Ebola News 12/17

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UN warns 1 million people could be hungry by March due to Ebola - TRFN
Reuters
By Chris Arsenault  29 minutes ago



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



ROME (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Half a million people in three West African nations rocked by Ebola are going hungry and that number could double by March if food supplies do not improve, two United Nations agencies warned on Wednesday.

In Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, the countries at the heart of the worst recorded outbreak of Ebola, workers have been staying away from markets and fields for fear of spreading the virus that has killed more than 6,800 people since March.

This fear has caused labour shortages on farms for planting and weeding and cut household incomes, compounding an economic slowdown in these three countries.

Border closures and quarantines are disrupting supply chains, hindering market access and exacerbating shortages, raising fears that one million people from a combined population of 20 million could be going hungry by March.

"The outbreak has revealed the vulnerability of current food production systems and value chains in the worst Ebola-affected countries," Bukar Tijani, the Food and Agriculture Organisation's (FAO) representative for Africa said in a statement.

The FAO said more food needs to be imported into these countries which are facing a financial crunch because exports have dropped and recommended cash transfers or vouchers for affected people to buy food and help stimulate markets.

Denise Brown, a relief coordinator for the World Food Programme, said the situation regarding food supplies could get worse before improvements are seen from international efforts.

In Guinea, 230,000 people are estimated to be facing sever food shortages because of the impact of Ebola. By March 2015, the number is expected to rise to more than 470,000.

Nearly 300,000 Liberians are expected to face severe food problems by March, up from 170,000 today.

The drop in absolute food production across the three states in 2014 compared to the previous year has been relatively modest with an 8 percent drop in Liberia, 3 percent in Guinea and 5 percent fall in Sierra Leone.

The World Food Programme has provided aid to more than two million people in these three countries and UN agencies have asked for more funding from donors for 2015.

(Reporting By Chris Arsenault, Editing by Belinda Goldsmith)


http://news.yahoo.com/un-warns-1-million-people-could-hungry-march-161314564--business.html

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Health teams scour Sierra Leone capital in Ebola drive
Reuters
By Emma Farge  20 minutes ago



A worker adds a pin to a map at the Western area emergency response centre in Freetown December 16, 2014. REUTERS/Baz Ratner



FREETOWN (Reuters) - Health workers in Sierra Leone began combing the streets of the capital Freetown for Ebola patients on Wednesday, moving house-to-house as the government launched a major operation to contain infection in West Africa's worst-hit country.

President Ernest Bai Koroma said on national television that, as part of "Operation Western Area Surge", travel between all parts of the country would be restricted and public gatherings would be restrained in the run-up to Christmas.

An encounter in the Devil's Hole neighbourhood just outside Freetown showed why the programme was vital. Ibrahim Kamara sat in a discarded vehicle tyre, his eyes glassy and his breath coming in gasps, as he tried to answer questions from Ebola surveillance officers.

"Is the body weak?" a surveillance officer shouted. Kamara, 31, nodded despondently while onlookers gathered round.

"Vomiting," the officer asked. Kamara nodded again.

Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia are at the heart of the world's worst recorded outbreak of Ebola. Rates of infection are rising fastest in Sierra Leone and the country has more than half of the 18,000 confirmed cases of the virus.

House-to-house searches form one part of the month-long push in and around Freetown by the government, a British task force and international groups that aims to make a breakthrough against the disease within four to six weeks.

Kamara's wife, Adama, said they had tried to take a taxi to hospital but the driver made them get out when he discovered her husband was ill.

She said a neighbour died on Saturday from Ebola-like symptoms. Ibrahim had been taking anti-malaria medicine but his condition deteriorated, she said, starting to cry.

With the annual malaria season at its height, aid groups have distributed the free treatment in a bid to prevent people with malaria being misdiagnosed with Ebola, which has similar symptoms.

The surveillance officers wrote down the Kamaras' address and the names of five family members in their household before calling an ambulance. Nearby, a hearse drove by with the slogan 'dust to dust' painted on its back window.

Kamara's diagnosis was unconfirmed, but local chief Alhagi Ibrahim Sesay said Kamara's arrival in the area could mean Ebola has come to Devil's Hole, a community with no previous history of the virus.

"Today, on the day the government starts its house-to-house exercise, this man gives a problem in our area. As head man, I don't want any sick from another community," he said.


NEW MEASURES

Health officials are alarmed by the widespread transmission in Freetown, which is similar to an earlier spread in the Liberian capital Monrovia now slowly being brought under control.

According to a government plan announced this week, health workers will seek victims and anyone with whom they have had contact, transporting those infected to new British-built treatment centres.

"Given the efforts we have undertaken we would expect to see a significant decrease in cases within several weeks," Tom Frieden, director of the U.S.-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told Reuters during a visit to Freetown.

The programme showed some early signs of progress. Russell Macleod, a British military consultant with the surveillance team in the Western command and control centre in Freetown, told Reuters they received a record number of alerts this morning.

By lunchtime, they exceeded Tuesday's total by 50 percent with 140 alerts generated from an Ebola hotline. In response, the live case management team dispatched teams to 52 suspected cases, he said.

As part of the efforts, Koroma said worshippers on Christmas Day must return home after services and other festivities are banned. New Year's Eve services must stop by 5 p.m. local time (1700 GMT), while New Year's Day festivities are prohibited.

"This is the festive season where Sierra Leoneans often celebrate with families in a flamboyant and joyous manner, but all must be reminded that our country is at war with a vicious enemy," he said in his nationwide address.

The government was also imposing a ban on Sunday trading and the end of Saturday shopping at noon, Koroma said. He spoke one day after opening an Ebola Community Care Centre outside the capital.


http://news.yahoo.com/health-teams-scour-sierra-leone-capital-ebola-drive-162002609--business.html

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House searches for Ebola in Sierra Leone capital
Associated Press
By CLARENCE ROY-MACAULAY  1 hour ago



In this Wednesday, Oct. 22, 2014 file photo, a child stands near a sign advising of a quarantined home in an effort to combat the spread of the Ebola virus in Port Loko, Sierra Leone. Community leaders and Ebola surveillance teams are going house-to-house in neighborhoods in and around Sierra Leone’s capital to search for the sick. President Ernest Bai Koroma launched “Operation Western Area Surge” on Wednesday in a national broadcast. While infection rates appear to be stabilizing or declining in neighboring Guinea and Liberia, Sierra Leone is still seeing a surge of cases, especially the Western Area, which includes Freetown and its surroundings. (AP Photo/Michael Duff, File)



FREETOWN, Sierra Leone (AP) — Ebola surveillance teams fanned out Wednesday in Sierra Leone's capital to search for sick people, as the president imposed new restrictions on movement and gatherings in a bid to stop the disease's spread.

President Ernest Bai Koroma launched "Operation Western Area Surge" in a national broadcast, promising that treatment beds, labs and ambulances are ready to handle new cases. He reiterated that Christmas and New Year's celebrations are canceled and also banned public gatherings during the holidays and movement between districts.

"I know that this is the festive season where Sierra Leoneans often celebrate with families in a flamboyant and joyous manner, but all must be reminded that our country is at war with a vicious enemy," he said.

Sierra Leone has repeatedly quarantined hot spots and once locked down the entire country to ferret out the sick, but infections continue to rise and the disease is now whipping around Freetown and its surroundings. People do not have to stay in their homes during the 14-day operation.

Ebola has sickened around 18,500 people. But infection rates have begun to stabilize or decline in Guinea and Liberia, the other two countries hit hard by Ebola.

Still, Tom Frieden, head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, warned against comparing Sierra Leone to Liberia. Ebola hit the Liberian capital early in the outbreak and cases surged there this summer, while the disease first struck rural Sierra Leone.

There is no need to send U.S. troops to Sierra Leone, said Frieden, who was visiting the country Wednesday. American troops are building treatment centers in Liberia, while British troops are helping in Sierra Leone.

"The fight is going to be long and hard to get to zero cases, which requires individuals to come forward," said Frieden.

Ebola has hammered the economies of the three most-affected countries, and the number of people facing hunger could double to more than 1 million by March, the United Nations said Wednesday. The World Food Program has fed more than 2 million people in the region, including the estimated 500,000 people facing severe food insecurity.


http://news.yahoo.com/search-ebola-sierra-leone-capital-begins-113502972.html

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Ethiopian health workers arrive in Liberia to help fight Ebola
Reuters  9 hours ago



Ethiopian health workers arrive at Roberts airport outside Monrovia, Liberia, December 16, 2014. Scores of Ethiopian health workers arrived in Liberia on Tuesday to bolster the response to an Ebola outbreak that the government says it wants to stamp out before Christmas. The 87 doctors and nurses will join an African Union (AU) mission against the worst Ebola outbreak on record, which has killed more than 6,800 people in Liberia and neighboring Sierra Leone and Guinea.Picture taken December 16, 2014. REUTERS/James Giahyue



MONROVIA (Reuters) - Scores of Ethiopian health workers arrived in Liberia on Tuesday to bolster the response to an Ebola outbreak that the government says it wants to stamp out before Christmas.

The 87 doctors and nurses will join an African Union (AU) mission against the worst Ebola outbreak on record, which has killed more than 6,800 people in Liberia and neighbouring Sierra Leone and Guinea.

They will join more than 175 Nigerian medics deployed to Liberia and Sierra Leone earlier this month.

"The aim of the AU is to support the government on the progress so far made. We want to expand on it, to make sure that the community also supports it," said Major-General Julius Oketta, who head's the AU Ebola mission.

The bulk of the African Union's efforts in Liberia focus on Montserrado County, which is home to the country's capital and largest city Monrovia.

Once the country hardest hit by the disease, Liberia has seen a sharp decline in new infections, spawning optimism that the outbreak there may be coming to an end.

“The campaign, getting to zero before Christmas, continues," said Liberia's assistant health minister Tolbert Nyenswah. "We are still having between five to 10 cases per day in Liberia, and that is huge."


http://news.yahoo.com/ethiopian-health-workers-arrive-liberia-help-fight-ebola-072528510.html

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Sierra Leone to start house-to-house searches for Ebola patients
Reuters
By Emma Farge and Umaru Fofana  4 hours ago



A worker adds a pin to a map at the Western area emergency response centre in Freetown December 16, 2014. REUTERS/Baz Ratner



FREETOWN (Reuters) - Sierra Leone said it would start house-to-house searches for Ebola patients on Wednesday and impose internal travel restrictions as part of a new push to combat the epidemic.

The measures are part of a month-long push in and around the capital Freetown by the government, a British taskforce and international groups that aims to make a breakthrough against the disease within four to six weeks.

Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia are at the heart of the world's worst recorded outbreak of Ebola. Rates of infection are rising fastest in Sierra Leone and the country has more than half of the 18,000 confirmed cases of the virus.

"Given the efforts we have undertaken we would expect to see a significant decrease in cases within several weeks," Tom Frieden, director of the U.S.-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told Reuters during a visit to Freetown.

Health officials are alarmed by the widespread transmission in Freetown, which is similar to an earlier spread in Monrovia now slowly being brought under control. There is less experience fighting Ebola in urban areas than in rural ones, Frieden said.

Health workers will seek Ebola victims and anyone with whom they have had contact, transporting those infected to new British-built treatment centres, according to a government plan announced this week.

President Ernest Bai Koroma said that, under the new measures, worshippers on Christmas Day must return home after services and other festivities are banned. New Year's Eve services must stop by 5 p.m. local time (1700 GMT), while New Year's Day festivities are prohibited.

"This is the festive season where Sierra Leoneans often celebrate with families in a flamboyant and joyous manner, but all must be reminded that our country is at war with a vicious enemy," he said in a nationwide address.

The government was also imposing restrictions on travel between districts, a ban on Sunday trading and the end of Saturday shopping at noon, Koroma said. He spoke one day after opening an Ebola Community Care Centre outside the capital.


http://news.yahoo.com/sierra-leone-start-house-house-searches-ebola-patients-123541900--business.html

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UN chief heading to West Africa to see response to Ebola
Associated Press
By EDITH M. LEDERER  5 hours ago



UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Wednesday he's heading to West Africa to demonstrate the U.N.'s solidarity with the countries most affected by the Ebola outbreak and to see for himself how the world is responding.

The U.N. chief will leave Wednesday night and visit hard-hit Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea as well as Mali. He will also visit Ghana, where the U.N. Mission for Ebola Emergency Response is headquartered.

"I want to see the response for myself and show my solidarity with those affected, and urge even greater global action," Ban told a news conference.

In the world's largest Ebola outbreak, some 18,500 people have been infected, mainly in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. Of those, more than 6,800 have died.

Ban said local communities and national governments are engaged, there has been "an impressive outpouring of life-saving contributions from across Africa and across the world ... and we are beginning to see improvements."

But he said there is still a shortage of people and resources to tackle Ebola, and warned that "now is not the time to ease up on our efforts."

"As long as there is one case of Ebola, the risk remains," Ban said. "We must do everything we can to get to zero."

During his trip, Ban said he will meet with five presidents and staff from the U.N. mission known as UNMEER. He said he will also try to visit treatment facilities provided by key countries such as the United States, Britain and France, and some other local treatment centers.

The secretary-general said he will be traveling with Dr. Margaret Chan, the World Health Organization director-general, and U.N. Ebola chief Dr. David Nabarro. He said Tony Banbury, who heads UNMEER and is in Conakry, will also join the trip.


http://news.yahoo.com/un-chief-heading-west-africa-see-response-ebola-194402498.html

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U.S. doctor who recovered from Ebola will return to Liberia
Reuters  6 hours ago



Health workers enter an Ebola treatment center in Monrovia, Liberia, December 16, 2014. REUTERS/James Giahyue



(Reuters) - A doctor from Massachusetts who came down with Ebola while volunteering in Liberia will return to West Africa in January to resume medical work, the missionary group he works with said on Wednesday.

Rick Sacra, 52, recovered from Ebola under treatment in September at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha. He was one of three American health workers for Christian missionary groups who came down with Ebola in Liberia and were flown to the United States for treatment.

Sacra will go back to Liberia for about a month and will treat patients with problems other than Ebola, freeing up other health workers to focus on Ebola, the SIM missionary group said in a statement.

Ebola, a hemorrhagic fever, has killed more than 6,000 people out of more than 17,000 cases in an outbreak that began in March, according to the United Nations' World Health Organization. Almost all of the cases have been in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.

(Reporting by Fiona Ortiz in Chicago)


http://news.yahoo.com/u-doctor-recovered-ebola-return-liberia-195149226.html

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Sierra Leone goes door-to-door to fight Ebola surge
AFP  2 hours ago



Sierra Leone overtook Liberia recently as the country with the highest number of Ebola infections. (AFP Photo/Francisco Leong)



Freetown (AFP) - Sierra Leone on Wednesday said health workers would go door-to-door as part of sweeping efforts to stem the spread of Ebola in the west of the country, which has also been hit by a ban on New Year revelries and travel restrictions.

President Ernest Bai Koroma led the charge in a nationwide radio address saying "travel and movements between districts will be restricted during the Christmas period" across the west African nation, which has seen the highest number of Ebola cases in the current epidemic.

Hundreds of health workers and volunteers meanwhile fanned out across the country's west, where the capital Freetown is located, to begin the 15-day exercise officially dubbed the "Western Area Surge".

"Christians attending church ceremonies on Christmas Day will be allowed to do so but are requested to return home immediately after the church services to celebrate Christmas with their families," the president said.

Although Islam is the dominant religion in Sierra Leone, more than a quarter of the population is Christian and public gatherings and entertainment are common during the holiday period.

"All New Year Eve festivities including church services and New Year day outings are prohibited," Koroma said.

"Any church wishing to hold a service on New Year Eve should ensure that the service ends before 5:00 pm on Wednesday, December 31st."

Ebola has killed more than 6,800 people, almost all of them in west Africa. The three countries worst-hit by the epidemic are Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.

