But we begin with another aspect of the crisis from the World Food Program:
Ebonomics: The Price Of Keeping The Ebola Crisis From Becoming A Hunger Crisis
Program notes:
WFP’s Chief Economist Arif Husain visits West Africa to analyse how the outbreak affects the overall economy, particularly the food sector, and explains what types of assistance WFP is offering to different communities depending on their needs.
From Reuters, expectations:
Americans may still see some Ebola cases, Obama says
President Barack Obama said on Wednesday that Americans may continue to see individual cases of Ebola in the United States until the outbreak in West Africa is contained.
Obama said it was essential the United States and other countries work to stop the Ebola outbreak at its source in Africa.
Until the outbreak is stopped, he said, “we may still continue to see individual cases in America in the weeks and months ahead.”
“We can’t hermetically seal ourselves off,” he said at the White House.
From the Associated Press, impasse:
Maine in standoff with nurse over Ebola safeguards
Insisting she is perfectly healthy, nurse Kaci Hickox again defied the state’s Ebola quarantine Thursday by taking a bike ride with her boyfriend, and Maine health authorities struggled to reach a compromise that would limit her contact with others.
Hickox, 33, stepped out of her home on the remote northern edge of Maine for the second day in a row, practically daring authorities to make good on their threat to go to court to have her confined against her will. On Wednesday evening, she went outside for an impromptu news conference and shook a reporter’s outstretched hand.
By evening, it was unclear whether the state had gone to court or whether there had been any progress toward ending the standoff that has become the nation’s most closely watched clash between personal freedom and fear of Ebola. The governor’s office and Hickox’s lawyers would not comment.
More form the Los Angeles Times:
Maine fails to reach quarantine compromise with nurse Kaci Hickox
It’s the type of battle made for flinty New England, where personal liberty vs. the government’s interpretation of public good has been a frequent theme. A nurse, hailed by some as a hero for helping treat Ebola patients in Africa, has defiantly rejected the power of Maine officials seeking to quarantine her in the name of protecting the public from a virus that the healthcare worker insists she doesn’t have.
Maine health authorities so far have failed to reach a compromise with nurse Kaci Hickox that would require her to keep her distance from other people. Hickox has personified the closely watched clash between personal freedom and fear of Ebola since she arrived at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey last Friday and found herself in quarantine.
Early Thursday, Hickox stepped out of her home in Fort Kent, at the remote northern edge of Maine, and took a bicycle ride with her boyfriend. It was the second time in as many days that Hickox had flouted the state’s rules that she stay away from the public until Nov. 10, the end of the 21-day incubation period for the Ebola virus.
Complications from Reuters:
In U.S. Ebola fight, no two quarantines are quite the same
In the U.S. battle against Ebola, quarantine rules depend on your zip code.
For some it may feel like imprisonment or house arrest. For others it may be more like a staycation, albeit one with a scary and stressful edge.
If they are lucky, the quarantined may get assigned a case worker who can play the role of a personal concierge by buying groceries and running errands. Some authorities are allowing visitors, or even giving those in quarantine permission to take trips outside to walk the dog or take a jog.
A month after the first confirmed case of Ebola in the United States, state and local health authorities across the country have imposed a hodgepodge of often conflicting rules.
Politics from CNN:
State Department denies it has a secret plan to admit foreign Ebola patients
The State Department discussed plans to transport non-U.S.citizens infected with Ebola to the United States for medical treatment, but decided to shelve the proposal and insists it was never considered at senior levels.
But Congressional Republicans are seizing on an internal State Department memo outlining a possible joint State-Homeland Security department program to provide Ebola care at U.S. hospitals for non-Americans. They say the memo is evidence the Administration was working on a new plan but wasn’t being transparent about it.
