BBC                                                   Nov. 8 2014

Top African business leaders have established an emergency fund to help countries hit by the Ebola outbreak.

A pledging meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, raised $28.5m to deploy at least 1,000 health workers to Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia..... 

It is not clear why exactly the number of cases in Liberia has dipped - but it has been running an awareness campaign to advertise best health practices and install hand washing stations.

Speaking at the end of the Addis Abada meeting, African Union chairman Dlamini Zuma said the resources mobilised would be part of a longer term programme to deal with such outbreaks in the future.

The chairman of telecommunications giant Econet Wireless, Strive Masiyiwa, said that several companies had pledged money to the emergency fund - to be managed by the African Development Bank.

See complete story

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-29967124

THE BOSTON GLOBE                                  Nov. 3, 2014

By Carolyn Y. Johnson

Northeastern University researchers use computers to simulate 20 million virtual Ebola outbreaks each week. Yale scientists are building three models that project the spread of the deadly disease. And a team at Boston Children’s Hospital is combing through data to gauge whether medical interventions are working.

....  they are providing a constant stream of evidence that is beginning to reveal the weak spots of the epidemic. For example, scientists’ models are beginning to identify basic patterns of who is being infected and when and how Ebola is being spread, which could help identify the most meaningful ways to intervene.

...According to their model, isolating three-quarters of the patients within the first four days that they show symptoms would help eliminate the disease.

Read complete story

http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/11/02/ebola-disease-modelers-new-england-help-predict-future-spread-best-strategies/LZHSEGlInJs6SflLWW0yaP/story.html

SCIENCE INSIDER                                         Nov. 3, 2014

By Kai Kupferschmidt

VIENNA—After Oyewale Tomori finished his talk on Ebola here at the International Meeting on Emerging Diseases and Surveillance, there was stunned silence. Tomori, the president of the Nigerian Academy of Science, used his plenary to deliver a scathing critique of how African countries have handled the threat of Ebola and how corruption is hampering efforts to improve health. Aid money often simply disappears, Tomori charged, "and we are left underdeveloped, totally and completely unprepared to tackle emerging pathogens."

"Ebola is Africa's problem," says Oyewale Tomori.

Trained as a veterinarian, Tomori was the World Health Organization’s (WHO's) regional virologist for the African region in 1995 during the Ebola outbreak in Kikwit in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

ABC NEWS                                       Nov. 3, 2014
By LIZ NEPORENT via Good Morning America

West Africans fortunate to survive Ebola may go on to develop what's being called "post-Ebola syndrome," characterized by vision loss and long-term poor health, a doctor told a World health Organization.

People stand in the "red zone" where they are being treated for Ebola at the Bong County Ebola Treatment Unit in Monrovia, Liberia, Oct. 28, 2014.

Image: An infographic of the toll of the Ebola outbreak.

economist.com - October 31st 2014

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.

(VIEW COMPLETE ARTICLE AND FULL SIZE INFOGRAPHIC)

REUTERS                                                                                  NOV. 2, 014

By Ben Hirschler

LONDON - Bats are living up to their frightening reputation in the world's worst Ebola outbreak as prime suspects for spreading the deadly virus to humans, but scientists believe they may also shed valuable light on fighting infection.

Fruit bats are seen for sale at a food market in Brazzavile, Republic of Congo, in this file photograph dated December 15, 2005. REUTERS/Jiro Ose/Files

Bats can carry more than 100 different viruses, including Ebola, rabies and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), without becoming sick themselves.

While that makes them a fearsome reservoir of disease, especially in the forests of Africa where they migrate vast distances, it also opens the intriguing possibility that scientists might learn their trick in keeping killers like Ebola at bay.

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Overview of what still needs to be learned about the Ebola virus

Research studies have suggested at least three potential paths through which the Ebola virus can invade tissues. Credit Photograph by the C.D.C. via Getty Images

THE NEW YORKER                                      Nov. 1, 2014

By Jerome Groopman

...there are still serious gaps in what we know about the biology of Ebola, and that ignorance inhibits us from preventing future outbreaks and reducing death rates that still exceed seventy per cent. We don’t know enough about the biology of Ebola to bring the outbreak under full control, or to neutralize the virus once the outbreak is contained. Between on-the-ground efforts and advances in science, we need a balanced approach.

