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The mission of the Global Health Working Group is to explore and improve current and emerging states of health and human security worldwide.

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This Working Group is focused on exploring current and emerging states of health and human security worldwide.
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Rapid Response to Ebola Outbreaks in Remote Areas — Liberia, July–November 2014 Weekly

Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR)

 CDC                                                                        Feb. 27, 2015

Outbreaks in remote areas posed a significant challenge to CHTs to mount an effective investigation and rapid response because of limited resources, personnel, and means to reach remote areas.

Read complete report.
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6407a7.htm?s_cid=mm6407a7_x

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The world should learn from the Ebola crisis to combat MERS in Saudi Arabia

EDITORIAL, THE WASHINGTON POST                                                                      Feb. 27, 2015

A DISEASE outbreak has a source and a pathway for transmission, but both can be exceedingly difficult to discover. Middle East respiratory syndrome, or MERS, is surging anew in Saudi Arabia and raising familiar questions: Where is this coronavirus coming from and how is it spreading?

 

A man wearing a mask looks on as he stands in front of camels at a camel market in the village of al-Thamama near Riyadh May 11, 2014. Saudi Arabia said people handling camels should wear masks and gloves to prevent spreading Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), (Faisal Al Nasser/Reuters)

There is growing evidence that the natural reservoir of MERS, which first appeared in 2012, is dromedary camels, and last year’s peak in the spring seemed to coincide with the weaning period of camel calves. A new seasonal oscillation may be starting now. But there are worrisome and unexplained gaps in recent case reports.

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Ebola: Sierra Leone village in lockdown after 31 new cases recorded

THE GUARDIAN by Lisa O'Carroll                         Feb. 27, 2015

Efforts to beat Ebola in Sierra Leone have been dealt a setback after 31 new cases were recorded in one village.

                            Red Cross healthcare workers. 

The community of 500 just outside the town of Makeni has now been put in lockdown by the army amid fears that more could be infected.

The World Health Organisation said cases have been linked to one man who escaped a quarantine in Freetown to go home to his village to get treatment from a traditional faith healer.

The quarantine area is a fishing community, yards from the hotel where many of humanitarian agencies have stayed.

Read complete story.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/27/ebola-sierra-leone-village-lockdown-31-new-cases

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Ebola halts HIV progress in Sierra Leone, says UN

Thomson Reuters Foundation by Misha Hussain                                                        Feb.27, 2015

 DAKAR -- The West African Ebola outbreak has halted progress in tackling HIV in Sierra Leone, shutting health clinics and scaring patients from being tested or seeking treatment, the United Nations has said.

In an internal document seen by the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) raised concerns that HIV prevalence and drug resistance in the country could increase as a result.

"Hospitals have closed down because they have been overrun by Ebola patients and non-Ebola patients are too afraid to go to them for fear of catching the virus," said Hakan Bjorkman, who manages UNDP's AIDS programme.

"HIV prevention activities in schools and awareness raising for the general population has been suspended due to the restriction of movement, the closure of all education institutions and the overall ban on public gathering."

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Decision on Ebola mass vaccination in August at earliest: WHO

REUTERS by Stephanie Nebehay                                                             Feb. 27, 2015

GENEVA -- An independent advisory body will decide in August at the earliest on whether to recommend widespread introduction of an Ebola vaccine, depending on results of clinical trials and the epidemic's course, the World Health Organization said on Friday.

All three worst-hit countries in West Africa - Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone - aim to conduct phase III final-stage clinical trials of experimental vaccines.

Liberia is already testing both the GlaxoSmithKline and Merck-NewLink vaccines, while Sierra Leone and Guinea are due to announce plans soon....

WHO spokesman Christian Lindmeier, reporting on a three-day meeting of experts, told a news briefing: "Vaccine introduction is by no means a given and will depend on the results of clinical trials and recommendations from WHO's Strategy Advisory Group of Experts (SAGE) on vaccines and immunization....

