Global Health

 BBC NEWS                                                                                                         Feb. 20, 2015

Liberia is to reopen its borders following a reduction in the number of Ebola cases being reported in the country.

President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf made the announcement on Friday and said nationwide curfews would also be lifted.

New infections have dropped to one-tenth of the level seen when the virus was at its peak.

But health officials warned the decline has levelled off in the last month.

Dr Bruce Aylward, who leads the World Health Organization's official Ebola response, said data showed the steep decrease in infections had now flattened, at a rate of around 120 to 150 new cases a week.

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http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-31558363

NEW YORK TIMES  OP-ED BY Ron Klain, the former White House Ebola response coordinaor                                    FEB. 20, 2015

...The world needs to do a better job of quickly detecting and responding to future outbreaks in unlikely places. The President’s Global Health Security Agenda, the government’s strategy to combat infection disease around the world, will help. But vulnerable countries, including those in Africa, need their own version of our Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, so that they are not so dependent on ours.

For the hardest task of front-line epidemic fighting, our planet is too reliant on courageous and talented — but underfunded, under-equipped and volunteer-dependent — nongovernmental organizations. The world needs a permanent standing force — or a ready reserve that can be quickly organized — of public health emergency responders who have the training, gear and resources to race into a region in the early phases of epidemic control. The United States military cannot do that job every time; future outbreaks might occur in countries where our troops will not be welcomed as they were in West Africa.

REUTERS    by Tom Miles                             FeB. 20, 2015
GENEVA --The World Health Organization has approved the first rapid test for Ebola in a potential breakthrough for ending an epidemic that has killed almost 10,000 people in West Africa, it said on Friday.

The test, developed by U.S. firm Corgenix Medical Corp, is less accurate than the standard test but is easy to perform, does not require electricity, and can give results within 15 minutes, WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic said.

"It's a first rapid test. It's definitely a breakthrough," he said.

The standard laboratory test has a turnaround time of 12-24 hours. While the Corgenix test is not failsafe, it could quickly identify patients who need quarantine and make it much easier to verify rapidly any new outbreaks.

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http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/02/20/us-health-ebola-testing-idUSKBN0LO0R920150220

NBC NEWS by Maggie Fox                                                                             Feb. 19, 2015

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is helping prepare for a new Ebola vaccine trial in Sierra Leone, the country that's now the worst hit by the Ebola epidemic.

The CDC will work with Sierra Leonean authorities to vaccinate up to 6,000 health care workers, including doctors, nurses and ambulance drivers, against a virus that's infected more than 11,000 people in Sierra Leone alone, killing 3,400 of them.

This trial will test just one of the Ebola vaccines in development - one designed by U.S. and Canadian government researchers with a company called New Link Genetics and licensed to Merck. It uses an animal virus called vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) to carry tiny pieces of the Ebola virus to help train the immune system to recognize it.

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http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/ebola-virus-outbreak/cdc-ready-vaccinate-6-000-against-ebola-sierra-leone-n308576