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Ebola In Mali: Eighth Person Tests Positive In Mali, Which Is Monitoring 271 People For Symptoms

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS TIMES              By Sneha Shankar                                                 Nov.25, 2014

Officials in Mali confirmed an eighth case of the Ebola virus and said that it is monitoring 271 people suspected to have been infected by the virus. Mali is the sixth country to be dealing with the deadliest outbreak of the Ebola virus, which has so far killed over 5,400 people.

The government of Mali said that the latest case of Ebola closely follows another case, which was confirmed on Saturday, and both patients have been kept under isolation in an Ebola treatment center in the country, Reuters reported. All of the six previous cases, who tested positive for Ebola in the country, have died.

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U.S. Buys Up Ebola Gear, Leaving Little for Africa

Manufacturers Strain to Meet Demand Amid Rising Anxiety

WALL STREET JOURNAL                                                                                                       Nov. 25, 2014
 By Drew Hinshaw in Accra, Ghana, and Jacob Bunge in Chicago

Protective suits were running low in Sierra Leone this month, when a Christian charity decided to ship some over. The charity turned to American medical-wear suppliers, which came back with bad news: The suits needed to treat Ebola are running low in America, too.

A worker wearing Personal Protective Equipment has his name written on his suit before leaving an Ebola treatment center in Guinea last week. Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

“There’s been some sleepless nights,” said Jennifer Mounsey, director of corporate engagement for World Vision, the Christian humanitarian group based in Monrovia, Calif. “We’re all sweating bullets.”

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Ebola outbreak: Sierra Leone workers dump bodies in Kenema

BBC                                                                                                    Nov. 25, 2014  

Burial workers in the Sierra Leonean city of Kenema have dumped bodies in public in protest at non-payment of allowances for handling Ebola victims.

The workers, who went on strike over the issue, left 15 bodies abandoned at the city's main hospital.

             Burial workers are especially at risk of becoming infected

One of the bodies was reportedly left by the hospital manager's office and two others by the hospital entrance.

A BBC reporter in Sierra Leone says the striking workers have now been sacked. The hospital has not commented.

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http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-30191938

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                                         

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U.N. to miss Dec 1 Ebola target due to rising Sierra Leone cases

REUTERS    By Matthew Mpoke Bigg                                                                              Nov. 24, 2014

The U.N. Ebola Emergency Response Mission will not fully meet its Dec. 1 target for containing the virus due to escalating numbers of cases in Sierra Leone, Anthony Banbury, the head of UNMEER, said on Monday.

 

A health worker fixes another health worker's protective suit in the Aberdeen district of Freetown, Sierra Leone, October 14, 2014. Credit: Reuters/Josephus Olu-Mammah

The mission set the goal in September of having 70 percent of Ebola patients under treatment and 70 percent of victims safely buried. That target will be achieved in some areas, Banbury told Reuters, citing progress in Liberia.

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Displaced by disease: 5 displacement patterns emerging from the Ebola epidemic

INTERNAL DISPLACEMENT MONITORING CENTRE                                                                            Nov.19, 2014

When a whole town was displaced in the south of Guinea during the Ebola crisis, the link between disease and displacement began to emerge. With IDMC monitoring the crisis across the three countries most affected since the outbreak took place, we have identified five key displacement trends emerging.

On 14 November 2014 the UN Mission for Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER) reported that the Guinean government had announced the withdrawal of troops from Womey, Nzérékoré prefecture, in the south of the country when a group of people raising awareness about the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) were killed by angry residents.

Since the army’s deployment in September, there have been accusations of human rights violations at the hands of military personnel, resulting in the displacement of the whole town, with some 6,000 residents fleeing to forests in the surrounding area. This is the single largest reported incident of displacement during the Ebola crisis.

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A Tale of Two Outbreaks: Why Congo Conquered Ebola

NBC NEWS    By Maggie Fox                                                                              Nov. 24, 2014

Two outbreaks, two entirely different outcomes. The World Health Organization has declared an outbreak of Ebola over in the Democratic Republic of Congo after just 66 cases and 49 deaths. It lasted three months.

