Ebola News 1/19

[Buster's Uncle]

Guinea's Conde urges IMF to cancel debt to speed Ebola recovery
AFP  6 hours ago



Guinean President Alpha Conde in Paris, France, on January 19, 2015 (AFP Photo/Miguel Medina)



Paris (AFP) - Guinean President Alpha Conde, whose country was among the worst hit by the deadly Ebola outbreak, on Monday urged the International Monetary Fund to cancel the nation's debts to help in its recovery.

Anti-poverty organisations, the United Nations and the United States have called on the IMF to wipe out some of the debts of Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea, which have borne the brunt of the more than 8,600 deaths in the outbreak.

The US, IMF's largest shareholder, has exhorted the crisis lender to wipe out around a fifth of the $480 million ($557 million) owed it by the three west African nations.

"The cancellation must concern bilateral and multilateral debt," Conde said in an interview with AFP in Paris, on his way to the World Economic Forum in Davos.

He said he hoped the topic would come under further discussion at the next African Union meeting in June.

"Ebola has had such an impact on our countries, at a time when investors were coming back and showing their interest. Ebola has really upset matters," he added.

Cancelling the debt of the three poorly developed nations would free resources to restart their economic activities.

Sierra Leone and Liberia were already weakened before the outbreak as they were just recovering from devastating conflicts.

In December UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon recalled that "before the Ebola outbreak, the economies of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone were vibrant and growing."

"Now they are weak and stagnant. Incomes are down. Prices have risen. Markets are bare. People are hungry.

"That is why it is imperative that while we work to end the Ebola outbreak, we must also begin to focus on recovery," he said.

Overall, some 22,000 people have so far been infected, according to the WHO, which has begun to record a decline in infections.

"The war is not won, but cases are starting to decrease. Things are looking up but we are not there yet," said Conde.

Looking at the bright side of the outbreak, he said that despite the devastation wrought by the disease, "the fact that everyone is now washing their hands means there is no cholera or typhoid. Maybe if we stick to these good habits ... we can prevent other epidemics."


http://news.yahoo.com/guineas-conde-urges-imf-cancel-debt-speed-ebola-211735258.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Guinea schools reopen, but Ebola fears still keep many home
Associated Press
By BOUBACAR DIALLO  11 hours ago



Un aficionado sostiene un cartel que dice "Paren al ébola" durante el partido inicial del Grupo A de la Copa Africana de Naciones en Bata, Guinea Ecuatorial, el sábado 17 de enero de 2015. Los principales países del oeste de Africa asolados por la enfermedad son Guineal, Liberia y Sierra Leona. Malí dijo el domingo que no ha registrado ningún caso nuevo en 42 días, debido a lo cual está libre del ébola. (AP Foto/Themba Hadebe)



CONAKRY, Guinea (AP) — Schools shuttered during the height of the Ebola crisis in Guinea began reopening Monday, but many parents were still too afraid to send their children to classes.

Employees at the doors of schools in the capital were taking temperatures of everyone who showed up on Monday. Only those with normal readings were allowed to enter the building.

Yet many pupils remained at home after rumors flew through the capital that masked workers were seen at a school building, raising questions about how safe the buildings were.

"These masked people were spraying the classrooms without telling the school administration what the chemical was they were spraying and without saying why they were masked," said Idrissa Diallo, a spokesman for a local parents association. "So we won't be sending our children to school for the moment."

Text messages also circulated Monday morning urging parents to keep their children at home. The misinformation frustrated teams that were working to disinfect the buildings.

The schools would normally have reopened three months ago, but authorities had feared that large groups of children congregating could allow the Ebola virus to spread. Guinea, though, is now showing signs of improvement. The World Health Organization said several days ago that the country had its lowest weekly total of new confirmed cases since mid-August. Still, rumors were rampant, and some still incorrectly fear that health workers are actually spreading the disease.

"Guinea is a lost country," lamented Nafiou Bah, one of the workers cleaning up the buildings to reopen. "We have disinfected the buildings with a chlorine solution as is recommended for hygiene reasons but it's crazy to say that we've contaminated the classrooms."

