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EBOLA EPIDEMIOLOGY: Strategies for containing Ebola in West Africa

SCIENCE MAGAZINE                             Oct. 30, 2014

A study to assess the effectiveness of containment strategies, using a stochastic model of Ebola transmission between and within the general community, hospitals, and funerals, calibrated to incidence data from Liberia.

ABSTRACT

The ongoing Ebola outbreak poses an alarming risk to the countries of West Africa and beyond. To assess the effectiveness of containment strategies, we developed a stochastic model of Ebola transmission between and within the general community, hospitals, and funerals, calibrated to incidence data from Liberia. We find that a combined approach of case isolation, contact tracing with quarantine and sanitary funeral practices must be implemented with utmost urgency in order to reverse the growth of the outbreak. Under status quo intervention, our projections indicate that the Ebola outbreak will continue to spread, generating a predicted 224 (95% CI: 134 – 358) cases daily in Liberia alone by December, highlighting the need for swift application of multifaceted control interventions.

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Home> International Liberia Opens 1 of Largest Ebola Treatment Centers

 
In this photo taken Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2014, aid is offloaded to be used in the fight of the Ebola virus, as it arrives by air from America at the airport in Conakry, Guinea. No African countries are on the United Nations list of contributors to fight the Ebola epidemic, and angry legislators from Sierra Leone and Liberia got up to protest at a session on peace and security at the Pan-African Parliament in South Africa last "They said as far as they are concerned, nobody wants to talk about Ebola," said Jeggan Grey-Johnson, a governance expert. (AP Photo/ Youssouf Bah)

REUTERS                                                                                   Oct. 31, 2014
ByJonathan Paye-Layleh

MONROVIA, Liberia —Remembering those who have died in the world's deadliest Ebola outbreak, Liberia's president opened one of the country's largest Ebola treatment centers in Monrovia on Friday amid hopes that the disease is finally on the decline in this West African country.

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US Envoy: 'Alarming Gaps' Remain in Fighting Ebola

VOICE OF AMERICA                                                              Oct. 31, 2014

By Al Pessin

The international community must do more to fill "alarming gaps" in the fight against the Ebola epidemic, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power said to an audience in Brussels as she headed home from a visit to the three hardest-hit countries in West Africa.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power speaks during a lecture regarding the Ebola virus at the Residence Palace in Brussels, Oct. 30, 2014.

Power said the initial international response is making a difference, and has created what she called “the first tangible signs that the virus can and will be beaten.”

But, she said, many countries have not done enough, and urged them to not assume the job is done...

She called for more flexible planning, faster decision-making, and for support for the affected countries as they try to rebuild and expand their health care systems. Those systems were inadequate before the epidemic and have now been devastated by the deaths of hundreds of doctors and nurses.

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Africans Worst Responders in Ebola Crisis

ASSOCIATED PRESS                         Oct. 31, 2014
By MICHELLE FAUL
JOHANNESBURG-With few exceptions, African governments and institutions are offering only marginal support as the continent faces its most deadly threat in years, once again depending on the international community to save them.

Ebola "caught us by surprise," the chairwoman of the 53-nation African Union, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, said this week at a meeting with the U.N. secretary-general and the World Bank president in Ethiopia.

"With the wisdom of hindsight, our responses at all levels - continental, global and national - were slow, and often knee-jerk reactions that did not always help," she said.

She is a medical doctor from South Africa, where mining magnate Patrice Motsepe Tuesday announced he has donated $1 million to the fight against Ebola in Guinea, where the outbreak started.

Read complete story
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/africans-worst-responders-ebola-crisis-26596929

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World Bank funding for Ebola fight hits $500 million

REUTERS                                                                                          Oct. 30, 2014

(GENEVA)- The World Bank pledged $100 million on Thursday to help recruit more foreign health workers in the fight against Ebola, taking its funding for the three worst-hit countries to more than half a billion dollars over the past three months.

 

People sit near a banner reading ''The Ministry of Agriculture, Dixinn Commune, Together to defeat Ebola,'' in Conakry, Guinea October 26, 2014.Credit: Reuters/Michelle Nichols

The latest tranche will go towards setting up a coordination hub to recruit, train and deploy qualified foreign health workers and support the three countries' efforts to isolate Ebola patients and bury the dead safely, the bank said.

Read complete story

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/30/us-health-ebola-worldbank-idUSKBN0IJ1NV20141030

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Assessing the Science of Ebola Transmission

THREE ARTICLES DESCRIBING DETAILS OF THE EBOLA VIRUS AND OTHER VIRUSES.
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Advances in microscopy have allowed scientists like Sriram Subramaniam and colleagues at the National Cancer Institute to look at the workings of tiny viruses. In this case, microscopy was used to illustrate the complex process in which human cells infected with HIV-1, green and blue, are linked to uninfected cells. Credit Illustration by Donald Bliss/N.I.H, from The Journal of Virology/American Society for Microbiology

The research on how the virus spreads is not as ambiguous as some have made it seem

THE ATLANTIC                                                                                                          Oct. 28, 2014

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State Department plans to bring foreign Ebola patients to U.S.

LEAKED MEMO SAYS STATE DEPARTMENT CONSIDERING TREATING NON-AMERICAN HEALTH WORKERS BUT AN OFFICIAL SAYS DISCUSSIONS WERE SHELVED

THE WASHINGTON TIMES                         Oct. 29, 2014
By Stephen Dinan- The Washington Times - Tuesday, October 28, 2014

The State Department has quietly made plans to bring Ebola-infected doctors and medical aides to the U.S. for treatment, according to an internal department document that argued the only way to get other countries to send medical teams to West Africa is to promise that the U.S. will be the world’s medical backstop.

Some countries “are implicitly or explicitly waiting for medevac assurances” before they will agree to send their own medical teams to join U.S. and U.N. aid workers on the ground, the State Department argues in the undated four-page memo, which was reviewed by The Washington Times.... (Editor's note: Australia and Canada are among the countries.)

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The whole world relies on this one U.S. company to fly Ebola patients

WASHINGTON POST                          Oct 28, 2014
By Josh Hicks
When it comes to transporting Ebola victims by air, the world relies on just one small U.S. company.


Phoenix Air has been using the isolation system below this aircraft to transport Ebola patients. (EPA/BRANDEN CAMP)

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Israeli firm ships inflatable tents for West Africa Ebola patients

Y YETNEWS                                        Oct. 27, 2014
Udi Etsion
An Israel icompany has developed and installed in Guinea special inflatable isolation tents to be used to house and isolate Ebola patients.

Special inflatable tent being used to fight Ebola

The inflatable tents have also been purchased for the treatment of Ebola patients by other countries on the continent, according to the Israeli company SYS Technologies, which specializes in the development of clean-air systems and mobile operating theaters. The company said the units can be constructed and shipped within two weels.

The units use a positive pressure technology to create an absolute clear and isolated environment and maintain the structure. The company has also developed an incubator-like stretcher for the safe transfer of patients to the isolation tents.

Read full article
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4584736,00.html

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Obama Defends C.D.C.’s Ebola Rules as ‘Sensible, Based in Science’

WHITE HOUSE SUPPORTS CDC GUIDELINES FOR CIVILIANS, EXPLAINS DIFFERENT TREATMENT FOR U.S. TROOPS

NEW YORK TIMES                                                              Oct. 28, 2014
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WASHINGTON — President Obama on Tuesday said that new Ebola guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were “sensible, based in science” and would help keep Americans safe while not discouraging volunteers from traveling to West Africa to battle the disease at its source....

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