UPDATE: Drugmakers to join forces to make millions of Ebola vaccine doses

REUTERS                                                                     Oct 22, 2014

By Ben Hirschler

LONDON -- Leading drugmakers plan to work together to speed up the development of an Ebola vaccine and hope to produce millions of doses for use next year.

U.S. firm Johnson & Johnson said on Wednesday that it aims to produce at least 1 million doses of its two-step vaccine next year and has already discussed collaboration with Britain's GlaxoSmithKline, which is working on a rival vaccine.

The economics of an Ebola vaccine are still unclear but drug companies with an eye on their reputations are under pressure to respond to the major international health crisis now ravaging one of the poorest corners of Africa.

NEW YORK TIMES                         Oct. 21, 2014

Op-ed in Today's New York Times by Karen Huster, a nurse working in Liberia for Last Mile Health says that Liberia’s dysfunctional transportation system is standing in the way of fighting the Ebola epidemic and suggests some solutions
 

"Patients have died on grueling journeys to treatment units. Blood samples have sat waiting for days, eventually becoming invalid....

 "The best solution is removing the need to travel altogether by building more easily accessible treatment centers all over the country, where patients with confirmed or suspected cases of Ebola can be housed and treated. The United States military is building these structures, but it is taking time. Nimbler nongovernmental organizations must also step in. Save the Children has already done so and is also building smaller community care centers — sort of homes away from home, where families can continue to care for their sick loved ones safely removed from the community. A makeshift center with tents instead of permanent structures could be set up within a week.

USA TODAY                                  Oct. 21, 2014
By Doug Stanglin

The East African nation of Rwanda is requiring all visitors from the United States and Spain to self-monitor, fill out an extensive questionnaire and report their medical condition for the first 21 days of their visits because of the Ebola cases that have surfaced in the two Western countries.

Coincidentally or not, the new screening follows an embarrassing uproar in a New Jersey school over the imminent enrollment of two Rwanda children that initially prompted their parents to keep them at home for 21 days.

The U.S. and Spain have both recorded deaths from Ebola. In Dallas, a Liberian national died of the virus two weeks ago and two nurses who treated him tested positive for the virus. At least two Spanish missionaries died in Spain after contracting the disease in West Africa. One Spanish nurse also tested positive for the virus.

Rwanda,  located about 2,600 miles east of Liberia, the closest of the three West African countries with the Ebola outbreak...  has reported no cases of the virus.

The dust-up in New Jersey involving two Rwanda children took a new turn Monday with an apology by the superintendent of the Maple Shade School District in Burlington County.

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FREEOWN, SIERRA LEONE ---After emerging months ago in eastern Sierra Leone, Ebola is now hitting the western edges of the country where the capital is located with dozens of people falling sick each day, the government said Tuesday. So many people are dying that removing bodies is reportedly a problem.

Forty-nine confirmed cases of Ebola emerged in just one day, Monday, in two Ebola zones in and around the capital, the National Ebola Response Center, or NERC, said. Lawmaker Claude Kamanda who represents a western area said more than 20 deaths are being reported daily.

Authorities say the uncontrolled movement of people from the interior to Waterloo which is the gateway to Freetown, the capital, has fueled the increase of Ebola cases in the west. There is a strong feeling that people are violating the quarantines elsewhere and coming to Freetown through Waterloo.

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http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/ebola-cases-rise-sharply-western-sierra-leone-26339140?singlePage=true