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UN Ebola trust fund gets $100,000, almost $1 bln needed

Fri, 2014-10-17 22:15 — mike kraft

REUTERS                                 Oct. 17,2014

By Michelle Nichols and Lesley Wroughton

UNITED NATIONS/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A United Nations trust fund seeking nearly $1 billion for rapid, flexible funding of the most urgent needs to fight Ebola in West Africa has received a deposit of just $100,000 nearly a month after it was set up.

The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said on Sept. 16 that $988 million is needed to tackle the deadly hemorrhagic fever over the next six months. Since then $365 million has been committed to stop Ebola in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, which have been hit hardest by the epidemic.

Nearly all that money was donated directly to U.N. agencies and nonprofits working in West Africa with just $100,000 paid by Colombia into the trust fund set up by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, according to U.N. records.

Some diplomats and officials said many donors had made commitments to U.N. agencies before the trust fund was established. Others said donors were already overstretched and suggested they might be wary of how money put into the trust fund would be spent.

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Senegal is now Ebola-free, according to the WHO

Fri, 2014-10-17 21:54 — mike kraft

THE WASHINGTON POST                  Oct. 17, 2014
By Abby Ohlheiser

The World Health Organization said on Friday that the Ebola outbreak in Senegal is officially over.

 

Senegalese border police check papers after an aircraft carrying U.N. humanitarian personnel landed near Dakar on Sept. 27. (Seyl Lou/AFP/Getty Images)

Senegal's first and only confirmed Ebola patient traveled to the country by road from Guinea in August, bringing the virus with him. Officials confirmed his Ebola diagnosis on Aug. 29. But samples from this index patient tested negative for Ebola on Sept. 5, "indicating that he had recovered from Ebola virus disease," the WHO said in a news release.

By Sept. 18, the patient was fully recovered and returned to Guinea.

According to the WHO, Senegal officials kept track of 74 close contacts of the patient -- people who were at risk of contracting Ebola themselves. None of those contacts showed symptoms or tested positive for the disease.

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IAEA to provide nuclear detection technology to help diagnose Ebola in West Africa

Fri, 2014-10-17 21:01 — mike kraft

HOMELAND SECURITY TODAY                                Oct. 17, 2014

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said it would provide specialized diagnostic equipment to help Sierra Leone in its efforts to combat the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) outbreak. Later, the support is planned to be extended to Liberia and Guinea. The support is in line with a UN Security Council appeal and responds to a request from Sierra Leone. The IAEA assistance will supplement the country’s ability to diagnose EVD quickly using a diagnostic technology known as Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR). RT-PCR is a nuclear-derived technology which allows EVD to be detected within a few hours, while other methods require growing on a cell culture for several days before a diagnosis is determined.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said it would provide specialized diagnostic equipment to help Sierra Leone in its efforts to combat the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) outbreak, IAEA director General Yukiya Amano announced Tuesday. Later, the support is planned to be extended to Liberia and Guinea.

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Ebola: WHO lists 15 priority countries

Fri, 2014-10-17 20:49 — mike kraft

WHO says it is focusing on 15 African countries to stop spread of disease, as EU reviews its screening policies.

 AL JAZEERA                                               Oct. 17, 2014

The World Health Organizaton  (WHO) has said it is focusing its attention on 15 countries to prevent the spread of Ebola, as the EU announced a review of its entry policies and the disease was reported in the last untouched area of Sierra Leone.

Dr Isabelle Nuttall, the WHO's global director, said on Thursday that cases were doubling every four weeks and that health officials were trying to prevent the disease spreading from Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, the worst-hit nations, to neighbouring countries and those with a strong travel and trade relationship.

Focus countries
Ivory Coast, Guinea Bissau, Mali, Senegal, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, CAR, DR Congo, Gambia, Ghana, Mauritania, Nigeria, South Sudan and Togo.

 

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Ebola outbreak: WHO admits it botched early attempt to stop disease

Fri, 2014-10-17 17:49 — mike kraft

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS                                         Oct. 17, 2014

The World Health Organization has admitted that it botched attempts to stop the now-spiraling Ebola outbreak in West Africa, blaming factors including incompetent staff and a lack of information.

"Nearly everyone involved in the outbreak response failed to see some fairly plain writing on the wall," WHO said in a draft internal document obtained by The Associated Press, noting that experts should have realized that traditional containment methods wouldn't work in a region with porous borders and broken health systems.