More than 1,800 people have died from Ebola here in Guinea since the epidemic first began here a little over a year ago. The disease later spread to Sierra Leone and Liberia, leaving more than 3,000 people dead in each of those countries in the months that followed.


http://news.yahoo.com/guinea-schools-reopen-ebola-fears-still-keep-many-145117258.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Bones, ashes at Liberia crematorium a reminder of Ebola trauma
Reuters
By James Harding Giayhue  January 18, 2015 9:21 AM



Pedestrians walk past a sign reading "Ebola disease outbreak" outside the Ministry of Finance in Monrovia January 12, 2015. REUTERS/James Giahyue



BOYS TOWN, Liberia (Reuters) - The furnace has been extinguished at a crematorium for victims of the deadly Ebola virus near Liberia's capital Monrovia but a row of barrels filled with ash and charred bone are a reminder of the darkest days of the outbreak.

The seven barrels containing human remains are lined against a black wall. A sheet of paper taped to each says the date the bodies were incinerated but there is no way of identifying them. Small piles of ash lie scattered at other places on the site.

Authorities believe they are close to beating the Ebola virus in this poor West African nation, which together with neighbouring Guinea and Sierra Leone bore the brunt of the worst outbreak on record of the disease.

More than 3,500 people died of Ebola here over the past 10 months but now there are just 10 confirmed cases according to the government, which hopes that figure may fall to zero by the end of next month.

With the worst seemingly past, Liberia is gradually starting to deal with the loss, but for many people it is hard to properly mourn loved ones whose bodies may never be recovered.

Burial plays an important part in West African culture - with mourners often touching the corpse at funerals - in an intimate and spiritual farewell to their loved ones.

Dehmietay Dehmie, head of the volunteers who operated the crematorium, believes he burned the bodies of his three sisters, who died from Ebola, but has no idea where their ashes now lie.

“They were brought here but I could not recognise them because bodies are brought in body bags,” said Dehmie, who - like other members of the cremation team in Boys Town - has been ostracised by the local community.

President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf's government decided to start mass cremation at the height of the epidemic in August after scores of people contracted Ebola at traditional burials.

The disease - which has no known cure - is spread by contact with the bodily fluids of the infected and mourners were exposing themselves to high risks of contracting the virus.

The decision received the backing of Medecins Sans Frontieres - the medical charity that took the lead in fighting Ebola - which provided the incinerator for the Boys Town site.

It sent shockwaves through communities, with some families interring their dead themselves rather than see them cremated. Nonetheless, the government says it helped to bring the outbreak under control in Liberia more swiftly than neighbouring Sierra Leone and Guinea - which did not take such action.

“Cremation is not our culture. It was due to necessity that we had to cremate people, but it worked very well," said Assistant Minister of Health, Tolbert Nyensuwah, the head of the government's Ebola taskforce.

With specialised teams trained in safe burial techniques to prevent infection, victims are now being interred in a 50-acre cemetery by the highway to the Roberts International Airport.

The ashes of victims at the crematorium will be transferred to the cemetery at a special ceremony, Nyensuwah said.


"INTIMIDATED INTO SUBMISSION"

Residents of Boys Town - a coastal area 20 km southeast of Monrovia - want compensation for health risks, emotional trauma and social stigma after hundreds of victims were burnt at the crematorium, which stood largely unused since Liberia's brutal 1989-2003 civil war.

"We were not consulted," said spokesman Tibelrosa Tarponweh. He said armed police arrived on Aug. 2, sealed off the crematorium and started delivering corpses: "They intimidated us into submission."

"How can anyone feel witnessing on a daily basis the bodies of fellow citizens dumped and burned, and the smoke of their remains streaking our air and our homes?" he asked.

No-one knows exactly how many people were burned here, but the crematorium team say hundreds of bodies passed through between August and December, when the incinerator was shut down. An MSF spokesman said that the volume of bodies was so high it was impossible to identify them individually.

"We hope the government will dispose of the ashes in a dignified way, for instance with a memorial where the names of all the victims could be engraved," Yann Libessart said.

Estalla Nelson, speaking at a memorial service for her cousin Alexander Anderson who died of Ebola, said cremation could prolong the trauma for families.

"It is going to linger in the minds of people that your loved one died and you could not see the body,” she said.

