Ebola news 9/8

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Ebola map shows people in more African regions risk infection from animals
Reuters
By Kate Kelland  15 minutes ago



Boys stand next to a poster, pertaining to the Ebola virus, during a training session by Sierra Leone's national soccer team at the Felix Houphouet Boigny stadium in Abidjan, September 5, 2014. REUTERS/Luc Gnago



LONDON, Sept 8 (Reuters) - Scientists have created a new map of places most at risk of an Ebola outbreak and say regions likely to be home to animals harbouring the virus are more widespread than previously feared, particularly in West Africa.

Understanding better where people come into contact with Ebola-infected animals - for example through hunting or eating bush meat - and how to stop them contracting the deadly disease, is crucial to preventing future outbreaks, the researchers said.

The Ebola virus, which can have a human mortality rate of up to 90 percent, is thought to be carried by bats or other wild animals and believed to cross into humans through contact with blood, meat or other infected fluids.

These jumps by viruses from animals to humans are known as "zoonotic events" and were the cause of major human disease outbreaks such as HIV and the H1N1 swine flu pandemic.

The new map, published on Monday as the death toll in the West Africa Ebola outbreak, the world's largest, stood at almost 2,100, found that large swathes of central Africa as well as the western part of the continent have traits of what the scientists called "the zoonotic niche" for Ebola.

To see the map, go to https://www.dropbox.com/sh/h2dr8aj2b8gsnj9/AAAAUxXvOFFDGQhCdrAcxW-ya?dl=0

Nick Golding, an Oxford University researcher who worked on the international mapping team, said it found significantly more regions at risk from Ebola than previously feared.

"Up until now there hadn't been a huge amount of research, but there was one paper in which the at-risk area was much smaller," he said in a telephone interview. "It didn't predict, for example, the area in Guinea where this current outbreak first started."

Previous Ebola epidemics have been in central Africa, and a current outbreak in Congo - separate from the one in West Africa - has infected around 30 people in recent weeks.

According to latest data from the World Health Organisation (WHO), almost 2,100 have died from Ebola in the current West Africa outbreak, which has infected at least 4,000 people in Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Nigeria and Senegal. The WHO says it will take months to bring the epidemic under control and is warning there may be up to 20,000 cases before it is stopped.

Golding's study, published in the journal eLife as a collaboration by scientists at Oxford and University of Southampton in Britain, Canada's University of Toronto, and HealthMap at Boston Children's Hospital in the United States, did not seek to map potential human-to-human spread, but focussed on where there is a risk of animals infecting people.

It used data from the current outbreak as well as previously unmapped infections in bats, primates and other animals.

Previous studies have shown that the first patient in an Ebola outbreak is very probably infected through contact with an infected animal. The so-called "index case" in the current Congo outbreak was, according to the WHO, a pregnant woman from Ikanamongo Village who butchered a bush animal that had been killed and given to her by her husband.

While the West Africa epidemic is vast, long-lasting and deadly, the scientists noted that this is almost entirely due to person-to-person spread, and said Ebola outbreaks are still relatively uncommon events.

"Although the disease may be found in animals across a wide area, outbreaks are still very rare; very few animals in this region have detectable infections, and it is extremely rare for humans to catch the disease from them," said David Pigott, one of the lead authors of the study.

To find areas most at risk, the team identified the predicted distribution of bat species suspected of carrying the disease. They also mapped environmental factors to find suitability for Ebola transmission from host animals to people.

These data were combined with detailed data on locations where humans have been infected by wild animals and where infected animals have been identified.

"This work was a first step towards understanding where outbreaks of the disease might occur in the future," Golding said. "To prepare for future outbreaks and to deal with the current one we need to understand how human movements cause the disease to spread once it has entered the human population."

As a next step, the team wants to map the spread of the disease in past and present outbreaks to identify the most likely direction for the current outbreak and help target surveillance efforts, education and medical interventions.

(Reporting by Kate Kelland; Editing by Toby Chopra and Andrew Roche)


http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-map-shows-people-more-african-regions-risk-115859338.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Ebola is surging in places it had been beaten back
Associated Press
By BOUBACAR DIALLO and SARAH DiLORENZO  2 hours ago



In this photo taken on Sunday, Sept. 7, 2014, a health worker, left, uses a thermometer to screen a man at a makeshift road block run by Guinean security forces outside the town of Forecariah, Guinea. Doctors Without Borders shuttered one of its Ebola treatment centers in Guinea in May. They thought the deadly virus was being contained there. The resurgence of the disease in a place where doctors thought they had it beat shows how history's largest Ebola outbreak has spun out of control. (AP Photo/Youssouf Bah)



CONAKRY, Guinea (AP) — Doctors Without Borders shuttered one of its Ebola treatment centers in Guinea in May. They thought the deadly virus was being contained there.

The Macenta region, right on the Liberian border, had been one of the first places where the outbreak surfaced, but they hadn't seen a new case for weeks. So they packed up, leaving a handful of staff on stand-by. The outbreak was showing signs of slowing elsewhere as well.

Instead, new cases appeared across the border in Liberia and then spread across West Africa, carried by the sick and dying. Now, months later, Macenta is once again a hotspot.

The resurgence of the disease in a place where doctors thought they had it beat shows how history's largest Ebola outbreak has spun out of control.

It began with people leaving homes in Liberia to seek better care or reunite with families back in Guinea, a pattern repeating itself all over.

"Currently in Guinea, all the new cases, all the new epidemic, are linked to people that are coming back from Liberia or from Sierra Leone," said Marc Poncin, the emergency coordinator for Doctors Without Borders in Guinea.



In this photo taken on Sunday, Sept. 7, 2014, traffic is stopped at a makeshift road block run by Guinean security forces to screen people for symptoms of the Ebola virus outside the town of Forecariah, Guinea. Doctors Without Borders shuttered one of its Ebola treatment centers in Guinea in May. They thought the deadly virus was being contained there. The resurgence of the disease in a place where doctors thought they had it beat shows how history's largest Ebola outbreak has spun out of control. (AP Photo/Youssouf Bah)


The epidemic also has touched Nigeria and Senegal while killing more than 2,000 people across West Africa. Never before has the disease struck such a densely populated region, where so many people are on the move. For four decades, the virus struck in relatively remote areas, where doctors could quickly isolate communities and stop its spread.

