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ByMaramMazan TheAssociatedPress LAGOS, NIGERIA — Ni- gerian authorities rushed to obtain isolation tents Wednesday in anticipa- tion of more Ebola infec- tions as they disclosed five more cases of the virus and a death in Africa's most pop- ulous nation, where officials were racing to keep the gruesome disease confined to a small group of patients. The five new Nigerian cases were all in Lagos, a megacity of 21 million peo- ple in a country already be- set with poor health care infrastructure and wide- spread corruption, and all five were reported to have had direct contact with one infected man. Meanwhile, the World Health Organization be- gan a meeting to decide whether the crisis, the worst recorded outbreak of its kind, amounts to an in- ternational public health emergency. At least 932 deaths in four countries have been blamed on the illness, with 1,711 reported cases. In recent years, the WHO has declared an emergency only twice, for swine flu in 2009 and polio in May. The declaration would proba- bly come with recommen- dations on travel and trade restrictions and wider Eb- ola screening. It also would be an acknowledgment that the situation is critical and could worsen without a fast global response. The group did not im- mediately confirm the new cases reported in Nigeria. And Nigerian authorities did not release any details on the latest infections, except to say they all had come into direct contact with the sick man who ar- rived by plane in Lagos late last month. In Sierra Leone, some 750 soldiers deployed to the Eb- ola-ravaged east as part of "Operation Octopus," aimed at enforcing quarantines of sick patients. In Spain, the Defense Ministry said a medically equipped plane was ready to fly to Libe- ria to bring back a Spanish missionary priest who has Ebola. At the same time, Saudi officials reported a sus- pected Ebola death, under- scoring the risk of the dis- ease spreading by air travel even as many airlines cur- tail their flights to the most infected cities. Ebola, which causes some victims to bleed from the eyes, mouth and ears, can only be transmitted through direct contact with the bodily fluids of some- one who is sick — blood, semen, saliva, urine, feces or sweat. Millions in Lagos live in cramped conditions without access to flushable toilets. Signs posted across the city warn people not to urinate in public. Kenneth Akihomi, a 47-year-old worker install- ing fiber-optic cable, said he was carefully washing his hands to avoid infec- tion. But he said most peo- ple were relying on faith to stay healthy. "They're not panicking. They are godly people," he said. "They believe they can pray, and maybe very soon there will be cure." The revelation of more infections also came amid a public-sector doctors' strike in Nigeria that began in early July. So far, health workers monitoring the lat- est Ebola patients are still on the job. Nigeria is the fourth West African country to be hit by the Ebola outbreak since it first emerged in March in the remote trop- ical forests of Guinea. The disease then spread to neighboring Sierra Leona and Liberia before reaching Nigeria, where it surfaced shortly before the govern- ment drew criticism for its response to the abduction of more than 200 school- girls by Islamic militants back in April. The girls are still missing. Nigerian authorities said Tuesday that doctors did not suspect Patrick Sawyer was suffering from Ebola when the 40-year-old Liberian- American arrived by plane late last month in Lagos, where the streets are a be- wildering mix of wealth and abject poverty, awash in lux- ury SUVs and decrepit buses. Sawyer, who worked for the Liberian government in Monrovia and had a wife and three young daugh- ters in Minnesota, was on a business flight to Nigeria when he fell ill. Officials say a nurse who treated him has died and five others are sick with Ebola, including a doctor involved in his care. West African countries pledged at a meeting in July to step up their surveil- lance at airports and bor- ders following the start of the outbreak. But the early symptoms of Ebola — fe- ver, muscle aches and vom- iting — are similar to much more common tropical dis- eases such as malaria. EBOLA OUTBREAK Nigeria rushes to get isolation tents ABBASDULLEH‑THEASSOCIATEDPRESS People working for a petroleum company take part in an Ebola awareness campaign to try and prevent the deadly Ebola virus spreading in the city of Monrovia, Liberia, on Monday, By Lauran Neergaard The Associated Press WASHINGTON The use of an experimental drug to treat two Americans diag- nosed with Ebola is rais- ing ethical questions about who gets first access to un- proven new therapies for the deadly disease. But some health experts fear debate over extremely lim- ited doses will distract from tried-and-true measures to curb the growing outbreak — things like more rapidly identifying and isolating the sick. The World Health Or- ganization is convening a meeting of medical ethi- cists next week to examine what it calls "the responsi- ble thing to do" about what- ever supplies eventually may become available of a medicine that's never been tested in people. At least one country in- volved in the outbreak is in- terested in the drug. Nige- ria's health