UNITED NATIONS NEWS CENTRE                                                                                    Dec. 13, 2014
Amid a spike in Ebola transmission rates in Sierra Leone, the United Nations envoy coordinating the massive global crisis response has travelled to the West African nation to help implement a surge in efforts to contain the outbreak.

Anthony Banbury, head of the UN Mission for Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER), views an International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) Ebola Treatment Centre in Kenema, Sierra Leone. (November 2014) UNMEER Photo/Ari Gaitanis

 “We need to put in place a big surge to get those case numbers down, and we've been working on implementing that surge in the last week,” Anthony Banbury, head of the UN Mission for Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER), said in a press release following his two-day visit to the country's capital, Freetown, from 11 to 12 December. With some 8,069 cases, Sierra Leone is now the worst-affected country in West Africa, according to UNMEER's latest data. Together, Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone have so far registered over 18,000 cases of Ebola, including more than 6,300 deaths.

Why has Liberia -- once the epicenter of the outbreak -- been able to stop a rampaging killer disease, while the country next door can't even count its dead?

foreignpolicy.com - by Laurie Garrett - December 10, 2014

FREETOWN, Sierra Leone — It was a terribly disturbing sight. At first glance, Connaught Hospital in central Freetown looked unremarkable; the Sierra Leone facility featured a walk-in and ambulance entrance that led to typical hospital hallways and a central patients’ garden. But the entry was flanked by tented structures — on the left, a table at which sat three men, sweating in full protection suits, goggles, gloves, and masks. On the right was what appeared to be a wood-fenced pen with a sun-shading tarp over it, suitable for livestock. Patients and visitors were required to approach the suited men on the left for triage: If they had a fever or nausea they were sent to the pen.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

USA TODAY  by Greg Zoroya                                                                                          Dec. 13, 2014

MONROVIA, Liberia — Landlords won't rent to them. Employers won't hire them. Taxi drivers won't give them a lift. Barber shops refuse to cut their hair without gloves.

Juliet Boima, 19, a survivor who works at the ebola clinic since she is immune now. Despite being unable to contract ebola, she still must wear protective gear to eliminate the chance that she could carry the virus to someone else.(Photo: Gregory H Stemn for USA TODAY)

They are Ebola survivors. In one place where they are desperately needed as workers, Ebola treatment clinics, many survivors have nightmarish memories of barely staying alive.

Thousands of West Africans have beaten the odds and survived Ebola. More than 6,500 people have died in the outbreak, and only 30% who have contracted Ebola have survived the aggressive disease that robs the body of fluids and causes major organs to fail.

Most who emerge from the clinics fully recovered discover a cruel society eager to distance itself from them and the plague.

LIVE SCIENCE  by Rachel Rettner                                                                                  Dec. 12, 2014

Ebola survivors in West Africa are often shunned by their communities, and they have few possessions because many of their personal belongings are destroyed to prevent the disease from spreading.

But several organizations are working to help Ebola survivors make the transition back into their communities — for example, by providing them with bedding and other basic items, and speaking with community members to reduce the stigma, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Survivors are thought to be immune to the strain of Ebola causing the current outbreak, and many now work as caregivers for those with Ebola, the report said.

Read complete story.
http://www.livescience.com/49110-ebola-survivor-support.html

A 2014 photograph of a West African Ebola treatment cente. Credit CDC

NEW YORK TIMES  by Donald G. McNeil, Jr.                                                                              Dec. 13, 2014

NEW YORK --The well-prepared Ebola fighter in West Africa may soon have some new options: protective gear that zips off like a wet suit, ice-cold underwear to make life inside the sweltering suits more bearable, or lotions that go on like bug spray and kill or repel the lethal virus.

A prototype for one of the protective suits in contention for the U.S.A.I.D. "Grand Challenges" award. Credit John Hopkins University/Jhpiego

In-depth description of the evolution of the Ebola crisis

THE ECONOMIST                                                                                                                               Dec. 13, 2014

AKPOIMA AND FREETOWN--Slowly and messily, the struggle against the virus is being won

 Read complete story.

http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21636081-slowly-and-messily-struggle-against-virus-being-won-exorcising

AFP    by Rod Mac Johnson                                                                                                  Dec. 12, 2014

VOICE OF AMERICA  Lisa Schlein                                                                                            Dec. 12, 2014

GENEVA—The U.N. Children’s Fund is appealing for an additional $300 million to expand its fight against Ebola in the three heavily affected West African countries over the next six months. UNICEF said gaining the confidence of community members, increasing their awareness and knowledge of modes of transmission and prevention are key to winning the battle against this deadly disease.

Women in the village of Boukoloma, in Guinea’s southeastern forest region, listen to messages about Ebola prevention. (Photo courtesy of Christophe Boulierac / UNICEF)

UNICEF officials said money from the appeal would be used to tackle two major drivers of Ebola transmission: lack of early isolation of patients and unsafe burials.  Both of these issues are wound up with traditional cultural practices, which often have stymied aid agencies’ efforts to prevent people from getting infected with the disease and spreading it to others. 

More blows to Sierra Leone economy

BLOOMBERG by Thomas Biesheuvel and Makiko Kitamura                                                             Dec. 12, 2014

As Ebola rages in Sierra Leone, the outbreak has claimed almost 2,000 lives and contributed to the collapse of the iron ore industry. Now the virus is hitting the diamond mines.