"It's the regional office in Africa that's the frontline," said Dr. Peter Piot, co-discoverer of the Ebola virus. "And they didn't do anything. That office is really not competent." (Denis Balibouse/Reuters)

The UN health agency acknowledged that, at times, even its own bureaucracy was a problem. It noted that the heads of WHO country offices in Africa are "politically motivated appointments" made by the WHO regional director for Africa, Dr. Luis Sambo, who does not answer to the agency's chief in Geneva, Dr. Margaret Chan.

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Obama Authorizes National Guard To Help Fight Ebola

Fri, 2014-10-17 17:27 — mike kraft

BUSINESS INSIDER                                                           Oct. 17, 2014

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama authorized the use of American military reservists on Thursday to support humanitarian aid efforts against the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.

In a letter to leaders of the US Congress, Obama said an unspecified number of reservists will be used to help activate duty personnel in support of the Ebola mission in West Africa.

It could include personnel such as engineers, logistics staff, and communications specialists. No individuals or units has been identified yet for the call-up.

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http://www.businessinsider.com/r-obama-authorizes-military-reservists-for-ebola-mission-in-africa-2014-10?utm_content=bufferf94f5&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer

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Nurse Nina Pham To Be Transferred To NIH For Ebola Treatment

Thu, 2014-10-16 18:56 — mike kraft

NPR                           Oct. 16, 2014

WASHINGTON --A top government health official confirms that Nina Pham, the 26-year-old nurse who became infected with Ebola after treating a patient with the disease at a Dallas hospital, will be transferred to a high-level containment facility at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institutes of Health National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, said in testimony before a House committee that Pham will be admitted to the NIH tonight.

There she will will be given "state of the art care" in a high-level containment facility, he says.

Officials have said Pham's condition is good. Another nurse, Amber Vinson, who also cared for index patient Thomas Eric Duncan has also contracted the disease. Duncan died from the disease last week.

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http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/10/16/356594638/house-panel-hearing-to-examine-public-health-response-to-ebola-outbreak

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France announces Ebola screenings at Paris airport

Thu, 2014-10-16 14:10 — mike kraft

FRANCE 4 INTERNATIONAL NEWS          OCT. 16, 2014

PARIS French health officials tday said screening measures for Ebola among passengers arriving from Guinea would start Saturday at Charles de Gualle airport in Paris.

 France became the fourth country –after Britain, the United States and Canada–to announce screening checks for the virus at its main international airport, as the United Nations warned Ebola was outpacing efforts to combat the epidemic.

The announcement came as Spanish authorities said they had isolated an Air France plane at Madrid airport and activated emergency health procedures after one of the passengers was reported to have a fever and shivers in what is being treated as a suspected Ebola case, officials said Thursday.

... French President François Hollande held a video conference Wednesday with his US counterpart Barack Obama, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, British Prime Minister David Cameron and Italian premier Matteo Renzi to discuss their response to the virus.

EU health ministers are meeting in Brussels on Thursday to discuss measures to deal with the epidemic....

See full story

http://www.france24.com/en/20141016-ebola-france-airport-screening-eu-health/

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Lax U.S. Guidelines on Ebola Led to Poor Hospital Training, Experts Say

Thu, 2014-10-16 13:35 — mike kraft

NEW YORK TIMES                                                                  Oct 15, 2014
By

 Many American hospitals have improperly trained their staffs to deal with Ebola patients because they were following federal guidelines that were too lax, infection control experts said on Wednesday.

A dummy depicting an Ebola patient was part of a C.D.C. training session for health care workers Wednesday in Anniston, Ala. Erik S. Lesser/European Pressphoto Agency

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Obama Urges ‘Aggressive’ Monitoring of Ebola Threat in U.S.

Wed, 2014-10-15 23:20 — mike kraft

NEW YORK TIMES                            OCT. 15, 2014
By                               

President Obamaon Wednesday directed his aides to monitor the spread of Ebola in the United States “in a much more aggressive way,” but said the American people should remain confident in the government’s ability to prevent a widespread outbreak of the deadly disease.

After a two-hour meeting of cabinet-level officials who are in charge of the government’s response to the virus, Mr. Obama promised that a review of the recent Ebola cases in Dallas would determine what went wrong that allowed two nurses to be infected.

With a video link to Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, the head of the Centers for Disease Control, the president said he had ordered health officials to determine, “How we are going to make sure that something like this isn’t repeated.”

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