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

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)

NEW YORK TIMES                                                                                         Nov. 16, 2014

EDITORIAL

Recent gains in controlling the Ebola epidemic in West Africa have been encouraging, but they offer no reason for complacency. In Liberia, the hardest-hit country, the rate of new infections has declined in some areas, and several treatment units have been reporting empty beds for more than a month. But in adjacent Sierra Leone the number of new cases has shot upward, while in Guinea, where the epidemic started, the incidence of new cases appears to have stabilized over all, with growth in some districts and declines in others. All told, Ebola has infected more than 14,000 people in West Africa and killed more than 5,000 of them...

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.

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.

BBC                                                                                                              Nov. 15, 2014

A three-month Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo has ended after claiming at least 49 lives, the country's health minister says.

Health workers are trained in managing Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo

Felix Kabange said no new cases had been registered since 4 October, though he warned against complacency.

The country's outbreak is unrelated to the one in West Africa which has claimed more than 5,000 lives.

Ebola was first detected in 1976 near the Ebola River in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo.

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http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-30068324

IMF to provide additional funds to counter Ebola while NGO's criticizes the G20 statement as lacking  substance
(Two stories, scroll down.)
THE GUARDIAN                                                                                                      Nov. 15, 2014
By Patrick Wintour

BRISBANE, AUSTRALIA --The G20 has welcomed a commitment from the IMF to provide $300m (£190m) in extra funding to help fight Ebola in the three worst-affected west African countries.

The IMF money for Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia will come through “a combination of concessional loans, debt relief, and grants”, according to a statement issued by the world leaders’ summit, being held in Brisbane.

doctorswithoutborders.org

Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) - November 13 at 8:00 PM EST - a special update on the Ebola crisis in West Africa.

MSF has been responding to the current outbreak since March, and the organization's response has grown to include more than 3,000 MSF staff and 600 beds throughout Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea.

With nearly 10,000 cases and 5,000 deaths, this Ebola outbreak is unprecedented. Despite promises of greater assistance from many quarters, MSF is still seeing critical gaps in all aspects of the response—while continuing to see and treat as many patients as possible.

The panel will include MSF aid workers recently returned from assignments in Guinea and Liberia, along with members of MSF headquarters staff. This wide-ranging discussion will include first-hand accounts of working with patients and communities, the ongoing problem of fear and stigma in West Africa and here in the US, and the challenges facing the international community going forward.

cdc.gov - Early Release - November 14, 2014

(CLICK HERE - READ COMPLETE REPORT - ADDITIONAL INFORMATION)

Almea Matanock, MD1, M. Allison Arwady, MD1, Patrick Ayscue, DVM1, Joseph D. Forrester,MD1, Bethany Gaddis, MPH2, Jennifer C. Hunter, DrPH1, Benjamin Monroe, MPH3, Satish K. Pillai, MD4, Christie Reed, MD5, Ilana J. Schafer, DVM6, Moses Massaquoi, MD7, Bernice Dahn, MD8, Kevin M. De Cock, MD9 (Author affiliations at end of text)

WASHINGTON POST                                               Nov. 14, 2004
By Lena H. Sun

WASHINGTON --The number of new Ebola patients has fallen to practically zero in one of Liberia’s hardest-hit areas because aid workers gained the trust of the community so the sick were able to be treated quickly and the dead were buried safely, according to a report released Friday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

                            Number of newly reported Ebola cases in Lofa County, Liberia. (CDC)

That strategy put in place in Lofa County by Doctors Without Borders has been so effective that it could serve “as a model to implement in other affected areas to accelerate control of Ebola,” the report said.

The measures are aimed at reducing fear of everything associated with the disease, from the health-care workers, who looked like astronauts in their protective gear, to the way treatment facilities are designed.

At the Ebola treatment unit in the town of Foya, for example, the facility’s high walls were replaced with transparent fences so people could see what was happening at the center....

In-depth report on the tragedy of how Ebola has destroyed families, partly as a result of members trying to care for each other.

NEW YORK TIMES                                                                                                   Nov. 14, 2014

By NORIMITSU ONISHI

"...This destruction of families is the central tragedy of the epidemic. On a continent with many weak states, the extended family is Africa’s most important institution by far.

