Conakry

ASSOCIATED PRESS by Boubacar Diallo                    March 23, 2015

The trial highlights the challenges health workers faced in this Ebola outbreak that has claimed more than 10,000 lives, mostly in the impoverished West African nations of Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia.

Around 78 suspects are being tried in the town of N'Nzerekore, 900 kilometers (560 miles) from the capital Conakry, Ministry of Justice spokesman Ibrahima Beavogui said.

The killings happened when a delegation of health care workers, including top health officials from the nearby town, visited Womey last September to raise awareness about how to combat Ebola. They were attacked by a mob armed with knives and stones.

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TIME MAGAZINE  by Helen Regan                                March 23, 2015
(Scroll down for link to full MSF report.)

Paris-based Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has slammedthe international community’s slow response to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, saying it cost thousands of lives that could otherwise have been saved.

A Doctors Without Borders (MSF), health worker in protective clothing carries a child suspected of having Ebola in the MSF treatment center on October 5, 2014 in Paynesville, Liberia.

The leading international medical charity released a report Monday coinciding with the one-year anniversary of the outbreak’s start. It said warnings that the disease’s spread was out of control were dismissed as alarmist and that early calls for help were ignored by local governments and the World Health Organization (WHO), reports Reuters.

“For the Ebola outbreak to spiral this far out of control required many institutions to fail. And they did, with tragic and avoidable consequences,” said MSF’s general director Christopher Stokes in the report.

ASSOCIATED PRESS  by Jpnathan Paye-Layleh             March 22, 2015

MONROVIA, Liberia — Liberians are overcoming their fears of Ebola to volunteer for a vaccine trial...

One year after the World Health Organization declared the Ebola outbreak, vaccine trials are under way in Liberia and Guinea. Sierra Leone will start a trial later this month.

In Liberia, scientists have fanned out across the country to explain the studies and reduce the fear and confusion that have stymied efforts to contain Ebola.

Dr. Stephen Kennedy, the Liberian lead investigator for the study, was among the first people to volunteer for the vaccine trial, getting his injection in front of the media. Similarly, in Guinea, authorities started the study by injecting a series of prominent officials, including the head of the country's Ebola response.

The outreach worked in Liberia, where more than 700 people have volunteered, well beyond the 600 required, according to Kennedy.

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http://news.yahoo.com/liberians-overcome-fear-volunteer-ebola-vaccine-trial-120848405.html

WHO SITUATION SUMMARY                                                    March 20, 2015