Especially Africa, thanks to a flood of reports from African media.
We begin with a grim assessment from a leading German physicist who has modeled the epidemic, via Deutsche Welle:
Dangerous Pandemic – Strategies against Ebola
Program notes:
How well can science predict the course of an epidemic? We spoke with Prof. Dirk Brockmann, a physicist at the Humboldt University Berlin.
From the Independent, rage:
WHO chief: Ebola vaccine was never developed ‘because it only affected poor African countries’
There is still no Ebola vaccine 40 years after the disease first emerged because it previously affected only poor African nations, the head of the World Health Organisation has said.
In unusually strident comments, Dr Margaret Chan, the director-general of the WHO, attacked drug companies and said that the reason clinicians were “empty-handed” was because “a profit-driven industry does not invest in products for markets that cannot pay”.
She said that long-standing WHO complaints about the lack of investment in both vaccine development and the healthcare systems of poor states had “fallen on deaf ears for decades”. But the current global Ebola panic put the arguments “out there with consequences that all the world can see, every day, on prime time TV news”.
From her address:
In the midst of these alarming trends, two WHO arguments that have fallen on deaf ears for decades are now out there with consequences that all the world can see, every day, on prime-time TV news.
The first argument concerns the urgent need to strengthen long-neglected health systems, an argument long-championed by your RD.
When heads of state in non-affected countries talk about Ebola, they rightly attribute the outbreak’s unprecedented severity to the “failure to put basic public health infrastructures in place.”
Without fundamental public health infrastructures in place, no country is stable. No society is secure. No resilience exists to withstand the shocks that our 21st century societies are delivering with ever-greater frequency and force, whether from a changing climate or a runaway killer virus.
The second argument is this. Ebola emerged nearly four decades ago. Why are clinicians still empty-handed, with no vaccines and no cure?
Because Ebola has historically been confined to poor African nations. The R&D incentive is virtually non-existent. A profit-driven industry does not invest in products for markets that cannot pay. WHO has been trying to make this issue visible for ages. Now people can see for themselves.
A bit of science from CBC News:
Bats likely carry Ebola to humans, but may also carry cure
Ability to carry viruses without getting sick could lead to better treatments
“What is happening now is a public health disaster rather than a problem of wildlife management,” said Marcus Rowcliffe at the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), which runs London Zoo.
Bats’ role in spreading Ebola is probably a function both of their huge numbers, where they rank second only to rodents among mammals in the world, as well as their unusual immune system, according to Michelle Baker of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, Australia’s national science agency.
Baker, who is intrigued by bats’ ability to live in “equilibrium” with viruses, published a paper with colleagues in the journal Science last year looking at bat genomes. They found an unexpected concentration of genes for repairing DNA damage, hinting at a link between flying and immunity.
“(This) raises the interesting possibility that flight-induced adaptations have had inadvertent effects on bat immune function and possibly also life expectancy,” they wrote.
Homeland Security News Wire covers projections:
U.S. will see between 1 and 130 additional Ebola cases by end of 2014: Experts
Top U.S. medical experts studying the spread of Ebola predict a few more cases will reach America before year’s end, citing the return of healthcare workers currently working in West Africa as the most likely cause of new cases. Using data models that weigh several variables including daily new infections in West Africa, global airline traffic, and transmission possibilities, top infectious disease experts predict as few as one or two additional infections and as many as 130 by the end of 2014.
Top U.S. medical experts studying the spread of Ebola predict a few more cases will reach America before year’s end, citing the return of healthcare workers currently working in West Africa as the most likely cause of new cases. Using data models that weigh several variables including daily new infections in West Africa, global airline traffic, and transmission possibilities, top infectious disease experts predict as few as one or two additional infections and as many as 130 by the end of 2014. “I don’t think there’s going to be a huge outbreak here, no,” said Dr. David Relman, a professor of infectious disease, microbiology and immunology at Stanford University’s medical school. “However, as best we can tell right now, it is quite possible that every major city will see at least a handful of cases.”
