Africa

If Ebola has taught us anything, it is that there is room for innovation in the way we respond to outbreaks.

medium.com - by Paul G. Allen - April 30, 2015

It has been more than a year since we began tackling this latest epidemic and, while significant progress has been made, there are still challenges to be overcome and gaps to be filled. . . .

. . . Just last week, I partnered with Skoll Global Threats Fund and USAID to host the Ebola Innovation Summit — an interactive event, designed to bring new tools, people, ways of thinking and ultimately innovations to the forefront.

The event drew a diverse group of people from around the world — from the tech and private sectors to nonprofits, government and academia. The collective commitment of this group is a great example for how we should collaborate to tackle global problems like Ebola.

MEDICAL NEWS TODAY                                                    June 2, 2015
(Scroll down for study.)
Last year, in the 3 days before the outbreak was officially announced, over 60 million people received tweets about the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, say the authors of a new study published in the American Journal of Infection Control that investigates the useful role that Twitter can play in outbreak monitoring and control.

In the 3 days prior to Nigeria's official announcement about Ebola, Twitter users had already shared around 1,500 tweets about the outbreak....

Social media allow users to play active roles in spreading news. Users can share insights, opinions, fears and ideas, outside the contexts of conventional public health channels.

For their study, two researchers from Columbia University School of Nursing in New York, analyzed Ebola-related tweets posted over a week in the early stages of the West African outbreak - from July 24th to August 1st 2014....

NEW YORK TIMES  by Normitsu Onishia                                                             May 9, 2015          

...“I am thrilled by the significant progress made by the people of Liberia,” said Tolbert Nyenswah, a deputy health minister. But, he warned, “we still need to keep up vigilance.”

The weak health systems in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, the three nations hit hardest by the disease, did more than just crumple in the face of Ebola’s onslaught last year. They played a central role in spreading the disease.

Clinics routinely misdiagnosed the disease and discharged Ebola patients with pills for common illnesses. Infected health care workers passed the virus to their colleagues, families and communities.

Local and international health officials are now focusing on extinguishing the waning Ebola epidemic in Guinea and Sierra Leone. But they have a bigger goal as well: shoring up beleaguered health systems that were inadequate long before Ebola struck.

PR NEWSWIRE                                                                                                  May 7, 2015

(Scroll down for interview with Bill Gates)

At its Global Partners Forum, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will announce the Child Health and Mortality Prevention Surveillance Network (CHAMPS), a network of disease surveillance sites in developing countries. These sites will help gather better data, faster, about how, where and why children are getting sick and dying. This data will help the global health community get the right interventions to the right children in the right place to save lives. The network will also be invaluable in providing capacity and training in the event of an epidemic, such as Ebola or SARS. The Gates Foundation plans an initial commitment of up to $75 million on the effort.