Global Health

REUTERS                                                                                    Jan. 12, 2015

LONDON- A British nurse diagnosed with Ebola last month is recovering and is no longer in a critical condition, the London hospital treating her said in a statement on Monday.

Pauline Cafferkey, a 39-year-old nurse who normally works at a Scottish health center, became the first person to be diagnosed with the disease in Britain after contracting it in Sierra Leone where she was volunteering at an Ebola clinic.

"Pauline Cafferkey is showing signs of improvement and is no longer critically ill," the statement from the Royal Free Hospital said. "She remains in isolation as she receives specialist care for the Ebola virus."

Cafferkey is being treated with blood plasma from an Ebola survivor and an unnamed experimental anti-viral drug, the hospital has said.

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http://news.yahoo.com/british-ebola-patient-recovering-no-longer-critical-says-141357956.html;_ylt=AwrBEiLsF7RUKgYAww_QtDMD

WHO and medical staff at the Ebola management site in Kailahun District, Sierra Leone
WHO/J. Caminade

Kailahun district in eastern Sierra Leone was one of the country’s first hotspots in the Ebola outbreak, at its peak reporting more than 80 new cases per week in late June 2014. With the assistance of WHO and partners, combined with the close involvement of community leaders, the district has managed to beat the disease and has reported no new cases for several weeks. There is no room for complacency however. Community teams and health workers are on high alert and are ready to react quickly to any possible new infection.

who.int - December 2014

REUTERS  BY Umaru Fofana                                                                        Jan. 10, 2015

FREETOWN --Medical charity Medicins Sans Frontiers (MSF) has opened the first care center in the current Ebola epidemic for pregnant women, whose survival rate from the virus is virtually zero, the charity said on Saturday....

There is currently one patient in the clinic, which is perched on a hill in the compound of a disused Methodist boys high school in the Sierra Leone capital.

Women are particularly vulnerable to a disease spread through direct contact with infected people and with the corpses of victims, because women often care for sick family members, said MSF Field Coordinator, Esperanza Santos.

EUROSURVEILLANCE                                                              Volume 20, Issue 1, Jan. 8 2015

Australian researchers reported on an automated text-message system used for actively monitoring people potentially exposed to Ebola. The system prompts contacts to submit information on symptoms and temperature twice a day. The Department of Health in Western Australia uses the system, called "EbolaTracks," to track travelers returning from West Africa and (potentially) contacts of any local cases.

Twenty-two people were enrolled in the program as of Jan 5, and 14 have completed active monitoring. The system sent 1,108 text messages and got a 91% response rate. Health officials followed up by phone when they didn't get a reply. Such systems could be valuable tools for larger-scale contact monitoring for Ebola or other infectious diseases, they concluded.

http://www.eurosurveillance.org/ViewArticle.aspx?ArticleId=20999