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Ebola: UN health agency turns to foreign medical teams in last phase of combat against virus

UNITED NATIONS NEWS CENTRE                                      Feb. 13, 2015
The United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) announced Friday that it will huddle with medical teams from outside the Ebola-affected countries next week in Geneva to see how they can help in the last phases of the fight to bring the number of cases down to zero.
UN Development Program (UNDP) Administrator Helen Clark washes her hands on arrival in Ebola-affected Monrovia, Liberia. Photo: UNDP/Dylan Lowthian

Earlier, UN Development Program (UNDP) Administrator Helen Clark... met with a number community groups in Conakry, Guinea, where she stressed the vital importance of community advocacy in stopping the outbreak. Her mission will conclude with a visit to Sierra Leone early next week.

UNDP is working with the national authorities and local, regional and international partners, including the African Development Bank, the European Union and the World Bank, on an Ebola Recovery Assessment, and in support of national strategies, as part of its mandate to the lead the UN system in the Ebola-related recovery efforts.

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As Ebola Virus Outbreak Slows, World Bank To Send $15M In Aid To Prevent Food Crises

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS TIMES  by Kathleen Caulderwood                                        Feb. 12., 2015

The worst Ebola outbreak in history is slowing down, but the affected countries are only beginning an economic struggle that could last for years.

Just as the U.S. recalled its troops from West Africa, the World Bank pledged millions of dollars in emergency aid to avoid a food crisis that could leave millions starving.      

                                                   

“Agriculture is the lifeline of the economies of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone,” Makhtar Diop, the World Bank's vice president for Africa, said in a Thursday statement.

“By speeding supplies of urgently needed seeds of major food crops to communities in West Africa, we are jump starting recovery in rural areas and preventing the looming specter of hunger in the countries hardest hit by Ebola.”

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Doctors Who Treat Ebola Feel More Socially Isolated

LIVESCIENCE.COM   by Rachael Rettner                                                                         Feb. 13, 2015

Doctors who take care of very sick Ebola patients may feel socially isolated, but surprisingly, they may not feel more stressed than usual, a new study from Germany suggests.

Researchers surveyed 46 health care workers who treated Germany's first Ebola patient in August 2014, as well as 40 health care workers who worked in the same hospital but did not treat the Ebola patient.

The researchers who did the study hypothesized that the people who treated the Ebola patient would have more symptoms of psychological distress because they were working in a challenging environment that presented a risk that they could become infected with the deadly virus.

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Ebola in west Africa: learning the lessons

THE LANCET  by  Anna  Petherick  Volume 385, No. 9968, p591–592, 14 February 2015
The (West Africa) region has presented unforeseen challenges, and the three worst affected countries have put in place different response strategies. Anna Petherick reviews some of the lessons learned so far.

The early history of the ongoing Ebola outbreak in west Africa is a salutary statement about the lack of infectious disease surveillance capacity in one of the world's poorest regions....

Opportunities to contain the virus were lost soon after, largely because of a lack of trust between local communities and the officials and medical professionals trying to nip the epidemic in the bud.

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http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2815%2960075-7/fulltext

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Sierra Leone locks down 700 homes after Ebola death

AFP                                                                                                                  Feb. 13, 2015

Freetown--  Sierra Leone placed hundreds of homes in the capital under Ebola quarantine on Friday, in a huge blow to its recovery less than a month after lifting travel restrictions.

Health workers put on protective equipment at an Ebola treatment centre on November 15, 2014 in Kenema, Sierra Leone (AFP Photo/Francisco Leong)

"Some 700 homes have been quarantined for 21 days in the tourism and fishing community of Aberdeen in the west of the capital Freetown, after the death of a fisherman who was later diagnosed Ebola positive," said Obi Sesay of the government's National Ebola Response Centre.

The west African nation of six million had seen almost 11,000 cases and 3,363 deaths during the epidemic which has raged in west Africa for more than a year.

This new struggle with the disease comes less than a month after President Ernest Bai Koroma pointed to a "steady downward trend" in new cases and lifted country-wide quarantines and travel bans....

