Africa

REPORTS Of RESEARCH ON TWO METHODS OF RAPID TESTING FOR EBOLA

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MEDICAL PRESS                                                                                     Dec. 8, 2014

Rutgers researcher David Alland, working with the California biotechnology company Cepheid, has received a grant of nearly $640,000 from the National Institutes of Health to develop a rapid test to diagnose Ebola as well as other viruses that can cause symptoms similar to Ebola.

Researchers will adapt this cartridge, now used worldwide for tuberculosis screenings, to collect and test samples from potential Ebola patients. Credit: John Emerson

Alland, a professor of medicine and associate dean for clinical research at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School and the principal investigator of the project, says health workers would be able to take the test to small villages and other remote locations where the spread of Ebola has been especially rampant and diagnose patients where they live...

VOICE OF AMERICA  by James Butty                             Dec. 8, 2014
FREETOWN --Sierra Leone’s chief medical officer has said he is baffled by the deaths of three doctors from Ebola over a three-day period.  

Dr. Brima Kargbo said a survey conducted jointly with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) found that 70 percent of infections did not come from either the country’s Ebola holding centers or treatment facilities. 

FILE - A health worker prepares to disinfect a van used for burial purposes in Freetown, Sierra Leone.

Kargbo said Dr. Aiah Solomon Konoyeima died Saturday, becoming the 10^th Sierra Leonean physician to die of the virus. 

“We have Dr. Tom Rogers and Dr. [Dauda] Koroma, who were buried yesterday, and also Dr. Konoyeima,” Dr. Kargbo said.

Rogers was a surgeon at the Connaught Hospital, the main referral unit in the capital, Freetown. He was reportedly being treated at the British-run Kerry Town Ebola treatment center. He was said to be responding well to treatment when his condition deteriorated dramatically on Friday.

Koroma died at the Hastings Treatment Center, which is run entirely by local Sierra Leone medics.

THE TORONTO GLOBE AND MAIL by Kelly Grant                Dec.7, 2014

When the World Health Organization declared Nigeria officially Ebola-free in October, most of the fanfare centred on how Africa’s most populous country had managed to keep the virus from spreading.

But there was another, less heralded aspect of Nigeria’s success story that a Canadian doctor and her colleagues wanted to explore in more depth: How had 12 of Nigeria’s 20 Ebola patients beaten the virus?

The hospitals in Nigeria weren’t maybe to the standards of a Western hospital in terms of equipment, but the staff were phenomenal. They managed to get a very high survival rate,” said Eilish Cleary, a New Brunswick chief medical officer of health who travelled to Nigeria to provide epidemiological support to the World Health Organization during the outbreak. “Case fatality rate for Ebola can be up to 70 to 90 per cent. In Nigeria, it was 40 per cent.”

Dr. Cleary conducted detailed, videotaped interviews with six of the Nigerian patients to learn more about their treatment and recovery. The key to their survival seemed to be guzzling a stunning amount of water with oral rehydration solution [ORS] to fend off the cascade of internal failures typically caused by the virus.

FREETOWN, Sierra Leone --Another Sierra Leonean doctor has died from Ebola, the 10th to succumb to the disease, a health official said Sunday.

Dr. Aiah Solomon Konoyeima died Saturday, according to Chief Medical Officer Dr. Brima Kargbo. His death came a day after two other doctors died from Ebola, emphasizing the tremendous toll the disease has taken on health care workers.

Konoyeima worked at a children's hospital in the capital and tested positive for Ebola about two weeks ago. He was treated at the Hastings Ebola Treatment Center, which is staffed exclusively by Sierra Leonean medical personnel, as compared to many other treatment units, which are run by international organizations or employ some foreign staff.

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http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/10th-sierra-leonean-doctor-dies-ebola-27424222