Guinea

UNITED NATIONS NEWS CENTRE                                                                         Dec. 31, 2014
The number of Ebola cases is fluctuating in Guinea, decreasing in Liberia and showing signs the increase has slowed in Sierra Leone, the United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) reported today as the UN development agency said it is helping the Liberian Government build border posts to cut the cross-border spread of infection in West Africa.

Patients who recover from the Ebola virus disease tie a ribbon to the tree on leaving the Maforki Ebola Treatment Centre in Port Loko, Sierra Leone. UN Photo/Martine Perret

“Infections in Liberia’s Eastern border region have spiked recently as tight-knit cross-border communities spread the disease across the often porous border,” the UN Development Programme (UNDP) said in a press release, adding that 49 new Ebola cases had been recorded in the border county of Grand Cape Mount in December, including 12 in the past four days.

UNITED NATIONS NEWS CENTRE                                                                                 Dec. 30, 2014

MONROVIA, Liberia --The outgoing head of the head of the United Nations Emergency Ebola Response Mission (UNMEER) said today that communities are going to play a big role in defeating the “nasty disease” in West Africa by stamping out outbreaks while they are small and not allowing them to become bigger.

The body of a suspected Ebola case in Sierra Leone is taken by an International Federation of Red Cross (IFRC) team on 24 December to the cemetery where it was buried in a dignified way. UN Photo/Martine Perret

“Ebola is a very nasty disease, and it’s going to present us with some very unpleasant surprises I fear going forward,” Anthony Banbury told UN Radio in Monrovia, Liberia. “And that’s why we really need to strengthen our capabilities.....”

...While acknowledging the difficulty in getting Ebola response workers to some of the remote areas, he emphasized the importance of a district by district strategy and said: “We really need to be present out in the districts....”

WASHINGTON POST  by Rachel Feltman     Dec. 14, 2014 

According to research published Tuesday by the Robert Koch-Institute, fruit bats are almost certainly to blame for the current Ebola outbreak, which has claimed 7,800 lives so far. But while most outbreaks caused by a fruit bat would have someone who hunted or handled the mammal for meat to blame for the contagion, the researchers believe that this case of bat-to-human transmission was sparked by children at play.

A child under observation for signs of Ebola. (Michel du Cille/The Washington Post)

Ebola is a zoonotic disease -- one that's spread between species. The first human cases of Ebola can indeed be traced roughly to the hunting, selling, and eating of bushmeat, or wild mammals like bats and non-human primates...

But the first case of 2014's outbreak has been traced to someone who shouldn't have had much contact with bushmeat. In October, researchers reported that patient zero of the outbreak was likely a 2-year-old boy named Emile Ouamouno who lived in the Guinea village of Meliandou.

SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN by Dina Fine Maron                                  Dec. 29, 2014
Kisses are at a premium in the capital of Liberia. Even a hug or a handshake between friends is often out of the question. That’s the new normal ever since Ebola began ravaging communities throughout Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. For much of the past year, residents of these west African countries have wondered if daily life will ever be able to return to the way things once were.

Monrovia, Liberia - November 2014: Ebola survivor Korlia Bonarwolo leads a training of health workers at a mock Ebola Treatment Unit in Liberia. "I think with the knowledge we have now, the treatment is going to be much greater," he says.

Photo: Morgana Wingard/Sarah Grile, 2014

And at the heart of the matter is a scientific question: has Ebola now found a permanent foothold among humans?