Karen Weintraub for National Geographic  Published September 3, 2014

More volunteers are desperately needed, officials say.

The battle against Ebola is winnable, public health officials say, but a growing chorus of institutions and experts is warning this week that an insufficient global response to West Africa's epidemic may put a solution to the crisis out of reach.

The disease is spreading uncontrollably in Liberia and Sierra Leone, has now spread beyond Lagos in Nigeria, and has just been detected in a fifth West African country, Senegal.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/09/140903-ebola-global-response-west-africa-world-health-medicine/?google_editors_picks=true

A man who left an Ebola quarantine center in Monrovia in search of food was jeered by an angry and fearful crowd at a local market. The man was subsequently chased down by doctors and forced into an ambulance. (Reuters)

washingtonpost.com - by Lena H. Sun and and Brady Dennis - September 2, 2014

Leading international health officials said Tuesday that the Ebola epidemic in West Africa is accelerating and the window for getting it under control is closing.

“Six months into the worst Ebola epidemic in history, the world is losing the battle to contain it,” Joanne Liu, international president of medical charity Doctors Without Borders, said in a briefing at the United Nations. She faulted world leaders for failing to recognize the severity of the crisis sooner and said charities and West African governments alone do not have the capacity to stem the outbreak.

A health worker disinfects an ambulance at the John F Kennedy hospital in Monrovia, Liberia. Photograph: Dominique Faget/AFP/Getty Images

Nurses at Monrovia's John F Kennedy hospital say they will not return to work until they get protective suits and better pay

theguardian.com - AFP - September 2, 2014

Nurses at Liberia's largest hospital have gone on strike, demanding better pay and equipment to protect them against the Ebola epidemic which has killed hundreds in the west African state.

John Tugbeh, spokesman for the strikers at John F Kennedy hospital in Monrovia, said the nurses would not return to work until they were supplied with personal protective equipment (PPE), the hazardous material-style suits which guard against infectious diseases.

Medicins Sans Frontieres (MSF) health workers prepare at ELWA's isolation camp during the visit of Senior United Nations (U.N.) System Coordinator for Ebola David Nabarro, at the camp in Monrovia Aug. 23, 2014.  Reuters/2Tango

ibtimes.com - by Suman Varandani - September 2, 2014

Japanese scientists said Tuesday that they have developed a new test that could detect the Ebola virus in 30 minutes, with the help of a technology they claim is faster and cheaper than the current method being used in West Africa. . .

. . . Eiken Chemical Co., along with researchers at Nagasaki University, reportedly created the new testing method, which can be conducted with a “small, battery-powered warmer,” making it ideal for use in places without an adequate power source, the scientists claimed. . .

. . . "The new method is simpler than the current one and can be used in countries where expensive testing equipment is not available," Jiro Yasuda, a professor at Nagasaki University, told Agence France-Presse, or AFP. "We have yet to receive any questions or requests, but we are pleased to offer the system, which is ready to go," he reportedly said.

Source: http://www.einnews.com/pr_news/221531226/west-africa-ebola-outbreak-puts-harvests-at-risk-sends-food-prices-shooting-up

2 September 2014, Rome - Disruptions in food trade and marketing in the three West African countries most affected by Ebola have made food increasingly expensive and hard to come by, while labor shortages are putting the upcoming harvest season at serious risk, FAO warned today.

An empty street market in Monrovia's West Point district, 20 August 2014.

* Labour shortages expected to hit main harvest season

* Cassava prices in Monrovia rose by 150 pct in August

* FAO needs $20 million for response plan

fao.org - af.reuters.com -

ROME/DAKAR, Sept 2 (Reuters) - The world's worst Ebola epidemic has endangered harvests and sent food prices soaring in West Africa, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said on Tuesday, warning the problem would intensify in coming months.

by Isla Binnie and Emma Farge - September 2, 2014

The FAO issued a special alert for Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, the three countries most affected by the outbreak, which has killed at least 1,550 people since the virus was detected in the remote jungles of southeastern Guinea in March.

Restrictions on people's movements and the establishment of quarantine zones to contain the spread of the hemorrhagic fever have led to panic buying, food shortages and price hikes in countries ill-prepared to absorb the shock.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

Work will accelerate drug development and testing

hhs.gov - News - Press Release - September 2, 2014

The development of a medication to treat illness from Ebola will be accelerated under a contract with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR). This contract supports the government-wide response to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.

