Problem

BBC   by Andrew Harding                                    Dec. 2, 2014

FREETOWN, Sierra Leone --

... "By now, everyone knows about Ebola; and nobody with symptoms should, logically, be dying at home or on the street anymore.

Sometimes suspected Ebola cases are not reported to the health authorities

They should all have been taken to hospital.

But to understand why that is not happening, all you have to do is drive to any of the impoverished suburbs of Freetown..."

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http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-30279932

WASHINGTON POST  By      Lena H. Sun and Brady Dennis                                              Nov. 29, 2014

U.S. officials trying to set up a network of hospitals in this country to care for Ebola patients are running into reluctance from facilities worried about steep costs, unwanted attention and the possibility of scaring away other patients.

“They’re saying, ‘Look, we might be willing to do this, but we don’t want to be called an Ebola hospital. We don’t want people to be cancelling appointments left and right,’ ” said Michael Bell, director of laboratory safety at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention...

The reticence, although perhaps not surprising, complicates government efforts to ensure that the country can effectively treat people with Ebola and contain possible outbreaks. Just a few facilities in the United States have special biocontainment units, which are ideal for treating Ebola, and they can handle only two or three patients at a time

ASSOCIATED PRESS  By MICHELLE FAUL and JAMEY KEATEN Nov. 27, 2014

CONAKRY, Guinea --   ...President Alpha Conde says his government must coordinate the  (expected French)  response, one that aid workers say is confusing and inefficient. Overall the responsibility for the crisis has changed hands several times, from WHO’s regional Africa office, to its headquarters and finally to the U.N. mission.

“It’s difficult for us to understand who is working for (which) WHO” - the local Africa division or the central office in Geneva, said Pascal Piguet, a logistics expert with Doctors Without Borders who leads the Ebola treatment center in the southern town of Gueckedou....

Oyewale Tomori, a professor of virology at Redeemer’s University in Nigeria who sits on WHO’s emergency committee on Ebola, said countries themselves should be coordinating the Ebola control efforts with help from agencies like the U.S. CDC and WHO. “But that’s not happening. We have a very fractured response,” Tomori added....

Health workers spray themselves with chlorine disinfectants after removing the body a woman who died of Ebola virus in the Aberdeen district of Freetown, Sierra Leone, October 14, 2014.  Credit: Reuters/Josephus Olu-Mammah

reuters.com - by Emma Farge - November 26, 2014

(Reuters) - Sierra Leone appealed to the United States on Wednesday to send military aid to help it battle Ebola as it falls behind its West African neighbors Guinea and Liberia in the fight against the virus.

The worst recorded Ebola outbreak has killed at least 5,689 people, the World Health Organization said on Wednesday, as the virus has overwhelmed African countries with weak infrastructure and healthcare systemS.

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