CENTER FOR INFECIOUS DISEASE AND POLICY  by Lisa Schnirring     July 22, 2015

The number of new Ebola cases in Guinea and Sierra Leone declined a bit last week, with much of the disease activity centered in the two capital cities for the second week in a row, the World Health Organization (WHO) said in its weekly epidemiologic update today.

Tests confirmed 26 Ebola cases among the two countries, 22 in Guinea and 4 in Sierra Leone. The total is down from 30 reported the previous week, but progress against the disease has been stagnant over the past several weeks, hovering around 25 to 30 cases. Officials, however, said they saw more hopeful signs in contact tracing.

No new cases were reported in Liberia.

Overall, the total in the three countries has reached 27,705 confirmed, probable, and suspected cases, including 11,269 deaths, according to the WHO.

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http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2015/07/ebola-cases-ebb-bit-conakry-freetown-hot-spots

WHO:  Ebola Situation Report - 22 July 2015

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MSF                                                  July 17, 2015

Though Ebola has faded from the news headlines, the epidemic in West Africa continues to claim lives today. Around 30 people become infected each week in Sierra Leone and Guinea – a number that would be considered a major disaster under normal circumstances – and the outbreak has recently re-emerged in Liberia.

• Liberia: After being declared Ebola-free on 9May, six (6) new cases have been confirmed since the re-emergence of the virus at the end of June.
• Guinea: 13 confirmed cases in the country in the week to 12July in three main hotspots (Forecariah, Boké/Fria, Conakry)
• Sierra Leone: 14 confirmed cases in the country in the week to 12July in three main hotspots (Freetown, Port Loko, Kambia).  

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http://www.msf.org/article/ebola-crisis-update-17-july-2015

ebolaresponse.un.org/recovery-conference

The road towards recovery

Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone have undertaken a remarkable effort to defeat the devastating Ebola outbreak. Thanks to those efforts and the support of the international community, the affected countries have seen a significant decline in the number of new cases. Recovery must now be pursued as part of the goal of “getting to zero and staying at zero,” as the response changes from emergency operations to multi-faceted, long-term support.

To this end, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is hosting an International Ebola Recovery Conference in New York to ensure that recovery efforts go beyond redressing direct development losses to build back better and ensure greater resilience.

The Conference will be held in cooperation with the Governments of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, and in partnership with the African Union, the African Development Bank, the European Union and the World Bank.

Aims of the Conference

submitted by George Hurlburt

A group of volunteer medical workers carry the bodies of Ebola victims to a car in order to bury them in Kptema graveyard in Kenema, Sierra Leone, on August 24, 2014. Mohammed Elshamy/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

wired.com - by Erica Check Hayden - June 30, 2015

. . . The patients held the answer. If they survived, they carried antibodies that targeted the very viruses that had almost killed them. The samples he’d been working with didn’t contain antibodies, but if he could get blood from survivors, he might be able to figure out how to make the same antibodies that their immune systems had produced. It would not be easy or fast, but he couldn’t stand by while more people lost their lives—if not in this outbreak, then in the next one, or the next one after that. It was time for a new plan. . . .

. . . Once your body knows how to make antibodies specific to a disease, it never forgets . . . So physicians use survivor serum in the hope that amid the trillions of antibodies an adult human can make, the ones that fight a specific disease will be in the mix. It’s not a new idea.

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