UNITED NATIONS NEWS CENTRE                                                               Jan.16, 2015

David Nabarro,Special Envoy on Ebola since August 2014, ...spoke with the UN News Centre in New York between his latest visit to Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone and a trip around Europe where he will visit the World Economic Forum and national capitals, seeking more resources to continue the fight against the outbreak. He described the reducing intensity of the outbreak, the shift in focus of responders and his growing confidence that the outbreak can be beaten. He also stressed the need for continued vigilance and more international support – in the form of people, materials and money – and looked forward to approval of a potential vaccine for the disease.

Excerpt:  " I’d like to start by describing the outbreak as it appears right now, and then I’d like to talk about the way in which the national Government and local communities are responding and the ways in which the international community is helping them.

cbsnews.com - by Jessica Firger - January 8, 2015

Although it's largely dropped out of the headlines in this country, the Ebola outbreak continues to ravage West Africa. . . . Six out of 10 patients currently hospitalized with the virus will die, and a huge number of victims still aren't receiving medical care, which has allowed this public health crisis to continue to escalate at an alarming pace.

Yet many Americans may be under the impression that the Ebola crisis is winding down.

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cdc.gov - January 14, 2015

One of the difficulties faced by teams responding to the current Ebola outbreak in West Africa is identifying individuals and communities residing in remote areas. Existing maps of these regions either do not exist or are inadequate or outdated. This means that basic data like location of houses, buildings, villages, and roads are not easily accessible, and case finding and contact tracing can be extremely difficult.

To help aid the outbreak response effort, volunteers from around the world are using an open-source online mapping platform called OpenStreetMap (OSM) to create detailed maps and map data of Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and parts of Mali.

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A dead whale in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, in 2011. As container ships multiply, more whales are being harmed, a study said. CreditMarco De Swart/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

CLICK HERE - RESEARCH - Marine defaunation: Animal loss in the global ocean

nytimes.com - by Carl Zimmer - January 15, 2015

A team of scientists, in a groundbreaking analysis of data from hundreds of sources, has concluded that humans are on the verge of causing unprecedented damage to the oceans and the animals living in them.

“We may be sitting on a precipice of a major extinction event,” said Douglas J. McCauley, an ecologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and an author of the new research, which was published on Thursday in the journal Science.

Daily life in Freetown, Sierra Leone, one of three West African countries most affected by the outbreak of the Ebola virus.
Photo: World Bank/Dominic Chavez

un.org

15 January 2015 – Spearheaded by the United Nations, a team of international experts has begun an Ebola Recovery Assessment (ERA) mission in Sierra Leone as part of an effort to partner with Governments to address the impact of the virus on affected countries. 

The ERA mission is made up of experts from the European Union, World Bank and the African Development Bank. They are expected to finish their work this weekend in Accra, Ghana after a one-day stop in Guinea tomorrow. 

The mission’s aim is to work with the Governments of the countries hardest hit by the virus –Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea – to assess critical areas that will spearhead economic and social recovery in the post-Ebola era.

According to a statement released by the Office of the UN Resident Coordinator in Sierra Leone, David McLachlan-Karr, the ERA is anchored in national ownership.

Many agricultural fields have been abandoned as people retreat from Ebola. Image via World Bank.

zmescience.com - by Livia Rusu - January 15, 2015

The World Health Organization reports a drop in the Ebola cases in the three Western African countries hit most by the disease. However, as farmers abandon their fields in the infected areas, a new problem seems to emerge: a food crisis. . .

. . . The International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD), a UN body that finances agriculture in poor countries has warned that if quick action isn’t taken soon, a food crisis is set to take place in the area.

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Treating malaria makes Ebola care easier

TIME MAGAZINE   by Alexandra Sifferlin                                                                  Jan. 16, 2015
Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is launching its second mass distribution of treatments for malaria in Ebola-stricken Sierra Leone, a move that may have the positive side effect of helping ease the burden of Ebola cases.

Malaria... causes many of the same symptoms as Ebola. It’s common for people to come to Ebola treatment centers believing they have Ebola, when in fact they have malaria—which crowds the clinics and causes enormous stress for patients and their families. Treating malaria and preventing infection are ways MSF can ensure that they reduce the number of patients at Ebola treatment centers in addition to saving lives, since more people fall ill and die from malaria than Ebola.

Read complete story.

http://time.com/3671597/doctors-without-borders-malaria-ebola/

Maj. Gen. Gary Volesky's 2,500 soldiers have spent months battling a rampant killer in Liberia. Is the fight over, or has the front line shifted?

