Liberia has suspended all football activities in an effort to control the spread of the deadly Ebola virus.

There was a risk of infection because football is a contact sport, the football association said.

The number of people killed by the virus in West Africa has now reached 672, according to new UN figures.

A major regional airliner, Asky, said it had halted flights to the Liberian and Sierra Leonean capitals because of growing concerns about the virus.

Sierra Leone officials appealed for help on Friday to trace the first known resident in the capital with Ebola whose family forcibly removed her from a Freetown hospital after testing positive for the deadly disease.

Radio stations in Freetown, a city of around 1 million inhabitants, broadcast the appeal on Friday to locate a woman who tested positive for the disease that has killed 660 people across Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone since an outbreak was first identified in February.

(CNN) -- A doctor who has played a key role in fighting the Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone is infected with the disease, according to that country's Ministry of Health.

Dr. Sheik Humarr Khan is being treated by the French aid group Medicins Sans Frontieres -- also known as Doctors Without Borders -- in Kailahun, Sierra Leone, Tim Shenk, an agency spokesman, told CNN.

(Read complete article here)

Health authorities at the John F. Kennedy (JFK) Medical Center in Sinkor have confirmed the closure of the hospital's emergency ward to the public following reports that the Ebola virus had spread.

Reports say nurses have been re-assigned on the regular ward. The hospital's emergency ward was shutdown following the death of a suspected Ebola patient (name withheld), who had been brought from the borough of New Kru Town last Thursday at the JFK...

Published on Jul 10, 2014

Cities have always had to contend with things like natural disaster, economic and infrastructure collapse, and widespread illness. But globalization, climate change and rapid urbanization are making this moment in history different, and the stresses facing cities all the more complex. So how can cities survive, adapt, and grow, no matter what shocks might lie ahead? Join the Rockefeller Foundation's Judith Rodin for a look at what she calls "the resilience dividend" — investments that can minimize the disruptive effects of strain on a city, while simultaneously creating jobs, social cohesion, and equity.

It was humid, muddy and raining when WHO staff approached a compound in heavily populated New Kru Town, outside Monrovia, Liberia to look for people who have had contact with people infected with Ebola. A WHO technical adviser from Rwanda, sent in to help the zone coordinator, spoke to a woman who had cared for an Ebola patient. She understood the need to be monitored for the disease, but another man with whom the team talked denied knowing anyone with Ebola and refused further contact with the team.

(CNN) -- The Ebola outbreak in West Africa has hit "unprecedented" proportions, according to relief workers on the ground, with the WHO reporting 844 cases including 518 deaths since the epidemic began in March.

The efforts to contain the largest Ebola outbreak in history have so far failed. International response teams, desperate to limit the toll of the fast-spreading epidemic in three West African countries, have been calling for the use experimental drugs or vaccines to try to stop the deadly virus. Many experts, however, including the scientist who led the work on a Canadian-made Ebola vaccine, say that using untested medications in the current West African outbreak could be disastrous. Other scientists disagree. The World Health Organization reports that the current outbreak, which is the first in West Africa, has so far infected 844 people, causing the death of 518 of them. This is double the size of the next largest outbreak, in Uganda in 2000, and this outbreak has just begun...

(Read more...)

Two-thirds of the world's population will live in cities by 2050, posing unique infrastructural challenges for African and Asian countries, where 90% of the growth is predicted to take place.

World Health Organisation says latest figures from three health ministries show total of 844 cases, with 518 deaths, in epidemic

By Laura Smith-Spark, CNN updated 10:37 AM EDT, Fri July 4, 2014

(CNN) -- With their countries facing an Ebola epidemic of "unprecedented" proportions, the health ministers of 11 African nations have agreed to a joint strategy to try to stem its deadly advance.

As part of the plan, the World Health Organization will set up a "sub-regional control center" in Guinea -- one of the three West African nations at the heart of the outbreak -- to help coordinate the response.

afro.who.int

Accra, 03 July 2014 – The Emergency Ministerial meeting on Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) has ended today with Health Ministers agreeing on a range of priority actions to end the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. The scale of the ongoing outbreak is unprecedented with reports of over 750 cases and 445 deaths in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia since March 2014.

In a Communiqué issued at the end of the two-day meeting, the Ministers agreed that the current situation poses a serious threat to all countries in the region and beyond and called for immediate action. They expressed concern on the adverse social and economic impact of the outbreak and stressed the need for coordinated actions by all stakeholders, national leadership, enhanced cross-border collaboration and community participation in the response.

The Ebola virus would be terrifying no matter where it struck: It's a disease with no cure that causes headaches and fever, severe diarrhea, vomiting and bleeding and has been known to kill up to 90% of its victims.

But in a corner of West Africa, where the disease took hold in recent montha, tradtional beliefs and superstitions have complicated efforts to prevent the illness. Some communities blame the disease's emergence on those who have gone there to help--medical staff in alien-looking full-body protection suits and masks...

(Click here to read more)

BY KWASI KPODO

ACCRA Wed Jul 2, 2014 7:05pm EDT

(Reuters) - West African states lack the resources to battle the world's worst outbreak of Ebola and deep cultural suspicions about the disease remain a big obstacle to halting its spread, ministers said on Wednesday.