Guinea Resilience System

submitted by Stephen Morse

icap.columbia.edu - January 15, 2015

An ICAP team conducted a three-week, rapid assessment of Ebola community care centers (CCCs), a new model of care that aims to break the cycle of household transmission of the Ebola virus.

With funding from the UK Department for International Development (DFID), ICAP team members visited 11 sites across six districts—Bo, Bombali, Kambia, Koinadugu, Port Loko, and Western Area—to assess the safety, effectiveness, acceptability, and operational feasibility of these centers, where patients with symptoms suggestive of Ebola receive care and support as they await diagnosis and transfer to Ebola treatment units or referral for other medical services. . .

. . . Using a 168-item site assessment survey, information was gathered on patient flow, laboratory services, on-site standard operating protocols, and other key operational areas of the community care centers.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

BBC         by Tulip Mazumdar                                       Jan. 14, 2015

FREETOWN --Sierre Leone-- The medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres has opened its first Ebola treatment centre specialising in care for infected pregnant women.

MSF says the death rate for expectant mothers is extremely high, and health workers treating them, particularly during childbirth or miscarriage, are especially vulnerable to catching the virus.

Building work is still continuing at the maternity section of the latest MSF Ebola clinic on the outskirts of the capital. It is been erected at the site of one of the city's most prestigious secondary schools, Methodist Boys High School, in Kissy.

The classrooms are empty - schools have been closed for months. The playing area is now home to MSF's sixth treatment centre in Sierra Leone. When it is fully operational, it will have 80 beds, and a special focus on treating pregnant women suspected or confirmed to have Ebola.

Read full story.

http://www.bbc.com/news/health-30780176

worldbank.org

NBC NEWS     by Maggie Fox                                                                             Jan. 14, 2005
The number of new Ebolacases is starting to drop off in the three worst-hit West African countries, and Liberia has only reported 48 cases in the past three weeks, the World Health Organization reported Wednesday.

Guinea and Liberia both reported the fewest new cases since August, WHO says in its latest daily look at Ebola statistics. Sierra Leone is still suffering badly, with 769 new cases over the past 21 days, but that's a decline in reported cases.

"Sierra Leone has now reported a decline in case incidence for the second week running, and recorded its lowest weekly total of new confirmed cases since the week ending 31 August 2014," WHO said.

Overall, 21,261 people have been infected in this ongoing epidemic of Ebola, and 8,414 have died, WHO says.

http://www.who.int/csr/disease/ebola/situation-reports/en/

Ebola Situation report

WHO                                                                                         Jan. 14, 2015