Sierra Leone overtook Liberia recently as the country with the highest number of Ebola infections.

UN chief Ban Ki-moon said he would leave on Wednesday to visit the Ebola-hit nations to take stock of international efforts to beat back the disease, following complaints the global community was too slow to respond to the crisis.

"I want to see the response for myself and show solidarity for those affected," Ban told a news conference at UN headquarters.

In Sierra Leone, Koroma said more than 50 percent of new Ebola cases recorded over the past two weeks occurred in the western region.

"All public gatherings are prohibited including public activities around restaurants, nightclubs and beach areas," Koroma said.

"Traders and market women are allowed to trade from 6:00 am to 6:00 pm Mondays to Fridays and 6:00 am to 12:00 pm on Saturdays while trading on Sundays is suspended until further notice."


- 'Our country is at war' -

He added that "violators will be subjected to the penalties stipulated by law".

"Our country is at war with a vicious enemy that is taking the lives of our people," he said.

Separately, the operation kicked off with groups of health workers visiting homes in the area with brochures on Ebola and detecting early signs of the disease.

Terence Smith, the head of a team visiting households in the mountain village of Regent overlooking Freetown, said he was "surprised by the enthusiasm with which people are talking freely and telling us whether they have sick people in their midst or not".

International medical charity MSF (Medecins sans Frontieres, Doctors Without Borders) said the fight against Ebola had to be stepped up in Sierra Leone.

"As far as community mobilisation is concerned it must be improved as people need to understand what Ebola is and how to avoid being infected. This would create a greater impact on the outbreak."

A nightclub owner at the pristine Beach No 2 near Freetown, rated among Africa's best beaches, said the ban on New Year festivities was unjustified.

"If markets which are much more crowded can operate, why should we be singled out?" she said. "The government should have imposed a quota as to the number of people in any of our gatherings."


http://news.yahoo.com/sierra-leone-goes-door-door-fight-ebola-surge-180907634.html

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Ebola centres overflow as Sierra Leone steps up fight
Reuters
By Emma Farge  5 hours ago



A Sierra Leonean boy looks out of a doorway in Freetown, Sierra Leone, December 16, 2014. REUTERS/Baz Ratner



DEVIL HOLE, Sierra Leone (Reuters) - Ebola centres in Sierra Leone overflowed on Wednesday as health workers combed the streets of the capital Freetown for patients, after the government launched a major operation to contain the epidemic in West Africa's worst-hit country.

President Ernest Bai Koroma said on national television that travel between all parts of the country had been restricted as part of "Operation Western Area Surge", and public gatherings would be strictly controlled in the run-up to Christmas.

In the Devil Hole neighbourhood just outside Freetown, Ebola surveillance officers questioned Ibrahim Kamara as he sat in a discarded vehicle tyre, his eyes glassy and his breath coming in gasps.

"Is the body weak?" a surveillance officer shouted. Kamara, 31, nodded despondently while onlookers gathered round.

"Vomiting?" the officer asked. Kamara nodded again.

Kamara's wife, Adama, said a neighbour had died on Saturday from Ebola-like symptoms. When they had tried to take a taxi to hospital, the driver made them get out when he discovered her husband was ill.

The surveillance officers wrote down the Kamaras' address and the names of five family members in their household, before calling an ambulance.

Such street-by-street searches form a key part of a month-long push by the government, a British task force and international groups in the populous west of Sierra Leone, where the epidemic is raging. Their aim is to score a breakthrough against the disease within four to six weeks.



A man walks past a banner about Ebola in Freetown, Sierra Leone, December 16, 2014. REUTERS/Baz Ratner


Sierra Leone, neighbouring Guinea and Liberia are at the heart of the world's worst recorded outbreak of Ebola. Rates of infection are rising fastest in Sierra Leone, which now accounts for more than half of the 18,603 confirmed cases of the virus.

The death toll from the epidemic has risen to 6,915 as of Dec. 14, the World Health Organization said on Wednesday, adding that the increase cases in Sierra Leone appeared to have slowed, although 327 new cases were confirmed there in the past week.

