Ebola news 8/30

[Buster's Uncle]

Ebola takes big toll on already poor health care
Associated Press
By MICHAEL DUFF and SARAH DiLORENZO  4 hours ago



The number of people affected by the Ebola virus could rise to 20,000 within nine months, the World Health Organization said Thursday. Photo: Getty Images



FREETOWN, Sierra Leone (AP) — When the dreaded Ebola virus began infecting people in the Sierra Leone town of Kenema, Dr. Sheik Humarr Khan and his team were on the front lines. After stepping out of his protective suit following hours on a sweltering ward, he would jump on the phone to coordinate with the Ministry of Health, to deal with personnel issues and tend to hospital business.

He was jovial but forceful. When he walked into a room everyone looked to him for direction and he gave it decisively, said Daniel Bausch, an American doctor who worked with Khan.

But then Khan tested positive for Ebola at the end of July and died soon after. He is one of at least two leading doctors in Sierra Leone who have died in the outbreak, which has also hit Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Senegal. The World Health Organization says it has sickened a higher proportion of medical staff than any other on record, with 240 contracting Ebola and more than half of them dying.

The toll on health workers was felt immediately by grieving and frightened colleagues and by patients who had fewer people to attend to them, and it will likely set back health care systems — poorly equipped amid rampant poverty to begin with — for years to come.

"These are people who were the backbone" of efforts to improve struggling health systems, said Bausch, a professor of tropical medicine at Tulane University. Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone "are trying to dig themselves out of years of stalled or retrograde development and making some progress. This is setting them back immeasurably."

Khan had been an expert in Lassa, which like Ebola is a hemorrhagic fever, meaning he brought tremendous expertise to the current outbreak. He was also key to improving Sierra Leone's health system in general. The region's weak health system infrastructure, along with poverty, helped fuel Ebola's spread.



In this photo taken on Friday, Aug. 29, 2014, a health worker measures a patient's temperature at the Connaught Hospital, which has suffered the loss of medical workers in the past from the Ebola virus, in Freetown, Sierra Leone. Dr. Sheik Humarr Khan was one of those on the front lines of the Ebola outbreak. The tireless Khan was jovial but forceful, doling out praise and criticism to junior doctors at his hospital. But Khan became infected and died, and so have at least 120 other medical workers in Sierra Leone and in three other countries, creating immediate and long-term impacts in a region that already had an understaffed and under equipped health care system. (AP Photo/ Michael Duff)


Modupeh Cole, a top physician at Connaught Hospital in Sierra Leone's capital, Freetown, also died of Ebola. He was one of only three senior doctors who supervised junior doctors at the hospital, said Dr. Oliver Johnson, a British doctor who has worked there for two years as part of the King's Partnership Sierra Leone. Cole's death will hobble the hospital and might render it unable to offer post-graduate specialist training, Johnson said.

The loss of senior doctors makes a huge impact because there are so few of them. Liberia has only one doctor for every 100,000 people, while Sierra Leone has two, according to World Health Organization statistics. In comparison, the U.S. has 245 doctors for every 100,000 people.

Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone are some of the world's poorest countries and have histories of coups or civil war. Many of their brightest citizens, including medical professionals, had abandoned their countries and governments struggled to provide even the most basic services.

Even before the outbreak, it was common for family members of patients in a Sierra Leonean hospital to be asked to supply basic equipment themselves, popping out to a pharmacy to buy gloves for the doctors, syringes and over-the-counter pain-killers.

In Liberia, the government-run hospital in most counties is lucky to have one surgeon, on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week, according to Dr. Frank Glover, an American medical missionary who has worked extensively in Liberia and who founded SHIELD in Africa, which is dedicated to improving health care. Most county hospitals do not have ambulances, X-ray machines or a lab to do blood work, he said.



This photo taken on Thursday, Aug. 28, 2014 shows the outside view of the entrance of the Connaught Hospital, which has suffered the loss of medical workers in the past from the Ebola virus, in Freetown, Sierra Leone. Dr. Sheik Humarr Khan was one of those on the front lines of the Ebola outbreak. The tireless Khan was jovial but forceful, doling out praise and criticism to junior doctors at his hospital. But Khan became infected and died, and so have at least 120 other medical workers in Sierra Leone and in three other countries, creating immediate and long-term impacts in a region that already had an understaffed and under equipped health care system. (AP Photo/ Michael Duff)


Since the outbreak, many hospitals and clinics in Freetown and Liberia's capital of Monrovia that are not involved in Ebola care have closed, as staff and patients fled out of fear they would get the virus. Liberia and Sierra Leone have seen health workers walk off the job to demand hazard pay and safer working conditions. That means malaria, typhoid and cholera cases are going untreated — a situation Doctors Without Borders called "an emergency within the emergency."

