BIOPREPWATCH                                                           Nov. 14, 2014

By Danial Daw

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on Friday that $2.7 million worth of personal protection equipment will be sent to hospitals to assist in the care of Ebola patients.

Altogether, 50 kits have been prepared and can be rapidly sent to hospitals. The kits include five days worth of protective equipment for clinical teams to treat one Ebola patient.

The kits follow the most up-to-date guidelines issued by the CDC. While the numbers of kits are limited at the moment, the CDC said it should be sufficient to treat cases in the short-term.

Read complete story
http://bioprepwatch.com/countermeasures/medical/u-s-hospitals-to-be-supplied-ebola-protective-equipment/339963/

THE ECONOMIST                                                                                                        Nov. 14, 2014

NAIROBI -- Safari tents remain zipped, hotel pools are empty, game guides idle among lions and elephants. Tour operators across Africa are reporting the biggest drop in business in living memory. A specialist travel agency, SafariBookings.com, says a survey of 500 operators in September showed a fall in bookings of between 20% and 70%. Since then the trend has accelerated, especially in Botswana, Kenya, South Africa and Tanzania. Several American and European agents have stopped offering African tours for the time being.

The reason is the outbreak of the Ebola virus in west Africa, which has killed more than 5,000 people. The epidemic is taking place far from the big safari destinations in eastern and southern Africa—as far or farther than the homes of many European tourists (see map). There are more air links from west Africa to Europe than to the rest of the continent, whose airlines have in any case largely suspended flights.

Moreover Ebola is hardly the biggest killer disease in Africa (AIDS and malaria are bigger). Yet, in the mind of many visitors, all of Africa is a single country.

One despairing tour operator calls it an “epidemic of ignorance”.

In-depth report on the tragedy of how Ebola has destroyed families, partly as a result of members trying to care for each other.

NEW YORK TIMES                                                                                                   Nov. 14, 2014

By NORIMITSU ONISHI

"...This destruction of families is the central tragedy of the epidemic. On a continent with many weak states, the extended family is Africa’s most important institution by far.

"That is especially true in the nations ravaged by the disease — Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea — three of Africa’s poorest and most fragile countries. Ebola’s effects on the region, in undermining the very institution that has kept its societies together, could be long-term and far-reaching...."
 
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AFRICA CENTER FOR STRATEGIC STUDIES, Washington D.C.                        Nov. 12, 2014

Summary of lessons learned from Nigeria and Uganda in containing outbreaks of Ebola

“If a country like Nigeria, hampered by serious security problems, can do this – that is, make significant progress towards interrupting polio transmission, eradicate guinea-worm disease and contain Ebola, all at the same time,” said WHO Director-General Margaret Chan, “any country in the world experiencing an imported case can hold onward transmission to just a handful of cases....”

"Numerous African states have identified and refined the best ways of containing the disease."

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http://africacenter.org/2014/11/no-time-for-a-learning-curve-nigerias-crucial-success-against-ebola/?utm_source=November+14++2014+EN&utm_campaign=11%2F14%2F2014&utm_medium=email

UPDATE:   Additonal information on the WHO discussions of potential Ebola treatments.

(Scroll down)

REUTERS                                                      Nov. 14, 2014

By Tom Miles

GENEVA --The World Health Organization (WHO) has begun assessing more than 120 potential treatments for Ebola patients, it said on Friday, but so far has found none that definitely work, and some that definitely do not....

The apparent effect of ZMapp or other drugs that have been tried may simply be a result of the good care that the patients had received, or the fact that they were well-nourished before they fell sick, or because of other medicines, Friede said.

Medecins Sans Frontieres plans to start trials next month of the drugs brincidofovir, from the U.S. firm Chimerix, and favipiravir, from Japan's Fujifilm, and to see how well blood plasma from Ebola survivors may work in curing those still infected....

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http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/14/us-health-ebola-who-treatments-idUSKCN0IY1CR20141114

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Additional Information:

NPR                                                          Nov. 14, 2014

By Jason Beaubien

"This is not just one case," says Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "It's a cluster." He's talking about the Ebola situation in Mali, where two people have likely died of the disease in Bamako, the capital, and two others have tested positive.

Hundreds more may have been exposed. Officials from the U.N., the World Health Organization, the government of Mali and the CDC are all calling for swift action to keep Mali from descending into the Ebola chaos that has  hit neighboring Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

"This is very deeply concerning," says Frieden. The CDC is sending additional staff to help respond to the outbreak.

This cluster of new cases centers around a private hospital in Bamako. On Oct. 27, an imam from Guinea died at the clinic from what had been diagnosed as kidney failure.

This week a nurse who treated him died of Ebola. Two other people from the clinic — one of them a doctor — have tested positive for the virus. The body of the imam was sent to a mosque for ritual cleansing, then returned to Guinea for a large public funeral before authorities in Mali realized he probably died of Ebola.

Frieden says the risk of this cluster turning into a major outbreak is high.

14 Nov 2014 07:54 aljazeera.com

President Sirleaf says while country has made progress against virus, more still needs to be done to end the epidemic.

Liberia's President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf said that she would not seek an extension to a state of emergency imposed in August over Ebola.

