THE WASHINGTON POST by Kevin Sieff                          Jan. 5, 2015

PORT LOKO, Sierra Leone — When Fatmata Kabia walked into the Ebola isolation center, her chances of survival were almost zero.

Not because her symptoms were particularly bad — though they were. Not because the disease had already killed most of her family — though it had. Kabia, 21, appeared doomed for another reason: She was pregnant.

Meratu Koroma, 18, four months pregnant, battles intense pain while waiting for an Ebola test in Port Loko, Sierra Leone. (Nikki Kahn/The Washington Post)

Few diseases are less understood than the Ebola virus, which has claimed more than 7,900 lives across West Africa. But one thing is clear: Pregnant Ebola patients rarely survive. And their babies never do.

REUTERS                                                            Jan. 4, 2015   

Ebola survivors in the three west African countries worst hit by the epidemic will share their stories through a mobile application to be launched on Monday, in a Unicef-backed campaign to inform and fight stigma around the disease.

...Although many people have survived the disease, they still face rejection and stigma from their communities, while the virus continues to spread due to lack of information and denial, according to the WHO and other health organisations.

The campaign, called #ISurvivedEbola, is funded by US philanthropist and co-founder of Microsoft Paul G Allen’s foundation which has committed $100m to fight the disease. Unicef, the UN children’s agency is collaborating in the project.

Survivors in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia will be given smartphones and will document their stories and exchange tips on how to cope with it for a mobile app which will be available to the public, the backers said in a statement.

AFP                                                                 Jan 4, 2015

ACCRA -- Ending the deadliest Ebola outbreak in history is a difficult task, but it is "within our reach", the UN's new mission chief on the disease said, warning that the world has no choice but to beat back the infection.

"This is a global crisis. We definitely have a difficult time ahead of us, but we can achieve it," Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, the new head of the UN Mission for Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER), said on arrival in Ghana on Saturday.

"We have no plan B, we have to get rid of this virus. This is within our reach, but we should not be complacent," said Ahmed, a Mauritanian, who had arrived in Accra to officially assume duty, taking over from American Anthony Banbury...

Ahmed will be visiting Liberia and Sierra Leone this week, and Guinea shortly after, "to reinforce UNMEER's strategic priorities and see first-hand the Ebola response." the text said. He will be accompanied by UN Special Envoy on Ebola, David Nabarro, it added.
Read complete story.

http://news.yahoo.com/victory-against-ebola-within-reach-un-mission-chief-075544472.html;_ylt=AwrBEiEmk6lU7hgAFk3QtDMD

CBS NEWS                                                                       Jan. 4, 2015

NEW YORK TIMES                                               Jan. 2, 2015

Celia W. Dugger, deputy science editor for health, has helped to coordinate the Times’s coverage of Ebola. She edited a feature published Tuesday on the origin of this year’s Ebola outbreak, and shares how the story came together after months of reporting.

As the Ebola epidemic gained velocity this fall, spreading fear and death across one of the world’s poorest regions, I kept coming back to the same questions: How did this one get away? How did the experts — and the media, including editors like me, for that matter — miss the signs in the spring that this time would be catastrophically different from the nearly two dozen prior outbreaks? Why did the most seasoned Ebola hands — men and women who had repeatedly risked their lives battling this lethal foe — let their guard down and scale back in May just when the virus might have been throttled?

THE VOICE OF AMERICA  by Joe DeCapua                                       Jan. 2, 2014

...The Red Cross’ Katherine Mueller gives an assessment of the Ebola epidemic in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

“The Ebola outbreak is not under control yet. We do see some leveling off of cases for Liberia, for example. However, we’ve seen it before that somebody attends a funeral. They come back. They’re infected. They infect their village and cases spike. So it really doesn’t take much to have another increase in cases,” she said.

Mueller is the IFRC’s Africa communications manager. She worries that people may become complacent after hearing that the number of new cases has slowed in some places...

Part of the organization’s efforts include going to remote areas in the three hardest hit countries.

THE ECONOMIST                                                                                                    Jan. 1, 2015
THE first reported case in the Ebola outbreak ravaging west Africa dates back to December 2013, in Guéckédou, a forested area of Guinea near the border with Liberia and Sierra Leone. Travellers took it across the border: by late March, Liberia had reported eight suspected cases and Sierra Leone six. By the end of June 759 people had been infected and 467 people had died from the disease, making this the worst ever Ebola outbreak. The numbers keep climbing. As of December 28th, 20,206 cases and 7,905 deaths had been reported worldwide, the vast majority of them in these same three countries. Many suspect these estimates are badly undercooked.
See complete set of graphs.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2015/01/ebola-graphics

NEW YORK TIMES  by Donald G. McNeil, Jr.                                                     Jan. 1, 2015

Medical experts seeking to stem the Ebola epidemic are sharply divided over whether most patients in West Africa should, or can, be given intravenous hydration, a therapy that is standard in developed countries. Some argue that more aggressive treatment with IV fluids is medically possible and a moral obligation. But others counsel caution, saying that pushing too hard would put overworked doctors and nurses in danger and that the treatment, if given carelessly, could even kill patients.

