Sierra Leone

After Slow Ebola Response, WHO Seeks to Avoid Repeat

Tue, 2014-12-30 12:13 — mike kraft

Health Body to Consider Rapid-Response Teams, Other Changes

WALL STREET JOURNAL by Betsy McKay in Atlanta and Peter Wonacott in Freetown, Sierra Leone Dec. 30, 2014

The tepid initial response to West Africa’s Ebola outbreak exposed holes in the global health system so gaping it has prompted the World Health Organization to consider steps to prevent a repeat, including emergency-response teams and a fund for public-health crises.

In a special session next month in Geneva, the WHO’s executive board is expected to consider those and other recommendations by its member countries—including a proposal that it commission an outside review of its Ebola response—according to a document reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

The plan comes as global health officials are struggling with a knotty question: how the WHO could have moved at a slow pace initially despite lessons learned more than a decade ago from another deadly outbreak, of SARS.

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http://www.wsj.com/articles/after-slow-ebola-response-who-seeks-to-avoid-repeat-1419892712

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How Ebola Roared Back

Mon, 2014-12-29 23:51 — mike kraft

In-depth report and analysis of the evolution of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa

By KEVIN SACK, SHERI FINK, PAM BELLUCK and ADAM NOSSITER DEC. 29, 2014

For a fleeting moment last spring, the epidemic sweeping West Africa might have been stopped. But the opportunity to control the virus, which has now caused more than 7,800 deaths, was lost....

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Ebola Cases Reach Over 20,000

Mon, 2014-12-29 20:51 — mike kraft

TIME MAGAZINE by Alexandra Sifferlin Dec. 29, 2014

Cases of Ebola in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea have reached over 20,000.

Health workers push a gurney with a dead body at a Red Cross facility in the town of Koidu, Kono district Eastern Sierra Leone on Dec. 19, 2014. Baz Ratner—Reuters

New numbers released from the World Health Organization (WHO) on Monday show Ebola has infected 20,081 people and killed 7,842. That’s nearly 400 new cases of the disease in just four days....

Sierra Leone has passed Liberia in number of cases.

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http://time.com/3648629/ebola-cases-reach-over-20000/

Read complete WHO report and statistics.
http://apps.who.int/gho/data/view.ebola-sitrep.ebola-summary-20141229?lang=en

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Ebola’s lessons, painfully learned at great cost in dollars and human lives

Mon, 2014-12-29 15:49 — mike kraft

In-Depth report on lessons to be learned from the Ebola crisis

THE WASHINGTON POST by By Lena H. Sun, Brady Dennis and Joel Achenbach Dec. 29, 2014

A year after it began, the Ebola epidemic in West Africa continues to be unpredictable, forcing governments and aid groups to improvise strategies as they chase a virus that is unencumbered by borders or bureaucracy.

The people fighting Ebola are coming up with lists of lessons learned — not only for the current battle, which has killed more than 7,500 people and is far from over, but also for future outbreaks of deadly contagions.

Alice Jallabah, head of a bushmeat seller group, holds dried bushmeat in Monrovia. (Zoom Dosso/AFP/Getty Images)

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Ebola: How does it compare?

Mon, 2014-12-29 15:23 — mike kraft

Ebola death rate compared to other diseases

BBC by James Gallagher Health editor, BBC News website Dec. 27, 2014

The world has witnessed the largest-ever epidemic of Ebola claim thousands of lives in West Africa in 2014....

Outbreaks such as Ebola have an ability to spread fear around the world, often through the prism of sensationalist media reporting.

So how does Ebola actually compare to previous outbreaks and other diseases? And while the world focuses on Ebola, are we guilty of ignoring much bigger killers?

Analysing the death rates from different viruses shows Ebola is certainly one of the most deadly infections ever encountered.
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http://www.bbc.com/news/health-29953765

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Liberia Reports Dozens of New Ebola Cases on Border

Mon, 2014-12-29 14:59 — mike kraft

ASSOCIATED PRESS by JONATHAN PAYE-LAYLEH Dec. 29, 2014

MONROVIA -- Dozens of new Ebola cases have erupted in Liberia, near the border with Sierra Leone, Liberian health officials warned Monday, marking a setback amid recent improvements.

