Solutions

NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO                                                                                                        Nov. 21, 2014
by Nurith Aizenman

FREETOWN, Sierra Leone

Description of how the Hastings Ebola Treatment Center in Freetown, Sierra Leone is having success by having experienced nurses useIV's to counter the dehydration of Ebola patients.

Health workers are disinfected with a chlorine solution after treating patients at the Hastings Ebola Treatment Center in Freetown.

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http://www.npr.org/blogs/goatsandsoda/2014/11/21/365715575/an-ebola-clinic-figures-out-a-way-to-start-beating-the-odds

VOICE OF AMERICA                                                                                                        Nov. 20, 2014
By Joe DeCapua
Knowing where the Ebola hot spots are in a country is crucial to getting an outbreak quickly under control. Many have criticized the initial slow response to the West Africa outbreak, saying it’s a big reason the virus quickly spread. Now, a German research center is developing a project to monitor Ebola and other outbreaks in real time.

Professor Gérard Krause said the new project – called EBOKON – uses real-time monitoring to better manage an outbreak.Krause is head of the Department of Epidemiology at the Helmholtz Center for Infection Research – and EBOKON project leader for the German Center for Infection Research....

He said, “This is an information technology tool that we are developing together with colleagues from Nigeria that will take care of all those management aspects.”

The EBOKON project calls for setting up a command center, so to speak, in the capital of affected countries. Then health workers would use cellphones to relay in real time information on suspected cases around the country.

ASSOCIATED PRESS                                                                                                  Nov. 18, 2014

A coalition of companies and aid groups announced plans Tuesday to test experimental drugs and collect blood plasma from Ebola survivors to treat new victims of the disease in West Africa.

This Nov. 7, 2014, photo shows the inside a mobile donation unit at the Raleigh-Durham International Airport in Raleigh, N.C. The unit was headed to Africa for use in a study of blood plasma treatment for Ebola patients. (AP Photo/Trevor Jenkins) (The Associated Press)

Plasma from survivors contains antibodies, substances the immune system makes to fight the virus. Several Ebola patients have received survivor plasma and recovered, but doctors say there is no way to know whether it really helps without a study like the one they are about to start within a month.

BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEK                                Nov. 17, 2014
by Jason Gale

The best medical advice for surviving Ebola right now might fit in one word: drink.

Dr. Fadipe Akinniyi Emmanuel, Ebola survivor, shows the daily dose of oral rehydration salts, or ORS, he and other survivors took to survive in Nigeria. Photographer: Andrew Esiebo/World Health Organization via Bloomberg

With targeted drugs and vaccines at least months away, doctors and public health experts are learning from Ebola survivors what simple steps helped them beat the infection. Turns out drinking 4 liters (1 gallon) or more of rehydration solution a day -- a challenge for anyone and especially those wracked by relentless bouts of vomiting -- is crucial. “When people are infected, they get dry as a crisp really quickly,” said Simon Mardel, an emergency room doctor advising the World Health Organization on Ebola in Sierra Leone. “Then the tragedy is that they don’t want to drink.”