UNITED NATIONS NEWS CENTRE                                                                                    Dec. 13, 2014
Amid a spike in Ebola transmission rates in Sierra Leone, the United Nations envoy coordinating the massive global crisis response has travelled to the West African nation to help implement a surge in efforts to contain the outbreak.

Anthony Banbury, head of the UN Mission for Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER), views an International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) Ebola Treatment Centre in Kenema, Sierra Leone. (November 2014) UNMEER Photo/Ari Gaitanis

 “We need to put in place a big surge to get those case numbers down, and we've been working on implementing that surge in the last week,” Anthony Banbury, head of the UN Mission for Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER), said in a press release following his two-day visit to the country's capital, Freetown, from 11 to 12 December. With some 8,069 cases, Sierra Leone is now the worst-affected country in West Africa, according to UNMEER's latest data. Together, Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone have so far registered over 18,000 cases of Ebola, including more than 6,300 deaths.

In-depth description of the evolution of the Ebola crisis

THE ECONOMIST                                                                                                                               Dec. 13, 2014

AKPOIMA AND FREETOWN--Slowly and messily, the struggle against the virus is being won

 Read complete story.

http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21636081-slowly-and-messily-struggle-against-virus-being-won-exorcising

VOICE OF AMERICA  Lisa Schlein                                                                                            Dec. 12, 2014

GENEVA—The U.N. Children’s Fund is appealing for an additional $300 million to expand its fight against Ebola in the three heavily affected West African countries over the next six months. UNICEF said gaining the confidence of community members, increasing their awareness and knowledge of modes of transmission and prevention are key to winning the battle against this deadly disease.

Women in the village of Boukoloma, in Guinea’s southeastern forest region, listen to messages about Ebola prevention. (Photo courtesy of Christophe Boulierac / UNICEF)

UNICEF officials said money from the appeal would be used to tackle two major drivers of Ebola transmission: lack of early isolation of patients and unsafe burials.  Both of these issues are wound up with traditional cultural practices, which often have stymied aid agencies’ efforts to prevent people from getting infected with the disease and spreading it to others. 

ASSOCIATED PRESS by EDITH M. LEDERER                       Dec. 11, 2014

UNITED NATIONS-- The U.N. Ebola chief said Thursday it will take several more months before the outbreak in West Africa is under control, an assessment that makes clear the World Health Organization's goal of isolating 100 percent of Ebola cases by Jan. 1 won't be met.

Dr. David Nabarro said there has been "a massive shift" over the last four months in the way affected governments have taken the lead in responding to the epidemic, communities are taking action and the international community has pitched in.

But he said greater efforts are needed to combat Ebola in western Sierra Leone and northern Mali, to reduce the number of new cases in Liberia and to limit transmission to Mali.

WHO conceded that it didn't meet an interim Dec. 1 target of isolating 70 percent of Ebola patients and safely burying 70 percent of victims in hardest-hit Sierra Leone. But it hasn't made clear what that means for its Jan. 1 goal, which it set in September. It has acknowledged that its patchy data could compromise the goal, since the agency does not know how many Ebola patients there actually are and is unable to track all of their contacts.