FIERCE DIAGNOSTICS                            Oct. 23, 2014

By Emily Wasserman

French scientists are developing a diagnostic tool that works similar to a home pregnancy test and can quickly identify the virus through a tiny fluid sample.

  CEA's Ebola testing kit uses strips to rapidly identify the presence of the virus in fluid samples.--Courtesy of France's Atomic Energy  Commission

France's Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) is teaming up with European pharma company Vedalab to roll out a user-friendly testing system than could diagnose Ebola in less than 15 minutes, the agency said in a statement. The kit, dubbed "Ebola eZYSCREEN," includes a hand-held device that reads small samples of blood, plasma or urine to detect the virus, and shows results in stripes through a window on the tool.

MALI KEEPS BORDERS OPEN WITH GUINEA AS MAURITANIA CLOSES ITS BORDER WITH MALI

REUTERS                                         OCT. 25, 2014

BAMAKO--Mali will not close its borders with neighbouring Guinea after its first Ebola-related death, president Ibrahim Boubacar Keita says.

A two-year-old girl infected with the disease was brought across the frontier by her grandmother and died in Mali this week.

Mr Keita said that the incident showed it was impossible to completely seal his country off from Ebola but said he remained calm as the girl's journey and potential contacts had already been traced.

It comes as Mauritania has closed its border with Mali after the Ebola case was confirmed in Mali's western region, two Mauritanian officials said on Saturday.There is little accurate data but border closures by West African states trying to protect themselves from the epidemic have had a crippling effect on regional economies.

READ full story

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-10-26/mali-to-keep-guinea-border-open-despite-ebola-death/5841918

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS TIMES                 Oct. 25, 2014

By Charles Poladian

U.S. President Barack Obama again encouraged Americans to be “guided by the facts, not fear” in their assessments of Ebola virus disease as he discussed the first confirmed case in New York and the national response by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in his weekly address Saturday. Obama also mentioned the recoveries of Ashoka Mukpo and Nina Pham, who both tested negative for Ebola this week, and stressed the difficulty of contracting the virus.

WASHINGTON POST                                                                                   Oct. 25, 2014      
By Deneen L. Brown

Workers and volunteers face unease after flying to virus epicenters

Dr. David Schnabel, epidemic intelligence service officer with the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, works with database training of Ministry of Health staff at the Bo District Surveillance Office in Sierra Leone in August. (Gbessay Saffa)

"David Schnabel, a former Army doctor who lives in Baltimore, said he hasn’t talked much with people he doesn’t know about his five-week trip to Sierra Leone. Schnabel, who was working for the CDC in the hard-hit Bo District, returned on Sept. 29.

“'I can tell you I did not broadcast where I had been before or after I returned to strangers,” said Schnabel, who trained Sierra Leoneans on Ebola safety protocols rather than caring for patients. “I understood the emotional response to Ebola. To protect myself from any stigma, I consciously was careful who I told.'”

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NEW YORK TIMES               Oct. 25, 2014
by David W. Shin and Liz Robbins

The surprise decision by the governors of New York and New Jersey yesterday to impose a mandatory quarantine on persons who arrived at area airports and had contact with Ebola infected persons has touched off concern that it will deter people from volunteering to work in West Africa.

"Among medical professionals who have been fighting Ebola in West Africa, the restrictions only intensified the debate. While a few of those interviewed said an overabundance of caution was welcome, the vast majority said that restrictions like those adopted by New York and New Jersey could cripple volunteers’ efforts at the front lines of the epidemic."

" Dr. Rick Sacra, who contracted Ebola in Liberia and was flown back to the United States to be treated in September, said...many doctors and nurses who volunteered would spend about three weeks in Africa and then return to their regular jobs. The requirement that they be quarantined at home upon their return “will effectively double the burden on those people, on the loss of productive time,” Dr. Sacra said.

Liberia remains the worst affected country, with 4,665 cases

BBC                                              Oct. 25, 2014

The number of cases in the Ebola outbreak has exceeded 10,000, with 4,922 deaths, the World Health Organization says in its latest report.

Only 27 of the cases have occurred outside the three worst-hit countries, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea.

Those three countries account for all but 10 of the fatalities.

Mali became the latest nation to record a death, a two-year-old girl. More than 40 people known to have come into contact with her have been quarantined.

The latest WHO situation report says that Liberia remains the worst affected country, with 2,705 deaths. Sierra Leone has had 1,281 fatalities and there have been 926 in Guinea.

NEW YORK TIMES                    Oct. 24, 2014

by MARC SANTORA  

NEW YORK --The governors of New York and New Jersey announced Friday afternoon that they were ordering all people entering the country through two area airports who had direct contact with Ebola patients in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea to be quarantined.

The announcement comes one day after an American doctor, who had worked in Guinea and returned to New York City earlier in October, tested positive for Ebola and became the first New York patient of the deadly virus.

“A voluntary Ebola quarantine is not enough,” said Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York. “This is too serious a public health situation.”

DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS/MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERE                                      OCT. 23, 2014

Doctors without Borders (MSF)  describes its specific guidelines and protocols for staff members returning from Ebola assignments. The guidlines were posted following the hospitalization of Dr. Craig Smith, one of its workers, in New York City yesterday.

