Ebola news 11/20

[Buster's Uncle]

Illumina teams with U.S. government, researchers to sequence Ebola
Reuters
By Julie Steenhuysen  November 19, 2014 11:21 AM



CHICAGO, Nov 19 (Reuters) - Gene sequencing equipment maker Illumina has teamed up with the U.S. government and academic researchers at the Broad Institute in Boston to train scientists in West Africa to improve tracking of how the Ebola virus is mutating in hopes of fighting it more effectively.

The public-private partnership, announced on Wednesday, is designed to extend research on how the Ebola virus is mutating in real time as it spreads among populations in West Africa. Scientists need the information to develop new diagnostics, drugs and vaccines to fight the outbreak.

Sequencing and patient monitoring facilities will be created first in Liberia, Nigeria, Senegal, and Sierra Leone, and over the longer term in other West African countries, the groups said in a statement. These centers will serve as hubs for the deployment of mobile laboratories to remote districts where large-scale capacity is not available.

Illumina, the U.S. Agency for International Development and researchers at the Broad Institute of Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology will train and equip the facilities with state-of-the-art genome sequencing technology. The value of Illumina's investment was not disclosed.

Scientists have expressed frustration that they are unable to gain access to blood samples from Ebola patients needed for this kind of research.

A team of researchers led by Pardis Sabeti from the Broad Institute has been working with collaborators in Nigeria, Senegal and Sierra Leone for several years, training them to use sequencing and diagnostic technology. In August, Sabeti and colleagues published a study in the journal Science of some of the earliest cases in Sierra Leone. It suggested that the virus is mutating quickly and in ways that could affect current diagnostics and future vaccines and treatments.

The new pact will allow researchers to do similar work in Liberia, the country hit hardest by the outbreak.

Professor Christian Happi of Redeemer's University in Nigeria and Professor Daouda Ndiaye of Université Cheikh Anta Diop in Senegal will be the first to receive the Illumnina's MiSeqdesktop sequencers, followed by labs in Liberia and Sierra Leone. Happi's lab is set to sequence the 20 confirmed and suspected cases from the Nigerian outbreak that was declared ended on Oct. 20.

(Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen; Editing by David Gregorio)


http://news.yahoo.com/illumina-teams-u-government-researchers-162140602.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Officials downplay debates over Ebola aid response
Associated Press
By MIKE STOBBE and MARIA CHENG  59 minutes ago



In this Nov. 5, 2014, file photo, on the outskirts of the city of Monrovia, Liberia, a health worker stands inside a medical tent that forms part of a new American clinic to be used for the treatment of people suffering from the Ebola virus. U.S. officials on Thursday, Nov. 20, acknowledged disagreements over coordinating the international response to the Ebola epidemic in Liberia. (AP Photo/Abbas Dulleh, File)



NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. officials on Thursday acknowledged disagreements over coordinating the international response to the Ebola epidemic in Liberia, but they say most issues are being worked out and the overall fight against the disease there seems to be succeeding.

In a call with reporters, the officials said disputes have erupted over matters like where to build new treatment centers and getting U.S. military helicopters to transport patients and blood samples from remote areas.

But they also minimized the debates, characterizing them as a natural and fleeting part of an intense and complicated battle against the largest Ebola epidemic in world history.

"The proof in the pudding is they get resolved. And we have seen progress in Liberia," said Jeremy Konyndyk, director of USAID's Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance.

Konyndyk joined Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, to respond to a New York Times article Thursday spotlighting rocky coordination of efforts in Liberia. The Times cited the minutes of meetings between Liberian officials and representatives of foreign governments and aid groups assisting the West Africa nation, including the U.S., the United Nations and Doctors Without Borders.

Among the attendees were the CDC's Dr. Kevin De Cock and Dr. Hans Rosling, a Swedish epidemiologist who is acting as a consultant to Liberian health officials.

In an interview with The Associated Press on Thursday from Liberia, De Cock said; "There are loads of reasons why the Ebola response is complicated — the logistics are extremely difficult and the resources are very limited, but it is not because people are fighting."

Rosling — who is deeply involved in coordinating Liberia's response — echoed De Cock.



