Link: Ebola Digest Wed 7 Jan
As we ease into 2015, we'll continue to run these regularly for the time being - the link to the most recent edition of the regular Ebola Digest.
There's a huge amount of info in this excellent resource and we suggest you check out the source. In the meantime we've reproduced the country-specific section of their news digest below, in the hope it may be of particular interest and use to our readers. Today's article image is an aerial view of Elwa 3 Ebola Case Management Center in Monrovia (taken from the blog), where a drug trial led by the University of Oxford is taking place at Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)'s ELWA 3 Ebola Management Centre in Monrovia.
REGIONAL SURVEILLANCE
Guinea
Over 70 cases recorded Dubreka
(Machine translated from French) There Dubreka Prefecture, located about fifty kilometers from Conakry, has so far registered a total of 75 confirmed cases of Ebola, with 33 deaths per 337 contacts to follow, confirmed Tuesday the phone Guineenews Dr Fode Cisse, Director prefectural health of that prefecture. According to health authorities, this new epidemiological outbreak of Ebola disease in the prefecture Dubreka reflects the mobility of contacts and especially the reluctance of people in some localities as Faléssadé and Falessa Fotonkon where teams of agents to advocacy and monitoring contacts have trouble accessing it.
2014 marked one year since a two year old boy in Méliando, a remote village in Gueckedou, Forest Guinea, died after falling ill with a mysterious illness. An illness that the World Health Organization later identified it as the first case of Ebola in West Africa. In the year that has followed, despite the efforts of the country itself and of aid organisations, the epidemic is not yet under control. Resulting in more districts reporting new cases, resistance from the population and the highest fatality rate of the three main affected countries. Today, one of the biggest barriers to stop Ebola continues to be fear, superstition and violence from a population that does not understand what has hit it. Since November 2014, a large number of cases have been reported from districts in the northeast and southeast of the country.
Liberia
UN envoy pledges support for Liberia's back to school efforts
The new Special Representative of the Secretary General and Head of the United Nations Mission for Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER), Mr. Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, has declared the mission's support to the Liberian government's ?back to school' effort and said that the organization will focus on helping the government reactivate the educational system.
Ebola treatment starts at ELWA3
Ebola treatment starts at ELWA3 A clinical trial for a possible cure for the Ebola Virus disease has begun at ELWA 3, the MSF's Ebola Management Centre in Paynesville, suburb of Monrovia. The January 1, 2015 test was led by Oxford University from the United Kingdom, and funded by the ;...
Liberia Ebola Daily Sitrep no. 230 for 31st December 2014
Government of Liberia Country: Liberia
Sierra Leone
Ebola outbreak: Quarantine 'just like a jail' in Sierra Leone
For 18 days, Alieru Deen Bangura's family has been quarantined in a slum in Sierra Leone's capital of Freetown. As part of the West African city's efforts to stem the spread of the deadly Ebola virus, the family lives under the watchful eye of armed guards 24 hours a day. Daniel Bob Jones, centre, leads a team that goes door to door in Freetown searching for people sick with Ebola. Seventeen families are cordoned off with a thin, orange, plastic rope, a constant reminder that they are not free to go about their daily business.
Diagnosing Ebola in Sierra Leone
My main research focus is virus-host interactions, focusing primarily on noroviruses, the major cause of gastroenteritis in the developed world. We've used a variety of approaches to try to understand the viral life cycle and more recently have taken the first steps towards the identification of therapeutic approaches for the control of norovirus infection in patients. My interests have recently spread into other areas of virology such as the zoonotic potential of viruses and host responses to viral infection. I've been fortunate enough to be supported by the Wellcome Trust my entire independent scientific career (some 13 years now); initially via a Career Development Fellowship, then subsequently by a Senior Fellowship, which was renewed in 2012. The funding, and the other forms of support, I have had from the Trust over the years have been instrumental in the success of the lab.
Signs that Ebola "may be levelling off" in Sierra Leone - WHO
The Ebola epidemic has taken 8,235 lives out of 20,747 known cases of the haemorrhagic fever worldwide over the past year, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday.
Constitutional body told to embrace social media
Sierra Leone`s Constitutional Review Committee (CRC) must embrace social media to continue its assignment. The committee is charged with reviewing the current constitution, in force since 1991 but the ongoing Ebola outbreak has limited its activities. The committee is supposed to engage the masses and this will take the form of huge gatherings.
False Ebola test results sparks fear in Freetown
There is fear and confusion in some parts of the Sierra Leonean capital, Freetown over reports that an Ebola treatment center discharged a patient on the basis of a false test result. This has led to the infection of over two dozen people. The incident occurred in a Freetown suburb called Devil Hole, situated in [...]
Kerry Town residents optimistic of ending
Kerry Town residents optimistic of ending Local residents at the Kerry Town, where there is an Ebola treatment centre in the Western Area Rural District, are optimistic that the fight against the Ebola virus will be won, with them taking ownership of the treatment centre and doing their best to halt the ;...
VIDEO: Collecting Sierra Leone's Ebola dead
bbc--Tulip Mazumdar spends the day with a burial team from the Sierra Leone Red Cross as they collect the bodies of those killed by Ebola.