Yet the epidemic in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea’s been going for nine months, with more than 15,000 cases, 5,000 deaths and no end in sight.

What’s the difference? Experts say experience matters — it was the seventh outbreak in the former Zaire. But equally important is the fact that the village where it started was extremely remote, and the country has a rudimentary system of healthcare workers who know to look out for Ebola.

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http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/ebola-virus-outbreak/tale-two-outbreaks-why-congo-conquered-ebola-n253911

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Notable Absence of New Ebola Quarantines at New York Area Airports

NEW YORK TIMES    By Anemona Hartocollis                                                          NOV. 24, 2014

NEW YORK   ...since Kaci Hickox, a nurse, flew into Newark’s airport on Oct. 24 and was kept at a hospital for three days, no one else has been caught up in the quarantine dragnet at the New York and New Jersey airports.

The absence of quarantines is striking, not only because both governors emphatically defended the policy as a necessary precaution, but also because most people returning from Ebola-stricken countries arrive in the United States through Kennedy and Newark Liberty International Airports.

...New York and New Jersey officials say no one coming through the two airports since Ms. Hickox has reported direct contact with Ebola patients.

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The US Is Stockpiling Ebola Survivors’ Plasma to Treat Future Patients

                                                                                                    Getty Images

WIRED                 BY Katie M. Palmer                                                    Nov. 24, 214

The FDA announced Friday that it would start developing a stockpile of blood plasma from Ebola survivors, treated with a pathogen inactivation system that’s never been used before in the United States.

So far, the US has had some amazing success in curing Ebola, possibly thanks to experimental plasma treatments. Drawn from survivors, the stuff comes enriched in antibodies that could help to fight off the disease—but it also has the potential to carry other diseases, like malaria, that are common in west Africa where Ebola is raging. The new system will kill off any extra contaminants that may be lurking in this potentially live-saving serum.

It’s the same one, Cerus Corporation’s Intercept system, that will be used in a Gates Foundation-funded study of Ebola treatments in West Africa. The pathogen-killing molecule at the heart of the system is amotosalen, part of a class of three-ringed molecules called psoralens....

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Italian Doctor With Ebola Returning for Treatment

ASSOCIATED PRESS                                                      Nov. 24, 2014

MILAN --An Italian doctor who has been working in Sierra Leone has tested positive for the Ebola virus and is being transferred to Rome for treatment, the health ministry said Monday. It is Italy's first confirmed case of Ebola.

The doctor, who was not identified and who works for the non-governmental organization Emergency, is scheduled to arrive overnight in Italy for treatment at the Lazzaro Spallanzani National Institute for Infectious Diseases in Rome.

Emergency, which is operating a center for Ebola treatment in Lakka, Sierra Leone, said in statement that the doctor was in good condition, and that its staff in the country is following protocols aimed at avoiding contagion. "Nonetheless, no health intervention of such a serious epidemic can be considered completely without risks," Emergency said.

Complete story
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/italian-doctor-ebola-returning-treatment-27130191

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Ebola Mappers Track Epidemic in Real Time 
 
 


NBC NEWS       By Nikita Japra                                                                                     Nov. 23, 2014
In a darkened Boston conference room, staring at projections from a laptop, John Brownstein is far from the front lines of the fight against Ebola. But the epidemiologist’s work may help change the course of the epidemic.

The disease forecaster and his team are combing through news reports, tweets and Facebook posts to anticipate the disease’s next move — and help those on the ground head it off before the crisis grows....

Brownstein’s HealthMap scours social media and local news from around the globe to locate potential hot spots and display them in an interactive map. In the past, HealthMap has spotted outbreaks ranging from H1N1 swine flu to Dengue fever. Today, the team is building interactive maps that can guide the response to the worst Ebola outbreak ever recorded.

While official numbers from government agencies can take precious time to confirm, Brownstein’s team looks to more immediate, unconventional sources to help target the right communities at the right time.

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