And after the jump, there’s an extensive compendium of reports from African news media covering the crisis day-to-day.
First, a warning from South China Morning Post:
Ebola outbreak will hit China, virus pioneer Peter Piot warns
Number of workers in Africa raises threat, says Peter Piot, who also dismisses HK screening
One of the scientists who discovered Ebola has warned that China is under threat from the deadly virus because of the huge number of Chinese workers in Africa.
Professor Peter Piot also made the grim prediction that Ebola would claim thousands more lives in the months ahead.
“It will get worse for a while, and then hopefully it will get better when people are isolated,” said Piot, who is in Hong Kong for a two-day symposium. “What we see now is every 30 days there is a doubling of new infections.” He estimated the epidemic would last another six to 12 months.
“In Africa, there are many Chinese working there. So that could be a risk for China in general, and I assume that one day [an outbreak of Ebola in China] will happen,” said Piot, director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
More from the New York Times:
As Ebola Spreads, Asia Senses Vulnerability
“What happened in the [United] States took us by surprise,” said Louis Shih, the president of the Hong Kong Medical Association. “We were sort of feeling like, ‘Oh, don’t worry’ — the medical sector is now quite alarmed.”
An analysis published online last week by The Lancet, a medical journal, reviewed International Air Transport Association data for flights from Sept. 1 to Dec. 31 this year, as well as data from 2013, out of the three countries in West Africa with the biggest outbreaks of Ebola virus: Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. It found that six of the top nine estimated destinations for travelers from these countries were elsewhere in Africa. The others were in Europe: Britain, France and Belgium.
But the 10th-largest destination was China. India was 13th. (Mali, a West African country that reported its first Ebola death on Friday, was 11th, and the United States was 12th.)
And another warning from the NewDawn in Monrovia, Liberia:
Ebola’s Next Frontier
Which countries, beyond those in West Africa, are most susceptible to the Ebola epidemic? Most epidemiologists do not fear much for the developed world, with its effective quarantine measures and tracking procedures, or even for sparsely populated developing countries. An outbreak could easily be contained in both groups of countries. But large, densely populated areas, lacking the proper containment mechanisms are highly vulnerable.
India, with its large emigrant population (the second largest in the world), high urban density, and inadequate public health-care infrastructure, potentially has the most to lose if the Ebola virus spreads. Links to West Africa are close and go back over the last century, with almost 50,000 Indians or people of Indian origin living in the region.
Indeed, scores of people fly between Accra, Lagos, Freetown, Monrovia, or Abidjan and New Delhi, Mumbai, Calcutta, or Chennai on a daily basis, transiting through the Middle East or Europe. While exit controls are in place in all of the international airports in the affected regions, the virus’s incubation period (which averages eight days in the current outbreak but can be up to 21 days) means that someone with no symptoms from a recent infection could make the trip to India without triggering alarms.
The Los Angeles Times has the domestic scare de jour:
Child is being tested for Ebola in New York; mother in quarantine
A child who had recently been in the Ebola-affected nation of Guinea took ill in New York City on Sunday night and is being isolated at a hospital, health officials said Monday.
The child was being tested for Ebola, and results were expected by the afternoon, the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene said in a statement.
The patient was taken to Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan and did not have a fever when first examined there but developed one around 7 a.m., the department said.
The child’s mother is being quarantined at Bellevue and has “no symptoms whatsoever,” New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said at a Monday news conference.
The McClatchy Washington Bureau covers the denouement:
New York 5-year-old tested negative for Ebola
An unidentified minor who recently arrived in the United States from West Africa and was placed in isolation over concerns that he might have contracted Ebola tested negative for the virus Monday, New York City health officials said.
“Out of an abundance of caution, further negative Ebola tests are required on subsequent days to ensure that the patient is cleared,” according to a statement from the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. “The patient will also be tested for common respiratory viruses. The patient will remain in isolation until all test results have returned.”
Once positive, now negative, via the Los Angeles Times:
Nurse quarantined in New Jersey tests negative for Ebola, can go home
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie announced Monday that a nurse who was quarantined in Newark after returning from treating Ebola-afflicted people in West Africa would be released and allowed to go home after she tested negative.
Christie’s move followed a barrage of criticism from civil rights groups, aid agencies and White House officials, who said the quarantine measures announced Friday would discourage much-needed medical personnel from going to fight the Ebola outbreak in Africa.
Nurse Kaci Hickox complained that she was put in an unheated tent on the grounds of Newark University Hospital after returning from Sierra Leone on Friday. She tested negative for Ebola, which has a 21-day incubation period.