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Fatality Rate Is Falling in West African Ebola Clinics

NEW YORK TIMES  by Donald G. McNeil, Jr.                 Feb. 27, 2015

SEATTLE — As the Ebola epidemic in West Africa wanes, physicians from Doctors Without Borders are confronting a mystery: More of their patients are surviving. They do not know why.

Benetha Coleman, an Ebola survivor and nurse’s aide, comforted a baby with Ebola symptoms in Liberia, as seen through a net. Credit John Moore/Getty Images

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U.S. military ends Ebola mission in Liberia

REUTERS    by  James Harding Giahyue                                                          Feb. 26, 2015

MONROVIA -- The United States military officially ended a mission to build treatment facilities to combat an Ebola outbreak in Liberia on Thursday, months earlier than expected, in the latest indication that a year-long epidemic in West Africa is waning.

Washington launched the mission five months ago and the force peaked at over 2,800 troops at a time when Liberia was at the epicenter of the worst Ebola epidemic on record....

"While our large scale military mission is ending...the fight to get to zero cases will continue and the (Joint Force Command) has ensured capabilities were brought that will be sustained in the future," U.S. Army Major General Gary Volesky....

Speaking to lawmakers during a visit to Washington on Thursday, Liberia's President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf thanked the United States for its support during the crisis.

Read complete story.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2015/02/26/us-health-ebola-usa-idUKKBN0LU2HR20150226

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Diagnosing Ebola – a day in the life of a diagnostics lab in Sierra Leone

 Professor Ian Goodfellow describes an average day in an Ebola diagnostics lab, and challenges the team faced in setting it up, Courtesy of the Wells Trust Blog

BIOMED CENTRAL      by  Ian Goodfellow                                                             Feb. 25, 2015

During the first two weeks in Makeni, Sierra Leone, our focus was very much on getting the Ebola diagnostics lab operational as fast as possible. There was a real lack of diagnostic capacity in this area of the country the lab facility needed to go live prior to the opening of the treatment center.

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Ebola Doctor: Media, politicians fueled the public's fears

ASSOCIATED PRESS   by Tom McElroy                                                             Feb. 25, 2015

NEW YORK — A doctor who contracted the deadly Ebola virus and rode the subway system and dined out before he developed symptoms said the media and politicians could have done a better job by educating people on the science of it instead of focusing on their fears.

 "When we look back on this epidemic, I hope we'll recognize that fear caused our initial hesitance to respond — and caused us to respond poorly when we finally did," Dr. Craig Spencer wrote in an article published Wednesday in The New England Journal of Medicine. (See link below.)

Spencer, an emergency room physician, was diagnosed with Ebola on Oct. 23, days after returning from treating patients in Guinea with Doctors Without Borders. His was the first Ebola case in the nation's largest city, spurring an effort to contain anxieties along with the virus. He was treated at a hospital, recovered and was released on Nov. 11.

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Traditional healer called back to remove curse of first Ebola-affected village in Guinea

ASSOCIATED PRESS By YOUSSOUF BAH                       Feb. 25, 2015
MELIANDOU, Guinea (AP) — Here at ground zero of West Africa's Ebola outbreak, a local traditional healer returned to complete the removal of a curse residents believe could have been placed on their village in Guinea.

In this photo taken on Feb. 23, 2015, traditional healers, right, take part in a exorcism as villagers hand them a chicken, in Meliandou, Guinea. Here at ground zero of West Africa’s Ebola outbreak, a local traditional healer returned to complete the removal of a curse residents believe could have been placed on their village in Guinea. (AP Photo/Youssouf Bah)

It is the same village where experts believe 2-year-old Emile Ouamouno was the first person to have died from Ebola, on Dec. 28, 2013, in the outbreak that has slowed in recent months but has not been completely stamped out....Hundreds abandoned the village, believing the Ouamouno family or the entire village, was cursed, the village chief Amadou Kamano remembered.

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