Ebola News 1/22

[Buster's Uncle]

Nebraska hospital releases patient found not to have Ebola
Reuters  8 minutes ago



(Reuters) - A Nebraska hospital on Thursday announced it has discharged an American healthcare worker who was at high risk for the Ebola virus while working in Sierra Leone but who did not develop the disease.

The patient had been monitored at the University of Nebraska Medical Center since arriving on Jan. 4 after a flight from Sierra Leone to Omaha, hospital officials said.

"We are happy to report the patient showed no clinical or laboratory evidence of Ebola infection,” Phil Smith, medical director of the Biocontainment Unit at the hospital, said in a statement. "The patient was regularly tested for the disease since arriving here in early January and every test came back negative for Ebola.”

The patient has left the Omaha area, the statement said.

The hospital did not disclose the age or gender of the patient, but did release a statement from the person.

"The hardest part of the last few weeks was leaving my patients in Sierra Leone, who were some of the sickest I have ever seen,” the patient said. “I hope to return to West Africa to help in the fight against Ebola but for now I am looking forward to spending some time with my family and friends."

Three other patients were treated last year for Ebola in the Biocontainment Unit last year, said hospital spokesman Taylor Wilson. Two of those patients were treated successfully and a third, who was gravely ill upon arrival, died.

Ebola is a hemorrhagic fever. The latest outbreak, first identified in Guinea's remote southeast in early 2014, has struck six West African nations, with Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia bearing the brunt of the more than 21,000 infections and more than 8,600 dead.

(Reporting by Kevin Murphy in Kansas City; Editing by Mary Wisniewski and Bill Trott)


http://news.yahoo.com/nebraska-hospital-releases-patient-found-not-ebola-173706346.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Sierra Leone lifts Ebola quarantine measures amid progress
Reuters  33 minutes ago



British health worker Michelle Gundry puts on protective gear before entering a quarantine zone in a Red Cross facility in the town of Koidu, Kono district in Eastern Sierra Leone December 19, 2014. REUTERS/Baz Ratner



FREETOWN (Reuters) - Sierra Leone's President Ernest Bai Koroma on Thursday removed Ebola district quarantine measures intended to curb the spread of the disease, declaring "victory is in sight" after a sharp drop in transmission.

Since the worst outbreak on record began in West Africa over a year ago, Sierra Leone has recorded more than 10,340 cases, making it the country that has been hardest hit. But signs are growing that the tide is turning against the disease.

"We are now entering a transition phase. Given the progress being made against the disease, we must take action to enable economic and social recovery," Koroma said in a televised address to the nation late on Thursday.

Quarantine measures were previously in place in six of 14 districts in the poor nation of farmers, fishermen and diamond miners.

Koroma, who aims to get to zero cases in the former British colony by the end of March, said that restrictions on trading hours in Freetown would also be eased.

Individual households with known Ebola contacts will remain under quarantine.

"Though victory is in sight, we must not relent, we must continue to soldier on," Koroma said, urging people to refrain from touching the sick and the dead. Ebola spreads via contact with bodily fluids of infected people such as blood and vomit.

In the latest health report on Jan. 21, Sierra Leone reported just 9 new confirmed cases versus 60 cases daily in late 2014. Neighboring Liberia has also reported significant progress in rolling back Ebola, thanks partly to U.S. military assistance, and it is now confined to just two counties.

But in a setback on Thursday, the mayor of Paynesville in the capital Monrovia said that 25 people had been placed under quarantine following a new confirmed case.

Guinea, where the outbreak first began 13 months ago, is still battling the disease although case numbers are thought to have stabilized.

(Reporting by Umaru Fofana; Additional reporting by James in Monrovia and James Harding Giahyue in Liberia; Writing by Emma Farge; Editing by Bernard Orr)


http://news.yahoo.com/sierra-leone-lifts-ebola-quarantine-measures-amid-progress-224210304.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Sierra Leone ends Ebola bonuses for health workers
AFP  1 hour ago



A health worker wearing protective equipment assists an Ebola patient at the Kenama treatment centre run on November 15, 2014 (AFP Photo/Francisco Leong)



Freetown (AFP) - Sierra Leone said on Thursday it was ending the "risk allowances" it has been paying to thousands of healthcare workers on the front line of its battle with Ebola.

Steven Gaojia, the co-ordinator of the government's response to the outbreak, told reporters the payments of up to 500,000 leones ($118, 102 euros) a week on top of regular salaries would finish by the end of March.

The move comes with Sierra Leone, one of three west African countries at the epicentre of the epidemic, seeing a decrease in new cases across most of its territory.

Officials registered 117 last week against 184 the week before, according to the World Health Organization's latest situation update.

"We have developed an exit strategy in the fight against Ebola. If there are still cases beyond that, we will re-contract people. Now the hazard payment has become a dependency issue, making too many depend on it," said Ngauja.

Sierra Leone estimates that 26,000 healthcare workers -- either state employees or volunteers -- are involved in its fight against Ebola, while 221 have died after catching the deadly virus.

