VOX  by Julia Belluz                                            March 12, 2015

(Scroll down for full Science Journal study.)

As if being stricken by the most deadly virus known to man weren't enough, now, it seems, West Africa is on alert for outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases including measles, whooping cough, and tuberculosis.

A girl collects her family's laundry after drying it on a rooftop in the West Point township on January 31, 2015 in Monrovia, Liberia. Life has been disrupted by Ebola for many Liberians.

In a new study in the journal Science, researchers focused on measles — the most contagious virus recorded — and applied statistical models to quantify the likelihood of an epidemic in the three countries worst hit by Ebola, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea.

ASSOCIATED PRESS  by Clarence Roy-Macaulay                                                      March 12, 2015
 FREETOWN --   Sierra Leone has seen a worrying spike in confirmed Ebola cases over the past week in four districts, the head of the national Ebola response center said Thursday.

New measures must now be put into place to contain the surges, said the head of the National Ebola Response Centre, Alfred Palo Conteh.

Fifteen cases were recorded Wednesday, along with 16 on Monday and Tuesday respectively, according to Sierra Leone's Ministry of Health and Sanitation.

"We are now on a bumpy road to zero number of cases to get to President Ernest Bai Koroma's target of March 31," said Palo Conteh. "It is frustrating."

Read complete story.
http://news.yahoo.com/sierra-leone-sees-worrying-spike-ebola-cases-over-141214859.html;_ylt=AwrBEiTD7gJVy2QANdbQtDMD

NEW YORK TIMES  by Sheri Fink and Allan Cowell                                                         March 12, 2015

A worker from Partners In Health, the prominent American medical aid organization, and an emergency worker from the British military have been infected with the deadly virus in Sierra Leone, health officials said Thursday.

The Partners In Health worker was the first in that group to be infected since it made an ambitious commitment last fall to help combat Ebola in West Africa, and was the first American health worker in months to get the disease while working in the region. ...

AFP                                                                                                                    March 12, 2015
(Scroll down for WHO report.)

Geneva -- The global death toll from the Ebola outbreak centred in west Africa has topped 10,000 out of more than 24,000 recorded cases, the World Health Organization said Thursday.

Almost all the deaths and cases have been reported in the three west African countries worst hit by the outbreak: Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea.

Sierra Leone, which has overtaken Liberia as the country with the most infections, counted 11,677 cases and 3,655 deaths as of March 10.

As of March 5, Liberia -- long the hardest-hit country -- had recorded a total of 9,343 and 4,162 deaths.

But the tide seems to be turning in the country which in August and September was reporting more than 300 new cases each week, with the WHO saying Wednesday that Liberia had registered no new cases since February 19.

In Guinea, where the outbreak started in December 2013, 3,330 Ebola cases and 2,187 deaths were recorded as of March 10.

The WHO said on Wednesday that the country had seen no new cases in the previous 10 days.

OMAHA WORLD-HERALD by  Bob Glissman                                                             March 11, 2015

  The West African countries hit hardest by the Ebola virus and the countries and groups that have helped battle the disease must remain vigilant if the number of new Ebola cases is to get to zero, health experts said Wednesday.

Dr. Ali Khan, dean of the University of Nebraska Medical Center’s College of Public Health, spent a month in Sierra Leone as a consultant on Ebola for the World Health Organization. 

Dr. Ali Khan, who returned to Omaha late last week after a month in Sierra Leone, said progress is evident, but he cautioned officials there against becoming complacent. “Because with a disease like Ebola,” he said, “all you need is one case to restart an outbreak or a cluster of cases.”

REUTERS  by Misha Hussain                                                    March 12, 2015sC

(Scroll down for links to press release and full report.)

DAKAR -- West Africa may lose up to $15 billion over the next three years due to the impact of the Ebola outbreak on trade, investment and tourism, according to a report by the United Nations.

The world's deadliest Ebola epidemic has killed almost 10,000 people in the three most affected countries of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, deepening poverty in one of the least developed parts of the world.

"The consequences of Ebola are vast," said Abdoulaye Mar Dieye, Africa director of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

"Stigma and risk aversion have caused considerable amounts of damage, shutting down borders and indirectly affecting the economies of a large number of countries in the sub-region."

Read complete story

http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-could-cost-west-africa-15-billion-over-150805196.html;_ylt=AwrBJSCTtwFVoAIAda3QtDMD

THE TELEGRAPH  by  Victoria Ward and Ben Farmer   March 12, 2015  

The woman is the third British health care worker confirmed to have caught the deadly virus...

Justine Greening, the Development Secretary, said the checks on the four other workers were "purely precautionary" after they had close contact with the female patient.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/ebola/11466376/British-Army-medic-with-Ebola-being-flown-back-to-UK.html

NEW YORK TIMES  by Rick Gladstone                                                                   March 12, 2015 

The president of Liberia acknowledged on Wednesday that she had erred in ordering a tough security crackdown at the height of the Ebola crisis last year, describing the deadly virus as an “unknown enemy” that had frightened her.

Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf during a video address last Deceber to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee

SCIENCE By Kai Kupferschmidt                                                                       March 11, 2015

Researchers in Sierra Leone today started a new phase II trial of an experimental drug in Ebola patients. The first participant received an injection of the therapeutic, called TKM-Ebola, this morning at an Ebola treatment unit in Kerry Town. The trial may expand to other sites; the study team hopes to have an answer fast so that it can either move on to another drug or start a phase III study of TKM-Ebola.

