Situation Report

Thomson Reuters Foundation

By Stella Dawson

Mon Sep 29, 2014 

WASHINGTON - The rainy season in West Africa is compounding difficulties in getting supplies delivered and new treatment centers built as donors rush to isolate people infected with the deadly Ebola virus and stop its rapid spread, U.S. officials said.

Nancy Powell, newly appointed as the U.S. State Department's envoy to coordinate its Ebola response, said the top priority is to isolate as many people as quickly as possible. But that faces significant logistical hurdles.

"Infrastructure challenges in the rainy season is one of the biggest difficulties. And you add the rain and getting materials out of the capital and it is very difficult," Powell said in a news briefing last week.

The July to September rainy season is coming toward its end, but October is known for heavy thunderstorms that can drench the region and turn roads to mud.

Eric Talbert, executive director of Emergency USA which has opened a 22-bed Ebola treatment center in Goderich, outside the capital of Freetown in Sierra Leone, said the downpours complicate getting supplies along unpaved single track roads that are washed out by the heavy rains..

By Cheryl Pellerin

DoD News, Defense Media Activity

WASHINGTON, Sept. 26, 2014 – The Defense Department has made critical contributions to the fight against the deadly Ebola outbreak in West Africa, and today Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel described additional ways the Pentagon is helping in the broader battle against infectious disease outbreaks of the future.

He spoke at a gathering of top government and military officials and infectious disease experts from 44 countries here to attend the Global Health Security Agenda, or GHSA, Summit hosted by President Barack Obama.

Hagel said ...the department also is accelerating the manufacture of potential treatments and starting clinical trials for a vaccine candidate and it has received approval to begin safety testing for one [Ebola] vaccine candidate that will be conducted at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research.”

...The DoD Cooperative Threat Reduction Program is providing unique resources and expertise to enhance detection and surveillance, Hagel said, and all department assets will help civilian responders contain Ebola's spread and mitigate its economic, social and political fallout.

For fuller description of the Defense Department's activities to counter Ebola see link to the full article:

uschamberfoundation.org

Event: Corporate Citizenship Center - Ebola Outbreak Coordination Conference Call
Friday, September 26, 2014 - 2:00pm

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation Corporate Citizenship Center (CCC) hosted a conference call on Friday, September 26 at 2:00 p.m. Eastern Time to discuss the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.

Over the past six months, an Ebola outbreak has affected five countries in West Africa (Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, Senegal, and Sierra Leone).  The current outbreak is unprecedented in scale and geographical reach: the present West Africa outbreak has a higher caseload than all other previous Ebola crises combined.  Worse yet, the United Nations reports that the outbreak continues to accelerate, with almost 40% of the total cases occurring in the past 21 days.

CCC’s Ebola coordination conference call will provide updated information on the humanitarian response and the efforts to contain the disease.  It will also detail ways that the business community can help.

CLICK HERE - Listen to the Call Archive