Disease

nytimes.com - by MARK LANDLER and SOMINI SENGUPTA - September 25, 2014

UNITED NATIONS — Seeking to speed the response to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, President Obama delivered a blunt warning on Thursday at a high-level United Nations meeting devoted to the health crisis: The world was doing too little and moving too slowly.

Mr. Obama cited his announcements last week that the Pentagon would build a field hospital and treatment units in Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone — along with the establishment of a United Nations emergency mission to respond to the Ebola outbreak — as positive steps.

“But I want us to be clear: We are not moving fast enough. We are not doing enough,” the president said. “There is still a significant gap between where we are and where we need to be.”

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By: PTI - 25, Sep 2014 9:12 AM (IST) - newsnation.in

Washington: US Secretary of State John Kerry has appointed Nancy Powell, the former US Ambassador to India, as Ebola Coordinator at the State Department.

In this new role, announced yesterday, Powell will lead the State Department's outreach to international partners, including foreign governments, to ensure a speedy and truly global response to this crisis.

Obama had last week declared the Ebola outbreak as a "global threat" which demands "a truly global response."

http://m.newsnation.in/article/55710-john-kerry-appoints-nancy-powell-ebola-coordinator.html

New York Times

CDC  releases report on worst and best case estimates for Ebola cases. 

Estimates cover Liberia and Sierra Leone, based on computer modeling. Guinea not included because data  "cannot be reliably modeled."

Best case-model, which assures the dead are buried safely and 70 per cent of the patients are treated in settings that reduce the risk of transmission, suggest the epidemic could almost be ended by Jan. 20.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/24/health/ebola-cases-could-reach-14-million-in-4-months-cdc-estimates.html?emc=edit_na_20140923&nlid=12644555&_r=0

LINK TO THE CDC REPORT TEXT

http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/page/national/ebola-cases-could-skyrocket-by-2015-says-cdc/1337/

CDC RELEASES ESTIMATES OF EBOLA CASES, COULD REACH 1.4 MILLION
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/su6303a1.htm?s_cid=su6303a1_w

United Nations secretary general Ban Ki-moon with actor Leonardo DiCaprio during his designation ceremony as the UN Messenger of Peace. Photograph: EPA

Julian Borger - New York The Guardian
21 Sep 2014 16.55 BST

More than 140 heads of state and government fly in to New York this week for the United Nations general assembly amid apprehension that international order is unraveling at an accelerating pace, while the world's leaders seem ever less willing or able to deal with the proliferating threats.

The UN's humanitarian agencies are in danger of being completely overwhelmed by the multiple crises. Ebola is spreading rapidly across West Africa, swamping rickety national health systems and a thus-far underfunded UN effort to stop its advance. The spread of Islamic State (Isis) extremists in the Middle East, feeding on the destruction of the Syrian civil war and exposing the weakness of the Iraqi state, has similarly outpaced patchy international efforts at containment.