The memo, obtained by CNN, is labeled “SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED – PREDECISIONAL” and drafted by State Department officials. It recommends that the two federal agencies come up with a system to admit into the United States non-citizens “as long as they are otherwise eligible for medical evacuation from the Ebola affected countries and for entry in the United States.” It outlines the steps the U.S. government would need to take to contract with a commercial aviation company that specializes in bio containment. It also mentions other non-governmental agencies the U.S. is working with to assist with medevacing health care workers out of West Africa to European countries.
More of the political from the Washington Post:
Politicians fueling Ebola fear before midterms
Program notes:
Polling shows the public is worried about an Ebola outbreak in the U.S. — and politicians on both sides of the aisle are feeding into the fear, just weeks away from the midterm elections.
Strategizing from the Associated Press:
Nations in Americas join in battle against Ebola
Countries from around the Americas have agreed to work together in their response to Ebola, adopting similar procedures in such things as the establishment of epidemiological monitoring centers and coordinating the transport of biological samples.
About 200 epidemiology experts and health officials from 24 countries, including the United States and Canada, met in Havana on Wednesday and Thursday to discuss their response to the epidemic.
A document from the meeting lays out “lines of action” that the countries say they’ll follow to combat the disease.
And a walkout from the Contra Costa Times:
National Nurses Union plans strike to demand greater protections against Ebola
Stepping up demands to protect nurses from Ebola, the national nurses’s union said Thursday that nurses coast-to-coast are planning a National Day of Action on Nov. 12 that includes strikes at 21 Kaiser Permanente facilities in Northern California.
Zenei Cortez, co-president of the California Nurses Association, which is part of National Nurses United, said Kaiser nurses plan to strike Nov. 11-12.
When it comes to Ebola, “the message that nurses have been getting around the nation is that we are expendable,” said Deborah Burger, co-president of National Nurses United and president of the California Nurses Association. “At first there was shock, then anger — and now we want action.
“They don’t have the appropriate training and protection,” she said of nurses in her organization and nationwide, urging that hospitals provide nurses with hazmat suits, proper protective equipment and training to safeguard against Ebola. “These are human beings. We’re talking about our nurses that are heroes and take care of this country.”
Genetics from the Japan Times:
Ebola symptoms may hinge on gene functions: U.S., Japanese researchers
Ebola’s symptoms may differ depending on whether certain genes in the victim are active or not, a U.S.-based research team said in a paper published in Science magazine on Thursday.
The findings from experiments on mice are likely to help understand why Ebola manifests itself differently from one case to another. They may also aid the treatment of critical patients, the researchers said.
Led by Michael Katze of the University of Washington, the research team includes Japanese scientist Atsushi Okumura and members of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the U.S. National Institutes of Health.
More from the London Telegraph:
Ebola outbreak: Ebola may not be a deadly disease for everyone, scientists find
Researchers have found that natural immunity may exist to Ebola, after discovering that some animals get over the disease quickly, without major symptoms
Ebola may not be a deadly disease for everyone, after scientists discovered that some people are likely to be naturally immune to the virus.
A study in mice showed that genetic variations govern how ill victims will get after contracting the disease.
Some completely resist the disease, while others suffer only a moderate illness. However many still succumb to bleeding, organ failure and shock.
The research was conducted in a highly secure, state-of-the-art bio lab in Montana, US.
Researchers found that all mice lost weight in the first few days after infection. However, nearly one in five of the mice not only survived, but also fully regained their lost weight within two weeks.
The Los Angeles Times covers the seriocomic:
When an Ebola joke becomes a crime
An Ohio man was arrested and jailed after he told a dealer at a Cleveland casino that he was there, ha ha, to keep his distance from his ex, who had come back from Africa with Ebola.
The charge against Emanuel Smith: “felony inducing panic.” Smith is alleged to have broken a law that in part bans “initiating or circulating a report of an alleged or impending fire, explosion, crime or other catastrophe, knowing that such report or warning is false.”
In Ohio, if a crack about Ebola causes a panic or costs a business money, you could face criminal charges.
