AFP-JIJI                                                                               Jan. 14, 2014
FREETOWN – Eighty percent of people phoning a toll-free Ebola help number are prank callers, the head of the Ebola Call Centre in Sierra Leone, Reynold Senessie, said Tuesday.

“Such prank calls are affecting the smooth operation of the center,” Senessie said while briefing Palo Conteh, head of the National Ebola Response Centre (NERC), who paid an unannounced visit to the call center.

The good news is that “genuine calls are dwindling and response to such calls have been swift,” he added.

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http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/01/14/world/science-health-world/calls-ebola-center-pranks-sierra-leone-official/#.VLa5BXu1f8w
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Use of a Nationwide Call Center for Ebola Response and Monitoring During a 3-Day House-to-House Campaign — Sierra Leone, September 2014

CDC detaied study of call center useage in Sierra Leone

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MIT THE TECH  by Jennifer F. Switzer                         Jan. 14, 2015

CAMBRIDGE , MA-- At the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, in a lab run by accomplished computational geneticist Pardis Sabeti ’97, researchers have collaborated with institutions in the U.S. and abroad to sequence and analyze more than 99 Ebola virus genomes collected by fellow scientists in Sierra Leone. They are on the lookout for mutations that could aid in developing new treatment options for Ebola, or that could serve as indications that the virus is evolving to become more deadly.

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http://tech.mit.edu/V134/N62/ebola.htm

MEDICAL NEWS TODAY                                                                                   Jan. 14, 2015
A new computer model that takes into account not only features of the virus and how it transmits, but also what is being done to halt its spread, predicts that the Ebola epidemic in Liberia could end by June if current high rates of hospitalization and surveillance continue.

                     The researchers believe their Ebola epidemic tool offers more realistic forecasts.

"That's a realistic possibility but not a foregone conclusion," says John Drake, an ecology professor at the University of Georgia (UGA), who led the project to develop the model with other ecologists at UGA and also at Pennsylvania State University.

The team reports how they developed the model and ran some scenarios through it, in the open access journal PLOS Biology.

Prof. Drake says their epidemic model is probably the first to take into account factors such as where infections occur, where patients are treated, growth in hospital bed numbers, and the adoption of safe burial practices.

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REUTERS                                                                                                      Jan. 13, 2015

MONROVIA-- Liberia is on the verge of containing the spread of the Ebola virus with only two of its 15 counties reporting new infections, the head of the country's Ebola response said on Tuesday.

Tolbert Nyenswah, who is also a deputy health minister, said the new cases were reported in Montserrado county, which includes the capital Monrovia, and Grand Cape Mount, on the border with Sierra Leone.

Bong, Nimba, Sinoe, and Margibi counties have not reported a single case since the end of December, he said. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), Bong, Nimba and Sinoe have gone 21 days without a positive case - the maximum incubation period for the virus.