From Reuters, a done deal:
Ebola nurse, Maine settle quarantine suit
The state of Maine and a nurse who had treated victims of the Ebola virus in West Africa reached a settlement deal on Monday, allowing her to travel freely in public but requiring her to monitor her health closely and report any symptoms.
The settlement, filed in nurse Kaci Hickox’s home town of Fort Kent, in Maine’s far north, where she returned after being briefly quarantined in New Jersey, keeps in effect through Nov. 10 the terms of an order issued by a Maine judge on Friday.
Hickox returned to the United States last month after treating Ebola patients in Sierra Leone and was quarantined in a tent outside a hospital in New Jersey for four days despite showing no symptoms.
From the Guardian, a scare ends:
Woman tests negative for Ebola in south London hospital
Ebola safety process triggered at St George’s hospital, Tooting, after arrival of unwell woman who had recently been in west Africa
A woman who had recently travelled to west Africa has tested negative for Ebola at a south London hospital, it has been confirmed.
The arrival of the unwell woman at St George’s hospital in Tooting on Sunday night triggered protocols put in place to guard staff and fellow patients against the contagious disease. She was treated by health workers wearing full protective body suits, including masks and gloves, and moved to the clinical infections unit, where she had a series of tests, one of which was for Ebola.
The woman will stay at St George’s for treatment. The hospital did not disclose the diagnosis of her illness. “All appropriate actions have been taken by our staff to protect the public and the patient,”it said.
And from TheLocal.fr, an evacuee faring well:
UN Ebola victim ‘stable’ in French hospital
A United Nations employee who contracted Ebola in Sierra Leone and was repatriated in France is in a “stable condition,” French Health Minister Marisol Touraine said on Monday.
The Unicef official was “repatriated in secure sanitary conditions” and is being treated at the Begin military hospital outside Paris, Touraine told French radio, declining to give specific details about the patient.
“It’s a person who is at the moment in a stable condition and who will receive the best possible treatment,” she said.
From SINA English, cheapskates:
Ebola crisis highlights China’s philanthropic shortfall
China has contributed over $120 million to fight the spread of the Ebola virus, but its billionaire tycoons – it has more than anywhere outside the United States – have, publicly at least, donated little to the cause, underscoring an immature culture of philanthropy in the world’s second-biggest economy.
As the ranks of China’s wealthy and the success of its corporations grow, donating to good causes has yet to take off in a significant way. China sits towards the bottom of the list of countries where people give money to charity, volunteer or help a stranger, according to The World Giving Index, compiled by the Charities Aid Foundation.
Donations to charities totalled 98.9 billion yuan ($16.1 billion) in 2013, according to Chinese government data, recovering from two straight years of declines. For comparison, Americans gave more than $335 billion, according to the National Philanthropic Trust website.
More screens raised, via BBC News:
Singapore imposes visa rule for West Africa Ebola nations
Citizens of West African countries where Ebola is prevalent will require a visa to enter Singapore from Wednesday.
The health ministry said the visa requirement for those from Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone would allow for better oversight and tracing.
Authorities have been cautious of a possible outbreak in the city-state and major transport hub, which was hit by the Sars virus in 2003.
Singaporean media have reported at least two suspected cases of Ebola, though both later tested negative.
Canada raises the pharmaceutical barriers, via Reuters:
Canada commits funding for Ebola vaccine research, stockpile
Canada announced new funding on Monday for clinical trials into an Ebola vaccine, and to create a stockpile of the vaccine and experimental treatments for use in the event the deadly disease reaches the country.
Speaking at the laboratory in Winnipeg, Manitoba, where scientists developed an experimental Ebola treatment, ZMAb, Health Minister Rona Ambrose said Ottawa was committing C$23.5 million ($20.7 million) for research and development of Ebola vaccines and treatments.
