Will Saudi Arabia import MERS to America? First case is here

05/04/2014 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The first case of the deadly Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) has been identified in a “man” in Indiana. The CDC is quick to say it isn’t highly contagious, but many paragraphs into the report we learn it is deadly and health officials have NO IDEA how it spreads.

They are tracking down those who traveled with the “man.”

MERS breeding ground—the Arabian Peninsula

From the Associated Press:

NEW YORK (AP) — Health officials confirmed the first case of an American infected with a mysterious virus that has sickened hundreds in the Middle East.

The man fell ill after flying to the U.S. late last week from Saudi Arabia where he was a health care worker.

He is hospitalized in good condition in northwest Indiana with Middle East respiratory syndrome, or MERS, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Indiana health officials said Friday.

The virus is not highly contagious and this case “represents a very low risk to the broader, general public,” Dr. Anne Schuchat told reporters during a CDC briefing.

The federal agency plans to track down passengers he may have been in close contact with during his travels; it was not clear how many may have been exposed to the virus.

So far, 1/4th (at least) of those diagnosed with the disease have died.

Overall, at least 400 people have had the respiratory illness, and more than 100 people have died. All had ties to the Middle East region or to people who traveled there.

Experts said it was just a matter of time before MERS showed up in the U.S., as it has in Europe and Asia.

Contradicting themselves, here we learn it is lethal to 1/3 of those who get it. CDC doesn’t know how it spreads.

The MERS virus has been found in camels, but officials don’t know how it is spreading to humans. It can spread from person to person, but officials believe that happens only after close contact. Not all those exposed to the virus become ill.

But it appears to be unusually lethal – by some estimates, it has killed nearly a third of the people it sickened.

Beware the Arabian Peninsula and those who come out of it.

The CDC has issued no warnings about travel to countries involved in the outbreak. However, anyone who develops fever, cough or shortness of breath within two weeks of traveling in or near the Arabian Peninsula should see their doctor and mention their travel history.

By the way, Saudi Arabia is already the primary importer of student visas and mosques to America (but that is a story for another day).

Our earlier posts on MERS are here. And, check out our ‘health issues’ category with more on diseases, other medical problems, and the cost to taxpayers as a result of our wide open borders.

Illinois ‘man’ jailed for disobeying TB quarantine court order; will be released soon

05/02/2014 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Diversity is strength alert!

This is a follow-up to the story we posted here about Christian Mbemba Ibanda who refused to obey county health officials when they told him he must stay home in order to keep from spreading Tuberculosis to one and all.

‘Pungentpeppers’ has been following the case.

First, he had to be put in jail for disobeying the court order to stay in his apartment. Yesterday, we learned, he was released.

We don’t know Ibanda’s immigration status, but if I were to make a wild guess, I think he may be a refugee possibly from the Congo. Remember in June of last year Asst. Secretary of State for PRM, Ann Richard, said 50,000 Congolese ‘refugees’ would soon be on their way to America.

‘PP’ noted that according to his facebook page, he speaks French. If any readers in Illinois know through which (presumably legal) immigration program he entered the US, let us know!

From the News-Gazette:

MONTICELLO — A Champaign tuberculosis patient under a court order to stay home is in jail in Piatt County.

Christian Mbemba Ibanda, 24, of 100 Kenwood Road, C, has been under a Champaign County court order since April 11 to remain confined to his apartment to keep from infecting others with his disease, and a petition for indirect criminal contempt of court for failing to follow court orders was filed against him Thursday.

Deputies arrested Ibanda at his apartment Thursday. At a hearing held at the Piatt County Jail Tuesday with his lawyer present, he denied the allegations. A hearing on the petition has been scheduled for May 5 before Champaign County Associate Judge Chase Leonhard.

Ibanda is incarcerated in Piatt County because its jail has a negative pressure room that doesn’t share the air with other people, according to Champaign County Sheriff Dan Walsh. Champaign County is paying $50 a day plus medical costs to keep Ibanda in that jail, he said.

Health officials begged him to stay home and keep the quarantine sign on his door. He did neither.

Champaign-Urbana Public Health District Administrator Julie Pryde said the court order wasn’t disobeyed just once. Ibanda was being monitored with an electronic ankle bracelet that alerted authorities if he left his home, and he got numerous warnings, she said.

“He was just like running around,” Pryde said. “I went and talked to him and said, ‘Seriously, please stay in your apartment, keep the sign on the door. Take the medicine. This is not that hard, or you risk going to jail. This is a court order.'”

[…..]

The health district sought the court order initially because Ibanda wouldn’t cooperate with home isolation while he was considered able to infect others, and the order to keep him home was issued without Ibanda present when he didn’t appear for a scheduled hearing.

Update yesterday, no longer testing positive for active TB, he was released, but must take meds for seven more months under the watchful eye of a health worker ($$$).

I continue to be amazed that stories like this one never break out of the local media to make it to the national news.