Bausch recently found himself on an Ebola ward in Sierra Leone with only one other doctor and 55 patients because the nurses were all on strike.

"When we went in that day, it was a very emotional experience to try to meet the needs of so many people," he said. "There's people saying, you know, 'Doctor, I'm hungry, I don't have food,' or, 'I'm thirsty, I don't have water.'"

Bausch believes he was working with Khan around the time that the Sierra Leonean doctor became infected — and for Bausch there was no "aha moment." The mistake can be so small, no one sees or remembers it.

Bausch said the single most important thing the outbreak needs is more people — and not necessarily experts but people to clean wards and do laundry and help medical staff ensure they're using their protective gear properly. That's the best way to ensure patients are being taken care of and that health workers aren't becoming so exhausted that they're making the kinds of mistakes that can lead to infection.
___

DiLorenzo reported from Dakar, Senegal.


http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-takes-big-toll-already-poor-health-care-151913199.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Health workers strike at Sierra Leone Ebola hospital
Reuters
23 minutes ago



FREETOWN (Reuters) - Health workers have gone on strike at a major state-run Ebola treatment center in Sierra Leone, over pay and poor working conditions, hospital staff told Reuters on Saturday.

Sierra Leone's government is struggling to cope with the worst Ebola outbreak in history, that has killed more than 1,550 people across West Africa, with the rate of infection still rising.

"The workers decided to stop working because we have not been paid our allowances and we lack some tools," said Ishmael Mehemoh, chief supervisor at the clinic in the city of Kenema, in the country's east.

Clothing to protect health workers being infected is inadequate and there is only one broken stretcher which is used to carry both patients and corpses, Mehemoh added.

More than 20 health workers have already died from Ebola at the Kenema health clinic after catching the highly contagious virus from the patients they are fighting to save.

Sierra Leone's new health minister, Abubakarr Fofana, who took over on Friday after his predecessor was sacked, said on Saturday that a doctor from the Kenema facility had died.

(Reporting by Umaru Fofana; Writing by Emma Farge; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)


http://news.yahoo.com/health-workers-strike-sierra-leone-ebola-hospital-191708194.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Morocco keeps flying to Ebola-hit states in 'solidarity'
AFP
By Guillaume Klein  8 hours ago



File picture shows the tailfin of a Royal Air Maroc plane after arriving in Casablanca from Bordeaux in France on June 25, 2004 (AFP Photo/)



Rabat (AFP) - Morocco, the last country to maintain regular scheduled flights to Ebola-hit nations after Air France halted departures, is carrying on through "solidarity", an airline official has said.

In a bid to stop the spread of the virus that has killed more than 1,500 people across West Africa, many African governments have sought to ring-fence Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia.

On Friday, Senegal became the fifth country in the region to be affected, confirming its first case of the deadly virus for which there is currently no cure. Nigeria is the other.

This week, after Air France announced it would stop flying to Sierra Leone's capital Freetown, the World Health Organization (WHO) said it was "absolutely vital" that airlines resume flights because bans were hindering the emergency response.

The French carrier's move followed a similar decision by British Airways which said it was stopping its flights to Freetown and Monrovia, the capital of Liberia, until next year.

Royal Air Maroc is keeping up its regular dozen flights a week to the three worst hit countries after the death toll from the world's worst Ebola outbreak reached 1,552 this week.

Brussels Airlines currently offers an irregular schedule.



Senegal's health minister Awa Marie Coll-Seck gives a press conference on August 29, 2014 in Dakar to confirm the first case of Ebola in the country (AFP Photo/Seyllou)


"This step is through solidarity and is not commercial, reflecting the kingdom's constant commitment to Africa," RAM spokesman Hakim Challot told AFP.


- Profitless flights -

There is no profit currently in the flights, with departures from Casablanca, Morocco's commercial centre, no more than 10 percent full, he told AFP.

The Rabat government, while ensuring all health precautions are taken, aims to promote its standing with "brother countries", official TAP news agency reported.

On Thursday, WHO emergency chief Bruce Aylward call for airlines to resume their flights to the Ebola-stricken nations.

"Right now there is a super risk of the response effort being choked off because we simply cannot get enough seats on enough airplanes to get people in and out, and get goods and supplies in," he said.

"We assume that the current restrictions on airlines will stop within the next couple of weeks. This is absolutely vital," he added.

The UN envoy on Ebola David Nabarro also criticised airlines for scrapping flights, warning that the Ebola-hit countries faced increased isolation.

Morocco's "solidarity" isn't restricted to the continuing flights.

It is due to host the African Cup of Nations in January and has agreed to stage a qualifying match on September 5 between Guinea and Togo, switched because of the Ebola outbreak.

This goodwill comes a few months after Morocco launched a "new migration policy" partly aimed at responding to allegations of bad treatment of clandestine African residents.

