Conakry

Four new studies shed new light on Ebola transmission and countermeasures.

CENTER FOR EFFECTIVE FOR RESEARCH AND POLICY  by Lisa Schnirring                                        Jan. 23, 2015

French and Guinean researchers  noted how chains of transmission helped Ebola spread in Conakry, Guinea, the first of the region's capital cities to be hit by the virus, and US officials released three detailed reports on outbreak response.

The Conakry team looked at seven transmission chains that occurred in the area from March to August 2014. They reported their findings in The Lancet Infectious Diseases.

In the first of three reports Friday in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), extra flight contact tracing measures undertaken after a Texas nurse took two flights shortly before getting sick with Ebola in October identified 268 people from nine states, none of whom got sick with the virus

In the second report, CDC estimates on the impact of Ebola treatment units (ETUs) and community care centers (CCCs) in Liberia predict that the interventions prevented thousands of new infections and that the interventions when used together were likely had a bigger impact than either alone.

Statement by Dr. Margaret, Director-General of the World Health Organization to a Special Session of the Executive Board on Ebola

WHO PRESS OFFICE, Geneva                                                                                       Jan. 25, 2015

Excerpt:

"The Ebola outbreak points to the need for urgent change in three main areas: to rebuild and strengthen national and international emergency preparedness and response, to address the way new medical products are brought to market, and to strengthen the way WHO operates during emergencies."

Read complete statement.

http://www.who.int/dg/speeches/2015/executive-board-ebola/en/

REUTERS    by  By Saliou Samb                           Jan. 23, 2015           

CONAKRY --Angry residents are blocking access for health workers to dozens of remote villages in Guinea, in a sign of persistent mistrust that could threaten President Alpha Conde's aim to eradicate Ebola from the country by early March....

Guinea has recorded a sharp fall in infections in recent weeks, fuelling hope that the tide has turned against the epidemic.

But with some people still denying the incurable disease exists, experts say it could prove difficult to trace those who had been in contact with the infected and to change traditional behavior such as burial rituals involving touching the dead. These steps are seen as vital to defeating the disease....

In a sign of the resistance and distrust, medical kits sent by the government to schoolchildren were destroyed by villagers in Ourekaba, southern Guinea. ... locals thought the kits had been sent to contaminate the children.

Two security officials who arrived to investigate reports of a secret Ebola burial were lynched last week by a crowd in Sinkine, in the Forecariah region about 100 km from the capital Conakry, a police source said.

THE INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS TIMES   by Amy Nordrum                                                                      Jan. 23, 2015

The recent Ebola outbreak, for which the number of new cases reported each week in the three most severely affected countries is finally beginning to fall, underscores the need to prepare for the next disease outbreak. Global health leaders are asking what it will take to prevent the next disease outbreak from spiraling out of control as the global population approaches 7.5 billion people and grows more connected.

     A research assistant works on a vaccine for Ebola at the Jenner Institute in Oxford, England. Eddie Keogh/Reuters