“These funds announced today will help support Ebola vaccine clinical trials and to create a stockpile of the vaccine and monochlonal antibody treatments of Ebola for use in Canada in the event of a case of Ebola, and to assist in the outbreak response in West Africa,” Ambrose said.
On to Africa, starting with the Associated Press:
After botching Ebola, WHO to pick new Africa boss
After acknowledging that it bungled the response to the biggest Ebola outbreak in history, the World Health Organization is electing a new regional director for its Africa office this week. Critics say it’s about time.
WHO Africa is widely acknowledged to be the U.N. health agency’s weakest regional office. In an internal draft document obtained by the Associated Press last month, WHO blamed its staff in Africa for initially botching the response to Ebola, describing many of its regional staff as “politically-motivated appointments” and noted numerous complaints about WHO officials in West Africa.
WHO has six regional offices including Africa — all of them are largely autonomous and do not answer to the Geneva headquarters. The U.N. agency was intentionally set up as a fragmented organization in 1948 because it was feared existing regional health organizations wouldn’t want to join WHO unless they had a high degree of independence.
From Reuters, mixed news from the newest Ebola nation:
WHO says currently no Ebola cases in Mali, 39 contacts sought
Thirty-nine people who traveled on buses with a toddler who died from Ebola in Mali are still being sought for checks, although the country is believed to be free of the disease, the World Health Organization said on Monday.
A WHO spokeswoman said 108 contacts were being followed up, including 33 health workers, but epidemiologists believe those who have not been traced are at low risk, as they are unlikely to have had physical contact with the sick two-year-old.
The girl’s five-year-old sister had a fever but was suffering from malaria, not Ebola, tests showed. Other family members are under observation in the same hospital and doing well, with no fever or other symptoms, the WHO said.
The Observer states the obvious:
Western aid is essential to prevent another Ebola outbreak, says thinktank
African nations most at risk are ranked near bottom of world health index
The importance of western aid in helping to build effective health systems in the developing world has been highlighted by a respected international thinktank finding that Sierra Leone, an early source of the Ebola outbreak, was the country least likely to be able to deal with the virus.
The west African state has been ranked bottom of a health index compiled by the Legatum Institute, to be published on Monday, examining the governance of public health in 142 countries along with indices such as infant mortality, life expectancy and healthcare spending.
There are 0.4 hospital beds per 1,000 people in Sierra Leone and health spending is $205 per person, according to the research. It has the second highest rate of tuberculosis in the world (674 per 100,000 people), and the highest incidence of infant mortality at 117.4 per 1,000 live births. The Legatum Institute says that, as a result, the country was “singularly ill equipped to deal with a problem like Ebola”.
Science covers Chinese support:
China ramps up efforts to combat Ebola
In the unfolding Ebola crisis, much attention has focused on the relief efforts of Western countries and the nonprofit Doctors Without Borders. Out of the limelight, China is mounting one of its largest aid operations ever, driven in part by increasing political and business interests in Africa.
Already about 200 medical workers and advisers from China are now stationed in the three West African countries fighting Ebola outbreaks: Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea. George Gao, deputy director-general of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (China CDC), runs a mobile testing lab in the capital of Sierra Leone. Reached by phone there in Freetown, Gao says his team performs 40 to 60 blood tests a day. In addition to diagnosing the disease in patients, it’s crucial to test corpses; if a patient has died from Ebola, it’s imperative to refrain from traditional burial practices in West Africa such as washing or touching the deceased or giving a “final kiss,” Gao says.
A veteran of successful efforts in recent months to contain the H7N5 and H7N9 strains of avian influenza in China, Gao and his team of about 30 people from China CDC arrived in Freetown in mid-September and will stay until mid-November, when Chinese colleagues rotate in. Also in Sierra Leone, about 30 medical personnel from Beijing’s 302 Military Hospital, which took the lead during the 2003 SARS outbreak in China, is operating a holding center to keep suspected Ebola patients under quarantine. In the next few weeks, another 480 medical personnel from China’s People’s Liberation Army, including staff involved in fighting SARS, will arrive in Liberia to build and staff a 100-bed treatment center. China is also set to deliver to the region 60 ambulances, 100 motorcycles, and other supplies, including pickup trucks and incinerators, within the month.
