went to Guinea to visit his family before the outbreak. His father got infected and died and his mother and two sisters are infected too and seriously ill. He doesn’t know if he’s infected. He called today and broke down in tears. This is so scary!
The ZMapp is here and will be given to two doctors. Other health workers’ families have to sign that they acknowledge that it is a trial drug and might have unknown side effects which, if it occurs, will not hold the company or government responsible.
From a personal perspective, I have a few doubts. Why didn’t the US government present this trial drug until two of its citizens got infected? Why hasn’t anyone tried the serums of those who survived the virus? WHO says there are only 12 doses. What happens after those 12? Lots of questions in my mind.
Seeing loved ones die with no options to save them is just so ridiculous! I wish I could do something to help. Just staying safe at the moment. Survival is cardinal right now.
AUGUST 17
I know we have got you worried but I must tell you that it is more than you see on TV. Everyone is so, so afraid! From the way this situation has been handled, I fear for the worst. Would you imagine that there is a single burial team to dispose of Ebola-related dead bodies? As a result, people are exposed day in, day out. In fact, there are only a few isolation centers, making them overcrowded. This government is joking with our lives.
With the millions coming in as aid, we should be somewhere but the situation is becoming even worse. If I had a voice, I would recommend that aid be sent through NGOs instead of the government.
An Ebola quarantine site was attacked and looted, and most of the patients have escaped. This is going to put more fear into the population. All of this is happening because people are denying the virus. Keep me in your meditations.
AUGUST 18
 Need help!
(Eman developed fever and pain. Relieved that it was “just” hookworms and malaria, he was hospitalized for a week.)
AUGUST 25
 There’s some not very good news. The virus has struck on the street where I live; the physician from a clinic in my area. That makes it very, very scary. In spite of that, I applied to volunteer with MSF. Still awaiting their call. I only fear for the community because this is going to be my daily routine when I’m a doctor. We all have to help now, but maybe in a safe way.
SEPTEMBER 15
 Mom, You have to pray for us harder. Things are getting worse by the day; more than 1300 deaths and thousands more infected. WHO projects even more terrible times. We just don’t know what to do.
Supplies might not take us through the 90 days as prices have gone the highest. Larry is running out of food, and his medications too. We all have to take preventive malaria pills in case we encounter mosquitoes. Even worse, all quarantines are over capacity and new patients are told to go home. Quarantines are out of food and beds. It’s a nightmare!
SEPTEMBER 19
 We just can’t wait to see those troops on the ground. They have to be fast before we all perish!
The economy is crashing. Importers have stopped importing basic commodities. Milk and medicines for babies are so expensive. Basic goods prices have doubled or tripled, especially drugs. The syrups for Larry, once opened, cannot be used more than a week because we do not have the means to store them for long, so we have to spend huge sums buying the same drugs. His milk was $22; it’s now $35. If something is not done quickly, there is sure going to be a food crisis.
SEPTEMBER 24
School is closed indefinitely but I have to keep reading and researching. I have been following the Ebola virus and vaccine trial closely. I’ve read a lot of articles on the virus and mutations it is undergoing. I hope it doesn’t become airborne; just one of many possibilities. Keeping it safe. Hugs. Eman”
SEPTEMBER 30 (me again)
Ebola arrived in the US with Thomas Eric Duncan, visiting from Liberia. He showed up at Texas Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas, where some of the medical staff appeared not to know how to keep viruses out of one’s body.
As the U.S. finally began to wake up and my inbox overflow with reports on Ebola, I began emailing Eman everything I received, even the embargoed news releases and papers available only to journalists. His need to know all he could was insatiable, and the ignorance here has stunned both of us. I continue to find scientific errors both in hurried reports to clinicians as well as in the top magazines. (Vanity Fair’s “Hell in the Hot Zone,” by Jeffrey E. Stern in September, is a notable exception — it’s terrific.)
STEM education, anyone?
Emmanuel Gokpolu, medical student and community organizer at the epicenter of the Ebola epidemic, who has lived with cholera and cerebral malaria and amoebiasis, can tell westerners a thing or two about this virus.

