Image: David Attenborough

independent.co.uk - January 1st 2015 - Tom Bawden

Sir David Attenborough is calling on global leaders to step-up their actions to curb climate change, saying that they are in denial about the dangers it poses despite the overwhelming evidence about its risks.

The TV naturalist said those who wield power need to use it: “Wherever you look there are huge risks. The awful thing is that people in authority and power deny that, when the evidence is overwhelming and they deny it because it’s easier to deny it – much easier to deny it’s a problem and say ‘we don’t care’,” Sir David said.

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THE VOICE OF AMERICA  by Joe DeCapua                                       Jan. 2, 2014

...The Red Cross’ Katherine Mueller gives an assessment of the Ebola epidemic in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

“The Ebola outbreak is not under control yet. We do see some leveling off of cases for Liberia, for example. However, we’ve seen it before that somebody attends a funeral. They come back. They’re infected. They infect their village and cases spike. So it really doesn’t take much to have another increase in cases,” she said.

Mueller is the IFRC’s Africa communications manager. She worries that people may become complacent after hearing that the number of new cases has slowed in some places...

Part of the organization’s efforts include going to remote areas in the three hardest hit countries.

NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO  by Michaeleen Doucleff              Jan. 2, 2015

...Scientists think bats likely triggered the entire Ebola epidemic in West Africa....

So now the big question is: Where else in the world is Ebola hiding out in bats? Where could the next big outbreak occur?

Ecologists found signs of Ebola in a Rousettus leschenaultii fruit bat. These bats are widespread across south Asia, from India to China. Kevin Olival/EcoHealth Alliance

.. ecologist Kevin Olival at EcoHealth Alliance in New York City... hunts down another virus in bats, called Nipah. In humans, it causes inflammation in the brain and comas....

Nipah has outbreaks every few years in Bangladesh. So Olival went there back in 2010 and captured a bunch of bats. Many had signs of Nipah in their blood. Others had something surprising: "There's antibodies to something related to Ebola Zaire."

REUTERS                                                        Jan. 2, 2015

SAN DIEGO- Calif. --Aethlon Medical Inc said the U.S. Food and Drug Administration had approved the testing in Ebola patients of its bio-filtration device, which was used against the deadly virus in a critically ill patient in Germany who later recovered.

The device, being developed as a broad-spectrum countermeasure against pandemic threats, filters viruses and toxins from the blood.

It is currently being tested in India for its ability to accelerate viral load depletion when used in combination with hepatitis C standard-of-care drug therapy.

Patients will be treated for six to eight hours daily with the device, called Aethlon's Hemopurifier, until the Ebola viral load drops below 1,000 copies/ml.

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http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/02/health-ebola-aethlon-med-idUSL3N0UH15720150102

THE ECONOMIST                                                                                                    Jan. 1, 2015
THE first reported case in the Ebola outbreak ravaging west Africa dates back to December 2013, in Guéckédou, a forested area of Guinea near the border with Liberia and Sierra Leone. Travellers took it across the border: by late March, Liberia had reported eight suspected cases and Sierra Leone six. By the end of June 759 people had been infected and 467 people had died from the disease, making this the worst ever Ebola outbreak. The numbers keep climbing. As of December 28th, 20,206 cases and 7,905 deaths had been reported worldwide, the vast majority of them in these same three countries. Many suspect these estimates are badly undercooked.
See complete set of graphs.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2015/01/ebola-graphics

NEW YORK TIMES  by Donald G. McNeil, Jr.                                                     Jan. 1, 2015

Medical experts seeking to stem the Ebola epidemic are sharply divided over whether most patients in West Africa should, or can, be given intravenous hydration, a therapy that is standard in developed countries. Some argue that more aggressive treatment with IV fluids is medically possible and a moral obligation. But others counsel caution, saying that pushing too hard would put overworked doctors and nurses in danger and that the treatment, if given carelessly, could even kill patients.

A nurse gave an Ebola patient intravenous fluids at the Red Cross treatment center in Kenema, Sierra Leone, in November. Credit Francisco Leong/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

REUTERS                                                                                                             Dec. 31, 2014

GENEVA - The Ebola virus is still spreading in West Africa, especially in Sierra Leone, and the number of known cases globally has now exceeded 20,000, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday.

The death toll from the outbreak, which has been mostly confined to West Africa, has risen to 7,905, the WHO said, following 317 fatalities recorded since it last issued figures on Dec. 24.

The number of known cases, including fatalities, totalled 20,206 at year-end, it said.

 However, the number of cases in Sierra Leone over a three-week period has fallen below 1,000 for the first time since Sept. 28, suggesting the spread of the disease is slowing. In neighbouring Guinea, the three-week total rose for a second week to 346, suggesting the epidemic is growing there.

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http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-spreads-sierra-leone-global-cases-top-20-085657794.html;_ylt=AwrBJSA9_qVUoU0AoXTQtDMD

THE INDEPENDENT by Kashmira    Gander            Jan. 1, 2015

Pauline Cafferkey, the British nurse who contracted Ebola in Sierra Leone, is entering a “critical” stage of her recovery.

Dr Michael Jacobs said Ms Cafferkey was being treated with convalescent plasma taken from the blood of a recovered patient and an experimental anti-viral drug which is “not proven to work”.

