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WALL STREET JOURNAL                                                                                               Nov. 21, 2014

By Andrew Morse

ZURICH—Nearly 5,500 people have died from Ebola, the World Health Organization said Friday, adding that the rate of transmission remains intense in the three West African countries at the center of the epidemic.

Medical staff members of the Croix Rouge NGO put on protective suits before collecting the corpse of a victim of Ebola, in Monrovia, Liberia. Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

In an update, the United Nations health agency said 15,351 confirmed, suspected or probable cases of Ebola had been reported in eight countries that have been affected by the disease. Most of the cases were concentrated in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

A total of 5,459 people have died of Ebola since the outbreak began, the WHO said. On Wednesday, the WHO reported 15,145 cases and 5,420 deaths.

Ebola’s true overall toll is difficult to gauge because some hard-hit villages are remote and urban centers have showed resistance toward clinics....

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VOICE OF AMERICA                                                                                                        Nov. 20, 2014
By Joe DeCapua
Knowing where the Ebola hot spots are in a country is crucial to getting an outbreak quickly under control. Many have criticized the initial slow response to the West Africa outbreak, saying it’s a big reason the virus quickly spread. Now, a German research center is developing a project to monitor Ebola and other outbreaks in real time.

Professor Gérard Krause said the new project – called EBOKON – uses real-time monitoring to better manage an outbreak.Krause is head of the Department of Epidemiology at the Helmholtz Center for Infection Research – and EBOKON project leader for the German Center for Infection Research....

He said, “This is an information technology tool that we are developing together with colleagues from Nigeria that will take care of all those management aspects.”

The EBOKON project calls for setting up a command center, so to speak, in the capital of affected countries. Then health workers would use cellphones to relay in real time information on suspected cases around the country.

NEW YORK TIMES                                                                                                      Nov. 20, 2014
By Donald G. McNeil Jr.

The global response to the Ebola virus in Liberia is being hampered by poor coordination and serious disagreements between Liberian officials and the donors and health agencies fighting the epidemic, according to minutes of top-level meetings and interviews with participants. Medical workers handling a blood sample of an Ebola victim as the girl, 9, lay in a shawl in Monrovia, Liberia. She later died. Credit Daniel Berehulak for The New York Times

REUTERS                                                                                                                             nOV. 19, 2014         
By Joe Brock
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - The cost of the Ebola epidemic for Sub-Saharan Africa's economy is likely to be closer to $3 billion-$4 billion and not the worst-case scenario of $32 billion, the World Bank's chief economist for the continent said on Wednesday.

Francisco Ferreira said at a lecture in Johannesburg that successful containment of Ebola in some West African countries made the gloomiest forecasts less likely, but the economic damage could still escalate if there was any complacency.

"The risk of the highest case of economic impact of Ebola has been reduced because of the success of containment in some countries. It has not gone to zero because a great level of preparedness and focus is still needed," Ferreira said.

"I would say the outlook has moved closer to the lower case of $3-$4 billion, than the upper case," he said.

In a report in October, the World Bank said that if the Ebola epidemic spread significantly outside the epicentre states of Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, the potential cost for Africa in disrupted cross-border trade, supply chains and tourism could amount to tens of billions of dollars.