Sierra Leone health ministry prepares for post Ebola war
Sierra Leone health ministry prepares for post Ebola war minister of health - Fofanah Officials at the ministry of health and sanitation are busy scratching their heads, thinking about how best to explain the huge discrepancy in the total cumulative number of Ebola cases, which the World Health Organisation (WHO) ;...
Ebola Virus Disease - Situation Report (Sit-Rep) ? 06 January, 2015
Government of Sierra Leone Country: Sierra Leone
Ebola Outbreak Updates - January 6, 2015
Government of Sierra Leone
Kono Gets Ebola Laboratory & Treatment Center
Sierra Leone News--District Medical Officer (DMO) for Kono district, Dr. Manso S. Dumbuya has in a phone chat, informed Awareness Times of a newly built Ebola Treatment Center & a laboratory that both open in Kono tomorrow Thursday 8th January 2015 to handle a recent upsurge in cases there. Speaking on the line from Kono, the DMO said Government and its donor partners have now provided 14 ambulances, 3 local doctors, over 5 international doctors as well as other experts to go on the ground in Kono to fight Ebola. He said the district medical team is also scaling up to empower surveillance teams, contact tracers, burial teams and frontline health workers. Dr. Dumbuya promised that Kono will soon contain the sharp rise in cases that has given a current cumulative total of 208 Ebola cases.
British Rule 2.0: Recolonize Sierra Leone in the 21st Century – Part One
Sierra Leone News--What will become of my beloved country in 2015 and beyond? What if my beloved Sierra Leone was still under British colonial rule today and what would have become of Sierra Leone? I strongly believe, without question, that our economy would have been comparable to similarly situated African countries with a plethora of opportunities and investments from companies around the world including, but not limited to, British companies.
Our economic development would have surpassed what it is today. Our schools and universities, formally the education basin of British West Africa, could have been producing talents and future leaders of Africa and the world as we once were.
SITREPS
UN Development Programme Country: Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone 05 Jan 2015 by Abdoulaye Mar Dieye, Assistant Administrator and Director, Regional Bureau for Africa The social and economic impact of the Ebola crisis will be felt up to a decade after the disease has been eradicated. In Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, virtually every sector has suffered as a result of the epidemic. For example, based on UNDP?s most recent estimates, Liberia could experience negative GDP growth for the first time since the war ended 11 years ago, reaching -1.8 percent. In all three countries, air traffic is down, mining and palm oil concessions have been badly affected, and so have farming and small trade, crippled by quarantines and movement restrictions. The crisis is impairing the ability of governments to raise taxes and invest in infrastructure and social services.
West and Central Africa Region Weekly Regional Humanitarian Snapshot (29 Dec 2014 - 6 Jan 2015)
UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs Country: Cameroon, Guinea, Liberia, Mali, Nigeria, Sierra Leone CAMEROON NEW CROSS BORDER ATTACKS Attacks of Nigerian insurgent group Boko Haram have caused further casualties and population displacements towards and inside Cameroon. On Dec. 28, insurgents crossing from Nigeria attacked several villages and temporarily took over the border town of Achigachia prompting Cameroonian airstrikes to push the militants back across the borders. 24,500 NIGERIAN REFUGEES IN MINAWAO CAMP On 29 December, UNHCR has transferred 1,728 new Nigerian refugees in the Minawao camp bringing the total number of refugees in the camp to 24,500. LIBERIA SCHOOL TO RESUME IN FEBRUARY The Government of Liberia announced, on 5 January. the reopening of schools in February. Schools have been closed for the last six months to help contain the Ebola outbreak.
UN Mission for Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER) External Situation Report, 6 January 2015
UN Mission for Ebola Emergency Response Country: Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone KEY POINTS The Governments of the three most affected countries have announced their intention to reopen schools. A National Stakeholder?s Forum on Safe and Dignified Burials was held in Liberia. The Logistics Cluster is organising four additional free-of-charge flights from the European Staging-Area at Cologne Bonn Airport to the three most affected countries. Key Political and Economic Developments Following an impasse in the negotiations between the Government of Guinea and six national trade unions, including the public health workers union, on salary increase s and other demands , the unions called for a general strike throughout the country as of today. Limited demonstrations and road closures have been observed in Conakry.
SOCIOLOGICAL, ANTHROPOLOGICAL IMPACT
Ebola: why we are worried for all the wrong reasons
Univ of Toronto--he recent Ebola outbreak has elicited widespread popular fear and narrower economic panic. We are right to be concerned, but we seem to be worried for the wrong reasons. The fear is that the epidemic directly threatens "us" in North America and Europe. The panic is about whether the epidemic might threaten hard-won gains in economic growth in Africa. Both are misconceived. Countries with reasonable health systems and responsive governments are well placed to contain the disease. As is now becoming clear, the virus is having an uneven impact on affected countries depending on their underlying level of institutional fragility.
ECONOMIC, SECURITY, INFRASTRUCTURE IMPACT
The IMF Is Under Pressure To Cancel The Debts Of African Countries Hit By Ebola
The International Monetary Fund is under mounting pressure to cancel the debts of the three poor West African countries hit hardest by Ebola, as their economies stall under the fallout from the disease. The calls for a debt alleviation for Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone are coming not only from anti-poverty organizations. In mid-December, a UN commission also urged serious consideration for eliminating at least some of the debts of the three countries.