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As Ebola ebbs, Sierra Leone targets another kind of recovery: normalcy

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR by Silas Gbandia               Feb. 13, 2015
...with a sharp drop in new Ebola cases, Sierra Leone has announced that schools will reopen on March 30, and focus has now turned toward the recovery process for children whose education has been set back at least half a year. The implementation of the government's new plan – which includes paying for school fees and continuous assessments – will be a key indicator of how well the country can rebound after Ebola.

 “We are now entering the transition phase. Given the progress being made against the disease, we must take action to enable economic and social recovery,” President Ernest Bai Koroma said in a television address to the nation last month...

...a full plan to reintegrate the students nationwide is being implemented, says Mohammed Sillah Sesay, chairman of the Technical Committee on the Reopening of Schools. The plan includes 25 uninterrupted weeks of school until September, continuous assessment of students to verify promotion to the next level, and more broadcasts of teaching material on radio airwaves. The normal school year starts in September and ends in July.
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Ebola spending: will lack of a positive legacy turn dollars to dolour?

Millions were invested in west Africa to tackle the Ebola crisis, but some experts doubt there will be any lasting benefits for public health systems

THE GUARDIAN by 

LONDON -- While it is still too early to call time on the Ebola outbreak, a sense that the worst may have passed is tentatively taking root in west Africa, alongside an acute realisation of the need to ensure a positive long-term legacy for battered healthcare systems.

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Why Didn't Ebola Kill Me?

An ambulance transports the author to the Nebraska Medical Center in October. (Sait Serkan Gurbuz/Reuters)

THE ATLANTIC by Ashoka Mukpo                                                                          Feb. 12, 2015

Like the majority of patients taken to Western hospitals, I recovered from the disease—but health authorities are still struggling to figure out how to bring up the much-lower survival rate in West Africa.

...the 80-percent survival rate among patients who were evacuated to Western hospitals shattered the idea that an Ebola diagnosis spelled near-certain death. I know this all too well, as I’m one of those patients myself. In October, I contracted Ebola while covering the outbreak as a freelance journalist in Liberia. I was airlifted to a hospital in Nebraska, where aggressive treatment likely saved my life....
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http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/02/why-didnt-ebola-kill-me/385335/

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Lack of Effect of Lamivudine on Ebola Virus Replication

CDC EID JOURNAL by  Lisa E. Hensley, Julie Dyall, Gene G. Olinger, and Peter B. Jahrlin (NIH)                     Feb. 12, 2015

The unprecedented number of Ebola virus disease (EVD) cases in western Africa has compelled the world to consider experimental and off-label therapeutics to mitigate the current outbreak. For clinicians, approved drugs are an attractive solution because of known safety profiles and availability.

Oral lamivudine (GlaxoSmithKline, Brentford, UK), a US Food and Drug Administration–approved anti-HIV drug, has been suggested as a possible antiviral agent against Ebola virus (EBOV). In September 2014, a Liberian physician, Dr. Gorbee Logan, reported positive results while treating EVD with lamivudine (1). Thirteen of 15 patients treated with lamivudine survived presumed EVD and were declared virus free. Clinical confirmation of EVD in these cases remains to be verified....

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Postmortem Stability of Ebola Virus

CDC  EID JOURNAL                                              Feb. 12, 2015                                   
Study by Joseph Prescott, Trenton Bushmaker, Robert Fischer, Kerri Miazgowicz, Seth Judson, and Vincent J. Munster

The ongoing Ebola virus outbreak in West Africa has highlighted questions regarding stability of the virus and detection of RNA from corpses. We used Ebola virus–infected macaques to model humans who died of Ebola virus disease.

Assessing the stability of corpse-associated virus and determining the most efficient sampling methods for diagnostics will clarify the safest practices for handling bodies and the best methods for determining whether a person has died of EVD and presents a risk for transmission. To facilitate diagnostic efforts, we studied nonhuman primates who died of EVD to examine stability of the virus within tissues and on body surfaces to determine the potential for transmission, and the presence of viral RNA associated with corpses.

http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/21/5/15-0041_article

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