King Mohammed visited Mali, Ivory Coast, Guinea and Gabon during a tour in February and March.

He has signed many economic and political agreements with these countries.


http://news.yahoo.com/morocco-keeps-flying-ebola-hit-states-solidarity-114520016.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Liberia adds new Ebola centers as tries to contain virus outbreak
Reuters
By Misha Hussain  7 hours ago



The neighborhood of West Point, in Liberia's capital of Monrovia, is an Ebola epicenter. But few there are taking precautions against the disease, and the country's health system is too overwhelmed to handle the outbreak.



DAKAR (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Liberia is building five new Ebola treatment centers each with capacity for 100 beds as it struggles to contain the spread of world’s biggest outbreak of the deadly disease, government and health officials said on Saturday.

The hemorrhagic fever has killed more than 1,500 people and infected over 3,000 in Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Nigeria and Senegal since March and there is currently no widely available vaccine or cure but early treatment can save lives.

World Health Organisation (WHO) spokesman Francis Kasolo said Liberia was the worst hit country in west Africa, with nearly 700 deaths among about 1,500 cases, and increasing the number of beds in coming weeks would ease the pressure in the country's congested hospitals.

Ebola, which is passed between humans by contact with infected tissues and fluids, has put severe strain on west African health systems, which were already weak due to poverty, corruption and years of civil war.

"The idea is to create five different treatment centers that can accommodate up to 100 beds each. The centers will be based in regions that show the most need but Monrovia will have its fair share," Kasolo, coordinator of the WHO Sub-regional Ebola outbreak coordination center, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.



Health workers wearing protective clothing prepare to carry an abandoned dead body presenting with Ebola symptoms at Duwala market in Monrovia, August 17, 2014. REUTERS/2Tango


Liberia's Minister of Information, Lewis Brown, confirmed plans to boost the number of beds. He was unable to say how many beds Liberia had currently for Ebola patients.

According to government figures, Liberia has around one hospital bed per 1,250 people and just one nurse or midwife per 3,300 people, amongst the lowest in the world. In contrast, the United Kingdom has one nurse or midwife for every 100 people.

The Liberia government has been criticized for a relatively slow response to the outbreak and a lack of access of basic equipment needed by medical staff and authorities are facing an uphill battle to contain the virus.

Earlier in the outbreak, the overcrowded Elwa Hospital in Liberia's capital, Monrovia, turned away some Ebola cases, a scenario exacerbated by the withdrawal of some international staff following the infection of two U.S. health workers.

Jorge Castilla-Echenique, health sector coordinator for the European Commission’s humanitarian arm ECHO, said more beds were critical in Liberia but there was also problems finding staff to run the treatment centers.

"Nobody knows if it will work, but if you don’t build the centers, then it is much more difficult to attract staff," said Castilla-Echenique.

He said Ebola had become a question of international security and the WHO was discussing contingency plans in case the new treatment centers failed to control the spread of the disease, including military intervention by foreign forces.

Castilla-Echenique said there was also discussions about building a 1,000 bed "holding" center, which would require less medical skills and expertise than a treatment center, and could help isolate people while they awaited test results.

Kasolo declined to comment on the possibility of foreign intervention or plans for a holding center but said a "number of models" were being discussed for future action.

(Editing by Belinda Goldsmith)


http://news.yahoo.com/liberia-adds-ebola-centers-tries-contain-virus-outbreak-120948361.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Liberian Ebola survivor praises experimental drug
Associated Press
By JONATHAN PAYE-LAYLEH  4 hours ago



In an important breakthrough in the fight against Ebola, scientists have used an experimental drug to completely cure 18 monkeys infected with the deadly virus. WSJ's Gautam Naik reports. Photo: Getty Images



MONROVIA, Liberia (AP) — A Liberian health worker who recovered from Ebola after receiving an experimental drug urged the manufacturer to speed up its production and send it to Africa, while crowds celebrated in the streets Saturday after authorities reopened a slum that had been barricaded for more than a week to try to contain the disease.

Physician's assistant Kyndy Kobbah was expected to be released from hospital Saturday after she survived Ebola, which has been fatal in more than half the cases sweeping West Africa. Kobbah contracted the disease while working at a government-run hospital north of the capital.

In an interview with The Associated Press before her release, she said when she informed her family that she had been cured, the home exploded with joy "and the house is on fire right now" with celebration.

"I am very fine and all right, glory be to God," she said. "I trusted God that I was going to be healed."

Kobbah urged the manufacturer of the experimental drug known as ZMapp to step up production. The company has said that all its supplies are exhausted and it will take months to make more.

"They need to make more Zmapp and send to us," she said.



