Share this page!

Helen Branswell 🇺🇦 Profile picture
Twitter logo
Nov 14 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
1. Short #Ebola 🧵
Another health worker has been infected in Uganda's Ebola Sudan outbreak, a 23 yo woman working in Mubende district. Here's hoping she recovers.
2. Uganda's health ministry has been downplaying the scale of its outbreak by refusing to add probable cases to case/death counts. They aren't just doing it to overall cases, they're doing it with health workers too.
They say there have been 19 HCW infections + 7 deaths.
3. But if you look inside their situation reports, there is one table in which they list probable cases (all probable cases are people who died without being tested). If you look there, you see that in addition to 19 confirmed HCW cases, there've been 7 probable HCW cases.
4. I think that means there've actually been 26 cases & 14 deaths (confirmed + probables) among health workers. A tragic toll.
The outbreak totals to date (confirmed + probables) are:
162 cases
77 deaths
(I added the purple text to this graphic.)
afro.who.int/sites/default/…

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
　

Keep Current with Helen Branswell 🇺🇦

Helen Branswell 🇺🇦 Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @HelenBranswell

Helen Branswell 🇺🇦 Profile picture
Nov 10
1. A #flu thread:
@cdcgov posted FluView early this week; tomorrow is a federal holiday.
This week's edition is a little eye popping.
Let's start with this map. This year CDC has added a whole new activity level, "very high" & new colors, deep red & purple.
Whoa.
2. It's so startling to see that much color in the map this early in the #flu season. This, for instance, is how the map — which represents how much respiratory illness there is going around — looked at the same time in the 2017-18 flu season. That season peaked in late Feb.
3. So, lots and lots of people in the SE, South center, California and up the eastern seaboard were suffering respiratory infections in the week ending Nov. 5. This is not all #flu. Some of this — a lot in some places — would be #RSV and/or Covid.
Read 9 tweets
Helen Branswell 🇺🇦 Profile picture
Nov 10
1. Short #Ebola thread:
@WHO issued an update — a DON — today about the Ugandan outbreak. It's been nearly 2 weeks since their last. The scarcity of detail coming out on this outbreak continues to surprise & concern me. I believe that's Uganda's call.
who.int/emergencies/di…
2. The latest SitRep from Uganda reports that there have been 157 confirmed and probable #Ebola cases & 54 confirmed and probable deaths. They will not add the probable cases so we have to do the math ourselves. I added those arrows.
3. @WHO's update gives a breakdown of #Ebola cases/deaths by affected region. Eight regions have had cases but Mubende and Kassanda have been the hardest hit. Two — Bunyangabu & Kagadi — seem to have contained transmission. Neither has had a case in >40 days.
Read 5 tweets
Helen Branswell 🇺🇦 Profile picture
Nov 5
1. #Ebola thread.
Uganda's health minister, @JaneRuth_Aceng announced today that the special measures put in place in mid-October to stop spread of the disease have been extended for another 21 days. Among other things, they block movement in & out of the 2 worst hit areas.
2. Those areas are Mubende & Kassanda districts. @JaneRuth_Aceng said to date there have been 132 confirmed #Ebola cases & 53 confirmed deaths. She didn't mention the 21 probable cases & deaths; they bring the outbreak totals to 153 cases & 74 deaths.
3. The health minister said a weak health system, myths & misinformation, a belief in witchcraft & exhumation of dead bodies to perform cultural rituals are obstructing efforts to control the #Ebola outbreak.
1 exhumation lead to 43 people contracting the disease & 6 deaths.
Read 4 tweets
Helen Branswell 🇺🇦 Profile picture
Nov 4
1. A #flu thread.
@CDCgov's weekly flu update is up. The data are for the week that ended Oct. 29. CDC is having a press conference on flu and other respiratory bugs at noon; I'll likely add to this after that.
First thing: The flu season is indeed off to a very early start. Image
2. The sharp rise in medical visits for #influenza-like illnesses (ILIs) is unusual this early. 2 caveats:
- This is not all #flu. There's a lot of RSV going around now; it is captured in the graph.
- This tells us there's a lot of flu-like illness. Says nothing about severity.
3. It's going to take time to see whether this is going to be an early & severe #flu season, or early & moderate or early & mild. (Not betting on the last option.)
To date @CDCgov estimates there have been at least 1.6M flu illness, 13K hospitalizations & 730 deaths from flu. Image
Read 10 tweets
Helen Branswell 🇺🇦 Profile picture
Oct 31
1. #Ebola thread.
The numbers in the Ugandan outbreak are rising pretty rapidly. Last week this outbreak was the 11th largest on record. It's now the 8th. There's a fairly big gap between 8th and 7th, but I would not bet against this outbreak moving further up the top 10 list.
2. One of the reasons I think this #Ebola outbreak could get a lot larger is just the pace of the recent growth of cases & the presence of cases in Kampala. But also, the followup rate of contacts listed in the latest SitRep from Uganda is not great.
3. Uganda has been boasting a contact follow up rate of in the mid-to-high 90% range. It's down to 88%. And that's of the contacts they know if. If they are missing cases, there are more contacts they don't know of.
The bigger an outbreak gets, the harder this job becomes.
Read 4 tweets
Helen Branswell 🇺🇦 Profile picture
Oct 28
1. So #flu season is taking off at quite a clip. A 🧵
A child died from flu in the week ending Oct. 8, @CDCgov reports in this week's FluView. This is the first pediatric flu death in the 2022-2023 reporting period. Image
2. #Flu hospitalizations have been climbing steadily since the 2022-23 reporting year started at the beginning of Oct.
In the week ending Oct. 22 (week 42), more than 2,300 people were hospitalized for flu. This is higher than any week 42 going back a decade. Image
3. @CDCgov estimates that to date this year there have been roughly 888,000 #flu illnesses, 6,900 hospitalizations and 360 flu deaths.
FluView is viewable here: cdc.gov/flu/weekly/ Image
Read 7 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!

This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!

Send Email!

:(