Africa Resilience Initiative

WHO PRESS RELEASE                                                March 10, 2015

The WHO Director-General has commissioned a panel of outside independent experts to undertake an assessment on all aspects of WHO’s response in the Ebola outbreak. This is in response to a resolution passed during the Ebola Special Session of the Executive Board in January 2015.

Dame Barbara Stocking will chair the panel. She was formerly Chief Executive of Oxfam GB (2001-13) and during this time led major humanitarian responses. Currently she is President of Murray Edwards College, University of Cambridge, UK.

The other panel members are: Professor Jean-Jacques Muyembe-Tamfun, Director-General of the National Institute for Biomedical Research, Democratic Republic of the Congo; Dr Faisal Shuaib, Head of the National Ebola Emergency Operations Center, Nigeria; Dr Carmencita Alberto-Banatin, independent consultant and advisor on health emergencies and disasters, Philippines; Professor Julio Frenk, Dean of the Faculty, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA; and Professor Ilona Kickbusch, Director of the Global Health Programme at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva, Switzerland.

The panel will present a first progress report on its work to the 68th World Health Assembly in May 2015.

THE ECONOMIST                                                                                                   March 9, 2015

As in all Ebola episodes, preventing infection in West Africa during what has been the worst outbreak in history has placed a lot of effort on looking after those dealing with the victims. New high-tech equipment is now available for use by health care workers, but in some countries it may be inappropriate....

Health care workers inside a USAID-funded Ebola clinic in Liberia wearing protective gear. Some of the best protective gear or technology is not available to African countries because of high costs or other conditions.  Photos by Abbas Dulleh • Associated Press,

MEDICALXPRESS                                                                                                 March 9, 2015
Researchers from Emory and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have now obtained a first look at the immune responses in four Ebola virus disease survivors who received care at Emory University Hospital in 2014, by closely examining their T cells and B cells during the acute phase of the disease. The findings reveal surprisingly high levels of immune activation, and have implications for the current effort to develop vaccines against Ebola.

The Ebola virus, isolated in November 2014 from patient blood samples obtained in Mali. The virus was isolated on Vero cells in a BSL-4 suite at Rocky Mountain Laboratories. Credit: NIAID

MONROVIA, Liberia — Marking the progress in controlling its Ebola outbreak, the Liberian government dismantled a crematorium and removed drums containing the ashes of more than 3,000 Ebola victims cremated during the height of the epidemic, whose last patient was discharged last week.

 Liberia resorted to cremating the bodies of Ebola victims when communities rejected burials in their areas for fear the disease could spread and contaminate their soil and affect them. The cremations were very controversial because they were against traditional burial practices. But those customs, including washing and touching the dead, spread the deadly Ebola which brought the government to impose cremations.

Religious leaders gathered Saturday at the former crematorium outside Monrovia and prayed for the victims who came from many different religious groups, Acting Information Minister Isaac Jackson told The Associated Press.

The 19 barrels of remains will be buried on a 25-acre plot bought by the government as a cemetery for Ebola victims.