In a statement Monday from New Jersey’s department of health, officials said Hickox “has thankfully been symptom free for the past 24 hours.”
Reuters coveys a plea:
Don’t let quarantine hysteria deter Ebola health workers: U.N.
Governments must not deter health workers from coming to West Africa to fight Ebola and quarantine decisions should not be based on hysteria, the head of the U.N. mission battling the virus said on Monday.
The U.S. states of New York, New Jersey and Illinois have issued new quarantine rules for people returning from West Africa in response to fears that U.S. federal guidelines do not go far enough to contain an outbreak centred in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone that has infected 10,000 people.
Some groups have challenged the rules as too extreme and a nurse who was quarantined after returning from Sierra Leone criticised her isolation on Sunday saying she posed no health threat.
“Anything that will dissuade foreign trained personnel from coming here to West Africa and joining us on the frontline to fight the fight would be very, very unfortunate,” Anthony Banbury, head of the U.N. Ebola Emergency Response Mission (UNMEER), told Reuters.
More from The Hill:
CDC wants tight restrictions on only high-risk Ebola workers
The Obama administration is pushing back against several states’ quarantine policies for Ebola health workers, unveiling new restrictions Monday that apply only to “high-risk” individuals returning from West Africa.
The guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) stop far short of 21-day quarantines imposed by several states that have been heavily criticized by public health experts and the Obama administration.
Only individuals known to have direct exposure to the disease, such as a family member who cared for an Ebola patient without protective gear, are told to remain home under the new recommendations.
Surveillance from Reuters:
Virginia to boost Ebola monitoring, state health official says
Virginia will boost Ebola monitoring for travelers arriving from the countries of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, state Health Commissioner Dr. Marissa Levine said on Monday.
All travelers will be assessed for Ebola and for their health status, Levine said on a conference call. They will be required to sign an agreement to follow health care steps such as taking temperatures, she said
From Reuters, a story about one prominent political figure willing to abide by any quarantines in effect on her return to the U.S. from the hot zone:
Samantha Power will “abide” by quarantine requirements – State Dept.
Program notes:
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power is not expected to visit any Ebola treatment centers during her trip to West Africa but will abide by any relevant quarantine requirements, the State Department says
Another quarantine development from Reuters:
U.S. isolates soldiers after Ebola response mission in West Africa
The U.S. Army has started isolating soldiers returning from an Ebola response mission in West Africa, even though they showed no symptoms of infection and were not believed to have been exposed to the deadly virus, officials said on Monday.
The decision goes well beyond previously established military protocols and came just as President Barack Obama’s administration sought to discourage precautionary quarantines being imposed by some U.S. states on healthcare workers returning from countries battling Ebola.
The Army has already isolated about a dozen soldiers upon their return this weekend to their home base in Vicenza, Italy. That includes Major General Darryl Williams, the commander of U.S. Army Africa, who oversaw the military’s initial response to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.
Another front-line contingent from the New York Times:
For New York Crew, Fighting Ebola With Brush and Cleanser
Around the time New Yorkers started fretting over the city’s first diagnosis of Ebola last Thursday, Sal Pain began drawing up plans for four decontamination chambers, customized for a cramped Harlem hallway.
The narrow dimensions of the hallway — it was only four feet wide — outside the fifth-floor apartment Dr. Craig Spencer, the Ebola patient, shares with his fiancée was among the more difficult situations confronted by hazardous-materials workers in their efforts to contain the Ebola virus. The standard decontamination station, a bulging, inflatable unit, would not do.
So Mr. Pain, the chief safety officer for Bio-Recovery Corporation, which has cleaned Dr. Spencer’s apartment and the Gutter, a bowling alley Dr. Spencer had visited in Brooklyn, improvised. He lined the hallway walls with 6 millimeters of plastic on Friday morning, and then made a frame out of PVC pipe. About 12 hours later, after sterilizing everything from four bicycles to a cuticle cutter, the 10-member crew stood in the hallway and washed themselves with chemical and water showers.
Scapegoating from the McClatchy Washington Bureau:
Anguished and afraid, West Africans in U.S. stay clear of new arrivals
Charlotte, N.C., merchant Tonieh Ross says her heart cries for the orphaned children back home in Liberia who aren’t getting the hugs they so need, for fear of the deadly Ebola virus.
