Liberia

REUTERS     by Tom Miles                                                                                        March 11, 2015

GENEVA -Waning interest in Ebola could jeopardize efforts to stamp out the world's worst recorded outbreak of the disease, the World Health Organization said on Wednesday.

Case numbers have fallen to a low level and it should be possible to stop transmission by mid-year, but the disease is "not waning" and it is much too early to assume the outbreak will end, said WHO Assistant Director General Bruce Aylward.

"We talk often about how steep the drop in cases has been. The only thing that has dropped more quickly and more steeply is the new contributions in financing," he told reporters in Geneva. 

...the failure to make further inroads is "alarming", Aylward said.

"Getting from here to zero is going to require another reinvestment (in the drive to tackle the outbreak)."

savethechildren.org

CLICK HERE - REPORT - A WAKE-UP CALL - Lessons from Ebola for the world’s health systems (50 page .PDF report)

nytimes.com - by Donald G. McNeil Jr. - March 9, 2015

The world has spent more than $4 billion fighting Ebola, but according to a new report from Save the Children, it would have cost only $1.6 billion to bring health care systems up to minimum standards in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea, which might have prevented the outbreak or ended it faster.

Even before Ebola struck West Africa, more than 25 countries had health care systems worse than those in impoverished Liberia and Sierra Leone, the report also found.

policy-practice.oxfam.org.uk - Authors: Cairns, Edmund
February 27, 2015 - ISBN: 978-1-78077-825-9

In Sierra Leone and Liberia, thousands of local people have taken part in campaigns to spread the message about how Ebola can be controlled, and millions have taken vital practical steps to prevent infection. When the last case of Ebola is eliminated, it will not only be because of medical treatment and action by governments and the international community, but because communities have been at the heart of the response. Before Ebola struck West Africa, Liberia and Sierra Leone were among the poorest countries in the world – now they are even poorer. The challenge of recovery is enormous and communities must once again be at the heart of it. Oxfam has listened to women and men in Liberia and Sierra Leone to hear their priorities for the immediate response, the recovery and beyond. This paper presents those priorities, from rebuilding shattered livelihoods and building a resilient health service, to making schools safe and free for all.