From Science again, a harsh critique:
Nigerian virologist delivers scathing analysis of Africa’s response to Ebola
After Oyewale Tomori finished his talk on Ebola here at the International Meeting on Emerging Diseases and Surveillance, there was stunned silence. Tomori, the president of the Nigerian Academy of Science, used his plenary to deliver a scathing critique of how African countries have handled the threat of Ebola and how corruption is hampering efforts to improve health. Aid money often simply disappears, Tomori charged, “and we are left underdeveloped, totally and completely unprepared to tackle emerging pathogens.”
Trained as a veterinarian, Tomori was the World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) regional virologist for the African region in 1995 during the Ebola outbreak in Kikwit in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). ScienceInsider sat down with him at the meeting in Vienna; questions and answers have been edited for brevity and clarity.
Prevention efforts from the Point in Banjul, the Gambia:
German NGO, association sensitize communities on Ebola prevention
Future of Salikene Project, a German NGO, and the Association of Medical Emergency Aid The Gambia has been engaged in community sensitization on Ebola prevention.
The community sensitization in Salikene and the staff of Salikene Health Centre was recently held in the North Bank Region village.
It was organized by Future of Salikene Project, a German NGO in partnership with the association, a charitable organization.
The sensitization exercise was follow by presentations of Ebola materials and equipment to the AFPRC General Hospital in Farafenni, and to Jahally and Brikamaba Health Centre in the Central River Region.
From CCTV Africa, the media front:
Battling Ebola Through Social Media
Program notes:
A major challenge in tackling Ebola has been poor communication. With new cases reported almost daily, it is important for the outbreak to be continuous highlighted to create more awareness. Outside of governments and non-state actors, people have been taking to social media to help educate each other, and to also seek help for affected countries. Here is a look at how such online conversations have been addressing the Ebola outbreak.
After the jump it’s on to Sierra Leone and another doctor fallen, mixed signals from the field, political monitoring of food distribution, future fiscal needs anticipated, conspiracy theories flourishing, doubly afflicted survivors, British aid arrives, and the bizarre abroad, then on to Liberia and optimism abounding with a cause attributed, innovative nursing, secondary victimization, American acknowledgment of Cuban help as one island doctor falls victim to another killer, a warning against complacency, lingering fears in a ravished county, and an expression of sorrow. . .
Sierra Leone next, starting with a notable casualty from the Associated Press:
Ebola kills Sierra Leone doctor, UN doubles staff
A doctor in Sierra Leone has died of Ebola, the fifth local doctor to die of the disease there, authorities said Monday, as UNICEF announced it was doubling its staff in the three West African nations hard hit by the deadly virus.
The death of Dr. Godfrey George, medical superintendent of Kambia Government Hospital in northern Sierra Leone, was a blow to efforts to keep desperately needed health workers safe in a country ravaged by the world’s worst Ebola outbreak.
At the United Nations in New York, Ebola coordinator Dr. Peter Salama of UNICEF said the U.N. children’s agency would double its staff from 300 to 600 in Guinea, Liberia and in Sierra Leone, where children make up 20 percent of all Ebola cases. About 4,000 children have been orphaned by Ebola, he said.
“Schools are closed, children are confined to their homes and discouraged to play with other children,” he said.
“Death is all around them,” Salama added.
Mixed signals from the field via the UN Media Center:
UN Ebola mission chief reports mixed picture in Sierra Leone, as victims outpace beds in Port Loko
Witnessing yet again the challenging dynamics of the Ebola outbreak unfolding in West Africa, the United Nations envoy coordinating the global response visited Sierra Leone today, where he reported efforts to halt the virus in former hotspot Kenema are starting to pay off, while some 200 kilometres away, Port Loko is now “getting slammed”.
Continuing his tour through the front lines of the crisis, Anthony Banbury, head of the UN Mission for Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER), stopped in Kenema, Sierra Leone’s third largest city, where he said the strategy to defeat the disease is having some success.
“The first place I heard about Ebola was in Kenema and all the terrible things happening there – health care workers getting sick, large numbers of people getting the disease,” yet today, he was pleased to see that Kenema is making progress.
“Once again, all the elements of a successful strategy to defeat Ebola [are] in place and having an effect – the safe burials, the case management and treatment facilities, the community mobilization – what we have seen in Kenema is a big drop in the case loads.”
Political monitoring of food distribution from StarAfrica:
S/Leone Ebola: Political parties to monitor food distribution
Political Parties in Sierra Leone have began monitoring the distribution of food to communities under quarantine, the chairman of the All Political Parties Association, Mohamed Bangura, said Monday.The move, he said, followed growing reports of hunger among families under isolation.
“There has been a lot of complaint that people are quarantined and don’t get food,” he said.
There have also been reports that foods meant for such people is sold in the market by unscrupulous people tasked with the distribution. Recently, several people were detained when they were caught offloading bags of rice meant for quarantined communities in the northern town of Makeni.
From the Guardian, future fiscal needs anticipated:
Ebola-hit Sierra Leone ‘needs western aid to prevent future outbreaks’
African nations most at risk ranked near bottom of world health index, says report
The importance of western aid in helping to build effective health systems in the developing world has been highlighted by a respected international thinktank finding that Sierra Leone, an early source of the Ebola outbreak, was the country least likely to be able to deal with the virus.
The west African state has been ranked bottom of a health index compiled by the Legatum Institute, to be published on Monday, examining the governance of public health in 142 countries along with indices such as infant mortality, life expectancy and healthcare spending.
There are 0.4 hospital beds per 1,000 people in Sierra Leone and health spending is $205 per person, according to the research. It has the second highest rate of tuberculosis in the world (674 per 100,000 people), and the highest incidence of infant mortality at 117.4 per 1,000 live births. The Legatum Institute says that, as a result, the country was “singularly ill equipped to deal with a problem like Ebola”.
From StarAfrica, conspiracy theories flourishing:
S/Leone: Ebola conspiracy theories “unfounded”
A civil rights activist in Sierra Leone said Monday rumors suggesting foreign agents were responsible for deliberately infecting victims with the Ebola virus have been grossly unfounded and the result of mental trauma stemming from the country’s 11-year civil war.There are wild rumors about the exact origin of the virus with one suggesting that a lab in the east of the country run by the US government, may have developed the virus under its bioterrorism program and spread it deliberately among local communities currently bearing the brunt of the epidemic.
This rumor was heightened when the African Union Commission Chairperson during her brief visit to West Africa last month, expressed support for calls for an African investigation into the matter.
A video aired by the Tehran-based anti-western Press TV also further fuelled fire on conspiracy theories alluding to bio-terrorism.
Conspiracy theories flourishing, from the Guardian:
The terrible burden faced by young survivors of Ebola
Sierra Leone man says having survived Ebola virus he now has to fight discrimination and also care for dependants whose parents have died
You can survive Ebola, but you never win. If you recover from the disease, the chances are that you will have lost almost everything else.
Survivor Douda Fullah watched five members of his family die in an Ebola ward. First, his lab technician father, followed by his stepmother, his grandmother, two-year-old brother and 13-year-old sister. His grief and immediate need for food and money has already been captured in a video appeal seen on British and American TV news.
But during a meeting in Freetown it is clear that, in Douda’s case, Ebola has a double legacy, unimaginable grief and the burden of taking his father’s place not just in the family but in the community. “I’m having up to 15 people depending on me … it’s really, really hard,” he said. “I have younger sisters and brothers and cousins living in the same house. My father especially used to care for them … and even for my uncles in the village, my grandfather, he used to care for them. Now that he is no more, everybody is looking to me.”
And the harsh irony of being an Ebola survivor is that, instead of being treated as a victim who needs care and support at the time of familial devastation, he has been shunned by neighbours and parents’ friends who believe that he still carries the virus.
The accompanying video:
Douda Fullah talks about losing several family members to Ebola
Program notes:
Douda Fullah’s life and family have been torn apart by Ebola. On 24 July he lost his father. Within two weeks his step mother and his two year old brother died. She was six months pregnant and miscarried when sick in hospital.
Douda, 17, then lost his sister and grandmother. He too was admitted to hospital, but survived. Orphaned, he is now left to care for himself and 12 year old brother and 15 year old sister. “I have lost five members of my family. I have no one to take care of me… I’m begging. Come to our aid. We are suffering. There is no hope for us.”
(This film supplied Street Child was shot with Douda’s permission).
UK charity Street Child has pledged to help 1,000 children orphaned by the virus.
To help them, click here http://www.street-child.co.uk/ebolaresponse
From allAfrica, British aid arrives:
Sierra Leone: New British Ebola Labs to Help Stop Spread of Virus
Britain is building and staffing three new laboratories in Ebola-struck Sierra Leone which will speed up the time taken to diagnose the disease and help to stop its spread across the country.
The Department for International Development (DFID) has pledged £20 million in new funding for the labs, where blood samples and swabs from all over the country will be tested for the deadly virus.
The first of the labs opened beside the UK funded Ebola treatment centre at Kerry Town last week. This lab alone will double testing capacity in Sierra Leone, while all three labs are expected to quadruple the number of tests that can be carried out every day.
From StarAfrica, the bizarre abroad:
Ebola: Player’s mistreatment sparks S/Leone outrage
Sierra Leoneans have vented their anger over racism allegations levelled at a Greece-based African footballer whose reaction to Ebola stigmatization landed him in trouble.
International midfielder John Kamara, who plays for the Greek side Lamia, celebrated his team`s victory last week by revealing a T-Shirt he was wearing underneath his jersey bearing the slogan: “We are West Africans. We are not a virus.”
The T-shirt also carried the colors of the three West African countries hardest hit by the epidemic – Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia.
In reaction to the development, the 26-year old was booked by the disciplinary committee of the Greek Football League, which accused him of violating its antiracism regulations.
But for many Sierra Leoneans at home and abroad, the accusation leveled against the player smacks of racism. Some of them took to social media, particularly Facebook, to express their dismay.
On to Liberia and optimism abounding from the NewDawn:
Liberia boasts of empty beds
Liberia’s embattled Health Ministry Dr. Walter Gwenigale has boasted of empty beds in Ebola Treatment Units or ETUs across Liberia, as a new ETU of eight large tent with approximately 300- bed capacity was being dedicated in Congo Town.
“Today we don’t have people lying in front of ETUs; in fact, we have empty beds,” he said on Friday, October 31 at the Congo Town ETU dedication which construction was led by the World Health Organization.
Dr. Gwenigale boasted that Liberia was now seeing the benefit of government’s refusal to outsource the Ebola fight to partners as had been demanded during the heat of the outbreak.
And a cause attributed from StarAfrica:
Decline in Ebola attributed to safe burial…
The Deputy Incidence Manager for Medical Planning at Liberia’s Ministry of Health has attributed the decline in the number of Ebola cases in the country to safe burial practices and speedy isolation of cases.He said Monday that the lack of prior knowledge in the management of dead Ebola victims and the handling of contagious patients at the initial stage of the outbreak contributed to the accelerated spread of the virus.
He noted that this has been reduced because the response team is on a daily basis acquiring knowledge through regular training to deal with the virus.
Kateh called on Liberians to always be reminded about the trend of Ebola infection and how it continues to instill fear in Liberians, adding “we are happy but we cannot be complacent until this disease is gone for good.
Innovative nursing from BuzzFeed:
Liberia’s Nurses Find Brilliant Ways To Bring Back Basic Health Care
For months, most clinics and hospitals in Liberia have been closed because of the Ebola crisis. But that hasn’t stopped dedicated health workers from helping their sick neighbors. Jina Moore reports for BuzzFeed News from Liberia.
Liberia’s Ministry of Health says it’s still collecting figures on infection and fatalities from the country’s most common illnesses, but after multiple requests over several weeks, the ministry could not produce any data on malaria rates since March, when Ebola took hold, and one data analyst told BuzzFeed News that counties haven’t reported case numbers for tuberculosis, another common disease, since June because county health officials have been so focused on tracking Ebola.
“We all know that the outbreak affected routine services to the point where health facilities shut down,” said Dr. Bernice Dahn, Liberia’s chief medical officer and a senior official in the Health Ministry. In August, Monrovia’s biggest hospitals closed after doctors in each died from Ebola. Taking a cue from that move, and trying to cope with their own terrified staffs, many public and private clinics shut their doors too. In the midst of Liberia’s Ebola crisis, even not having Ebola could kill you.
Dahn says 145 of the 600 clinics in Liberia have been through the first of a two-phase training focused on renewing basic health care. Those clinics are technically open, she said, but “there’s a difference between open and functional.” Around Monrovia, many open clinics have reduced staff, hours, and services, and there are reports of some charging exorbitant fees. Even the country’s top hospital can’t cope with basic problems: Last month, the daughter of a member of parliament died from an asthma attack in the parking lot of John F. Kennedy Memorial Hospital.
Secondary victimization from FrontPageAfrica:
How Ebola Depriving Liberian Infants, Moms of Health Care
Comfort Reeves could not find a hospital or clinic open in her community two weeks ago when she needed one. She had to be attended to by a midwife in the community because the Pipeline Community Health Center at which she has received prenatal treatment was not opened the night she was in labor. Reeves is among many mothers in Liberia who continue to find difficulty getting adequate health care delivery or getting their children immunized due to the deadly Ebola outbreak.
“I normally take treatment here, but when I was in pain, it was late and the hospital was closed. I didn’t have the money to go far away to another hospital, so I gave birth in the community,” she says. The clinic, which caters to mainly mothers and children have to close down for the night due to the deadly Ebola virus that continues to cause death in Liberia.
“We are here up to 7pm in the evening because of the risk involved. Even if we receive pregnant women during the day and you are to deliver around 10 to 12am, we refer you to another facility. If you come early and are to give birth early, we accept you,” says Nurse Mabel Sesay. “We are here from morning to 7pm; sometimes we refer them to JFK, or we ask them where they want to go, if they have any other place in mind, we refer them there.”
But with the virus slowing down its transmission, some community clinics like the Pipeline Community Health Center are beginning to open their doors to the communities, providing routine vaccination. The Clinic opens during the day to mothers and their babies for now, helping them
An American acknowledgement of Cuban help from Voice of America:
Cuban Doctors Help Fight Ebola in Liberia
Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf inaugurated Friday the first of 17 new Ebola Treatment Units (ETUs) in Congotown, not far from the capital, Monrovia. The U.S.-financed ETUs were constructed by the military. During her speech at the unveiling, Sirleaf thanked international donors for their strong response to the worst ever outbreak of Ebola the world has seen.
Some of the 90 doctors and nurses sent by Cuba to help the West African country, who attended the unveiling, will be working at a field hospital currently under construction at the former site of the Liberian Defense Ministry. It will be connected to the ETUs built with funds from the U.S. Agency for International Development, USAID.
The U.S. has already deployed about 4,000 troops to the region most affected by Ebola, which also includes Guinea and Sierra Leone. They are currently helping move supplies and equipment, build hospitals and train local health care workers.
