Discussion: Huge drop in Ebola bodies across Liberian capital: Red Cross

[Vibrant62]

Re: Discussion: Huge drop in Ebola bodies across Liberian capital: Red Cross

Or cases are being hidden and bodies buried in secret to avoid the enforcement of cremation orders.

[Ray]

Re: Discussion: Huge drop in Ebola bodies across Liberian capital: Red Cross

Or cases are being hidden and bodies buried in secret to avoid the enforcement of cremation orders.

But cremation doesn?t simply deprive families of burial rites, Blackie said. It disturbs the spiritual realm.

?Burning means that the ancestors of the person?s spirit are angry with them, that the person doesn?t have a resting place within the [spirit] community,? Blackie said. If the spirit of the dead is not accepted by the ancestors, he said, it might visit the living, trying to find a place among the rooms and the people of its old, terrestrial life. ?If they are moving through the house, they have to be burned so they won?t do it again.?

Cremation, in Blackie?s explanation, is the last straw of the living, seeking to free themselves of the spirit rejected by the ancestors from the afterlife.

So to burn a body, in Liberia, is to jump a lot of spiritual steps.

Liberia?s elite, on the other hand, seem keen on wrangling exceptions to the mass cremation rule.

Dr. Samuel Brisbane was Liberia?s highest-ranking doctor; when he died of Ebola, in late July, he was buried in a cemetery here. President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf said in an interview in mid-September on the radio station run by the United Nations peacekeeping operation that his burial ?was a special one?an exception? and that there is ?no pick and choose business? in Ebola deaths.

But similar reports have surfaced in the weeks since. The special assistant to a national medical officer died in late September in an Ebola treatment ward, but his body was somehow released and buried two days later, despite the cremation policy, according to a local obituary.

Korvayan has been asked on more than one occasion to release a body he?s come to the Ebola treatment unit (ETU) to pick up, allowing it to be taken away and buried rather than cremated.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/jinamoore/what-will-the-ancestors-think-if-you-burn-a-body-in-liberia

[blacknail]

Re: Discussion: Huge drop in Ebola bodies across Liberian capital: Red Cross

Ebola cremation ruling prompts secret burials in Liberia Treatment centres half-empty as families keep infected at home to avoid presidential decree that Ebola victims must be cremated

[Dani]

Re: Huge drop in Ebola bodies across Liberian capital: Red Cross

I don't know about this, I'm just putting this out there...but does anyone have any additional information on reinfection/infection, especially as it relates to cremation?

"A member of the World Health Organisation committee of experts on Ebola Virus Disease in West Africa, Prof. Victor Inem..."

“...It is very possible for cured victims to re-contract the virus when he brings himself closer again with sufferers through sex, their other body fluids, eating of some animals which are reservoirs of the virus or through processes of burning victims.”

http://www.nigerianeye.com/2014/08/c...-infected.html

The survivors are thought to be immune, at least for a lengthy period afterwards. IIRC, there was a Westerner who survived Ebola some years ago, which afforded a long term opportunity to follow his antibody titres, and they remained positive for over a decade. Unfortunately, they did eventually become undetectable, but "memory" white cells would be able to ramp back up again. Hopefully.

They've even been looking at having survivors help take care of the currently ill. I think Dr. Brantley has spoken of returning when he is able.

[AlaskaDenise]

Re: Huge drop in Ebola bodies across Liberian capital: Red Cross

My gut feeling (which is totally unscientific ) is that things are so bad there, that gathering data has been relegated to the back burner. I assume that burying the dead, and attempting to isolate the sick are their primary concerns right now.

The reality that there will not be an army of thousands of HCW arriving may be sinking in. Why spend time counting in the midst of treating, when reporting the counts is not bringing throngs of help.

.

[gsgs]

Re: Discussion: Huge drop in Ebola bodies across Liberian capital: Red Cross

but did secret burying suddenly increase a lot ?
The spiritual thing would have been the same weeks ago.

There is a decrease in weekly reported cases since mid-Sep,
but the number of contacts that are being traced is still
increasing.

So, are they reporting fewer cases or just intensified
contact-tracing ?
Since Oct.22 they now also report the number of cases
in their contact-tracing VHF-system.
This number is 56% higher than the reported cases from
Montserrado county. When did this difference build up ?
They must have the numbers, but don't show us.
They should better show the recent trend.

[blacknail]

Re: Discussion: Huge drop in Ebola bodies across Liberian capital: Red Cross

but did secret burying suddenly increase a lot ?

Sorry, I didn't have time earlier to post snippets from the article I reference above:

President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf decreed in August that the bodies of Ebola victims in the Monrovia area be cremated. The government brought in a crematorium and hired experts. The order came after people in neighbourhoods of the capital resisted the burial of hundreds of Ebola victims near their homes.

...

?For the last two months it has been difficult to sell even one casket a day,? said Titus Mulbah, an owner of the Talented Brothers Casket Centre. ?And this is all because all bodies now are considered Ebola bodies, as if other diseases are not killing people here.?

So it looks like the decree was given in August and then implemented once the crematorium arrived and it has been hard to sell caskets ever since which coincides with the official casualty numbers peaking in September.

[gsgs]

Re: Discussion: Huge drop in Ebola bodies across Liberian capital: Red Cross

the big peak was in week 37, ending 09/14, since then it is continuously declining each week
except some unclear reports of 160 excess cases in week 42 which presumably
(imo) occurred earlier

so, is there evidence for ever increasing underreported cases in Montserrado county
for the weeks 38-43 ?



119,0911,26,18,1,30,14,17,13,18, 6
120,0912, -, -,2,34,24,12, 4,32,26
...
130,0922,30,27,0,17,12, 5, 0,17, 7
...
140,1002, -, -,0,37,16,21,25,12, 8
...
148,1010,23,23,0,33,14,19,19,14,14
...no longer reported...



report#
date
calls received from dispatch
calls responded to
burials
cremations
male
female
buried from the ETUs
buries from communities
homes disinfected



btw. will someone help to type in the data from the pdf-reports
into computer-readable tables ?
(as is partly being done here: https://github.com/cmrivers/ebola
however they don't have all the tables