A nurse gave an Ebola patient intravenous fluids at the Red Cross treatment center in Kenema, Sierra Leone, in November. Credit Francisco Leong/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

REUTERS                                                                                                             Dec. 31, 2014

GENEVA - The Ebola virus is still spreading in West Africa, especially in Sierra Leone, and the number of known cases globally has now exceeded 20,000, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday.

The death toll from the outbreak, which has been mostly confined to West Africa, has risen to 7,905, the WHO said, following 317 fatalities recorded since it last issued figures on Dec. 24.

The number of known cases, including fatalities, totalled 20,206 at year-end, it said.

 However, the number of cases in Sierra Leone over a three-week period has fallen below 1,000 for the first time since Sept. 28, suggesting the spread of the disease is slowing. In neighbouring Guinea, the three-week total rose for a second week to 346, suggesting the epidemic is growing there.

Read complete story.

http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-spreads-sierra-leone-global-cases-top-20-085657794.html;_ylt=AwrBJSA9_qVUoU0AoXTQtDMD

UNITED NATIONS NEWS CENTRE                                                                         Dec. 31, 2014
The number of Ebola cases is fluctuating in Guinea, decreasing in Liberia and showing signs the increase has slowed in Sierra Leone, the United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) reported today as the UN development agency said it is helping the Liberian Government build border posts to cut the cross-border spread of infection in West Africa.

Patients who recover from the Ebola virus disease tie a ribbon to the tree on leaving the Maforki Ebola Treatment Centre in Port Loko, Sierra Leone. UN Photo/Martine Perret

“Infections in Liberia’s Eastern border region have spiked recently as tight-knit cross-border communities spread the disease across the often porous border,” the UN Development Programme (UNDP) said in a press release, adding that 49 new Ebola cases had been recorded in the border county of Grand Cape Mount in December, including 12 in the past four days.

NEW YORK TIMES  by  JEFFREY GETTLEMAN                  Dec. 21, 2014     
FREETOWN, Sierra Leone--The "personal hospitality business" may be the most obvious sector of Sierra Leone’s economy that has been decimated by Ebola. After all, the main slogan in Freetown, the capital, these days is A.B.C. — avoid body contact.Residents in Freetown, Sierra Leone, break rocks in a road project that was halted because of concern about Ebola. In Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia, Ebola continues to lay waste not just to immune systems but also to balance sheets. Daniel Berehulak for The New York Times

UNITED NATIONS NEWS CENTRE                                                                                 Dec. 30, 2014

MONROVIA, Liberia --The outgoing head of the head of the United Nations Emergency Ebola Response Mission (UNMEER) said today that communities are going to play a big role in defeating the “nasty disease” in West Africa by stamping out outbreaks while they are small and not allowing them to become bigger.

The body of a suspected Ebola case in Sierra Leone is taken by an International Federation of Red Cross (IFRC) team on 24 December to the cemetery where it was buried in a dignified way. UN Photo/Martine Perret

“Ebola is a very nasty disease, and it’s going to present us with some very unpleasant surprises I fear going forward,” Anthony Banbury told UN Radio in Monrovia, Liberia. “And that’s why we really need to strengthen our capabilities.....”

...While acknowledging the difficulty in getting Ebola response workers to some of the remote areas, he emphasized the importance of a district by district strategy and said: “We really need to be present out in the districts....”

A trip to the Liberian border village of Jene-Wonde reveals the dangers in declaring victory over Ebola.

Photograph by Laurie Garrett

foreignpolicy.com - by Laurie Garrett - December 29, 2014

Liberia - . . . As of Dec. 18 the Grand Cape Mount district has lost 99 people to Ebola, most in and around Jene-Wonde. . . Most of the sick and deceased, having gone untested for Ebola, were never entered into official records. . . A man standing close . . . waves his hand at the newly constructed CCC and asks, “When this place is opened and it’s overwhelmed, what happens next?”

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

IFRC Kenema Ebola treatment centre (File photo, October 2014)  Photo: IRIN/Ricci Shryock

LONDON, 29 December 2014 (IRIN) - West Africa's Ebola epidemic has cruelly exposed the weaknesses of health systems in the countries where it struck. It was understandable that they were not prepared for Ebola, which has never been reported in the region before, but the director of the World Health Organization (WHO), Margaret Chan, says what they lacked was a robust public health infrastructure to deal with the unexpected.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

ASSOCIATED PRESS                                                           Dec. 30, 2014

MONROVIA --Liberia's government is easing up on its order that all Ebola victims' bodies be cremated after authorities purchased a plot of land to bury them.

Ebola health care workers carry the body of a man suspected of dying from the Ebola virus in a small village Gbah on the outskirts of Monrovia, Liberia, Friday, Dec. 5, 2014. (AP Photo/ Abbas Dulleh)

Ciatta Bishop, head of the national Ebola burial team, said Tuesday that the government has secured a 25-acre parcel of land where Ebola victims can now be buried.

The Liberian government ordered that victims be cremated at the height of the crisis because corpses are highly contagious.

The cremation decree is highly unpopular in Liberia, where funeral traditions are carefully followed and are considered a sacred obligation to the deceased.

Read complete story.
http://www.foxnews.com/health/2014/12/30/liberia-eases-up-on-cremation-order-for-ebola-victims/