In this Nov. 5, 2014, file photo, on the outskirts of the city of Monrovia, Liberia, health workers walk around medical tents that form part of a new American clinic to be used for the treatment of people suffering from the Ebola virus. U.S. officials on Thursday, Nov. 20, acknowledged disagreements over coordinating the international response to the Ebola epidemic in Liberia. (AP Photo/Abbas Dulleh, File)


"This is an emergency response and there will always be coordination challenges," he said.

Rosling said that included altering plans as conditions on the ground change. For example, he said he had to persuade Swedish officials to drop plans to build a clinic in Liberia's capital of Monrovia, and instead place it in a rural area where it is more needed.

"All this involves discussion, not hostility. At the end of the day, we laugh a lot and we are all friends. It's an enormous challenge and everyone has the same goal, to stop Ebola," he said.

The European Union's coordinator for Ebola response said better coordination was needed — including between the hardest-hit nations of Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone.

"As the European Union and as an international community, we need to ensure that we assist these three countries to help each other, to work together at all levels, right from the president down to local authority level," Christos Styliandes said Tuesday after returning from a visit to West Africa.

Since the spring, the Ebola epidemic that has sickened more than 15,100 people and caused more than 5,400 deaths, according to World Health Organization figures. A large international response wasn't mounted, though, until late summer.

At the start, there are a number of groups trying to do different things, said Pieter Desloovere, a WHO spokesman in Liberia. "It is a challenge for the ministry of health to coordinate that and to have a good understanding of who is doing what and where," he said.

Lately, the situation in Liberia seems to be improving, with significant declines in reported cases in recent weeks and empty beds in newly created Ebola hospitals. The U.S. military announced this week it is scaling back the size and number of treatment facilities it is building there.

But Ebola cases have surged recently in nearby Sierra Leone, remained unpredictable in Guinea, and begun to pop up in neighboring Mali.

Recent CDC reports attribute the progress in Liberia to better communications with the public, changes in burial practices and improved disease tracking and isolation, Frieden said.

"But that does not guarantee it will work" in the future, he said. "And it won't, unless we double down on strategy at the front lines."

___

Cheng reported from London. AP reporter John-Thor Dahlburg in Brussels contributed to this report.


http://news.yahoo.com/officials-downplay-debates-over-ebola-aid-response-225043827.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Ebola spreading intensely in Sierra Leone as toll rises: WHO
Reuters  17 hours ago



Health workers put on protective gear outside a mosque before disinfecting it, in Bamako November 14, 2014. REUTERS/Joe Penney



GENEVA (Reuters) - The toll in the Ebola epidemic has risen to 5,420 deaths out of 15,145 cases in eight countries, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday, with transmission of the deadly virus still "intense and widespread" in Sierra Leone.

The figures, through Nov. 16, represent a jump of 243 deaths and 732 cases since those issued last Friday, and cases continue to be under-reported, the WHO said in its latest update.

Sierra Leone, a former British colony, confirmed 533 new cases in the week to Nov. 16, it said. "Much of this was driven by intense transmission in the country's west and north."

A Cuban doctor infected with Ebola in Sierra Leone will be flown to Switzerland in the next 48 hours for hospitalisation in Geneva, Swiss health authorities said on Wednesday. He is the first Cuban known to have contracted the disease.

The outbreaks in Guinea and Liberia currently appear to be driven by intense transmission in several key districts, the WHO said, citing N'Zerekore in Guinea and Montserrado in Liberia, which includes the capital Monrovia.

Authorities in Mali have now reported 6 cases of Ebola including five deaths, the WHO said. The remaining cases have been in Nigeria, Senegal, Spain and the United States.

Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf said on Wednesday that her government has the upper hand in the fight against Ebola, but warned against complacency or any reduction in international support


http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-spreading-intensely-sierra-leone-toll-rises-064301011.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Guinea imam's trip to Mali exposes gaps in Ebola response
Reuters
By Joe Penney and Emma Farge  5 hours ago



A sign is seen at the border with Guinea in Kouremale, October 2, 2014. REUTERS/Joe Penney



KOUREMALE/DAKAR (Reuters) - When a sick Muslim imam from Guinea entered Mali at the border town of Kouremale last month, he did not use the main tarmac road with its Ebola checkpoint but took a nearby dirt track.

When his green Mercedes was halted at a second checkpoint and he was asked to return to Kouremale for health checks, , 70, managed to avoid them thanks to the intervention of a village chief, according to border officer Mamadou Diawara.