A woman, center, reacts as she and others celebrate on the streets outside of West Point, that have been closed in by Liberian security forces to stop all movement the past week in a attempt to control the Ebola outbreak in Monrovia, Liberia, Saturday, Aug. 30, 2014. Liberia says it will open up a slum in its capital where thousands of people were barricaded to contain the spread of Ebola. Information Minister Lewis Brown says lifting the quarantine Saturday morning will not mean there is no Ebola in the West Point Slum. (AP Photo/Abbas Dulleh)


Doctors have said there is no way to know whether ZMapp made a difference or if survivors like Kobbah recovered on their own, as about 45 percent of people infected in this outbreak have. The drug had never been tested in humans before it was given to two Americans who were infected with Ebola in Liberia. They survived Ebola and were released from an Atlanta hospital.

However, a study released online Friday by the journal Nature found that ZMapp healed all 18 monkeys infected with the deadly virus.

Meanwhile, tensions diminished Saturday in the West Point neighborhood of Liberia's capital after authorities lifted a blockade that had sparked unrest. Residents living in the area had feared running out of food and safe water on the peninsula.

Liberia's president had ordered the barricade on Aug. 19 after West Point residents stormed an Ebola health center several days earlier. Residents said they did not want sick people being brought into the community, although those staying at the center were only under observation during a 21-day incubation period.

Amid the melee, some protesters made off with blood-stained mattresses and other materials that could potentially spread the Ebola virus.



People celebrate in a street outside of West Point slum in Monrovia, Liberia, Saturday, Aug. 30, 2014. Crowds cheer and celebrate in the streets after Liberian authorities reopened a slum where tens of thousands of people were barricaded amid the country’s Ebola outbreak. The slum of 50,000 people in Liberia's capital was sealed off more than a week ago, sparking unrest and leaving many without access to food or safe water. (AP Photo/Abbas Dulleh)


Lifting the quarantine Saturday morning doesn't mean there is no Ebola in the West Point slum, said Information Minister Lewis Brown. Authorities, though, are more confident now that they can work with residents to screen for the sick, he said.

"They're comfortable with the way the leadership and the community is working with the health team to make sure that the community remains safe," he said.

Liberia has been the hardest hit of the five countries with Ebola cases in West Africa, reporting at least 694 deaths among 1,378 cases. More than 3,000 cases have been reported across Liberia, Guinea, Sierra Leone and Nigeria, and on Friday Senegal announced its first case.

A student from Guinea who had been missing for several weeks showed up at a hospital in Dakar on Tuesday, seeking treatment but concealing that he had been in contact with other Ebola victims, Health Minister Awa Marie Coll Seck confirmed.

The next day, an epidemiological surveillance team in neighboring Guinea alerted Senegalese authorities that they had lost track of a person they were monitoring three weeks earlier, and that the person may have crossed into Senegal.

The student was tracked down in the Dakar hospital where he was confirmed with Ebola and immediately put into isolation where he is reported to be in satisfactory condition, Seck said. Authorities also sent out a team to disinfect the home where he was staying in Senegal.

___

Associated Press writer Babacar Dione in Dakar, Senegal contributed to this report.


http://news.yahoo.com/liberia-reopens-slum-barricaded-due-ebola-085402168.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Experimental Ebola drug ZMapp cures 100 percent of lab monkeys
Reuters
By Sharon Begley  14 hours ago



NEW YORK (Reuters) - The experimental Ebola drug ZMapp cured all 18 of the lab monkeys infected with the deadly virus, including those suffering the fever and hemorrhaging characteristic of the disease and just hours from death, scientists reported on Friday.

Even monkeys not treated until five days after infection survived. No other experimental Ebola therapy has ever shown success in primates when given that long after infection; the five days is analogous to nine to 11 days after infection in people.

Although two American aid workers who contracted Ebola in Liberia were cured after receiving ZMapp, their physicians do not know if the drug helped. A Liberian doctor with the disease died this week despite being given the drug, as did a Spanish priest.

ZMapp, produced by San Diego-based Mapp Biopharmaceutical, has never been scientifically tested in people, and the current study was the first in primates. The success is therefore a "monumental achievement," virologist Thomas Geisbert of the University of Texas Medical Branch wrote in a commentary on the paper, published online in Nature.

There are no approved Ebola vaccines or treatments, but human safety trials will begin next week on a vaccine from GlaxoSmithKline Plc and this autumn on one from NewLink Genetics Corp.



Doctors work in a Biosafety Level III laboratory at the National Institute of Health in Lima, August 12, 2014. REUTERS/ Mariana Bazo


The Ebola outbreak in West Africa has killed 1,552 people out of 3,069 confirmed cases, the World Health Organization said, and is on pace to infect 20,000. Neither governments nor private medical groups have been able to contain the outbreak, which WHO said will almost certainly continue into 2015.