In previous outbreaks, a cleared pocket like Macenta would be easy to keep clear.

This time, the virus is traveling effortlessly across borders by plane, car and foot, shifting from forests to cities and springing up in clusters far from any previously known infections. Border closures, flight bans and mass quarantines have been ineffective.

"Everything we do is too small and too late," said Poncin. "We're always running after the epidemic."

Ebola has been able to follow its own course because West Africa lacks the health care workers it needs to monitor potential carriers and train communities in how to avoid catching the disease. People in contact with the sick have evaded surveillance, moving at will and hiding their illnesses until they infect others in turn. Whole villages, stricken by fear, have repeatedly shut themselves off for days or weeks, giving the virus more opportunities to whip around and skip someplace else.



In this photo taken on Saturday, Aug. 30, 2014, Doctor Tom Frieden, left, from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention listens to staff from Doctors Without Borders as they talk about the Ebola virus at one of their care centers in Conakry, Guinea. Doctors Without Borders shuttered one of its Ebola treatment centers in Guinea in May. They thought the deadly virus was being contained there. The resurgence of the disease in a place where doctors thought they had it beat shows how history's largest Ebola outbreak has spun out of control. (AP Photo/ Youssouf Bah)


Dr. Peter Piot, who co-discovered Ebola, said Ebola isn't striking in a "linear fashion" this time. It's hopping around, especially in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone.

"The epidemic is now so vast and so extensive that one should consider that in the three (hardest-hit) countries, everybody is now at risk and it won't be over until the last case has survived and six weeks have passed," said Piot, who runs London's School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

In mid-August, Guinea's health ministry announced 30 new cases in the Macenta region, the first recorded in months. Many were Guinean citizens who had been living in Liberia and were therefore allowed to return through closed border crossings. These returnees infected their families and neighbors, and so now there is active transmission in Macenta, said Michael Kinzer, who has led the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's team in Guinea in recent weeks.

Doctors Without Borders has returned to Macenta as well, opening a transit center more than a week ago at the site of its old clinic where it screens patients. As of the beginning of this month, the Health Ministry said 45 people from Macenta were being treated at an expanded treatment center at Gueckedou. The charity would like to open treatment centers in both towns, but it does not have enough staff.

Authorities are now restricting access to the region's main city, also called Macenta, where fear has again taken hold.



In this photo taken on Wednesday, Sept. 3, 2014, a health worker, left, uses a thermometer on a man outside the Youyi government buildings, part of measures to stem the spread of the Ebola virus, in Freetown, Sierra Leone. Doctors Without Borders shuttered one of its Ebola treatment centers in Guinea in May. They thought the deadly virus was being contained there. The resurgence of the disease in a place where doctors thought they had it beat shows how history's largest Ebola outbreak has spun out of control. (AP Photo/ Michael Duff)


"I have the impression that time has stopped in Macenta, that the city has shrunk," said Siniman Kouroumah, a 42-year-old teacher. "We are afraid to walk the city, to eat anywhere, to drink anywhere."

Poncin said he, too, has felt a shift, but for the better: People in Macenta are now afraid of dead bodies, running away from them rather than scooping them up for traditional burials. Villagers who used to throw stones at the health workers tracing contacts now seek their help.

Communities in many parts of Guinea are Ebola-free now, said Dr. Tom Frieden, the CDC's director, said on a recent visit to Guinea. "The challenge is that the region is really one entity, and it's so important that we get it right in all places."

"This is really the first epidemic of Ebola the world has ever known," Frieden said. "By epidemic what we mean is it's spreading widely through society, but not spreading through new ways according to everything we know. It's spreading from just two roots: people caring for other people in hospitals or homes, and unsafe burial practices where people may come in contact with body fluids of someone who has died from Ebola."

Getting it right in all places requires simultaneously imposing the same three measures anywhere Ebola appears, Poncin said: isolating the sick, tracing and monitoring everyone they have come into contact with, and ensuring infected bodies are buried safely.

Guinea is doing this fairly well, but Sierra Leone isn't doing enough, and Liberia is barely doing any contact-tracing, Poncin said.

That means officials don't know where people are at risk, making it almost impossible to prevent or at least contain new cases. The World Health Organization says it believes that the true spread in hard-hit areas may be two or four times bigger than what's known.

And if Liberia and Sierra Leone aren't keeping up, the public health work in Guinea — and Nigeria and Senegal — is for naught.

"As long there is one case of Ebola virus disease anywhere in the world and people are allowed to travel," Nigeria's health minister, Onyebuchi Chukwu, said recently, "every country in the world remains at risk."

___

DiLorenzo reported from Dakar, Senegal. Associated Press journalists Maria Cheng in London; Youssouf Bah in Conakry, Guinea; and Bashir Adigun in Abuja, Nigeria, contributed to this report.


http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-surging-places-had-beaten-back-090604110.html

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AU warns efforts to stop Ebola are stigmatizing
Associated Press
By ELIAS MESERET and BABACAR DIONE  1 hour ago



In this photo taken on Wednesday, Sept. 3, 2014, a health worker, left, uses a thermometer on a man outside the Youyi government buildings, part of measures to stem the spread of the Ebola virus, in Freetown, Sierra Leone. Doctors Without Borders shuttered one of its Ebola treatment centers in Guinea in May. They thought the deadly virus was being contained there. The resurgence of the disease in a place where doctors thought they had it beat shows how history's largest Ebola outbreak has spun out of control. (AP Photo/ Michael Duff)



ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) — Border closures, flight bans and mass quarantines are creating a sense of siege in the West African countries affected by Ebola, officials at an emergency African Union meeting said Monday, as Senegal agreed to allow humanitarian aid pass through its closed borders.

The largest Ebola outbreak ever has killed more than 2,000 people and public health officials say it is out of control. But they have criticized some of the more extreme efforts to slow the disease's spread, saying that border closures have hampered the response by holding up shipments of aid.

