Guinea Resilience System

THE INDEPENDENT by Kashmira    Gander            Jan. 1, 2015

Pauline Cafferkey, the British nurse who contracted Ebola in Sierra Leone, is entering a “critical” stage of her recovery.

Dr Michael Jacobs said Ms Cafferkey was being treated with convalescent plasma taken from the blood of a recovered patient and an experimental anti-viral drug which is “not proven to work”.

Read complete story.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/ebola-in-the-uk-infected-nurse-pauline-cafferkey-in-critical-stage-of-treatment-9952904.html

   MEDSCAPE     by  Laurie Barclay, MD    Dec. 31, 2014
Ebola fears and misconceptions reduced health facility use by pregnant and lactating women in Kenema District, Sierra Leone, according to findings from focus group discussions published in the January 2, 2015, issue of the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

"Sierra Leone has the highest maternal mortality ratio and the fourth highest neonatal mortality rate in the world," write Michelle M. Dynes, PhD, from the Epidemic Intelligence Service, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia, and colleagues. "By straining the fragile health care infrastructure, the [Ebola] epidemic might put pregnant women and their newborns at even greater risk for adverse outcomes."

Uptake of routine maternal and newborn healthcare is therefore essential to lowering infant and maternal mortality. Focus group discussions suggested that infection prevention and control training would reduce fear among healthcare workers and could help improve women's confidence in health facility safety.

Sierra Leone public health departments are using this information to create public health messages designed to encourage the use of maternal and newborn healthcare services....

THE GUARDIAN  by Josh Halliday and Severin Carrell             Dec. 31, 2014
LONDON--Public HealthEngland has vowed to review its Ebola screening measures after they were branded “utterly illogical” by an NHS doctor who returned from Africa with the Scottish nurse who has contracted the virus.

Public Health England said it would review its procedures, but defended its guidance as being in line with other organisations who have sent volunteers to Ebola-affected countries. Photograph: Amer Ghazzal/Rex

NEW YORK TIMES  by  JEFFREY GETTLEMAN                  Dec. 21, 2014     
FREETOWN, Sierra Leone--The "personal hospitality business" may be the most obvious sector of Sierra Leone’s economy that has been decimated by Ebola. After all, the main slogan in Freetown, the capital, these days is A.B.C. — avoid body contact.Residents in Freetown, Sierra Leone, break rocks in a road project that was halted because of concern about Ebola. In Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia, Ebola continues to lay waste not just to immune systems but also to balance sheets. Daniel Berehulak for The New York Times