The government is discussing compensation with the community. The toll has been heaviest on 28 men who volunteered at the crematorium and say they have been ostracised by residents.

"People take us not to be normal humans .... People are threatening to chase us out of the community," said J.T. Josiah. "We have been sleeping here in the crematorium.”


http://news.yahoo.com/bones-ashes-liberia-crematorium-reminder-ebola-trauma-142109909.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Schools reopening as W.Africa turns page on Ebola epidemic
AFP
By Mouctar Bah  8 hours ago



A Guinean student gets her temperature checked on January 19, 2015, as she enters school in the Ratoma area of Conakry. Sudents head back to school after nearly four months of recess due to the Ebola outbreak (AFP Photo/Cellou Binani)



Conakry (AFP) - Children on Monday trickled back to school in Guinea, where the Ebola epidemic broke out in December 2013, as west Africa cautiously began turning the page on the deadly outbreak.

Schools in neighbouring Liberia will reopen on February 2, while Sierra Leone, the country with the largest number of Ebola cases, has yet to set an official date.

The three countries have borne the brunt of the epidemic, representing 99 percent of the more than 8,600 deaths in the worst-ever outbreak of the haemorrhagic virus.

Finally, the World Health Organization has reported a decline in infections.

Overall, some 22,000 people have so far been infected, according to the WHO.

Guinea decided last week to encourage some 2.5 million primary and secondary school students to return to school, four months after the normal October start of the academic year.

But initial attendance was low.

Geography teacher Nabe Karamou, said last week's announcement had taken many by surprise -- teachers and students alike.

"I never really even expected (classes) to restart," he told AFP at his school in a suburb of Conakry, the Guinean capital.

The school's principal, Ibrahim Bah, noted: "We are in the middle of the month and it does not work (financially) for many families."



People stand on January 19, 2015, outside a school in Conakry, Guinea, as students head back to school after nearly four months of recess due to the Ebola outbreak (AFP Photo/Cellou Binani)


The schools have been provided with health kits containing chlorine, thermometers and soap, while teams will monitor students to detect possible infections, the government said.

But Fanta Camara, who has a child at another Conakry school, was dubious.

"I am not convinced with the safety arrangements for students. I am heading back with my daughter," she said.

On Saturday, Guinean President Alpha Conde threatened to arrest those who refused to comply with Ebola prevention campaigns.

"We have been putting our message out for a long time, but there are people who don't want Ebola to end," he said, adding that security forces had been ordered to make arrests if people refused treatment.

Violent reactions to Ebola are frequent in Guinea, especially in the south, where tensions are high between local groups and the central government.

An angry mob last week killed two men and burned their bodies, convinced that they were infected with Ebola.


- 'The battle continues' -

Meanwhile, Mali, which along with Senegal and Nigeria had a minor Ebola scare, was able Monday to declare itself Ebola-free after 42 days without any new cases.

Senegal and Nigeria had previously already done so.

"We have no right to let down our guard. The battle continues," said Ibrahima Soce Fall, the head of the Malian office of UNMEER, the United Nations Ebola task force.

The warning apparently fell on deaf ears for some residents, who could be seen greeting each other by shaking hands.

"Shaking hands is a tradition here, but Malians would do well to keep to the recommended hygiene habits," said shopkeeper Mohamed Toure.

In Sierra Leone, the government launched the second phase of its anti-Ebola campaign, the National Ebola Response Centre (NERC) said.

Despite the signs of progress, government officials and international agencies have urged continued caution.

Malian Health Minister Ousman Kone called on people and health officials "to continue basic hygiene and protective behaviours".

"We are capitalising on the momentum generated to kick out Ebola as the overall situation is improving drastically," Yahya Tunis, NERC Communication Officer, told AFP.


http://news.yahoo.com/schools-reopening-w-africa-turns-page-ebola-epidemic-192758985.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Ebola Affects Not Only the Dead, But the Children Left Behind
ABC News
By CARIELLE DOE, CANDACE SMITH and LAUREN EFFRON  6 minutes ago






The victims of the Ebola epidemic aren’t just the dead, but also those they have left behind.

Mercy, 9, and her 17-year-old brother Harris, lived in a neighborhood in Monrovia, Liberia, with their mother Marie until she contracted the disease and died. It was at the height of the outbreak in Monrovia and all of their neighbors were terrified.

