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REUTERS                                                                                                                    Dec. 9, 2014

CHICAGO -- The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on Tuesday offered liability protections to drugmakers rushing to develop Ebola vaccines and urged other countries to follow suit.

Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Sylvia Burwell made the announcement as part of the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness (PREP) Act in a move aimed at encouraging the development and availability of experimental Ebola vaccines.

The declaration provides immunity under U.S. law against legal claims related to the manufacturing, testing, development, distribution, and administration of three vaccines for the Ebola virus. However, it does not provide immunity for a claim brought in a court outside the United States...

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http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/12/09/us-health-ebola-vaccine-idUSKBN0JN1S920141209

THE GUARDIAN     by Sarah Bosley                                                                           Dec. 9, 2014                          FREETOWN --  Sierra Leone has its first-ever call centre. The number to reach it is 117. You can call to report that your mother is sick or your brother is dead. It is a call nobody wants to make, but posters and newspapers and radio broadcasts urge you to pick up the phone – for your own sake and your family’s, but beyond that, for the sake of everybody else you know and don’t know.

Burials of Ebola victims recorded week-by-week. Photograph: Sarah Boseley

It’s a tough one, because that call leads to quarantined homes and holding centres for people with suspected Ebola, where people who do have the virus are sharing rooms with those who eventually turn out to have something else. There’s a real possibility you could go in with malaria and pick up Ebola. It is in the public interest that you make that call. But it is hardly surprising if some people hesitate and others run and hide

Decontee Davis: She won her battle with Ebola. Her 5-year-old son, though, paid a price. She didn’t want other kids to suffer the same way, so she embarked on a difficult new job.

washingtonpost.com

Decontee Davis, 23, works at a child-care center, where any of the 13 children could be coming down with Ebola.  All are from homes where parents or guardians have been taken away to treatment centers or died of Ebola, and now the youngsters must be monitored for 21 days to determine whether they are infected as well.

The job falls to a staff of 10, all survivors of Ebola like Davis, who watch them 24 hours a day.

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BBC   by CLARENCE ROY-MACAULAY                        Dec. 8, 2014

FREETOWN -- Junior doctors in Sierra Leonewent on strike Monday to demand better treatment for health workers infected with Ebola, a health official said.

The association representing junior doctors asked the government to make sure life-saving equipment, like dialysis machines, is available to treat infected doctors. The government has promised that a new, fully equipped unit is opening soon near the capital. But the doctors began their strike anyway, according to Health Ministry spokesman Jonathan Abass Kamara.

Ten of the 11 Sierra Leonean doctors who have become infected have died....

As infection rates in Liberia and Guinea begin to stabilize, Sierra Leone has now recorded the highest number of cases, and Sierra Leoneans have been asking why the disease is picking up pace there.  Some have lashed out at the British response. In particular, the charity Save the Children, which is running the first U.K.-built treatment center to open, has been criticized for a slow and disorganized rollout.