NEW YORK TIMES  by Donald G. McNeil, Jr.                                                     Jan. 1, 2015

Medical experts seeking to stem the Ebola epidemic are sharply divided over whether most patients in West Africa should, or can, be given intravenous hydration, a therapy that is standard in developed countries. Some argue that more aggressive treatment with IV fluids is medically possible and a moral obligation. But others counsel caution, saying that pushing too hard would put overworked doctors and nurses in danger and that the treatment, if given carelessly, could even kill patients.

A nurse gave an Ebola patient intravenous fluids at the Red Cross treatment center in Kenema, Sierra Leone, in November. Credit Francisco Leong/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

REUTERS                                                                                                             Dec. 31, 2014

GENEVA - The Ebola virus is still spreading in West Africa, especially in Sierra Leone, and the number of known cases globally has now exceeded 20,000, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday.

The death toll from the outbreak, which has been mostly confined to West Africa, has risen to 7,905, the WHO said, following 317 fatalities recorded since it last issued figures on Dec. 24.

The number of known cases, including fatalities, totalled 20,206 at year-end, it said.

 However, the number of cases in Sierra Leone over a three-week period has fallen below 1,000 for the first time since Sept. 28, suggesting the spread of the disease is slowing. In neighbouring Guinea, the three-week total rose for a second week to 346, suggesting the epidemic is growing there.

Read complete story.

http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-spreads-sierra-leone-global-cases-top-20-085657794.html;_ylt=AwrBJSA9_qVUoU0AoXTQtDMD

THE INDEPENDENT by Kashmira    Gander            Jan. 1, 2015

Pauline Cafferkey, the British nurse who contracted Ebola in Sierra Leone, is entering a “critical” stage of her recovery.

Dr Michael Jacobs said Ms Cafferkey was being treated with convalescent plasma taken from the blood of a recovered patient and an experimental anti-viral drug which is “not proven to work”.

Read complete story.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/ebola-in-the-uk-infected-nurse-pauline-cafferkey-in-critical-stage-of-treatment-9952904.html

UNITED NATIONS NEWS CENTRE                                                                         Dec. 31, 2014
The number of Ebola cases is fluctuating in Guinea, decreasing in Liberia and showing signs the increase has slowed in Sierra Leone, the United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) reported today as the UN development agency said it is helping the Liberian Government build border posts to cut the cross-border spread of infection in West Africa.

Patients who recover from the Ebola virus disease tie a ribbon to the tree on leaving the Maforki Ebola Treatment Centre in Port Loko, Sierra Leone. UN Photo/Martine Perret

“Infections in Liberia’s Eastern border region have spiked recently as tight-knit cross-border communities spread the disease across the often porous border,” the UN Development Programme (UNDP) said in a press release, adding that 49 new Ebola cases had been recorded in the border county of Grand Cape Mount in December, including 12 in the past four days.

   MEDSCAPE     by  Laurie Barclay, MD    Dec. 31, 2014
Ebola fears and misconceptions reduced health facility use by pregnant and lactating women in Kenema District, Sierra Leone, according to findings from focus group discussions published in the January 2, 2015, issue of the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

"Sierra Leone has the highest maternal mortality ratio and the fourth highest neonatal mortality rate in the world," write Michelle M. Dynes, PhD, from the Epidemic Intelligence Service, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia, and colleagues. "By straining the fragile health care infrastructure, the [Ebola] epidemic might put pregnant women and their newborns at even greater risk for adverse outcomes."

Uptake of routine maternal and newborn healthcare is therefore essential to lowering infant and maternal mortality. Focus group discussions suggested that infection prevention and control training would reduce fear among healthcare workers and could help improve women's confidence in health facility safety.

Sierra Leone public health departments are using this information to create public health messages designed to encourage the use of maternal and newborn healthcare services....

THE GUARDIAN  by Josh Halliday and Severin Carrell             Dec. 31, 2014
LONDON--Public HealthEngland has vowed to review its Ebola screening measures after they were branded “utterly illogical” by an NHS doctor who returned from Africa with the Scottish nurse who has contracted the virus.

Public Health England said it would review its procedures, but defended its guidance as being in line with other organisations who have sent volunteers to Ebola-affected countries. Photograph: Amer Ghazzal/Rex

NEW YORK TIMES  by  JEFFREY GETTLEMAN                  Dec. 21, 2014     
FREETOWN, Sierra Leone--The "personal hospitality business" may be the most obvious sector of Sierra Leone’s economy that has been decimated by Ebola. After all, the main slogan in Freetown, the capital, these days is A.B.C. — avoid body contact.Residents in Freetown, Sierra Leone, break rocks in a road project that was halted because of concern about Ebola. In Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia, Ebola continues to lay waste not just to immune systems but also to balance sheets. Daniel Berehulak for The New York Times

UNITED NATIONS NEWS CENTRE                                                                                 Dec. 30, 2014

MONROVIA, Liberia --The outgoing head of the head of the United Nations Emergency Ebola Response Mission (UNMEER) said today that communities are going to play a big role in defeating the “nasty disease” in West Africa by stamping out outbreaks while they are small and not allowing them to become bigger.

