Sierra Leone

THE GUARDIAN  by Mark Anderson                                                                    Dec. 30, 2014

People in rural areas of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea battling Ebola could be helped by an automated phone service that offers advice about how to avoid contracting the virus.

Startup company Halt!Ebola is using “robocalling” to reach people where information hotlines are not being used.

The company is trying to acquire mobile phone numbers from the networks operating in these regions to enable them to make the calls. When people answer, an audio message with information and advice about the virus is played back.

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Health Body to Consider Rapid-Response Teams, Other Changes

WALL STREET JOURNAL by Betsy McKay in Atlanta and Peter Wonacott in Freetown, Sierra Leone             Dec. 30, 2014

The tepid initial response to West Africa’s Ebola outbreak exposed holes in the global health system so gaping it has prompted the World Health Organization to consider steps to prevent a repeat, including emergency-response teams and a fund for public-health crises.

In a special session next month in Geneva, the WHO’s executive board is expected to consider those and other recommendations by its member countries—including a proposal that it commission an outside review of its Ebola response—according to a document reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

The plan comes as global health officials are struggling with a knotty question: how the WHO could have moved at a slow pace initially despite lessons learned more than a decade ago from another deadly outbreak, of SARS.

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http://www.wsj.com/articles/after-slow-ebola-response-who-seeks-to-avoid-repeat-1419892712

UPDATE: Ebola Patient Is Moved to London, and 2 Others Are Tested in Britain

NEW YORK TIMES     by Alan Cowell                                                 Dec. 30, 2014

LONDON — A health worker who returned from West Africa and was found to have Ebola when she arrived home in Scotland was transferred on Tuesday to Britain’s designated treatment center for the disease in London. The authorities also reported that two more people were being tested for the virus.

In-Depth report on lessons to be learned from the Ebola crisis

THE WASHINGTON POST by By Lena H. Sun, Brady Dennis and Joel Achenbach                            Dec. 29, 2014

A year after it began, the Ebola epidemic in West Africa continues to be unpredictable, forcing governments and aid groups to improvise strategies as they chase a virus that is unencumbered by borders or bureaucracy.

The people fighting Ebola are coming up with lists of lessons learned — not only for the current battle, which has killed more than 7,500 people and is far from over, but also for future outbreaks of deadly contagions.

Alice Jallabah, head of a bushmeat seller group, holds dried bushmeat in Monrovia. (Zoom Dosso/AFP/Getty Images)