Situation Report

Red Cross voluntaries hand out tarpaulins and put up tents in the village of Khalckok in Nepal. Palani Mohan/IFRC

ifrc.org - by Patrick Fuller
May 6, 2015

To the casual observer, the busy highway between Kathmandu and the town of Kavere, gives a misleading impression of the extent of the destruction caused by the 25 April earthquake. Life goes on as normal and homes and shops are untouched. It’s not until you turn off the road at the town of Sangha and travel three kilometres up a bumpy dirt track into the surrounding hills, that the true picture of this disaster unfolds.

A team of young Nepal Red Cross Society volunteers is delivering tents and tarpaulins to households in the remote village of Khalchok, perched high on a ridge traversing a series of hill-tops. 115 of the 135 homes in the community are either totally destroyed or uninhabitable. The higher you travel, the worse the damage becomes. When the track ends,  the volunteers disembark from the 4-wheeled drive vehicle and start to carry the first of the family tents on a half hour trek up a narrow path to what remains of the home of Subash Lama.

ASSOCIATED PRESS by MARILYNN MARCHIONE AP Chief Medical Writer                                      May 7. 2015

(Scroll down for full study and American Academy of Ophtalolgy statement.)

For the first time, Ebola has been discovered inside the eyes of a patient months after the virus was gone from his blood.

Ebola has infected more than 26,000 people since December 2013 in West Africa. Some survivors have reported eye problems but how often they occur isn't known. The virus also is thought to be able to persist in semen for several months.

The new report concerns Dr. Ian Crozier, a 43-year-old American physician diagnosed with Ebola in September while working with the World Health Organization in Sierra Leone.

He was treated at Emory University Hospital's special Ebola unit in Atlanta and released in October when Ebola was no longer detected in his blood. Two months later, he developed an inflammation and very high blood pressure in one eye, which causes swelling and potentially serious vision problems.

Read complete story.

ALL AFRICA  THE NEW REPUBLIC Liberia by Reuben Sei Waylaun May 6, 2015
MONROVIA -- A study conducted by the Social Mobilization and Behavior Change Communication at the Ministry of Health in collaboration with UNICEF has shown that radio played significant roles in the fight against the deadly Ebola virus in the country.

The head of the Social Mobilization and Behavior Change Communication, Rev. John Sumo said radio played a critical role in the awareness figuring to 93% out of the study conducted on 1100 households in the five worst hit counties in December 2014.

He said, "during the study, 93% of the respondents said they first learnt about Ebola from the radio. They acknowledged that radio messages were complimented in collaboration with information from their closest neighbors and the print media...."

Read complete story.

http://allafrica.com/stories/201505060574.html

AFP                                                                                        May 6, 2015

Geneva -- The number of deaths from the Ebola epidemic now exceeds 11,000, figures from the World Health Organization showed on Wednesday.

In the three countries worst affected -- Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea -- 26,593 people were infected, and 11,005 had died, the WHO said.

Only nine new cases were recorded in each country last week, the lowest figures for almost a year.

Read complete story.

http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-deaths-pass-11-000-mark-223707192.html

See WHO Ebola situation report 6 May, 2015

http://apps.who.int/ebola/en/current-situation/ebola-situation-report-6-may-2015