Ross, the owner of the Virtuous D Boutique, also frets about her younger sister in Monrovia, Eugenia, whose paycheck disappeared when her employer shuttered his business and left the disease-ravaged country. Now Eugenia is among some 20 desperate Liberians, mostly children, phoning Ross “over and over and over until something happens” – that is, until she or her friends send money or food, she said.
“I have given everything just to be available and help my country,” Ross said.
While Ross and other West Africans living in cities across America are traumatized by images of suddenly orphaned kids or children lying ill in the streets in their native lands, they also live in fear themselves.
They know they may be among U.S. residents facing the greatest risk of exposure to the deadly disease. Visitors and immigrants from Ebola-stricken Liberia, Sierra Leone or Guinea are likely to first visit or live among their friends and relatives, just as Thomas Eric Duncan planned to do when he flew to Dallas before taking ill with Ebola, infecting two nurses. He died Oct 8.
More from BuzzFeed:
Two Senegalese Boys Got Beat Up And Called “Ebola” In New York City
Local lawmakers called the attack a “hate crime” and warned of a “bullying crisis” stemming from misinformation about the Ebola virus. Members of New York City’s West African community complained that people are avoiding their businesses for fear of contracting the disease.
Two Senegalese-American middle school students were taken to the hospital on Friday after suffering a beating at the hands of their classmates, in an attack apparently motivated by fear of the Ebola virus that local lawmakers called a “hate crime.”
The attack took place at Intermediate School 318 in the Bronx, where the students — brothers Abdou and Amedou Drame — are enrolled in the eighth and sixth grades. The students recently arrived to the United States from Senegal. Both of the boys suffered minor injuries and were released from the hospital later on Friday.
Speaking at a Monday press conference at the Harlem headquarters of the Association of Senegalese in America, Rep. José Serrano and State Sen. Bill Perkins called the attack a “hate crime” and warned of rising discrimination and xenophobia against West Africans in the wake of the Ebola epidemic.
From the Associated Press, a very important question:
Could more have been done for Thomas Eric Duncan?
Dr. Thomas Geisbert, an Ebola expert at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, said he had trouble understanding why four days elapsed between Duncan’s confirmed test results on Sept. 30 and his first treatment. And he was surprised by the choice of experimental drug given to Duncan.
“The guys who do what I do, working in this field, find it puzzling,” said Geisbert, a professor of microbiology and immunology who has been studying Ebola since the early 1990s and was consulted on two of the U.S. cases. “It kind of came out of left field. I think the jury is still out on why this would have any activity against Ebola.”
Although treatments have varied, ZMapp and TKM-Ebola are the only drugs proven to protect nonhuman primates from Ebola, Geisbert said.
While the manufacturer of ZMapp ran out of the drug before Duncan’s diagnosis, limited doses of TKM-Ebola were available, according to Julie Rezler, a spokeswoman for the drugmaker, Tekmira.
The latter was given to Dr. Rick Sacra, an American physician who was infected with Ebola in Liberia. He was treated at a Nebraska hospital and released healthy on Sept. 25, five days before blood tests confirmed Duncan’s diagnosis.
Other survivors include American medical missionaries Dr. Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol, who received doses of ZMapp in Liberia before they were flown to the United States.
Quarantine at the Aussie border from BBC News:
Australia suspends visas for people travelling from Ebola-hit countries
Australia temporarily stops issuing visas to people from countries affected by Ebola, in a bid to stop the virus from entering the country.
Immigration Minister Scott Morrison told parliament that Australia would suspend its immigration programme for such travellers.
The restriction comes after an 18-year-old who arrived from West Africa earlier this month was admitted to hospital with a fever. She later tested negative for Ebola.
Mr Morrison said on Monday that those who have received non-permanent or temporary visas and who have not yet left for Australia will have their visas cancelled. Those with permanent visas can enter the country, but have to be quarantined for 21 days prior to arriving.
While the Guardian covers more Australian concerns:
Australia seeks hospital back-up for volunteers in Ebola-hit countries
As Coalition signals change in policy on relief workers, minister wants to ensure that Australians can call on western-run medical treatment
The Abbott government is considering whether western-run field hospitals in west Africa would have the capacity to cater for any Australian health volunteers who contract Ebola, and what quarantine rules should apply to workers when they return home.
Australia has previously resisted calls to send medical experts to the region on the basis that it has been unable to secure iron-clad guarantees from other countries to help transfer volunteers in the event they contracted the virus.
The health minister, Peter Dutton, signalled on Monday that the government would “have further comments to make in relation to these matters” and was considering whether health workers would have access to “appropriate medical assistance on the ground”.
