Global Health

NEW YORK TIMES                                  Nov. 5, 2014
By ANDREW POLLACK

Searching for a new way to attack Ebola, companies and academic researchers are now racing to develop faster and easier tests for determining whether someone has the disease.

A researcher checks an Ebola diagnostic test in Marcoule, France.  Credit Jean-Paul Pelissier/Reuters

Such tests might require only a few drops of blood rather than a test tube of it, and provide the answer on the spot, without having to send the sample to a laboratory.

REUTERS                                            Nov. 4, 3014
ByJames Pearson

SEOUL, Korea --lAsian countries are not contributing enough to the global effort to fight Ebola, despite having a wealth of trained medical personnel who could help stop the spread of the deadly virus, World Bank Group president Jim Yong Kim said on Tuesday.

World Bank Group president Jim Yong Kim (L) listens to a reporter's question during a news conference in Seoul   November 4, 2014. Credit: Reuters/Kim Hong-Ji

"Many countries in Asia who could help simply are not, especially when it comes to sending health workers," Kim told a news conference in Seoul....

"We need thousands of health workers, and we're going to need them over the next six months to a year. The fight against Ebola is not over until we get to zero cases in those three countries," Kim said.

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http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/11/04/uk-health-ebola-asia-idUKKBN0IO0BJ20141104

Rate of infection in Liberia seems to plateau, raising questions over the usefulness of models in an outbreak

NATURE  International Weekly Journal of Science                                     Nov. 4, 2014
by Declan Butler

The Ebola outbreak in West Africa has infected at least 13,567 people and killed 4,951, according to figures released on 31 October by the World Health Organization (WHO). Now, in a rare encouraging sign, the number of new cases in Liberia seems to be flattening after months of exponential growth. Scientists say it is too soon to declare that the disease is in retreat: case data are often unreliable, and Ebola can be quick to resurge. But it is clear that mathematical models have failed to accurately project the outbreak’s course.

 The reality of the Ebola outbreak is not reflected by model projections of high case numbers. Daniel Berehulak/NYT/Redux/eyevine

Researchers are now struggling to understand whether reports of empty beds at treatment centres and declining burial numbers are signs that fewer people are developing Ebola, or whether cases and deaths are going unrecorded.....

ASSOCIATED PRESS                                                                              Nov. 4, 2014

by Sarah DiLorenzo

DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — Thousands of people in Sierra Leone are being forced to violate Ebola quarantines to find food because deliveries are not reaching them, aid agencies said....

Large swaths of the West African country have been sealed off to prevent the spread of Ebola, and within those areas many people have been ordered to stay in their homes.

The government, with help from the U.N.'s World Food Program, is tasked with delivering food and other services to those people. But there are many "nooks and crannies" in the country that are being missed, Jeanne Kamara, Christian Aid's Sierra Leone representative, said Tuesday....

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http://news.yahoo.com/thousands-break-ebola-quarantine-food-124818527.html