"That is especially true in the nations ravaged by the disease — Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea — three of Africa’s poorest and most fragile countries. Ebola’s effects on the region, in undermining the very institution that has kept its societies together, could be long-term and far-reaching...."
 
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AFRICA CENTER FOR STRATEGIC STUDIES, Washington D.C.                        Nov. 12, 2014

Summary of lessons learned from Nigeria and Uganda in containing outbreaks of Ebola

“If a country like Nigeria, hampered by serious security problems, can do this – that is, make significant progress towards interrupting polio transmission, eradicate guinea-worm disease and contain Ebola, all at the same time,” said WHO Director-General Margaret Chan, “any country in the world experiencing an imported case can hold onward transmission to just a handful of cases....”

"Numerous African states have identified and refined the best ways of containing the disease."

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http://africacenter.org/2014/11/no-time-for-a-learning-curve-nigerias-crucial-success-against-ebola/?utm_source=November+14++2014+EN&utm_campaign=11%2F14%2F2014&utm_medium=email

UPDATE:   Additonal information on the WHO discussions of potential Ebola treatments.

(Scroll down)

REUTERS                                                      Nov. 14, 2014

By Tom Miles

GENEVA --The World Health Organization (WHO) has begun assessing more than 120 potential treatments for Ebola patients, it said on Friday, but so far has found none that definitely work, and some that definitely do not....

The apparent effect of ZMapp or other drugs that have been tried may simply be a result of the good care that the patients had received, or the fact that they were well-nourished before they fell sick, or because of other medicines, Friede said.

Medecins Sans Frontieres plans to start trials next month of the drugs brincidofovir, from the U.S. firm Chimerix, and favipiravir, from Japan's Fujifilm, and to see how well blood plasma from Ebola survivors may work in curing those still infected....

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http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/14/us-health-ebola-who-treatments-idUSKCN0IY1CR20141114

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Additional Information:

NPR                                                          Nov. 14, 2014

By Jason Beaubien

"This is not just one case," says Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "It's a cluster." He's talking about the Ebola situation in Mali, where two people have likely died of the disease in Bamako, the capital, and two others have tested positive.

Hundreds more may have been exposed. Officials from the U.N., the World Health Organization, the government of Mali and the CDC are all calling for swift action to keep Mali from descending into the Ebola chaos that has  hit neighboring Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

"This is very deeply concerning," says Frieden. The CDC is sending additional staff to help respond to the outbreak.

This cluster of new cases centers around a private hospital in Bamako. On Oct. 27, an imam from Guinea died at the clinic from what had been diagnosed as kidney failure.

This week a nurse who treated him died of Ebola. Two other people from the clinic — one of them a doctor — have tested positive for the virus. The body of the imam was sent to a mosque for ritual cleansing, then returned to Guinea for a large public funeral before authorities in Mali realized he probably died of Ebola.

Frieden says the risk of this cluster turning into a major outbreak is high.

14 Nov 2014 07:54 aljazeera.com

President Sirleaf says while country has made progress against virus, more still needs to be done to end the epidemic.

Liberia's President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf said that she would not seek an extension to a state of emergency imposed in August over Ebola.

Her announcement on Thursday is a sign of progress in the fight against the disease, which has killed more than 2,800 people in Liberia since breaking out in West Africa in March.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2014/11/liberia-end-ebola-state-emergency-201411145555126551.html

foreignaffairs.house.gov - November 13, 2014 - 10:00am to 1:00pm
2172 Rayburn House Office Building Washington, DC 20515

(CLICK HERE FOR RECORDED VIDEO OF THE HEARING AND LINKS TO FULL STATEMENTS)

Chairman Royce on the hearing: “The Ebola epidemic that has besieged Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone for the past seven months is unprecedented in scale, with devastating consequences for the region. This hearing will examine ongoing international and U.S. efforts to contain this epidemic at its source in West Africa and the Administration’s emergency request for funding. We will hear from the head of the lead agency on the ground, Administrator Rajiv Shah, and from representatives of the defense community, who are playing an integral role in the response. We will also seek information about what other donors are – and are not – doing to address this dire health emergency.”

WITNESSES:

The Honorable Rajiv Shah
Administrator
U.S. Agency for International Development

The Honorable Bisa Williams
Deputy Assistant Secretary
Bureau of African Affairs
U.S. Department of State