Situation Report

NEW YORK TIMES   By Jeffrey Gettleman                        Nov.28, 2014

KISSI TOWN, Sierra Leone-- ...While health officials say they are making headway against the Ebola epidemic in neighboring Liberia, the disease is still raging in Sierra Leone, despite the big international push. In November alone, the World Health Organization has reported more than 1,800 new cases in this country, about three times as many as in Liberia, which until recently had been the center of the outbreak....

On Freetown’s outskirts, burly youth are setting up roadblocks. The police are nowhere to be found. The young men barricade the road brandishing digital thermometers. Credit Daniel Berehulak for The New York Times

energymanagertoday.com - by Linda Hardesty
November 26, 2014

Although a recent story from Spectrum IEEE said Google researchers gave up on a project to produce electricity from renewables more cheaply than electricity from coal, a story in the New York Times says some renewable electricity is already cost competitive with coal.

The story cites a study by the investment banking firm Lazard, which finds the cost of utility-scale solar is as low as 5.6 cents per kWh, and wind is as low as 1.4 cents, while natural gas comes in at 6.1 cents and coal at 6.6 cents.

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CLICK HERE - STUDY - Lazard's Levelized Cost of Energy Analysis - Version 8.0 (20 page .PDF file)

REUTERS      By Kate Kelland                                                                                                  Nov. 26, 2014

LONDON --West Africa's Ebola epidemic could worsen further before abating but new infections should start to decline in all affected countries by the end of this year, a leading specialist on the disease said on Wednesday.

Peter Piot, one of the scientists who first identified the Ebola virus almost 40 years ago, said the outbreak was far from over, but said that "thanks to now massive efforts at all levels" what had been an exponential growth in numbers should soon begin to recede.

The death toll in the worst Ebola epidemic on record has risen to 5,459 out of 15,351 cases identified in eight countries by November 18, latest data from the World Health Organization (WHO) showed. Almost all those cases are in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia.

"By the end of the year we should start seeing a real decline everywhere," Piot, who is now director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, told a meeting of public health experts, non-governmental organizations and officials.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/26/us-health-ebola-piot-idUSKCN0JA1AQ20141126

Description of efforts by the big drug companies to develop an Ebloa vaccine
THE NEW YORKER    By Vauhine Vara                        Nov. 25, 2014

"...why this race to create an Ebola vaccine among Merck, GlaxoSmithKline, and Johnson & Johnson—three of the world’s biggest drug manufacturers? For years, pharmaceutical companies didn’t invest much in vaccines, partly because they were so costly and complicated to produce: they’re often made out of live bacteria, which are notoriously difficult to work with. But, over the past several years, companies have realized that the difficulties of making vaccines could be an asset, because they can make it more difficult for generic-drug companies to create copycat versions than for prescription drugs. The vaccine market has also been growing more quickly than the prescription-drug market. The World Health Organization estimates, based on various sources, that global vaccine sales rose from five billion dollars in 2000 to twenty-four billion dollars last year...."

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http://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/race-ebola-vaccine