Global Health

‘Flare-ups occur and, frankly, before you can blink, we could be back to a situation where Ebola starts climbing up again,’ says the UN special envoy for Ebola, David Nabarro. Photograph: Salvatore Di Nolfi/EPA

UN special envoy for Ebola sounds cautionary note amid fears that individuals who ignore official advice could cause spike in infection rate

theguardian.com - by Sam Jones - March 26, 2015

Despite the massive push to bring the number of new Ebola cases down to zero as quickly as possible, there will inevitably be “flare-ups” that could reverse the overall downward trend and prove difficult to contain, the UN’s response co-ordinator has warned.

Dr David Nabarro, the UN’s special envoy for Ebola, said the huge medical, administrative and logistical operation to fight the disease could still be set back by individuals ignoring official advice. . . .

. . . “It’s [about] getting the full geographical coverage and linking everyone together with the most excellent data systems so the databases are comparable and we don’t end up with a mess because different people can’t talk to each other,” he explained.

REUTERS  by Umaru Fofana                                                                             April l, 2015

FREETOWN-- Sierra Leone's President Ernest Bai Koroma said on Wednesday authorities would soon start laying off staff recruited to fight Ebola as the numbers of cases decline, but these workers would be employed elsewhere, where possible....

Addressing the country about the outbreak, Koroma said the infection rate was falling "week by week" and the number of treatment facilities and staff would be reduced, despite the need for continued vigilance....

At the peak of the crisis last year, authorities were struggling to recruit local and foreign medics to tackle Ebola, which has killed nearly 500 local health workers in West Africa, according to United Nations statistics.

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http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/04/02/us-health-ebola-leone-idUSKBN0MT01120150402

REUTERS by Sharon Bagley                                                                      April 1, 2015

Early-stage trials of an experimental Ebola vaccine, two in the United States and four in Africa and Europe, have found that it appears to be safe and triggered robust production of Ebola-fighting antibodies, scientists reported on Wednesday.

Since trials cannot ethically expose volunteers to Ebola, the production of antibodies is a proxy for whether vaccines could prevent or even treat the disease.

The trials all tested a vaccine called VSV-ZEBOV, which was developed at the Public Health Agency of Canada and licensed to NewLink Genetics Corp and then to Merck & Co Inc. It consists of a cattle virus called rVSV that has been engineered to carry Ebola genes, which produce proteins meant to trigger production of anti-Ebola antibodies.

According to separate teams of scientists, that is what happened, two papers in the New England Journal of Medicine reported.

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http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/04/01/us-health-ebola-vaccine-idUSKBN0MS5DN20150401

Read NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF MEDICINE  papers

WHO                                                                                                          March 31, 2015
Cristiana Salvi, a risk communications specialist from WHO’s European regional office was deployed to Guinea at the end of April – early May 2014 to provide social mobilization support to the Ebola response. Social mobilization involves working with communities to gain their acceptance of the need for early identification of people with illness, early treatment and identification and follow up of all people who have been in contact with people confirmed to have Ebola virus disease.

 Cristiana was among the first from WHO offices other than Headquarters and the African office to provide support to the field response, many others followed from the “wider WHO”. She travelled to Gueckedou where communities had begun to hide people who were sick, fearing treatment centres, believing rumours Ebola response teams were there for sinister purposes. This is what she found.

Excerpt: