Africa

AFP                                                                                                         Jan. 27, 2015

Monrovia  - Liberia's president on Monday announced the closure of an Ebola treatment facility which lay at the epicentre of the virus's worst outbreak in history, as the disease's spread has slowed in the country.

Red cross workers, wearing masks, carry the body of a person who died from Ebola during a burial with relatives of the victims of the virus, in Monrovia, on January 5, 2015 (AFP Photo/Zoom Dosso)

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf warned Liberians that while they could not yet afford to relax, the country had made significant progress in the fight against Ebola, and thanked states who helped Monrovia combat the virus.

"Lofa, the epicentre of the virus, has had no new cases for over 70 days," she said in the speech at the national parliament.

"The Ebola Treatment Unit in Foya is closed," she said, referring to an area in the north of the country near its border with Guinea, where the virus hit Liberia for the first time.

REUTERS   by Magdalena Mis                                                                             Jan. 26, 2015

LONDON -- The three West African countries worst hit by Ebola risk a "double disaster" unless a multi-million dollar plan is put in place to help their economies recover, Oxfam said on Tuesday.

In Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone people were struggling to make ends meet having seen their incomes plummet, the aid agency said.

"The world was late in waking up to the Ebola crisis, there can be no excuses for not helping to put these economies and lives back together," Mark Goldring, Oxfam's chief executive, said during a visit to Liberia.

He said a post-Ebola "Marshall Plan" should address three areas of urgent need: cash for families affected by the crisis, investment in jobs and support for basic services.

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http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/27/us-health-ebola-oxfam-idUSKBN0L000520150127

REUTERS                                                                                                        Jan. 26, 2015

DAKAR --Senegal reopened on Monday its land border with Guinea, the Interior Ministry said, five months after closing transport links in August to prevent the spread of the worst outbreak on record of the deadly Ebola virus.

A billboard with a message about Ebola is seen on a street in Conakry, Guinea October 26, 2014.Credit: Reuters/Michelle Nichols

Senegal had already lifted in November a ban on air and maritime traffic with Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone - the three countries worst-affected by the epidemic of the deadly hemorrhagic fever....

"The decision to open the border follows meetings between Senegalese and Guinean authorities, in the course of which the important efforts made by the sister republic of Guinea to fight the Ebola virus were noted," said a ministry statement.

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http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/26/us-health-ebola-senegal-idUSKBN0KZ1GW20150126

Four new studies shed new light on Ebola transmission and countermeasures.

CENTER FOR EFFECTIVE FOR RESEARCH AND POLICY  by Lisa Schnirring                                        Jan. 23, 2015

French and Guinean researchers  noted how chains of transmission helped Ebola spread in Conakry, Guinea, the first of the region's capital cities to be hit by the virus, and US officials released three detailed reports on outbreak response.

The Conakry team looked at seven transmission chains that occurred in the area from March to August 2014. They reported their findings in The Lancet Infectious Diseases.

In the first of three reports Friday in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), extra flight contact tracing measures undertaken after a Texas nurse took two flights shortly before getting sick with Ebola in October identified 268 people from nine states, none of whom got sick with the virus

In the second report, CDC estimates on the impact of Ebola treatment units (ETUs) and community care centers (CCCs) in Liberia predict that the interventions prevented thousands of new infections and that the interventions when used together were likely had a bigger impact than either alone.