Guinea

Fearing Ebola surge, Mali widens virus watch to 440 people

Mon, 2014-11-17 20:02 — mike kraft

AFP Nov.17,2014

Fearful of a surge of Ebola cases, Mali has placed more than 440 people under surveillance..

Officials in Mali met to consider increasing security at its border following two confirmed cases of Ebola due to infection in neighboring Guinea.

Police officers stand in front of the quarantined Pasteur clinic in Bamako on November 12, 2014 ©Habibou Kouyate (AFP/File)

Mali has been scrambling to prevent a minor outbreak from turning into a major crisis after the deaths of a Guinean imam and the Malian nurse who treated him in the capital Bamako.

"The number of contacts followed by health services amounts to 442. They have all been placed under observation for health control," Samba Sow, of the Ebola emergency operations center, said in a statement late Sunday.

Teams of investigators have been tracking health workers and scouring Bamako and the imam's village of Kouremale, which straddles the Mali-Guinea border, for people who could have been exposed.

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Ambassador John Hoover: Ebola a challenge for U.S. diplomatic team in Sierra Leone

Mon, 2014-11-17 17:30 — mike kraft

WASHINGTON POST Nov. 17, 2014

By Joel Achenbach

John Hoover, the U.S amabassador to Sierre Leone, .... noted that the response to the epidemic in Sierra Leone poses a management challenge, and he sees a need to “sharpen coordination.”

Ambassador John Hoover. (Courtesy of State Department)

“There are a great deal of players on the ground,” Hoover said in an interview from Freetown. “Lots of people doing lots of things. It’s a question of sharpening that coordination so that we’re not missing gaps and not overlapping and tripping over one another.”

He sees progress in that battle in the eastern part of Sierra Leone, but the epidemic is flaring in the western part of the country. Sierra Leone is the country with the highest infection rate, according to the World Health Organization’s most recent update. About 70 employees of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have deployed to Sierra Leone to fight Ebola. The U.S. military has focused on neighboring Liberia; Britain has a leading role in Sierra Leone....

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Fear of Ebola Opens Wary Villages to Outsiders in Guinea

Mon, 2014-11-17 16:14 — mike kraft

In-depth description of the Ebola situation in remote villages in Guinea

A man with symptoms of Ebola walked to the center of Dandano after the chief of the village ordered the removal of sick people from homes. “Bring out your sick!” the chief shouted at the crowd, shaking his fist and warning of illness and death for the whole village if they did not obey. Samuel Aranda for The New York Times

NEW YORK TIMES Nov. 17, 2014
By Adam Nossiter

DANDANO, Guinea--

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A doctor’s mistaken Ebola test: ‘We were celebrating. . . . Then everything fell apart’

Mon, 2014-11-17 15:34 — mike kraft

WASHINGTON POST Nov. 17, 2014

By Kevin Sieff

...The doctors who tended to him in Freetown appeared to be unaware that an early Ebola test — taken within the first three days of the illness — is often inconclusive. In a country where information about the disease continues to move slowly, it was another potentially tragic mistake.

In many cases, a negative test at that stage means nothing because “there aren’t enough copies of the virus in the blood for the test to pick up,” said Ermias Belay, the head of the CDC’s Ebola response team in Sierra Leone.

But M’Briwa and others treated the test as definitive, even though Salia remained feverish and weak. The first results were delivered by a team of Chinese lab technicians who had opened a nearby hospital. (The technicians declined Sunday to speak about Salia’s case.)...

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/a-doctors-mistaken-ebola-test-we-were-celebrating--then-everything-fell-apart/2014/11/16/946a84da-6dd5-11e4-a2c2-478179fd0489_story.html

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In Ebola fight, private foundations provide critical financial aid

Mon, 2014-11-17 12:53 — mike kraft

Description of the way the CDC Foundation, the Allen Foundation and large donors are playing an important role in countering Ebola.

THE WASHINGTON POST Nov. 17, 2014
By Ariana Eunjung Cha

"...The unpredictable nature of the Ebola virus has made the government’s partnerships with private donors critically important in the crisis response. Working outside the politically charged federal appropriations process and the sometimes sluggish bureaucracy, foundations and private individuals have been able to offer much-needed relief for those on the front lines...."

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/in-ebola-fight-private-foundations-provide-critical-financial-aid/2014/11/16/b57ec57e-6109-11e4-9f3a-7e28799e0549_story.html

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China, Russia Send Ebola Facilities To West Africa

Sun, 2014-11-16 23:11 — mike kraft

RADIO FREE EUROPE/RADIO LIBERTY Nov. 16, 2014

(Two stories, scroll down)

November 16, 2014

Russia and China are providing facilities to treat people suffering from the deadly Ebola virus in West Africa.

The Chinese Embassy in Liberia said on November 16 that 160 Chinese health-care workers have arrived to staff a $41 million Ebola treatment unit in the country hardest-hit in an outbreak that has killed more than 5,100 people this year.

It said many of the doctors, epidemiologists and nurses who will work at the facility previously helped tackle the SARS epidemic in Asia.

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http://www.rferl.org/content/russia-china-ebola-aid-west-africa/26694812.html
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Russia airlifts field hospital

INTERFAX Nov. 16, 2014
http://rbth.com/news/2014/11/16/russia_airlifts_field_hospital_to_guinea_to_fight_ebola_41442.html

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New Ebola Patient in Nebraska in Critical Condition

Sun, 2014-11-16 22:38 — mike kraft

Martin Salia Treated After Being Transported From Sierra Leone

WALL STREET JOURNAL Nov. 16, 2014 ByBetsy McKay and Scott Calvert

A surgeon under treatment for Ebola in Omaha, Neb., is in extremely critical condition, the hospital said early Sunday.

Martin Salia was admitted on Saturday to the Nebraska Medical Center’s biocontainment unit after a medical evacuation from Freetown, Sierra Leone.

Dr. Martin Salia poses for a photo in Freetown, Sierra Leone, in April. Associated Press

“This is an hour-by-hour situation,” said Philip Smith, medical director of the biocontainment unit and a professor of infectious diseases at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, the hospital’s academic partner. “He is extremely ill. We have multiple highly-trained specialists who are experts in their fields targeting his most serious medical issues.”

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Dr. David Nabarro (UN Special Envoy on Ebola) on Ebola - General Assembly, Informal Meeting, 69th Session (13 November 2014)

Sun, 2014-11-16 20:54 — Kathy Gilbeaux

webtv.un.org

13 Nov 2014 - Statement by Dr. David Nabarro, UN Special Envoy on Ebola at the General Assembly Informal meeting of the plenary briefing on the Ebola virus outbreak.

(CLICK HERE - VIDEO - Statement by Dr. David Nabarro, UN Special Envoy on Ebola)

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U.N. scraps clinic contract as Ebola exposes Mali readiness gaps

Sun, 2014-11-16 19:23 — mike kraft

REUTERS Nov. 16, 2014
By David Lewis

DAKAR - The United Nations mission in Mali has canceled plans to renew a contract with a private clinic providing care to its peacekeepers after a case of Ebola was missed and spread from there.

Children watch as a health worker sprays disinfectant outside a mosque in Bamako, Mali November 14, 2014.Credit: Reuters/Joe Penney

This second Ebola alarm in Mali, coming just as it seemed to have contained its first case last month, raised doubts about the country's ability to protect itself from the epidemic ...

The U.N. mission in Mali, whose peacekeepers are helping to protect the nation against Islamist rebels, reversed on Saturday a decision taken earlier in the week to renew the contract with the Pasteur Clinic in Bamako to care for sick or injured troops.

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