Liberia

VOICE OF AMERICA    by  Jennifer Lazuta                                                         Jan. 20, 2015
DAKAR, SENEGAL—Sub-Saharan African countries have made relatively small, but “vitally important,” contributions towards the fight against Ebola according to the U.N. Mission for Ebola Emergency Response. This includes sending much-needed health care workers and medical supplies, as well as dedicating already-limited resources toward prevention and surveillance measures within their own borders to stop the further spread of the disease.

Health workers accompany a nine-year-old who contracted the Ebola virus to a Monrovia treatment center.

More than 850 doctors and nurses from African countries have been deployed to Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone to help bring an end to West Africa’s Ebola outbreak, which has killed more than 8,500 people since it began nearly a year ago.  

African countries also have collectively donated tens of millions of dollars in financial aid and material resources.

BLOOMBERG  By Simeon Bennett and Makiko Kitamura                                                       Jan. 21, 2015
(Two links. Scroll below.)

Ebola remains a global health emergency, the United Nations said today as it sought another $1 billion in donations to fight the deadly outbreak in West Africa.

More money is needed for the World Health Organization, Unicef and the World Food Programme, David Nabarro, the UN’s special envoy for Ebola, said at a briefing today at the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland.

“We can’t let down our guard,” Tom Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said in a Bloomberg Television interview at Davos. “We have to get over the finish line and then learn from this experience to build better systems so that it doesn’t get out of control the next time” an infectious disease epidemic occurs.

Workers at an Ebola treatment center relax Jan. 10, 2015 in Tubmanburg, Liberia. The facility was built by the U.S. military. (Whitney Leaming/The Washington Post)

WASHINGTON POST  by Kevin Sieff                                                          Jan. 19, 2015

UBMANBURG, Liberia — Near the hillside shelter where dozens of men and women died of Ebola, a row of green U.S. military tents sit atop a vast expanse of imported gravel. The generators hum; chlorinated water churns in brand-new containers; surveillance cameras send a live feed to a large-screen television.

There’s only one thing missing from this state-of-the-art Ebola treatment center: Ebola patients.

Maj. Gen. Gary Volesky's 2,500 soldiers have spent months battling a rampant killer in Liberia. Is the fight over, or has the front line shifted?

FOREIGN POLICY   by Brian Castner                                                        Jan,. 14, 2014

When Maj. Gen. Gary Volesky arrived in Liberia in late October to assume command of the U.S. military effort to help beat back the Ebola epidemic there, he was handed a to-do list by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Liberian government: build 17 temporary treatment facilities across the country, train a mix of international and local Liberian health-care workers to staff them, and use the Pentagon’s high-end medical equipment to test patients’ blood for the deadly virus.

Nearly every item is now checked off, leaving three options: go home, stay and wait in case the outbreak worsens, or move to start on a similar list in Sierra Leone and Guinea, where the number of Ebola cases has eclipsed that of Liberia.

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