Koita is later believed to have died of Ebola - he was never tested - but not before he had visited Mali's capital Bamako. His journey highlights the porousness of national borders in a region struggling to stem the worst known outbreak of a disease which has now killed at least 5,420 people in eight countries.

Authorities in Guinea and Mali are now scrambling to trace around 300 people on each side of the border who had contact with Koita, whose funeral in Kouremale drew thousands.

Health workers in Mali fear more Ebola cases will spill over the border from the Siguiri area of Guinea, where aid workers say resources to fight the disease are still meager.

The World Health Organization (WHO) says there are five probable cases of Ebola in Siguiri as the contagion creeps northwards from its original forest epicenter of Gueckedou, deep in the south of Guinea.

Six people in Mali have died so far from Ebola. The WHO said in a report on Thursday that Mali would "remain at risk of further imported cases as long as transmission across the border is ongoing".

Since the Koita incident, Mali's President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita has stepped up border controls and this week he visited Kouremale to oversee their implementation. Medical charity MSF is also expanding its Mali team to help with the response.

But keeping cases out will not depend entirely on Mali.

"There is a problem with the Guinean response and if these people fall ill, the likelihood is that they come into Mali for treatment," said a senior source in Mali's Ebola response team.

Massama Keita, head of a local crisis committee fighting Ebola, said halting the disease at the border was impossible.

"Between Mali (and Guinea) it's not really a border. So many people reside together that you cannot control it," he said.

(Additional reporting by Colin Baker in Bamako and Tom Miles in Geneva; Writing by Emma Farge; Editing by Gareth Jones)


http://news.yahoo.com/guinea-imams-trip-mali-exposes-gaps-ebola-response-184444118.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Mali Ebola crisis deepens with doctor's death
Associated Press
By BABA AHMED  2 hours ago



In this photo taken Monday, Nov. 17, 2014, health care workers at a screening center for the Ebola virus await patients at the border village of Kouremale, Mali, between Mali and Guinea. On Mali's dusty border with Ebola-stricken Guinea, travelers have a new stop: Inside a white tent, masked medical workers zap incomers with infrared thermometer guns and instruct them to wash their hands in chlorinated water. (AP Photo/Baba Ahmed)



BAMAKO, Mali (AP) — Mali's emerging Ebola crisis deepened Thursday as the government announced that a doctor had died from the disease, becoming the second health worker fatality linked to a single patient initially thought to have kidney disease.

At least five people now have died from Ebola after coming into contact with a 70-year-old grand imam, who was brought to the Malian capital of Bamako from Guinea, the bordering country where the regional Ebola epidemic first began.

The death of a 25-year-old male nurse at Clinique Pasteur who treated the imam first prompted health authorities to review past patients. The imam's family members who had brought him to Bamako all were later admitted to an Ebola clinic back in Guinea upon their return.

Malian authorities are now following more than 300 people, including those who helped prepare the imam's body for burial after he succumbed to the disease.

Health workers have been particularly vulnerable to contracting Ebola because of their close contact with the sick, who spread the virus through bodily fluids such as blood, urine and feces. On Thursday, a Cuban doctor who had contracted the virus in Sierra Leone was flown out of the country en route to treatment in Switzerland.

Despite some improvements in Liberia and Guinea, the World Health Organization said Wednesday that the spread of Ebola remains "intense" in most of Sierra Leone. Some 168 new confirmed cases emerged in a single week in Sierra Leone's capital of Freetown recently, according to a WHO report.

"The numbers are still rising and the transmission is persistent and widespread," said Amadu Kamara, the U.N.'s Ebola crisis manager in Sierra Leone. "Rapid and coordinated response are needed to overcome the spread of the Ebola disease."

The WHO report released late Wednesday indicated that Sierra Leone had the lowest percentage of Ebola patients who had been isolated — only 13 percent. By comparison, that figure was 72 percent in Guinea.