"The incidence of health worker infections has fallen in Liberia and Sierra Leone, but rose in Guinea throughout December," the WHO said on Wednesday.

The risk payments have represented a lucrative sideline for the workers in Sierra Leone, one of the world's poorest countries where the vast majority earn less than a dollar a day, according to the World Bank.

But the withdrawal of the incentive has not generally been greeted negatively since it was always viewed as a temporary measure and many healthworkers see it as a symbol that the worst of the epidemic is over.

David Koroma, who works with an Ebola burial team in the capital Freetown, said however he expected to be out-of-pocket when the crisis ended.

"It will be a disappointment for me when the job folds up. It will mean going back to search for any job, as I have been unemployed for four years now after leaving school," he told AFP.

A nurse at a Freetown treatment centre said she and her colleagues were not surprised by the allowance being stopped.

"I shall miss that as it has covered some day-to-day expenses," she told AFP.

"However, the news that new cases are scaling down makes me happy and when the disease is eventually eradicated, it will bring all of us back to normal life."


http://news.yahoo.com/sierra-leone-ends-ebola-bonuses-health-workers-232513193.html

[Buster's Uncle]

SLeone to reopen schools in March as Ebola retreats
AFP  10 hours ago



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



Freetown (AFP) - Sierra Leone said on Thursday it would reopen schools across the country in March, with the deadly Ebola epidemic slowing throughout west Africa.

Classrooms have been empty since the government announced a state of emergency in July in response to an outbreak which has killed almost 9,000 people in the region, more than 3,000 of them in Sierra Leone.

A statement from President Ernest Bai Koroma's office quoted him as saying "a timely reopening" was needed to limit the damage caused by the crisis to children's education.

Government spokesman Abdulai Bayratay told AFP ministers would "shortly announce a specific date after all modalities have been put in place".

"An Ebola task force will be attached to schools to promote best practice for the safety of school children. Teachers will be trained to effectively use (thermometers) to frequently test students," he added.

"Schools that have been used as holding and treatment centres will be washed and chlorinated before they are used."

The decision covers all state and private schools, although further education colleges and universities are to remain shut, Bayratay said.

More than a third of Sierra Leone's population of six million are aged between three and 17, although in reality the secondary school attendance rate is less than 40 percent for both boys and girls.

Neighbouring Guinea and Liberia have already reopened their schools following a significant slowdown in new Ebola cases.

The World Health Organization said in its latest update that 8,626 people had died as of January 18, almost all in west Africa, since the epidemic broke out in December 2013. There were 21,689 confirmed cases.

Liberia, which had a peak over 300 new cases a week in August and September, registered just eight last week, while there were only 20 confirmed cases in Guinea last week against 45 the week before.

The figure for Sierra Leone was 117 last week against 184 the week before, the WHO said, but added that the west of the country remained a problem area with the capital Freetown accounting for 30 of those cases.


http://news.yahoo.com/sleone-reopen-schools-march-ebola-retreats-141304060.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Ebola ebbing in West Africa but vigilance needed: WHO
Reuters
By Stephanie Nebehay  13 hours ago



GENEVA (Reuters) - The Ebola epidemic in West Africa appears to be ebbing, with fewer than 150 cases reported in the past week, but efforts must be pursued to stamp out the deadly disease, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday.

Sierra Leone remains hardest-hit, accounting for 117 of the 145 new confirmed cases, against 184 there the previous week and 248 the week before that, the WHO said in its latest update.

"Case incidence continues to fall in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone," the United Nations agency said, adding that disease surveillance was being stepped up in border districts of Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Mali and Senegal.

Every 10 days the number of new cases is halving in Guinea -- where, at 20, the figure was the lowest since early August, it said. In Liberia, where confirmed cases last week fell to 8 from a peak of more than 300 per week in August and September, it takes two weeks to halve, and in Sierra Leone nearly 20 days.

In all, there have been 21,724 cases of Ebola reported in nine countries in the past year since the epidemic began in Guinea, including 8,641 deaths, the WHO said.

The virus has been stamped out in Mali, Nigeria and Senegal, and there have been no further cases among foreign health workers returning to Britain, Spain or the United States, although a British nurse is recovering in hospital in London.

To date, 828 health care workers have been infected in the three worst-hit countries, including 499 who died, it said.

U.N. agencies need a final $1 billion to fight the deadly Ebola epidemic as experts move to a new phase involving a massive detective operation to trace remaining cases, U.N. Ebola chief David Nabarro said on Wednesday.

"Incidents of community resistance to safe burials and contact tracing continue to be reported in all three countries, although they are most common in Guinea," the WHO said.

The WHO's Emergency Committee on Ebola said on Wednesday that passengers should still be screened on leaving Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone for temperature or other signs of infection.

The independent experts said in a statement that "more than 40 countries have implemented additional measures, such as quarantine of returning travellers and refusal of entry. Such measures are impeding the recruitment and return of international responders.

"They also have harmful effects on local populations by increasing stigma and isolation, and by disrupting livelihoods and economies."


http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-ebbing-west-africa-vigilance-needed-110720706.html