LOS ANGELES TIMES                                           Nov. 12, 2014
By Matt Hansen
Weighing President Obama’s request for billions of dollars in new funding to combat the Ebola virus, lawmakers on Wednesday pressed federal agencies to explain how the additional money would help in the fight against the disease.

Members of the Senate Appropriations Committee debated Obama’s request for $6.18 billion in additional funds to battle the virus, which has infected more than 13,000 people, mostly in West Africa...

Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell and Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson appear before the Senate Appropriations Committee during a hearing Tuesday in Washington over the government's response to Ebola. (Michael Reynolds / European Pressphoto Agency)

... the request faced skeptical lawmakers who questioned whether additional money would be well spent by a federal government that has struggled at times with containing the epidemic.

“Instead of an effective response, what we’ve witnessed from various agencies is confusing and at times contradictory plans,” Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.) said.

USA TODAY                                         Nov. 12, 2014
by Liz Sazbo

Doctors Without Borders will begin clinical trials of three experimental Ebola therapies in West Africa in December, the aid group announced Wednesday.

The studies, to be conducted at the group's treatment centers in Guinea and Liberia, will test therapies already used in some Ebola patients in the USA and Europe: the antiviral drugs brincidofovir and favipiravir, as well as blood donations from Ebola survivors.

Brincidofovir, made by Chimerix of North Carolina, was given to cameraman Ashoka Mukpo, Liberian national Thomas Eric Duncan and physician Craig Spencer. Mukpo and Spencer survived. Duncan received the drug just a couple days before he died.

Favipiravir, an anti-flu drug made by Japan's Fujifilm Holding Corp., was given to a French nurse who worked with Doctors Without Borders.

And blood donations from Ebola survivors, which contain antibodies against the virus, have been used since the first Ebola outbreak in 1976.

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http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/11/12/ebola-clinical-trial/18919401/

REUTERS                                                                                               Nov. 12, 2014

By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA --The death toll from the Ebola outbreak in West Africa's three hardest-hit countries, Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, has risen to 5,147 out of 14,068 cases at the end of Nov. 9, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday.

A further 13 deaths and 30 cases have been recorded in five other countries - Nigeria, Senegal, Mali, Spain and the United States, the U.N. agency said.

"There is some evidence that case incidence is no longer increasing nationally in Guinea and Liberia, but steep increases persist in Sierra Leone," the WHO said in a statement. "Cases and deaths continue to be under-reported in this outbreak."

Some 421 new infections were reported in Sierra Leone in the week to Nov. 9, especially in the west and north, it said.

Ebola is still spreading intensely in Sierra Leone's capital of Freetown, with Koinadugu and Kambia northern regions now "emerging areas of concern", it added.

BBC                                                    Nov. 12, 2014

More than 400 health workers involved in treating Ebola patients have gone on strike at a clinic in Sierra Leone.

The staff, who include nurses, porters and cleaners, are protesting about the government's failure to pay an agreed weekly $100 (£63) "hazard payment".

There have been almost 300 new Ebola cases in Sierra Leone in the past three days

The clinic, in Bandajuma near Bo, is the only Ebola treatment centre in southern Sierra Leone.

The Bandajuma clinic is run by medical charity MSF, which said it would be forced to close the facility if the strike continued. MSF's emergency co-ordinator in Sierra Leone, Ewald Stars, told the BBC that about 60 patients had been left unattended because of the strike at the clinic in Bandajuma.
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http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-30019895

USA TODAY                                   Nov. 11, 2014
By Liz Sazbo
The successful treatment of Westerners with Ebola in the USA and Europe is changing the way doctors think about the disease.

The conventional wisdom about Ebola has been that it's usually fatal, with a mortality rate of up to 90%. That was based largely on experience with Ebola in developing countries in Africa, where many hospitals have no running water and soap, let alone personal protective equipment for the medical staff.

All eight American patients with Ebola treated in the USA have survived. So have most Europeans evacuated to their home countries for care....

With early and aggressive care, "Ebola can be an eminently treatable disease," says Amesh Adalja, senior associate at the Center for Health Security at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

In some ways, Ebola is a different disease in the USA and Europe than it is in Africa, just as cancer is a different disease here than in developing countries, says Jeffrey Duchin, a professor at the University of Washington-Seattle and spokesman for the Infectious Diseases Society of America. Both conditions are fearsome and dangerous, but experience shows that cancer and Ebola can often be survived if caught early and treated aggressively.

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FORBES MAGAZINE                              NOV. 11, 2014
By Tevi Troy, President, American Health Policy Institute

Ebola has killed over 5,000 people, roiled U.S. hospitals, and shaken the faith of Americans in the government’s ability to respond. At the same time, and below the radar, U.S. companies are responding to Ebola with a variety of steps to protect themselves, their employees, and their operations.

The most important element of communicating the threat of the Ebola outbreak for both the government and corporate leaders is to provide factual information while also preventing panic and fear. There have been 5,000 false alarm cases of Ebola as people flock to U.S. emergency rooms out of fear that their common cold or seasonal flu symptoms are early manifestations of the Ebola virus. This hysteria not only has potential mental and physical health implications, but also economic implications. Fear may incentivize some people to change their behavior, whether through cancelling flights and vacation plans or visiting the doctor and stocking up on medications. Furthermore, treating suspected Ebola patients, even if they don’t pan out, is expensive and labor intensive for hospitals.

NPR                                             Nov. 11, 2014
By Richard Harris

Medical experts are meeting today and tomorrow at the World Health Organization in Geneva to figure out how to test potential Ebola drugs in Africa. In addition to determining which experimental drugs should be the highest priority, the experts are sorting through some difficult ethical issues.