___

Associated Press writer Clarence Roy-Macaulay in Freetown, Sierra Leone contributed to this report.


http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-transmission-intense-sierra-leone-101956579.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Ebola heightens need for aid for orphans
Associated Press
By MARTHA IRVINE  16 hours ago



In this Dec. 2013 family photo provided by Tessa and Joel Sanborn, Joel Sanborn, right, plays in the ocean in Liberia with his son Cooper, left, and Devine, second from left, the child the Sanborns hope to return to Liberia soon to adopt. The Ebola epidemic, however, has put adoptions in several west African countries on hold indefinitely, as the public health state of emergency continues. (AP Photo/Courtesy Sanborn Family)



CHICAGO (AP) — The Ebola epidemic has put adoptions in impacted west African countries at a standstill for obvious reasons.

Tessa and Joel Sanborn understand. The arrival of their 5-year-old adopted son Devine, who is in an orphanage in Liberia, is on hold, indefinitely, as the state of emergency continues there.

"We love Liberia, and we want what's best for the country as a whole," says Tessa Sanborn, who lives with her husband and their six other children in Maple Valley, Washington, just outside Seattle.

But the waiting is still difficult, as it is for other parents in a similar predicament. And even as some families keep their commitment to adopt, despite the Ebola threat, the numbers of children in west African orphanages who've lost parents is only increasing because of the deadly virus.

Some aid workers also say a shortage of food and supplies is making it difficult to care for those of children, and that fear is hampering efforts to place those who've lost parents to Ebola, even within their home countries.

It is just the latest crisis in Liberia, a country that was attempting to overcome the ravages of war before Ebola hit, says Patricia Anglin, executive director and founder of Acres of Hope, a children's aid organization in Liberia that houses many orphans, including Devine.

"Long after Ebola is even eradicated, we will have the devastation and challenges left behind of these orphans who need to be cared for," Anglin says.

Anglin, who is American but based in Liberia, is in the United States for a month, trying to raise emergency funds for food and supplies, and to keep her organization going.

Adoptions, while a relatively small part of the organization's services, help fund it, she says. So with those on hold, she and her staff have stopped taking a salary and are focusing on relief efforts.

"We can't do it alone," Anglin tells the philanthropy and school groups she's been addressing across the Midwest in recent weeks.

Already, the Sanborns have adopted twin daughters from Acres of Hope — 2-year-old Faith and Favor. Faith had a stroke at birth and, with the help of her new parents, is getting therapy to strengthen use of her right hand and foot.

The couple was able to adopt the girls because of Faith's medical needs. Favor was allowed to come with her. But, though they met him when they went to Liberia last December, Devine had to wait.

Then Ebola hit.

Tessa Sanborn tears up when recalling having to leave him. "It's never a place a parent wants to be," she says, sitting with husband Joel at their dining room table.

While they wait, they and other families have organized a food and supply drive for Devine's orphanage at local restaurant.

It's difficult, because of the scale of the Ebola outbreak, to calculate the number of children in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea who've lost one or both parents to the disease. The current estimate is about 7,000, according to Anglin and other aid workers.

Guinea has never been a significant source of children adopted by Americans, while the number of children from Sierra Leone adopted by U.S. families has ranged from 33 in 2013 to six in 2009.

Liberia used to be a major partner with U.S. adoption agencies, but the situation has changed recently due to complications unrelated to Ebola. According to State Department figures, there were only 12 adoptions from Liberia by Americans in 2013, down from a high of 353 in 2006.

Experts on international adoptions caution that disasters and emergencies, such as the Ebola crisis, should not be occasions to hastily encourage adoptions.

"The first priority is to reunite children with their close relatives or other community members willing to look after them," says Najwa Mekki, a communications officer with UNICEF. "Children are never more vulnerable than in the contexts of large-scale emergencies... Making permanent decisions about children's long-term care should be kept to an absolute minimum during this period."

The Joint Council on International Children's Services, a Virginia-based child-advocacy organization whose partners include many U.S. adoption agencies, has taken a similar stance, as has the State Department.

"We want to avoid the situation where adoptive parents go through the process and then are disappointed," says Niles Cole, a State Department spokesman.

Anglin, of Acres Hope, fully supports family reunification, but says that has been challenging when a child has been exposed to the virus, even if they haven't contracted it.

"Those that have extended families, some of those extended families are afraid to reach out to them," she says. "Often times, the traditional thinking is that those children will always be contagious."

The nature of this crisis — and fear that people who go to help will get sick — also makes it much more difficult to send aid workers to help reunify families, says Stephanie Francois, the director of international programs at Adoption Link, an adoption agency in Oak Park, Illinois.