Shortages of resources, strikes by unpaid healthcare workers and logistical challenges have dogged the fight against Ebola in Sierra Leone.

The ambulance meant to collect Kamara took three hours to arrive in Devil Hole, where he had already been waiting for six hours on the street. A nurse in the ambulance said some holding centres were already full as a result of the surge.

When the ambulance drove away, Kamara left behind a red blanket. It was immediately sprayed with disinfectant by the Ebola response team while his wife watched expressionless.


NEW MEASURES

At the King Tom Cemetery in Freetown, weary grave diggers clothed head to foot in protective waterproof yellow clothing said that they had buried 51 people on Wednesday alone.

With the cemetery already full, burial teams have expanded the site to a former rubbish dump, angering some bereaved families. Syringes and rusting iron lay in empty graves, while the burial teams had to throw stones at pigs roaming among the rubbish to keep them away from the dead.

Health officials are alarmed by the widespread transmission in Freetown, similar to an eruption of Ebola in the Liberian capital Monrovia in August which is only now being brought under control.

According to the government plan, health workers will seek victims and anyone with whom they have had contact, transporting the infected to new British-built treatment centres.

"Given the efforts we have undertaken we would expect to see a significant decrease in cases within several weeks," Tom Frieden, director of the U.S.-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told Reuters during a visit to Freetown.

The programme showed some early signs of progress. Russell Macleod, a British military consultant with the surveillance team in the Western command and control centre in Freetown, told Reuters they received a record number of alerts that morning.

By lunchtime, they exceeded Tuesday's total by 50 percent with 140 alerts on the Ebola hotline. In response, the live case management team dispatched teams to 52 suspected cases, he said.

As part of the efforts, Koroma said worshippers on Christmas Day must return home after services and other festivities are banned. New Year's Eve services must stop by 5 p.m. local time (12.00 noon ET), while New Year's Day festivities are prohibited.

The government also banned Sunday trading and halted Saturday shopping at noon, Koroma said.

"This is the festive season where Sierra Leoneans often celebrate with families in a flamboyant and joyous manner but all must be reminded that our country is at war with a vicious enemy," he said.

(Additional reporting by Umaru Fofana; Writing by Daniel Flynn and Matthew Mpoke Bigg; Editing by Giles Elgood, Peter Graff and Robin Pomeroy)


http://news.yahoo.com/sierra-leone-start-house-house-searches-ebola-patients-091120301--business.html

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Ebola centres overflow as Sierra Leone steps up fight
Reuters
By Emma Farge  16 hours ago



Health workers carry the body of an Ebola victim for burial at a cemetery in Freetown December 17, 2014. The death toll in the Ebola epidemic has risen to 6,915 out of 18,603 cases as of Dec. 14, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday. There are signs that the increase in incidence in Sierra Leone has slowed, although 327 new cases were confirmed there in the past week, including 125 in the capital Freetown, the WHO said in its latest update. REUTERS/Baz Ratner



DEVIL HOLE, Sierra Leone (Reuters) - Ebola centres in Sierra Leone overflowed on Wednesday as health workers combed the streets of the capital Freetown for patients, after the government launched a major operation to contain the epidemic in West Africa's worst-hit country.

President Ernest Bai Koroma said on national television that travel between all parts of the country had been restricted as part of "Operation Western Area Surge", and public gatherings would be strictly controlled in the run-up to Christmas.

In the Devil Hole neighbourhood just outside Freetown, Ebola surveillance officers questioned Ibrahim Kamara as he sat in a discarded vehicle tyre, his eyes glassy and his breath coming in gasps.

"Is the body weak?" a surveillance officer shouted. Kamara, 31, nodded despondently while onlookers gathered round.

"Vomiting?" the officer asked. Kamara nodded again.

Kamara's wife, Adama, said a neighbour had died on Saturday from Ebola-like symptoms. When they had tried to take a taxi to hospital, the driver made them get out when he discovered her husband was ill.

The surveillance officers wrote down the Kamaras' address and the names of five family members in their household, before calling an ambulance.

Such street-by-street searches form a key part of a month-long push by the government, a British task force and international groups in the populous west of Sierra Leone, where the epidemic is raging. Their aim is to score a breakthrough against the disease within four to six weeks.

Sierra Leone, neighbouring Guinea and Liberia are at the heart of the world's worst recorded outbreak of Ebola. Rates of infection are rising fastest in Sierra Leone, which now accounts for more than half of the 18,603 confirmed cases of the virus.

The death toll from the epidemic has risen to 6,915 as of Dec. 14, the World Health Organization said on Wednesday, adding that the increase cases in Sierra Leone appeared to have slowed, although 327 new cases were confirmed there in the past week.

Shortages of resources, strikes by unpaid healthcare workers and logistical challenges have dogged the fight against Ebola in Sierra Leone.

The ambulance meant to collect Kamara took three hours to arrive in Devil Hole, where he had already been waiting for six hours on the street. A nurse in the ambulance said some holding centres were already full as a result of the surge.

When the ambulance drove away, Kamara left behind a red blanket. It was immediately sprayed with disinfectant by the Ebola response team while his wife watched expressionless.


NEW MEASURES

At the King Tom Cemetery in Freetown, weary grave diggers clothed head to foot in protective waterproof yellow clothing said that they had buried 51 people on Wednesday alone.

With the cemetery already full, burial teams have expanded the site to a former rubbish dump, angering some bereaved families. Syringes and rusting iron lay in empty graves, while the burial teams had to throw stones at pigs roaming among the rubbish to keep them away from the dead.

Health officials are alarmed by the widespread transmission in Freetown, similar to an eruption of Ebola in the Liberian capital Monrovia in August which is only now being brought under control.

According to the government plan, health workers will seek victims and anyone with whom they have had contact, transporting the infected to new British-built treatment centres.

"Given the efforts we have undertaken we would expect to see a significant decrease in cases within several weeks," Tom Frieden, director of the U.S.-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told Reuters during a visit to Freetown.

The programme showed some early signs of progress. Russell Macleod, a British military consultant with the surveillance team in the Western command and control centre in Freetown, told Reuters they received a record number of alerts that morning.

By lunchtime, they exceeded Tuesday's total by 50 percent with 140 alerts on the Ebola hotline. In response, the live case management team dispatched teams to 52 suspected cases, he said.

As part of the efforts, Koroma said worshippers on Christmas Day must return home after services and other festivities are banned. New Year's Eve services must stop by 5 p.m. local time (1700 GMT), while New Year's Day festivities are prohibited.

The government also banned Sunday trading and halted Saturday shopping at noon, Koroma said.

"This is the festive season where Sierra Leoneans often celebrate with families in a flamboyant and joyous manner but all must be reminded that our country is at war with a vicious enemy," he said.


http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-centres-overflow-sierra-leone-steps-fight-070940985--business.html

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Sierra Leone's leading doctor dies of Ebola
Reuters  1 hour ago



A suspected Ebola patient lies inside a quarantine zone in a Red Cross facility in the town of Koidu, Kono district in Eastern Sierra Leone December 18, 2014.. REUTERS/Baz Ratner



FREETOWN (Reuters) - Sierra Leone's leading doctor died of Ebola on Thursday, hours after the arrival in the country of an experimental drug that could have been used to treat him, the government's chief medical officer said.

Victor Willoughby was diagnosed with Ebola last week after he treated a man with organ-related problems. The patient, a senior banker, was later diagnosed with Ebola and has since died.

The drug, ZMab, was transported in frozen form on a Brussels Airlines flight that arrived overnight. Before it could thaw, Willoughby's condition deteriorated, said chief medical officer Brima Kargbo.

His death brings to 12 the number of Sierra Leone doctors to have contracted the virus. Eleven have died. In all, 142 health workers have been infected with the disease in the West African country and 109 have died, according to World Health Organization figures.

Sierra Leone, neighboring Guinea and Liberia are at the heart of the world's worst recorded outbreak of Ebola. Rates of infection are rising fastest in Sierra Leone, which now accounts for more than half of the 18,603 confirmed cases of the virus.