The flare-up is due to a number of factors including people going in and out of Liberia and traditional practices such as the washing of bodies, said Liberia's Assistant Health Minister Tolbert Nyenswah.

Forty-nine cases were reported in in western Grand Cape Mount County between December 1 and 25, Nyenswah told state radio.

"In a very small population, an increase in the number of (Ebola) cases raises high level of concerns that we need to take very seriously as people of Liberia and people of Grand Cape Mount in particular," he said.

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http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/liberia-reports-dozens-ebola-cases-border-27873523

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Ebola in West Africa hampering fight against malaria

Mon, 2014-12-29 02:05 — mike kraft

ASSOCIATED PRESS by By Michelle Faul Dec. 29, 2014

GUECKEDOU, Guinea – West Africa’s fight to contain Ebola has hampered the campaign against malaria, a preventable and treatable disease that is claiming many thousands more lives than the dreaded virus.

Woman in the Guinean village of Meliandou, above, near the area considered to be Ebola's ground zero. The fight against Ebola in West Africa is holding back efforts to prevent and treat malaria. Jerome Delay / AP Photo

In Gueckedou, near the village where Ebola first started killing people in Guinea’s tropical southern forests a year ago, doctors say they have had to stop pricking fingers to do blood tests for malaria.

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Year in Review: Efforts to stop Ebola are gaining ground, but the fight isn't won

Sun, 2014-12-28 15:56 — mike kraft

Ebola: Year in Review of 2014 developments
LOS ANGELES TIMES by Alexandra Zavis Dec. 28, 2014

...As 2015 approaches, there is reason to hope that what at first was a plodding international response is finally catching up with the virus. In Liberia, where just a few months ago bodies were left in the streets for days and patients were turned away from treatment facilities because there weren't enough beds or personnel, the number of cases has been dropping rapidly. There are also signs that the disease may be slowing in Sierra Leone, which has overtaken Liberia as the country with the biggest caseload.

Liberian children are encouraged to wash their hands at the Women in Peace Building Program in Monrovia. Ahmed Jallanzo / European Pressphoto Agency.

...Although the tactics being used have stemmed smaller Ebola outbreaks, some experts are beginning to question whether this one has spread too far to be fully contained without a vaccine or cure.

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Ebola death toll rises to 7,588 globally, WHO says

Fri, 2014-12-26 20:29 — mike kraft

AFP Dec. 26, 2014

The global death toll from Ebola has risen to 7,588 out of 19,497 confirmed cases recorded in the year-old epidemic raging in West Africa, the World Health Organization (WHO) says.

The virus is still spreading intensely in Sierra Leone, especially in the north and west, with 315 new confirmed cases reported in the former British colony in the week to December 21, it said. These included 115 cases in the capital Freetown.

"The neighbouring district of Port Loko experienced a surge in new cases, reporting 92 confirmed cases compared with 56 the previous week," the WHO said.

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http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/ebola-death-toll-rises-to-7-588-globally-who-says-1.2884197

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http://www.who.int/csr/disease/ebola/situation-reports/en/

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Next in Ebola Plan: UN Teams to Study Lines of Transmission

Fri, 2014-12-26 14:17 — mike kraft

REUTERS Dec. 24, 2014

ACCRA—Medical detective work will be the next big phase in the fight against Ebola when the United Nations deploys hundreds of health workers to identify chains of infection as the virus passes from person to person, top U.N. health workers said.
Health workers bury the body of a suspected Ebola victim at a cemetery in Freetown, Dec. 21, 2014.

The health teams will travel to each district and region of Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, the three countries at the center of the epidemic, to trace who each infected person has potentially contacted.

The effort will run in parallel with measures to minimize the spread of infection, such as treating all Ebola patients in specialized centers and burying all victims safely.

But Phase Two of the plan is to contain the virus by understanding its lines of transmission, said World Health Organization Director-General Margaret Chan.

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