AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT CONSIDERS SENDING HEALH WORKERS TO WEST AFRICA; MEANWHILE BANS VISAS FOR VISITORS FROM EBOLA-AFFLICTED COUNTRIES

THE GUARDIAN                                          Oct. 27, 2014

The Australian government is reconsidering its previous decision not to send health workers to West Africa. It seeks reassurances that any stricked Australian health workers can receive treatment in Western facilities.

The Australian Medical Association (AMA) president, Brian Owler, said the UK and US were building “state of the art” treatment centres in west Africa for international healthcare workers and he expected Australia would be able to strike an agreement.

Read full account

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/27/australia-seeks-hospital-back-up-volunteers-ebola-hit-countries

MELBOURNE HERALD                                Oct.  27, 2014

Meanwhile Immigration Minister Scott Morrison told Parliament that immigration had been suspended from West African Countries afflicted with Ebola and no new visas were being processed.

THE ECONOMIST                  Oct.. 25, 2014

Detailed graphs on the outbreak of Ebola in West Africa and the healh systems in the affected countries.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2014/10/ebola-graphics?fsrc=rss&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=pulsenews.

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."

REUTERS                                         Oct. 26, 2014
By Michelle Nichols

CONAKRY -- The U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, arrived in Guinea's capital Conakry on Sunday to see first hand how the global response is failing to stop the deadly spread of Ebola in West Africa.

Power, who will also visit Sierra Leone and Liberia, said she hopes to gain a better understanding of which resources are missing so she can push other countries to offer more help.

"We are not on track right now to bend the curve," Power told Reuters. "I will take what I know and I learn and obviously provide it to President Obama, who's got world leaders now on speed dial on this issue."

"Hopefully the more specific we can be in terms of what the requirements are and what other countries could usefully do, the more resources we can attract," she said....

Read complete article

THE ECONOMIST                          Oct. 25, 2014

With at least 4,500 people dead, public-health authorities in west Africa and worldwide are struggling to contain Ebola. Borders have been closed, air passengers screened, schools suspended. But a promising tool for epidemiologists lies unused: mobile cell phone data.

When people make mobile-phone calls, the network generates a call data record (CDR) containing such information as the phone numbers of the caller and receiver, the time of the call and the tower that handled it—which gives a rough indication of the device’s location. This information provides researchers with an insight into mobility patterns...

 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.

MALI KEEPS BORDERS OPEN WITH GUINEA AS MAURITANIA CLOSES ITS BORDER WITH MALI

REUTERS                                         OCT. 25, 2014

BAMAKO--Mali will not close its borders with neighbouring Guinea after its first Ebola-related death, president Ibrahim Boubacar Keita says.

A two-year-old girl infected with the disease was brought across the frontier by her grandmother and died in Mali this week.

Mr Keita said that the incident showed it was impossible to completely seal his country off from Ebola but said he remained calm as the girl's journey and potential contacts had already been traced.

It comes as Mauritania has closed its border with Mali after the Ebola case was confirmed in Mali's western region, two Mauritanian officials said on Saturday.There is little accurate data but border closures by West African states trying to protect themselves from the epidemic have had a crippling effect on regional economies.

READ full story

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-10-26/mali-to-keep-guinea-border-open-despite-ebola-death/5841918

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS TIMES                 Oct. 25, 2014

By Charles Poladian

U.S. President Barack Obama again encouraged Americans to be “guided by the facts, not fear” in their assessments of Ebola virus disease as he discussed the first confirmed case in New York and the national response by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in his weekly address Saturday. Obama also mentioned the recoveries of Ashoka Mukpo and Nina Pham, who both tested negative for Ebola this week, and stressed the difficulty of contracting the virus.

SCIENCE INSIDER

By Jon Cohen and  Kai Kupferschmidt                          OCT.23, 2014

Extensive background documents from a meeting that took place today at the World Health Organization (WHO) have provided new details about exactly what it will take to test, produce, and bankroll Ebola vaccines, which could be a potential game changer in the epidemic.

ScienceInsider obtained materials that vaccinemakers, governments, and WHO provided to the 100 or so participants at a meeting on “access and financing” of Ebola vaccines. The documents put hard numbers on what until now have been somewhat fuzzy academic discussions. And they make clear to the attendees—who include representatives from governments, industry, philanthropies, and nongovernmental organizations—that although testing and production are moving forward at record speed, knotty issues remain. 

