NEW ORLEANS --The quest for an Ebola treatment is picking up speed. Federal officials have unveiled a plan to test multiple drugs at once, in an umbrella study with a single comparison group to give fast answers on what works.

"This is novel for us" and is an approach pioneered by cancer researchers, said Dr. Luciana Borio, head of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's Ebola response. "We need to learn what helps and what hurts" and speed treatments to patients, she said.

She outlined the plan Wednesday at an American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene conference in New Orleans....

Everyone in the umbrella study would get supportive care, such as intravenous fluids, then be assigned to receive one of several drugs or be in a comparison group. That's needed because without one, there's no way to know if any problems or deaths are from the drug or the disease, Cox said....

                                                                     Nov. 6, 2014

...a WHO-coordinated retrospective study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, provides evidence that supportive care, especially rehydration and correction of metabolic abnormalities, may contribute to patient survival.

The study analysed clinical data on 37 confirmed Ebola patients admitted for treatment at hospitals in Conakry, Guinea’s capital and most densely populated city.

The cases occurred during the first month of West Africa’s first outbreak of Ebola virus disease. Fourteen of the patients were heath care workers. The majority (12) acquired their infection in a health care setting.

The majority (65%) of patients were male, countering assumptions that women, who are more likely to provide home care for patients and prepare bodies for funerals and burials, are more frequently exposed and infected.

To replace fluids lost through severe diarrhoea, 36 patients (97%) received oral rehydration solution. Additional intravenous fluid resuscitation was given to 28 (76%) patients.

Read complete press release

ASSOCIATED PRESS                                   NOV. 7, 2014

UNITED NATIONS -- The U.N.'s Ebola chief said an extraordinary global response over the past month has made him hopeful the outbreak could end in 2015, though he cautioned that the fight to contain the disease is not even a quarter done.

"Until the last case of Ebola is under treatment, we have to stay on full alert," Dr. David Nabarro said Thursday in an interview with The Associated Press. "It's still bad."

Nabarro said a month ago that the number of Ebola cases was probably doubling every three-to-four weeks. He warned then that without a mass global mobilization, "the world will have to live with the Ebola virus forever" and that the response needed to be 20 times greater.

But in the past four weeks, the rate of Ebola infections seems to be slowing in some parts of West Africa, Nabarro said in the interview. In other hotspots, he said, it appears to be expanding the way it was a month ago.

Read complete story

An overview of the numbers of Ebola cases in Africa and elsewhere.
ASSOCIATED PRESS                                                 NOV. 17, 2014b
By Maria Cheng, AP Medical Writer
LONDON --As the biggest-ever outbreak of Ebola continues to ravage West Africa, here are a few key numbers to get a handle on the epidemic:

13,042 and 4,818:

Medical workers wearing protective equipment surround a simulated patient during a demonstration for media members on their training for working with possible Ebola patients, Thursday, Nov. 6, 2014, at Madigan Army Medical Center on Joint Base Lewis McChord, near Tacoma, Wash. Madigan providers and nurses have been training to perform clinical skills, including inserting IVs, obtaining blood samples for testing and conducting ultrasounds while dressed in powered air purifying respirators, impermeable suits and multiple layers of gloves. The clinically-focused exercises use realistic patient simulators that speak through microphones and can express simulated bodily fluids. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson) Close The Associated Press

World Health Organisation doubts feasibility of placebo-controlled trials in west Africa, but FDA favours ‘gold standard’

THE GUARDIAN                                                                                                           Nov. 6, 2014
By Sarah Bosley

Scientists involved in trials of experimental drug treatments for the Ebola epidemic in west Africa should not be compelled to withhold them from some patients, says the World Health Organisation, despite objections from the US that it is the only way to be sure they work.

