Guinea Resilience System

Assoicated Press By JONATHAN PAYE-LAYLEH                Dec. 14, 2014

MONROVIA-- Officials in Ebola-stricken Liberia have postponed senatorial elections until the end of the week, while some urged calling off the vote for fear the results would not be credible.

Ebola has killed nearly 3,200 people this year in Liberia, and many question whether elections can be held at all under such circumstances.

The elections, first scheduled in October, were supposed to be held Monday, but have been moved back to Saturday. It was not immediately clear whether the extra days would be sufficient delay to address the logistical problems posed by Ebola.

While health authorities say the situation has stabilized somewhat in recent weeks, there are fears that mass gatherings at polling stations could spark a new surge in Ebola cases...

Alaric Tokpa, from the opposition National Democratic Alliance, walked out of Sunday's meeting, telling the AP as he departed that the elections would not be credible.

Read complete story
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/sierra-leonean-doctor-sick-ebola-27588102

UNITED NATIONS NEWS CENTRE                                                                                    Dec. 13, 2014
Amid a spike in Ebola transmission rates in Sierra Leone, the United Nations envoy coordinating the massive global crisis response has travelled to the West African nation to help implement a surge in efforts to contain the outbreak.

Anthony Banbury, head of the UN Mission for Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER), views an International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) Ebola Treatment Centre in Kenema, Sierra Leone. (November 2014) UNMEER Photo/Ari Gaitanis

 “We need to put in place a big surge to get those case numbers down, and we've been working on implementing that surge in the last week,” Anthony Banbury, head of the UN Mission for Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER), said in a press release following his two-day visit to the country's capital, Freetown, from 11 to 12 December. With some 8,069 cases, Sierra Leone is now the worst-affected country in West Africa, according to UNMEER's latest data. Together, Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone have so far registered over 18,000 cases of Ebola, including more than 6,300 deaths.

USA TODAY  by Greg Zoroya                                                                                          Dec. 13, 2014

MONROVIA, Liberia — Landlords won't rent to them. Employers won't hire them. Taxi drivers won't give them a lift. Barber shops refuse to cut their hair without gloves.

Juliet Boima, 19, a survivor who works at the ebola clinic since she is immune now. Despite being unable to contract ebola, she still must wear protective gear to eliminate the chance that she could carry the virus to someone else.(Photo: Gregory H Stemn for USA TODAY)

They are Ebola survivors. In one place where they are desperately needed as workers, Ebola treatment clinics, many survivors have nightmarish memories of barely staying alive.

Thousands of West Africans have beaten the odds and survived Ebola. More than 6,500 people have died in the outbreak, and only 30% who have contracted Ebola have survived the aggressive disease that robs the body of fluids and causes major organs to fail.

Most who emerge from the clinics fully recovered discover a cruel society eager to distance itself from them and the plague.

NEW YORK TIMES  by Donald G. McNeil, Jr.                                                                              Dec. 13, 2014

NEW YORK --The well-prepared Ebola fighter in West Africa may soon have some new options: protective gear that zips off like a wet suit, ice-cold underwear to make life inside the sweltering suits more bearable, or lotions that go on like bug spray and kill or repel the lethal virus.

A prototype for one of the protective suits in contention for the U.S.A.I.D. "Grand Challenges" award. Credit John Hopkins University/Jhpiego