BLOOMBERG  Commentary      by Charles Kenney                                              Feb. 3, 2015
...Without good surveillance, disease threats can fester undetected until they are considerably harder to contain. At the moment, countries simply declare they have the capacity to meet global standards and the WHO takes their word for it. There should be a system of independent review, backed up with international assistance and support to ensure that all countries really do have the capacity to track infectious disease outbreaks and control their spread across borders.

....the global health research system is primarily driven by market pressures. The cost of bringing a drug through the regulatory processes to market averages around $1 billion. That's a big reason why pharmaceutical companies would rather spend money on treatments for the diseases of the rich than for conditions that largely affect people in countries like Liberia...

There are two approaches to deal with that problem: lower the cost of drug development and increase the market for the products that emerge. ...

To increase demand, governments can club together to create an "advanced market commitment": If a drug developer produces a vaccine or therapy that meets certain standards, donors precommit to buy it in bulk....

EBOLA WEEKLY  by   Cinnatus Dumbaya                                                          Feb. 2, 2015

The Mano River Union, which works across the Ebola-affected countries, held a meeting this weekend designed to tackle the challenges of halting the spread of disease at West Africa's porous land borders. Cinnatus Dumbaya spoke to the Reverend Linda Koroma, deputy secretary general of the Mano River Union Secretariat in Freetown, to find out more.

Excerpt from interview:
...."We want to ensure that our border communities are provided with health facilities they can access in the event of another epidemic or any other kind of disease. And so the idea the technical people came up with is to allow people to cross over borders easily in order to access fully equipped health centers that would be built in each of the border towns...."
Read complete story.

http://www.eboladeeply.org/articles/2015/02/7279/good-fences-good-neighbors/

BBC NEWS      by Helen Briggs, Environment correspondent                                                                     Feb. 2, 2015

The devastation left by the Ebola virus in west Africa raises many questions for science, policy and international development.

One issue that has yet to receive widespread media attention is the handling of genetic data on the virus.

By studying its code, scientists can trace how Ebola leapt across borders, and how, like all viruses, it is constantly evolving and changing.

Yet, researchers have been privately complaining for months about the scarcity of genetic information about the virus that is entering the public domain.

In the last few days, scientists have been speaking on and off the record about their concerns.

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-31091816

IRIN  Humanitarian News and Analysis  by Obinna Anyadike                                                            Jan. 29, 2015

NAIROBI, Kenya --Why do people persist with risky funeral rites, eat Ebola-harbouring bushmeat, and occasionally attack the very health workers sent to help, the news reports leave us wondering. What is the value of “traditional beliefs” when they are harmful: why can’t people just act more rationally?

The simple answer is; ask the communities. The growing number of researchers that do, find that people are acting as responsibly as they can in desperate circumstances. The lack of a properly functioning Ebola response and weak healthcare services has forced communities into rough and ready self-reliance. Faced with hotlines going unanswered, overcrowded Ebola Treatment Units (ETU), militarized quarantine areas, communities are actually looking for more information, not less.