Global Health

Representational image. Reuters

firstpost.com - March 4,2015

New Delhi: The swine flu toll in the country climbed to 1,198 on Thursday as 40 more deaths were reported while the number of cases of the disease has crossed the 22,000-mark.

The Health Ministry said that the total number of deaths across various states stood at 1,198 as on 3 March while 22,240 people have been affected by the H1N1 virus. . .

. . . The government has been repeatedly asserting that it was "very serious" about combating the swine flu challenge and asked people not to panic but remain alert.

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CBCNEWS.CA                                                      March 5, 2015

A national recruitment drive for health-care workers to help with the Ebola outbreak in West Africa has been halted for now as the number of new cases of the disease is dropping.

The Canadian Red Cross says the focus is shifting from an emergency response to recovery.

Almost 900 Canadians responded to a recruitment drive last fall by the federal government and the Red Cross....

Dr. Gregory Taylor, Canada's chief public health officer, said a second mobile lab is on its way back to Canada and should arrive by spring. But he said Canada is not walking away from West Africa.

Instead, he said, the federal government is about to send a team of five new experts into the field for four to eight weeks.  "What we're sending is epidemiologists, border health specialists and some emergency management skills, and in particular we've been asked to send French-speaking experts in those areas," Taylor told CBC News.

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https://ca.news.yahoo.com/ebola-doctors-nurses-no-longer-100000922.html

One of the most devastating consequences of the Ebola outbreak will be its impact on maternal health.

NATURE  by Erika Check Hayden                                                                                       March 5, 2015
...Ebola is having tremendous knock-on effects for maternal health in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone. Pregnancy seems to make women uniquely vulnerable to the effects of the disease, and babies born to infected women have not been known to survive.

Uninfected but affected: women line up for perinatal care at a Marie Stopes centre in Sierra Leone. Marie Stopes, Sierra Leone, supported by DFID/UKAID

Compounding these individual tragedies, the blood and abundant bodily fluid that accompanies delivery or miscarriage pose enormous risk of infection to health workers. As a result, many refuse to treat patients who are pregnant for fear that they will become infected.

NEW YORK TIMES   by Norimitsu Onishi                                                                         March 5, 2015

MONROVIA --About eight months after governments in the region closed schools to stop the spread of Ebola, uniformed and backpack-carrying schoolchildren have returned to the streets of Monrovia, the capital, perhaps the most visible sign of the epidemic’s ebb.

James Nyema, 9, a second-grader known as J.C., wore pink mittens as students at the C.D.B. King Elementary School in Monrovia rose to sing Liberia’s national anthem. It was their first day back, eight months after schools were closed to stop the spread of Ebola. Many of the children wore long sleeves and trousers that covered as much skin as possible.Daniel Berehulak for The New York Times