Guinea

THE ECONOMIST                          Oct. 25, 2014

With at least 4,500 people dead, public-health authorities in west Africa and worldwide are struggling to contain Ebola. Borders have been closed, air passengers screened, schools suspended. But a promising tool for epidemiologists lies unused: mobile cell phone data.

When people make mobile-phone calls, the network generates a call data record (CDR) containing such information as the phone numbers of the caller and receiver, the time of the call and the tower that handled it—which gives a rough indication of the device’s location. This information provides researchers with an insight into mobility patterns...

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. 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.”

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. 

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