ZMapp is a mix of three antibodies that bind to proteins on Ebola viruses and trigger the immune system to destroy them. Mapp had previously developed two different cocktails of antibodies, but they protected only 43 percent of monkeys when given as late as five days after infection.

For the current study, scientists led by Gary Kobinger of the Public Health Agency of Canada set out to identify the optimal mix of antibodies from the earlier cocktails. His team tested the antibodies in guinea pigs one at a time and in various combinations, identifying the two best performers last December.

The two graduated to tests in 12 rhesus monkeys. This spring the winner of that face-off, ZMapp, was given to another 18 infected monkeys - three doses at three-day intervals starting three, four or five days after infection.

All three untreated monkeys, in contrast, died of Ebola by day eight. With ZMapp, even advanced symptoms such as rashes, liver dysfunction and hemorrhaging disappeared, a result Kobinger called "beyond my own expectations."

"This is an extremely encouraging result," said David Evans, professor of virology at England's University of Warwick, who was not involved in the study.

The success suggests that ZMapp "offers the best option" for treating Ebola, Kobinger's team wrote, and should be tested for safety in people to enable its compassionate use "as soon as possible."

The Ebola strain in the study is the Kikwit variant, not the Guinea strain responsible for the current outbreak. ZMapp inhibited replication of the Guinea strain in lab dishes, however, suggesting it might be broadly effective.

Mapp has no more doses of ZMapp, which is produced in the leaves of tobacco plants at Kentucky BioProcessing, a unit of Reynolds American Inc. Greenhouses there began making more ZMapp "a couple of weeks ago, but the process takes time," said Reynolds spokeswoman Maura Payne.

It aims to produce enough for tests necessary to seek regulatory approval of ZMapp, she said, "and we plan to begin that testing protocol by year-end."


http://news.yahoo.com/experimental-ebola-drug-zmapp-cures-100-percent-lab-084239771.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Ebola outbreak reaches Senegal, riots break out in Guinea
Reuters
By Diadie Ba and Saliou Samb  15 hours ago



A U.N. convoy of soldiers passes a screen displaying a message on Ebola on a street in Abidjan August 14, 2014. REUTERS/Luc Gnago



DAKAR/CONAKRY (Reuters) - The West African state of Senegal became the fifth country to be hit by the world's worst Ebola outbreak on Friday, while riots broke out in neighbouring Guinea's remote southeast where infection rates are rising fast.

In the latest sign that the outbreak of the virus, which has already killed at least 1,550 people, is spinning out of control, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said that Ebola cases rose last week at the fastest pace since the epidemic began in West Africa in March.

The epidemic has defied efforts by governments to control it, prompting the leading charity fighting the outbreak, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), to call for the U.N. Security Council to take charge of efforts to stop it.

Including the fatalities, more than 3,000 have been infected since the virus was detected in the remote jungles of southeastern Guinea in March and quickly spread across the border to Liberia and Sierra Leone. It has also touched Nigeria, where six people have died.

Sierra Leone's President Ernest Bai Koroma dismissed his Health Minister Miatta Kargbo on Friday over her handling of the epidemic, which has killed more than 400 people in the former British colony.

Liberia's Information Minister Lewis Brown said that two African healthcare workers treated with the experimental ZMapp Ebola drug would be released from hospital on Saturday, after making a full recovery.

Scientists on Friday also reported that ZMapp, the drug that last week cured two American aid workers who contracted the disease in Liberia, had cured all 18 lab monkeys infected with the virus in laboratory tests.

Senegal's first case is a student from Guinea.

Senegalese Health Minister Awa Marie Coll Seck said the man turned up for treatment at a hospital in the capital Dakar on Tuesday, concealing the fact that he had had close contact with victims in his home country.

"We are tracing his whole itinerary and also identifying anyone who had contact with the patient, who now that he has been diagnosed is much more cooperative and supplied all the necessary information," the minister said.

A Health Ministry official, who asked not to be named, said that the 21-year-old crossed into Senegal via its southern border with Guinea and had been living in the densely populated Dakar suburb of Parcelles Assainies for weeks. He added that the man appeared to have a good chance of recovering.

The man had been under surveillance by health authorities in Guinea because of his contact with Ebola victims but escaped to Senegal, Seck said.

Residents in Dakar reacted with anger and concern. "When you are sick, why do you leave your own country to export the disease to another?" asked radio host Taib Soce on RFM, a popular station owned by Senegalese music star Youssou N'dour.

In an attempt to prevent the spread of the virus, Senegal last week banned flights to and from three of the affected countries and shut its land border with Guinea.

The country, a regional hub for U.N. agencies and aid groups, has also refused to give clearance for U.N. aid flights to Ebola-hit countries in a move that humanitarian workers say is hampering their ability to respond to the epidemic.