minister, Ony- enbuchi Chukwu, said at a news conference that he had asked the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Pre- vention about access. CDC Director Tom Frieden "con- veyed there are virtually no doses available" but that basic supportive care can work, a CDC spokesman said Wednesday. President Barack Obama said Ebola is controllable and the U.S. and its allies are working to help over- whelmed public health sys- tems in West Africa take the needed steps. Asked about the exper- imental drug, Obama said all the information isn't in: "We've got to let the science guide us." There is no proven treat- ment or vaccine for Ebola, which so far has infected more than 1,700 people and killed more than 930 in West Africa in what has be- come the worst outbreak of this viral hemorrhagic fever. "How many times have we found magic therapies that ended up ... doing more harm than good?" cau- tioned University of Minne- sota professor Michael Os- terholm, who advises the U.S. government on infec- tious disease threats. "Vaccine and drug treat- ment right now is not go- ing to be the main way you bring this to a stop," he added. Scientists stress that there's no way to tell if the experimental drug ZMapp really made a difference for two American aid workers infected while working in Liberia. "We don't even know if it works," stressed Dr. An- thony Fauci of the National Institutes of Health, which helped fund research that led to the drug's develop- ment. The drug is a cocktail of three antibodies engi- neered to recognize Ebola and bind to infected cells so that the immune sys- tem can kill them. People's immune systems make an- tibodies to fight off vari- ous diseases, and attempts to cull those antibodies — from the blood of peo- ple who survive an illness, or from animals — date back to the 19th century and early diphtheria treat- ment. Using modern tech- niques to fight Ebola, scien- tists culled antibodies from laboratory mice, Fauci said, and ZMapp's maker now grows the antibodies in to- bacco plants and then puri- fies them. Fauci said the manufac- turer has told the govern- ment that it would take two to three months to produce even "a modest amount." So the NIH is exploring ways to ramp up production, necessary to attempt for- mal testing or to consider more so-called compassion- ate use. "Everybody's trying to speed things up," said Fauci, director of NIH's National Institute of Allergy and In- fectious Diseases. To help improve diagno- sis in affected countries, the Food and Drug Administra- tion on Wednesday autho- rized emergency use of an experimental blood test to detect Ebola. Early symp- toms — fever, vomiting and diarrhea — can be confused with other illnesses. The test was developed by the Defense Department, and is only for use in DOD-des- ignated laboratories. This week, the WHO is convening an emergency committee to determine if the outbreak warrants being declared a "public health emergency of inter- national concern," mean- ing it poses significant risk to other countries and re- quires more of an interna- tional response. DEADLY DISEASE Experimental Ebola drug raises issue of who gets it THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Tobacco plants are grown in a controlled environment at the Kentucky BioProcessing facility in Owensboro, Ky. The company is using tobacco plants grown at this facility to help manufacture an experimental drug to treat patients infected with Ebola. Thankyou! PLEASE RECYCLE THIS NEWSPAPER. By Maggie Michael The Associated Press CAIRO Indirect Israeli-Pal- estinian negotiations over extending a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip and ending a blockade of the battered territory got underway in Cairo on Wednesday, with both sides taking hard-line positions and much jockey- ing expected ahead. Israel wants Hamas to disarm, or at least ensure it cannot re-arm, before con- sidering the group's demand that the territory's borders be opened. Israel and Egypt imposed a closure after the Hamas takeover of Gaza in 2007, although Egypt allows individuals to cross inter- mittently. "The two sides have re- viewed what they consider issues of concern," Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shukri said at a news con- ference. Hazem Abu Shanab, a member of Fatah, one of the main factions involved in the talks, said disarma- ment would require Israel to pull out from occupied Palestinian territory. Meanwhile, in Jerusalem, Israeli Prime Minister Ben- jamin Netanyahu defended Israel's intense bombard- ment of Gaza, saying that despite the high civilian death toll it was a "justi- fied" and "proportionate" response to Hamas attacks. Speaking to interna- tional journalists, Netan- yahu presented video foot- age he said showed mili- tants firing rockets from areas near schools and Hamas deploying civilians as human shields. MIDEAST CONFLICT Is ra el -P al es ti ni an t al ks o n Gaza underway in Cairo RUNNINGS ROOFING SheetMetalRoofing ResidentialCommercial • Composition • Shingle • Single Ply Membrane Ownerisonsiteoneveryjob ServingTehamaCounty 530-527-5789 530-209-5367 NoMoney Down! "NoJobTooSteep" " No Job Too Flat" FREE ESTIMATES CA. LIC#829089 744MainStreet,RedBluff SOAP SALE 5 for $25 (IndividualPrice:$6.99) | NEWS | REDBLUFFDAILYNEWS.COM THURSDAY, AUGUST 7, 2014 8 A