Smith’s ex-wife, of course, didn’t have Ebola, but after the remark was reported to management, the casino cleared out the pit where he’d been gambling, which meant lost revenue, and according to the law in Ohio, the more money is lost by the “panic,” the more serious the felony.
Another joke gone bad from RT:
‘Ebola’ coffee cup puts plane on lockdown at Dublin Airport
An unidentified man who scribbled an Ebola warning on a cup of coffee caused quite a stir on a Dublin-bound flight. After putting the plane on lockdown for nearly an hour in the Irish capital, authorities determined that it was all a hoax.
The incident occurred on Air Lingus Flight EI 433, which had set off from Milan on Thursday. Upon arriving in Dublin, passengers were held onboard for roughly 50 minutes until paramedics were able to investigate the matter.
“Following a minor security incident on board an Aer Lingus flight from Milan to Dublin, passengers were held on board the aircraft after it landed at Dublin Airport just before 1pm today,” a spokesperson for Dublin Airport Authority told the Irish Independent.
From USA TODAY, harkening to the days of the “Dark Continent”:
Ebola fears spark claims of racism in Europe
Italian mothers in suburban Rome recently organized a petition drive to keep a 3-year-old black girl from attending kindergarten after her family traveled to Uganda — a country thousands of miles away from the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.
In Germany, soccer fans chanted “Ebola, Ebola” when Charles Atsina, a black player from Ghana, came onto the field to play.
Two British landlords refused to rent an apartment to a black Sierra Leone radio newscaster, Amara Bangura, who was moving to England to study. The landlords feared he might bring the deadly virus with him.
As Americans debate quarantining health workers returning from Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone or banning travelers from those countries — as Australia has already done — fears of Ebola have also gripped Europe. And that fear is giving some people license to vent racist attitudes.
Entry not denied from Science:
Ebola researchers still welcome at European infectious diseases meetings
As ScienceInsider reported yesterday, the state of Louisiana has told researchers to stay away from the world’s biggest tropical medicine meeting next week if they have been in contact with Ebola patients in the past 21 days—or even if they’ve just visited Liberia, Guinea, or Sierra Leone, the three nations where the epidemic is raging. Many scientists object to the policy; the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (ASTMH), which organizes the event, disagrees but accepts Louisiana’s decision, says incoming president Christopher Plowe.
But Ebola is a hot topic at many special sessions and late breakers these days. Are scientists who may have been exposed to the virus still welcome at other infectious diseases meetings? Here’s a quick sample.
People returning from West Africa are definitely expected, and are welcome, at the European Scientific Conference on Applied Infectious Diseases Epidemiology, held next week in Stockholm. Sweden currently does not have travel restrictions for people coming from affected countries, says a representative for the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), which organizes the event.
From Voice of America, a map of countries placing some restrictions on trvel from the hot zone:
After a ban, back in the hot zone from FrontPageAfrica:
Back to Ebola Zone – Washington Post Duo –DuCille and Bernstein Return
Just days after he was barred from a teaching workshop class at Syracuse University over fears that he may have been infected with the deadly Ebola virus following his recent assignment to Liberia, Washington Post Photographer Michel duCille is heading back to the epicenter of the outbreak. DuCille, along with health reporter Lenny Bernstein will arrive in Monrovia Friday for a second assignment stint since the outbreak in March.
Michel DuCille, a three-time Pulitzer prize winning photographer received the shock of his life recently when he was disinvited by the university over fears that he had Ebola after covering the virus outbreak in Liberia, even though he is symptom-free and has been in the United States for more than the recommended incubation period. FrontPageAfrica’s Newsroom Chief Wade Williams received similar news the same day when she too was disinvited from a previously-arranged speaking engagement at the University of Georgia.