Her announcement on Thursday is a sign of progress in the fight against the disease, which has killed more than 2,800 people in Liberia since breaking out in West Africa in March.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2014/11/liberia-end-ebola-state-emergency-201411145555126551.html

foreignaffairs.house.gov - November 13, 2014 - 10:00am to 1:00pm
2172 Rayburn House Office Building Washington, DC 20515

(CLICK HERE FOR RECORDED VIDEO OF THE HEARING AND LINKS TO FULL STATEMENTS)

Chairman Royce on the hearing: “The Ebola epidemic that has besieged Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone for the past seven months is unprecedented in scale, with devastating consequences for the region. This hearing will examine ongoing international and U.S. efforts to contain this epidemic at its source in West Africa and the Administration’s emergency request for funding. We will hear from the head of the lead agency on the ground, Administrator Rajiv Shah, and from representatives of the defense community, who are playing an integral role in the response. We will also seek information about what other donors are – and are not – doing to address this dire health emergency.”

WITNESSES:

The Honorable Rajiv Shah
Administrator
U.S. Agency for International Development

The Honorable Bisa Williams
Deputy Assistant Secretary
Bureau of African Affairs
U.S. Department of State

People walk past a billboard with a message about Ebola in Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone, on November 7. Public awareness campaigns are proving vital in the fight against the virus.

Description of African efforts to improve communications to counter the spread of Ebola

CCN                                                                                                                                Nov. 17, 2014

By Alex Court (CNN)-- "When the Ebola outbreak started, it was very terrifying for everybody," recalls Michael Chu'no Ike from Nsukka in Nigeria's Enugu State. "People were afraid it could be transmitted by air and started believing all sorts of rumors about how to boost their immunity."

NEW YORK TIMES OP-ED                                                                                                          Nov. 13, 2014

By Chernor Bah,  a former refugee from the civil war in Sierra Leone, is a youth advocate for the Global Partnership for Education and a co-founder of A World at School.

Arriving at Port Loko, one of the largest towns in the north of Sierra Leone, is like reaching a country under siege. In the face of Ebola, the 500,000 inhabitants of this district have been sealed off from the world, stigmatized like a cellblock of criminals, and left largely to fend for themselves. Even to bring them food and schoolbooks, you need a government pass. And they are not alone. Counting other districts under quarantine, more than a third of the nation cannot move freely.

USA TODAY                                                 Nov.13, 2014
By Michael Winter

A third Ebola patient is headed to the Nebraska Medical Center this weekend, according to news reports Thursday.

CBS News said the patient was a surgeon infected with the virus while treating victims in Sierra Leone, one of the hardest-hit areas of West Africa.

NBC News said the patient is a Sierra Leonean national who is a permanent resident of the United States...

The Biocontainment Unit at the University of Nebraska facility in Omaha has already successfully treated and released two others -- Dr. Rick Sacra, a missionary delivering babies in Liberia, and Ashoka Mukpo, an NBC News freelance cameraman who also became infected while working in Liberia.
Read complete story

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/11/13/ebola-nebraska-third-patient/18995987/

FOREIGN POLICY                                                                                                           Nov. 13, 2014

By David Francis

As the Ebola outbreak continues in West Africa, momentum to change FDA restrictions to allow Congress to allocate money toward research on drugs that treat tropical diseases, including Ebola, is growing.

A bill drafted by Sens. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) that would allow the FDA to fund Ebola treatment research will be marked up next week by the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee....

 The bill, which has 17 co-sponsors, is part of a flurry of congressional activity on Ebola and the Obama administration's $6.18 billion proposal to confront the disease domestically and abroad. The Senate Appropriations Committee debated Obama's plan on Wednesday, and House and Senate panels are expected to address the White House's spending request next week.

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REUTERS                                                           Nov. 20,2014

Molecular diagnostics company Cepheid said it received a grant of up to $3.3 million, co-financed by the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, to develop a diagnostic test for the deadly Ebola virus.

The Xpert Ebola test, which is expected to use saliva or a drop of blood to identify the virus, is likely to be offered on an emergency use only basis, Cepheid said on Thursday.

Cepheid and the Gates Foundation are also evaluating deploying the company's RemoteXpert cloud-based monitoring software to help track the spread of the disease.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration last month granted emergency authorization to two new Ebola diagnostic tests made by BioFire, a subsidiary of medical diagnostics maker BioMerieux.

THE DAILY BEAST                                                                                                           Nov. 11, 2014
By Carfrie Arnold

These nocturnal fliers might do some good, but their association with night, rabies, and All Things Creepy means that, at best, we tolerate them. Adding to their negative aura is recent research showing that bats can be the source of infectious diseases like SARS and Ebola, as well as lesser-known pathogens like Hendra and Nipah virus.

It’s all too easy to blame bats for causing these human pandemics, including the most recent (and deadliest) Ebola outbreak. After all, these viruses hang out in bats in between outbreaks—trace any outbreak of these viruses back far enough and you will find a bat.

NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF MEDICINE                                                                  Nov. 12, 2014

Eric J. Rubin, M.D., Ph.D., and Lindsey R. Baden, M.D.

The Journal has now published detailed clinical information about three patients transferred from West Africa to the United States or Germany in the midst of their illness.

See details of the treatment

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMe1412744