And the Italians act on theirs, via TheLocal.it:
US troops isolated in Italy over Ebola fears
US troops returning from West Africa are being placed under isolation at a base in Italy as a precaution to prevent the potential spread of the Ebola virus, the Pentagon said on Monday.
“Out of an abundance of caution, the army directed a small number of personnel, about a dozen, that recently returned to Italy, to be monitored in a separate location at their home station of Vicenza,” spokesman Colonel Steven Warren told reporters.
But he added: “None of these individuals have shown any symptoms of exposure.”
Major General Darryl Williams, who stepped down Saturday as head of the military mission in Liberia helping to fight the Ebola outbreak, and 11 members of his staff, were assigned to a separate location at the base in Italy and were being monitored by a medical team, Warren said.
From El País, a quarantine ends:
Ebola victim’s husband released from hospital after 21 days in isolation
Javier Limón will speak to the media on Monday afternoon to discuss plans for legal action
The husband of Teresa Romero, the Spanish nursing assistant who became the first known Ebola transmission case outside of Africa, has been discharged from hospital.
Javier Limón left Carlos III Hospital in Madrid after spending 21 days in isolation because of his close contact with the infected patient. He did not develop any Ebola symptoms, health officials said.
Limón, who has been acting as a buffer between his wife and the outside world, where media interest in the couple remains huge, left in the company of his lawyer at 9.45am. He used a different entrance from the one where journalists and camera crews were waiting for him, around 400 meters away.
And fury ensues. Via TheLocal.es:
They treated us as scum: husband of Ebola nurse
The husband of Spanish nursing assistant Teresa Romero who beat the Ebola virus has slammed the handling of the country’s Ebola crisis as a “complete disaster”, saying he now plans to take Madrid’s health boss to court over comments made about him and his wife.
“They laughed at us, they treated us like scum,” said Romero’s huband Javier Limón in an interview with Spain’s El Mundo newspaper.
“They destroyed our life, they killed our dog, and they nearly killed my wife,” said an angry Limón who left Madrid’s Carlos III hospital on Monday morning after three weeks in isolation.
“On top of all that, this guy comes out and says that my wife — who volunteered (to treat two Ebola-infected Spanish missionaries who were repatriated to Spain) — is a liar, that she lied about her fever,” said Limón, referring to controversial comments by Madrid’s regional health chief, Javier Rodríguez.
A Tokyo tempest from the Japan Times:
Man arriving at Tokyo’s Haneda airport tested for Ebola
A man in his 40s who arrived at Tokyo’s Haneda airport Monday after spending two months in Liberia was found to have a fever, and officials decided to check him for Ebola, the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry said.
The result of the blood test at a Tokyo research facility will be known early Tuesday, the officials said.
The man, reportedly a 45-year-old journalist whose name was not released, was transported to the National Center for Global Health and Medicine in Shinjuku Ward. The blood test was conducted at the National Institute of Infectious Diseases in Tokyo.
And the result, from Nikkei Asian Review:
Tests find no Ebola for suspected case in Japan
A viral summit from the Japan Times:
Cabinet preparing to hold Ebola prevention meeting
A select group of Cabinet ministers will meet soon to discuss countermeasures for the deadly Ebola virus, Health, Labor and Welfare Minister Yasuhisa Shiozaki said Monday.
Shiozaki told reporters about the plan after meeting with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe earlier in the day. Abe instructed him to hold the ministerial meeting as soon as possible, according to Shiozaki.
He also told Shiozaki to formulate thorough measures against Ebola and strengthen cooperation among the ministries and agencies, with relevant developments to be reported to the National Security Council.
After the jump, insurance companies play the Ebola policy game, a Big Pharma wager, belated approval of crucial equipment on to Africa and a regional assessment, a plea for help from afflicted nations and a European call for thousands of helpers for African work, the depleted ranks on the ground, on to Sierra Leone and new anti-Ebola measures that inflict their own hardships and high praise for burial measures, then on to Liberia and cremations aplenty spelling bad news for coffin-makers, pairing survivors with orphans, another sad impact on a devastated healthcare system, an American mission underway, movie night in an Ebola ward, aid from China and Norwegian girls, an American pledge to Guinea and Guinean survivors head back to the hot zone to help, don’t stigmatize our people pleads the Nigerian president, and preparedness in Zimbabwe. . .