CATASTROPHE WARNING

The director of the United States Centers for Disease Control (CDC) warned on Friday of a "catastrophe" if emergency action were not taken immediately to reverse the trend of rising cases.

"There is time to avoid a catastrophe but only if immediate and urgent action is taken at every level," Tom Frieden said in the Sierra Leone capital Freetown.

The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday that the actual number of Ebola cases could be up to four times higher than reported and said 20,000 people in total could be infected before the outbreak ends.

In the remote southeastern Guinean city of Nzerekore, riots broke out on Thursday night over rumours that health workers had infected people with Ebola, a Red Cross official and residents said.

The government of Guinea says it has the epidemic under control, but the number of cases has flared up in southern Guinea, a trend the government blames on people spilling over the borders from Liberia and Sierra Leone.

A crowd of young men, some armed with clubs and knives, set up barricades across Nzerekore on Thursday and threatened to attack the hospital before security forces moved in to restore order. Gunshots were fired and several people were injured, said Youssouf Traore, president of the Guinean Red Cross.

"A rumour, which was totally false, spread that we had sprayed the market in order to transmit the virus to locals," Traore said. "People revolted and resorted to violence, prompting soldiers to intervene."

Local Red Cross workers had to flee to the military camp with their medical equipment. Another resident said the security forces were preventing people leaving their neighbourhoods overnight. More than 400 people have died in Guinea, though the infection rate is slower than in Liberia and Sierra Leone.


FINANCIAL SUPPORT

The Liberian government said it would end its quarantine of the oceanfront West Point neighbourhood of its capital Monrovia at 0600 GMT on Saturday after residents there cooperated with authorities in putting in place health checks and public education about the disease.

Soldiers opened fire on angry West Point residents last week when the quarantine was imposed, following an attack days before on a holding centre for Ebola victims in the teeming district.

The WHO, on Thursday, unveiled a $490 million road map to bring the outbreak under control over the next nine months.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has said it may give more support to affected countries. "We're working on a financing package subject to the approval of the IMF Executive Board to help Liberia along with Guinea and Sierra Leone mitigate any socio-economic impacts of the epidemic," IMF Liberia representative Charles Amo-Yartey said on Friday.

In Freetown, a new WHO-backed mobile laboratory opened this week, speeding up the time needed to test suspected cases.

But often financial pledges have not translated into more clinics and staff on the ground, said Jorge Castilla, epidemiologist with the European Commission's Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection Department.

"I've seen many declarations, I see treatment centres on the maps but I know they are not working," he said in an interview after a trip to the affected countries.

Suspicion of healthcare workers has dogged government responses to the Ebola outbreak across West Africa.

Frightened by the sight of healthcare workers clad from head to toe in plastic protective gear and wearing protective masks, many locals have shunned their assistance, often preferring to die in their own homes.

So far, more than 120 healthcare workers have died in the epidemic. Liberia reported five new cases of infection among them in a single day this week.


http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-outbreak-reaches-senegal-riots-break-guinea-074645123.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Liberia's international airport battles to contain Ebola
AFP
By Zoom Dosso  8 hours ago



Elaborate precautionary arrangements have been put in place at the Mumbai Airport to screen the 112 stranded Indians expected to arrive on Tuesday (August 26)by various flights from and around the Ebola-hit Liberia. Passengers with symptoms of the deadly disease will directly shifted to designated hospital in ambulance.



ROBERTS INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT (Liberia) (AFP) - With the last rays of sunlight speckling the departures area at Liberia's international airport, passengers queue patiently to go through medical screening designed to show up the Ebola virus.

Roberts International Airport, a former United States Air Force base built 55 kilometres (35 miles) outside of the capital Monrovia during World War II, is at the front line of a new battle -- to halt the spread of the most deadly outbreak of the tropical fever in history.

"We put so many processes in place that... focus on the safety of the airline, safety of the crew, safety of the passengers, and most importantly to boost the confidence of those who use our airport," says Binyah Kessely, director of the board at the Liberia Airport Authority.

Kessely's job -- once simply to ensure the smooth running of the airport -- is now to help contain an epidemic that has killed more than 1,500 people across west Africa this year.

He is frustrated by travel bans imposed by several African nations which global health authorities say is hampering the response to the outbreak, but he says he understands people's worry.

"When you have a situation like the Ebola disease, not many people understand. From what I understand the Ebola disease has a death rate from 50 to 90 percent," he said.



Health agents check a passenger preparing to leave Liberia at the Roberts International Airport near Monrovia on August 27, 2014 (AFP Photo/Zoom Dosso)


"That, as a human being, will create fear in any one."


- 'Sawyer created this nightmare' -

Kessely says eight of the 11 international airlines serving the airport have suspended their flights.