The body of a suspected Ebola case in Sierra Leone is taken by an International Federation of Red Cross (IFRC) team on 24 December to the cemetery where it was buried in a dignified way. UN Photo/Martine Perret

“Ebola is a very nasty disease, and it’s going to present us with some very unpleasant surprises I fear going forward,” Anthony Banbury told UN Radio in Monrovia, Liberia. “And that’s why we really need to strengthen our capabilities.....”

...While acknowledging the difficulty in getting Ebola response workers to some of the remote areas, he emphasized the importance of a district by district strategy and said: “We really need to be present out in the districts....”

IFRC Kenema Ebola treatment centre (File photo, October 2014)  Photo: IRIN/Ricci Shryock

LONDON, 29 December 2014 (IRIN) - West Africa's Ebola epidemic has cruelly exposed the weaknesses of health systems in the countries where it struck. It was understandable that they were not prepared for Ebola, which has never been reported in the region before, but the director of the World Health Organization (WHO), Margaret Chan, says what they lacked was a robust public health infrastructure to deal with the unexpected.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

WASHINGTON POST  by Rachel Feltman     Dec. 14, 2014 

According to research published Tuesday by the Robert Koch-Institute, fruit bats are almost certainly to blame for the current Ebola outbreak, which has claimed 7,800 lives so far. But while most outbreaks caused by a fruit bat would have someone who hunted or handled the mammal for meat to blame for the contagion, the researchers believe that this case of bat-to-human transmission was sparked by children at play.

A child under observation for signs of Ebola. (Michel du Cille/The Washington Post)

Ebola is a zoonotic disease -- one that's spread between species. The first human cases of Ebola can indeed be traced roughly to the hunting, selling, and eating of bushmeat, or wild mammals like bats and non-human primates...

But the first case of 2014's outbreak has been traced to someone who shouldn't have had much contact with bushmeat. In October, researchers reported that patient zero of the outbreak was likely a 2-year-old boy named Emile Ouamouno who lived in the Guinea village of Meliandou.

THE GUARDIAN  by Mark Anderson                                                                    Dec. 30, 2014

People in rural areas of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea battling Ebola could be helped by an automated phone service that offers advice about how to avoid contracting the virus.

Startup company Halt!Ebola is using “robocalling” to reach people where information hotlines are not being used.

The company is trying to acquire mobile phone numbers from the networks operating in these regions to enable them to make the calls. When people answer, an audio message with information and advice about the virus is played back.

Read complete story.

SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN by Dina Fine Maron                                  Dec. 29, 2014
Kisses are at a premium in the capital of Liberia. Even a hug or a handshake between friends is often out of the question. That’s the new normal ever since Ebola began ravaging communities throughout Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. For much of the past year, residents of these west African countries have wondered if daily life will ever be able to return to the way things once were.

Monrovia, Liberia - November 2014: Ebola survivor Korlia Bonarwolo leads a training of health workers at a mock Ebola Treatment Unit in Liberia. "I think with the knowledge we have now, the treatment is going to be much greater," he says.

Photo: Morgana Wingard/Sarah Grile, 2014

And at the heart of the matter is a scientific question: has Ebola now found a permanent foothold among humans?

Health Body to Consider Rapid-Response Teams, Other Changes

WALL STREET JOURNAL by Betsy McKay in Atlanta and Peter Wonacott in Freetown, Sierra Leone             Dec. 30, 2014

The tepid initial response to West Africa’s Ebola outbreak exposed holes in the global health system so gaping it has prompted the World Health Organization to consider steps to prevent a repeat, including emergency-response teams and a fund for public-health crises.

In a special session next month in Geneva, the WHO’s executive board is expected to consider those and other recommendations by its member countries—including a proposal that it commission an outside review of its Ebola response—according to a document reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

The plan comes as global health officials are struggling with a knotty question: how the WHO could have moved at a slow pace initially despite lessons learned more than a decade ago from another deadly outbreak, of SARS.

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http://www.wsj.com/articles/after-slow-ebola-response-who-seeks-to-avoid-repeat-1419892712

In-depth report and analysis of the evolution of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa

By KEVIN SACK, SHERI FINK, PAM BELLUCK and ADAM NOSSITER                                      DEC. 29, 2014

UPDATE: Ebola Patient Is Moved to London, and 2 Others Are Tested in Britain

NEW YORK TIMES     by Alan Cowell                                                 Dec. 30, 2014

LONDON — A health worker who returned from West Africa and was found to have Ebola when she arrived home in Scotland was transferred on Tuesday to Britain’s designated treatment center for the disease in London. The authorities also reported that two more people were being tested for the virus.