Hedging bets with Homeland Security News Wire:
Insurance companies now write Ebola exclusions into policies; offer Ebola-related products
U.S. and British insurance companies have begun to write Ebola exclusions into their policies for hospitals, event organizers, airliners, and other businesses vulnerable to disruption from the disease. As a result, new policies and renewals will become more expensive for firms looking to insure business travel to West Africa or to cover the risk of losses from Ebola-driven business interruptions (BI).The cost of insuring an event against Ebola, for example, would likely be triple the amount of normal cancellation insurance — if the venue was in a region not known to be affected by the virus.
U.S. and British insurance companies have begun to write Ebola exclusions into their policies for hospitals, event organizers, airliners, and other businesses vulnerable to disruption from the disease. As a result, new policies and renewals will become more expensive for firms looking to insure business travel to West Africa or to cover the risk of losses from Ebola-driven business interruptions (BI). “What underwriters are doing at the moment is they’re generally providing quotes either excluding or including Ebola — and it’s much more expensive if Ebola is included,” said Gary Flynn, an event cancellation broker at Jardine Lloyd Thompson Group Plc in London.
A corporate bet from Reuters:
Fujifilm says to buy U.S. vaccine maker as Ebola spreads
Japan’s Fujifilm Holdings Corp said on Monday it would buy 49 percent of Texas-based Kalon Biotherapeutics LLC, which has expertise in manufacturing vaccines used against pandemic influenza, Ebola and other public-health threats.
Fujifilm’s U.S. unit, Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies, may increase the stake to 100 percent after the initial purchase based on the achievement of certain milestones, it said in a statement. The purchase amount was not disclosed.
Fujifilm, once among the world’s biggest makers of photography film, has been expanding its bio pharmaceutical business, and in 2008 bought Toyama Chemical Co., whose influenza drug Avigan has been drafted to the fight against Ebola.
Earlier this month, the company said France and Guinea plan to conduct clinical trials of Avigan 200 mg tablets in Guinea to treat Ebola in mid-November.
Belated approval of crucial equipment from Defense One:
The Military’s Ebola Screening Machine Just Got Approved for US Hospitals
Rapidly screening for Ebola at U.S. hospitals has just gotten easier thanks to military-funded technology. Salt Lake City-based BioFire announced over the weekend that they had received emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration for hospital workers to use their polymerase chain reaction (PCR) screening machine, the FilmArray, to screen for Ebola.
It’s the same machine that the U.S. military is using to fight the disease in Africa. But until Saturday, the FDA approved FilmArray for Ebola screening for research purposes only in U.S. hospitals.
The Dallas hospital that treated Thomas Eric Duncan, the Liberian man who became the first individual to die of Ebola in the United States, but was not authorized to use it to test patients showing symptoms of Ebola.
On to Africa and a regional assessment from the UN News Center:
Ebola: UN envoy concludes visits to affected countries, presents ‘robust’ recovery plan
The head of the United Nations Mission for Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER) has wrapped up his visits to the three West African countries battling the Ebola outbreak as part of the Organization’s ongoing efforts to drum up international support in tackling the deadly crisis, it was announced today.
Over the past week, UNMEER chief, Anthony Banbury, met with the Presidents of Guinea, Sierra Leone and, on Friday, Liberia, in a series of consultations focusing on how an operational framework for international efforts could be “adapted and implemented to best support the ongoing national responses,” the mission said in a press release.
In addition to his consultations with the leaders, he also engaged in a series of meetings with national and international partners and visits to health facilities under construction to hear and see first-hand how efforts to stop the Ebola virus are progressing.
Developed in a recent high-level meeting of senior UN officials and external stakeholders from the World Bank, the United States’ Centers for Disease Control, and the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development, the UN operational framework was designed to provide a UN response specific to the needs of each country while maintaining the centrality of national ownership.
And a plea for help from afflicted nations via the NewDawn in Monrovia, Liberia:
Finance Ministers from affected Ebola region want aid scale up
The Finance Ministers of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone have issued a joint statement in which they urgently called on the international community to scale up their response to fight the Ebola epidemic with a comprehensive support package including direct budget supports.
Following a joint discussion in Washington DC at the just ended Annual Meetings of the IMF and World Bank, Messrs Mohamed Diaré, Amara Konneh, and Kaifala Marah, governors of the World Bank Group (WBG) for Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, respectively said the support package should include major direct budget support to plug the gaps in “our heavily damaged public finances.”
The Ministers said without direct budget supports, the three countries risk of not being able to re-open schools, secure the livelihoods of millions of farmers and market sellers who have lost an entire harvest or protect the orphans that this crisis is leaving behind.