At the latest hotspot, in the gem-rich Kono district along the Guinea border, two workers at Octea Ltd.’s Koidu mine, Sierra Leone’s largest, were infected last week and are being treated. The outbreak may mean that production at the mine will miss its annual target -- measured in carats -- by as much as 20 percent, Chief Executive Officer Brett Richards said.

“Everyone thought this was under control and we were seeing the top of the curve,” Richards said in a phone interview yesterday. “It completely went out of control a couple of weeks ago. We may be uncovering a bit of an iceberg here.”

CANADIAN BROADCASTING CORP                                                                                               Dec. 11, 2014

GENEVA --Ebola in West Africa has made it almost impossible for people to get treatment for other ailments, health ministers from the three worst affected countries say.

The health systems in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea were barely functional before the Ebola outbreak struck.

Liberia's Chief Medical Officer, Bernice Dahn, said the country's Ebola outbreak needs to be contained and routine health-care services need to be revived. (Martial Trezzini/Keystone/Associated Press)

"We want to expand the health workforce because it's crucial for providing quality health care," Dr. Bernice Dahn, Liberia’s chief medical officer, told World Health Organization in Geneva today....

REUTERS                                                                                  Dec. 11, 2014
BAMAKO-Mali has no remaining cases of the Ebola virus as the last patient in the country has recovered and left hospital, the Ministry of Health said on Thursday.

Six people have died of Ebola in Mali, while two others have recovered. The country is the sixth West African state to be hit by the worst outbreak on record of the hemorrhagic fever.

Ebola first entered Mali through an infant girl who died of the disease in October after arriving from neighboring Guinea. Later that month, an imam who also arrived from Guinea with the disease died in Mali. He infected other people.

"The only remaining case in treatment has recovered and has been released today so there are no more people sick with Ebola in Mali," said Ministry of Health spokesman Markatié Daou.

Read complete story

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/12/11/us-health-ebola-mali-idUSKBN0JP2HG20141211

Op-ed

NEW YORK TIMES by Jim Yong Kim, President of the World Bank Group      Dec. 11, 2014                                              

MONROVIA, Liberia — In my career as a medical doctor and global health policy maker, I have been in the middle of monumental struggles, including fights to make treatment accessible in the developing world for those living with H.I.V./AIDS as well as multi-drug resistant tuberculosis. But the Ebola epidemic is the worst I’ve ever seen...

Members of District 13 ambulance service disinfect a room in a village north of Monrovia, Liberia. Credit Jerome Delay/Associated Press

ASSOCIATED PRESS by EDITH M. LEDERER                       Dec. 11, 2014

UNITED NATIONS-- The U.N. Ebola chief said Thursday it will take several more months before the outbreak in West Africa is under control, an assessment that makes clear the World Health Organization's goal of isolating 100 percent of Ebola cases by Jan. 1 won't be met.

Dr. David Nabarro said there has been "a massive shift" over the last four months in the way affected governments have taken the lead in responding to the epidemic, communities are taking action and the international community has pitched in.

But he said greater efforts are needed to combat Ebola in western Sierra Leone and northern Mali, to reduce the number of new cases in Liberia and to limit transmission to Mali.

WHO conceded that it didn't meet an interim Dec. 1 target of isolating 70 percent of Ebola patients and safely burying 70 percent of victims in hardest-hit Sierra Leone. But it hasn't made clear what that means for its Jan. 1 goal, which it set in September. It has acknowledged that its patchy data could compromise the goal, since the agency does not know how many Ebola patients there actually are and is unable to track all of their contacts.

WHO                                                                                                                       Dec. 10, 2014

A total of 17 942 confirmed, probable, and suspected cases of Ebola virus disease (EVD) have been reported in five affected countries (Guinea, Liberia, Mali, Sierra Leone, and the United States of America) and three previously affected countries (Nigeria, Senegal and Spain) up to the end of 7 December. There have been 6388 reported deaths.

Reported case incidence is slightly increasing in Guinea (103 confirmed and probable cases reported in the week to 7 December), declining in Liberia (29 new confirmed cases in the 3 days to 3 December), and may still be increasing in Sierra Leone (397 new confirmed cases in the week to 7 December). The case fatality rate across the three most-affected countries in all reported cases with a recorded definitive outcome is 76%; in hospitalized patients the case fatality rate is 61%.

Read complete report.
http://www.who.int/csr/disease/ebola/situation-reports/en/

THE GUARDIAN   by Lisa O'Carroll                                Dec. 11, 2014
GENEVA --A clinical trial of an Ebola vaccine has been suspended in all 59 volunteers in Geneva a week early “as a measure of precaution” after four patients complained of joint pains in hands and feet, the University of Geneva hospital said.

“They are all fine and being monitored regularly by the medical team leading the study,” it said on Thursday.

The human safety trials of the vaccine being developed by the pharmaceutical firms Merck and NewLink are scheduled to resume on 5 January in up to 15 volunteers after checks to ensure that the joint pain symptoms were “benign and temporary”, the hospital added.

Read complete story
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/11/ebola-vaccine-trial-suspended-joint-pains