Situation Report

news-medical.net - April 6, 2015

Adam C. Levine, M.D., an emergency medicine physician at Rhode Island Hospital and The Miriam Hospital who treated Ebola-infected patients in Liberia last year, used his field experience to create a tool to determine the likelihood that patients presenting with Ebola symptoms will actually carry the virus. His research was published in the Annals of Emergency Medicine today.

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CLICK HERE - RESEARCH - Derivation and Internal Validation of the Ebola Prediction Score for Risk Stratification of Patients With Suspected Ebola Virus Disease

ASSOCIATED PRESS  by Sarah DiLorenzo                                                               April 2, 2015      

(Scroll below for related Wall Street Journal story.)   

DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — When will the world's largest and longest Ebola outbreak end? The West African countries of Sierra Leone and Liberia both appear to be on steady paths to ending the epidemic. The wild card is Guinea, where Ebola hasn't burned as hot but remains stubbornly entrenched.

In this file photo dated Friday, March. 27, 2015, a usually busy street is deserted as Sierra Leone enters a three day country wide lockdown on movement of people due to the Ebola virus in the city of Freetown, Sierra Leone. Sierra Leone's 6 million people were told to stay home for three days, except for religious services, beginning Friday as the West African nation attempted a final push to rid itself of Ebola. (AP Photo/ Michael Duff, FILE)

Liberia's last Ebola patient died March 27; it is now counting down the 42 days it must wait to be declared free of Ebola. Meanwhile, Sierra Leone recorded no new infections Wednesday for the second time; on average, it has logged a handful each day in recent days.

WHO                                                                                                          March 31, 2015
Cristiana Salvi, a risk communications specialist from WHO’s European regional office was deployed to Guinea at the end of April – early May 2014 to provide social mobilization support to the Ebola response. Social mobilization involves working with communities to gain their acceptance of the need for early identification of people with illness, early treatment and identification and follow up of all people who have been in contact with people confirmed to have Ebola virus disease.

 Cristiana was among the first from WHO offices other than Headquarters and the African office to provide support to the field response, many others followed from the “wider WHO”. She travelled to Gueckedou where communities had begun to hide people who were sick, fearing treatment centres, believing rumours Ebola response teams were there for sinister purposes. This is what she found.

Excerpt:

REUTERS   by Saliou Samb                              March 31, 2105

CONAKRY --Guinea has detected at least three new cases of Ebola in the alumina hub of Fria, according to the national coordination of the fight against the disease, as authorities blamed popular resistance for hampering the battle against the virus.

Fria is home to the only alumina smelter in the West African country, Friguia, which produced some 630,000 tonnes of alumina a year until it was shuttered by Russian aluminium giant RUSAL in 2012.

The report noted the refusal by the local population in Conakry to hand over two other suspected cases, despite the intervention of local authorities. It said families in the town of Coyah, 50 km ( miles) from Conakry had refused to follow contacts of an Ebola case.

The resistance of local communities, which refuse to admit the existence of the disease, has dogged efforts to eradicate Ebola in Guinea since it was detected in March 2014

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http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/31/us-health-ebola-guinea-idUSKBN0MR1TL20150331