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Community => Recreation Commons => Our researchers have made a breakthrough! => Topic started by: Buster's Uncle on January 11, 2015, 11:05:56 pm

Title: Ebola News 1/11
Post by: Buster's Uncle on January 11, 2015, 11:05:56 pm

Sierra Leone now has means to control Ebola epidemic: UN
AFP  January 9, 2015 11:56 PM


(http://l.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/I1lDOv3ix92Tu3bwDKuDHg--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9ZmlsbDtoPTY0MDtpbD1wbGFuZTtweW9mZj0wO3E9NzU7dz05NjA-/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/afp.com/b556c6c12056b8ef41e093f8218cc0a174cdd224.jpg)
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon visits an Ebola treatment unit in Freetown, Sierra Leone, on December 19, 2014 (AFP Photo/Evan Schneider)



Freetown (AFP) - Sierra Leone now has the means to curb the Ebola epidemic, the new head of the UN mission for the fight against the disease and a senior World Health Organization official said.

"Sierra Leone is in much better shape today to control Ebola than it was a few weeks ago," UN Ebola mission chief Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed said at a press conference in the capital Freetown Friday, on his first visit to the west African countries ravaged by the outbreak.

"From everything I've seen so far, I am optimistic that Sierra Leone can get by," he said, though he warned it would require "considerable effort by all".

WHO deputy head Bruce Aylward said it was his fifth trip to the country and that on the previous four it was clear that Sierra Leone could not stop Ebola.

He said there had been a huge change since his last visit, with beds available and burial teams, but stressed the need to use the new resources effectively.

The officials spoke as the government said Pujehun district in the south had become the first in the country to have no new cases registered for 42 days, twice the incubation period of the virus.

The Ebola outbreak in West Africa, the worst since the virus was identified in 1976, has left nearly 8,300 people dead with more than 21,000 cases identified since December of last year, according to WHO figures.

The vast majority of the cases have been confined to Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea.


http://news.yahoo.com/sierra-leone-now-means-control-ebola-epidemic-un-045631031.html (http://news.yahoo.com/sierra-leone-now-means-control-ebola-epidemic-un-045631031.html)

Title: Medical charity MSF opens Ebola clinic for pregnant women
Post by: Buster's Uncle on January 11, 2015, 11:08:02 pm

Medical charity MSF opens Ebola clinic for pregnant women
Reuters
By Umaru Fofana  15 hours ago


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Healthcare workers prepare to disinfect an ambulance transporting a newly admitted Ebola patient at the entrance to the Save the Children Kerry Town Ebola treatment centre outside Freetown, Sierra Leone, December 22, 2014. REUTERS/Baz Ratner



FREETOWN (Reuters) - Medical charity Medicins Sans Frontiers (MSF) has opened the first care centre in the current Ebola epidemic for pregnant women, whose survival rate from the virus is virtually zero, the charity said on Saturday.

There is currently one patient in the clinic, which is perched on a hill in the compound of a disused Methodist boys high school in the Sierra Leone capital.

More than 20,700 people have been infected with the virus in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia since it began a year ago and at least 8,200 people have died, according to World Health Organization figures.

The rate of transmission has slowed in Guinea and Liberia and there are signs it is starting to ebb in Sierra Leone.

Women are particularly vulnerable to a disease spread through direct contact with infected people and with the corpses of victims, because women often care for sick family members, said MSF Field Coordinator, Esperanza Santos.

"Pregnant women (with Ebola) are a high risk group so they have less chance than...than the rest of the population," she told Reuters. The charity has played a leading roll in the fight against the virus.

Medical authorities say it is unclear why the survival rate for pregnant women is lower than for other patients but early testing and rapid treatment will help lower mortality rates.

Ramatu Samura's story illustrates issues facing pregnant women. The 16-year-old miscarried when she first contracted Ebola, but has recovered after treatment at MSF's Kingtom Care Unit maternity ward in northwest Freetown.

Survivors cannot contract the same strain of the virus and Samura is now at looking after her baby niece and the baby's mother, both of whom are being treated for the virus.

Samura said she bled for two hours and miscarried when she arrived at the care unit. She only knew she was pregnant after she miscarried and survived partly because the pregnancy was at an early stage, hospital sources said.

Sierra Leone's first confirmed Ebola case was last May 24 when a pregnant woman was brought to the public hospital in the eastern town of Kenema from the border district of Kailahun. She miscarried and died, infecting her nurses.


http://news.yahoo.com/medical-charity-msf-opens-ebola-clinic-pregnant-women-074128121.html (http://news.yahoo.com/medical-charity-msf-opens-ebola-clinic-pregnant-women-074128121.html)