They have also noted that, in a highly mobile region like West Africa with several unofficial border crossings, closing frontiers is usually ineffective. The current Ebola outbreak began in Guinea and quickly spread across the border into Liberia and Sierra Leone. More recently, a sick Liberian-American man flew to Nigeria, infecting several people, and a Guinean student with the disease took a bus to Senegal, the first and only case recorded there.

Ebola is spread through the bodily fluids of people who are symptomatic, so the World Health Organization has urged simple screening of travelers for a fever or other signs of Ebola instead of blanket travel bans.

Many countries in the region have ignored that advice, however. Senegal, for instance, has shut its land border with Guinea and suspended flights from Liberia and Sierra Leone. But the Health Ministry announced Monday that it would open a "humanitarian corridor" to the affected countries. It gave no details, and it was not clear when people and goods would be moved into those three hardest-hit countries.

Humanitarian agencies would like to use the Senegalese capital, Dakar, as a staging ground for sending in health workers and supplies to the most affected countries. To combat the crisis, U.S. President Barack Obama also said Sunday that the American military will be helping set up isolation units and equipment there and providing security for public health workers flocking in from around the world.

"The drive to protect unaffected areas is the proper response, but it must be done in a manner that does not fuel isolation, or lead to the stigmatization of victims, communities and countries," said Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, chair of the African Union Commission, which was meeting Monday in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to draft a response to the crisis. "We must ensure solidarity with those most affected so that we assist their institutions to address their challenge."

The continental bloc has promised to send in badly needed health care workers, but there are concerns about whether there is enough protective gear to keep them safe. Doctors and nurses are at high risk of infection because of their close proximity to the sick and a higher proportion of health workers have become infected in the West African outbreak than in any other previous one. Officials have said that flight bans are making it hard to get the necessary quantity of protective suits into the affected countries.

Some countries have also cordoned off entire towns or counties in an effort to slow the disease's spread, but those measures have kept farmers from their fields, slowed the delivery of food and forced markets to shut. The U.N. has said that around 1.3 million people in those isolated areas will need food assistance in the coming months.

Liberia's vice president visited one of those cordoned-off places this weekend, saying that the disease appeared to have touched nearly everyone in Lofa county.

"Everybody was looking like they'd just passed through some difficulties with bereavement," said Joseph Nyumah Boakai, who is from Lofa. "Some families were wiped out completely."

Boakai said Ebola was able to spread in Lofa so quickly in part because people initially resisted help. That pattern has been repeated throughout the region, where people are unfamiliar with the disease and mistrust in governments tends to run high.

But Boakai said the tide was beginning to turn.

"After all of that, they were now coming to terms with the sickness," he said following his visit. "The reality was hitting them that this thing was real, that it was nothing to play with, they were now observing the rules."

In Nigeria, authorities are monitoring 477 people in the southern oil hub of Port Harcourt who came into contact with infected people.

___

Dione reported from Dakar, Senegal. Associated Press journalists Bashir Adigun in Abuja, Nigeria, and Jonathan Paye-Layleh in Monrovia, Liberia, contributed to this report.


http://news.yahoo.com/au-warns-efforts-stop-ebola-stigmatizing-114434821.html

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No Saudi ban over Ebola for Nigerians going on haj: Arab News
Reuters
3 hours ago



Muslims attend Eid al-Adha prayers in Lagos October 26, 2012. REUTERS/Akintunde Akinleye



DUBAI (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia, which has barred pilgrims from Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea from the haj due to Ebola concerns, will allow Nigerians to attend, an official was reported on Monday as saying, suggesting the smaller outbreak there was less worrying.

Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone have been worst hit by an outbreak of the disease in West Africa, with a combined death toll in those three countries since March of 2,097, as at Sept. 5, the World Health Organization (WHO) says.

A further eight people have died in Nigeria, out of 23 cases, and there has been one confirmed case in Senegal.

There are no approved Ebola vaccines or treatments.

Saudi Arabia said in April it would not issue visas for the 2014 haj to pilgrims from Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea due to the Ebola outbreak in those countries.

Millions travel to Mecca each year for the haj pilgrimage that all Muslims must perform at least once in their lifetime, if they are able. This year's will take place in October.

The Arab News daily quoted Mohammed Al-Khasheem, deputy health minister for planning and development, as saying there was no need to worry about Nigerians coming on pilgrimage.

"We have not stopped issuing haj visas to Nigerians and we know that about 70,000 pilgrims come from the African country every year," he was quoted as saying.

"The WHO knows the situation in Mina and Arafat during the haj season and there is no need to worry about a few Ebola cases that have occurred in Nigeria," he said, referring to holy haj sites in Saudi Arabia.

“We have taken precautionary measures to prevent an Ebola outbreak in the Kingdom during the haj season,” Al-Khasheem said. “We have made early preparations for the annual pilgrimage,” he said. He said the ministry's department for preventive medicine is in constant contact with the WHO on the latest developments on Ebola and other infectious diseases.


http://news.yahoo.com/no-saudi-ban-over-ebola-nigerians-going-haj-120017587.html

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Ebola map shows people in more African regions at risk of animal infection
Reuters
By Kate Kelland, Health and Science Correspondent  3 hours ago



Map showing the range of fruit bats, chimps, and gorillas in Africa, all linked to spreading the Ebola virus in communities that eat them



LONDON, Sept 8 (Reuters)- Scientists have created the newest map of places most at risk of an Ebola outbreak and say regions likely to be home to animals harbouring the virus are more widespread than previously feared, particularly in West Africa.

Understanding better where people come into contact with Ebola-infected animals - for example through hunting or eating bush meat - and how to stop them contracting the deadly disease, is crucial to preventing future outbreaks, the researchers said.

The Ebola virus, which can have a human mortality rate of up to 90 percent, is thought to be carried by bats or other wild animals and believed to cross into humans through contact with blood, meat, or other infected fluids.

These jumps by viruses from animals into humans are known as "zoonotic events" and were also the cause of major human disease outbreaks such as HIV and the H1N1 swine flu pandemic.

The new map, published on Monday as the death toll in the world's largest Ebola outbreak in West Africa's was almost 2,100, found that large swathes of central Africa as well as the western part of the continent, have traits of what the scientists called "the zoonotic niche" for Ebola.

Nick Golding, an Oxford University researcher who worked on the international mapping team, said it found significantly more regions at risk from Ebola than previously feared.

