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French President Francois Hollande is to arrive in Guinea, becoming the first Western leader to visit a nation hit hard by the deadly Ebola virus.

He will deliver "a message of solidarity" to Guinea, where more than 1,200 have died of Ebola.

Meanwhile Guinea is to trial a new Ebola test that will deliver results six times faster than current methods.

The outbreak was now "stable" in the West African country, the World Health Organization (WHO) said last week.

France has pledged 100m euros (£79m; $125m) to help tackle the disease by opening several care centres in Guinea, a former French colony.

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http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-30241374

CENTER FOR INFECTIOUS DISEASE RESEARCH AND POLICY
By Lisa Schnirring                                               Nov.18, 2014

Quicker and simpler diagnostic tests for Ebola could go a long way in helping break chains of disease transmission in West Africa's outbreak region, the World Health Organization (WHO) said today, as it unveiled two new initiatives to expedite their development.

The WHO said it hopes new efforts—similar to those under way to test and deliver an Ebola vaccine—can compress the development of a rapid test in months instead of years.

Standard reverse-transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) tests used in mobile and other labs in the outbreak are very accurate when conducted by trained staff, but they require a full tube of blood, take 2 to 6 hours to get a result, and costs around $100 per test, the WHO said today in a statement....

NEW YORK TIMES                                                                                         Nov. 16, 2014

EDITORIAL

Recent gains in controlling the Ebola epidemic in West Africa have been encouraging, but they offer no reason for complacency. In Liberia, the hardest-hit country, the rate of new infections has declined in some areas, and several treatment units have been reporting empty beds for more than a month. But in adjacent Sierra Leone the number of new cases has shot upward, while in Guinea, where the epidemic started, the incidence of new cases appears to have stabilized over all, with growth in some districts and declines in others. All told, Ebola has infected more than 14,000 people in West Africa and killed more than 5,000 of them...

CONGRESSIONAL HEARING: House Foreign Committee Chairman blasts WHO, while AID urges funding to address Ebola hotspots.
(Two stories, scroll down)

THE HILL                                                                                                                           Nov. 13, 2014

A top Republican is calling for a new strategy to fight Ebola overseas — one that does not rely on the embattled World Health Organization (WHO).

Rep. Ed Royce (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, slammed the organization for what he called “deadly incompetence” in the battle against the disease.

“Unfortunately, we are paying the price for early failures,” Royce said at a hearing, arguing that the WHO “repeatedly downplayed the crisis.”

Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) said he has “no confidence” in the WHO.
“WHO contributed to the spread of this virus and to a high mortality rate, frankly, because of its cronyism and its incompetence,” Connolly said.The