BBC News by Mark Doyle                                                            March 23, 2015

Kabala, Sierra Leone- Scientists believe bushmeat is the origin of the current Ebola outbreak. A year ago, Sierra Leone put a ban on bushmeat - but is it working?
                         Bats are known carriers of the Ebola virus - this hunter was pictured last year

I linked up with a group of traditional hunters who were demonstrating how the Ebola-inspired ban on bushmeat hunting in Sierra Leone isn't working.

The ban came into force last year.

The Minister for Agriculture, Joseph Sam Sesay, confirmed to me that the ban was still in place and said it was broadly working.

But in the Wara Wara mountain range, the bushmeat hunters I met were obviously active.

Read complete story.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-31985826

TECH REPUBLIC  by Mary Shaklett                                                                         March 24, 2015

Big data practitioners are learning that the laboratory know-how of computer scientists and statisticians must be matched with a holistic, 360-degree vision of the problem to be solved. TheEbola crisis is a prime example....

If big data is going to help solve health issues like Ebola, it must be incorporated into analytics that consider all of the factors shaping the epidemic. These are three of the ingredients that should be factored into Ebola analytics.

1: There are political barriers that stand in the way of obtaining data from cell phone providers that could assist researchers in determining where the disease will strike next.

2: Even if disease researchers could obtain this data, there is a need to "correct" the data for what it doesn't reveal. For example, if less than 50% of a country's population has access to mobile phones and individuals are constantly moving from village to village, how will researchers be able to verify the quality of the data they're getting unless there are people "on the ground" who can verify or provide corrective factors to the data?

sciencedirect.com - June 2014
Justin Stoler, Rawan al Dashti, Francis Anto, Julius N. Fobil, Gordon A. Awandare
doi:10.1016/j.actatropica.2014.02.017

CLICK HERE - Deconstructing “Malaria”: West Africa as the Next Front for Dengue Fever Surveillance and Control

Highlights

• Febrile illnesses are vastly overdiagnosed as malaria in many African settings.

• West Africa is emerging as a new front for dengue fever surveillance and control.

• Efficient health care utilization depends upon proper diagnosis of febrile illness.

REUTERS by Emma Farge                                             March 23, 2015

DAKAR, March 23 -- Lapses that fueled the Ebola outbreak after it was first discovered a year ago are dogging the final stages of the fight against the virus as fatigue and complacency set in, delaying the end of the deadly epidemic.

A man is sprayed with disinfectant after he celebrated the memory of a loved one who died due to the Ebola virus at a newly build grave yard for Ebola virus victims in Monrovia, Liberia, Wednesday, March 11, 2015. Liberians held a church service Wednesday for families who lost members to Ebola to mark the country’s 99th celebration National Decoration Day, a holiday normally set aside for people to clean up and re-decorate the graves of their lost relatives. (AP Photo/Abbas Dulleh) | ASSOCIATED PRESS

Three doctors were discovered to be infected with Ebola at a hospital in Guinea's capital Conakry last week in what health reports and government officials blamed on a failure to implement basic measures for infection control.

NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO by Nurith Aizenman                March 23, 2015

Recruiting and training new health workers is key, because experts warn that unless the health systems in West Africa are brought up to scratch, an epidemic on the scale of this one will happen again.

Unfortunately, building national health systems doesn't tend to attract a lot of love from international donors, says Erin Hohlfelder, who's been pushing for this kind of funding on behalf of the ONE Campaign, a global health advocacy group.

"It's certainly not as 'sexy' — quote unquote — as things like treatment for HIV or bed nets for malaria, which are very tangible and easy to understand."

She says at least for now, the international community does seem to get the importance of building up West Africa's health systems. The governments of the affected countries are preparing national plans to present at a meeting of the World Bank next month

ASSOCIATED PRESS by Boubacar Diallo                    March 23, 2015

The trial highlights the challenges health workers faced in this Ebola outbreak that has claimed more than 10,000 lives, mostly in the impoverished West African nations of Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia.

Around 78 suspects are being tried in the town of N'Nzerekore, 900 kilometers (560 miles) from the capital Conakry, Ministry of Justice spokesman Ibrahima Beavogui said.

The killings happened when a delegation of health care workers, including top health officials from the nearby town, visited Womey last September to raise awareness about how to combat Ebola. They were attacked by a mob armed with knives and stones.

Read complete story.

BBC   by  Smitha Mundasad                                                                                        March 23, 2015

The Ebola outbreak in West Africa will be over by August, the head of the UN Ebola mission has told the BBC.

 Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed admitted the UN had made mistakes in handling the crisis early on, sometimes acting "arrogantly".

A year after the outbreak was officially declared, the virus has killed more than 10,000 people...