"Up until now there hadn't been a huge amount of research, but there was one paper in which the at-risk area was much smaller," he said in a telephone interview. "It didn't predict, for example, the area in Guinea where this current outbreak first started."

Previous Ebola epidemics have been in central Africa, and a current outbreak in Congo - separate from the one in West Africa - has infected around 30 people in recent weeks.

According to latest data from the World Health Organisation (WHO), almost 2,100 have died from Ebola in the current West Africa outbreak, which has infected at least 4,000 people in Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Nigeria and Senegal. The WHO says it will take months to bring the epidemic under control and has warned there could be a as 20,000 cases before it is stopped.

Golding's study, published in the journal eLife as a collaboration by scientists at Oxford and University of Southampton in Britain, Canada's University of Toronto, and HealthMap at Boston Children's Hospital in the United States, did not seek to map potential human-to-human spread, but focussed on where there is a risk of animals infecting people.

It used data from the current outbreak as well as previously unmapped infections in bats, primates and other animals.

Previous studies have shown that the first patient in an Ebola outbreak is very probably infected through contact with an infected animal. The so-called "index case" in the current Congo outbreak was, according to the WHO, a pregnant woman from Ikanamongo Village who butchered a bush animal that had been killed and given to her by her husband.

While the West Africa epidemic is vast - the world's largest ever - long-lasting and deadly, the scientists noted that this is almost entirely due to person-to-person spread, and said Ebola outbreaks are still relatively uncommon events.

"Although the disease may be found in animals across a wide area, outbreaks are still very rare; very few animals in this region have detectable infections, and it is extremely rare for humans to catch the disease from them," said David Pigott, one of the lead authors of the study.

To find areas most at risk, the team identified the predicted distribution of bat species suspected of carrying the disease. They also mapped environmental factors to find suitability for Ebola transmission from host animals to people.

These data were combined with detailed data on locations where humans have been infected by wild animals and where infected animals have been identified.

"This work was a first step towards understanding where outbreaks of the disease might occur in the future," Golding said. "To prepare for future outbreaks and to deal with the current one we need to understand how human movements cause the disease to spread once it has entered the human population."


http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-map-shows-people-more-african-regions-risk-120120752.html

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Sierra Leone lockdown will not help halt Ebola: MSF
Reuters
By Umaru Fofama and David Lewis  4 hours ago



FREETOWN/DAKAR (Reuters) - Sierra Leone's proposed countrywide "lockdown" will not help control an Ebola outbreak and could lead to the disease spreading further as cases are concealed, medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said on Saturday.

The government will restrict residents to the areas around their homes for three days from Sept. 19 in a bid to halt new infections and help health workers track down people suffering from the disease, the information ministry said on Saturday.

"It has been our experience that lockdowns and quarantines do not help control Ebola as they end up driving people underground and jeopardizing the trust between people and health providers," MSF said.

"This leads to the concealment of potential cases and ends up spreading the disease further," added the group, which has been helping fight the world's biggest outbreak of the disease across West Africa.

An Ebola outbreak that was first identified in Guinea in March has since spread across much of Liberia and Sierra Leone. Cases have also been registered in Nigeria and Senegal and the World Health Organization says more than 2,100 people have died.

More than six months into the crisis, weak government health systems are still failing to get a grip on the disease, one of the deadliest on the planet.

The WHO says it will take $600 million and many months to bring Ebola under control and forecast as many as 20,000 cases.

Sierra Leone's deputy information minister, Theo Nichol, said the three-day shutdown would make it easier for medical workers to trace suspected cases. The period may be extended if needed, he said. A presidency official had earlier said the lockdown would last for four days.

The planned lockdown drew mixed reactions on the streets of Freetown, Sierra Leone's seaside capital. Some welcomed moves to take action but many worried they might run out of supplies if confined to their homes for too long.

"This will affect us greatly because we do not have the means to stock up on food for three days," said Fatmata Koroma, a customer at Freetown's Aberdeen market.


FIND A WAY TO SURVIVE

Information Minister Alpha Kanu told residents to start preparing for the lockdown immediately and said the country's dire situation meant that some rights and liberties had to be sacrificed for the good of the nation.

"We did it during the war....people found a way of surviving," he said.

Although Sierra Leone has recorded significant economic growth in recent years since it started exporting iron ore, the country is still struggling to rebuild after tens of thousands of people died during a conflict during the 1990s.

The Ebola outbreak has swamped hospitals and killed doctors, highlighting how weak its healthcare systems remain.

MSF said door-to-door screening required a high level of expertise and, even when cases were found, there was a lack of treatment centers and other facilities to take them to.

MSF reiterated its calls for nations with civilian and military biological-disaster response capacities to send equipment and teams to West Africa.

"This remains our best hope of bringing this deadly outbreak under control as quickly as possible," it said.

(Additional reporting by Josephus Olu-Mammah in Freetown; Writing by David Lewis; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)


http://news.yahoo.com/sierra-leone-lockdown-not-help-halt-ebola-msf-105416957.html

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African Union meets for Ebola crisis talks
AFP
By Jacey Fortin  4 hours ago



Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, pictured, told an African Union meeting in Addis Ababa on Monday: "Fighting Ebola must be done in a manner that doesn't fuel isolation." Clarice Africa Business Forum on the sideline of the US-Africa Leaders Summit in Washington, DC, on August 5, 2014. US companies are planning $14 billion worth of investments in Africa, a White House official said Tuesday as Washington seeks to strengthen commercial ties during the historic US-Africa Leaders Summit. With the United States seeking to counter the Chinese and European trade dominance in Africa, a White House official said the investments will span a range of industries, including construction, clean energy, banking, information technology, and others. AFP PHOTO/Jewel Samad (AFP Photo/Jewel Samad)



Addis Ababa (AFP) - African Union chiefs held an emergency meeting Monday to hammer out a continent-wide strategy to deal with the Ebola epidemic, which has killed over 2,000 people in west Africa.

"Fighting Ebola must be done in a manner that doesn't fuel isolation or lead to the stigmatisation of victims, communities and countries," AU commission chief Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, speaking at the opening of the meeting.