Vials of the experimental VSE-EBOV vaccine for Ebola. Photograph: Mathilde Missioneiro/AP

UNITED NATIONS DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME                                              Nov. 5, 2014

New York  -- The Ebola outbreak in West Africa is impairing the ability of governments to raise revenues, increasing their exposure to domestic and foreign debts and may make them more dependent on aid, according to the latest study (PDF) on the socio-economic impact of the crisis carried out by the UN development agency.

Investments in kick-starting economies and long-term development urgently needed

“We need to make sure that the Ebola outbreak does not lead to socio-economic collapse,” said Abdoulaye Mar Dieye, the Director of the Regional Bureau for Africa at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). “This crisis is already taking a toll on budgets and reducing the governments’ policy leeway to make much-needed investments in critical areas such as health and education for their citizens.” He added that the effects of the Ebola crisis will last long after the epidemic is brought under control.

UPDATE: Senate Appropriations schedules hearings for Wednesday, Nov. 12.

Moving quickly, the Senate Appropriation Committee announced it wil take up the administration's proposals at a hearng next Wednesday with a full slate of government officials from the key agencies. The committee will remaiend chaired bya  Democat, Senator Barbara Mikulski of Maryland, until the end of this Congressional session. The Republican controlled House Appropriations Committee has not yet announced hearings.

See Senate statement.

http://www.appropriations.senate.gov/news/chairwoman-mikulski-statement-funding-request-white-house-fight-ebola-here-and-abroad, 

Text of White House letter to Congress

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/11/05/letter-president-emergency-appropriations-request-ebola-fiscal-year-2015

See earlier story

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THE ASSOCIATED PRESS                                     Nov. 5, 2014

By JIM KUHNHENN and ANDREW TAYLOR

REUTERS                                                                                    Nov. 5, 2014
(WASHINGTON) - The World Bank's private sector arm pledged $450 million on Wednesday to support trade, investment and employment in the three West African countries affected the most by the deadly Ebola outbreak.

The announcement from the bank's International Finance Corporation (IFC) brings total World Bank commitments for Ebola to nearly $1 billion in the past three months, an unprecedented rapid response for a development institution that has been accused of dragging its feet on project approval in the past.

World Bank President Jim Yong Kim, a doctor and anthropologist, said 

"The fear swirling around Ebola has the potential to do long-term harm to businesses globally, and especially in the Ebola-affected countries," Kim said in a statement. "IFC .. will find ways to help boost trade and investment in West Africa, which will be essential to ensure that private companies continue to operate and sustain employment under difficult circumstances."

Read complete story

BBC                                             Nov. 5, 2014
By Clive Myrie

FREETOWN --A British-run facility to treat people with Ebola is opening in Sierra Leone.

The facility offers 92 beds, with an additional 600 expected to be provided by five further centres

The 92-bed site in Kerry Town will be run jointly by the Department for International Development (DfID) and charity Save the Children.

The centre is the first of six which are being constructed by the British government as part of the effort to stop the spread of the disease.

The UK's Disasters Emergency Committee says it has raised £13m for tackling Ebola, a week after its appeal launch. The DEC, which is made up of 13 British aid charities, is helping to run treatment facilities and care centres.

Meanwhile in the UK, Manchester Airport has begun screening passengers arriving from the worst-affected countries.

Read complete story

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-29911551

ASSOCIATED PRESS                                                                              Nov. 4, 2014

by Sarah DiLorenzo

DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — Thousands of people in Sierra Leone are being forced to violate Ebola quarantines to find food because deliveries are not reaching them, aid agencies said....

Large swaths of the West African country have been sealed off to prevent the spread of Ebola, and within those areas many people have been ordered to stay in their homes.

The government, with help from the U.N.'s World Food Program, is tasked with delivering food and other services to those people. But there are many "nooks and crannies" in the country that are being missed, Jeanne Kamara, Christian Aid's Sierra Leone representative, said Tuesday....