http://blogs.plos.org/dnascience/2014/10/23/emans-emails-liberia-september/

[Currobena]

No es sólo del ébola, pero es mucho más importante de lo que parece y lo pongo para que os animéis a mandar vuestras opiniones a la Organización Mundial de la Salud. Es fundamental para evitar que las farmacéuticas silencien los investigadores y estudios molestos.

http://www.who.int/ictrp/results/en/

En este enlace hay un modelo de respuesta que podéis modificar.

http://www.alltrials.net/news/you-can-help-shape-a-new-global-statement-on-clinical-trial-reporting/

[Currobena]

El ébola en el mundo



Y en Africa.

[Currobena]

Por cierto, las enfermedades SI distinguen entre clases sociales.

Historically, the elites were always less vulnerable to epidemics than common people. Here’s what I wrote in my book, War and Peace and War about the epidemic of Black Death:
 <blockquote>In general, epidemics always cause a higher mortality among the poor, who suffer from malnutrition, greater crowding, and a lack of bedcare and medicines. But in the case of the plague the best way to avoid it was flight. While the urban poor died in droves, the rich had their country estates to escape to, like the young aristocrats in Decameron who left Florence for a pastoral palace “removed on every side from the roads” with “wells of cool water and vaults of rare wines.” It is generally estimated that the first outbreak of plague in 1348–9 carried away some 40 percent of the English population. Monks who ministered to the dying suffered an even greater mortality. The mortality of tenants-in-chief, on the other hand, was only 27 percent. At the top of the social pyramid, the peers lost barely 8 percent of their number. The only reigning monarch who died from the pestilence was king Alfonso XI of Castile.</blockquote>
Il Decameron di Boccaccio
There were around 30 states in Europe in 1348 (ignoring a lot of microstates like German Imperial cities and tiny Italian principalities), so one dead head of state translates into a 3 percent estimate of the probability of a European head of state dying from Black Death.

Europe during the 14th century
This results in the following table:
Mortality rates (%) of various social classes in England during the years of plague outbreaks, plus an estimate of the mortality of European heads of state. (From Table 2.11 in Peter Turchin and Sergey Nefedov. 2009. Secular cycles. Princeton University Press.)
 

Social class	Mortality, %
Monks	45
Beneficed clergy	40
Tenants-in-chief	27
Bishops	18
Peers	8
Heads of State	3

Monks had a higher mortality rate probably because they were likely to minister to patients struck by the plague.

Extreme Unction Rogier Van der Weyden
After that there is a clear effect of social rank on the probability of dying.
Returning to our cynical explanation, the elites, whether they are the Bishops and Peers in Medieval England, or CEOs and top government officials in modern America, simply are not worried about the epidemic in personal terms. The chances that they or their family members contract it are vanishingly small. On the other hand, they value their ability to flit around the globe, and they really wouldn’t want to restrict it.

No el ébola, sino los recursos para resistirlo. Por mucho que oficialmente se diga lo contrario, las cuarentenas no se imponen a menos que miembros de la élite empiecen a morir a la misma escala que los ciudadanos normales.

De hecho, al no ser el ébola muy infeccioso, una cuarentena podría ser suficiente en muchos casos. Comparemos tasas de infección:



http://socialevolutionforum.com/2014/10/24/ebola-and-the-elites/

Y, sin embargo, todavía muchos se quejan de que se impongan cuarentenas.

fficials say while that policy could prevent some cases of Ebola in the United States over the short term, it could backfire if highly trained American doctors have less incentive to travel to Africa to fight the disease. "These individuals who are going there to serve are the people who will end this crisis," de Blasio said. "We can't have the illusion that we can turn away from it and some day it may end. If we took that attitude, this would be a truly devastating global crisis."

