BROOKINGS TECH TANK   by Joshua Bleiberg and Darrell M. West                                       March 19, 2015

...There were a variety of factors that contributed to Nigeria’s success at combating the (Ebola)  disease. One important factorwas the use of mobile electronic health records programs.

1. Training Healthcare Workers

Training health care providers was a priority at the beginning of the Ebola outbreak. A survey found that 85 percent of health care workers in the country believed you could avoid Ebola by abstaining from handshakes or touching. Correcting these myths about the disease was a critical part of the response effort, especially for health care workers.

2. Rapid Deployment

One of the virtues of mHealth is its speed and flexibility. Mobile allows officials to quickly disseminate the latest information to front line health care workers. Increasing the speed of communication is a general boon to any large public health response.

3. Virtual Records

REUTERS  By Maria Caspani                                       March 18, 2015

In Guinea, data indicates a 4.5 percent increase in cases of gender-based violence since before the epidemic including twice as many rapes, Sanaba Kaba, the country's minister of social action, women and children, said on a panel at the United Nations 59th Commission on the Status of Women.

Liberia also saw more cases of gender-based violence as a result of the outbreak, said Julia Duncan Cassell, minister of gender and development in that country.

She said some men were not respecting the recovery protocol that Ebola survivors should observe and were infecting their spouses and female partners through unprotected sex.

Sierra Leone also has seen an increase in violence against women, said panel moderator Awa Ndiaye Seck, Liberian country representative for UN Women, the agency responsible for gender equality and women's empowerment.

CENTER FOR INFECTIOUS DISEASE RESEARCH AND POLICY by Lisa Schnirring                                March 18, 2015
(Scroll down for link to full WHO Situation Report.)

Though Ebola patterns look promising in Sierra Leone and Liberia, the number of new confirmed cases spiked in Guinea last week, underscoring tough challenges that remain there, such as gaps in contact tracing and unsafe burials, the World Health Organization (WHO) said today.

For the third week in a row, Liberia reported no confirmed Ebola cases, and cases declined slightly in Sierra Leone, the WHO said in its weekly epidemiologic analysis of the outbreak.

Overall, 150 new confirmed Ebola cases were reported in the outbreak region last week, up from 116 the week before. The number of confirmed, probable, and suspected cases in the three countries has risen to 24,666, with death total increasing to 10,179.

...The WHO warned that although Ebola's footprint is now limited to a narrow area, the population is mobile, posing the risk or reseeding the disease to other districts and countries.

REUTERS                                                    March 18, 2015

WASHINGTON ==The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said an advisory panel will discuss the development of Ebola vaccines, days after an American health worker was flown back after being tested positive for Ebola in Sierra Leone.

The federal health regulator would discuss the development of vaccines on May 12, it announced on its website on Wednesday.

The resurgence of the virus last year prompted drugmakers from across the world to develop new treatments that are in different stages of studies....

The World Health Organization said it will decide on mass vaccination against the virus in August.

See full story.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/18/us-health-ebola-fda-idUSKBN0ME1D520150318
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See Federal Register notice of meeting.

https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2015/03/17/2015-06116/vaccines-and-related-biological-products-advisory-committee-notice-of-meeting