CONGRESSIONAL HEARING: House Foreign Committee Chairman blasts WHO, while AID urges funding to address Ebola hotspots.
(Two stories, scroll down)

THE HILL                                                                                                                           Nov. 13, 2014

A top Republican is calling for a new strategy to fight Ebola overseas — one that does not rely on the embattled World Health Organization (WHO).

Rep. Ed Royce (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, slammed the organization for what he called “deadly incompetence” in the battle against the disease.

“Unfortunately, we are paying the price for early failures,” Royce said at a hearing, arguing that the WHO “repeatedly downplayed the crisis.”

Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) said he has “no confidence” in the WHO.
“WHO contributed to the spread of this virus and to a high mortality rate, frankly, because of its cronyism and its incompetence,” Connolly said.The

ASSOCIATED PRESS                                         Nov. 13, 2014

By Jonathan Paye-Leyleh and Baba Ahmed

MONROVIA, Liberia (AP) — Liberia's president said Thursday she is lifting a state of emergency imposed to control an Ebola outbreak that has ravaged the country, as Mali raced to track down everyone who may have come into contact with three people now believed to have died of Ebola in its capital.

Also Thursday, Doctors Without Borders announced that accelerated clinical trials will be launched in West Africa to speed the search for a treatment for the virus that has killed more than 5,000 people.

In a nationwide address, Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf said enough progress has been made to lift emergency measures but added that the move does not mean the outbreak is over. There have been fewer Ebola cases in Monrovia, the capital, though fresh hotspots have emerged. One of those is near the border with Sierra Leone, which along with Guinea has also been hit hard by the disease.

Read complete story.

http://news.yahoo.com/medical-aid-group-host-3-ebola-clinical-trials-090631858.html

HOMELAND SECURITY NEWS WIRE                                                                                             Nov. 13, 2014
By Catherine de Fontenay
Economists are being called upon to estimate the costs of the Ebola epidemic to West Africa and elsewhere. Economists, however, should also play a part in estimating the likelihood of the disease spreading. Economics is the study of incentives, and many biological models of the spread of the disease may be underestimating the impact of individual incentives.

 Based on cost-benefit analysis, the potential costs of Ebola spreading are extremely high and the risks may be much higher than they are currently portrayed. Voters and donors should support greater efforts to end Ebola in West Africa. As International Monetary Fund director Christine Lagarde says, “real action” is needed to counter the outbreak. Without such action Ebola places the global economy at risk.

...If Ebola spreads throughout West Africa, the cost could rise to US$32.6 billion by the end of 2015.
Read complete article
http://www.homelandsecuritynewswire.com/dr20141113-the-economics-of-ebola

WASHINGTON POST                                          Nov. 13, 2014
By Joel Achenbach
 Excerpt:

"We’re now dealing with an epidemic in a different phase, which is as many as 15 to 20 microepidemics around the country [Liberia] that require a more nimble and more rapid response. So we’re working with our partners to build rapid-response teams that can quickly get to a community, identify where there are clusters of cases, very rapidly stand up a community care center, or almost a mini-ETU [Ebola Treatment Unit], and have the protective equipment and connectivity back to laboratory diagnostics that allows for accelerated disease control of those epidemics."

 
USAID administrator Rajiv “Raj” Shah, second from right, inspects a newly built Ebola treatment center in Monrovia, Liberia, on Oct. 14. (Abbas Dulleh/AP)

See full Q&A

WASHINGTON POST                                             NOV. 13, 2014

By Lennie Berstein

FOYA, Liberia — The Ebola virus, which has killed more than 2,830 Liberians and collapsed the country’s health-care system, is also attacking Liberia’s food supply, bringing intermittent hunger to a wide swath of this country even as its 4.1 million people try to survive the epidemic.

 The typical family

Liberians carry bags of bulgur wheat and cans of cooking oil after receiving food from a U.N. World Food Program distribution in Kolba City. (Michel du Cille/The Washington Post )

Income, already among the lowest in the world, has declined as the epidemic raged in recent months, shutting workplaces and killing breadwinners. Closed borders with Sierra Leone, Guinea and Ivory Coast have sharply reduced trade. Markets in villages and towns across the country have been shut down to limit large gatherings, which can abet transmission of the virus.

The planting and harvesting seasons were disrupted when Ebola hit the farm belt in June....

BBC NEWS MAGAZINE                                            NOV. 11, 2014

By Ben Carter

The Ebola virus has killed about 5,000 people since March - but one scientist who is studying the statistics says this is not the best figure to consider if we really want to understand the current state of the outbreak and how to beat it.

A total of 4,960 people have died from Ebola this year according to statistics released by the World Health Organisation on 4 November. More than half of those cases - 2,766 - were in Liberia.

But this cumulative figure, which is widely reported, can only go one way - up. It gives no meaningful insight into how the outbreak has developed says Hans Rosling, professor of global health at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden....

