Africa Resilience Initiative

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR by Silas Gbandia               Feb. 13, 2015
...with a sharp drop in new Ebola cases, Sierra Leone has announced that schools will reopen on March 30, and focus has now turned toward the recovery process for children whose education has been set back at least half a year. The implementation of the government's new plan – which includes paying for school fees and continuous assessments – will be a key indicator of how well the country can rebound after Ebola.

...a full plan to reintegrate the students nationwide is being implemented, says Mohammed Sillah Sesay, chairman of the Technical Committee on the Reopening of Schools. The plan includes 25 uninterrupted weeks of school until September, continuous assessment of students to verify promotion to the next level, and more broadcasts of teaching material on radio airwaves. The normal school year starts in September and ends in July.
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An ambulance transports the author to the Nebraska Medical Center in October. (Sait Serkan Gurbuz/Reuters)

THE ATLANTIC by Ashoka Mukpo                                                                          Feb. 12, 2015

Like the majority of patients taken to Western hospitals, I recovered from the disease—but health authorities are still struggling to figure out how to bring up the much-lower survival rate in West Africa.

...the 80-percent survival rate among patients who were evacuated to Western hospitals shattered the idea that an Ebola diagnosis spelled near-certain death. I know this all too well, as I’m one of those patients myself. In October, I contracted Ebola while covering the outbreak as a freelance journalist in Liberia. I was airlifted to a hospital in Nebraska, where aggressive treatment likely saved my life....
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http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/02/why-didnt-ebola-kill-me/385335/

CDC EID JOURNAL by  Lisa E. Hensley, Julie Dyall, Gene G. Olinger, and Peter B. Jahrlin (NIH)                     Feb. 12, 2015

The unprecedented number of Ebola virus disease (EVD) cases in western Africa has compelled the world to consider experimental and off-label therapeutics to mitigate the current outbreak. For clinicians, approved drugs are an attractive solution because of known safety profiles and availability.

Oral lamivudine (GlaxoSmithKline, Brentford, UK), a US Food and Drug Administration–approved anti-HIV drug, has been suggested as a possible antiviral agent against Ebola virus (EBOV). In September 2014, a Liberian physician, Dr. Gorbee Logan, reported positive results while treating EVD with lamivudine (1). Thirteen of 15 patients treated with lamivudine survived presumed EVD and were declared virus free. Clinical confirmation of EVD in these cases remains to be verified....

ASSOCIATED PRESS by Edith M. Leder                                                                          Feb. 11, 2015
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The U.N. Ebola chief says U.S. troops being withdrawn from Liberia have done their job of building desperately needed treatment centers but that more than 10,000 civilians working in West Africa and supported by the United States are still essential to combating the deadly disease.

Dr. David Nabarro warned in an interview Wednesday with The Associated Press that the battle against Ebola is far from over, pointing to a disappointing rise in new cases last week in hardest-hit Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.

He said civilians from the U.S., Britain, France and elsewhere are still needed to help with tracing Ebola victims' contacts, re-establishing health services and changing behavior in communities.

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http://news.yahoo.com/un-ebola-chief-10-000-us-civilians-needed-183453840.html;_ylt=AwrBJSCfs9xUf00Af7XQtDMD