Her organization sent a social worker to Haiti, as did others, after the 2010 earthquake there to help children find their families.

But that has not as possible in this crisis.

So Francois says fundraising efforts like Anglin's are especially important — and give people a way to help "without the fear factor."

Anglin, meanwhile, continues to track the status of orphans such as Devine, so she can update his parents. The impact of Ebola can be difficult to explain to a young child, she says.

"He's, I guess, doing as well as can be expected, but every day, asks, 'When do I get to go? When do I get to go to America and be with my family?'" Anglin says.

____

On the Internet:

Acres of Hope: http://acresofhope.org

____

David Crary in New York City and Ted S. Warren in Seattle contributed to this report.

___


http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-heightens-aid-orphans-074334263.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Doctor who treated source of second Mali Ebola outbreak dies
Reuters  1 hour ago



BAMAKO (Reuters) - A doctor in Mali who treated the patient that sparked a second wave of Ebola in the West African country has died, the government said in a statement on state-owned television on Thursday.

The government said the death of the doctor, whose name was not released, brought the total number of those who have died of Ebola in Mali to five. Before Thursday's announcement, the World Health Organization was already reporting five Ebola deaths in Mali, while medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) put the figure at seven.

The doctor worked at the Bamako clinic where Oussa Koita, a 70-year-old imam from Guinea who traveled to Mali last month, was admitted and wrongly diagnosed with kidney problems. He died but had already exposed others to the disease.

The doctor tested positive for Ebola on Nov. 12.

MSF said later on Thursday that is was evacuating home a Spanish member of its staff in Bamako after the worker was pricked by a needle that had been used on a confirmed Ebola patient earlier in the day.

"The member of the team is not showing symptoms of the disease and the repatriation is part of the protocols established by the medical organization for security and preventive measures," MSF said in a statement.

(Reporting by Tiemoko Diallo and Cheik Amadou Diouare in Bamako and David Lewis in Dakar; Writing by Joe Bavier; Editing by Ralph Boulton, Emma Farge, Toni Reinhold)


http://news.yahoo.com/doctor-becomes-eighth-person-die-ebola-mali-193914368.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Storytelling trumps smartphones in Ebola crisis, experts say
Reuters
By Stella Dawson  17 hours ago



WASHINGTON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Storytelling and plays [Sleezebag] smartphones to deliver messages on Ebola in some communities, illustrating how new technologies have their limits in aid delivery, humanitarian experts said on Wednesday.

While smartphone apps are playing an increasingly important role for fast, accurate alerts about natural disasters and for quick delivery of food and shelter, aid experts at a Disaster Relief Summit said humanitarian groups should be wary of their use at the expense of traditional communication methods.

Power systems fail, information infrastructures collapse, poor people have few phones, and messages from official sources sometimes are treated with suspicion, they said.

The Ebola crisis in West Africa has shown the importance of traditional communication methods and local leadership networks to deliver difficult messages - not only because of technical hurdles.

“Trust is a significant issue in how we message,” said Gianluco Bruni, chief of information technology at the emergency coordination branch of the United Nations World Food Programme.

“Ebola shows that we can only work effectively if we are accepted by the local communities and tailor how we deliver our message.”

In Liberia and Sierra Leone, storytelling among mothers in playgroups and young people producing plays are proving highly effective at delivering messages on how to prevent the spread of Ebola, said Richard Parker, vice president for communications at Project Concern International.

Burial teams have come under attack near Freetown, Sierra Leone, and eight healthcare workers and journalists were murdered in a remote area of Guinea when they arrived to educate locals about the deadly virus.

The head-to-toe protective gear worn to lead infected people away, secret burials, and relatives denied the chance to perform traditional hands-on funeral rites that expose relatives to bodily fluids carrying the deadly virus have spread fear and suspicion.

Communication strategies should include amateur radio operators and local radio stations, which often are trusted sources of local information, Thomas Sullivan, chief of staff in the International Bureau of Federal Communications Commission at the U.S. State Department, said at the discussion on effective communication in delivering humanitarian aid.


DISASTER APPS

At the same time, information technology is spreading rapidly in middle-income countries and continues to change the delivery of disaster relief, experts said at the two-day event organised by Aid and International Development Forum.

