Global Health

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS TIMES  by Kathleen Caulderwood      Jan. 27, 2015

World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim is proposing emerging nations, developed countries and global aid organizations participate in a kind of insurance system to help pay for health crises like West Africa's Ebola outbreak. “We need to prepare for future pandemics that could become far more deadly and infectious than we we have seen so far with Ebola,” Kim told an audience at Georgetown University on Tuesday. “We must learn the lessons from the Ebola outbreak because there is no doubt we will be faced with other pandemics in the years to come.”

 ...according to Kim, the recent outbreak could be just the beginning. And world leaders need a plan.  

He said World Bank officials informally discussed the possibility of a “pandemic response facility” with the World Health Organization, United Nations and other international actors last week at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

“This could work like insurance policies that people understand, like fire insurance,” Kim said. “The more that you are prepared for a fire, such as having several smoke detectors in your home, the lower the premium you pay.”

REUTERS   by Magdalena Mis                                                                             Jan. 26, 2015

LONDON -- The three West African countries worst hit by Ebola risk a "double disaster" unless a multi-million dollar plan is put in place to help their economies recover, Oxfam said on Tuesday.

In Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone people were struggling to make ends meet having seen their incomes plummet, the aid agency said.

"The world was late in waking up to the Ebola crisis, there can be no excuses for not helping to put these economies and lives back together," Mark Goldring, Oxfam's chief executive, said during a visit to Liberia.

He said a post-Ebola "Marshall Plan" should address three areas of urgent need: cash for families affected by the crisis, investment in jobs and support for basic services.

Read complete story.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/27/us-health-ebola-oxfam-idUSKBN0L000520150127

Four new studies shed new light on Ebola transmission and countermeasures.

CENTER FOR EFFECTIVE FOR RESEARCH AND POLICY  by Lisa Schnirring                                        Jan. 23, 2015

French and Guinean researchers  noted how chains of transmission helped Ebola spread in Conakry, Guinea, the first of the region's capital cities to be hit by the virus, and US officials released three detailed reports on outbreak response.

The Conakry team looked at seven transmission chains that occurred in the area from March to August 2014. They reported their findings in The Lancet Infectious Diseases.

In the first of three reports Friday in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), extra flight contact tracing measures undertaken after a Texas nurse took two flights shortly before getting sick with Ebola in October identified 268 people from nine states, none of whom got sick with the virus

In the second report, CDC estimates on the impact of Ebola treatment units (ETUs) and community care centers (CCCs) in Liberia predict that the interventions prevented thousands of new infections and that the interventions when used together were likely had a bigger impact than either alone.

Statement by Dr. Margaret, Director-General of the World Health Organization to a Special Session of the Executive Board on Ebola

WHO PRESS OFFICE, Geneva                                                                                       Jan. 25, 2015

Excerpt:

"The Ebola outbreak points to the need for urgent change in three main areas: to rebuild and strengthen national and international emergency preparedness and response, to address the way new medical products are brought to market, and to strengthen the way WHO operates during emergencies."

Read complete statement.

http://www.who.int/dg/speeches/2015/executive-board-ebola/en/