Read complete story
http://news.yahoo.com/thousands-break-ebola-quarantine-food-124818527.html

BLOOMERG BUSINESS WEEK                                                                                            Nov. 4, 2014
By John Tozzi

...Blocking most travel from Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, where a total of more than 13,000 people have been infected with Ebola since the outbreak began in March, would only modestly reduce how long it takes for the virus to reach new countries, according to mathematical simulations published in the journal Eurosurveillance. For example, stopping 71 percent of travelers from entering other nations in Africa from the three countries in which Ebola is widespread would delay a case from appearing elsewhere on the continent by only 30 days, according to the model. ...

Medical staff wait for passengers arriving from Guinea at the airport in Abidjan on Oct. 20,as Ivory Coast's airline resumed flights to the three west African countries worst-hit by Ebola. Photograph by Issouf Sanogo/AFP via Getty Image

THE GUARDIAN                                    Nov. 4, 2014
By Lisa  O'Carroll

A fresh outbreak of Ebola in a part of Sierra Leone where the virus was thought to have been contained has raised fears of a new, uncontrolled infection chain that could send the death toll soaring.

A Red Cross ambulance team was sent to the remote district of Koinadugu, which had prided itself on being the only area to have kept Ebola at bay, on Tuesday to urgently collect 30 corpses for medical burial.

A family home under quarantine in the Port Loko district of Sierra Leone, where the Ebola outbreak is widespread. Photograph: Michael Duff/AP

The outbreak is a major setback for the Ebola response force and the district, which two weeks ago remained resolved to control the spread of the virus that has officially infected 5,338 people and claimed 1,510 lives in the country.

Detailed discussion of the difficulties in recruiting health workers for West Africa

A health care worker dressed in protective clothing in an Ebola ward last month in Liberia. Organizing workers in West Africa has been a problem. Credit Daniel Berehulak for The New York Times

 NEW YORK TIMES                                Nov. 4, 2014
By LAWRENCE K. ALTMAN, M.D.

WASHINGTON — Hundreds of government and civilian workers of all stripes, and thousands of military personnel, have braved the terrifying prospect of infection to respond to the Ebola emergency in West Africa. And thousands more will be needed for an effort that is expected to go well into 2015.

TORONTO GLOBE AND MAIL                               Nov. 3, 2014
By Kelly Grant
Canada is spending another $30.5-million to fight Ebola, but Ottawa is still not answering pleas from international aid organizations for medical personnel to care for the ill in West Africa.

The bulk of the money announced on Monday – $23.5-million – will be spent on testing a Canadian vaccine and an experimental therapy, ZMapp, both of which were developed largely at the National Microbiology Lab in Winnipeg....

A lab technician at the National Microbiology Lab in Winnipeg, Manitoba November 3, 2014.
(LYLE STAFFORD/THE CANADIAN PRESS)

Canada has so far dispatched two mobile laboratories with rotating teams of scientists to rapidly diagnose or rule out Ebola in Sierra Leone.

But Ottawa has been reluctant to send medical staff to West Africa because the government cannot guarantee they could be airlifted out if they fall ill.

SYDNEY MORNING HERALD                       Nov. 4, 2014
By Peter Hartcher

SYDNEY, Australia--The Abbott government is set to announce that it will assist several hundred Australian expert volunteers travel to one of the Ebola hotspots of Africa to help control the epidemic.

Australian Prime Minister ABBOTT. The government has struck an agreement to manage a British field hospital in Sierra Leone, according to diplomatic sources. Photo: Alex Ellinghausen

An official announcement is expected on Wednesday.

It is the first hands-on help that the government has agreed to give. To now, it has resisted sending personnel and given financial aid only.

The government agreed to contribute to the international effort to halt the epidemic at source only after making evacuation plans for any Australian volunteer who might become infected. Britain has agreed to treat Australian volunteers as if they were their own, officials said.

Any infected Australian worker would be evacuated to Britain for treatment. There is also provision for access to treatment in Germany under a British arrangement.