DEUTSCHE WELLE    by Susan Houlton                         July 31, 2015
 
A village in northern Sierra Leone has been placed under quarantine after a post-mortem test revealed a man had died from Ebola. Several hospitals failed to recognize him as a potential victim of the disease.

Earlier this week the World Health Organization (WHO) announced the fewest weekly Ebola infections for over a year in West Africa. However the WHO also said it was bracing for a significant new outbreak in Sierra Leone, which alongside Guinea and Liberia, is one of the worst affected countries.

In the week up to Sunday 26 July, there were four confirmed cases in Guinea and three in Sierra Leone. Those three included a patient who died after travelling from the capital Freetown to the northern district of Tonkolili. He was described by the WHO as posing "a substantial risk of further transmission." The patient had only been confirmed Ebola-positive after post-mortem testing....

According to Hassan Abdul Sesay, a member of parliament from the region where the patient died, the man had traveled to his home village to mark the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
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NICOLAS ASFOURI via Getty Images

huffingtonpost.com - by Joel K. Bourne, Jr. - July 29, 2015

. . . an article in London's Independent newspaper headlined, "Society will collapse by 2040 due to catastrophic food shortages, says study." The study, based on a model created at Anglia Ruskin University's Global Sustainability Institute, forecasts that if global emissions continue unabated, plausible climate trends will lead to catastrophic crop failures and food riots around the globe. "In this scenario, global society essentially collapses as food production falls permanently short of consumption," Aled Jones, director of the Institute, told reporters. The study echoes a similar, peer-reviewed report from Lloyds of London, which found the probability of a major food crisis "significantly higher" than the insurance industry's benchmark return period of 1:200 years.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

PLOS/Medicine   by  Tom H. Boyles                            July 28, 2015

The mortality rate for patients with Ebola virus disease (EVD) in West Africa is approximately 65% [1]. There are no published figures for high-resource settings, but media sources and individual case reports suggest it is much lower and approaches 0% for those who receive this level of care from the beginning of their illness.

In their article “Ebola Viral Disease: Experience and Decision Making for the First Cases outside of Africa,” David Stephens and colleagues give insight into the care that can be provided when available resources are not the limiting factor [2]. They describe the decision to open the Serious Communicable Diseases Unit (SCDU) of Emory University Hospital (EUH) when two United States patients contracted EVD while working in West Africa. Using a large specialist team, they provided high-quality care in a safe working environment and disseminated their knowledge and experience widely.....

Countries in West Africa and the international community are teaming up to fight Ebola's  lingering effects on food security and agriculture.

Volunteers distribute food at a World Food Programme storage center in Monrovia October 16, 2014. Almost a year after the Ebola outbreak garnered strength in West Africa, countries in that region and the international community are teaming up to fight the disease's lingering effects on food security and agriculture. James Giahyue/Reuters/File

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR by Clare Algozin                                    July 29, 2015

As the death toll of EVD rose, West African countries began to experience labor shortages, and many fields of crops went unharvested, according to U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). As part of the measures to prevent the spread of EVD, many West African governments established quarantine zones and restricted the movements of people.

reliefweb.int - UN OCHA - REMARKS TO THE PRESS - [as delivered]

Juba, South Sudan, 25 July 2015

Today I conclude my four-day visit to South Sudan where I had the opportunity to see for myself the impact of the devastating crisis. This is my first visit to South Sudan since I began my role as the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator that was almost two months ago. But I have been here few times before. My last visit to South Sudan was in April 2012 to assess the humanitarian situation then, in my capacity as an Under-Secretary of State for International Development in the United Kingdom.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

cdc.gov - Volume 21, Number 7—July 2015

Rainisch G, Asher J, George D, Clay M, Smith TL, Cosmos K, et al. Estimating Ebola treatment needs, United States [letter]. Emerg Infect Dis. 2015 Jul - DOI: 10.3201/eid2107.150286

http://dx.doi.org/10.3201/eid2107.150286

To the Editor: By December 31, 2014, the Ebola epidemic in West Africa had resulted in treatment of 10 Ebola case-patients in the United States; a maximum of 4 patients received treatment at any one time (1). Four of these 10 persons became clinically ill in the United States (2 infected outside the United States and 2 infected in the United States), and 6 were clinically ill persons medically evacuated from West Africa (Technical Appendix 1[PDF - 228 KB - 8 pages] Table 6).

