Guinea

REUTERS                                                                                                                    Dec. 9, 2014

CHICAGO -- The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on Tuesday offered liability protections to drugmakers rushing to develop Ebola vaccines and urged other countries to follow suit.

Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Sylvia Burwell made the announcement as part of the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness (PREP) Act in a move aimed at encouraging the development and availability of experimental Ebola vaccines.

The declaration provides immunity under U.S. law against legal claims related to the manufacturing, testing, development, distribution, and administration of three vaccines for the Ebola virus. However, it does not provide immunity for a claim brought in a court outside the United States...

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http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/12/09/us-health-ebola-vaccine-idUSKBN0JN1S920141209

THE GUARDIAN     by Sarah Bosley                                                                           Dec. 9, 2014                          FREETOWN --  Sierra Leone has its first-ever call centre. The number to reach it is 117. You can call to report that your mother is sick or your brother is dead. It is a call nobody wants to make, but posters and newspapers and radio broadcasts urge you to pick up the phone – for your own sake and your family’s, but beyond that, for the sake of everybody else you know and don’t know.

Burials of Ebola victims recorded week-by-week. Photograph: Sarah Boseley

It’s a tough one, because that call leads to quarantined homes and holding centres for people with suspected Ebola, where people who do have the virus are sharing rooms with those who eventually turn out to have something else. There’s a real possibility you could go in with malaria and pick up Ebola. It is in the public interest that you make that call. But it is hardly surprising if some people hesitate and others run and hide

A woman walks pass an Ebola virus awareness campaign poster in Monrovia, December 8, 2014. 
Credit: Reuters/James Giahyue

reuters.com - by Stephanie Nebehay - December 9, 2014

* UN envoy Nabarro focusing on two "troublesome areas"

* Ebola spreading in western Sierra Leone, forests of Guinea

* Foreign health workers and local communities key to response (adds details, quotes)

(Reuters) - More foreign health workers are needed to help tackle the Ebola epidemic, which is spreading quickly in western Sierra Leone and deep in the forested interior of Guinea, a senior U.N. official said on Tuesday.

The death toll from the Ebola outbreak in West Africa has risen to 6,331 in the three worst hit countries, with Sierra Leone overtaking Liberia as the country with the highest number of cases, the World Health Organization says.

"We know the outbreak is still flaming strongly in western Sierra Leone and some parts of the interior of Guinea. We can't rest, we have to still push on," said David Nabarro, the U.N. Special Envoy on Ebola.

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BBC                                                             Dec. 8, 2014

Sierra Leone has overtaken neighbouring Liberia as the country with the highest number of Ebola cases, the latest World Health Organization figures suggest.

Its latest estimate of the cumulative number of cases since the start of the outbreak in March now stands at 7,780 in Sierra Leone and 7,719 in Liberia.

In Guinea, the figure is 2,283. The virus has killed more than 6,300 people in the three West African countries. Just over half the reported deaths have been in Liberia, the WHO says.

On Monday, the organisation said its 60-day goals for tackling Ebola - treating 70% of patients and burying 70% of victims by 1 December - had been largely met in the three countries at the centre of the outbreak.

However it also said that the treatment figure in Sierra Leone had fallen below the mark.

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http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-30387906