The head of the UN Ebola response mission told the BBC, when the virus first struck, "there was probably a lack of knowledge and there was a certain degree of arrogance, but I think we are learning lessons.

"We have been running away from giving any specific date, but I am pretty sure myself that it will be gone by the summer."

Read complete story.
http://www.bbc.com/news/health-32009508

TIME MAGAZINE  by Helen Regan                                March 23, 2015
(Scroll down for link to full MSF report.)

Paris-based Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has slammedthe international community’s slow response to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, saying it cost thousands of lives that could otherwise have been saved.

A Doctors Without Borders (MSF), health worker in protective clothing carries a child suspected of having Ebola in the MSF treatment center on October 5, 2014 in Paynesville, Liberia.

The leading international medical charity released a report Monday coinciding with the one-year anniversary of the outbreak’s start. It said warnings that the disease’s spread was out of control were dismissed as alarmist and that early calls for help were ignored by local governments and the World Health Organization (WHO), reports Reuters.

“For the Ebola outbreak to spiral this far out of control required many institutions to fail. And they did, with tragic and avoidable consequences,” said MSF’s general director Christopher Stokes in the report.

IN DEPTH OVERVIEW OF THE EBOLA CRISIS AND LESSONS FOR THE FUTURE
NEW YORK TIMES  by Sheri Fink, MD,   and Pam Belluck                                     March 23, 2015

One year has passed since the declaration of what became the largest Ebola outbreak in history, with more than 10,000 deaths..

Assessing the lessons of an Ebola outbreak that became the largest in history, with 10,000 dead. Credit Daniel Berehulak for The New York Times

tepco.co.jp - AFP - yahoo.com
March 19, 2015

CLICK HERE - Reactor imaging technology for fuel debris detection by cosmic ray muon
(13 page .PDF report)
Measurement status report in Unit-1
March 19, 2015
Tokyo Electric Power Company

CLICK HERE - TEPCO - Handouts at press conference

New tests show almost all of the fuel inside one of the Fukushima plant's reactors has melted, its operator said Thursday, the latest step in the clean up after Japan's worst ever nuclear crisis.

Tokyo Electric Power Co. said the technology, which uses elementary particles called "muon" to create x-ray style images, gave the most concrete evidence yet the fuel had dropped to the bottom of the first reactor.

CLICK HERE - The United Nations World Water Development Report 2015

CLICK HERE FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

CLICK HERE - REPORT - The United Nations World Water Development Report 2015 (139 page .PDF report)

phys.org - by Hillel Italie - March 20, 2015

The world could suffer a 40 percent shortfall in water in just 15 years unless countries dramatically change their use of the resource, a U.N. report warned Friday.

The report predicts global water demand will increase 55 percent by 2050, while reserves dwindle. If current usage trends don't change, the world will have only 60 percent of the water it needs in 2030, it said.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

ASSOCIATED PRESS  by Jpnathan Paye-Layleh             March 22, 2015

MONROVIA, Liberia — Liberians are overcoming their fears of Ebola to volunteer for a vaccine trial...

One year after the World Health Organization declared the Ebola outbreak, vaccine trials are under way in Liberia and Guinea. Sierra Leone will start a trial later this month.

In Liberia, scientists have fanned out across the country to explain the studies and reduce the fear and confusion that have stymied efforts to contain Ebola.

Dr. Stephen Kennedy, the Liberian lead investigator for the study, was among the first people to volunteer for the vaccine trial, getting his injection in front of the media. Similarly, in Guinea, authorities started the study by injecting a series of prominent officials, including the head of the country's Ebola response.

The outreach worked in Liberia, where more than 700 people have volunteered, well beyond the 600 required, according to Kennedy.

Read complete story.
http://news.yahoo.com/liberians-overcome-fear-volunteer-ebola-vaccine-trial-120848405.html

THE ECONOMIST                                                                                    May 19, 2015

..when the next epidemic breaks out, how do we prevent it from spreading around the world? It is easier said than done.
 
First: Early detection is critical, and it relies on good surveillance. But only 64 of the 194 member states of the World Health Organisation (WHO) have the surveillance procedures, laboratories and data-management capabilities required by the International Health Regulations. Improvements in things like basic public health infrastructure are needed...

Second: A swift response to an outbreak – which might involve getting skilled people, equipment and money to the right places – can potentially save more lives than drugs and vaccines. ... The World Health Organisation and the global community were slow to recognise that there was an international public health emergency.

WHO SITUATION SUMMARY                                                    March 20, 2015

THE TELEGRAPH by Aislinn Laing                                                                         March 20, 2015

An Ebola-proof tablet that can survive being doused in chlorine and can be used while wearing gloves has been developed by Google and technology volunteers for use by health workers in Sierra Leone.