Guinea Resilience System

ASSOCIATED PRESS by JONATHAN PAYE-LAYLEH                                                        Feb. 2, 2015

MONROVIA--A large-scale human trial of two potential Ebola vaccines got under way in Liberia's capital Monday, part of a global effort to prevent a repeat of the epidemic that has now claimed nearly 9,000 lives in West Africa.

The trials in Liberia are taking place after smaller studies determined that the vaccines were safe for human use. By comparing them now with a placebo shot, scientists hope to learn whether they can prevent people from contracting the ghastly virus that has killed some 60 percent of those hospitalized with the disease.

Yet despite the trials' promise, authorities still must combat fear and suspicion that people could become infected by taking part. Each vaccine uses a different virus to carry non-infectious Ebola genetic material into the body and spark an immune response.

Read complete story.
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/ebola-vaccine-trial-starts-liberia-28657084

              Parents resister pupils at Massaquoi less than a month after the last Ebola patient left the school.

WASHINGTON POST   by Martin Sieff                                                                             Feb. 1, 2015

MONROVIA--As the Ebola epidemic fades here, with fewer than 10 new cases reported per week, Liberia is beginning the massive challenge of resuming normal life. Many of its public institutions have been shuttered since June. Its economy has been paralyzed. More than 3,600 Liberians have died of the disease.

Those who endured the crisis are now grappling with a new set of predicaments: whether to sleep in the rooms where relatives died, to have babies in hospitals where Ebola patients were treated. In a country where containing Ebola meant persuading people to fear it, the public may remain traumatized for some time to come.

Médecins Sans Frontières                                                                   Jan 30, 2015

During the last weeks, a downward trend of new cases has been reported in Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) Ebola management centres across the three affected countries, with 50 confirmed cases in its eight centres last week.

While this is a promising development, the World Health Organization reported that only about half of new cases in both Guinea and Liberia are from known Ebola contacts, while in Sierra Leone there is no data available. There is almost no information sharing for tracing Ebola contacts between the three most-affected countries.

Since a single new case is enough to reignite an outbreak, the level of vigilance should remain high in order not to jeopardise the progress made in stemming the epidemic....

Read complete update:
http://www.msf.org/article/ebola-crisis-update-30-january-2015

submitted by George Hurlburt

arxiv.org - November 22, 2014
Adeline Decuyper, Alex Rutherford, Amit Wadhwa, Jean-Martin Bauer, Gautier Krings, Thoralf Gutierrez, Vincent D. Blondel, Miguel A. Luengo-Oroz
arXiv:1412.2595 [cs.CY]

Recent studies have shown the value of mobile phone data to tackle problems related to economic development and humanitarian action. In this research, we assess the suitability of indicators derived from mobile phone data as a proxy for food security indicators. We compare the measures extracted from call detail records and airtime credit purchases to the results of a nationwide household survey conducted at the same time. Results show high correlations (> .8) between mobile phone data derived indicators and several relevant food security variables such as expenditure on food or vegetable consumption. This correspondence suggests that, in the future, proxies derived from mobile phone data could be used to provide valuable up-to-date operational information on food security throughout low and middle income countries.

CLICK HERE - RESEARCH - Estimating Food Consumption and Poverty Indices with Mobile Phone Data