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/10/25/health/us-ebola/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

Y yo me pregunto. Si eres voluntario médico...¿no tiene sentido que estés expuesto a los mismos o mayores medios de prevención que el resto de la gente, entre los que se incluye la cuarentena?

[Маркс]

A partir del minuto 20 y en especial del minuto 25 del vídeo.

¡¡Buah!!

Mariló Montero, al marido de Teresa Romero: Es feo judicializar esto, ¿no?

http://iniciativadebate.org/2014/10/30/marilo-montero-al-marido-de-teresa-romero-es-feo-judicializar-esto-no/

[sincriterio]

Los de los caudales han decidido gastarse unos dineros en África.
http://www.liberation.fr/monde/2014/10/30/ebola-la-banque-mondiale-debloque-100-millions-de-dollars-supplementaires_1132624

[burbunova]

A los libegales les encantan esas mutuas de trabajo a las que el empresario puede enviar a los trabajadores sin que la opinión de ellos cuente: esto es, la libegtad consiste en libertad para mí, el empresario, pero no para el trabajador.

Le descuentan de las vacaciones los 21 días de aislamiento por su contacto con Romero

CC. OO. denunció ayer que una mutua no ha reconocido como afectado por enfermedad profesional o accidente laboral al conductor de la ambulancia que trasladó a Teresa Romero al hospital de Alcorcón el 6 de octubre, cuando ya tenía los síntomas del ébola, lo que le obligó a permanecer en el hospital Carlos III en aislamiento durante 21 días como medida de precaución.

La mutua no ha catalogado lo ocurrido como accidente laboral o enfermedad profesional, y le abonará los 21 días en los que no ha podido ir a trabajar como permiso retribuido, es decir, a costa de sus vacaciones.

[...]

http://www.lavozdegalicia.es/noticia/sociedad/2014/11/08/descuentan-vacaciones-21-dias-aislamiento-contacto-romero/0003_201411G8P29994.htm

[saturno]

¡Up!

The International Monetary Fund and the Ebola outbreak
Alexander Kentikelenisemail
,
Lawrence King
,
Martin McKee
,
David Stuckler
Open Access Article has an altmetric score of 18
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S2214-109X(14)70377-8
showArticle Info

    Summary
    Full Text
    References

In recent months, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has announced US$430 million of funding to fight Ebola in Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Liberia.1 By making these funds available, the IMF aims to become part of the solution to the crisis, even if this involves a departure from its usual approach. As IMF Director Christine Lagarde said at a meeting on the outbreak, “It is good to increase the fiscal deficit when it's a matter of curing the people, of taking the precautions to actually try to contain the disease.

http://www.thelancet.com/journals/langlo/article/PIIS2214-109X%2814%2970377-8/abstract


Artćulo resumen de Le Monde v/FR

Des chercheurs pointent une responsabilité du FMI dans l'épidémie d'Ebola

En savoir plus sur http://www.lemonde.fr/afrique/article/2014/12/22/les-exigences-du-fmi-ont-affaibli-les-systemes-de-sante-des-pays-africains-frappes-par-ebola_4544492_3212.html#TH6p5dSkAsDIb1yt.99


Selon eux, les systèmes de santé ont été affaiblis par les exigences de réformes économiques et de réduction des dépenses publiques et des salaires dans la fonction publique, et de décentralisation des systèmes de santé. « En 2013, juste avant l'éruption d'Ebola, les trois pays ont été confrontés aux directives économiques du FMI, et aucun n'a pu augmenter ses dépenses sociales malgré des besoins pressants dans le domaine de la santé », ont estimé les chercheurs.

Un porte-parole du FMI a rétorqué que le mandat de l'organisation n'incluait pas spécifiquement le domaine de la santé et qu'il était « totalement faux » d'affirmer que la propagation d'Ebola était une conséquence de la politique de l'institution. « De telles accusations sont basées sur un malentendu, et dans certains cas sur une déformation des politiques économiques pratiquées par le FMI », a-t-il poursuivi.

