EUROPEAN COMMISSION HUMANITARIAN AID DEPARTMENT   Nov. 17, 2014

The European Union is continuing to scale up its response to the Ebola epidemic as its Coordinator for the emergency, Commissioner Christos Stylianides together with Vytenis Andriukaitis, Commissioner for Health, return from a four-day mission to the affected countries.

New funding of €29 million will be made available by the European Commissionfor transporting vital aid supplies and equipment to the affected countries, evacuation of infected international aid workers to hospitals in Europe and training and deploying health workers to the ground. Money will also reinforce local health facilities.

Of this total, €12 million is for assistance to the neighbours of the affected countries, to help them prepare for the risk of an Ebola outbreak through early detection and public awareness measures.

... The European Union's total contribution is close to €1.1 billion.

Sweden has announced that it will deploy, via the EU Civil Protection Mechanism, 42 doctors, nurses and other health personnel who will run a treatment centre on the ground.

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C’est la semaine dernière que le ministère de la Santé a été informé du décès de trois agents de l’hôpital St Jean de Dieu de Tanguiéta. Parmi eux, il y aurait deux infirmières en néonatologie. Vendredi, c’est un pédiatre qui est mort à Porto-Novo où il avait été transféré.

In Sierra Leone, Traditional Treatments and Death of a Woman Who Resisted Outside Help Fostered Outbreak

WALL STREET JOURNAL                                                                                                      Nov. 18, 2014
By Peter Wonacott
KAILAHUN, Sierra Leone—When a Red Cross volunteer visited this impoverished border district in mid-May to warn about the spread of Ebola, he faced a formidable adversary: the village healer.

BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEK                                Nov. 17, 2014
by Jason Gale

The best medical advice for surviving Ebola right now might fit in one word: drink.

Dr. Fadipe Akinniyi Emmanuel, Ebola survivor, shows the daily dose of oral rehydration salts, or ORS, he and other survivors took to survive in Nigeria. Photographer: Andrew Esiebo/World Health Organization via Bloomberg

With targeted drugs and vaccines at least months away, doctors and public health experts are learning from Ebola survivors what simple steps helped them beat the infection. Turns out drinking 4 liters (1 gallon) or more of rehydration solution a day -- a challenge for anyone and especially those wracked by relentless bouts of vomiting -- is crucial. “When people are infected, they get dry as a crisp really quickly,” said Simon Mardel, an emergency room doctor advising the World Health Organization on Ebola in Sierra Leone. “Then the tragedy is that they don’t want to drink.”

In-depth description of the Ebola situation in remote villages in Guinea

A man with symptoms of Ebola walked to the center of Dandano after the chief of the village ordered the removal of sick people from homes. “Bring out your sick!” the chief shouted at the crowd, shaking his fist and warning of illness and death for the whole village if they did not obey. Samuel Aranda for The New York Times

NEW YORK TIMES                                                                                                             Nov. 17, 2014
By Adam Nossiter

DANDANO, Guinea--

WASHINGTON POST                                                                                          Nov. 17, 2014

By Kevin Sieff

...The doctors who tended to him in Freetown appeared to be unaware that an early Ebola test — taken within the first three days of the illness — is often inconclusive. In a country where information about the disease continues to move slowly, it was another potentially tragic mistake.

In many cases, a negative test at that stage means nothing because “there aren’t enough copies of the virus in the blood for the test to pick up,” said Ermias Belay, the head of the CDC’s Ebola response team in Sierra Leone.

But M’Briwa and others treated the test as definitive, even though Salia remained feverish and weak. The first results were delivered by a team of Chinese lab technicians who had opened a nearby hospital. (The technicians declined Sunday to speak about Salia’s case.)...

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/a-doctors-mistaken-ebola-test-we-were-celebrating--then-everything-fell-apart/2014/11/16/946a84da-6dd5-11e4-a2c2-478179fd0489_story.html

webtv.un.org

13 Nov 2014 - Statement by Dr. David Nabarro, UN Special Envoy on Ebola at the General Assembly Informal meeting of the plenary briefing on the Ebola virus outbreak.

(CLICK HERE - VIDEO - Statement by Dr. David Nabarro, UN Special Envoy on Ebola)

NEW YORK TIMES                                                                                         Nov. 16, 2014

EDITORIAL

Recent gains in controlling the Ebola epidemic in West Africa have been encouraging, but they offer no reason for complacency. In Liberia, the hardest-hit country, the rate of new infections has declined in some areas, and several treatment units have been reporting empty beds for more than a month. But in adjacent Sierra Leone the number of new cases has shot upward, while in Guinea, where the epidemic started, the incidence of new cases appears to have stabilized over all, with growth in some districts and declines in others. All told, Ebola has infected more than 14,000 people in West Africa and killed more than 5,000 of them...