Dlamini-Zuma told the executive council of the 54-member body, meeting at the bloc's headquarters in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, of the urgent need to "craft a united, comprehensive and collective African response" to the outbreak.

The meeting came as hopes rose of a potential vaccine to provide temporary shield against Ebola.

A novel vaccine tested so far only on monkeys provided "completely short-term and partial long-term protection" from the deadly virus, researchers reported in the journal Nature Medicine.

The study endorsed approval for tests on humans, which would begin in early September, with first results by year's end.



A health worker, wearing Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), arrives with a potentially contaminated patient on September 7, 2014 at Elwa hospital in Monrovia (AFP Photo/Dominique Faget)


- 'Grave challenge' -

The death toll from the Ebola epidemic -- which is spreading across west Africa, with Liberia, Guinea, Sierra Leone the worst hit -- has topped 2,000, of nearly 4,000 people who have been infected, according to the World Health Organization.

In the scramble to halt the contagion, some affected countries have imposed quarantines on whole regions while others which are so far spared from the deadly virus have halted flights to affected countries.

Dlamini-Zuma warned that in the battle to stop the spread, "we must be careful not to introduce measures that may have more... social and economic impact than the disease itself."

With border restrictions hampering trade, food prices are rising, she said, echoing the UN's warning of serious foot shortages in the worst-hit countries.



Geraldine Fraser-Moleket, African Development Bank’s Special Envoy on Gender, gives opening remarks at the an emergency meeting of the African Union executive council in Addis Ababa on September 8, 2014 (AFP Photo/Zacharias Abubeker)


"We should put in place tough measures to halt the spread of the disease, but we must also put in place measures to enable agriculture to continue and support the traders," Dlamini-Zuma added.

"The economic impact of the Ebola outbreak will be significant," said Carlos Lopes, executive secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA).

"Ebola can only be tackled through massive investments," Lopes added, as AU members called for more financial support in the fight against Ebola.

The crisis has stirred a fierce debate about how the world should have responded after first reports trickled out from some of the world's poorest countries with dilapidated medical infrastructure.

Dlamini-Zuma it has highlighted the "weakness of public health systems", with affected countries suffering from a "severe shortage" of health workers.

"As we finalise our response to this grave challenge that confront us all, we must be resolute about winning the battle."

On Sunday, President Barack Obama said the US military will join the fight against the fast-spreading disease, saying that the deadly toll was being exacerbated because of the rudimentary public health infrastructure.

The pledge of US military support follows the European Union's decision on Friday to sharply increase funding to tackle the outbreak, boosting previously announced aid to 140 million euros ($183 million).

The European package is designed to support overstretched health services, fund mobile laboratories for detecting the disease, safeguard the provision of food, water and sanitation as well as help the broader economy and strengthen overall public services.

Aid agencies including Medecins Sans Frontieres have warned the world is "losing the battle" to contain the disease.


http://news.yahoo.com/african-union-meets-ebola-crisis-talks-085717220.html

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U.S. Ebola patient at Nebraska hospital eats, listens to music
Reuters
1 hour ago



International Christian mission organization SIM missionary doctor Rick Sacra is shown in this undated photo provided by SIM on September 4, 2014. REUTERS/SIM/Handout via Reuters



(Reuters) - A U.S. medical missionary infected with the Ebola virus in West Africa was able to eat breakfast on Monday and was listening to music at the Nebraska Medical Center where he was taken for treatment last week, his wife said.

"He hasn't been able to eat much since he got here, but he had some toast and apple sauce. He also tolerated the research drug well – better than he had the previous doses he was given," Debbie Sacra said in a statement.

Dr. Rick Sacra, 51, arrived at the hospital on Friday. He contracted Ebola while working at a hospital in Liberia, one of five West African countries affected by an outbreak.

The World Health Organization said on Monday the Ebola virus is spreading fast in Liberia, where many thousands of new cases are expected over the coming three weeks.

The outbreak in West Africa has killed more than 2,000 people and infected about 4,000 since it began in March. The virus kills about half of those who contract it.

Sacra's family arrived in Nebraska over the weekend and have communicated with him over a video link. Sacra, who is from Massachusetts, was working in West Africa on behalf of the North Carolina-based Christian group SIM USA.

"We had a good conversation last night," Debbie Sacra said. "We were able to speak again via video conference for about a half hour. He also wanted some music to listen to, so staff members here were able to help make that happen."

Doctors in Nebraska have said they are using an unidentified experimental research drug to treat Sacra. On Sunday they said he was stable and more alert and talkative than when he arrived, but it was too soon to say whether he had turned a corner.

An experimental drug, ZMapp, was given to two Ebola patients who were treated at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta and recovered. No more doses of ZMapp are available, and doctors have said it is not clear whether it helped their recovery.

Sacra is being cared for in a special isolation unit designed to treat patients with highly infectious diseases, similar to a containment unit at Emory.

Several U.S. hospitals have reported seeing patients with symptoms associated with Ebola but have tested negative. Last week a patient in Miami tested negative for Ebola, according to Jackson Health System.

(Reporting by David Bailey in Minneapolis and Letitia Stein in Tampa, Florida; Editing by Eric Beech)


http://news.yahoo.com/u-ebola-patient-nebraska-hospital-eats-listens-music-193647844.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Doctor with Ebola better tolerating treatment
Associated Press
By JOSH FUNK  20 minutes ago



Doctor Richard Sacra poses in a undated image provided by the Family Health Center of Worcester, Inc., Worcester, Massachusetts. Sacra, which was infected by Ebola in Liberia, has made progress, medical care providers in Nebraska said on Sunday 7 2014 (AP Photo / Family Health Center of Worcester, Inc.)



OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — The American doctor who contracted Ebola while working in Liberia appears to be better tolerating his experimental treatments Monday, but his recovery remains uncertain.

The family of Dr. Rick Sacra said he was able to eat breakfast Monday for the first time since arriving Friday at the Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha.

The 51-year-old remains in stable condition. But his wife, Debbie, said Sacra is more alert and that they had a half-hour conversation by video conference Sunday.

"He hasn't been able to eat much since he got here, but he had some toast and apple sauce," Debbie Sacra said Monday. "He also tolerated the research drug well — better than he had the previous doses he was given."