And a European call for thousands of helpers for African work, via Deutsche Welle:
EU calls for thousands more workers for Ebola response
An EU official has said that the bloc needs to drastically increase the resources it is putting into the battle against the Ebola outbreak. Meanwhile, the UN has warned against quarantining people for no good reason.
Christos Stylianides, who was appointed by the European Union last week to lead the fight against Ebola in West Africa, said in Brussels on Monday that the 28-member bloc needed to increase the number of hospital beds dedicated to fighting the outbreak to 5,000 from the current 1,000. This, he said, would require tens of thousands of more health workers.
“Every bed requires eight health and support staff. This means we need to mobilize immediately at least 40,000 staff,” he said.
In a speech to the Emergency Response Coordination Center in Brussels, Stylianedes said he intended to travel to West Africa shortly after he takes up his post as European Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Management at the start of next month.
“This will allow me to better assess the needs and gaps in our efforts. It will help decide our next steps. My presence on the ground will underline that fear and isolation is not an option. That our solidarity is real and tangible,” he said.
The reality, via IRIN:
Ebola: Experienced doctors still rare
The difficulty of finding doctors with field experience is hampering international medical intervention to help curb Ebola in West Africa. Fear of contracting the virus and restricted air travel have also slowed the response.
During a visit to the three most affected countries that began in Guinea this weekend, the US ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, criticized those countries who promised to send doctors and other aid, but have not yet delivered.
More than 240 medical workers have died of Ebola in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, according to World Health Organization (WHO), while regular commercial flights to the affected countries have dwindled, throttling travel and aid delivery.
“We have a lot of people applying. but we are clear that we are taking only experienced staff, not Ebola experience, but experience in the field of crisis or emergencies. It is not an easy job we are facing here,” said Anja Wolz, Ebola operations adviser with Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).
“The problem is that we have people applying, but we don’t get experienced people. We cannot open more centres because we need experienced people. We don’t have the staff,” Wolz explained.
On to Sierra Leone and new anti-Ebola measures that inflict their own hardships, via StarAfrica:
Sierra Leone: Freetown city authorities unveil ‘new’ anti-Ebola plan
Prohibition of street trading is among plans earmarked for execution as part of the Freetown City Council (FCC)`s revised plan to tackle the ongoing Ebola epidemic.
Mayor Franklyn Bode Gibson said Monday in a statement that a new plan was necessary given the continued spread of the disease, despite all efforts to contain it.
The Western Area, which includes the overpopulated capital city, has taken over as one of two epicenters of the outbreak. It has over 1000 cases now, as of Sunday 26 October, according to latest official figures from the Ministry of Health and Sanitation.
The other epicenter is the north of the country with Freetown bearing the brunt of the disease in the Western Area. “With this measure in place, we can quickly eradicate Ebola from the city so that we can avoid another lockdown,” said Mayor Gibson.
And some high praise from Reuters:
Safe Ebola burials in Sierra Leone a bright spot for U.S. envoy
Sierra Leone’s capital Freetown has tripled the number of safe burials of Ebola victims in the past week and the challenge now is to expand that coordination across the country, U.S. envoy Samantha Power, said on Monday during a visit to West Africa.
Power, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, is briefly visiting the three neighboring countries to see how the world is failing in its response to the epidemic. She described the turnaround in safe burials in Freetown as “encouraging.”
“Seeing them turn a 30 percent safe burial rate in Freetown into a 98 percent safe burial rate is a tribute to a combination of top down presidential leadership, finally the kind of coordination that’s been needed throughout and a willingness on the part of Sierra Leoneans, notwithstanding the stigma, to step forward and be part of burial teams,” Power told Reuters.
People in Freetown phone a special number to report someone who could be infected with Ebola or for a body to be taken away. Special burial teams are deployed and the aim is to have the bodies removed within 24 hours of the call being received.
On to Liberia and a burning issue from StarAfrica:
Liberia cremates 1,700 bodies of Ebola victims since August
The head of Liberia’s Ebola management team, Ciatta Bishop, has disclosed that approximately 1,700 bodies have been cremated since the process began in early August.
Speaking during the Information Ministry’s daily Ebola briefings on Monday, Bishop said the ashes of some of the cremated bodies were given to relatives upon their request.
According to Bishop, roughly 30 persons are laid down per cremation labeled in order of names so that their families would easily identify them during decoration.
“Even though the practice is not common in Liberia, it is now the safest way of burying Ebola bodies,” she explained.