BBC                                                                                                              Nov. 15, 2014

A three-month Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo has ended after claiming at least 49 lives, the country's health minister says.

Health workers are trained in managing Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo

Felix Kabange said no new cases had been registered since 4 October, though he warned against complacency.

The country's outbreak is unrelated to the one in West Africa which has claimed more than 5,000 lives.

Ebola was first detected in 1976 near the Ebola River in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo.

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http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-30068324

cdc.gov - Early Release - November 14, 2014

(CLICK HERE - READ COMPLETE REPORT - ADDITIONAL INFORMATION)

Almea Matanock, MD1, M. Allison Arwady, MD1, Patrick Ayscue, DVM1, Joseph D. Forrester,MD1, Bethany Gaddis, MPH2, Jennifer C. Hunter, DrPH1, Benjamin Monroe, MPH3, Satish K. Pillai, MD4, Christie Reed, MD5, Ilana J. Schafer, DVM6, Moses Massaquoi, MD7, Bernice Dahn, MD8, Kevin M. De Cock, MD9 (Author affiliations at end of text)

AFRICA CENTER FOR STRATEGIC STUDIES, Washington D.C.                        Nov. 12, 2014

Summary of lessons learned from Nigeria and Uganda in containing outbreaks of Ebola

“If a country like Nigeria, hampered by serious security problems, can do this – that is, make significant progress towards interrupting polio transmission, eradicate guinea-worm disease and contain Ebola, all at the same time,” said WHO Director-General Margaret Chan, “any country in the world experiencing an imported case can hold onward transmission to just a handful of cases....”

"Numerous African states have identified and refined the best ways of containing the disease."

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http://africacenter.org/2014/11/no-time-for-a-learning-curve-nigerias-crucial-success-against-ebola/?utm_source=November+14++2014+EN&utm_campaign=11%2F14%2F2014&utm_medium=email

People walk past a billboard with a message about Ebola in Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone, on November 7. Public awareness campaigns are proving vital in the fight against the virus.

Description of African efforts to improve communications to counter the spread of Ebola

CCN                                                                                                                                Nov. 17, 2014

By Alex Court (CNN)-- "When the Ebola outbreak started, it was very terrifying for everybody," recalls Michael Chu'no Ike from Nsukka in Nigeria's Enugu State. "People were afraid it could be transmitted by air and started believing all sorts of rumors about how to boost their immunity."

HOMELAND SECURITY NEWS WIRE                                                                                             Nov. 13, 2014
By Catherine de Fontenay
Economists are being called upon to estimate the costs of the Ebola epidemic to West Africa and elsewhere. Economists, however, should also play a part in estimating the likelihood of the disease spreading. Economics is the study of incentives, and many biological models of the spread of the disease may be underestimating the impact of individual incentives.

 Based on cost-benefit analysis, the potential costs of Ebola spreading are extremely high and the risks may be much higher than they are currently portrayed. Voters and donors should support greater efforts to end Ebola in West Africa. As International Monetary Fund director Christine Lagarde says, “real action” is needed to counter the outbreak. Without such action Ebola places the global economy at risk.

...If Ebola spreads throughout West Africa, the cost could rise to US$32.6 billion by the end of 2015.
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http://www.homelandsecuritynewswire.com/dr20141113-the-economics-of-ebola

BBC NEWS MAGAZINE                                            NOV. 11, 2014

By Ben Carter

The Ebola virus has killed about 5,000 people since March - but one scientist who is studying the statistics says this is not the best figure to consider if we really want to understand the current state of the outbreak and how to beat it.

A total of 4,960 people have died from Ebola this year according to statistics released by the World Health Organisation on 4 November. More than half of those cases - 2,766 - were in Liberia.

But this cumulative figure, which is widely reported, can only go one way - up. It gives no meaningful insight into how the outbreak has developed says Hans Rosling, professor of global health at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden....

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http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-30011521

NEW YORK TIMES                                                         Nov. 13, 2014

By HELENE COOPER and SABRINA TAVERNISE

WASHINGTON — As the rate of new Ebola infections in Liberia has slowed, American and Liberian officials are debating whether to build all 17 planned Ebola treatment centers in the country or to shift money from the Obama administration that was planned for the centers into other programs to combat future outbreaks.