The overall death toll from the epidemic has risen to 6,915 as of Dec. 14, the WHO said on Wednesday, adding that the increase in cases in Sierra Leone appeared to have slowed.



Health workers carry the body of an Ebola victim for burial at a cemetery in Freetown December 17, 2014. REUTERS/Baz Ratner


Kargbo said Willoughby's death was one of the most tragic to hit the country since the passing, in July, of its only virologist and Ebola specialist, Dr Shek Humar Khan.

"We all looked up to Dr Willoughby and would consult him on many issues relating to our medical profession," Kargbo said.

Ebola centers in Sierra Leone overflowed on Wednesday as health workers combed the streets of the capital Freetown for patients, after the government launched a major operation to contain the epidemic.

Dr M'Baimba Baryoh, a surgeon at Connaught hospital Freetown who described Dr Willoughby as a "very good friend", said Sierra Leone had desperate need of more foreign healthcare workers as local staff were overstretched.

"We've lost personal friends and colleagues we've worked with. It's extremely depressing and frustrating. You can talk to someone today and tomorrow they are Ebola-infected," he said.

"The tension, the depression, it's a lot of pressure. You start having nightmares because of Ebola."

(Reporting by Umaru Fofana and Emma Farge; Editing by Matthew Mpoke Bigg and Andrew Roche)


http://news.yahoo.com/sierra-leones-leading-doctor-dies-ebola-214133565.html

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Donors and WHO responded too slowly to West Africa Ebola outbreak - report
Reuters
By Misha Hussain  16 hours ago



DAKAR (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - The World Health Organisation (WHO) and the nations that fund it failed to respond quickly and effectively to the deadly West Africa Ebola outbreak despite repeated warnings by aid agencies, a UK parliamentary committee said on Thursday.

Ebola cases are rising dramatically in Sierra Leone, and the House of Commons International Development Committee said the international response was still "being outpaced on all fronts" by the spread of the Ebola virus in the former British colony.

The Ebola virus has killed more than 6,800 people and infected around 18,500 since March in West Africa, where poverty, corruption and civil war have left weak healthcare systems unable to cope with the spread of the disease.

The WHO's response has been characterised by unnecessary bureaucracy and a failure to "see some fairly plain writing on the wall," the report said.

The medical aid agency Medecins Sans Frontieres had warned that the epidemic had reached unprecedented proportions in June 2014, it added.

There was also no clear line of command between WHO headquarters in Geneva and country offices, the report said.

WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl did not comment on the specific accusations in the report and said member states would be given the opportunity to say how they would like the WHO to change in a special session with the WHO Executive Committee on Jan. 25.

The UK's Department for International Development (DFID) also came in for criticism from the parliamentary committee.

Despite renewed efforts to control the spread of the disease in the region, DFID was still doing too little to combat the epidemic and had not disbursed almost half of the pledged funds, the report said.

"As of 26 November, DFID had disbursed 117 million pounds of the 230 million pounds it has pledged, falling some way short of disbursement rates achieved by other donors," the report said.

Globally, a 50 percent cut in donor contributions to the WHO between 2011 and 2013 had also reduced the organisation's ability to help poor nations respond to outbreaks and emergencies on the scale of the West Africa Ebola outbreak, the report said.

A DFID spokesman said in an email: "There are very few health systems in the world that could withstand a health crisis on this scale, but it is right to say we need to learn lessons from how the WHO and the international community responded."

Sierra Leone has overtaken Liberia as the country with the highest number of cases – over 8,000 - though more people have died from the haemorrhagic fever in Liberia, according to the latest government figures.

The Sierra Leonean government has launched ‘Operation Western Area Surge,’ a two-week operation to curb the spread of Ebola in the hard-hit area, including the capital Freetown.

Malcolm Bruce MP, Chair of the Committee, said strengthening the health system should be the centrepiece of DFID and the international community's reconstruction plans for Sierra Leone once the outbreak had been defeated.

"It is imperative that, once the immediate crisis is over, the eyes of the world do not turn away from the region," he said.


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