Solutions

A health worker wearing Ebola protection gear at a Biosecure Emergency Care Unit treatment center in Beni, Democratic Republic of Congo.CreditCreditBaz Ratner/Reuters

Donald G. McNeil Jr. - NYTimes - August 12th 2019

In a development that transforms the fight against Ebola, two experimental treatments are working so well that they will now be offered to all patients in the Democratic Republic of Congo, scientists announced on Monday.

The antibody-based treatments are quite powerful — “Now we can say that 90 percent can come out of treatment cured,” one scientist said — that they raise hopes that the disastrous epidemic in eastern Congo can soon be stopped and future outbreaks more easily contained.

CLICK HERE - The Great Green Wall for the Sahara and the Sahel Initiative as an opportunity to enhance resilience in Sahelian landscapes and livelihoods

goodnewsnetwork.org - by McKinley Corbley - Mar 31, 2019

More than 20 African countries have joined together in an international mission to plant a massive wall of trees running across the continent – and after a little over a decade of work, it has reaped great success.

The tree-planting project, which has been dubbed The Great Green Wall of Africa, stretches across roughly 6,000 miles (8,000 kilometers) of terrain at the southern edge of the Sahara desert, a region known as the Sahel.

The region was once a lush oasis of greenery and foliage back in the 1970s, but the combined forces of population growth, unsustainable land management, and climate change turned the area into a barren and degraded swath of land . . . 

Protective suits are essential kit for some workers like firefighters and healthcare workers, but staying cool enough to work for long periods is a challenge.

africanews.com - September 19, 2018

A team at California’s Stanford University working on the regulation of body temperature have created a cooling system that could double the amount of time workers can spend wearing protective suits.

The research was prompted by healthcare workers from Sierra Leone who experienced debilitating heat when wearing suits that protected them from the highly infectious Ebola virus . . . 

 . . . the cooling system allowed the students to spend at least double the time being active than without it, and some tripled or quadrupled the time spent being active.

(CLICK HERE - READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

submitted by Albert Gomez

Two women walk in front of a billboard, which says "Ebola must go. Stopping Ebola is Everybody's Business" in Monrovia, Liberia - 15 January 2015 - Photo: UNMIL/Emmanuel Tobey

futurehealthsystems.org - by Sehwah Sonkarlay - June 12, 2018

 . . . The ‘Understanding and Strengthening Community Resilience in Liberia’ meeting, which took place from 28th February – 1st March, was attended by representatives from the Ministry of Health, research organisations, and community members. Its aim was to understand the experience of Liberia in identifying and building resilience at the community level in the context of the recent Ebola epidemic, combined with its post-war and unique sociopolitical history.

(CLICK HERE READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)