Rick Sacra, a doctor from Worcester, Massachusetts, spent 15 years working at the Liberia hospital where he fell ill. He was practicing family medicine in Liberia with the North Carolina-based charity SIM.

Authorities say roughly 2,100 people have died during the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, but Ebola hasn't been confirmed as the cause of all those deaths.



The ambulance transporting Dr. Rick Sacra, 51, who was infected with Ebola while serving as a family doctor in Liberia, arrives to the Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, Neb., Friday, Sept. 5, 2014. Sacra, who served with North Carolina-based charity SIM, is the third American aid worker infected by the Ebola virus. He will begin treatment in the hospital's 10-bed special isolation unit, the largest of four such units in the U.S. (AP Photo/Nati Harnik)


Sacra is being treated with an experimental drug that is different than the one given to the two Americans treated for Ebola at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta.

Sacra's doctors have refused to name the drug, but they say they've been consulting with experts on Ebola on his treatment.

Dr. Aneesh Mehta of Emory University in Atlanta, who helped care for the first two American aid workers with Ebola, said Monday that it was impossible to know if the experimental ZMapp they received worked.

But Mehta said Emory doctors have been advising other physicians that some particular types of supportive care did seem to help. Those included switching between different types of IV fluids to meet each patient's specific electrolyte needs at the time. And giving high-quality liquid nutrition to boost their levels of protein and other nutrients "to help build back that immune system that was under attack."

Mehta and other experts were discussing Ebola at the American Society for Microbiology meeting Monday.

Pharmaceutical companies are developing vaccines for Ebola and drugs to help treat the virus, but they're not fully tested or readily available yet.

Dr. Gary Kobinger of the Public Health Agency of Canada helped pioneer the research that led to ZMapp, and he said the U.S. manufacturer appears to be on track for a Phase 1 safety study early next year, perhaps as early as January, although no drug is available currently.

On the vaccine front, Kobinger said a Canadian-made candidate should be starting Phase 1 trials within weeks.

The World Health Organization has suggested turning to the blood of Ebola survivors as an experimental treatment, and Sacra's doctors have said they are considering that.

___

AP Medical Writer Lauran Neergaard contributed to this report.


http://news.yahoo.com/doctor-ebola-better-tolerating-treatment-193603423.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Area of animal-to-human Ebola risk bigger than thought: study
AFP
7 hours ago



More than 22 million people live in parts of Africa where conditions exist for the Ebola virus to jump from animals like bats, chimpanzees or gorillas to humans, researchers say (AFP Photo/Michal Cizek)



Paris (AFP) - More than 22 million people live in parts of Africa where conditions exist for the Ebola virus to jump from animals to humans, a bigger area than previously thought, researchers said Monday.

While the actual risk of animal-to-human or "zoonotic" transmission is low -- with just 30 confirmed cases in history -- the wide geographic spread boosts the potential for future human outbreaks, which always start with the virus crossing the species barrier, they said.

The risk area covers countries as far north on the continent as Nigeria and as far south as Mozambique, the team of disease specialists wrote in the journal eLife.

People can in very rare cases contract the virus from handling or eating infected animals like bats, chimpanzees or gorillas, and then infect other people.

Human-to-human transmission of the haemorrhagic fever-causing virus with a death rate of up to 90 percent is not easy either -- it requires direct contact with the body fluids of an infected person or corpse.

Countries that have never had a direct animal-to-human infection, but are at risk, are Angola, Burundi, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Ethiopia, Ghana, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Tanzania and Togo, the team reported.

Cases of zoonotic transmission had in the past been reported in the Republic of Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, Guinea, Ivory Coast, South Sudan and Uganda.

The expanded list showed the risk area was "more widespread than previously predicted or appreciated," said the team, which compiled a series of maps for disease control experts.

"We have shown that the human population living within (the risk area) is larger, more mobile and better internationally connected than when the pathogen was first observed" in then-Zaire in 1976, they wrote.

"As a result, when spillover events do occur, the likelihood of continued spread amongst the human population is greater, particularly in areas with poor healthcare infrastructure."

This, in turn, threatened fragile economies and health care systems.

In total, 22.2 million people were estimated to live in at-risk areas in 22 countries -- some 21.7 (97 percent) of them in rural areas, according to the study.

The current Ebola outbreak, the biggest in the disease's 40-year history, has killed more than 2,000 people out of nearly 4,000 infected in West Africa from December last year to August 31, according to the UN's World Health Organisation (WHO).


- Outbreaks more frequent -

The current outbreak emerged in Guinea, from where it spread to Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria, said the study authors, adding the frequency of Ebola outbreaks appears to have increased "substantially" since 2000.

This may be explained by people venturing deeper into remote rainforest areas where infected animals live, and virus spread made easier by an explosion in urban populations and global travel.

The scientists urged stricter surveillance, including the testing of bats in high-risk countries, where they act as virus reservoirs.

"The increasing connectedness of the African region means that EVD (Ebola virus disease) is now a problem of international concern," the team warned, while stressing an outbreak remained unlikely in western countries with functioning health systems.

"Secondary transmissions can be restricted by effective case detection and isolation measures," they wrote.

But "where this cannot be achieved, either due to a lack of infrastructure, poor understanding of the disease or distrust of medical practices, secondary cases can continue to occur" -- as in the current West African outbreak.

The study pulled together data on Ebola virus infection in primates and fruit bats, its spread in humans, and environmental factors.

The team did not consider the risk of spread among humans.

The 30 known animal-to-human infections since 1976 have caused 23 outbreaks in Africa, they wrote.

Before the current outbreak, the Ebola virus had caused a confirmed 2,322 cases, mainly from the Zaire ebolavirus strain.

Commenting on the study, University of Reading virologist Ben Neuman said the maps were useful in outlining areas where investment in infrastructure would be most effective in stopping Ebola outbreaks.

