Africa

MONROVIA --  Surviving Ebola is only part of the story. Many patients experience "post-Ebola" symptoms - joint pain, dizziness, blurred vision, inability to concentrate, headaches. The Ebola Survivors Clinic, opened recently at the Redemption Hospital in Monrovia, Liberia, not only offers treatment, support and training for Ebola survivors, but also helps health-care workers better understand this disease.

             A Liberian doctor, Moses Soka, runs the Ebola Survivors Clinic that opened recently at the Redemption        hospital  in  Monrovia  WHO/C. Bailey

The line around Redemption Hospital in Monrovia was already stretching around the street corner when Dr Moses Soka arrived. The Ebola Survivors' Clinic had only been open a week, but word had spread and patients were beginning to come in numbers, patients of all ages and from across the city.

GEORGETOWN PUBLIC POICY REVIEW by Col.Russell E. Coleman   Aug. 12, 2015
WASHNGTON -- More than 10,000 people have died of Ebola virus disease (EVD) since the outbreak in West Africa began in December 2013. An epidemic of this magnitude, whether naturally occurring or caused by a biowarfare agent, could compromise both the U.S. health care system and the U.S. military’s ability to defend this country and its allies.

This possibility, long recognized by the Department of Defense (DoD), drives the department’s development of medical countermeasures. The response to the current Ebola outbreak demonstrates how DoD prepares for a medical threat without knowing (1) where it will happen, (2) when it might happen, (3) what the disease will be, and (4) what local resources will be immediately available.

Read complete article.
http://gppreview.com/2015/08/12/how-the-department-of-defense-helped-confront-ebola/

REUTERS by Monica MacSwan                                                                     Aug. 12, 2015

LONDON -- Handwashing and giving out soap in schools in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone have helped to keep classrooms Ebola-free this year but schools need to remain vigilant after the summer holidays, the U.N. children's agency said on Wednesday.

UNICEF said there had been no reported cases of students or teachers contracting Ebola at a school this year in the three worst-hit countries in West Africa, where the virus has killed nearly 11,300 people since the outbreak began in late 2013.

In Liberia, where there have been as many as 4,800 deaths, two schools were decontaminated as a precaution after one student died in June and another became infected in July.

The most promising soil and water management practices will be scaled up. Photo: N. Palmer (CIAT)

ccafs.cgiar.org - by Mathieu Ouedraogo, Sibiri Jean Ouedraogo, Sekou Toure, Maimouna Fane - August 11, 2015

A collaboration among regional research institutes and National Agricultural Research Systems establishes strong partnership for upscaling the “farms of the future” approach.

In West Africa, climate change brings new challenges to agriculture. Among other things, it is straining the livelihoods of the rural population, given their high dependence on the climate.

Because these challenges cannot be addressed by one research institution alone, the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) tackles the problem through an intervention approach based on a worldwide strategic collaboration between CGIAR and Future Earth.