THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION Study  by James Jay Carafano, Ph.D., Charlotte Florance and Daniel J Kaniewski 

 April 24, 2015

Executive Summary

 This report presents the observations, findings, and recommendations of a task force formed to examine the global response and the response of the U.S. government (USG) to the 2013–2014 Ebola outbreak and global transmission. Specifically, the task force sought to derive lessons learned and insights from the USG response to the Ebola outbreak both internationally and domestically with the goal of crafting recommendations to improve the government’s ability to respond to natural disasters, acts of bioterrorism, and various public health crises related to significant outbreaks, epidemics, and pandemics....

The report’s major recommendations include:

UPDATE with testimony to Congress.

Obama says Ebola-fighting goal is to prevent any new cases

(Scroll down for earlier story and link to Congressional testimony by administration officials)

ASSOCIATED PRESS       by Jim Kuhnhenn                                              APRIL 15.                                    

WASHINGTON — Citing significant gains in fighting the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, President Obama declared Wednesday that the international goal now is to prevent any new cases of the deadly virus in the afflicted region....

President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, back right, meets with, from left, Sierra Leone President Ernest Bai Koroma, Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, and Guinean President Alpha Condé, in the Cabinet Room of the White House in Washington, Wednesday, April 15, 2015, to discuss progress made in the international Ebola response. (Manuel Balce Ceneta/Associated Press)

REUTERS by Josephus Olu-Mammah and Umaru Fofana                                                              March 28, 2015
FREETOWN, Sierra Leone --Police fired tear gas at an angry crowd in Sierra Leone on Saturday after they threw stones at officials during a three-day national lockdown that the government hopes will accelerate the end of the Ebola epidemic, residents said.

Sierra Leone has reported nearly 12,000 Ebola cases and more than 3,000 deaths since the worst epidemic in history was detected in neighbouring Guinea a year ago. New cases have fallen sharply since a peak of more than 500 a week in December but the government says the lockdown, its second, is necessary to identify the last cases and to buck a worrying trend towards complacency.

Officials have ordered the six million residents to stay inside on pain of arrest as hundreds of health official go door-to-door looking for hidden patients and educating residents about the haemorrhagic fever.

Hundreds of people left their homes in the Devil Hole neighbourhood outside the capital to gather at a food collection point. Some residents complained they had not received food and fighting broke out until police arrived to scatter the crowd.

NEW YORK TIMES  by Rick Gladstone                                                                   March 12, 2015 

The president of Liberia acknowledged on Wednesday that she had erred in ordering a tough security crackdown at the height of the Ebola crisis last year, describing the deadly virus as an “unknown enemy” that had frightened her.

Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf during a video address last Deceber to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee