AFP   by Rod Mac Johnson                                        Feb. 10, 2015
Freetown -- Sierra Leone announced Tuesday the launch of an infectious diseases prevention agency, saying it would convert its Ebola clinics into treatment and research units for some of the world's deadliest viruses.

The organisation will follow the model of the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the leading American public health institute which has been at the forefront of the response the west African Ebola outbreak....

Although some Ebola units are temporary, Sierra Leone and its neighbours Guinea and Liberia have been looking for ways to continue using others launched at great expense at the height of the epidemic.

"We are now on the verge of constructing a permanent Centres for Disease Control in Sierra Leone, and also the introduction of an ambulance service in the country," government spokesman Abdulai Bayraytay told an online news conference.

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http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-hit-sierra-leone-announces-disease-control-agency-222729883.html;_ylt=AwrBJR7GdttUOCIA_kXQtDMD

UPDATE: Obama says US has ‘risen to the challenge’ of fighting Ebola

ASSOCIATED PRESS  BY Edith Lederer in New York and Josh Lederman in Washington               Feb. 11, 2015

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama heralded a “new phase in the fight” against Ebola on Wednesday and said progress against the outbreak in West Africa will allow the U.S. to withdraw nearly all American troops sent to Liberia last fall.

He cautioned the mission was not over, and he set an ambitious goal of eliminating the disease. “We have risen to the challenge,” he said at the White House. “Our focus now is getting to zero.”

Obama said only 100 of the 2,800 troops sent to Liberia will remain there after April 30. About 1,500 have returned home.

...Earlier in the day, he met with philanthropists and foundation leaders who had supported the fight against the outbreak, which had threatened to spiral out of control and fostered fears in the U.S. and elsewhere beyond West Africa.

At the height of the outbreak, Liberia was experiencing 119 confirmed Ebola cases per week. This week there were only three. But Guinea reported a sharp increase with 65 new confirmed cases compared with 39 the week before. Sierra Leone reported 76 new confirmed cases.

THE PRESS ASSOCIATION                               Feb. 4, 2015
LONDON --A British nurse who contracted Ebola while working in Sierra Leone possibly caught the virus by wearing a visor and not goggles, an investigation has suggested.
Press Association - Save the Children said Pauline Cafferkey, pictured on her return to health, may have contracted Ebola by wearing a visor rather than goggles when treating patients in Sierra Leone

The report by Save the Children said it cannot be completely certain how Pauline Cafferkey contracted Ebola but said both pieces of equipment are "equally safe".

The nurse, from Cambuslang in South Lanarkshire, had volunteered with the charity at the Ebola Treatment Centre (ETC) in Kerry Town before returning to the UK in December....

Save the Children published the findings of an independent review into the possible causes of how the 39-year-old caught the virus. The report said both visors and goggles are safe but there are slight differences in the type of clothing worn with each and in the protocols for putting them on and removing them....

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AFP                                                                      Feb. 3, 2015
GENEVA: The World Health Organization said Tuesday it had appointed its assistant director-general Bruce Aylward to head its overall response to the deadly Ebola outbreak.

It also said an independent commission was being created to assess WHO's widely criticised response to the epidemic, after the UN agency admitted last month it had been caught napping on Ebola and pledged reforms to avoid similar mistakes in the future.

WHO spokeswoman Fadela Chaib told reporters that Alward, a Canadian, will be responsible for coordinating all the different aspects of the agency's response to the devastating outbreak, which has killed nearly 9,000 people, almost all of them in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia.