Ebola News 12/12

[Buster's Uncle]

Sierra Leone locks down new Ebola hotspot in the east
Reuters
By Umaru Fofana  9 hours ago



A sick man is carried away to be tested for Ebola after collapsing on a street in Monrovia December 9, 2014. REUTERS/James Giahyue



FREETOWN (Reuters) - Authorities in Sierra Leone have imposed a two-week lockdown in the eastern district of Kono after health workers uncovered a surge of Ebola infections in the area where the epidemic was thought to be largely under control.

The worst outbreak of Ebola on record has killed 6,533 people in the three West African countries most hit by the disease -- Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea -- and infected 18,118 people, the World Health Organization said on Thursday

Sierra Leone, with a shortage of treatment centres and trained staff, has overtaken Liberia as the worst affected nation, and until now, the recent spread was believed to be centred on western areas around the capital Freetown.

However, the WHO said on Wednesday that it had found bodies piled up at the only hospital in Kono, a district of about 350,000 people bordering Guinea.

Officials from the WHO, health ministry and U.S. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) discovered 87 bodies had been buried in 11 days.

Kono District Ebola Response Centre said it was placing the area on lockdown, allowing only essential vehicles in and out and introducing a night-time curfew.

Sierra Leone's government said on Wednesday it was working with the United Nations in Kono and the International Federation of the Red Cross was setting up a treatment centre there. The remote area has only one ambulance to transport the sick and blood samples for testing.

But in Liberia, medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said it was withdrawing from northern Lofa County, a former Ebola hotspot, after no new patients were recorded at its treatment centre in Foya since Oct. 30, allowing the centre's staff to be redeployed.

Ettore Mazzanti, MSF Project Coordinator in Foya, said efforts to contain the outbreak had been helped by explaining to local people how to avoid the virus, which has no known cure and is transmitted through the bodily fluids of sick people.

Scientists are racing to develop Ebola vaccines.

The Ebola response in Sierra Leone has been dogged by strikes by healthcare staff over pay and working conditions.

Despite government claims that it had reached a deal with junior doctors, Dr Jeredine George, president of the Junior Doctors' Association, told Reuters that its members would strike for a fourth day on Thursday.

They are demanding a specialised Ebola treatment clinic for Sierra Leonean doctors, 10 of whom have died since the outbreak began. Deputy Health Minister Madinatu Rahman has said plans are underway to get such a clinic set up this month.


http://news.yahoo.com/sierra-leone-locks-down-ebola-hotspot-east-072117280.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Sierra Leone to ban Xmas parties, plans "surge" to curb Ebola spread
Reuters
By Bate Felix and Umaru Fofana  8 minutes ago



DAKAR/FREETOWN (Reuters) - Sierra Leone plans to ban parties and other festivities over the Christmas and New Year's holidays and to launch a "surge" to cut the risk of Ebola spreading further in the West African country now with the most infections, officials said on Friday.

Sierra Leone is struggling to reduce the spread of the viral hemorrhagic fever as the death toll in West Africa continues to rise, fueled in part by increasing infections in the country.

Figures from the World Health Organization on Friday showed 6,583 people have died from the disease in three states in West Africa - Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia - out of 18,188 cases.

"The government is planning to keep people indoors during Christmas through Boxing Day and New Year," said Jarrah Kawusu-Konte, a spokesman for Sierra Leone's president.

He told Reuters that the government would deploy soldiers across the country to enforce the measure, which would include a ban on parties and other gatherings.

"When you have parties, the risks are very high. We are very anxious to break the chain of transmission through parties and gatherings," Kawusu-Konte said. He did not specify the date when the ban would take effect.


EBOLA RESPONSE SURGE

In addition to the ban on gatherings, Sierra Leonean authorities are also planning what they have called a "surge" in their response in and around the capital Freetown, aimed at stemming the increasing rise of Ebola infections.

For several weeks, most of the new infections have been showing up in and around Freetown. At least more than five areas in the far west and far east of Freetown will be particularly targeted where epidemiologists say sick people still refuse to report to treatment centers.

Data published by WHO on Friday showed that there were some 8,086 cases in Sierra Leone, with nearly 1,900 deaths.

The month-long surge, which will start on Wednesday, is aimed at strengthening the country's response, especially in terms of tracing people who have contracted Ebola, according to Palo Conteh, the head of Sierra Leone's National Ebola Response Center (NERC).

"We want to get sick people out of their homes and take them to treatment centers, more of which we will be opening next week," Conteh said in Freetown.

NERC Coordinator Stephen Gaojia said there would be "door-to-door" visits as people were still dying at home because they were refusing to report to health facilities even when infected.

He added that 900 beds would be made available to take in the sick in order to reduce the transmission rate in the western area after New Year's Day and to ultimately stop transmission of Ebola.

(Writing by Bate Felix; Editing by Mark Heinrich)


http://news.yahoo.com/sierra-leone-ban-christmas-parties-curb-ebola-spread-212758233--business.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Guinea-Bissau reports suspected Ebola case
AFP  4 hours ago



Boots and protective suits dry at an Ebola treatment centre in Conakry on December 8, 2014 (AFP Photo/Cellou Binani)



Bissau (AFP) - A man who entered Guinea-Bissau from neighbouring Guinea the day after the border reopened is being treated for suspected Ebola, a medical official said on Friday.

The traveller was running a temperature and put under surveillance as he tried to pass through the Fulamori border crossing on Wednesday.

He took advantage of lax security among border guards to escape observation and boarded a bus headed for the eastern city of Gabu, where he was apprehended.

"He had a temperature higher than 39 Celsius (102 Fahrenheit). It is for this reason that we have isolated him pending further analysis of his case," said Gilda Helena De Almeida Vieira, head nurse at a health post in the western village of Buruntuma.

Eight fellow passengers were quarantined, said Vieira.

She voiced concern over border controls at the busy crossing.

"We would like to see controls strengthened and National Guard officers deployed to discourage those who refuse to go through our controls," she said.

The government in Bissau reopened its 300-kilometre (185-mile) land border with Guinea on Tuesday, closed since August 12 due to the Ebola outbreak.

In November, a team from the World Health Organization concluded that Guinea-Bissau had an "inefficient health system which would not be able to cope with an outbreak of Ebola".

The country has so far seen no confirmed cases of Ebola in an outbreak that has claimed more than 6,300 lives in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.


http://news.yahoo.com/guinea-bissau-reports-suspected-ebola-case-190312964.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Mali: Last known Ebola case has recovered
Associated Press
By SARAH DiLORENZO  6 hours ago



In this file photo taken Saturday, Oct. 25, 2014, a health worker, right, briefs another, left, on the use of their Ebola security gear before working with diseased Fanta Kone at a Ebola virus center in Kayes, Mali. The last Ebola patient being treated in Mali has survived the disease and been released, the Health Ministry said Friday, Dec. 12, 2014. (AP Photo/Baba Ahmed, File)



DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — The last Ebola patient being treated in Mali has survived the disease and been released, the Health Ministry said Friday, leaving no known cases in the West African country.

Mali has recorded eight cases of Ebola, all of them linked to people who crossed from neighboring Guinea. The country now has no confirmed or suspected cases, according to the ministry, but authorities are still monitoring 26 people who had contact with the sick. A person infected with Ebola can take up to 21 days to show symptoms.

The last patient was discharged on Thursday after several Ebola tests came back negative, the ministry said in a statement posted on its website.

Because people are still being monitored and a sick person could cross the border again, the government warned Malians to remain vigilant.

Countries are only declared free of Ebola when 42 days — twice the maximum incubation period — have passed since anyone has had contact with a confirmed or probable case.

In the current outbreak, Ebola has sickened more than 18,200 people, the vast majority in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, according to the World Health Organization. Of those, nearly 6,600 have died.



This April 15, 2004 photo shows Michel du Cille, a photographer and former photo editor with The Washington Post. Three time Pulitzer Prize winner, du Cille died Thursday Dec. 11, 2014 while on assignment chronicling Ebola patients and their caretakers for the Post in Liberia. He was 58. (AP Photo/The Washington Post, Julia Ewan)


A photographer for The Washington Post sent to cover the outbreak in Liberia died on Thursday after collapsing while returning on foot from a village where he'd been working, the newspaper reported.

Michel du Cille, 58, a three-time Pulitzer Prize winner, died before he reached Phebe Hospital in Bong County, Information Minister Lewis Brown told The Associated Press on Friday. It took two hours, traveling on dirt roads, to get Du Cille to the hospital after he collapsed, according to the paper.

Health officials in Bong have been instructed to send the body to Monrovia, Liberia's capital, Brown said.

___

Associated Press writer Jonathan Paye-Layleh contributed from Monrovia, Liberia.


http://news.yahoo.com/mali-last-known-ebola-case-cured-released-110525928.html

[Buster's Uncle]

UN names veteran humanitarian official as new head of Ebola mission
Reuters  13 hours ago



United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon delivers a speech during the High Level Segment of the U.N. Climate Change Conference COP 20 in Lima December 10, 2014. REUTERS/Enrique Castro-Mendivil



ACCRA (Reuters) - U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon appointed veteran humanitarian official Ould Cheikh Ahmed of Mauritania on Thursday as the new head of its mission to fight an outbreak of the Ebola virus in West Africa.

Ahmed, who has 28 years of U.N. experience in humanitarian and development affairs, will replace Anthony Banbury as leader of the U.N. Ebola Emergency Response Mission (UNMEER) in January, a U.N. statement said.

The worst outbreak of Ebola on record has killed 6,533 people in the three West African countries most hit by the disease -- Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea -- and infected 18,118 people, the World Health Organization said on Thursday.

France, the United States, Britain, Cuba and other governments have joined the fight against Ebola, alongside the WHO, medical charities and others. UNMEER, based in Ghana, coordinates policy and logistics rather than treating patients.


http://news.yahoo.com/un-names-veteran-humanitarian-official-head-ebola-mission-100930291.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Ebola cases require rare dual air ambulance rescues
Patients undergoing treatment at Maryland and Georgia hospitals
Yahoo
By Jason Sickles, December 11, 2014 4:57 PM



A Phoenix Air jet carrying Dr. Martin Salia lands in Omaha, Neb., on Nov. 15. He died from Ebola at Nebraska Medical Center two days later. (Nati Harnik/AP)


 
There has been an apparent first in the fight against Ebola this week.

According to flight records, the private jet company contracted by the State Department to transport Ebola patients flew two air ambulances to West Africa on the same day.

Until Wednesday, Phoenix Air had flown only one Ebola-fighting mission at a time. A second Gulfstream jet featuring the ability to treat infectious patients in flight had been held back in case of an emergency with the first aircraft. But last month, the Georgia-based operation finished customizing a third jet to handle the specialized medical equipment.



A tentlike structure allows caregivers to treat a single Ebola patient in flight without infectious germs escaping. (CDC via Reuters)


The increased rescue capacity comes just in time. On Thursday, the Red Cross warned of a possible rise in the rate of Ebola infections in West Africa as people travel across the region during the holidays.

One of this week’s flights brought an American nurse to the Washington area. On Thursday, the National Institutes of Health announced that an unidentified relief worker who was exposed to the Ebola virus while volunteering in Sierra Leone was being admitted.

So far, no information is known about the mission of this week’s second Ebola flight. Messages left for Phoenix Air were not immediately returned on Thursday. A State Department spokeswoman said she could not immediately answer questions from Yahoo News.

“We won’t have anything for you on this today and may not have something until early next week,” the spokeswoman said via email.

There appears to be no public flight plan mapping either jet’s departure from Léopold Sédar Senghor International Airport in Dakar, Senegal. Yahoo News asked a Phoenix Air official last month about a noticeable increase in keeping flight information off of databases searchable by the public.

“The only thing I can say is that it's for operational security,” said Dent Thompson, the company’s vice president of operations. “There are a whole lot of things going on in the background, and whatever we do, it is in cooperation with the government and us.”

Of the flight plans that are public, records show Phoenix Air has made at least five trips to West Africa this month.

One of those was Dec. 4, to bring an American health care worker who may have been exposed to the Ebola virus to Atlanta’s Emory University Hospital.

On Thursday, an Emory spokesperson declined to say if the patient had tested positive for the deadly disease, but did confirm that the woman is still being treated in the hospital’s serious communicable diseases unit.

An expedited multimillion dollar agreement with the State Department in August put Phoenix Air on retainer through mid-January to transport Ebola-stricken patients at U.S. request. Both parties told Yahoo News last month that an extension was in the works. It’s unknown if a new deal has been reached. The State Department spokeswoman said she could not provide details on Phoenix Air’s expiring contract.

At least six Phoenix Air Ebola evacuees from West Africa have not been brought to the United States. Because of the specialized equipment and complicated missions, the State Department has allowed foreign governments and aid organizations to piggyback on its deal with Phoenix Air if they agree to cover the costs.


http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-rescues-require-rare-back-to-back-air-ambulance-flights-214504040.html

[Buster's Uncle]

New UN Ebola mission chief named
AFP  December 11, 2014 5:13 PM



A nurse wearing personal protective equipment assists an Ebola patient at the Kenama treatment center run by the Red Cross Society on November 15, 2014 (AFP Photo/Francisco Leong)



United Nations (United States) (AFP) - UN chief Ban Ki-moon on Thursday appointed a Mauritanian national to head the UN Ebola mission set up two months ago to combat the world's worst outbreak of the virus.

Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, who currently serves as number two at the UN mission in Libya, will succeed American Anthony Banbury as head of the UN Mission for Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER).

Ould Cheikh Ahmed takes over the mission as the number of infections continues to rise in Sierra Leone, overtaking Liberia as the hardest-hit country.

The year-long Ebola epidemic has left nearly 6,400 people dead, with close to 18,000 infections in eight countries, although West Africa remains the epicenter of the crisis.

Ould Cheikh Ahmed, 54, has worked for various UN development and humanitarian agencies in Syria, Yemen, Nairobi and Georgia.

Ban decided to create the first UN mission focused on a health emergency to coordinate the international response to the epidemic following criticism from non-governmental organizations that not enough was being done.

UNMEER is headquarters in Ghana, but has country offices in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea and Mali.


http://news.yahoo.com/un-ebola-mission-chief-named-221308785.html

[Buster's Uncle]

UN says several months needed to control Ebola
Associated Press
By EDITH M. LEDERER  23 hours ago



UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The U.N. Ebola chief said Thursday it will take several more months before the outbreak in West Africa is under control, an assessment that makes clear the U.N.'s goal of isolating 100 percent of Ebola cases by Jan. 1 won't be met.

Dr. David Nabarro said there has been "a massive shift" over the last four months in the way affected governments have taken the lead in responding to the epidemic, communities are taking action and the international community has pitched in.

But he said greater efforts are needed to combat Ebola in western Sierra Leone and northern Mali, to reduce the number of new cases in Liberia and to limit transmission to Mali.

The World Health Organization conceded that it didn't meet an interim Dec. 1 target of isolating 70 percent of Ebola patients and safely burying 70 percent of victims in hardest-hit Sierra Leone. But it hasn't made clear what that means for the Jan. 1 goal of 100 percent of cases isolated and bodies buried safely. WHO has acknowledged that its patchy data could compromise the goal, since the agency does not know how many Ebola patients there actually are and is unable to track all of their contacts.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said last month the outbreak might not be contained until sometime next year.

"We must be prepared for ups and downs, difficulties and successes," Nabarro told a meeting promoting greater collaboration between the U.N. and the business community in responding to Ebola. "And it's going to take, I'm afraid, several more months before we can truly declare that the outbreak is coming under control."

More than 18,100 people have been infected and more than 6,500 have died in West Africa since the initial case in Guinea a year ago, in an area bordering Sierra Leone and Liberia. Unlike previous Ebola outbreaks, which had been confined to faraway villages in the rain forests of Central Africa, this one quickly spread to capital cities in all three West African nations and has become the worst in history.

Nabarro told a news conference that "the outbreak is actually a collection of a large number of small outbreaks all over the affected countries, possibly as many as a hundred different outbreaks, all at varying stages of evolution, all with different intensity."

The number of Ebola cases is now stabilizing in Liberia and Guinea but continues to spread rapidly in Sierra Leone, where Nabarro said the country's president is leading "an intensified surge operation" in the capital Freetown and hard-hit western areas.

"It will come under control — it's, I think, a matter of weeks," Nabarro said.

In Sierra Leone on Thursday, President Ernest Bai Koroma implored the country's traditional leaders to stop cultural practices blamed for spreading Ebola, including funerals that involve touching corpses that are highly contagious.

Koroma said he hoped to end all Ebola transmissions in the next 21 days, but that goal seems unrealistic in a country where 400 to 500 cases a week have recently been reported.

Nabarro, the U.N. special envoy for Ebola, said the U.N. and experts responding to the outbreak are also disturbed by the 10-20 new cases daily in Liberia and want the number reduced to zero.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced Thursday that the Ebola operations chief in West Africa, Anthony Banbury, will be replaced by veteran U.N. official Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed of Mauritania when he returns to U.N. headquarters in January.

Ahmed, who is currently the U.N. deputy special representative in Libya, will work closely with Nabarro and governments in the region when he takes over as head of the U.N. Mission for Emergency Response in West Africa, Ban said.

___

Associated Press writers Sarah DiLorenzo in Dakar, Senegal and Maria Cheng in London contributed to this report


http://news.yahoo.com/un-says-several-months-needed-control-ebola-173339957.html

[Buster's Uncle]

UNICEF ups Ebola fight, needs $500mn for next six months
AFP  5 hours ago



A child who survived the Ebola virus is fed by another survivor at Hastings treatment center on the outskirts of Freetown, on November 11, 2014 (AFP Photo/Francisco Leong)



Geneva (AFP) - The UN children's agency said Friday it was scaling up efforts to fight Ebola, including to help thousands of children in west Africa orphaned by the deadly virus.

The agency said it had already received the $200 million (160 million euros) it had previously appealed for but now estimated it would need $300 million more over the next six months.

The expanded budget would among other things help provide protection services to many of the estimated 10,000 children who have lost one or both parents to the deadly disease, Unicef spokeswoman Sarah Crowe said.

"This is about restoring family links, retracing, reuniting children with extended family," she told reporters in Geneva.

Nearly 6,550 people have died in the outbreak centred in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, from a virus that is taking a devastating toll on children.

Crowe said the additional funds would also help Unicef, when needed, to take children who have been in contact with Ebola patients to interim care centres for monitoring during the virus's 21-day incubation period.

The funds will also allow the agency to help tackle the two major drivers of Ebola, lack of early isolation of patients and unsafe burials, she said.

The agency will among other things train and deploy around 60,0000 community volunteers to help promote "life-saving behaviours", she said.

The additional funds would also allow Unicef to help strengthen health care systems which were already poor before Ebola began its murderous rampage through the impoverished countries nearly a year ago.

The Unicef announcement came after the World Health Organization hosted a high-level meeting in Geneva aimed at finding ways to rebuild the health systems in the Ebola-hit countries.

The Ebola outbreak has also hiked the need for food assistance in the hard-hit countries, with the World Food Programme saying Friday it had helped feed more than two million people since April.

"For November alone, WFP dispatched more than 10,000 metric tonnes of food for more than half a million people" across the three countries, spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs told reporters.


http://news.yahoo.com/unicef-ups-ebola-fight-needs-500mn-next-six-183144988.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Mali says has no remaining Ebola cases as last patient recovers
Reuters  16 hours ago



BAMAKO (Reuters) - Mali has no remaining cases of the Ebola virus as the last patient in the country has recovered and left hospital, the Ministry of Health said on Thursday.

Six people have died of Ebola in Mali, while two others have recovered. The country is the sixth West African state to be hit by the worst outbreak on record of the haemorrhagic fever.

At least 6,533 people have died of the virus in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea, the three West African countries worst hit by the disease, according to the World Health Organization.

Ebola first entered Mali through an infant girl who died of the disease in October after arriving from neighbouring Guinea. Later that month, an imam who also arrived from Guinea with the disease died in Mali. He infected other people.

"The only remaining case in treatment has recovered and has been released today so there are no more people sick with Ebola in Mali," said Ministry of Health spokesman Markatié Daou.

Mali is yet to be officially declared Ebola-free, a status acquired by Nigeria and Senegal, two other countries that had cases of the virus earlier this year.


http://news.yahoo.com/mali-says-no-remaining-ebola-cases-last-patient-074334039.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Ebola toll in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia reaches 6,583: WHO
Reuters  6 hours ago



Medical staff working with Medecins sans Frontieres (MSF) prepare to bring food to patients kept in an isolation area at the MSF Ebola treatment centre in Kailahun July 20, 2014.REUTERS/Tommy Trenchard



DAKAR (Reuters) - The death toll from the Ebola outbreak in the three worst-hit countries in West Africa reached 6,583 as of Dec. 10, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday.

Updated figures on the WHO website showed that 18,188 cases have been recorded in the three nations in the worst outbreak of the disease on record.

The viral haemorrhagic fever was first detected in the southeastern forest region of Guinea early this year before spreading to neighbors Liberia and Sierra Leone, which now has the highest number of infections, according to the WHO.

(Reporting by Bate Felix; Editing by Kevin Liffey)


http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-toll-guinea-sierra-leone-liberia-reaches-6-173836269.html

[Buster's Uncle]

American nurse exposed to Ebola arrives at treatment center
Reuters  16 hours ago



NEW YORK (Reuters) - An American nurse who was exposed to Ebola while volunteering in an Ebola treatment unit in Sierra Leone arrived at the National Institutes of Health's Clinical Center in Maryland on Thursday, NIH said in a statement.

The nurse was transferred to the Bethesda facility via a private medical evacuation flight.

NIH did not release any further information on the nurse, including when he or she might have been exposed to the virus, current medical condition or affiliation.

The patient will be admitted "for observation and to enroll in a clinical protocol," NIH said.

The NIH clinical center is one of 35 institutions designated as Ebola treatment centers earlier this month by the U.S. government, and previously treated a nurse who contracted Ebola in Texas.

The clinical studies unit is designed to provide high-level isolation capabilities and is staffed by infectious disease and critical care specialists.


http://news.yahoo.com/american-nurse-exposed-ebola-arrives-treatment-center-073905183.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Saudi king grants $35 mn for Ebola fight
AFP  December 11, 2014 2:08 PM



Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud sits before a meeting at the Royal Palace on September 11, 2014 in Jeddah (AFP Photo/Brendan Smialowski)



Jeddah (Saudi Arabia) (AFP) - Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah has granted $35 million to fight Ebola in an effort to slow a death toll which has reached nearly 6,400, the Islamic Development Bank said Thursday.

The grant will provide schools in West Africa with heat sensors and medical equipment to help prevent and treat the illness, Ahmed Mohamed Ali, president of the Jeddah-based IDB, said in a statement.

Similar equipment will be provided at airports and other terminals, said the IDB, which will implement the project.

It said the funds will also help to establish specialised treatment centres in the most affected countries -- Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia.

Another treatment centre will be set up in Mali, where six people have died from Ebola.

Ali said the equipment will speed up the opening of schools in affected countries and bolster health and other infrastructure, "thus saving thousands of lives and ensuring the safety of those at risk of contamination".

On Wednesday, the World Health Organization reported 17,942 cases of the virus across eight countries as of December 7, with 6,388 deaths.

Saudi Arabia is the major shareholder of the Jeddah-based IDB.


http://news.yahoo.com/saudi-king-grants-35-mn-ebola-fight-190833792.html