who.int - July 29, 2015 - SUMMARY - (See Links to Situation Reports Below)

There were 7 confirmed cases of Ebola virus disease (EVD) reported in the week to 26 July: 4 in Guinea and 3 in Sierra Leone. This is the lowest weekly total for over a year, and comes after 8 consecutive weeks during which case incidence had plateaued at between 20 and 30 cases per week. Although this decline in case incidence is welcome, it is too early to tell whether it will be sustained. There have been several high-risk events in both Guinea and Sierra Leone in the past 14 days, and past experience has shown that it can take a single high-risk case or missed contact to spark a new cluster of cases. In addition, there are over 2000 contacts still within their 21-day follow-up period in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, representing a substantial residual risk of further cases. Refinements to the response continue to yield improvements, with recent weeks seeing a higher proportion of cases arising from contacts and a lower proportion of cases identified post-mortem than at any time previously, but the continued occurrence of high-risk transmission events means that an increase in case incidence in the near term is a strong possibility.

fao.org

Introduction

The FAO has always been concerned with agricultural development and food security. Recent disease epidemics, in both developing and industrialised countries, have once again focussed attention on livestock disease and their potential to harm development. In the context of developing countries, disease epidemics do four things:

They reduce herds and flocks dramatically, which, in the case of pastoral peoples, is a major blow to food security and the ability to survive;

They cause trading partners to - quite understandably - put trade barriers in place in order to protect their own countries from infection. Where livestock or meat exporting countries are affected by epidemics, their "pariah" status can cost millions of dollars in terms of foreign exchange losses, and drive farmers and the local meat industry to the wall.

They are a deterrent to sustained livestock production.

They add significantly to the cost of livestock production through the necessity for the application of costly disease control measures.

(CLICK ON THE LINKS BELOW - FAO - Manual on Livestock Disease Surveillance and Information Systems)

AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR MICROBIOLOGY  by Azizul Haque and others                                July  27, 2015

 Ebola virus can cause severe hemorrhagic disease with high fatality rates. Currently, no specific therapeutic or vaccine has been approved for treatment and prevention of Ebola infection of humans. Although the number of Ebola cases has fallen in the last few weeks, multiple outbreaks of Ebola virus infection and the likelihood of future exposure highlight the need for development and rapid evaluation of pre- and post-exposure treatments.

In this manuscript we briefly review the existing and future options for anti-Ebola therapy, based on the data coming from rare clinical reports, studies on animals and results from in vitro models....

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http://aac.asm.org/content/early/2015/07/21/AAC.01105-15.short?rss=1

Could the international community have done a better job when confronted with the outbreak of Ebola in West Africa? Although the virus appears to be largely contained now, this comes after at least 27,000 people were infected, with 11,000 of them dying. The virus also had the opportunity to spread within the human population for over a year, providing it a potentially dangerous opportunity to adapt to us as hosts.

To find out whether we could have managed the outbreak better, the World Health Organization (WHO) recently convened an Ebola Interim Assessment Panel, which analyzed various aspects of the organization’s response. This panel, commissioned by the WHO Director-General, included the Dean of the Harvard School of Public Health, the founding Director of the UK's national Health Service, and other international public health leaders. It recently released its final report on the crisis.

AFP    July 26, 2015
Freetown  - Sierra Leone's President Ernest Bai Koroma has unveiled a post-Ebola "battle plan" to help the west African country turn the page on the devastating epidemic.

Sierra Leone's President Ernest Bai Koroma speaks at an International Ebola Recovery Conference on July 10, 2015 at the United Nations headquarters in New York (AFP Photo/Eduardo Munoz Alvarez)

"Beyond the immediate nine-month recovery period, we will commence a two-year plan during which we must resolve to restore Sierra Leone to the path to prosperity," Koroma said in a statement released Friday.

