Children wash their hands before entering a classroom in Gueckedou - Photo: Jennifer Lazuta
irinnews.org - by Jennifer Lazuta
GUECKEDOU, 13 May 2015 (IRIN) - “Life is back to normal, but everything has changed,” said 30-year-old Yawa Keterine Camara as she slowly stirred a boiling cauldron of sauce outside her mud-brick home in southeastern Guinea. “I live again like before, but nothing is quite the same.”
Camara, who lost her husband to Ebola in November, said her life, like many, many other Guineans, is now divided in two: pre-Ebola and post-Ebola, the before and after.
LALITPUR, APR 28 - With the lack of safe drinking water after the April 25 earthquake , people in Khokana village, the southern outskirt of the Kathmandu Valley, has begun suffering from diarrhoea.
Although the villagers initially got treatment at local health posts, the number of the sufferers increased. So, they were referred to better hospital and the health camps run by the Nepal Army, said a local social worker, Nepal Dangol.
Similarly, Shivaram Baniya from Adarshashaul Higher Secondary School said more than 100 diarrhoea patients have been provided treatment at health camps run by a joint team of Nepal Army and the Bangladesh Army. RSS
I agree. The question is whether we can alter the trajectory of disease with better assessment, surveillance, and rapid response. What we engaged in Haiti worked, but it was never scaled appropriately.
We can do better in Nepal. The monsoon season is only a couple months away. Efforts we need to be scaled immediately.
Mike
Dr. Michael D. McDonald
Coordinator
Global Health Response and Resilience Alliance
NEW YORK TIMES OPINON PAGE by Andrew Revkin April 29, 2015
Yesterday, I received word of a chillingly high projection of the eventual death count in the Nepal earthquake, made by a longtime and respected analyst of seismic hazards, Max Wyss, who was on the faculties of the Universities of Colorado and Alaska and is now affiliated with the International Center for Earth Simulationin Geneva, Switzerland.
From crisis to sustainable development: lessons from the Ebola outbreak
who.int - May 10, 2015
. . . three changes will do the most to improve the world’s collective defence against the infectious disease threat.
First, invest in building resilient communities and well-performing health systems that integrate public health and primary health care. Ideally, health systems should aim for universal health coverage, so the poor are not left behind. This requires new thinking and a new approach to health development.
Second, develop the systems, capacities, and financing mechanisms needed to build surge capacity for responding to outbreaks and humanitarian emergencies.
Third, create incentives for R&D for new medical products for diseases that primarily affect the poor. A fair and just world should not let people die for what boils down to market failure and poverty.
These three things also fit well with the coming agenda for sustainable development that seeks to distribute the benefits of economic growth more evenly and respects our planet’s fragile resources.
Five days after one of history’s most devastating earthquakes hit Nepal, countries near and far are pouring in funds and personnel to address the state of emergency. Leading the pack in terms of medical and rescue personnel on the ground is Israel, with an aid convoy of 260 personnel, including about forty doctors. . . . the Israeli team is using innovative and ingenious technology to rescue more people from the areas of destruction and to provide first-class medical care to those who need it most.
Expert medical and non-medical expert teams are assisting victims of the Nepal Earthquake, which shook the Kathmandu Valley before noon on Saturday 25 April.
msf.org.uk
We currently have approximately 120 staff working in Nepal.
An MSF surgical team provided support for three days at the hospital in Bhaktapur, on the outskirts of Kathmandu, in order to help the staff operate on waiting patients.
In the town of Arughat, in Gorkha district, we are setting up a 20-bed inflatable hospital to initially provide treatment for wounded people.
We are adding mental health workers to our teams to begin providing psychological first aid in villages where people have suffered severe psychological trauma.
We have flown in more than 80 tonnes of supplies.
Update: 5 May 2015
Since 29 April, Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) medical teams in Nepal have started reaching people spread across isolated mountain villages by helicopter and on foot. The districts of Dhading, Gorkha, Rasuwa and Sindhupalchowk were hit hard on 25 April and little or no assistance has reached many villages.
Image: Worth a little pain? Back in 1990, a school boy got a measles shot in the U.K., and it turns out, he got more than protection against the measles. Photofusion/UIG via Getty Images
npr.org - May 7th, 2015 - Michaeleen Doucleff
Back in the 1960s, the U.S. started vaccinating kids for measles. As expected, children stopped getting measles.
But something else happened.
Childhood deaths from all infectious diseases plummeted. Even deaths from diseases like pneumonia and diarrhea were cut by half. (VIEW COMPLETE ARTICLE)
...“I am thrilled by the significant progress made by the people of Liberia,” said Tolbert Nyenswah, a deputy health minister. But, he warned, “we still need to keep up vigilance.”
The weak health systems in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, the three nations hit hardest by the disease, did more than just crumple in the face of Ebola’s onslaught last year. They played a central role in spreading the disease.
Clinics routinely misdiagnosed the disease and discharged Ebola patients with pills for common illnesses. Infected health care workers passed the virus to their colleagues, families and communities.
Local and international health officials are now focusing on extinguishing the waning Ebola epidemic in Guinea and Sierra Leone. But they have a bigger goal as well: shoring up beleaguered health systems that were inadequate long before Ebola struck.
The World Health Organization announces the end of Ebola in Liberia, but the epidemic continues in nearby Sierra Leone and Guinea.
(Scroll down for text of WHO announcement and WHO May 6 situation report.)
A girl in the West Point township in Monrovia, Liberia, where life has begun to return to normal.
NATURE.COM by Declad Butler and Erika Check Hayden <ay 9, 2015
iberia is the first of the three main countries affected by Ebola to be free of the disease, the World Health Organization (WHO) said today (9 May), marking the end of the 15-month-long epidemic in the country. But the epidemic continues in nearby Sierra Leone and Guinea, and the WHO is warning against complacency, highlighting the risk of further flare ups and geographical spread.
A girl in the West Point township in Monrovia, Liberia, where life has begun to return to normal.
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