DuCille did not hide his disgust of the University’s decision to disinvite him when he told Time: “I am disappointed in the level of journalism at Syracuse, and I am angry that they missed a great teaching opportunity. Instead, they have decided to jump in with the mass hysteria. They missed a great teaching opportunity here for the students; to show them how to report the facts and practice good journalism Instead they went the alarmist route.”
Asian readiness from Reuters:
In Guangdong, nervy Chinese ramp up Ebola watch
Chinese authorities have identified the southern province of Guangdong, home to Asia’s biggest African population, as a frontline in their efforts to prevent the deadly Ebola virus from entering mainland China.
The province bordering Hong Kong has proven susceptible to infectious diseases in the past, shouldering a large share of SARS and bird flu cases, prompting local authorities to take no chances with Ebola.
Local authorities say they have expanded testing procedures at provincial entry ports and 27 hospitals have been designated to handle possible Ebola cases. Travelers arriving from Ebola-affected nations must leave their contact details.
“The central government has asked Guangzhou to strengthen preventative measures,” Mao Qun’an, a spokesman for the Ministry of Health, told Reuters. “Of course in Guangzhou, there are many people from outside China’s borders.”
And another warning from the Japan Times:
Chinese risk of Ebola outbreak ‘not rocket science’: expert
A scientist who helped to discover the Ebola virus says he is concerned that the deadly disease could spread to China, given the large numbers of Chinese workers traveling to and from Africa.
Peter Piot, director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said Thursday it’s not “rocket science” that with many exchanges between the two regions the disease could spread.
“The concern I have is that I don’t think you can really stop people from traveling. These patients will show up in any country in the world, but China is quite vulnerable,” Piot said.
“The issue is: What is the quality, the standard of infection control? In public hospitals in China, the ones that I’ve visited, the level of infection control is very poor,” he said.
Unprepared from NHK WORLD:
Hospitals in Japan not fully prepared for Ebola
An NHK survey shows that most hospitals in Japan designated to treat Ebola patients are not fully prepared.
NHK surveyed 45 designated medical institutions across the country, and received responses from 39. Regarding preparedness to accept Ebola patients, 32 hospitals, or 82 percent, said they are not fully prepared.
As for the reason, 75 percent cited insufficient training for doctors, nurses and other health workers. 53 percent said they have not yet carried out drills for accepting Ebola patients. 38 percent cited a lack of supplies such as protective suits to prevent secondary infections of health workers.
Channel NewsAsia Singapore takes it all the way:
North Korea orders Ebola quarantine on all foreigners
Britain, which has an embassy in Pyongyang, issued a travel advisory on its government website on Thursday (Oct 30), detailing the quarantine order which was apparently issued to all foreign missions in the North Korean capital
North Korea has announced it intends to quarantine all foreigners entering the country for 21 days, no matter what their country of origin, as a measure against the spread of the Ebola virus.
Britain, which has an embassy in Pyongyang, issued a travel advisory on its government website on Thursday (Oct 30), detailing the quarantine order which was apparently issued to all foreign missions in the North Korean capital.
According to the advisory, travellers to North Korea from regions or countries that Pyongyang considers affected by the Ebola virus, will be quarantined for 21 days “in a government-appointed hotel under medical supervision”. Travellers from any other country or region will also be quarantined in hotels appointed by the organisation hosting their visit.
After the jump, on to Africa and more World Bank loans for the hot zone, Chinese military help, Nigerian helpers bankrolled, a prescription of trust, and a sad colonial heritage, and a funereal solution prescribed, on to Sierra Leone and cremations enforced, a plea for help from a Japanese volunteer, scenes from a crisis center, a plea to end air embargoes, a campaign against misinformation, and official optimism, then on to Liberia and cremation confusion, waiting in limbo, and the plight of a the multiply victimized, thence to Guinea and ravaged agriculture, Gambia next and actors enlisted for prevention, plus a warning form the World Bank. . .
Cash for the crisis from Xinhua:
World Bank pledges new finance for efforts to fight against Ebola
The World Bank on Thursday announced an additional 100 million U.S. dollars of funding in a response to curtailing Ebola crisis so as to speed up deployment of foreign health workers to the three worst-affected countries in West Africa, a UN spokesman told reporters here.
Current estimates by the United Nations indicate that about 5,000 international medical, training and support personnel are needed in the three countries over the coming months to respond to the Ebola outbreak, including 700 to 1,000 foreign health workers to treat patients in the Ebola treatment centers, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said at a daily news briefing here.
“The World Bank’s additional financing will help set up a coordination hub in close cooperation with the three countries, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the UN Mission for Ebola Emergency Response to recruit, train and deploy qualified foreign health workers,” said the spokesman.
Asian military help from the Daily Independent in Lagos, Nigeria:
Chinese military joins anti-Ebola aid effort
The Spokesman of the Chinese Ministry of Defence, Yang Yujun, said on Thursday in Beijing that the military had joined the government’s efforts to help African countries’ fight against the Ebola virus.
“As arranged by the government, the Chinese military is playing an active role in aiding West African countries in the fight against Ebola,” he said.
Yang said that a 30-strong medical team from a military hospital arrived in Sierra Leone in mid-September and they had continued to work there.
Nigerian helpers bankrolled, via Punch Nigeria:
FG plans 506 volunteers to Ebola-hit W’African countries
The Federal Government has said it will send 506 volunteer health workers to three West African countries affected by the Ebola Virus Diseases.
The Minister of State for Health, Dr. Khaliru Alhassan, said this on Thursday in Uyo during the 57th National Council on Health. The theme of the conference is ‘Universal Health Coverage: Key to Achieving Sustainable Healthcare Delivery in Nigeria’.
Alhassan said the first contingent of 250 would depart the country soon to Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone to help the countries in controlling the disease. “It is important that I inform you all that we have identified 506 volunteers ready for deployment in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone.
A prescription of trust from Bloomberg Businessweek:
The Best Weapon Against Ebola in West Africa Is Winning Public Trust
The fight against Ebola is taking place on two well-known fronts: on the ground in West Africa, where governments and aid groups are racing to build treatment centers; and inside the lab, where scientists are trying to create vaccines and therapies to halt transmission. A third battleground, harder to track but no less important, focuses on efforts to win trust and change the behavior of the people most at risk of spreading the virus. It’s something many global aid groups were late to.
“A huge mistake of the outbreak from the start has been that people have responded to the outbreak from the outside without really getting the people on board,” says Emmanuel d’Harcourt, senior health director of the International Rescue Committee, which has worked in Liberia and Sierra Leone for more than 15 years. “That, from our perspective, is a massively under-recognized problem.”
A lot is riding on how well the global response engages the local communities in places where Ebola has spread. The virus has now infected more than 13,000 people in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, according to the World Health Organization. The three countries are home to 21 million people. The population is mostly young—more than 60 percent are under age 25—and largely rural. Literacy is low, poverty is high. So is mistrust of government, particularly with the fresh legacy of civil wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone. How people respond when a family member develops symptoms or a neighbor dies has a great deal of consequence for how fast Ebola spreads.
A sad colonial heritage from Pambazuka News:
Ebola in Africa: A product of history, not a natural phenomenon
There is nothing inevitable about the Ebola epidemic now devastating parts of Africa. Like other disasters, it too is the product of history, of the decisions that governments have made in the past as well as the present.
Modern African history teaches, often tragically, the need to distinguish between what might be called natural phenomena from those that are essentially socio-economic-political. The droughts that ravaged many parts of the continent in the early 1970s were an example of the former. (I leave aside the issue of human actions and global warming.) As drought-stricken California presently shows, the famines and the tens of thousands of lives lost that came in their wake were not, however, inevitable. That horrific outcome was largely the product of the policies put in place by colonial governments and dutifully and sadly reproduced by post-colonial regimes.