Produced by Tekmira Pharmaceuticals in Burnaby, Canada, TKM-Ebola is made of synthetic, small interfering RNAs packaged into lipid nanoparticles. The RNAs target three of Ebola’s seven genes, blocking the virus’s replication. TKM-Ebola has been shown to work well in monkeys; the efficacy trial in humans is only starting now because there was not enough of the drug available earlier. Also, the RNAs have been adapted to the strain circulating at the moment.

The study does not have a placebo arm; all patients at the trial site are eligible for the drug, and researchers hope to determine whether it works by comparing them with patients treated elsewhere.

AFP                                                                                                                       March 11, 2015

Geneva  - No new case of the deadly Ebola virus has been registered in Liberia since February 19, the World Health Organization said Wednesday, also hailing positive signs in Sierra Leone and Guinea.

                      A man walks past an Ebola campaign banner with the new slogan "Ebola Must GO" in Monrovia

Liberia, long the hardest-hit country in the Ebola epidemic that has killed nearly 10,000 people in west Africa, "has now gone well over two weeks without a new reported case," said Bruce Aylward, who heads WHO's Ebola response....

The outlook was less positive in the other countries affected by the outbreak, Guinea and Sierra Leone, although Aylward highlighted positive signs there too.
Read complete story.
http://news.yahoo.com/no-ebola-cases-liberia-more-two-weeks-175855158.html;_ylt=AwrBJR9j5gBVAQYArDLQtDMD

REUTERS     by Tom Miles                                                                                        March 11, 2015

GENEVA -Waning interest in Ebola could jeopardize efforts to stamp out the world's worst recorded outbreak of the disease, the World Health Organization said on Wednesday.

Case numbers have fallen to a low level and it should be possible to stop transmission by mid-year, but the disease is "not waning" and it is much too early to assume the outbreak will end, said WHO Assistant Director General Bruce Aylward.

"We talk often about how steep the drop in cases has been. The only thing that has dropped more quickly and more steeply is the new contributions in financing," he told reporters in Geneva. 

...the failure to make further inroads is "alarming", Aylward said.

"Getting from here to zero is going to require another reinvestment (in the drive to tackle the outbreak)."

Researchers are scrambling to start trials before the outbreak fades, but establishing faith in vaccines will take time

AL JAZEERA AMERICA  by Amy Maxmen                       March 11, 2015

FREETOWN, Sierra Leone — Since Ebola hit this coastal city last summer, nurses at Connaught Hospital have put their lives on the line by working with patients at risk of the deadly disease. Now researchers aim to recruit them as well as ambulance drivers and other hospital staff as subjects in one of the largest Ebola vaccine trials to date.

But just a few weeks before the trial begins enrollment, many health care workers are voicing discomfort about the shot. “It would be really good to have a vaccine, but we’re scared because it’s new,” said Kadiatu Nubieu, a nurse at Connaught.

WHO PRESS RELEASE                                                March 10, 2015

The WHO Director-General has commissioned a panel of outside independent experts to undertake an assessment on all aspects of WHO’s response in the Ebola outbreak. This is in response to a resolution passed during the Ebola Special Session of the Executive Board in January 2015.

Dame Barbara Stocking will chair the panel. She was formerly Chief Executive of Oxfam GB (2001-13) and during this time led major humanitarian responses. Currently she is President of Murray Edwards College, University of Cambridge, UK.

The other panel members are: Professor Jean-Jacques Muyembe-Tamfun, Director-General of the National Institute for Biomedical Research, Democratic Republic of the Congo; Dr Faisal Shuaib, Head of the National Ebola Emergency Operations Center, Nigeria; Dr Carmencita Alberto-Banatin, independent consultant and advisor on health emergencies and disasters, Philippines; Professor Julio Frenk, Dean of the Faculty, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA; and Professor Ilona Kickbusch, Director of the Global Health Programme at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva, Switzerland.

The panel will present a first progress report on its work to the 68th World Health Assembly in May 2015.

THE GUARDIAN  by Clár Ní Chonghaile                                                         March 10, 2015

As Sierra Leone looks to rebuild after the Ebola epidemic, it may be forced to diversify from a mining-heavy economic base. Falling iron ore prices and the effects of Ebola on the industry signal the need for change, according to the chairman of the Chamber of Mines, who said the diversification could be beneficial.

A mine in Koidu, Sierra Leone. Falling iron ore prices and the Ebola crisis could force changes in the mining sector.Photograph: Issouf Sanogo/AFP/Getty Images

 John Bonoh Sisay said mining companies will also have to change the way they interact with local people, placing a greater emphasis on supporting healthcare systems as part of corporate social responsibility.

THE ECONOMIST                                                                                                   March 9, 2015

As in all Ebola episodes, preventing infection in West Africa during what has been the worst outbreak in history has placed a lot of effort on looking after those dealing with the victims. New high-tech equipment is now available for use by health care workers, but in some countries it may be inappropriate....

Health care workers inside a USAID-funded Ebola clinic in Liberia wearing protective gear. Some of the best protective gear or technology is not available to African countries because of high costs or other conditions.  Photos by Abbas Dulleh • Associated Press,