Disease

appropriations.senate.gov - C-SPAN3 - November 12, 2014

Full Committee Hearing on the U.S. Government Response to the Ebola outbreak
 
WHEN:             WEDNESDAY, November 12, 2014 at 2:00 p.m.
                                                                                                             
WHERE:            Room SD-G50 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building

(VIEW THE RECORDED VIDEO IN THE LINKS BELOW)

http://www.appropriations.senate.gov/webcast/full-committee-hearing-us-government-response-fighting-ebola-and-protecting-america

VOICE OF AMERICA                              Nov. 12, 2014

By Kim Lewis                            

Doctors Without Borders  (MSF) says there have been slight improvements in the Ebola situation in Liberia and Guinea. However, Sierra Leone has experienced a big surge in reported cases throughout the country in recent weeks.

The group released an update on their assessment of the Ebola crisis in the three countries with reports of gains and losses. 

“I think we can see the most improvements in Liberia,” said MSF spokesman James Kambaki. MSF has large isolation center in the country and is distributing an estimated 300,000 protection kits – gloves, masks and chlorine as a disinfectant - to the public. “Besides that, MSF has also done a mass malaria prophylactic prevention to try and ease up the burden of other illnesses so that you can concentrate on Ebola.”

Kambaki said the prevention measures appear to be helping, but MSF is investigating a recent drop in numbers being admitted to their Ebola isolation centers.

VOICE OF AMERICAN                                                                                           Nov.12, 2012
By Carla Babb
PENTAGON--The U.S. military says it is scaling back its planned Ebola response deployments to West Africa from 4,000 troops to 3,000. 

FILE- Members of the U.S. Department of Defense's Ebola Military Medical Support Team go through special training at San Antonio Military Medical Center.

Major General Gary Volesky, who heads the U.S. military's response to the Ebola outbreak, said in a call to reporters at the Pentagon from Liberia the United States does not need 4,000 troops to fight Ebola in West Africa.  He said the troop total will increase from about 2,200 today to just under 3,000 by mid-December.

"There is a lot of capacity here that we did not know about before, and so that enabled us to reduce the forces that we thought we originally had to bring," said Volesky....

See complete story
http://www.voanews.com/content/us-scales-back-ebola-response-numbers/2518196.html

Link to Defense Department announcement

REUTERS                                                                                               Nov. 12, 2014

By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA --The death toll from the Ebola outbreak in West Africa's three hardest-hit countries, Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, has risen to 5,147 out of 14,068 cases at the end of Nov. 9, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday.

A further 13 deaths and 30 cases have been recorded in five other countries - Nigeria, Senegal, Mali, Spain and the United States, the U.N. agency said.

"There is some evidence that case incidence is no longer increasing nationally in Guinea and Liberia, but steep increases persist in Sierra Leone," the WHO said in a statement. "Cases and deaths continue to be under-reported in this outbreak."

Some 421 new infections were reported in Sierra Leone in the week to Nov. 9, especially in the west and north, it said.

Ebola is still spreading intensely in Sierra Leone's capital of Freetown, with Koinadugu and Kambia northern regions now "emerging areas of concern", it added.