Read complete article

http://news.sciencemag.org/health/2014/10/leaked-documents-reveal-behind-scenes-ebola-vaccine-issues

WHO ANNOUNCES  EBOLA VACCINE TRIALS WILL BE SPEEDED UP TO DECEMBER.
THREE RELATED STORIES.   (Scroll down)

REUTERS                                       OCT. 24

By Stephanie Nebehay and Kate Kelland

GENEVA/LONDON, Oct 24 (Reuters) - Trials of Ebola vaccines could begin in West Africa in December, a month earlier than expected, and hundreds of thousands of doses should be available for use by the middle of next year, the World Health Organization said on Friday.

Vaccines are being developed and made ready in record time by drugmakers working with regulators, the U.N. health agency said, but questions remain about their safety and efficacy which can only be settled by full clinical trials.

"Vaccine is not a magic bullet, but when ready they may be a good part of the effort to turn the tide against the epidemic," senior WHO official Marie-Paule Kieny told a news briefing after a meeting in Geneva of industry executives, global health experts, drug regulators and funders.

CLICK HERE - VIDEO - World Health Summit
Aid Agencies Criticise Slow Ebola Response
Aid agencies fighting Ebola say the international community has been 'woefully underprepared' in tackling the crisis.

CLICK HERE - M 8 Alliance - Berlin Declaration on Ebola
World Health Summit 2014, Berlin October 19 to 22, 2014
(1 page .PDF document)

submitted by George Hurlburt

Special Symposium at the WHS 2014
Ebola: A Wake-Up Call for Global Health

With respect to the Ebola crisis, the World Health Summit has organized a special symposium "Ebola: A Wake-Up Call for Global Health" in association with the German Federal Ministry of Health and the German Federal Foreign Office, held on October 20 from 08:30 to 10:00 (Program >>>).

REUTERS                                                                                                      Oct. 23, 2014

Volunteers who will be sent to Africa in the forthcoming days are taught how to work with patients infected with the Ebola virus during a training session at AP-HP hospital Henri Mondor in Creteil, a suburb of Paris October 22, 2014.

Asked whether countries such as Guinea Bissau, Mali and Ivory Coast might have cases of the disease crossing their borders without knowing about or reporting them, WHO assistant director general Keiji Fukuda said he considered that unlikely.

WHO    GENEVA                                                                         Oct. 23, 2014

 The WHO Ebola Emergency Committee statement issued today, following its meetings this week, said exit screening in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone remains critical for reducing the exportation of Ebola cases.

The statement said "States should maintain and reinforce high-quality exit screening of all persons at international airports, seaport, and major land crossings, for unexplained febrile illness consistent with potential Ebola infection. The exit screening should consist of, at a minimum, a questionnaire, a temperature measurement and, if fever is discovered, an assessment of the risk that the fever is caused by Ebola Virus Disease (EVD). States should collect data from their exit screening processes, monitor their results, and share these with WHO on a regular basis and in a timely fashion. This will increase public confidence and provide important information to other States."

The report also encouraged States that have recently introduced entry screening measures to should share their experiences and lessons learned.

...The Committee reiterated its recommendation that there should be no general ban on international travel or trade.

Health workers wearing protective clothing carry the body of an Ebola virus victim in the Waterloo district of Freetown, Sierra Leone, on Tuesday. Reuters

Volunteer Health Workers Will be Sent to Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea

wsj.com - by Gbenga Akingbule and Drew Hinshaw - October 23, 2014

Nigeria will send 506 medics to its West African neighbors stricken with Ebola, its Health Minister Khaliru Alhassan told reporters Thursday, an announcement that catapults the country into one of the biggest contributors of human talent against the disease.

All of those health workers are volunteers, he said, and they’ll be sent to Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea.

The announcement goes a small distance toward filling a critical shortfall: nurses and doctors willing to treat Ebola patients.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

HOMELAND SECURITY NEWS WIRE                                         Oct. 22, 2014

Two Ebola researchers suggest that as Ebola continues to spread in West Africa, it may be silently immunizing large numbers of people who never fall ill or infect others, yet become protected from future infection. If such immunity is confirmed, it would have significant ramifications on projections of how widespread the disease will be and could help determine strategies that health workers use to contain the disease, according to a letter published last week in The Lancet medical journal.   http://download.thelancet.com/flatcontentassets/pdfs/PIIS0140673614618390.pdf?id=aaadpDXSyNZVP5Qg76oKu