Guinea Resilience System

AFP                                                                                                        Feb. 11, 2015

Geneva -- The number of new Ebola cases in west Africa rose for the second week running after a previous fall, including a "sharp increase" in Guinea, the World Health Organization said Wednesday.

Health workers wearing protective suits carry a patient suspected of having Ebola on their way to an Ebola treatment centre in Macenta, Guinea, on November 21, 2014 (AFP Photo/Kenzo Tribouillard)

Nearly 9,000 people have died from the epidemic, the WHO said while admitting that it was impossible to give a precise number as the outcomes of some cases remained unknown.

All but 15 of the fatalities have happened in the worst-affected west African countries of Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea.

In the week up to February 8 a total of 144 new cases were registered, compared to 124 the previous week.

"Guinea reported a sharp increase in incidence, with 65 new confirmed cases compared with 39 the week before," the WHO said in its report.

REUTERS   by Sharon Begley                                                                                      Feb. 10, 2015

NEW YORK --An experimental Ebola drug from Sarepta Therapeutics Inc protected six of eight lab monkeys injected with the virus, scientists from the company and the U.S. Army reported on Tuesday.

The drug, called AVI-7537, joins ZMapp from Mapp Biopharmaceutical and a compound from Tekmira Pharmaceuticals Corp as the agents shown to cure non-human primates given otherwise-lethal injections of Ebola virus.

The ZMapp and Tekmira drugs protected 100 percent of lab monkeys in studies, giving them a possible edge. But, unlike those, Sarepta's drug has been formally tested in healthy human volunteers at high doses and caused no serious side effects.

Sarepta's $300 million contract with the U.S. Department of Defense to develop drugs against Ebola and the related Marburg virus ended in 2012 due to government funding cuts. The study was completed just before then but not published until the current Ebola outbreak increased interest in the drug....

AFP   by Rod Mac Johnson                                        Feb. 10, 2015
Freetown -- Sierra Leone announced Tuesday the launch of an infectious diseases prevention agency, saying it would convert its Ebola clinics into treatment and research units for some of the world's deadliest viruses.

The organisation will follow the model of the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the leading American public health institute which has been at the forefront of the response the west African Ebola outbreak....

Although some Ebola units are temporary, Sierra Leone and its neighbours Guinea and Liberia have been looking for ways to continue using others launched at great expense at the height of the epidemic.

"We are now on the verge of constructing a permanent Centres for Disease Control in Sierra Leone, and also the introduction of an ambulance service in the country," government spokesman Abdulai Bayraytay told an online news conference.

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http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-hit-sierra-leone-announces-disease-control-agency-222729883.html;_ylt=AwrBJR7GdttUOCIA_kXQtDMD

UPDATE: Obama says US has ‘risen to the challenge’ of fighting Ebola

ASSOCIATED PRESS  BY Edith Lederer in New York and Josh Lederman in Washington               Feb. 11, 2015

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama heralded a “new phase in the fight” against Ebola on Wednesday and said progress against the outbreak in West Africa will allow the U.S. to withdraw nearly all American troops sent to Liberia last fall.

He cautioned the mission was not over, and he set an ambitious goal of eliminating the disease. “We have risen to the challenge,” he said at the White House. “Our focus now is getting to zero.”

Obama said only 100 of the 2,800 troops sent to Liberia will remain there after April 30. About 1,500 have returned home.

...Earlier in the day, he met with philanthropists and foundation leaders who had supported the fight against the outbreak, which had threatened to spiral out of control and fostered fears in the U.S. and elsewhere beyond West Africa.

At the height of the outbreak, Liberia was experiencing 119 confirmed Ebola cases per week. This week there were only three. But Guinea reported a sharp increase with 65 new confirmed cases compared with 39 the week before. Sierra Leone reported 76 new confirmed cases.