A recent U.N. survey in Iraq found that the fourth most requested form of assistance after food, water and security was mobile phone chargers, said the World Food Programme’s Bruni.

In countries where people rely heavily on mobile phones, more and more aid agencies are handing out electronic vouchers for disaster victims to buy food and clothing from local stories.

They are cheap and fast to distribute, cut down on opportunities for corruption, and their purchases support local merchants, which helps communities recover more quickly, Bruni said.

In fact smartphone usage is increasing so rapidly that relief agencies need to hasten their development of appropriate software, while recognising that one tool does not fit every situation, said Omar Abou-Samra, senior adviser for global disaster preparedness at the American Red Cross.

His agency is about to roll out a Hazard Alert, available in local languages for consumers to download and monitor up to five locations for official alerts on tsunamis, typhoons, floods and earthquakes.

Most of the smartphone apps currently push information at consumers. Another challenge is to improve analysis of SMS, tweets and Facebook messages sent by disaster victims on the kind of help they need, experts said.

(Thomson Reuters Foundation is a supporting partner for the Aid and International Development Forum’s Disaster Relief Summit.)


http://news.yahoo.com/storytelling-trumps-smartphones-ebola-crisis-experts-071111078.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Sierra Leone trading hub Ebola-free but still suffering
AFP
By Anne Chaon  November 19, 2014 2:55 AM



Locals walk in a market in Kenema, Sierra Leone, on August 16, 2014 (AFP Photo/Carl de Souza)



Kenema (Sierra Leone) (AFP) - There is little to celebrate in the tribal chiefdoms of eastern Sierra Leone, where the retreat of the Ebola virus is mitigated by grinding poverty worsened by draconian quarantine restrictions.

In Kenema, a diamond exporting hub and the heart of the west African nation's cocoa and coffee industry, no new infections have been recorded since October and the town bustles with trade and traffic.

But the district -- part of the Ebola epicentre straddling Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea -- remains isolated by a largely unsuccessful lockdown imposed in August to keep Ebola from spreading elsewhere.

"The trauma is still there and business is difficult," says Mohamed Basma, sitting in shorts and flip-flops behind a desk blasted by over-zealous air-conditioning.

A leading diamond trader in Kenema, Basma hasn't even the most tiny rock to show off.

"We can't say we're finished with Ebola, although here we've done a better job in controlling the virus than elsewhere and no new cases for almost 21 days is encouraging," he says.

Yet the authorities continue to prohibit public gatherings, preventing locals from working with spades and sieves the diamond-rich flood plains to the east, thus Sierra Leone is certain to miss its goal of exporting $200 million (160 million euros) in gems in 2014.

An ethnically-diverse, Krio-speaking city of 190,000, Kenema already has the highest incidence of Lassa fever -- another viral haemorrhagic disease -- in the world.

Ebola has killed more than 5,000 in west Africa since it emerged in southern Guinea in December, spreading first to Liberia and cutting a swathe through Sierra Leone since May.


- Chain reaction -

Highly infectious through exposure to bodily fluids, its early rapid spread was attributed in part to relatives touching victims during traditional funeral rites.

Epidemiologists agree that it was brought into Sierra Leone by a herbalist in the remote eastern border village of Sokoma. She claimed to be able to heal Ebola and encouraged sick patients to cross from Guinea for treatment.

She died and the mourners at her funeral fanned out across the Kissi tribal chiefdoms, starting a chain reaction of infections which has so far led to an official toll of around 1,200 deaths in Sierra Leone, although the real figure is thought to be much higher.

Eleven checkpoints dot the 300-kilometre (185-mile) route between Freetown and Kenema, with police or soldiers stopping travellers to question them about their business.

Cars are banned from the roads between 5:00 pm and 9:00 am and in the early morning, long lines of trucks, vans and taxis wait for the go-ahead to continue their journeys, surrounded by traders offering rice, soda, banana and pineapple.

Drivers and their passengers have to undergo temperature checks and sometimes a subtle exchange of notes eases the passage eastwards.

"We haven't been able to go to the fields for six months. We lost our cassava crops, rice and vegetables. The disease is declining, but we still have seven houses in quarantine," says Mohamed Fofanah at Mayemba, a hamlet on the route that has seen 25 deaths and 17 survivors.

