Global Health

WIRED  by Maryn McKenna                                                                                           Feb. 16, 2015
Interview with F. Zeela Zaizay, a registered nurse and the Liberian team leader for MAP International, a Christian medical-assistance nonprofit. MAP, which is based in Atlanta and has sent $1.7 million’ worth of supplies such as “no touch” infrared thermometers and protective equipment for health workers, and helped organize Ebola-education efforts in townships and on local radio.

“We are having an average now of less than one case per day,” he told me in a Skype call from Monrovia, Liberia’s capital. “That shows we have made tremendous gains in the fight against Ebola. But the practices that led to the gains we are having are being abandoned just as the cases are declining too, so it brings about fear. If we are not careful we could have more cases again.”

Conakry, Guinea --Statement issued by the heads of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone upon approving an operational framework designed to reduce new Ebola infections to zero within 60 days.

The framework calls for infection prevention and control, social mobilization, community engagement, surveillance, cross border collaboration. 

The leaders also "advocated for a seamless and responsible exit by international partners dictated by the epidemiology and by the adequate transfer of capacity to national institutions."

The statement includes a list of developments and responses.

Read complete statement.

https://ebolaresponse.un.org/sites/default/files/150216-_unmeer_external_situation_report.pdf

The company producing the new Ebola treatment for an FDA-approved test suddenly pulled out of Liberia, leaving researchers confused.

BUZZFEED                by Hayes Brown                                                                               Feb. 13, 2015

...An FDA-approved trial of the drug brincidofovir, meant to treat rather than prevent Ebola, had already begun in Liberia’s capital of Monrovia when Chimerix, the company that produced the drug, pulled out of the trial at the end of January. The clinical trial partners decided to end the trial on Feb. 3.

Peter Horby, who led the University of Oxford research team conducting the study, called the drug company’s decision “a bit abrupt.”

A woman is injected by a health care worker as she takes part in an Ebola virus vaccine trial in Monrovia Abbas Dulleh / Via AP

Agency seeks a new model after flaws revealed by Ebola crisis.

COMMENTARY MEDPAGE TODAY by Michael Smith            Feb. 15, 2015 

As the Ebola epidemic drags on, the World Health Organization is in danger of losing its credibility as a bulwark against infectious disease.

The West African epidemic is a "mega-crisis (that) overwhelmed the capacity of WHO," according to Director-General Margaret Chan, MD, speaking to reporters in late January.

To prevent a similar crisis in the future, Chan has proposed a package of reforms, including a large contingency fund for emergencies, an increase in the number of trained people able to deploy quickly to a crisis site, and structural changes to streamline the famously unwieldy organization.

Whether those get anywhere is the vital question, according to Lawrence Gostin, JD, of the O'Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Washington's Georgetown University.