Africa Resilience Initiative

WASHINGTON POST                                                                                                Nov. 17, 2014

By Joel Achenbach

John Hoover, the U.S amabassador to Sierre Leone, .... noted that the response to the epidemic in Sierra Leone poses a management challenge, and he sees a need to “sharpen coordination.”

                                                           Ambassador John Hoover. (Courtesy of State Department)

“There are a great deal of players on the ground,” Hoover said in an interview from Freetown.  “Lots of people doing lots of things. It’s a question of sharpening that coordination so that we’re not missing gaps and not overlapping and tripping over one another.”

He sees progress in that battle in the eastern part of Sierra Leone, but the epidemic is flaring in the western part of the country. Sierra Leone is the country with the highest infection rate, according to the World Health Organization’s most recent update. About 70 employees of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have deployed to Sierra Leone to fight Ebola. The U.S. military has focused on neighboring Liberia; Britain has a leading role in Sierra Leone....

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WASHINGTON POST                                                                                          Nov. 17, 2014

By Kevin Sieff

...The doctors who tended to him in Freetown appeared to be unaware that an early Ebola test — taken within the first three days of the illness — is often inconclusive. In a country where information about the disease continues to move slowly, it was another potentially tragic mistake.

In many cases, a negative test at that stage means nothing because “there aren’t enough copies of the virus in the blood for the test to pick up,” said Ermias Belay, the head of the CDC’s Ebola response team in Sierra Leone.

But M’Briwa and others treated the test as definitive, even though Salia remained feverish and weak. The first results were delivered by a team of Chinese lab technicians who had opened a nearby hospital. (The technicians declined Sunday to speak about Salia’s case.)...

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/a-doctors-mistaken-ebola-test-we-were-celebrating--then-everything-fell-apart/2014/11/16/946a84da-6dd5-11e4-a2c2-478179fd0489_story.html

Description of the way the CDC Foundation, the Allen Foundation and large donors are playing an important role in countering Ebola.

THE WASHINGTON POST                                                                                                          Nov. 17, 2014
By Ariana Eunjung Cha

"...The unpredictable nature of the Ebola virus has made the government’s partnerships with private donors critically important in the crisis response. Working outside the politically charged federal appropriations process and the sometimes sluggish bureaucracy, foundations and private individuals have been able to offer much-needed relief for those on the front lines...."

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/in-ebola-fight-private-foundations-provide-critical-financial-aid/2014/11/16/b57ec57e-6109-11e4-9f3a-7e28799e0549_story.html

Mali:  U.S to begin enhanced screening; France warns its citizens against travel

(Two stories, scroll down)

 REUTERS                                                   NOV. 16, 2014

The United States will begin enhanced Ebola screening on Monday for travelers whose trips started in the African nation of Mali, the government said on Sunday.

Mali has been added to the list of countries (Sierra Leone and Liberia)  whose travelers face heightened screening because there have been a number of confirmed cases of Ebola there in recent days, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement.

"A large number of individuals may have been exposed to those cases," it said. There are no direct flights to the United States from Mali, but an average of 15 to 20 travelers a day start their trips there, the statement said.

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http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/11/16/us-health-ebola-usa-idUKKCN0J010S20141116
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REUTERS                                                                                                                  Nov. 16, 2014