And one consequences from FrontPageAfrica:
‘No Business’: Ebola Taking Toll on Casket Makers in Liberia
he deadly Ebola epidemic has had a negative effect on many facets of the Liberian society. The disease has left no stone unturned. It has shattered the country’s health infrastructure and its economy has been left in shreds.
Liberian casket makers and funeral home owners have also been hard hit. Casket makers in the business say the deadly Ebola outbreak is having a negative impact on their businesses.
On Lynch Street in Monrovia, Mr. John Kamara owns and runs the Nattman Casket Center, he says the Ebola outbreak has caused their businesses to slow because the government now has a policy of treating all dead as Ebola dead. Mr. Kamara says the body bags and cremation center has now taken the place of caskets and funeral homes, which has led their businesses to suffer.
Pairing survivors with orphans, via the Los Angeles Times:
In Liberia, Ebola survivors care for orphans of the disease
Each has a survival story, one that began with a gesture of love and care and led to hell and back.
Eight Liberian survivors of Ebola, they are now caring for children whose parents died of the virus. Their workplace is a temporary government-run orphan refuge in the Liberian capital, Monrovia.
Formerly a juvenile corrections center, the building has freshly painted pink walls and barred windows. A large pot of sticky pink paint rests by the front door, looking like melted raspberry ice cream.
The survivors make the beds in three dormitory rooms, lay fresh vinyl flooring and repair windows. Then they sit and wait for the children.
Another tragic consequences from the laudable FrontPageAfrica:
US$5 for Gloves at JFK? Liberia’s Healthcare System Fails The Poor
Residents of the UN Drive community in Monrovia, especially pregnant women and children, are finding it difficult to access routine health care because of the deadly Ebola outbreak. The only clinic in the community shut down because health care workers are afraid they would contract the deadly disease.
Domua Manjo is six months pregnant, but says she cannot remember when she had a regular checkup to know the status of the baby she is carrying in her womb. Manjo is among many pregnant women who cannot access what would have been mundane health care checkups if not for the Ebola outbreak.
“Since this Ebola started, there has been no good treatment. Whenever you go to the Hospital they don’t do any checkup,” she says. “The doctors will only ask you what’s wrong with you and after you explain, they give you treatment (medicine) then you come home.”
Manjo says doctors and nurses are afraid to touch pregnant women and give them regular checkups to know if the baby they are carrying is ok. She says if you are lucky to get a doctor to check you at any partially functioning clinic or hospital, you have to buy a pair of gloves for almost US$5.
“If you don’t buy your own gloves, the doctors won’t touch you. You have to buy your own gloves for 400 Liberian dollars (about US$5), before the doctors check you and give you treatment, then you come home,” she says. Manjo accuses doctors at the government’s largest hospital the JFK medical center of selling gloves to the patients who come in for checkup.
From CCTV Africa:
Ebola: U.S troops to Join Liberia Ebola Mission
Program notes:
It’s been 6 weeks since the US military started arriving in Liberia. Operation United Assistance pledged to help Liberia, and West Africa, overcome the ebola crisis. But concerns about the epidemic’s spread beyond the region could damage efforts to contain it.CCTV’s Katerina Vittozzi reports
Cinema in the Ebola ward, via Quartz:
What movie night means to patients in an Ebola ward
The idea had been percolating in the back of my mind for a couple days. Dr. Friedrike Feuchte, our psychosocial coordinator at the Ebola treatment center here, had pitched the idea of holding a movie night. I was skeptical of the execution, but it seemed worth a shot. Logistics officer Pierre Beauchemin laughed when asked if we could get a projector from Gbarnga, the nearest town to our unit.
“The most high-tech thing you can get here is an electric fan,” he joked. What we could do, he explained, was have our Monrovia team pick one up from a Lebanese shop in the capitol. “The Lebanese have everything,” he assured me with a confident nod.
Fittingly, the logistics team procured a projector and portable screen a few days later. But the tougher question: Just how do you show a movie at an Ebola ward?
At the Bong County Ebola Treatment Unit (ETU) run by International Medical Corps, the vast majority, nearly 90%, of our staff is Liberian. But the other 10% of us are international, coming from Canada, Chad, Ethiopia, France, Germany, Guinea, Iraq, Kenya, Spain, Uganda, and the United States. We’re here at the forefront of the epidemic, treating patients and providing hope to the communities. Since opening last month, we’ve admitted 158 patients of whom 63 tested positive for Ebola. Among the positive patients, 20 have fully recovered, 30 have died, and 13 are currently receiving care.
