Guinea Resilience System

REUTERS                                                                                                                    Dec. 9, 2014

CHICAGO -- The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on Tuesday offered liability protections to drugmakers rushing to develop Ebola vaccines and urged other countries to follow suit.

Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Sylvia Burwell made the announcement as part of the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness (PREP) Act in a move aimed at encouraging the development and availability of experimental Ebola vaccines.

The declaration provides immunity under U.S. law against legal claims related to the manufacturing, testing, development, distribution, and administration of three vaccines for the Ebola virus. However, it does not provide immunity for a claim brought in a court outside the United States...

Read full story

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/12/09/us-health-ebola-vaccine-idUSKBN0JN1S920141209

THE GUARDIAN     by Sarah Bosley                                                                           Dec. 9, 2014                          FREETOWN --  Sierra Leone has its first-ever call centre. The number to reach it is 117. You can call to report that your mother is sick or your brother is dead. It is a call nobody wants to make, but posters and newspapers and radio broadcasts urge you to pick up the phone – for your own sake and your family’s, but beyond that, for the sake of everybody else you know and don’t know.

Burials of Ebola victims recorded week-by-week. Photograph: Sarah Boseley

It’s a tough one, because that call leads to quarantined homes and holding centres for people with suspected Ebola, where people who do have the virus are sharing rooms with those who eventually turn out to have something else. There’s a real possibility you could go in with malaria and pick up Ebola. It is in the public interest that you make that call. But it is hardly surprising if some people hesitate and others run and hide

A woman walks pass an Ebola virus awareness campaign poster in Monrovia, December 8, 2014. 
Credit: Reuters/James Giahyue

reuters.com - by Stephanie Nebehay - December 9, 2014

* UN envoy Nabarro focusing on two "troublesome areas"

* Ebola spreading in western Sierra Leone, forests of Guinea

* Foreign health workers and local communities key to response (adds details, quotes)

(Reuters) - More foreign health workers are needed to help tackle the Ebola epidemic, which is spreading quickly in western Sierra Leone and deep in the forested interior of Guinea, a senior U.N. official said on Tuesday.

The death toll from the Ebola outbreak in West Africa has risen to 6,331 in the three worst hit countries, with Sierra Leone overtaking Liberia as the country with the highest number of cases, the World Health Organization says.

"We know the outbreak is still flaming strongly in western Sierra Leone and some parts of the interior of Guinea. We can't rest, we have to still push on," said David Nabarro, the U.N. Special Envoy on Ebola.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

CANADIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION                   Dec. 14, 2014

The Canadian Red Cross is looking for people to help with the ongoing Ebola outbreak in West Africa.

Chris Baert-Wilson, Atlantic director of community health for the Canadian Red Cross, says her organization is looking for more medical professionals from this region to head to West Africa to help contain the spread.  

The Red Cross is looking for 150 volunteers over the next six months. She said that would be enough to have 16 staff at any given time. Baert-Wilson says there are just 16 applicants so far.  

"We’re looking for folks with infection prevention and control [experience], … doctors, we’re looking for nurses to help out, and we’re looking for folks that can provide psycho-social support — so social workers, that style of professional, that are able to support the families and the patients that have Ebola," says Baert-Wilson.

Read complete report.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/red-cross-needs-volunteers-to-help-contain-ebola-in-west-africa-1.2864188