The decision was triggered, he believes, by African countries neighbouring the Ebola zone, such as Ivory Coast and Senegal, to put travel ban on Liberia.

The first confirmed case of the deadly virus was reported in Senegal on Friday -- the first time a new country has been hit by the outbreak since July, a day after the World Health Organization warned the number of infections was increasing rapidly.



Passengers queue for flights out of Liberia at the Roberts International Airport near Monrovia on August 27, 2014 (AFP Photo/Zoom Dosso)


Kessely blames Liberian-American Patrick Sawyer, who brought the virus to Nigeria and who died in a Lagos hospital on July 25.

"One of those airlines that suspended their flights is the one that carried the late Patrick Sawyer, who was the individual that created this nightmare for us in the region and globally to be quite frank," he says.

"The airlines that suspended their flights did it not because of a lack of measures at the airport but because of fear of the spread... due to the rampant nature of the disease."

In an effort to regain the confidence of Liberia's neighbours and countries further afield, the airport authority has stepped up screening.

Every passenger is now checked by a team of nurses at the departure and arrival gates.



A passenger washes his hands in chlorinated water at the Roberts International Airport near Monrovia on August 27, 2014 (AFP Photo/Zoom Dosso)


"As passengers come in, we give them their forms. Each passenger fills in their own form, we take their temperature, they wash their hands and they go in," nurse Gloria Nelson tells AFP.

"When your temperature is high, we take you to the secondary area for questioning that will enable us to determine the next step."


- Travel bans 'un-African' -

Passengers leaving Liberia are largely stoical about the new regulations, accepting that it is better to go through screening than to risk exporting Ebola.

"I think it is just good to take these security measures so that everyone can feel safe while travelling," said passenger Catherine Bajar.

"It is a good thing to do and I don’t feel embarrassed about going through this as long as the thermometers are reading properly."

Musa Bility, the president of the Liberian Football Association, who told AFP he was leaving the country on official business, said the travel ban imposed by some African countries showed a lack of solidarity.

"It is shocking for African countries to have travel bans on Liberia. It is un-African. In Africa we open our doors to one another. Liberia opened the doors to these countries when they were being colonised.

"While we are fighting Ebola they are closing their doors on us, it means we have to revisit our relationship. It is embarrassing," he told AFP.

The sentiment has been echoed by the Liberian government, which admitted on Friday that flight cancellations had become a "serious concern".

"Partners of the government, our national and international economic actors, are finding it difficult to leave or come to Liberia as most of the airlines have been for more than two weeks now, cancelling their flights," information minister Lewis Brown said on public radio on Friday.

"We are being strangulated."


http://news.yahoo.com/liberias-international-airport-battles-contain-ebola-145033834.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Ebola hits fifth W. African state as Senegal confirms first case
AFP
By Malick Ba  15 hours ago



Senegal confirmed its first case of Ebola on Friday, as the country's health minister announced that a young Guinean had tested positive for the deadly virus. Senegalese health minister Awa Marie Coll-Seck said Guinean health services had reported on Wednesday "the disappearance of a person infected with Ebola who reportedly travelled to Senegal". She said the infected patient was a young Guinean man who was immediately quarantined at a Dakar hospital, where he was in a "satisfactory condition".



Dakar (AFP) - The Ebola epidemic that has killed more than 1,500 people across West Africa spread to a fifth country in the region on Friday with the first confirmed case of the deadly virus in Senegal.

The case marks the first time a new country has been hit by the outbreak since July and comes a day after the World Health Organization warned the number of infections was increasing rapidly.

Scientists meanwhile said the first human trials of a potential vaccine would start next week using a product made by pharmaceuticals giant GlaxoSmithKline and the US government.

On Friday, scientists writing in the journal Nature said 18 lab monkeys given high doses of the Ebola virus fully recovered after being given the prototype drug ZMapp, which reversed bleeding in the animals.

ZMapp has been given to a handful of frontline health workers who have contracted Ebola, two of whom have recovered, and two of whom have died. Three others are still receiving the treatment.

Senegal's health ministry said the country's first Ebola patient was a young Guinean man who was immediately quarantined at a Dakar hospital, where he was in a "satisfactory condition".

The man is believed to have been infected in Guinea's capital Conakry, and may have travelled to Senegal before Dakar closed its land border with Guinea on August 21.

Authorities are now scrabbling to piece together where he went and who he encountered, in a bid to halt the spread of the deadly virus.

New figures released by the WHO on Thursday revealed the massive scale of the crisis, which it said indicated a "rapid increase still in the intensity of transmission" that could cost at least $490 million (370 million euros) to tackle.



