Contagion

REUTERS

(Reuters) - President Barack Obamatoday  called on more nations to help fight the world's worst outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus, saying hundreds of thousands of lives were at stake.

The warning came shortly after the World Health Organisation gave a rare hint of optimism in the West African crisis, announcing that the spread of the disease in Guinea appeared to have stabilised.

"More nations need to contribute critical assets and capabilities -- whether it's air transport, medical evacuation, health care workers, equipment or treatment," Obama told a meeting on Ebola on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly.

"If unchecked, this epidemic could kill hundreds of thousands of people in the coming months."

CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE RECORDED CONGRESSIONAL SEMINAR

Hosted by:

Senator Chris Coons, Chair, Foreign Relations Subcommittee on African Affairs

Senator Jeff Flake, Ranking Member, Foreign Relations Subcommittee on African Affairs

UPMC Center for Health Security

Wednesday, September 24, 2014

Capitol Visitors Center, Room SVC201-00 (Event is full, please join us on our livestream video)

12:00pm - 1:30pm

The United States and many other nations and international organizations are helping to respond to the unprecedented Ebola outbreak in West Africa. Panelists will discuss: What are the latest updates on the ground? What have we learned so far? Are governments, WHO, and NGOs doing all that is needed to help stop the outbreak? What types of infrastructure vulnerabilities contributed to the current Ebola outbreak? What, if anything, should we be doing differently now or in the future to assist West Africa and other regions in containing future epidemics?

CLICK HERE for Additional Information

FORBES                 September 23, 2014

By David Kroll

The Health Minister of Nigeria says that his country is completely free of active Ebola cases and has released the final victim contacts from surveillance.

In a telephone interview last night where he was preparing for a United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York, Minister of Health Onyebuchi Chukwu, MD, said, “Presently, there is no single case of Ebola virus disease in Nigeria – none.”

Dr. Chukwu provided further details, saying, “No cases are under treatment, no suspected cases. There are no contacts in Lagos that are still under surveillance, having completed a minimum of 21 days of observation.

Link to full story follows:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidkroll/2014/09/23/nigeria-free-of-ebola-as-final-surveillance-contacts-are-released/

LOS ANGLES TIMES     September 22, 10:25 PM

by Monte Morin

In a grim assessment of the Ebola epidemic, researchers say the deadly virus threatens to become endemic to West Africa instead of eventually disappearing from humans.

"The current epidemiologic outlook is bleak," wrote a panel of more than 60 World Health Organization experts in a study published Tuesday by the New England Journal of Medicine.

"We must therefore face the possibility that Ebola virus disease will become endemic among the human population of West Africa, a prospect that has never previously been contemplated."

In the absence of new control measures, the authors estimated that the total case load would exceed 20,000 by Nov 2.

Link to full story

http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-ebola-may-be-endemic-in-people-20140922-story.html

Link to New England Journal of Medicine study

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1411100?query=featured_ebola