In short, they're trying to figure out how to design tests that will provide the fastest and most trustworthy answers — and yet minimize the need for comparison groups who won't be offered the experimental treatments.

Practice in the United States has set an unrealistic standard. When American health care workers fell ill with Ebola in Africa, they flew home and received medical care vastly better than what Africans were getting, including experimental therapies.

THE WASHINGTON POST                                                                                        Nov. 11, 2014
By Lena H. Sun, Brady Dennis and Joel Achenbach

The news out of West Africa in recent days — good and bad — has demonstrated a fundamental challenge in the fight against Ebola: The virus is more nimble than the human response to it. The landscape of infection and disease has changed dramatically in recent weeks, even as institutions have largely stuck to blueprints drafted months ago.

Archie C. Gbessay, coordinator of the Active Case Finders and Awareness Team in West Point, a large slum in Monrovia, Liberia, discusses efforts to combat Ebola with his team in a school classroom in September. (Michel du Cille/The Washington Post)

The looming question now is whether governments and other organizations can find a way to become as agile as the virus, which has vanished suddenly in some hard-hit places while erupting just as quickly in new locations.

Additional Assistance: Israeli group provides psychological counseling, German Air Force flies in relief supplies (Two stories, scroll down.)

JEWISH TELEGRAPHIC AGENCY                    Nov. 10, 2014
By Uri Heilman
IsraAid is providing psychosocial counseling and training to service providers – health workers, social workers, teachers, police — dealing with Ebola patients in Sierra Leone. The locals staffing Freetown’s Ebola hotline are among those receiving counseling.

IsraAid psychosocial trauma specialists Hela Yaniv, left, and Sheri Oz lead a counseling and training session for service providers in Sierra Leone.

“Dealing with the psychosocial trauma is critical to addressing the Ebola outbreak,” Shachar Zahavi, IsraAid’s founding director, told JTA in an interview. “A major deterrent to treatment is that people don’t trust one another. If you don’t feel well, your family immediately hides you and you then infect your entire family. We’re trying to teach police, social workers, health workers and teachers how to deal with people who are afraid of them – and how to manage their own stress and anxiety.”

UPDATE 

New York doctor cleared of Ebola, which means there are no known Ebola cases in the U.S.

WASHINGTON POST                                                                     Nov. 10, 2014

By Mark Herman

The doctor who contracted Ebola in West Africa before returning to New York City has been declared free of the virus, hospital officials announced Monday. This news means that 41 days after the first Ebola diagnosis in the United States, there are no known cases of the virus in the country.

Craig Spencer, 33, who had been treating Ebola patients in Guinea, was diagnosed with Ebola on Oct. 23. Bellevue Hospital Center in New York City, where Spencer was being treated, confirmed in a statement Monday that he “has been declared free of the virus.” Spencer will be discharged on Tuesday, according to the hospital.

See complete story

THE GUARDIAN                                        Nov. 10, 2014
By Lisa O'Caroll

The number of new cases of Ebola in Sierra Leone has jumped dramatically, putting paid to any hopes that the infection rate is slowing.

Official figures released by the minister of health and sanitation show there were 111 new cases registered on Sunday, the highest daily rate since the ministry started publishing figures in August.

There were 45 new cases the day before, including 24 in the capital, Freetown. Laboratory results for patients in Freetown, which include the new British army-built Ebola hospital, showed 40 new cases on Sunday.

There was also a spike in the number of cases in Port Loko, a district north of Freetown where there is still no treatment centre and where, until recently, corpses were left lying on verandahs, in hospitals and in houses for days before collection.

The figures come days after warnings by the UN that Ebola cases in Sierra Leone are being underreported by up to 50%.

NEW ENGLAND COMPLEX SYSTEMS INSTITUTE                                                                        Oct. 27, 2014
ABSTRACT
By Kia Hall and Yaneer Bar-Yam
The number of cases of Ebola in West Africa has been growing exponentially, and projections assume that this dynamic will continue. However, recent case reports from Liberia indicate a change. The number of new confirmed cases reported by WHO has actually diminished for five weeks in a row.
The WHO report suggests that this may be due to underreporting under conditions of high levels of stress of the number of cases taking place.

Here we report that there appears to be a sound reason for the decreasing number of cases—a change in response strategy that is working. Understanding this dynamic is of critical importance for addressing the outbreak in Sierra Leone and Guinea. In particular the number of cases in Sierra Leone continues to grow exponentially.

Discussions with a WHO response coordinator in Liberia indicates that a change in strategy from individual reporting and contact tracing to community based screening for early detection and population wide behavior change happened in mid September.

NEW YORK TIMES                                                                                Nov. 6, 2014

Medical discussion of why some children suvive Ebola and others do not

NEW YORK TIMES                                   Nov. 10, 2014
By Sheri Fink, MD

... Over and over, doctors here have been confounded by the divergent paths of patients whose cases appeared similar at first. “No matter how long we were there, we didn’t know how to predict it,” said Dr. Steve Whiteley, a California emergency physician who volunteered.

NBC NEWS                                              Nov. 9, 2014
by Maggie Fox

The new U.S. plan to spend $6 billion fighting Ebola has a hidden agenda that aid workers approve of: not only stamping out the epidemic in West Africa, but starting to build a health infrastructure that can prevent this kind of thing from happening again.

Liberian nurses escort a suspec ted patient into the JFK nursing center in Monrovia, Sept. 18, 2014. Ahamed Jallanzo/EPA file  

President Barack Obama's $6.18 billion request is an enormous amount of money — six times what the U.S. has already committed and far more even than what the World Health Organization says is needed.

Most is going for full frontal assault on Ebola — one that hasn’t really gotten off the ground yet...

But billions are also being quietly allocated to building a health care system in the countries suffering the most — a less sexy approach that could prevent another epidemic in the future. 

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