ASPR’s Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) will provide funding as well as access to subject matter expertise and technical support for manufacturing, regulatory, and nonclinical activities through a $24.9 million, 18-month contract with Mapp Biopharmaceutical Inc., of San Diego, California. ASPR can extend the contract up to a total of $42.3 million.

Work under the contract supports the development and manufacturing of the medication ZMapp toward the goal of U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval.

Missionary Doctor Being Treated in Monrovia Hospital

wsj.com - by Betsy McKay - simusa.org - September 2, 2014

A third American missionary has been infected with Ebola while working in Liberia and is being treated in an isolation unit in the Monrovia hospital where he works.

The man, a doctor, was treating obstetrics patients, not Ebola patients. . .

. . . It isn't known how the doctor was infected, SIM USA said in a statement Tuesday.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

CLICK HERE - STATEMENT from SIM - SIM Missionary Doctor in Liberia Tests Positive for Ebola

An MSF staff member at the Ebola treatment center in Monrovia, Liberia.  Caroline Van Nespen/MSF

doctorswithoutborders.org - August 28, 2014

Statement from MSF Director of Operations Brice de le Vingne.

“The WHO road map is welcome, but it should not give a false sense of hope. A plan needs to be acted upon. Huge questions remain about who will implement the elements in the plan. Who has the correct training for the variety of tasks that are detailed? How long will it take to train organizations to set up and run an Ebola management center? How long before any new centers become operational? Who will undertake the vitally important health education, contact tracing, and safe burials in the affected communities?

who.int

Publication details

Number of pages: 27
Publication date: August 2014
Languages: English

Downloads

• Ebola response roadmap
  pdf, 1.35 MB

Overview

WHO issued this roadmap for scaled-up response to the Ebola outbreak. The goal is to stop Ebola transmission in affected countries within 6-9 months and prevent international spread.

The roadmap will assist governments and partners in the revision and resourcing of country-specific operational plans for Ebola response, and the coordination of international support for their full implementation. The objectives are:

CLICK HERE - RESEARCH - Reversion of advanced Ebola virus disease in nonhuman primates with ZMapp

washingtonpost.com - by Lenny Bernstein - August 29, 2014

The experimental drug pressed into emergency use in the West African Ebola epidemic cured a group of 18 monkeys of the deadly disease, including some who didn't receive the treatment until five days after they were injected with the virus, researchers reported Friday.

The finding, published online in the journal Nature, raises new hope for use of the cocktail of monoclonal antibodies, called ZMapp, against Ebola, which has no known cure or vaccine. . .

. . . "The highlight of these experimental results is undoubtedly ZMapp, which was able to reverse severe [Ebola] disease...leading to full recovery of all treated [non-human primates]" within 28 days after they were infected, the researchers wrote.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

Craig Kenzie, Junko Otaki, and Luca Zaliani are among the 57 international health care workers assisting with Ebola treatment at a Médecins Sans Frontières facility in Kailahun, Sierra Leone.  Photographs by Samuel Aranda

Foreign and local caregivers are essential to stopping the virus’s deadly spread.

nationalgeographic.com - by Karen Weintraub - August 29, 2014

In two Land Rovers, one fitted out as an ambulance, a small team of humanitarian workers last week headed deep into Sierra Leone's jungle. After hours on deeply rutted paths that could barely be called roads, they stopped at a village that had seen ten reported cases of Ebola.

With the consent of the village chief, the team fanned out across the community, asking at each hut if anyone was feeling ill or had made contact with the earlier patients.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

abcnews.go.com - by Katie Moisse - August 28, 2014

U.S. scientists will begin testing an Ebola vaccine in humans next week, health officials announced today. But it could take 11 months to learn whether the vaccine is safe as the virus’ toll in West Africa continues to rise. . .

. . . The experimental vaccine, co-developed by the National Institutes of Health and GlaxoSmithKline, “performed extremely well in protecting nonhuman primates from Ebola infection,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the NIH’s infectious disease branch, said.

Outbreak likely originated with a single animal-to-human transmission.

nature.com - Erika Check Hayden - August 28, 2014

Augustine Goba and his colleagues have now decoded the genetic sequences of 99 Ebola viruses collected from 78 patients during the first 24 days of the epidemic in Sierra Leone. The work, published online in Science, could help to inform the design of diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines, says structural biologist Erica Ollmann Saphire of The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California. “This paper is terrific,” she adds.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)