"We're not supposed to go anywhere else and others aren't supposed to come here to Kenema," says Sidie Fofanah, founder of Starline radio, which educates its audience in the east on the ravages of Ebola.


- Prices soaring -

He says it is difficult to travel to Freetown and even getting to the neighbouring town of Kailahun, four hours further east on a potholed, often flooded muddy road, is a Herculean task.

Prices are soaring as a result and, in the absence of market stabilisation measures, inflation is out of control.

"Everything changes in a flash -- something that which costs $2 today will be worth $5 tomorrow, or $15," says Fofanah.

"Life seems back to normal, with people at work, but banks still only open from 9:30 am to midday, there is still no school and, above all, no doctors," he adds.

"We've lost three who died of Ebola at the beginning of the epidemic, and the others fled without being replaced."

Nevertheless, cocoa farmers are beginning to return to Kenema carrying jute bags full of their produce to the city's exporters by motorbike or taxi.

"Our problem is transportation," says Bassam Ayoub, owner of the Ayoub Trading business.

To reach the port of Freetown, from where the company exports its beans to the Netherlands and Turkey, its trucks take up to two days to negotiate 350 kilometres of road.


http://news.yahoo.com/sierra-leone-trading-hub-ebola-free-still-suffering-075510710.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Study will test survivors' blood to treat Ebola
Associated Press
By MARILYNN MARCHIONE  November 18, 2014 10:25 PM



This Nov. 7, 2014, photo shows the inside a mobile donation unit at the Raleigh-Durham International Airport in Raleigh, N.C. The unit was headed to Africa for use in a study of blood plasma treatment for Ebola patients. (AP Photo/Trevor Jenkins)



A coalition of companies and aid groups announced plans Tuesday to test experimental drugs and collect blood plasma from Ebola survivors to treat new victims of the disease in West Africa.

Plasma from survivors contains antibodies, substances the immune system makes to fight the virus. Several Ebola patients have received survivor plasma and recovered, but doctors say there is no way to know whether it really helps without a study like the one they are about to start within a month.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is giving $5.7 million to scale up production of the treatments for the project in Guinea and other Ebola-affected countries in Africa. More than a dozen companies, universities and others are contributing supplies, staff and cash, and are working with the countries and the World Health Organization on specific procedures and locations.

Besides helping Ebola patients now, plasma "could be a tool for a future epidemic as well" from different viruses, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates said in an interview with The Associated Press.

"You might not have drugs and vaccines for some new thing" and it would be good to have capabilities in place to collect and give plasma to fill the gap until those other tools can be developed, he said.

There are no drugs or vaccines approved now for Ebola, which has killed about 5,000 people this year in West Africa, most of them in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. Doctors Without Borders last week also said it would host studies of experimental treatments and plasma at three of its West Africa treatment centers.



This Nov. 7, 2014, photo shows the inside a mobile donation unit at the Raleigh-Durham International Airport in Raleigh, N.C. The unit was headed to Africa for use in a study of blood plasma treatment for Ebola patients. (AP Photo/Trevor Jenkins)


The drugs to be tested by both groups include brincidofovir, an antiviral medicine that has been tried in a few Ebola cases so far. Its maker, North Carolina-based Chimerix Inc., developed it to treat other types of viruses and lab tests suggest it might fight Ebola.

"We said to them, 'well, if money was no constraint, how much could you make?' and they gave us a number," Gates said. "So we said, 'OK, we'll take the risk that maybe nobody will ever buy this from you. So we'll help you scale up the manufacturing.'"

Making plasma available is a complex task. Plasma is the clear part of blood, and the part that contains antibodies. In Africa, donors' blood will be filtered through a machine to remove small amounts of plasma and return the rest of the blood to the donor — a process that allows someone to donate as often as every two weeks.

One of the first patients successfully treated for Ebola in the U.S. — aid worker Dr. Kent Brantly — received plasma from a 14-year-old boy he treated in Africa, where he was infected. Brantly has donated plasma several times to Ebola patients in the U.S.

A plasma recipient must have a compatible blood type as the donor. Survivors who give plasma also must be tested to make sure they are cured of Ebola and don't have other diseases such as hepatitis, syphilis or HIV. The Africa study will take an added step — use of an experimental system by Cerus Corp. for inactivating viruses in blood.



