Africa

THE TORONTO GLOBE AND MAIL by Kelly Grant                Dec.7, 2014

When the World Health Organization declared Nigeria officially Ebola-free in October, most of the fanfare centred on how Africa’s most populous country had managed to keep the virus from spreading.

But there was another, less heralded aspect of Nigeria’s success story that a Canadian doctor and her colleagues wanted to explore in more depth: How had 12 of Nigeria’s 20 Ebola patients beaten the virus?

The hospitals in Nigeria weren’t maybe to the standards of a Western hospital in terms of equipment, but the staff were phenomenal. They managed to get a very high survival rate,” said Eilish Cleary, a New Brunswick chief medical officer of health who travelled to Nigeria to provide epidemiological support to the World Health Organization during the outbreak. “Case fatality rate for Ebola can be up to 70 to 90 per cent. In Nigeria, it was 40 per cent.”

Dr. Cleary conducted detailed, videotaped interviews with six of the Nigerian patients to learn more about their treatment and recovery. The key to their survival seemed to be guzzling a stunning amount of water with oral rehydration solution [ORS] to fend off the cascade of internal failures typically caused by the virus.

FREETOWN, Sierra Leone --Another Sierra Leonean doctor has died from Ebola, the 10th to succumb to the disease, a health official said Sunday.

Dr. Aiah Solomon Konoyeima died Saturday, according to Chief Medical Officer Dr. Brima Kargbo. His death came a day after two other doctors died from Ebola, emphasizing the tremendous toll the disease has taken on health care workers.

Konoyeima worked at a children's hospital in the capital and tested positive for Ebola about two weeks ago. He was treated at the Hastings Ebola Treatment Center, which is staffed exclusively by Sierra Leonean medical personnel, as compared to many other treatment units, which are run by international organizations or employ some foreign staff.

Read complete story
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/10th-sierra-leonean-doctor-dies-ebola-27424222

THE WEEK -- by S.E. Smith                                                                                                     Dec. 5, 2014
While West Africa battles Ebola, another outbreak is striking just across the continent. In Madagascar, cases of plague are erupting in the small village of Mandritsara and the disease is spreading to neighboring communities. The two outbreaks are related by more than simple surface similarities, though. In fact, fighting the first has provided an invaluable blueprint for containing the second.

DEUTSCHE WELLE                                                                                                     Dec. 6, 2014

Mali has released UN peacekeepers after involuntarily quarantining them in an Ebola clinic....

Mali released the peacekeepers from quarantine Saturday. Weeks ago, the Pasteur Clinic, in Mali's capital, Bamako, had admitted the soldiers from the UN's Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) with various injuries connected to their service in the country's restive north. However, officials then locked the soldiers into the clinic with other patients and staff when a nurse died after contracting Ebola from a Muslim cleric who had traveled from Guinea to seek treatment for the virus.

"Having all been placed under observation, the quarantined MINUSMA soldiers showed no symptoms of the disease so they just left the establishment," the mission spokesman said.