FOREIGN POLICY   by Brian Castner                                                        Jan,. 14, 2014

When Maj. Gen. Gary Volesky arrived in Liberia in late October to assume command of the U.S. military effort to help beat back the Ebola epidemic there, he was handed a to-do list by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Liberian government: build 17 temporary treatment facilities across the country, train a mix of international and local Liberian health-care workers to staff them, and use the Pentagon’s high-end medical equipment to test patients’ blood for the deadly virus.

Nearly every item is now checked off, leaving three options: go home, stay and wait in case the outbreak worsens, or move to start on a similar list in Sierra Leone and Guinea, where the number of Ebola cases has eclipsed that of Liberia.

Read complete article.

WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION MEDIA CENTRE                   Jan, 15, 2015

One year after the first Ebola cases started to surface in Guinea, WHO is publishing this series of 14 papers that take an in-depth look at West Africa’s first epidemic of Ebola virus disease.

The papers explore reasons why the disease evaded detection for several months and the factors, many specific to West Africa, that fuelled its subsequent spread.

The most extensive papers trace events in each of the 3 most severely affected countries – Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone...

Key events are set out chronologically, starting with the child who is believed to be the index case of this epidemic through to the Director-General’s commitment to steadfastly support affected countries until they reach zero cases.

Read complete news release

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/notes/2015/ebola-one-year-on/en/
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ASSOCIATED PRESS  by  FRANCIS KOKUTSE                   Jan. 16, 2015

ACCRA- Ghana--All schools in Guinea will reopen on Monday after being closed amid the deadly Ebola outbreak, Guinea's health minister said Friday.

Health minister Remy Lamah told The Associated Press in Accra, Ghana during a summit by the Economic Community of West African States that the action is being taken "because the situation has improved." In Liberia, the schools are reopening "next month," said the Liberian Embassy's Charges d'Affaires in Ghana, Musu Ruhle.

Schools will remain closed in Sierra Leone, that country's health minister said.

Read complete story.
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/health-minister-schools-guinea-closed-amid-ebola-reopen-28266812

Jeremy Leggett: 'One of the oil companies will break ranks and this time it is going to stick.'
Photograph: Linda Nylind for the Guardian

submitted by Margery Schab

Jeremy Leggett, former industry adviser, warns over plunging commodity prices and soaring costs of risky energy projects

The oil price crash coupled with growing concerns about global warming will encourage at least one of the major oil companies to turn its back on fossil fuels in the near future, predicts an award-winning scientist and former industry adviser.

Dr Jeremy Leggett, who has had consultations on climate change with senior oil company executives over 25 years, says it will not be a rerun of the BP story when the company launched its “beyond petroleum” strategy and then did a U-turn.

“One of the oil companies will break ranks and this time it is going to stick,” he said.

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New EPA standards will aim to significantly cut methane emissions from oil and gas sites in the U.S.

The Obama administration makes its latest move to take on climate change.

usnews.com - by Alan Neuhauser - January 14, 2015

In the Obama administration’s latest use of executive authority to address climate change, the White House announced plans Wednesday to impose new regulations on the oil and gas industry that would nearly halve methane emissions from wells, drill sites and pipelines in 10 years.

The new standards, to be developed by the Environmental Protection Agency under the Clean Air Act, would aim by 2025 to cut methane emissions by up to 45 percent from levels recorded in 2012. They would also slash the spread of volatile organic compounds, or VOCs, key components of ground-level smog that have been linked to cancer, neurological conditions and other illnesses.

ASSOCIATED PRESS   By EDITH M. LEDERER                                                         Jan. 15, 2015

UNITED NATIONS --At least 50 Ebola hotspots remain in the three hardest-hit West African countries but new cases are declining and the deadly disease will be defeated, the U.N.'s Ebola chief said Thursday.

The latest report from the World Health Organization showing reductions in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone "is very good news," Dr. David Nabarro said in an interview with The Associated Press.

In the week ending Jan. 11, WHO said Guinea reported its lowest weekly total of new Ebola cases since mid-August. Liberia had its lowest total since the first week of June and no confirmed new cases for the final two days of the week. And new cases in Sierra Leone declined for a second week to the lowest level since the end of August.

But Nabarro cautioned that "there are still numbers of new cases that are alarming, and there are hotspots that are emerging in new places that make me believe there is still quite a lot of the disease that we're not seeing."

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.

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