For more on medical problems brought to America by refugees and immigrants generally, check out our ‘health issues’ category, here. The foreign-born represent most US TB cases, here.

Santa Barbara, CA: TB outbreak among Mexican ethnic group called “tip of the iceberg”

04/17/2014 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Although the ethnic group members harboring an outbreak of active TB in scenic Santa Barbara are not refugees, but largely illegal aliens, this is still an important story especially coming at the same time as the case in Illinois we reported last week.

We have, over the years, been following TB outbreaks largely coming from the foreign-born because we think it is one of the most under-reported problems (due to political correctness!) with our willy-nilly immigration system. See our ‘Health issues’ category, here.

From the Santa Barbara Independent last week (Hat tip: ‘pungentpeppers’):

Santa Barbara health officials have been quietly working for months to contain a tuberculosis (TB) outbreak, and are now ramping up suppression efforts after publicly announcing that a Santa Maria High School student has been diagnosed with the infectious disease.

While the single diagnosis is a cause for concern, prompting both a community meeting on Friday and mass screenings at the school next Monday, the County of Santa Barbara Public Health Department’s grander ground plan has been actively kept under the radar for the past six months due to fears of alienating an already marginalized population and concerns about political backlash.

In 2013, 26 Santa Barbara residents were diagnosed with TB; 16 are North County residents, and nine are of Oaxacan descent. Figures for 2014 are not yet available, said Public Health Department spokesperson Susan Klein-Rothschild. At least one person died in 2013 from the disease (which typically attacks the lungs and has a 50 percent mortality rate if left untreated) and many had let it progress to advance stages before receiving treatment (which makes it much more contagious). Three children younger than 10 years old were diagnosed last year, and one was left severely and permanently disabled.

The disease has taken a real hold in the Oaxacan community!

Five of the Oaxacan cases “have epidemiologic links and the same genetic pattern on their TB isolate,” meaning they are all part of the same transmission chain. The Center for Disease Control declares an “outbreak” when three of more cases display that genetic link, and this week’s high school student case has been connected to the chain……the disease appears to have taken a real hold in the Oaxacan community.

Challenging job partly because they speak neither English or Spanish (diversity is strength, right!)

Thoman explained during an interview this Wednesday that Public Health nurses have been combing North County communities “day and night” in recent weeks, searching for signs of the disease. It’s a challenging assignment, she went on, as some of the Oaxacan individuals may be undocumented and harbor a distrust of government workers. Plus, many of them only speak Mixteco.

Only ten percent of California TB cases will become active! Do the math! Yikes! Isn’t ten percent of 3 million, 300,000?

While an estimated three million California residents carry the bacteria that causes the disease, only about 10 percent of them will come down with active TB, which can be cured with medication. [if they get it in time, and if the foreign-born person completes the prescribed drug treatment regime—ed]

Why isn’t this story all over the national news? For the same reason Santa Barbara health officials kept it quiet for so long—political correctness!

If fears of terrorism or crime don’t wake up Americans regarding our present out-of-control immigration, then surely the fear of ones kids getting TB in school will do it. Or, how about Mom bringing the disease home because she is a public health nurse, a social service worker, or simply a volunteer for refugee and immigrant groups?

Wyoming still moving forward with refugee “recruitment” discussions; story goes national

04/15/2014 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I’ve not seen that phrase before—refugee recruitment—it must be newly coined by critics of Wyoming Republican Governor Matt Mead’s proposal to study the possibility of a refugee resettlement office in the state, but I like it!

Mead’s primary challenger, Dr. Taylor Haynes, opposes Mead’s invitation to the federal government to study the possibility of resettling refugees in Wyoming.

Here is yet another article on the controversy. Our complete archive, is here.

From the Wyoming Tribune Eagle:

CHEYENNE — State officials are continuing to study a proposal that could bring a refugee resettlement program to Wyoming.

But the governor’s office and others are also trying to quell worries that this will lead to an influx of immigrants coming here.

“Some people are concerned about this effort, worrying that Wyoming is ‘recruiting’ refugees,” Gov. Matt Mead recently wrote in a letter to the editor sent to newspapers in the state. “There is no recruitment; there is, however, an effort to understand the issue.

“Right now, our state is learning more on the issue.”

Mead sent a letter last year to the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement*** to explore setting up a public-private resettlement office here.

The federally funded program would provide refugees with a range of assistance, including help finding housing, employment and health care, for the first several months after they arrive in the country.

The feds and their resettlement contractors would like Wyoming decision-makers to think that the whole program is funded from Washington. It is not! For a few months US taxpayers foot the bill for the refugees and then the responsibility falls on the state for all of those refugees who never find work. Wouldn’t you think that a Republican governor would be sensitive to taxpayers and jobs for Americans everywhere before getting into a contract with Washington?

Barnett: Federal refugee contractors are no different then your Lockheed Martins in that they have the same incentives.

