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Africa Resilience Initiative

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The mission of this working group is to articulate and shape issues of resilience and sustainability on the continent of Africa as they may be implemented as reforms of current policies, as well as contemplate and make recommendations for more extensive critiques and proposals for national, provincial, and local systems transformation, as may be necessary or desirable beyond the scope of traditional reforms being undertaken by the current African national governments and local government proposals in Africa.

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Group description: 
This working group is focused on developing an Africa Resilience Initiative to ensure resilience and sustainability for all Africans.
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Members

Aboubacar Conte admin Anthony bnorton Carrielaj Chisina Kapungu
ChrisAllen craig.sevcik Dr Ojia Adamolekun efrost Elhadj Drame Grace Kim
Hadiatou Balde jranck Kathy Gilbeaux mdmcdonald MDMcDonald_me_com mike kraft
njchapman Norea SmShako TacarraB Tjivekumba Kandjii

Email address for group

Social Vulnerability and Ebola Virus Disease in Rural Liberia

      

Clusters of social vulnerability in rural Liberia, by district. Social vulnerability of each cluster of districts can be loosely ranked from most to least vulnerable as: Cluster 1, food quality, displaced persons, disabled, dependent populations; Cluster 3, food quantity, food quality, lack of access to land/free medical care; Cluster 4, food quantity, disabled dependent populations and Cluster 5, water quality/proximity to medical care; and finally, Cluster 2, no strong vulnerability scores.

CLICK HERE - Social Vulnerability and Ebola Virus Disease in Rural Liberia

CLICK HERE - Social Vulnerability and Ebola Virus Disease in Rural Liberia (14 page .PDF file)

srs.fs.usda.gov - by Zoe Hoyle - September 15, 2015

A newly published research study by U.S. Forest Service researchers demonstrates that the social vulnerability indices used in climate change and natural hazards research can also be used in other contexts such as disease outbreaks.

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CDC - Care of a Neonate Born to a Mother who is Confirmed to have Ebola, is a Person under Investigation, or has been Exposed to Ebola

cdc.gov

Interim Guidance for U.S. Hospitals on the Care of a Neonate Born to a Mother who is Confirmed to have Ebola, is a Person under Investigation (PUI), or has been Exposed to Ebola

Who this is for: Healthcare professionals working with neonates in labor and delivery, neonatal intensive care units, newborn nurseries, and other settings in U.S. hospitals.

What this is for: Guidance on how to care for neonates born to mothers exposed to Ebola virus, PUIs, or with confirmed Ebola.

How to use this: This guidance is intended to help U.S. hospitals develop plans for treating neonates born to PUIs or to mothers with confirmed Ebola. Note: Ideally, these mothers and neonates will be cared for in Ebola assessment hospitals (if the mother is a PUI) or Ebola treatment centers (if the mother is confirmed to have Ebola.)1

CLICK HERE - Care of a Neonate Born to a Mother who is Confirmed to have Ebola, is a Person under Investigation, or has been Exposed to Ebola

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Offline: A pervasive failure to learn the lessons of Ebola

THE LANCET by Richard Horton                         Sept. 12, 2015

LONDON-- Post-Ebola reverie has given birth to a plethora of expert panels to consider what went wrong. The latest parade of global health specialists appointed to learn lessons gathered at the Wellcome Trust in London last week.
 Under the auspices of the US Institute of Medicine (IOM), a Commission to “deliberate and evaluate options to strengthen global, regional, and local systems to better prepare, detect, and respond to epidemic diseases” spent 2 days amassing evidence.

 There was no shortage of experience brought to bear on these important matters. Here were Margaret Chan, Jeremy Farrar, Ilona Kickbusch, David Heymann, Larry Gostin, Joy Phumaphi, Joanne Liu, and Peter Piot all wrestling with a seemingly intractable challenge. The statements offered to the Commission were arresting. But  the purpose of the meeting was not to talk. It was to identify the best system for an epidemic response....
Read complete article

http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2815%2900152-X/fulltext

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Grim Snapshot Reveals Complex Health Issues for Ebola Survivors [Infographic]

(CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE)

submitted by George Hurlburt

Sleeplessness, along with abdominal and joint pain are common even months after recovery from the dreaded virus

scientificamerican.com - by Dina Fine Maron - September 9, 2015

The first snapshot of health complications facing Ebola survivors in Sierra Leone presents a dismal picture of their road to recovery. A new study has found that up to four months after blood tests indicated that they were Ebola-free, more than half of survivors continue to suffer from joint pain, headaches or muscle pain. And more than 40 percent of survivors complain of sleeplessness and visual problems. Perhaps most worryingly, almost all the survivors—96 percent—reported being rejected by their communities after they were released from the hospital. The majority said they were still too scared to return home.

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WHO Vaccine-Preventable Diseases: Monitoring System - Country Summaries

                                       

apps.who.int

WHO Vaccine-Preventable Diseases: Monitoring System
(Click on the country of interest - then click "OK")
http://apps.who.int/immunization_monitoring/globalsummary

Country Summaries - WHO UNICEF Review of National Immunization Coverage, 1980-2014
(Click on the country of interest)
http://apps.who.int/immunization_monitoring/globalsummary/wucoveragecountrylist.html

 

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Ebola Outbreak Update - Sept. 8, 2015 - National Ebola Response Centre - Sierra Leone

submitted by Gavin Macgregor-Skinner

Ebola Outbreak update dated Sep 8 from the National Ebola Response Centre in Sierra Leone.

