Guinea

DESIGN & TREND  by Randall Mayes                                                                             Nov. 29, 2014

Over the last decade, we have witnessed the emergence of Superbugs, various strains of bird flu and now Ebola, which do not have geographical borders.

Consequently, there is a pressing need for international cooperation to control these pandemics.

In a new study, researchers have identified obstacles that are currently preventing the world from sharing health data, reports Science Daily.

While performing a literature search for the study, an international group of researchers discovered over 1,400 scientific articles related to sharing public health data. From those articles, they found two broad categories that need to be addressed.

Read comlete story
http://www.designntrend.com/articles/28008/20141129/urgent-need-improved-infrastructure-share-health-data.htm

Link to article  in Science Daily
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/11/141125102102.htm

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....

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

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