« Depuis 2009, des prêts accordés à des pays à faible revenu l'ont été sans taux d'intérêt ce qui a libéré des ressources disponibles pour des pays désireux de dépenser plus dans les domaines de la santé et de l'éducation », a ajouté le porte-parole. Il a également souligné que le FMI avait fourni une aide financière de 130 millions de dollars en septembre dans le cadre de la lutte contre Ebola et qu'il envisageait de fournir une somme similaire à la Guinée, au Liberia et au Sierra Leone l'année prochaine.

En savoir plus sur http://www.lemonde.fr/afrique/article/2014/12/22/les-exigences-du-fmi-ont-affaibli-les-systemes-de-sante-des-pays-africains-frappes-par-ebola_4544492_3212.html#TH6p5dSkAsDIb1yt.99

http://www.lemonde.fr/afrique/article/2014/12/22/les-exigences-du-fmi-ont-affaibli-les-systemes-de-sante-des-pays-africains-frappes-par-ebola_4544492_3212.html

[Saturio]

A los libegales les encantan esas mutuas de trabajo a las que el empresario puede enviar a los trabajadores sin que la opinión de ellos cuente: esto es, la libegtad consiste en libertad para mí, el empresario, pero no para el trabajador.

Le descuentan de las vacaciones los 21 días de aislamiento por su contacto con Romero

CC. OO. denunció ayer que una mutua no ha reconocido como afectado por enfermedad profesional o accidente laboral al conductor de la ambulancia que trasladó a Teresa Romero al hospital de Alcorcón el 6 de octubre, cuando ya tenía los síntomas del ébola, lo que le obligó a permanecer en el hospital Carlos III en aislamiento durante 21 días como medida de precaución.

La mutua no ha catalogado lo ocurrido como accidente laboral o enfermedad profesional, y le abonará los 21 días en los que no ha podido ir a trabajar como permiso retribuido, es decir, a costa de sus vacaciones.

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http://www.lavozdegalicia.es/noticia/sociedad/2014/11/08/descuentan-vacaciones-21-dias-aislamiento-contacto-romero/0003_201411G8P29994.htm

Burbunova, la empresa no manda a nadie a la mutua ni a ningún sitio.

Cuando un trabajador enferma alguien le tiene que dar la baja. Es decir, el trabajador se dirige a donde sea. O a los servicios públicos de salud o a los de la mutua. Es posible que si se dirige a la muta, ésta se desentienda del tema derivando la cuestión a los servicios públicos de salud (las mutuas tienden a referise. Los servicios públicos de salud siempre darán la baja y en caso de que el trabajador considere que tal baja tiene un origen laboral podrá comenzar un proceso de aclaración de contingencias frente al INSS, éste tiene que aclarar si se trata de contingencias comunes o profesionales. Pero la baja siempre la tendrá, el contrato quedará suspendido por incapacidad temporal (su ausencia convenientemente justificada sin necesidad de compensaciones raras) y el trabajador cobrará su prestación por IT.

¿De qué tiene pinta esto?. De que el trabajador fue hospitalizado. Los hospitales no dan bajas, las dan sólo los médicos de cabecera. El trabajador debería haber gestionado su baja con el parte hospitalario ante su médico de cabecera (para lo que tiene permiso retribuido si es necesario). Si luego considera que esa baja debe ser considerada como de contingencias profesionales, tramitaría una aclaración de contingencias frente al INSS que resuelve en muy poco tiempo.

También tiene pinta de que en su empresa no tienen ni idea. Millones de veces un trabajador es hospitalizado, sale del hospital y se reincorpora al trabajo sin preocuparse de más. Alguien en la empresa le dice entonces que necesita una baja médica para que el INSS corra con el coste de su prestación durante su ausencia. Entonces el trabajador va con el parte del hospital al médico de cabecera y este tramita la baja.

Un trabajador hospitalizado jamás va a tener que compensar nada con nada ni perder vacaciones salvo que ni él ni la empresa sepan como manejarse en estas situaciones.