REUTERS  by  Stephanie Nebehay                                                                                   Jan. 30, 2015

GENEVA --West Africa will be lucky to wipe out Ebola this year, as the local population remains suspicious of aid workers, especially in Guinea, the Red Cross said on Friday.

 Healthcare workers prepare to disinfect an ambulance transporting a newly admitted Ebola patient at the entrance to the Save the Children Kerry Town Ebola treatment centre outside Freetown, Sierra Leone in this file photo taken on December 22, 2014. Credit: Reuters/Baz Ratner

The virus is "flaring up" in new areas in the region and not all infections are being reported, said Birte Hald, who leads the Ebola coordination and support unit of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

"We are also seeing that in places like Sierra Leone and especially in Guinea that it is flaring up in new districts all the time, with small new chains of transmission, which means that it's not under control and it could flare up big-time again," Hald told a news briefing in Geneva.

THE GUARDIAN by  John Momodu Kargbo                       Jan. 29. 2015

FREETOWN, Sierra Leone -- The initial Ebola case in Tambakha [a remote chiefdom near the Guinea border] coincided with the proper training of the first set of Ebola educators. They were deployed in mid-October to educate local people on the prevention and control of Ebola and to help monitor the advent of newcomers into their communities, possible carriers.

Health workers conduct a campaign raising awareness of the Ebola virus in Freetown, Sierra Leone. Photograph: Tanya Bindra/EPA

BBC   By Tulip Mazumdar                                                                                    Jan. 29, 2015

Scientists tracking the Ebola outbreak in Guinea say the virus has mutated.

Researchers at the Institut Pasteur in France, which first identified the outbreak last March, are investigating whether it could have become more contagious.

They are tracking how the virus is changing and trying to establish whether it's able to jump more easily from person to person

"We know the virus is changing quite a lot," said human geneticist Dr Anavaj Sakuntabhai.

It's not unusual for viruses to change over a period time. Ebola is an RNA virus - like HIV and influenza - which have a high rate of mutation. That makes the virus more able to adapt and raises the potential for it to become more contagious.

Read complete story.

http://www.bbc.com/news/health-31019097

Vaccine  was made by introducing an Ebola gene in a chimpanzee cold virus

THE VERGE    by Arielle Duhaime-Ross                                                             Jan. 28, 2015

An Ebola vaccine produced using a chimpanzee common cold virus appears to be safe to use on humans, according to a study published today in the New England Journal of Medicine. Three different doses of vaccine were tested on healthy humans in the UK, and it was well-tolerated; it triggered high levels of antibody formation without also triggering serious side effects. But until the vaccine is tested in an area where an Ebola risk actually exists, it’s efficacy against the disease will remain a mystery.

Read complete story.
http://www.theverge.com/2015/1/28/7930947/ebola-vaccine-human-trials-results

A Monovalent Chimpanzee Adenovirus Ebola Vaccine — Preliminary Report

 New England Journal of Medicine