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AFRICAN COUNTRIES SENDING MORE VOLUNTEERS TO HELP COUNTER WEST AFRICA'S EBOLA OUTBREAK

THE AFRICA REPORT                                             OCT. 24, 2014

In response to an urgent appeal by the African Union for medical staff to avert West Africa's health crisis, Ethiopia has pledged to send 200 volunteer health workers to countries hit by the Ebola outbreak.

DRCongo  and Nigeria have also announced plans to respond to AU's call for member countries to show solidarity in the fight against Ebola.

                                                                                                                         Reuters

Ethiopia also has pledged over $500,000 to Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, the three affected countries.

Head of African Union commission, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, told journalists in Sierra Leone that   ..."Several African member states have pledged to send in a number of health workers to Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, including DR Congo, which will send around 1,000 workers in three groups."

WASHINGTON POST                               Oct. 26, 2014

By Joel Achenbach and Lena H. Sun

Hundreds of Americans have flown to Liberia in the past few days. Thousands more are on the way.

American troops setting up field hospital in Liberia --NYTimes

This Ebola corps is a collection of doctors, nurses, scientists, soldiers, aviators, technicians, mechanics and engineers. Many are volunteers with nonprofit organizations or the government, including uniformed doctors and nurses from the little-known U.S. Public Health Service. Most are military personnel, snapping a salute when are assigned to their mission — “Operation United Assistance.” It does not qualify for combat pay, only hardship-duty incentive pay, which is about $5 a day — before taxes....

 FIERCE DIAGNOSTICS                            Oct. 23, 2014

By Emily Wasserman

French scientists are developing a diagnostic tool that works similar to a home pregnancy test and can quickly identify the virus through a tiny fluid sample.

  CEA's Ebola testing kit uses strips to rapidly identify the presence of the virus in fluid samples.--Courtesy of France's Atomic Energy  Commission

France's Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) is teaming up with European pharma company Vedalab to roll out a user-friendly testing system than could diagnose Ebola in less than 15 minutes, the agency said in a statement. The kit, dubbed "Ebola eZYSCREEN," includes a hand-held device that reads small samples of blood, plasma or urine to detect the virus, and shows results in stripes through a window on the tool.

NEW YORK TIMES                    Oct. 24, 2014

by MARC SANTORA  

NEW YORK --The governors of New York and New Jersey announced Friday afternoon that they were ordering all people entering the country through two area airports who had direct contact with Ebola patients in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea to be quarantined.

The announcement comes one day after an American doctor, who had worked in Guinea and returned to New York City earlier in October, tested positive for Ebola and became the first New York patient of the deadly virus.

“A voluntary Ebola quarantine is not enough,” said Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York. “This is too serious a public health situation.”