On the move: This model of West African regional transportation patterns was built using, among other sources, mobile-phone data for Senegal, released by the mobile carrier Orange.
A West African mobile carrier has given researchers access to data gleaned from cell phones in Senegal, providing a window into regional population movements that could help predict the spread of Ebola....The model created using the data is not meant to lead to travel restrictions, but rather to offer clues about where to focus preventive measures and health care. Indeed, efforts to restrict people’s movements, such as Senegal’s decision to close its border with Guinea this week, remain extremely controversial....
One of three African doctors infected with Ebola and treated with the experimental drug ZMapp has died in Monrovia, Liberian Information Minister Lewis Brown said on Monday....
President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has called for creation of a board of inquiry to look into last week’s Ebola-related rioting and deadly shooting in the West Point slum of Liberia’s capital, Monrovia. Information Minister Lewis Brown said the board will have 10 days to submit its findings to the president...
Foreign envoys posted here representing countries in Africa are pushing back at what they describe as an irrational “Ebola panic,” amid fears among the South Korean public of the spread of the deadly disease that is currently affecting parts of West Africa....
L'agence américaine de développement (USAID) a livré dimanche 24 août par avion 16 tonnes d'équipements médicaux pour lutter contre Ebola au Liberia, le pays le plus touché. Durée: 00:47.
“MONROVIA, Aug 24 - The worst-ever outbreak of the Ebola virus is taking a heavy toll on west Africa's economy as crops rot in the fields, mines are abandoned.
COTONOU, Aug 24 - A meeting of African health ministers scheduled for early September in Benin has been postponed because of the Ebola epidemic, an official said.
FAO today told ministers of health and agriculture meeting in Indonesia that animal disease monitoring systems require sustained support and have a critical role to play in preventing human disease threats...
..."Zoonootic diseases that can make the jump from animals to humans are a real concern, but there is much that we can do before the jump occurs and outbreaks take place, causing loss of life and disrupting fragile livelihoods," said Lubroth.
"To be more resilient in the face of such risks, countries need the resources to be able to better understand where disease is coming from and to prevent it from ever reaching people in the first place. By understanding animal health threats, we have the potential to be ahead of the curve and help prevent human tragedies from happening," he added....
Ethiopia has taken precautionary measures to prevent the deadly Ebola virus, which has so far affected four West African countries, since the new outbreak early this year.
In its precautionary activities, the East African nation has established taskforces and trained health professionals.
Public awareness activities are also going on in the country as part of the preparedness and prevention of Ebola...Ethiopia has also prepared a treatment area, a hospital for Ebola, if the case happens in the country.
A command post has been set up at Bole International Airport in Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa.
"Over 20 volunteers are doing inspection or doing assessment around the airport starting last week," the official said.
...Impact on Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (MNCH):
Because EVD makes people seek healthcare, it is having a deleterious effect on other aspects of healthcare demand, accessibility, and management. In sub-Saharan Africa, where a significant fraction of the population comprises women and children, MNCH is hampered in many ways, especially fuelled by 2 main factors:
• Poor awareness and fear about EVD, as well as the stigmatization of both patients of EVD and of healthcare workers that treat (or could be treating) EVD patients.
• Insufficient protective clothing and work materials for healthcare workers, in many parts of Africa, including, unfortunately, EVD treatment and isolation centers
Women and children are as afraid to go seek care in healthcare facilities (HCFs) as the healthcare workers (HCWs) are afraid to treat them, especially when such patients present with signs and symptoms similar to that of EVD, notably fever, diarrhoea, stomach pain, rash, chest pain, difficult breathing, difficult swallowing, generalized body weakness, cough, and bleeding.
Aside from the fact that this fear causes a great delay in care seeking and access, leading to still births, premature deliveries, maternal death, and child death, EVD can very much complicate any pregnancy- or childhood-related illness, most often leading to death. Worse still, because a pregnant woman in labour usually needs more than one HCW attending to her, the risk of transmitting EVD to HCWs are a lot greater in the labour room, obstetrics ward, or maternity unit....
New cases of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of the Congo are spreading fears that the virus will spread further across Africa. Yet, the variety found in Central Africa might be of a different kind.
Health workers with Doctors Without Borders have been threatened with knives, stones and machetes by Guineans who blame them for spreading the deadly virus...
The US sends two man-sized robots that use ultraviolet light to kill superbugs to Liberia to help disinfect environments for treating Ebola patients.
Two robots designed to deliver lethal doses of ultraviolet light that modify the DNA structure of superbugs so they can no longer reproduce and harm patients are to be deployed in Liberian hospitals caring for patients with Ebola virus disease...
Via Troy Mccomas (troy48)
The best defense against despair was to keep working. Many times, that choice was far from obvious: Josephine Finda Sellu lost 15 of her nurses to Ebola in rapid succession and thought about quitting herself...
...The nurses and doctors here had banked on their experience treating Lassa fever, another deadly disease that causes bleeding. But Ebola is of a different order, and they had never seen it before...
For health systems fighting the Ebola outbreak, it is important to identify survivors in order to record their experiences and support community awareness efforts.
When disaster strikes a poor country, aid workers from all over the world normally flood the zone. This time, fear of the virus is keeping experts from answering West Africa's calls for help....
...Liberians are also at forefront of the work that experts say is the real key to quashing the outbreak: going door-to-door through every community to find out who is sick, help them get tested, and encourage those who came in contact with a sick person to stay away from others during the 21 days it takes to find out if they've been infected...
The horrific Ebola epidemic in Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria demands not only an emergency response to halt the outbreak; it also calls for rethinking basic assumptions of global public health.
...So, is the world ready for Ebola, a newly lethal influenza, a mutation of HIV that could speed the transfer of the disease, or the development of new multidrug-resistant strains of malaria or other pathogens? The answer is no....
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