Read complete article

WHO                                                                                     Oct. 31, 2014
GENEVA-- The World Health Organization \ WHO has conducted a formal review of personal protective equipment (PPE) guidelines for healthcare workers and is updating its guidelines in context of the current outbreak.

A U.S. doctor in a protective suit in Liberia adjust that of a colleague before entering an Ebola treatment unit in Monrovia in this photo released Sept. 16, 2014.

These updated guidelines aim to clarify and standardize safe and effective PPE options to protect health care workers and patients, as well as provide information for procurement of PPE stock in the current Ebola outbreak. The guidelines are based on a review of evidence of PPE use during care of suspected and confirmed Ebola virus disease patients.

Read complete announcement

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2014/ebola-ppe-guidelines/en/

Ebola "caught us by surprise," the chairwoman of the 53-nation African Union, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, said this week at a meeting with the U.N. secretary-general and the World Bank president in Ethiopia.

"With the wisdom of hindsight, our responses at all levels - continental, global and national - were slow, and often knee-jerk reactions that did not always help," she said.

She is a medical doctor from South Africa, where mining magnate Patrice Motsepe Tuesday announced he has donated $1 million to the fight against Ebola in Guinea, where the outbreak started.

Read complete story
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/africans-worst-responders-ebola-crisis-26596929

THREE ARTICLES DESCRIBING DETAILS OF THE EBOLA VIRUS AND OTHER VIRUSES.
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Advances in microscopy have allowed scientists like Sriram Subramaniam and colleagues at the National Cancer Institute to look at the workings of tiny viruses. In this case, microscopy was used to illustrate the complex process in which human cells infected with HIV-1, green and blue, are linked to uninfected cells. Credit Illustration by Donald Bliss/N.I.H, from The Journal of Virology/American Society for Microbiology

The research on how the virus spreads is not as ambiguous as some have made it seem

THE ATLANTIC                                                                                                          Oct. 28, 2014

THE GUARDIAN                                                                                Oct. 28, 2014
By Sarah Boseley

West Africa, now in the throes of a calamitous Ebola epidemic, missed out on significant health investment over the past decade or more because it had low rates of HIV, a detailed survey of the changing health of Africa and Asia reveals.

The US ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power (centre), visits an ebola emergency response centre in Freetown, Sierra Leone. Healthcare in west Africa now has the world’s attention. Photograph: Reuters

A major project called Indepth, which has looked at the causes of death of more than 110,000 people in 13 countries shows that health improved generally in those given substantial international aid to try to turn around the HIV and Aids epidemic. But west Africa, with severe poverty and low healthcare standards but relatively little HIV, did not benefit.

WASHINGTON POST                          Oct 28, 2014
By Josh Hicks
When it comes to transporting Ebola victims by air, the world relies on just one small U.S. company.

Phoenix Air has been using the isolation system below this aircraft to transport Ebola patients. (EPA/BRANDEN CAMP)

Y YETNEWS                                        Oct. 27, 2014
Udi Etsion
An Israel icompany has developed and installed in Guinea special inflatable isolation tents to be used to house and isolate Ebola patients.

Special inflatable tent being used to fight Ebola

The inflatable tents have also been purchased for the treatment of Ebola patients by other countries on the continent, according to the Israeli company SYS Technologies, which specializes in the development of clean-air systems and mobile operating theaters. The company said the units can be constructed and shipped within two weels.

The units use a positive pressure technology to create an absolute clear and isolated environment and maintain the structure. The company has also developed an incubator-like stretcher for the safe transfer of patients to the isolation tents.

Read full article
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4584736,00.html

WHITE HOUSE SUPPORTS CDC GUIDELINES FOR CIVILIANS, EXPLAINS DIFFERENT TREATMENT FOR U.S. TROOPS

NEW YORK TIMES                                                              Oct. 28, 2014
By MICHAEL D. SHEAR

WASHINGTON — President Obama on Tuesday said that new Ebola guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were “sensible, based in science” and would help keep Americans safe while not discouraging volunteers from traveling to West Africa to battle the disease at its source....