The Tribune Eagle continues:

Don Barnett is a fellow for the Washington-based Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for a reduction in the number of immigrants coming into the country.

He agreed that refugees can impact the state’s and federal government’s budget.

And he cautioned that the federal government and the groups picked to be its contractors rather than the state would largely control how many refugees come here, where they will live and where they come from.

He said the contractors also proactively try to set up the refugees with the welfare programs.

“I don’t think people realize that the state will not have much control of this program if it is institutionalized or implemented,” he said. “It’s largely these contractors that will have the say, and these federal contractors are no different than your Lockheed Martins in that they have the same type of incentives.”

*** Gov. Mead wrote his letter of inquiry to the Office of Refugee Resettlement which is in the US Dept. of Health and Human Services (they dole out the $$$ to the contractors after the refugees are resettled. It is the US State Department (and the UN) which makes decisions about who comes to the US and it is the State Department which doles out the $$$ to the contractors for the initial resettlement and decides where they will be located (in consultation with ORR). Contractors are PAID BY THE HEAD.

Wyoming controversy goes national, including discussion about Mead challenger Taylor Haynes

The Associated Press has picked up the Wyoming refugee story. Here it is at the Washington Times:

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) – Gov. Matt Mead is addressing criticism about the possibility of opening a refugee resettlement program in Wyoming.

Mead recently sent a letter to the editor addressing the issue to newspapers across the state. Mead wrote that the state is still learning more about the issue and said that Wyoming is not recruiting refugees.

The Wyoming Tribune Eagle (http://bit.ly/1m21Fj0) reports that Mead’s challenger for the Republican nomination, Taylor Haynes, is among those who have criticized the move.

Haynes said refugees could strain Wyoming’s budget by relying on state and federally funded safety net programs like Medicaid. He is also worried that they may not be screened for ties to violence or for diseases such as HIV and the Ebola virus. [Haynes is a medical doctor, so it is interesting that the story doesn’t mention those credentials.—ed]

Two Wyoming cities are the subject of discussion for locating the federal offices—Gillette and Casper. Once established, it is only rarely (extremely rare!) that a city can stop the program when they find out that there are problems and there will be many problems!

Addendum: I see our fact sheet on refugee resettlement is attracting large numbers of readers (again!). If you haven’t seen it, click here.

Illinois: Court hearing today to compel man with TB to stay out of the public

04/11/2014 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update April 12th: We still don’t know if Mbemba Ibanda (in his 20s) is a recent immigrant/refugee, but get this! He didn’t show up for court yesterday when the whole courtroom had been fitted with masks. The judge ordered an ankle bracelet and presumably officers of the court went out and found him and fitted him with his monitoring device. Reuters story here.

We don’t know yet if Christian Mbemba Ibanda is a refugee (Congolese?) or some other legal immigrant, but may learn more today after a court hearing in Champaign County, IL.

Julie Pryde, chief administrator to the Champaign-Urbana Public Health District, trying to compel a TB patient to comply with home isolation and treatment. http://www.thestate.com/2014/04/10/3379355/health-chief-takes-illinois-tb.html

From the News Gazette (Hat tip: Robin):

CHAMPAIGN — For the second time in recent years, local health officials are turning to a state judge for help to keep a patient with tuberculosis from potentially spreading it around the community.

In a hearing set for Friday in which everyone in the room will be required to wear protective, tight-fitting masks, the Champaign-Urbana Public Health District will ask Champaign County Associate Judge Chase Leonhard to order home isolation for the patient, Christian Mbemba Ibanda, of 100 Kenwood Road, C.

Public Health Administrator Julie Pryde said she hopes the judge will order Ibanda to wear an electronic monitoring ankle bracelet.

“He couldn’t go out, or it would beep and I’d have the police there,” she said. “Without that, I have nothing I can do about it other than camping outside his door.”

TB, a contagious bacterial disease that typically attacks the lungs, has been on the decline in the U.S.

But there’s still enough of it around to require one full-time public health nurse to tend to patients who have either active or latent TB in Champaign-Urbana, Pryde said.

[….]

The hearing is set for 1:30 p.m. Friday at the Champaign-Urbana Public Health District at 201 W. Kenyon Road, C. Anyone attending will need to be there earlier for a protective mask fitting, Pryde said.

Proceedings like this are rare in Champaign County, but it’s the second time in her career with the health district that the county has had to bring a petition before the court to try and compel a TB patient to comply with home isolation and treatment, Pryde said.

Read the whole story and see how Ibanda has ignored previous pleas to stay out of the public.

We just had a post last month about the foreign-born representing the majority of TB cases in the US.

And, while researching this story, I found this very thorough article about the number of refugees (ethnic groups) that have been resettled in welcoming Illinois.

I assume we will have an update later because it appears that this story may have caught the mainstream media’s attention. If we find out he is a refugee, we will let you know.