No licensed Ebola vaccine or treatment exists, although several are being tested.


http://news.yahoo.com/area-ebola-risk-animals-bigger-thought-003618103.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Britain sends military to fight Ebola as firms urge more action
Reuters
By Umaru Fofana  6 hours ago



A fan of Ivory coast holds a sign with a message against Ebola during the 2015 African Nations Cup qualifying soccer match between Ivory Coast and Sierra Leone at the Felix Houphouet Boigny stadium in Abidjan September 6, 2014. REUTERS/Luc Gnago



FREETOWN (Reuters) - Britain said on Monday it would send military and humanitarian experts to Sierra Leone to set up a treatment center for Ebola victims, as 11 major companies urged the international community to step up the fight against the worst outbreak of the disease.

International Development Secretary Justine Greening said the 62-bed facility would be built and operated by British military engineers and medical staff near the capital Freetown. The initial phase will be operational within eight weeks.

"The scale of the problem requires the entire international community to do more to assist the affected countries," Greening said in a statement.

The epidemic in West Africa - the worst since the disease was discovered in 1976 - has killed some 2,100 people in Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Nigeria and has also spread to Senegal. The World Health Organization believes it will take six to nine months to contain, and could affect up to 20,000 people.

Tom Frieden, head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), warned last week after visiting the region that the outbreak was gathering pace and threatened fragile West African nations.

Chief executives of 11 firms operating in the region joined the call for world leaders to step up the fight against the disease, warning on Wednesday that it threatened the region's stability.

"Without the support of the international community the situation for these economies, many of whom are only beginning to return to stability after decades of civil war, will be even more catastrophic," they said in a statement.

The business leaders said Ebola's impact on the people and economies of the affected nations was aggravated by decisions and actions that affect trade and travel. Several neighboring countries have decided to suspend air travel and ban visitors from afflicted countries.

Signatories of the statement included chief executives from ArcelorMittal, Randgold Resources, London Mining, IAMGOLD, Newmont, Aureus Mining, and Hummingbird Resources.

The decision by the British government to step up aid follows Sunday's announcement by U.S. President Barack Obama that the United States needed to do more to help control the deadly virus.

Medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres has called for wealthy nations to deploy civilian and military biological disaster response teams to stem the spread of the epidemic.

(Additional reporting by Bate Felix in Dakar; Writing by Joe Bavier; Editing by Daniel Flynn and Dominic Evans)


http://news.yahoo.com/britain-send-military-humanitarian-experts-fight-ebola-145019257.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Fourth Ebola patient coming to U.S. hospital for treatment
Reuters
1 hour ago



A general view of Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia August 1, 2014. REUTERS/Tami Chappell



(Reuters) - A fourth Ebola patient will be flown to the United States by air ambulance from West Africa to receive treatment for the deadly disease, hospital officials in Atlanta said on Monday.

The patient is expected to arrive at Emory University Hospital early Tuesday and will be treated in the same isolation unit as two other patients who were discharged after recovering from the virus, the hospital said in a statement.

The hospital did not provide any information on the new patient, citing confidentiality rules.

The World Health Organization said earlier on Monday that one of its doctors stationed in an Ebola treatment center in Sierra Leone had tested positive for the disease.

The doctor was in stable condition in Freetown and would be evacuated soon, the WHO said. The patient's name and nationality were not disclosed in the statement.

Medical workers have been hit hard by the epidemic, the worst since Ebola was discovered in 1976. As of late August, more than 240 healthcare workers had developed the disease and more than 120 had died, the WHO said.

The outbreak has killed some 2,100 people overall in Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Nigeria, and has also spread to Senegal.

A U.S. medical missionary infected with the Ebola virus in Liberia is being treated at the Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, where on Monday he was able to eat breakfast and listen to music, his wife said in a statement.

Two other U.S. missionaries who contracted the disease in Liberia in July also were treated and released from Emory, where they were given the experimental drug ZMapp.

No more doses of ZMapp are available, and doctors have said it is not clear whether the drug helped their recovery.

Emory's isolation unit is equipped with unique tools and infrastructure that provide a high level of clinical isolation for people exposed to serious infectious diseases, the hospital said.

(Reporting by Letitia Stein in Tampa, Florida, and Daniel Flynn in Dakar; Writing by Colleen Jenkins; Editing by Eric Beech and Eric Walsh)


http://news.yahoo.com/another-ebola-patient-coming-atlanta-hospital-221900335.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Ebola-hit Liberia ends lockdown on quarantined town
AFP
5 hours ago



The market in Dolo Town, which was quarantined as a measure to contain the spread of the Ebola virus, September 2, 2014, in Liberia (AFP Photo/Dominique Faget)



Monrovia (AFP) - The Liberian government said on Monday it was lifting a quarantine on an Ebola hotspot near the country's international airport and announced a relaxation of its night-time curfew.

The 17,000 residents of Dolo Town, 75 kilometres (47 miles) east of Monrovia, have been trapped since officials blockaded them in more than two weeks ago, amid an alarming spike in Ebola cases.

"The government of Liberia has lifted the quarantine on Dolo Town with immediate effect," state-run radio station ELBC announced.

"According to the Executive Mansion, the curfew is rescheduled from 11:00 pm (2300 GMT) to 6:00 am, instead of 9:00 pm to 6:00 am."

Dolo Town was placed in lockdown on August 20, at the same time as West Point, a slum in the capital.

While the West Point quarantine caused riots, people had largely reacted peacefully to the measures to contain them in Dolo Town, although there was growing anger among the inhabitants.

The West Point quarantine was lifted last week, based on advice given to the government, it said, by health authorities.

"We are very happy to hear that the government has lifted the quarantine. We thank God. Now we can go to (Monrovia) and elsewhere to buy food cheaper," Dolo Town resident Prince Paygar told AFP.

The relaxation comes, however, with the World Health Organization warning that Liberia should prepare for thousands of new Ebola cases in the coming weeks.

"Many thousands of new cases are expected in Liberia over the coming three weeks," the UN health agency said in a statement on Monday.

The country already accounts for more than half of the 2,100 Ebola deaths across west Africa.


http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-hit-liberia-ends-lockdown-quarantined-town-190642897.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Ebola infections set to soar in Liberia: WHO
AFP
By Zoom Dosso  4 hours ago



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



Monrovia (AFP) - The World Health Organization warned Monday that Liberia is set to see a huge spike in infections from the Ebola epidemic ravaging west Africa, with thousands of new cases imminent.

