reuters.com - (Reporting by Bienvenu Bakumanya and Emma Farge; Editing by Daniel Flynn/Mark Heinrich)
August 21, 2014

(Reuters) - At least 70 people have died in northern Democratic Republic of Congo from an outbreak of hemorrhagic gastroenteritis, the World Health Organization said on Thursday, denying that the illness was Ebola.

A WHO report dated Thursday and seen by Reuters said that 592 people had contracted the disease, of whom 70 died. Five health care workers, including one doctor, are among the dead.

"This is not Ebola," a WHO spokesman said in an email to Reuters on Thursday.

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Reference link:

http://virologydownunder.blogspot.com.au/2014/07/ebola-virus-disease-evd-2014-west.html

By NORIMITSU ONISHIAUG. 20, 2014

The New York Times

MONROVIA, Liberia — Soldiers and police officers in riot gear blocked the roads. Even the waterfront was cordoned off, with the coast guard stopping residents from setting out in canoes. The entire neighborhood, a sprawling slum with tens of thousands of people, awoke Wednesday morning to find that it was under strict quarantine in the government’s halting fight against Ebola.

Bloomberg School students assess Ebola interventions at outbreak epicenter.

When the Red Cross asked for help conducting Ebola-related research in Guinea, Bloomberg School doctoral students Tim Roberton and Clementine Fu immediately stepped forward. From July 19 to August 1, the two worked in the outbreak’s initial epicenter in Guéckédou, and in the capital city of Conakry.

Source: http://www.enca.com/sierra-leones-ebola-deaths-traced-back-one-healer

FREETOWN, Sierra Leone - It has laid waste to the tribal chiefdoms of Sierra Leone, leaving hundreds dead, but the Ebola crisis began with just one healer's claims to special powers.

The outbreak need never have spread from Guinea, health officials  told  AFP, except for a herbalist in the remote eastern border village of Sokoma.

Associated Press

Security forces deployed Wednesday to enforce a quarantine around a slum in the Liberian capital, stepping up the government's fight to stop the spread of Ebola and unnerving residents.

In this undated handout photo provided by Medecins Sans Frontieres, local staff and healthcare workers for Doctors Without Borders, exit an isolation ward in Guekedou, Guinea. For doctors and nurses fighting Ebola in West Africa, working in head-to-toe protective gear in muddy health clinics is often the least of their problems, as many also struggle to convince people they are there to stop Ebola, not spread it. (AP Photo/MSF)

ap.org - by JONATHAN PAYE-LAYLEH - August 19, 2014

MONROVIA, Liberia (AP) -- Liberia's president declared a curfew and ordered security forces to quarantine a slum home to at least 50,000 people late Tuesday as the West African country battled to stop the spread of Ebola in the capital. . .

. . . Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf announced late Tuesday that a curfew is going into place from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. Security forces also will be ensuring no one goes in or out of West Point, a slum in the capital where angry residents attacked an Ebola observation center over the weekend.

A girl suspected of being infected with the Ebola virus has her temperature checked at the government hospital in Kenema, Sierra Leone. Although the outbreak began in Guinea, Liberia has now recorded the highest number of deaths and Sierra Leone the most cases. (Carl de Souza/AFP/Getty)

Ebola situation is 'less alarming' in Guinea than it is in Liberia and Sierra Leone, WHO says

cbc.ca - Associated Press - August 19, 2014

Three Liberian health workers receiving an experimental drug for Ebola are showing signs of recovery, officials said Tuesday, though medical experts caution it is not certain if the drug is effective. . .

. . . The three Liberians are being treated with the last known doses of ZMapp, a drug that had earlier been given to two infected Americans and a Spaniard. The Americans are also improving, but the Spaniard died.

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Image: Rice grains.

earth-policy.org - August 19th, 2014

With grain providing much of the calories that sustain humanity, the status of the world grain harvest is a good indicator of the adequacy of the food supply.

More than 2 billion tons of grain are produced each year worldwide, nearly half of it in just three countries: China, the United States, and India.

Corn, wheat, and rice account for most of the world’s grain harvest.

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A Doctors Without Borders staffer supervises as construction workers complete the new Ebola treatment center on August 17, 2014 near Monrovia, Liberia.  John Moore—Getty Images

doctorswithoutborders.org - August 18, 2014

Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) admitted nine patients today into its newly constructed ELWA 3 Ebola Management Center in Monrovia, Liberia, beginning a process of scaling up operations at the 120-bed facility.

An Ebola outbreak continues to rage virtually unchecked in this city of approximately one million people, far exceeding the capacity of the few medical facilities accepting Ebola patients. Much of the city’s health system has shut down over fears of Ebola among staff members and patients, leaving many people without treatment for other conditions.

Full report of the WHO #Ethics Panel on experimental #Ebola medicines and vaccines http://t.co/pxpHukvLfk

— WHO (@WHO) August 18, 2014

Ute, a CDC laboratory specialist, works on viruses like Ebola.

cdc.gov - August 18, 2014

The Most Important Test in West Africa

When a person in West Africa suddenly has a fever, how do you know whether it’s Ebola or something else?  When an Ebola patient gets better, how do you know when that person is no longer infectious to others?

To get answers to both questions, you need a laboratory equipped with state of the art equipment. To get those urgently needed answers quickly, that lab ideally would be located close to an Ebola treatment center.

It sounds difficult to build such a safe, sophisticated lab in a major city – and seems nearly impossible in the remote parts of Africa where Ebola outbreaks occur – but CDC has done it for other outbreaks and is doing it now in West Africa.  CDC mobile labs equipped with real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) equipment already are being set up next to West African Ebola treatment centers.

And Ute, a CDC expert, heads up the teams going with them.  When she’s not traveling to remote regions of the world, she’s at CDC headquarters in Atlanta working to speed diagnosis of the world’s worst viruses.

aljazeera.com - 16 Aug 2014 18:20

Move follows appeal to make up for shortage of medical personnel due to doctors' strike over pay.

Nigeria has said it has trained 800 volunteers to battle Ebola as fears rose that the worst-ever outbreak of the deadly disease could spread across Africa's most populous nation.  Authorities in the capital Lagos last week appealed for volunteers to make up for a shortage of medical personnel because of a six-week nationwide doctors' strike over pay.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2014/08/nigeria-trains-800-volunteers-fight-ebola-2014816164320740296.html

08/16/2014 14:47 GMT - by Frankie TAGGART

KAILAHUN, August 16, 2014 (AFP) - Virologists call it the "hot zone" -- nature's version of a nuclear ground zero, the centre of an onslaught by one of the most deadly biological agents ever known to humankind.

Kailahun, a poor but resourceful trading post like any other in Sierra Leone until a few short months ago, has found itself at the epicentre of the worst-ever outbreak of the feared Ebola virus.

No one gets in and no one leaves the eastern districts of Kailahun and neighbouring Kenema without special government dispensation, as part of an emergency quarantine.

"You cannot mess about here: this virus will kill you. One mistake, one wrong move, and you're dead -- that's it," a senior aid worker in Kailahun tells AFP.

The death toll from an Ebola outbreak that began at the start of the year stands at 1,145 in four afflicted west African countries: Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Nigeria.

Kailahun, the traditional home of around 30,000 mainly Mende tribespeople, and Kenema account for the lion's share of Sierra Leone's 810 cases and 384 deaths.