The same lesson is being taught, again, tragically, by the continent’s latest scourge. Human pathogens have existed in Africa ever since our species began to evolve there and they too evolve, sometimes resulting in viruses like Ebola. But there’s nothing inevitable about the Ebola epidemic that’s still unfolding. Like famines, it too is the product of history, the decisions that governments have made in the past as well as the present. The relevant question is whose interests are prioritized in those choices? How a society responds to that most natural of processes, the evolution of human pathogens, testifies to the answers it gives to that question.
Colonial regimes, in place from about the last quarter of the nineteenth century to a decade or so after the Second World War, were, above all else, designed to extract Africa’s natural resources in the most lucrative way. Social services that might have benefited the colonial subjects, such as healthcare and education, were, to save costs, kept to a minimum—if that. This explains the profoundly undemocratic character of those regimes. The last thing the extractors wanted is for the subjects to have some say-so about how they were governed and, hence, how their natural resources should be utilized. These were the arrangements that post-colonial elites not only inherited and readily embraced but deepened to advance their own narrow class interests. In the case of Liberia, a semi-colony of the U.S.—nominally independent since 1847—its elite (the descendants of repatriated slaves from America) ensured that Firestone Rubber would reap enormous profits from its operations there. Thus, the outrageously ironic situation today where, in one of the world’s leading rubber producers, there are not enough rubber gloves to protect its citizens from the scourge.
From Reuters, a funereal solution:
To stop Ebola’s spread in West Africa, target funerals – study
As the global health community ramps up its efforts to treat Ebola patients and curb its spread in West Africa, a new analysis finds that the greatest impact would come from insuring safe burials for victims, scientists reported on Thursday.
The need for safe burials has been known from the beginning of the epidemic last spring, when people who attended the funeral of a faith healer in Guinea became infected.
U.S. guidelines call for workers wearing full protective gear to wrap the remains of Ebola victims, which have an extremely high concentration of the virus, in a plastic shroud and then place them in two body bags. The body should not be washed or handled in any way, something that has been a common practice in much of West Africa.
On to Sierra Leone and cremations enforced, via StarAfrica:
Sierra Leone: New anti-Ebola front man talks tough
The recently appointed head of Sierra Leone’s National Ebola Response Center (NERC) has been outlining some of his plans to eradicate the epidemic which has killed well over 1000 people in the country and thousands more in West Africa.Former Defense Minister (Rtd) Major Alfred Paulo Conte said Thursday henceforth every dead body from anywhere in the country will be handled like an Ebola patient and will be buried by the national Ebola burial team.
This is to ensure that a stop is put to delays in attending to corpses which has seen some dead bodies spend days at home.
The plan is so that within 24 hours, every person who dies is buried, he said.
This is part of the country’s new burial policy aimed at redressing many issues that had sparked public dissatisfaction with how the government is handling the epidemic.
A plea for help from a Japanese volunteer, from NHK WORLD:
Japanese nurse calls for help for Sierra Leone
A Japanese nurse who has returned from Sierra Leone says there’s a severe shortage of beds in the West African country, forcing hospitals to turn away Ebola patients.
The nurse, Junko Otaki, was sent by the aid group Doctors Without Borders to Sierra Leone for a month from August. She was there to assist local medical workers caring for Ebola patients. She made an appeal for international help during an interview with NHK in Tokyo on Thursday.
She said during the second half of her stint, all medical facilities in the country had run out of beds and could not accept any more Ebola patients. She said the staff members felt extreme regret for having to turn away ambulances that had arrived at the hospital.
Otaki said Sierra Leone does not have enough medical workers, and therefore cannot increase the number of beds. She said the international community must help by sending physicians who can train local staff.