In this undated file photo provided by Kentucky BioProcessing, tobacco plants are grown in a controlled environment at the Kentucky BioProcessing facility in Owensboro, Ky. The company is using tobacco plants grown at this facility to help manufacture an experimental drug to treat patients infected with Ebola. In the case of the Americans being treated for Ebola, the treatment uses proteins called antibodies to inactivate the Ebola virus and help the body kill infected cells. (AP Photo/Kentucky BioProcessing, File)


In a sign that affected countries are struggling to stop its spread, the UN agency said the number of cases could exceed 20,000 before the epidemic is brought under control.


- Under surveillance -

Never before has there been an Ebola outbreak so large, nor has the virus -- which was first detected in 1976 -- ever infected people in West Africa until now.

As of August 26, 1,552 people had been confirmed dead from Ebola in four countries -- Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea and Nigeria.

Liberia was the worst affected with 694 deaths; 422 people have died in Sierra Leone; and 430 in Guinea, where the virus emerged at the start of the year. Nigeria has now recorded six deaths.

The Democratic Republic of Congo has also confirmed two cases of Ebola, but officials there insist it is unconnected to the current outbreak in West Africa.



Health workers disinfect the walls at the Pita hospital in Guinea on August 25, 2014 (AFP Photo/Cellou Binani)


Sierra Leone President Ernest Koroma on Friday sacked health minister Miatta Kargbo.

A presidential statement read on state television said the decision was made "in order to create a conducive environment for more efficient and effective handling of the Ebola outbreak."

Nigeria's latest death -- in the southeastern oil city of Port Harcourt -- was the first outside its biggest city, Lagos, and dashed hopes that the country had successfully contained the virus.

The victim, a doctor named Ikyke Samuel Enuemo, is believed to have caught the virus from a patient he treated who travelled to the city after coming into contact with an infected Liberian-American man.

Some 160 people are now under surveillance in Port Harcourt following the doctor's death, the local government said on Friday.

Meanwhile a curfew was imposed in N'Zerekore, Guinea's second-largest city, a day after 20 people were injured during a protest by market stall holders against a team of health workers sent, without notice, to spray their market with disinfectant.


- A shield around the region -

In a bid to stop the spread of the virus, many African governments have sought to ringfence Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia.

But member states of the West African regional bloc ECOWAS complained Thursday that some of the security measures taken by other countries, including travel bans, had unfairly hit the region.

A number of airlines, including Air France and British Airways, have suspended their services to Freetown and Monrovia, the capitals of Sierra Leone and Liberia respectively.

Bruce Aylward, the WHO's head of emergency programmes, said it was "absolutely vital" that airlines resume flights because bans were hindering the emergency response.

The outbreak has also caused sporting chaos, with Sierra Leone having to field all players for the qualifying games for the African Cup of Nations from outside the country over a growing quarantine.

Morocco, which will host the tournament next year, said on Friday it was launching a national commission tasked with drawing up a health plan to deal with the risk from Ebola.


http://news.yahoo.com/senegal-reports-first-case-ebola-health-ministry-130949860.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Ebola-hit Liberia bans sailors from disembarking
AFP
3 hours ago



Monrovia (AFP) - Liberia on Saturday said it would deny permission for any crew to disembark from ships at the country's four seaports until the Ebola epidemic ravaging west Africa was under control.

Sailors on commercial ships can normally ask for a "shore pass" allowing them to get off the vessel and access the port, but the documents are being withdrawn to curb the spread of the virus, said Matilda Parker, head of Liberia's ports authority.

"For vessels coming in we have cancelled shore passes. Absolutely no one from on board vessels will be allowed down," she told AFP.

The country's four seaports, including the Freeport of Monrovia, would adopt a "zero tolerance" approach, Parker said, against an outbreak which has claimed 1,500 lives since the start of the year.

Liberia, the hardest-hit of five west African nations struggling with the epidemic, has seen almost 700 deaths.

"For the workers who are going onboard vessels, they are going through three layers of screening at the gate, at the security desk and also at the peer. They have been instructed not to get in contact with anybody on board," Parker added.

Parker, a US-educated private sector management specialist, was taken on in 2009 to become what remains the world's only female port authority head, charged with turning around the fortunes of the underperforming, inefficient Freeport of Monrovia.

The port is run by APM Terminals, which operates in 63 countries, as part of a deal committing the company to a $145 million investment including a 600-metre wharf and state-of-the-art container tracking technology.

The port -- known as the "gateway to Liberia's economy" -- handles the majority of imports in an economy which has to buy in almost all commodities, meaning the price of fuel, machinery, manufactured goods and food rely heavily on its smooth running.

ArcelorMittal, the world’s biggest steel producer and the first investor to enter post-war Liberia in 2005, has ploughed an estimated $75 million in Buchanan, the country's second-largest port.


http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-hit-liberia-bans-sailors-disembarking-110948911.html