Read full story.
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-30011521

NEW YORK TIMES                                                         Nov. 13, 2014

By HELENE COOPER and SABRINA TAVERNISE

WASHINGTON — As the rate of new Ebola infections in Liberia has slowed, American and Liberian officials are debating whether to build all 17 planned Ebola treatment centers in the country or to shift money from the Obama administration that was planned for the centers into other programs to combat future outbreaks.

appropriations.senate.gov - C-SPAN3 - November 12, 2014

Full Committee Hearing on the U.S. Government Response to the Ebola outbreak
 
WHEN:             WEDNESDAY, November 12, 2014 at 2:00 p.m.
                                                                                                             
WHERE:            Room SD-G50 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building

(VIEW THE RECORDED VIDEO IN THE LINKS BELOW)

http://www.appropriations.senate.gov/webcast/full-committee-hearing-us-government-response-fighting-ebola-and-protecting-america

DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS                                                                              Nov. 12, 2014

The international medical organisation Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) or Doctors Without Borders has posted an online briefing on Ebola for aid workers involved in the battle against the haemorrhagic fever. This briefing package is now available to anyone wishing to gain a basic understanding of the virus and how it can be contained.

http://www.msf.org/article/ebola-online-briefing-now-available-public

VOICE OF AMERICA                              Nov. 12, 2014

By Kim Lewis                            

Doctors Without Borders  (MSF) says there have been slight improvements in the Ebola situation in Liberia and Guinea. However, Sierra Leone has experienced a big surge in reported cases throughout the country in recent weeks.

The group released an update on their assessment of the Ebola crisis in the three countries with reports of gains and losses. 

“I think we can see the most improvements in Liberia,” said MSF spokesman James Kambaki. MSF has large isolation center in the country and is distributing an estimated 300,000 protection kits – gloves, masks and chlorine as a disinfectant - to the public. “Besides that, MSF has also done a mass malaria prophylactic prevention to try and ease up the burden of other illnesses so that you can concentrate on Ebola.”

Kambaki said the prevention measures appear to be helping, but MSF is investigating a recent drop in numbers being admitted to their Ebola isolation centers.

LOS ANGELES TIMES                                           Nov. 12, 2014
By Matt Hansen
Weighing President Obama’s request for billions of dollars in new funding to combat the Ebola virus, lawmakers on Wednesday pressed federal agencies to explain how the additional money would help in the fight against the disease.

Members of the Senate Appropriations Committee debated Obama’s request for $6.18 billion in additional funds to battle the virus, which has infected more than 13,000 people, mostly in West Africa...

Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell and Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson appear before the Senate Appropriations Committee during a hearing Tuesday in Washington over the government's response to Ebola. (Michael Reynolds / European Pressphoto Agency)

... the request faced skeptical lawmakers who questioned whether additional money would be well spent by a federal government that has struggled at times with containing the epidemic.

“Instead of an effective response, what we’ve witnessed from various agencies is confusing and at times contradictory plans,” Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.) said.

VOICE OF AMERICAN                                                                                           Nov.12, 2012
By Carla Babb
PENTAGON--The U.S. military says it is scaling back its planned Ebola response deployments to West Africa from 4,000 troops to 3,000. 

FILE- Members of the U.S. Department of Defense's Ebola Military Medical Support Team go through special training at San Antonio Military Medical Center.

Major General Gary Volesky, who heads the U.S. military's response to the Ebola outbreak, said in a call to reporters at the Pentagon from Liberia the United States does not need 4,000 troops to fight Ebola in West Africa.  He said the troop total will increase from about 2,200 today to just under 3,000 by mid-December.

"There is a lot of capacity here that we did not know about before, and so that enabled us to reduce the forces that we thought we originally had to bring," said Volesky....

See complete story
http://www.voanews.com/content/us-scales-back-ebola-response-numbers/2518196.html

Link to Defense Department announcement

USA TODAY                                         Nov. 12, 2014
by Liz Sazbo

Doctors Without Borders will begin clinical trials of three experimental Ebola therapies in West Africa in December, the aid group announced Wednesday.

The studies, to be conducted at the group's treatment centers in Guinea and Liberia, will test therapies already used in some Ebola patients in the USA and Europe: the antiviral drugs brincidofovir and favipiravir, as well as blood donations from Ebola survivors.

Brincidofovir, made by Chimerix of North Carolina, was given to cameraman Ashoka Mukpo, Liberian national Thomas Eric Duncan and physician Craig Spencer. Mukpo and Spencer survived. Duncan received the drug just a couple days before he died.

Favipiravir, an anti-flu drug made by Japan's Fujifilm Holding Corp., was given to a French nurse who worked with Doctors Without Borders.

And blood donations from Ebola survivors, which contain antibodies against the virus, have been used since the first Ebola outbreak in 1976.

Read complete story
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/11/12/ebola-clinical-trial/18919401/

REUTERS                                                                                               Nov. 12, 2014

By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA --The death toll from the Ebola outbreak in West Africa's three hardest-hit countries, Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, has risen to 5,147 out of 14,068 cases at the end of Nov. 9, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday.

A further 13 deaths and 30 cases have been recorded in five other countries - Nigeria, Senegal, Mali, Spain and the United States, the U.N. agency said.

"There is some evidence that case incidence is no longer increasing nationally in Guinea and Liberia, but steep increases persist in Sierra Leone," the WHO said in a statement. "Cases and deaths continue to be under-reported in this outbreak."

Some 421 new infections were reported in Sierra Leone in the week to Nov. 9, especially in the west and north, it said.

Ebola is still spreading intensely in Sierra Leone's capital of Freetown, with Koinadugu and Kambia northern regions now "emerging areas of concern", it added.

THE HILL                                                          Nov. 12, 2014
Commentary by Claire Pomeroy, M.D., M.B.A, President of the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation.

...Without a commitment by Congress to fund basic medical research, the lives of millions are put at risk, along with the nation’s economic and national security. Outbreaks of deadly viruses – including AIDS or Ebola – have shown us the costs of not remaining vigilant.

  So how much funding is enough? It’s time for us to have that national conversation once again. We do not know what the superbugs of tomorrow will look like. But we do know that novel pathogens will emerge or existing ones will mutate, and that as global travel and migration inexorably increase, disease knows no border. It is time for us to stop chasing at AIDS and Ebola from behind, and take stock of our capacity to commit.