Scenes from a crisis center, via the Guardian:
Sierra Leone’s fight against Ebola infection: ‘The world is not safe’
Sparsely-equipped hospitals and beleaguered staff battle a disease whose victims outpace the number of beds being built
All over Freetown, buildings, vehicles and people are being commandeered in the fight against Ebola. In the suburb of Wilberforce, in an old building for the telecommunications company Airtel, a dozen students loiter on a wall waiting to relieve staff from the trauma at the Ebola hotline they are manning.
Outside, the din of ambulances would not be noteworthy until the driver and passenger appear in regulation yellow overalls, mask, goggles, hood and visor.
Every ambulance is now an Ebola ambulance in Sierra Leone’s capital where an invisible malevolent force has taken hold, causing fear and untold grief as the dying and the dead infect families and friends in their wake.
A plea to end air embargoes, via StarAfrica:
Ebola: Minister wants restriction of airlines to Sierra Leone lifted
Sierra Leone`s Minister of Transport and Aviation Leonard Balogun Koroma has said that restriction of airlines will only prevent efforts at containing the Ebola disease ravaging the West African region and do very little to prevent Ebola from reaching the developed world.
Speaking on efforts made by the government to reverse the decisions by the UK and other countries which banned flights from Sierra Leone on Thursday, Koroma said that Sierra Leone was the only country of the three hardest hit countries which has not exported any Ebola case.
He said that it had to do with the robust measures put in place at the country`s Lungi International Airport.
A campaign against misinformation from the Voluntary Service Overseas:
VSO launches battle on misinformation about Ebola in Sierra Leone
VSO is supporting a vital new project in partnership with Sierra Leone’s Ministry of Health and Sanitation –The Reproductive and Child Health Directorate to address the growing misinformation about Ebola which is spreading and preventing pregnant and lactating women from accessing basic medical services.
In the first instance, the focus will be on dispelling myths about Ebola transmission via a series of awareness raising meetings in and radio discussions. The project will be undertaken in the emerging epicentres of the outbreak namely Portloko, Bombali, Moyamba and the Western Area of Freetown.
“This is exactly the right type of intervention we need at this precise time,’ said Shirley Sia Simbo, Programme Manager for Health, who is leading the work for VSO in Sierra Leone.
Official optimism, via StarAfrica:
End of Ebola close –S/Leone minister
Sierra Leone`s Information Minister has said that the end of Ebola was closer given the effort of the government and its international development partners.
Alhaji Alpha Kanu said despite the high number of casualties and growing number of cases, the survival rate in treatment centers indicates greater work was being done locally.
If those efforts are coupled with what the international community was doing, it wouldn’t be long before the disease is halted, he said. “The Ebola story has been a very grim story, grimmer than anything that we have known,” Kanu lamented.
But there have been good stories as well, he added.
On to Liberia and cremation confusion, from FrontPageAfrica:
EPA Confuse Over What Happens to Ebola Ashes After Cremation
The head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Anyaa Vohiri says the entity had nothing to do with the setting up the crematorium to burn the corpses of Ebola victims in the country. She says the EPA also does not know the process by which ashes collected after burning is being preserved or disposed of.
Speaking at the Ministry of Information regular press briefing on Thursday, the EPA boss told journalists that if care is not taken the ashes of cremated Ebola bodies could lead to future problems.
“Actually, we’re having a challenge right now determining where the ashes are going,” she says. “Simply because, if the ashes are being buried, somewhere, where they’re not being buried according to the guidelines, it can be problematic.” Responding to media reports that Ciatta Bishop who heads cremation efforts in Liberia said families who requested ashes of their burned family members were being granted their wish, Vohiri states that such practice could be unsafe.
Waiting in limbo from Voice of America:
Liberians Wait in Ghana as Ebola Ravages Home
Amos Bouye fled Liberia 12 years ago, as fighting engulfed the country, and wound up in a camp outside Ghana’s capital Accra. He wants to go back, but he missed the organized repatriations carried out by the United Nations. He doesn’t have the money to travel.