Read complete story.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/ebola-in-the-uk-infected-nurse-pauline-cafferkey-in-critical-stage-of-treatment-9952904.html

UNITED NATIONS NEWS CENTRE                                                                         Dec. 31, 2014
The number of Ebola cases is fluctuating in Guinea, decreasing in Liberia and showing signs the increase has slowed in Sierra Leone, the United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) reported today as the UN development agency said it is helping the Liberian Government build border posts to cut the cross-border spread of infection in West Africa.

Patients who recover from the Ebola virus disease tie a ribbon to the tree on leaving the Maforki Ebola Treatment Centre in Port Loko, Sierra Leone. UN Photo/Martine Perret

“Infections in Liberia’s Eastern border region have spiked recently as tight-knit cross-border communities spread the disease across the often porous border,” the UN Development Programme (UNDP) said in a press release, adding that 49 new Ebola cases had been recorded in the border county of Grand Cape Mount in December, including 12 in the past four days.

   MEDSCAPE     by  Laurie Barclay, MD    Dec. 31, 2014
Ebola fears and misconceptions reduced health facility use by pregnant and lactating women in Kenema District, Sierra Leone, according to findings from focus group discussions published in the January 2, 2015, issue of the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

"Sierra Leone has the highest maternal mortality ratio and the fourth highest neonatal mortality rate in the world," write Michelle M. Dynes, PhD, from the Epidemic Intelligence Service, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia, and colleagues. "By straining the fragile health care infrastructure, the [Ebola] epidemic might put pregnant women and their newborns at even greater risk for adverse outcomes."

Uptake of routine maternal and newborn healthcare is therefore essential to lowering infant and maternal mortality. Focus group discussions suggested that infection prevention and control training would reduce fear among healthcare workers and could help improve women's confidence in health facility safety.

Sierra Leone public health departments are using this information to create public health messages designed to encourage the use of maternal and newborn healthcare services....

THE GUARDIAN  by Josh Halliday and Severin Carrell             Dec. 31, 2014
LONDON--Public HealthEngland has vowed to review its Ebola screening measures after they were branded “utterly illogical” by an NHS doctor who returned from Africa with the Scottish nurse who has contracted the virus.

Public Health England said it would review its procedures, but defended its guidance as being in line with other organisations who have sent volunteers to Ebola-affected countries. Photograph: Amer Ghazzal/Rex

NEW YORK TIMES  by  JEFFREY GETTLEMAN                  Dec. 21, 2014     
FREETOWN, Sierra Leone--The "personal hospitality business" may be the most obvious sector of Sierra Leone’s economy that has been decimated by Ebola. After all, the main slogan in Freetown, the capital, these days is A.B.C. — avoid body contact.Residents in Freetown, Sierra Leone, break rocks in a road project that was halted because of concern about Ebola. In Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia, Ebola continues to lay waste not just to immune systems but also to balance sheets. Daniel Berehulak for The New York Times

Pope Francis gestures as he speaks during an audience with families at the Paul VI hall at the Vatican on December 28, 2014. AFP PHOTO / ALBERTO PIZZOLIALBERTO PIZZOLI/AFP/Getty Images

Pontiff hopes to inspire action at next year’s UN meeting in Paris in December after visits to Philippines and New York

theguardian.com - by John Vidal - December 27, 2014

In 2015, the pope will issue a lengthy message on climate change to the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics, give an address to the UN general assembly and call a summit of the world’s main religions.

The reason for such frenetic activity, says Bishop Marcelo Sorondo, chancellor of the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy of Sciences, is the pope’s wish to directly influence next year’s crucial UN climate meeting in Paris, when countries will try to conclude 20 years of fraught negotiations with a universal commitment to reduce emissions.

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UNITED NATIONS NEWS CENTRE                                                                                 Dec. 30, 2014

MONROVIA, Liberia --The outgoing head of the head of the United Nations Emergency Ebola Response Mission (UNMEER) said today that communities are going to play a big role in defeating the “nasty disease” in West Africa by stamping out outbreaks while they are small and not allowing them to become bigger.

The body of a suspected Ebola case in Sierra Leone is taken by an International Federation of Red Cross (IFRC) team on 24 December to the cemetery where it was buried in a dignified way. UN Photo/Martine Perret

“Ebola is a very nasty disease, and it’s going to present us with some very unpleasant surprises I fear going forward,” Anthony Banbury told UN Radio in Monrovia, Liberia. “And that’s why we really need to strengthen our capabilities.....”

...While acknowledging the difficulty in getting Ebola response workers to some of the remote areas, he emphasized the importance of a district by district strategy and said: “We really need to be present out in the districts....”

A trip to the Liberian border village of Jene-Wonde reveals the dangers in declaring victory over Ebola.

Photograph by Laurie Garrett

foreignpolicy.com - by Laurie Garrett - December 29, 2014

Liberia - . . . As of Dec. 18 the Grand Cape Mount district has lost 99 people to Ebola, most in and around Jene-Wonde. . . Most of the sick and deceased, having gone untested for Ebola, were never entered into official records. . . A man standing close . . . waves his hand at the newly constructed CCC and asks, “When this place is opened and it’s overwhelmed, what happens next?”

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