“This disease is unlike any other,” said UNICEF Liberia Country representative Sheldon Yett. “Just the shock of people dropping dead from something no one had heard of before, and, the complete stigmatization that children are going through.”

Orphaned, Mercy and her brother had nowhere to go -- and no one would touch Mercy out of fear. Neighbors knew too well the risks of taking in someone who might have been exposed to Ebola.

In the same moment Ebola health workers carted her mother’s body away, Mercy became an outcast.

“They thought I had Ebola, so they were driving me away. I feel ugly,” she said.

The Ebola virus has an incubation period of up to 21 days, which means the infected person with the disease can show no symptoms then develop the disease three weeks later, potentially infecting those around them.

Mercy is just one of roughly 10,000 orphans created by the Ebola epidemic ravaging West Africa, according to the BBC and The New York Times.

Perhaps the cruelest part is that people there are faced with a choice between their humanity to help these orphans and their instinct for self-preservation.

As the entire world has discovered, these fears are not unfounded. Sometimes simple acts of kindness have had deadly consequences that stretch across continents.

Thomas Eric Duncan, the man who became infected with Ebola and died in a Texas hospital in October, was one of Mercy’s neighbors in Monrovia. He lived on the same street she did, and carried a sick woman out of a taxi and back into her house, then took off on a long-planned trip to the United States to visit relatives. The woman Duncan carried was reportedly the same woman who infected Mercy’s mother.

Mercy and Harris stayed alone in their mother’s house. Though the Ebola virus doesn’t survive long on surfaces, no one else would enter.

"When Mercy even played among the children, they would say ‘oh don’t play with her before you get the virus.’” Harris said. “They were saying how our mother died from Ebola, their children shouldn’t play with us, we shouldn’t go around them before they encounter the virus from us, I was really feeling bad.”

“My whole thinking now, [if] ebola catches [Mercy], then let it just catch me too,” he continued. “Me and her should die together. That’s what I was really thinking on, because I didn’t want her to go and for me to be left here.”

The Liberian government, with funding from UNICEF, has set up interim care centers around the country for these orphans. Adoption is not allowed in Liberia, so for many of them, there is the only place they can go.

In the care centers, the children have food, clean beds and get much needed human contact with other children as they wait to see if they get past the 21-day mark without getting sick.

“You just break down crying,” said Jessie Hanson, a project manager for Playing to Live, one of the care centers. “So it is frightening. It is hard also to look at these kids and know that they could have Ebola."

Sometimes, family members who emerged from their battle with Ebola arrive at the centers to take their children back home.

For Mercy and Harris, who have known so much pain, an old family friend eventually agreed to take them in. But their story is an uncommon one. Thousands of orphans at the centers have no one to care for them. Some will die in their own neighborhoods, unwanted and untouchable. But Mercy and Harris were given a second chance.

And there is some hope for Liberia. Last week, documented Ebola cases were down to less than one a day, marking that pivotal shift. Schools that have been closed for months are opening again, and for the first time in months, Mercy received a new school uniform and got another chance to be a regular little girl, excited for her first day of school.


http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-affects-not-only-dead-children-left-behind-040159693--abc-news-topstories.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Mali government declares country Ebola-free
Reuters  20 hours ago



BAMAKO (Reuters) - Mali's health minister declared the West African nation free of Ebola on Sunday following a 42-day period without a new case of the deadly virus.

Mali recorded six deaths from Ebola, which, according to World Health Organization data, has killed more than 8,400 people in neighbouring Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia in the worst epidemic of the viral haemorrhagic fever on record.

"I declare on this day, Jan. 18, 2015, the end of the end of the Ebola epidemic in Mali," Ousmane Koné said in a statement in which he thanked the country's health workers and international partners for their work to halt the outbreak.

Mali's last infected patient recovered and left hospital early last month. At one point health officials had been monitoring more than 300 contact cases.

Mali became the sixth West African country to record a case of Ebola when a two-year-old girl from Guinea died in October. It was close to being declared Ebola free in November before a second wave of infections.


http://news.yahoo.com/mali-government-declares-country-ebola-free-075232162.html