Chinese aid arrives, from the Monrovia Inquirer:
China Brings In More To Fight Ebola… To Send Doctors, Engineers Soon
The People’s Republic of China yesterday brought into the country more than US$82m worth of materials to strengthen the global efforts in combating the Ebola virus. The materials included several building materials for the construction of additional Ebola Treatment Units around the country.
Speaking at the Roberts International Airport where three chattered Boeing 747 cargo planes landed, Chinese Ambassador ZANG Yue said the consignments which included hospital beds, ambulances, motorcycles, Personal Protective Equipment and other urgently needed supplies to soon follow are intended for the three Ebola hit countries in the region.
He further said that China will also dispatch advisory groups consisting of public health experts who will share China’s experiences and help improve the prevention and control plans of the affected countries.
More aid from the north, via the Liberian Observer:
Norwegian Girl Guides Give US$10,000 to Liberian Girl Guides for Ebola Fight
The Norwegian Girl Guides Association (NGGA) has donated to the Liberian Girl Guides Association (LGGA) US$10,000 to aid its Liberian counterpart in contributing essential items to their members and others affected by the Ebola epidemic.
The money, according to LGGA Commissioner Toniah Wiles, is being used to buy relief items, which are being distributed to its members in Monrovia and around the country.
Liberia’s oldest Guide is one of the beneficiaries of the NGGA donation. Speaking to this newspaper, 96-year-old Lucretia Jeneba Thomas, who was honored by the nation during this year’s independence anniversary, said she was glad that the Guides thought about her “during this Ebola time.”
Affirmation from StarAfrica:
Washington restates Ebola pledge to Guinea
The United States permanent envoy to the United Nations, Samantha Power has pledged unflagging support and solidarity to the people of Guinea in their crusade against the deadly Ebola virus, APA can report Monday.According to the Guinean presidency’s communication office, Mrs.
Power was on a short trip to Guinea during which she held talks with President Alpha Conde over strategies to be implemented with a view to rolling back the epidemic.
Power emerged from her meeting with President Conde saying her sojourn to the country was to demonstrate the solidarity of the American government with the Ebola-hit people of Guinea.
“I wish to reassure the Guinean people that the American people and President Barack Obama will support you until you pull through these trying times,” she declared in front of journalists.
And Guinean survivors head to the hot zone to help, via the Sun in Lagos, Nigeria:
Defying stigma, survivors join the Ebola fight in West Africa
High school teacher Fanta Oulen Camara spent two weeks in March fighting for her life against the deadly Ebola virus but her darkest days came after she was cured of the disease and returned to her home in Guinea.
“Most of my friends stopped visiting. They didn’t speak to me. They avoided me,” the 24-year-old said. “I wasn’t allowed to teach anymore.”
The worst outbreak of Ebola on record has killed 5,000 people in West Africa, mostly in Guinea and neighbouring Liberia and Sierra Leone. But thousands more have survived, ostracised by fearful communities ravaged by the disease.
In the face of such stigmatization, Ebola survivors like Camara are joining an association in Guinea that assists the growing number of people who recover and seeks ways for them to help combat the disease.
Don’t stigmatize our people, pleads the Nigerian president, via Punch Nigeria:
Ebola: Stigmatisation of Nigerians unjustifiable, says Jonathan
President Goodluck Jonathan on Monday said there was no justifiable reason for the continued stigmatisation of Nigerians in any part of the world over the Ebola Virus Disease.
He said there could never be any basis for the action because the disease was rapidly contained in the country as it did not reach an epidemic stage.
Jonathan spoke while receiving the French Foreign Minister, Mr. Laurent Fabius, and his German counterpart, Dr. Frank-Walter Steinmeier, at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
And finally, preparedness from Voice of America:
CDC Director for Zimbabwe Says Country Ready for Ebola
The Zimbabwe country director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has returned to the country after a tour of duty as an Ebola Response Team Leader in Sierra Leone.
The CDC director for Zimbabwe, Dr. Peter Kilmarx, says West Africa was hit by Ebola when it was least expecting it. Therefore, it has taken time to contain it.
He said in the part of Sierra Leone he visited, more than 80 percent of the population is living on less than $2 a day and that managing burials of those who succumb to the virus is an issue.
Speaking in Harare after returning from Sierra Leone, Dr. Kilmarx was asked if Zimbabwe, given its fragile health sector, would be able to fight Ebola.
“I come back with a new perspective,” said Kilmarx. “I have been very complimentary about the work that Zimbabwe has been doing on Ebola response. There is a much better health response in place. I think Zimbabwe will be much better prepared for any kind of new health threat than was the case in West Africa.”
