Guinea

COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS  BY John Campbell
(Scroll down for Laurie Garett's essay "Ebola's Lessons.")

With a rapidly growing and urbanizing population, persistent poverty, and weak governance, Sub-Saharan Africa is likely to be the source of new epidemics that potentially could spread around the world. Understanding the disastrous response of African governments, international institutions, and donor governments to the Ebola epidemic is essential if history is not to be repeated yet again. That makes Laurie Garrett’s essay, “Ebola’s Lessons,” in the September/October 2015 issue of Foreign Affairs, essential reading.

The Ebola virus treatment center where four people are currently being treated is seen in Paynesville, Liberia, July 16, 2015. (Courtesy Reuters/James Giahyue)

The Completed Containerized Biocontainment Systems Units at Dobbins Air Force Base, in Marietta, Georgia

blogs.state.gov - by Andrew O'Brien - August 13, 2015

In treating Ebola internationally, U.S. government personnel, doctors, nurses, aid workers, and other global health professionals are often put in direct contact with Ebola, and unfortunately some contract the virus themselves. Yet with limited resources, the U.S. Department of State needed more capacity to safely transport these Ebola patients to treatment facilities. Additionally, availability of medevac is important to getting doctors and epidemiologists from all over the world to volunteer to join the Ebola response.

By partnering with the Paul G. Allen Family Fund we were able to confront this challenge head on. Two containerized medevac biocontainment systems were funded by a $5 million grant by the Paul G. Allen Family Fund and the units were unveiled on August 11th at an event recognizing the partnership. MRIGlobal, a leading research institute, built the units, which are fully equipped to transport four patients, contain a broader array of dangerous pathogens, and fly aboard both military and civilian aircraft to multiple destinations in a single mission.

REUTERS by Monica MacSwan                                                                     Aug. 12, 2015

LONDON -- Handwashing and giving out soap in schools in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone have helped to keep classrooms Ebola-free this year but schools need to remain vigilant after the summer holidays, the U.N. children's agency said on Wednesday.

UNICEF said there had been no reported cases of students or teachers contracting Ebola at a school this year in the three worst-hit countries in West Africa, where the virus has killed nearly 11,300 people since the outbreak began in late 2013.

In Liberia, where there have been as many as 4,800 deaths, two schools were decontaminated as a precaution after one student died in June and another became infected in July.

NATURE by Erika Check Hayden                                                                             Aug. 10, 2015
As West Africa’s Ebola outbreak winds down, an effort is under way to make the best use of the tens of thousands of patient samples collected by public-health agencies fighting the epidemic.  Samples from the Ebola epidemic in West Africa are held by public-health agencies in the region and abroad. Daniel Berehulak/NYT/Redux/Eyevine

On 6–7 August, the World Health Organization (WHO) convened a meeting in Freetown, Sierra Leone, to discuss how to establish a biobank for up to 100,000 samples of blood, semen, urine and breast milk from confirmed and suspected Ebola patients, as well as swabs taken from the bodies of people who died from the virus. Held by health agencies in both West Africa and the West, the samples could be valuable in understanding how the current Ebola crisis evolved, preparing for future outbreaks and developing public-health research capacity in a region that depends on outside experts.