"We will work to reinvigorate the private sector as a source of growth, create jobs and livelihoods in our economy," he said, emphasising the need to improve roads and market access.

Read complete story.
http://news.yahoo.com/sierra-leone-president-unveils-post-ebola-battle-plan-175118537.html

CENTER FOR DISEASE RESEARCH AND POLICY        July 24, 2015

(Also scroll down for: Ebola case definition quandary; Public health worker Ebola unease)

Researchers found that the World Health Organization (WHO) Ebola case definition has a specificity of only 31.5%, and they noted that 9% of Ebola patients reported neither a fever nor any Ebola risk exposure, calling into question WHO norms, according to a large study yesterday in The Lancet Infectious Diseases.

Researchers from Britain and Sierra Leone analyzed data on 850 suspected and 724 lab-confirmed Ebola patients who presented to the holding unit of Connaught Hospital in Freetown from May 29 to Dec 8, 2014. Fever or history of fever (n=599, 83%), intense fatigue or weakness (495, 68%), vomiting or nausea (365, 50%), and diarrhea (294, 41%) were the most common presenting symptoms in suspected cases.

Based on data from these patients, the investigators found the sensitivity of the WHO case definition to be 79.7%, which means about 20% of true Ebola cases would be missed (false-negatives). They found the specificity of the case definition to be 31.5%, which means 68.5% of patients who would be selected for admission would not actually have Ebola virus disease (false-positives).

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pbs.org - July 22, 2015

From the global perspective of space, this 2-hour special reveals the breathtaking extent of our influence, revealing how we’ve transformed our planet and produced an interconnected world of extraordinary complexity.

A journey through 12,000 years, Humanity from Space shows how seemingly small flashes of innovation have changed the course of civilization; innovations that touch all of us today in ways unimaginable to our ancestors. And we’ll gaze into the future at the new challenges we’ll face in order to survive as our global population soars because of our success. In every case we’ll look at our progression in a unique and surprising way, revealing unforgettable facts and "who knew?" connections.

To visualize these stories cutting-edge technology is used to turn raw data into authentic moving images, building on expertise from a previous (and highly-praised) project; "Earth From Space." Using this technique, we can map humanity’s behavior in stunning, never seen before detail, revealing how our civilization grew, how it works today and what the future might hold.

This map, dated July 15, shows the number of days since active cases were discovered in the three countries where ebola is still a threat. CDC

SCIENCE  by Nick Stockton                               July 23, 2015

Officially, it’s called the Ebola Outbreak of 2014. But it’s 2015 now, and the disease is still infecting people. For the past two months, that rate was about 15 people a week. But in the past two weeks, the rate has doubled.....

What’s behind the continued spread? Depends on where you go. In Guinea and Sierra Leone, Ebola never died, and the new cases are a continuation of the same strain that first emerged in December of 2013. In Liberia—which declared itself ebola-free on May 12—experts believe the new outbreak was transmitted through sexual intercourse, from latent viral bodies that were alive in a man’s sperm.

CENTER FOR INFECIOUS DISEASE AND POLICY  by Lisa Schnirring     July 22, 2015

The number of new Ebola cases in Guinea and Sierra Leone declined a bit last week, with much of the disease activity centered in the two capital cities for the second week in a row, the World Health Organization (WHO) said in its weekly epidemiologic update today.

Tests confirmed 26 Ebola cases among the two countries, 22 in Guinea and 4 in Sierra Leone. The total is down from 30 reported the previous week, but progress against the disease has been stagnant over the past several weeks, hovering around 25 to 30 cases. Officials, however, said they saw more hopeful signs in contact tracing.

No new cases were reported in Liberia.

Overall, the total in the three countries has reached 27,705 confirmed, probable, and suspected cases, including 11,269 deaths, according to the WHO.

Read complete story,

http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2015/07/ebola-cases-ebb-bit-conakry-freetown-hot-spots

WHO:  Ebola Situation Report - 22 July 2015

 Read complete report.