Now, civil war refugees like Bouye face other deterrents to going home: Ebola, and the related closed roads and cancelled flights.
“Right now there is no flight that is going, and there is no road, no border open from Ghana to Liberia,” Bouye said.
The Buduburam refugee camp where he lives is quieter now than it once was. Many of the Liberians who fled to Ghana have returned home over the years, particularly after Liberians lost their status as refugees in 2012. But for those who remain, waiting is difficult.
And the plight of a the multiply victimized from FrontPageAfrica:
He Lost 35 Relatives to Ebola, Then, Landlord Gives Him Notice
Morris Kromah, 40, a resident of Chicken Soup factory — one of Monrovia’s slum communities — has lost 35 members of his family to the deadly Ebola virus. Now his community refers to him as an Ebola carrier. He had to get the Police intervention for members of the community to stay off his back.
Kromah is among the many Ebola survivors who are finding it difficult to reintegrate into their various neighborhoods. “The worst of all is the community stigmatization,” he says. “I have been taken to the Police station twice because people in the community say I have been circulating the virus.” The Police made the accuser write an apology to Kromah, but he says it is not enough. He says the government must find a way to provide Ebola survivors and their families with protection from hostile community members.
“The most frustrating part is that personnel of the Ministry of Health told me to go sit at home to observe 21-day quarantine,” he says. “As I speak to you, I have [been] quarantined for more than four times. That’s 21 days times four. I took myself to the center, I’m aware that Ebola is deadly, that it kills. People don’t need to remind me of what I’ve suffered.”
To make matters worse, Kromah says his landlord has given him an eviction notice. He says the owner of the house in which he lives has not been sympathetic to him. “I feel very disgusted. I have to pray to be able to withstand this, because it’s hard to take,” he says. “Now as I speak to you, I have no job, nowhere to get money. The landlord saw that I lost a lot of people to Ebola, yet she gives me notice to leave the apartment by November 17.”
Next to Guinea and ravaged agriculture, via Agence France-Presse:
Ebola inflicts heavy toll on Guinean potato trade
Program notes:
The Ebola epidemic has seen Senegal and Guinea Bissau close its borders with Guinea and the economic consequences have started to be felt, especially in Fouta Djallon, where the renowned potato industry has been hit hard.
On to Gambia and actors enlisted for prevention, via AllAfrica:
Gambia: Actors Trained On Ebola Signs, Symptoms
Sixty participants drawn from six drama groups across West Coast Region on Tuesday concluded a two-day training on the signs and symptoms of Ebola, at the Somita Health Facility in Foni Berefet District.
The training, organised by the Directorate of the Health Promotion and Education is being funded by the UNDP, with technical support from WHO.
Speaking during the closing ceremony, the director of Health Promotion and Education, Modou Njai spoke at length on the importance of the training, saying the training is aimed at building the capacities and skills of participants with the requisite knowledge to enable them sensitise their districts, communities, clusters and household, through drama.
According to him, drama is one of the most effective ways of spreading information at grassroots level, while reminding participants to be used to the number 1025, in order to report any suspected cases.
And finally, a bankster’s lament from StarAfrica:
Ebola undermining multinational companies – W/Bank
The visiting World Bank President to Ghana Jim Kim Yong has said that the outbreak of the dreadful Ebola virus in West African had undermined the operations of multinational institutions in the affected countries.
Mr Yong revealed this when he conferred with the Ghanaian Vice President Paa Kwesi Amissah- Arthur at the Flag Staff House in Accra on Thursday.
“We must all fight hard to contain this Ebola disease because it has destroyed the economies of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea,” he said, adding that the World Bank had made $100 million available to the affected countries to contain its spread.
Yong said the World Bank had already voted $500 million to aid in fighting the dreadful viral disease which had killed over 4,000 people in the region.
Speaking at the same function Vice President Amissah-Arthur bemoaned the isolation of the affected countries by some countries linking the outbreak to whole of Africa.