See full description

http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/article/msf-protocols-staff-returning-ebola-affected-countries

SCIENCE INSIDER

By Jon Cohen and  Kai Kupferschmidt                          OCT.23, 2014

Extensive background documents from a meeting that took place today at the World Health Organization (WHO) have provided new details about exactly what it will take to test, produce, and bankroll Ebola vaccines, which could be a potential game changer in the epidemic.

ScienceInsider obtained materials that vaccinemakers, governments, and WHO provided to the 100 or so participants at a meeting on “access and financing” of Ebola vaccines. The documents put hard numbers on what until now have been somewhat fuzzy academic discussions. And they make clear to the attendees—who include representatives from governments, industry, philanthropies, and nongovernmental organizations—that although testing and production are moving forward at record speed, knotty issues remain. 

Read complete article

http://news.sciencemag.org/health/2014/10/leaked-documents-reveal-behind-scenes-ebola-vaccine-issues

WHO ANNOUNCES  EBOLA VACCINE TRIALS WILL BE SPEEDED UP TO DECEMBER.
THREE RELATED STORIES.   (Scroll down)

REUTERS                                       OCT. 24

By Stephanie Nebehay and Kate Kelland

GENEVA/LONDON, Oct 24 (Reuters) - Trials of Ebola vaccines could begin in West Africa in December, a month earlier than expected, and hundreds of thousands of doses should be available for use by the middle of next year, the World Health Organization said on Friday.

Vaccines are being developed and made ready in record time by drugmakers working with regulators, the U.N. health agency said, but questions remain about their safety and efficacy which can only be settled by full clinical trials.

"Vaccine is not a magic bullet, but when ready they may be a good part of the effort to turn the tide against the epidemic," senior WHO official Marie-Paule Kieny told a news briefing after a meeting in Geneva of industry executives, global health experts, drug regulators and funders.

UPDATE:   EUROPEAN UNION ANNOUNCES ADDITIONAL FUNDING, NAMES AN EBOLA COORDINATOR 

NEW YORK TIMES   

By James Kanter and Andrew Higgins                                                                      OCT. 24, 2014

BRUSSELS--

...  Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, announced tody that Christos Stylianides, the coming European commissioner for humanitarian aid and crisis management, would be named Ebola coordinator.

UPDATE: THE GUINEAN GIRL DIED IN MALI. WHO IS SENDING MORE STAFF TO HELP STOP FUTHER EXPOSURES.

TIME MAGAZINE                                                             Oct. 24, 2014

A two-year-old Guinean girl who recently traveled to Mali and was later confirmed to have Ebola has died, officials said on Friday, one day after her positive diagnosis meant the virus had reached its sixth nation in West Africa.

The child died  in the western town of Kayes, a health official told Reuters. On Thursday, Health Minister Ousmane Kone told state television that she had traveled from neighboring Guinea,accompanied by her grandmother. The girl was admitted to a hospital on Wednesday night, where she tested positive for Ebola.

Health officials said the girl had begun bleeding from the nose before she left Guinea,, “meaning that the child was symptomatic during their travels through Mali” and that “multiple opportunities for exposure occurred when the child was visibly symptomatic.” The initial investigation identified 43 close and unprotected contacts, including 10 health workers.

CLICK HERE - VIDEO - World Health Summit
Aid Agencies Criticise Slow Ebola Response
Aid agencies fighting Ebola say the international community has been 'woefully underprepared' in tackling the crisis.

CLICK HERE - M 8 Alliance - Berlin Declaration on Ebola
World Health Summit 2014, Berlin October 19 to 22, 2014
(1 page .PDF document)

submitted by George Hurlburt

Special Symposium at the WHS 2014
Ebola: A Wake-Up Call for Global Health

With respect to the Ebola crisis, the World Health Summit has organized a special symposium "Ebola: A Wake-Up Call for Global Health" in association with the German Federal Ministry of Health and the German Federal Foreign Office, held on October 20 from 08:30 to 10:00 (Program >>>).

REUTERS                                                                                                      Oct. 23, 2014

Volunteers who will be sent to Africa in the forthcoming days are taught how to work with patients infected with the Ebola virus during a training session at AP-HP hospital Henri Mondor in Creteil, a suburb of Paris October 22, 2014.

Asked whether countries such as Guinea Bissau, Mali and Ivory Coast might have cases of the disease crossing their borders without knowing about or reporting them, WHO assistant director general Keiji Fukuda said he considered that unlikely.

WHO    GENEVA                                                                         Oct. 23, 2014

 The WHO Ebola Emergency Committee statement issued today, following its meetings this week, said exit screening in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone remains critical for reducing the exportation of Ebola cases.

The statement said "States should maintain and reinforce high-quality exit screening of all persons at international airports, seaport, and major land crossings, for unexplained febrile illness consistent with potential Ebola infection. The exit screening should consist of, at a minimum, a questionnaire, a temperature measurement and, if fever is discovered, an assessment of the risk that the fever is caused by Ebola Virus Disease (EVD). States should collect data from their exit screening processes, monitor their results, and share these with WHO on a regular basis and in a timely fashion. This will increase public confidence and provide important information to other States."

The report also encouraged States that have recently introduced entry screening measures to should share their experiences and lessons learned.

...The Committee reiterated its recommendation that there should be no general ban on international travel or trade.