The four new Sierra Leone cases are in Sella Kaffta, a village in Kambia district in the northwest part of the country on Guinea's border. All the newly reported patients had contact with a 67-year-old woman whose death from Ebola was announced last week. After she died her body was washed before burial. There are 50 high-risk close contacts being monitored. Experimental ring vaccine campaign by WHO began Sep 4 and the newly diagnosed Ebola patients were not among the 116 people who received post-exposure VSV-EBOV vaccine.

Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) Update
http://health.gov.sl/?p=617

Ebola Virus Disease – Situation Report
http://health.gov.sl/?p=537

Ministry of Health and Sanitation - The Republic of Sierra Leone
http://health.gov.sl

National Ebola Response Centre (NERC) - Sierra Leone
http://www.nerc.sl

National Ebola Response Centre (NERC) - Sierra Leone - Evening Briefings
http://nerc.sl/?q=document-types/nerc-briefings

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WHO - Polio Outbreak Confirmed in Mali

                                            

afro.who.int

Bamako, 7 September 2015 – A case of circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2 (cVDPV2) has been confirmed in Bamako, the capital and largest city of Mali. The country is on high alert after national authorities detected a paralysis case with onset 20 July 2015. The patient is a 19-month old child of Guinean nationality whose paralysis occurred 7 days prior to the child’s arrival in Bamako to seek health care. The last case of wild polio virus (WPV) in Mali dates back to June 2011 in Goundam, Timbuktu Region.

The current detected virus is genetically linked to a confirmed VDPV detected in Siguiri district, in the Kankan Region of Guinea in August 2014, and has been circulating across international borders for more than 2 years without detection. 

The risk of spread of this virus is deemed high and it has the capacity to cause paralytic disease in humans or kill. The emergence and circulation of VDPV2 reveals low population immunity against the virus due to low rates of vaccination coverage in Guinea. Consequently, oral polio vaccine (OPV) must be administered multiple times to stop the outbreak and protect children. 

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Survey Finds Many Physicians Overestimate Their Ability to Assess Patients’ Risk of Ebola

massgeneral.org - August 27, 2015

While most primary care physicians responding to a survey taken in late 2014 and early 2015 expressed confidence in their ability to identify potential cases of Ebola and communicate Ebola risks to their patients, only 50 to 70 percent of them gave answers that fit with CDC guidelines when asked how they would care for hypothetical patients who might have been exposed to Ebola. In addition, those who were least likely to encounter an Ebola patient – based on their location and characteristics of their patients – were most likely to choose overly intense management of patients actually at low risk.  The results of the survey, conducted by a team of Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) investigators, have been published online in the Journal of General Internal Medicine.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

CLICK HERE - RESEARCH - Ebola Risk and Preparedness: A National Survey of Internists 

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CDC - HHS - Ebola Concept of Operations (ConOps) Planning Template

Source:Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) - Date Published:08/20/2015

Annotation:This 38-page document provides a standard format for creating an Ebola Concept of Operations (ConOps) plan at the state, territorial, or major metropolitan area government level. It provides information on measures local governments, agencies, and organizations can take to support the plan. The ConOps in the template describes strategic, high-level considerations for establishing a regional tiered system to safely and effectively manage persons under investigation (PUIs) or patients confirmed with Ebola.

(38 page .PDF document)
URL: http://www.cdc.gov/phpr/documents/ebola-concept-of-operations-planning-template-8-20-2015.pdf

Authors:Dugas, Robert; Lamoureux, Joe; Mangieri, William; et al.
Type:Guideline/Assessment Tool
ID:11129. From Disaster LitTM, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

http://disasterlit.nlm.nih.gov/record/11129

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Assessing the Potential Role of Pigs in the Epidemiology of Ebola Virus in Uganda

Ebolavirus, animal - Uganda: porcine, epidemiological assessment

CLICK HERE - Assessing the Potential Role of Pigs in the Epidemiology of Ebola Virus in Uganda

promedmail.org - September 2, 2015

Summary

Uganda has experienced 4 Ebola outbreaks since the discovery of the virus. Recent epidemiological work has shown pigs are hosts for ebolaviruses. Due to their high reproduction rates, rapid weight gain, potential to provide quick financial returns, and rising demand for pork, pig production in Uganda has undergone massive expansion. The combination of pork sector growth supported by development programmes and Ebola virus risk prompted a foresight exercise using desk, interview, and spatial methods. The study found that the lack of serological evidence for specific reservoir species, the number of human index cases unable to account for their source of infection, domestic pig habitat overlap with potential Ebola virus zoonotic host environments, reported interactions at the human-pig-wildlife interface that could support transmission, fever in pigs as a commonly reported problem by pig farmers, and temporal correlation of outbreaks with peak pork consumption periods, warrants further research into potential zoonotic transmission in Uganda from pigs.

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