The UN agency said the country, worst-hit in the outbreak with almost 1,100 deaths, faced "many thousands" of new infections in the next three weeks.

"WHO and its director-general will continue to advocate for more Ebola treatment beds in Liberia and elsewhere, and will hold the world accountable for responding to this dire emergency with its unprecedented dimensions of human suffering," it said in a statement.

The deadliest Ebola epidemic the world has ever seen is spreading across west Africa, with Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone the countries worst affected.

The death toll has topped 2,000, out of nearly 4,000 people infected.

Liberia already accounts for about half of all cases and deaths, and "the number of new cases is increasing exponentially", the WHO warned.

Key development partners trying to help Liberia respond to the outbreak "need to prepare to scale up their current efforts by three- to four-fold," it added.



Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, Chairperson of the African Union, gives opening remarks at a meeting called to discuss possible solutions to the Ebola Epidemic in West Africa, on September 8, 2014 (AFP Photo/Zacharias Abubeker)


The countries bearing the brunt of the epidemic are among the world's poorest, with dilapidated medical infrastructures that have all but buckled under the strain of trying to contain the virus.

Before the outbreak, Liberia had only one doctor to treat every 100,000 patients in a total population of 4.4 million people.

Now that 152 healthcare workers in the country have been infected and 79 have died, the WHO said the ratio had worsened significantly.

"Every infection or death of a doctor or nurse depletes response capacity significantly," it said.


- No Ebola treatment beds -

The UN body described how taxis filled with entire families, including members suspected of having Ebola, criss-crossed Monrovia "searching for a treatment bed".

"There are none. As WHO staff in Liberia confirm, no free beds for Ebola treatment exist anywhere in the country."

When Ebola patients are turned away from treatment centres, "they have no choice but to return to their communities and homes, where they inevitably infect others, perpetuating constantly higher flare-ups in the number of cases," it said.

In Montserrado county alone, which includes Monrovia, the agency said 1,000 beds were urgently needed to treat Ebola patients.

In the scramble to halt the contagion, some affected countries have quarantined whole regions, while others so far free of the virus have halted flights.

African Union commission chief Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma called Monday for travel bans imposed to stem the epidemic to be lifted, "to open up economic activities".

She told a crisis meeting in Addis Ababa there was an urgent need to "craft a united, comprehensive and collective African response" to the outbreak.



A health worker wearing personal protective equipment stands on September 7, 2014 inside the high-risk area at Elwa hospital in Monrovia, which is run by the non-governmental French organization Medecins Sans Frontieres (AFP Photo/Dominique Faget)


But she also warned that in the battle to stop the spread, "we must be careful not to introduce measures that may have more... social and economic impact than the disease itself".

Experts have warned that economic losses caused by the restrictions were adding to the continent's woes, with some arguing that travel bans even slowed medical help getting to affected areas.


- Potential vaccine hope -

Border restrictions are also hampering trade and food prices are rising, Dlamini-Zuma said, echoing the UN's warning of serious foot shortages in the worst-hit countries.

The CEOs of 11 firms operating in west Africa -- including ArcelorMittal and Randgold -- said in a joint statement some measures were doing more harm than good.

"There is a risk the measures being taken to restrict travel to the countries most impacted by the virus will aggravate the growing humanitarian crisis," they said.

Despite the WHO's warning, the Liberian government said Monday it was lifting a quarantine on an Ebola hotspot near the country's international airport and announced it was moving its night-time curfew back two hours, from 9:00 pm to 11:00 pm.

The 17,000 residents of Dolo Town, 75 kilometres (47 miles) east of Monrovia, have been trapped since officials blockaded them in more than two weeks ago, amid an alarming spike in Ebola cases.

Meanwhile Sierra Leone announced plans to visit every home in the country of six million to track down people with Ebola and remove dead bodies.

Ebola, transmitted through bodily fluids, leads to haemorrhagic fever and -- in over half of cases -- death.

There is no specific treatment regime and no licensed vaccine.

Researchers reported in Nature Medicine on Monday however that a vaccine tested on monkeys had provided "complete short-term and partial long-term protection".

The study endorsed testing the vaccine on humans, with first results due by the end of the year.


http://news.yahoo.com/african-union-calls-ebola-travel-bans-lifted-163924718.html

[Buster's Uncle]

US to send field hospital to Ebola-hit Liberia
AFP
6 hours ago



Workers set up a new medical tent on September 7, 2014 at Elwa hospital in Monrovia, which is run by the non-governmental French organization Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors without Borders -- MSF) (AFP Photo/Dominique Faget )



Washington (AFP) - The US military will send a field hospital to Liberia for medical staff fighting the Ebola virus, the Pentagon said Monday, as part of an expanded effort to stem the epidemic.

The move comes after President Barack Obama promised the American military would offer logistical support to aid countries facing the Ebola outbreak, and amid warnings the number of Ebola cases in Liberia would rise dramatically.

"We are sending a 25-bed field deployable hospital to Monrovia, Liberia," Pentagon spokesman Colonel Steven Warren told reporters.

"The intent of this piece of equipment is to provide a facility that health care workers in the affected region can use for themselves if they become ill or injured," Warren said.

The gear was not yet en route but "it is a top priority and we expect it to get there rapidly," he added.

The field hospital was requested by the US Agency for International Development and after setting up the unit, American troops would turn it over to Liberian authorities but would not be working at the facility, according to Warren.

Obama said in an interview aired Sunday that US military aircraft and equipment were needed to shore up Africa's public health network in the face of the fast-spreading virus.

"We're going to have to get US military assets just to set up, for example, isolation units and equipment there, to provide security for public health workers surging from around the world," Obama said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

The US president called the Ebola outbreak a "national security priority."

The Pentagon said Monday there were no other operations under way to assist with the Ebola epidemic but officials said senior officers were reviewing possible plans.

The death toll from the Ebola epidemic, which is spreading across West Africa, has surpassed 2,000, out of nearly 4,000 people who have been infected, according to the World Health Organization.

Liberia already accounts for half of the more than 2,000 deaths from the virus.

The WHO said Monday that the West African nation would have thousands of new cases in the next three weeks.


http://news.yahoo.com/us-send-field-hospital-ebola-hit-liberia-183215855.html