This Nov. 7, 2014 photo shows a mobile donation unit being loaded onto a plane at the Raleigh-Durham International Airport in Raleigh, N.C. The unit was headed to Africa for use in a study of blood plasma treatment for Ebola patients. (AP Photo/Trevor Jenkins)


Dr. Ada Igonoh, a doctor in Nigeria who got Ebola from a patient and recovered, expects to donate plasma and recruit others for the study.

"Survivors will be willing if they understand the goal," she said.

She and Brantly met with Gates to discuss the project earlier this month at an American Society of Tropical Medicine & Hygiene conference in New Orleans.

Dr. Luciana Borio, who is leading the Food and Drug Administration's Ebola response, spoke at the conference about plasma. Even though it seemed to help in some cases, "The bottom line is that we don't really know if it helps and to what degree it might help," she said.

"We would love to not be in the same situation in the future," and a study is the only way to know for sure, she said.



This Nov. 4, 2014, photo shows Dr. Ada Igonoh during a medical conference in New Orleans. Igonoh was a doctor in Nigeria who caught Ebola when she treated a man who flew to that country from Liberia in July. Igonoh recovered and hopes to recruit fellow survivors to donate blood plasma to treat people newly infected with the Ebola virus. (AP Photo/Marilynn Marchione)


Clinical Research Management Inc., a Northeast Ohio company that contracts with sponsors to run clinical trials, will lead the plasma study in Africa. Plasma will be collected through three bloodmobiles donated by another Microsoft co-founder, Paul G. Allen, and the Greenbaum Foundation. The bloodmobiles have been flown to Africa.

The U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) will provide Ebola testing for the study. Several universities will help, as will the Blood Centers of America and the Safe Blood for Africa Foundation. About a dozen companies donated equipment and supplies.

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Online:

WHO on plasma: http://tinyurl.com/lec7z4e

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http://news.yahoo.com/study-test-survivors-blood-treat-ebola-032509163--finance.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Ebola-infected Cuban doctor to be flown to Geneva for treatment
Reuters  November 19, 2014 2:53 PM


GENEVA (Reuters) - A Cuban doctor infected with Ebola in Sierra Leone will be flown to Switzerland in the next 48 hours for treatment in a Geneva hospital, Swiss health authorities said on Wednesday.

The doctor, identified by Cuban officials as Felix Baez, is one of 165 Cuban doctors and nurses treating Ebola patients in Sierra Leone. He is the first of the group, deployed since early October, known to be infected by the virus that has killed more than 5,400 people.

Baez is being evacuated from the West African country by a private American carrier, with the help of the World Health Organization, the Swiss Federal Office of Public Health said in a statement. The WHO said it had no comment on the case.

"The University Hospital of Geneva, where he will be brought, is ready to admit him in accordance with long-established procedures that will ensure the security of all staff and patients," the Swiss statement said.

A Geneva doctor specializing in infectious diseases is organizing his care in a special hospital room separate from other wards and outpatient clinics at the downtown hospital, it said. "The Swiss population is not at any risk."

Hospital staff have been trained and rehearsed procedures to put on and remove protective gear, the Swiss statement said.

Two Swiss hospitals are conducting trials of experimental vaccines against the virus. The NewLink vaccine, developed by Canada, is being tested in Geneva, while the GlaxoSmithKline vaccine is being tested in Lausanne.

Baez is a specialist in internal medicine who has worked at a Havana military hospital that also has a prison wing where some high-profile prisoners have been held.

Baez previously treated the late Cuban dissident Oscar Espinosa Chepe while he was imprisoned at the Carlos J. Finlay Military Hospital, according to the official website LaJiribilla. U.S. foreign aid contractor Alan Gross is serving a 15-year sentence there on his conviction for smuggling banned internet technology into the communist-run country.

"Be strong, Dad, everything's going to be all right," the doctor's son, second-year medical student Alejandro Baez, said in a statement to the official website CubaSi. "All of Cuba is waiting for you."

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva and Daniel Trotta in Havana; Editing by Angus MacSwan and Grant McCool)


http://news.yahoo.com/cuban-doctor-flown-geneva-ebola-care-swiss-155628305--finance.html