An additional 65 U.S. public health system (USPHS) workers arrived in Monrovia on October 27 to help Liberia according to a statement posted on the USAID website.
One Cuban has already fallen to disease in the Ebola fight, as the Vanguard in Lagos, Nigeria, reports:
Guinea buries Cuban Ebola worker killed by malaria
Guinea authorities buried a Cuban man Saturday who died of malaria while working in the west African nation to help battle the killer Ebola virus.
Jorge Juan Guerra Rodriguez, 60, was an administrator with a team of Cuban medical personnel sent to west Africa in October to stem the spread of the virus.
He died of cerebral malaria on Sunday, the Guinean government and Cuban officials said.
His funeral in the capital Conakry was attended by work colleagues and aid workers, as well as Cuban and Guinean officials, according to an AFP journalist at the ceremony.
A warning against complacency from StarAfrica:
Liberia’s health minister warns against complacency to fight Ebola
Liberia’s assistant health minister for preventive services has warned against complacency over the fight to control the spread of the Ebola virus.
Addressing the daily Ebola update briefing at the ministry of information in Monrovia on Monday, Tolbert Nyenswah observed that the country is not yet free from the deadly virus regardless of the reduction in the case load.
He said there are still over 200 patients in Ebola Treatment Units, and that a total of 39 probable suspected and confirmed Ebola cases were recorded over the weekend.
He said being complacent has the propensity to overturn the success scored in the fight against the virus. He said in as much as Liberia and its closest neighbors Guinea and Sierra Leone are still recording Ebola cases, Liberians cannot assume that the fight against the disease is over, even if only one case is reported.
Lingering fears in a ravished county from FrontPageAfrica:
Lingering Fears in Lofa County, Liberia’s Ebola Virus Epicenter
Barely seven months after the deadly Ebola Virus hit Lofa County, Liberia’s fourth most populated county (2008 national census) life seems to be returning to normal, but fear that the disease will resurface, exists among residents of the county. Schools remain closed, nonessential staffs working for the government; continue to remain home, while the culture of handshake, hugging and all forms of bodily contact is still prohibited.
At the crossing point, which connects Lofa and Bong counties, travelers are compelled by security officers to get of vehicles, wash their hands and undergo temperature screening. Those with high temperature levels are prevented from entering the Lofa County and refer to the local health authority for additional medical checks.
In Voinjama, the provincial capital of the county, posters of Ebola awareness messages are prevalent. Community radio stations still boom with anti-Ebola songs and messages. This, they say, is to remind residents that Ebola epidemic is not over yet. Many, including non-government agencies believe the disease spread because people did not believe in the existence of the virus.
“No one could listen when it was announced that Ebola is in town,” said Isaac Ballah, a local NGO worker in Voinjama City. Ballah told FrontPage Africa that nearly everyone in the city came to terms with the disease when a man showing signs and symptoms of the virus was seen lying at the entrance of the Lofa County Community college.
And an expression of sorrow from the NewDawn:
EPA expresses condolence to Ebola victims
Speaking over the weekend at the Ministry of Information, Cultural Affairs and Tourism in Monrovia, the Executive Director for the EPA, Madam Anya Vohiri , said the agency joins the government in extending sympathy to those families, who lost loved ones in the fight against the deadly Ebola virus.
She said the 2003 Act that created the Environmental Protection Agency gives the entity the responsibility to establish, monitor the usage of the environment to coordinate and ensure proper dissemination of environmental information across the entire spectrum of Liberia, while encouraging broad base public participation aims at preventing further damage to the environment.
Director Vohiri said since the establishment of the EPA, Liberians have been developing an ecological consciousness, but added that it remains a simple truth that as a society, the citizens know very little about what work is being done in the environment, saying, “We know very little about the additive and synergistic effects of diverse contaminants in our environment, including human health and the climate”
