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Living in the shadow of Ebola

 

As West African nations try to stop the deadly Ebola virus from spreading, people living in the affected countries are nervous. In Sierra Leone, communities are keeping a close eye on the exact locations where the disease has emerged.

The posters are crudely drawn and graphic. There's one pasted to the wall of the squat, concrete community centre in Kroo Bay, a slum in the centre of the capital Freetown, the kind of place where you can imagine disease spreading fast.

The houses are built of breeze block and have battered, rusting roofs. The spaces between them are piled with garbage, small children with no shoes tote yellow plastic jerry cans of water through the narrow lanes.

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Crowdsourcing - Ebola

A growing source of information from news sources and social media on Ebola . . .

 
Voice of America – Ebola - http://www.voanews.com/info/ebola/4867.html
 
 
Crofsblogs (H5N1) – Ebola - http://crofsblogs.typepad.com/h5n1/ebola/
 
Google – (search “Ebola”) - https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=ebola

 

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Liberia’s Ebola nightmare

MONROVIA, Liberia — Outside her six-room house in New Kru Town, one of this city’s largest slums, Esther Doe cradles her grandson while dressing her granddaughter at the same time. Clotheslines hanging between the mango trees in her yard are strewn with baby outfits, cotton lapa fabric and tank tops.

As she tends to the children, a team of “animators” — the term used by aid groups for employees who provide public education — speaks to Doe about Ebola. The animators, from Community Development Services (CODES), a local group that works with UNICEF, have painted blue crosses with the organization’s name on the walls of surrounding houses, marking the homes they have visited.

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WHO Director-General assesses the Ebola outbreak with three West African presidents

Dr Margaret Chan
Director-General of the World Health Organization

Overview of the Ebola situation delivered to the Presidents of Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone
Conakry, Guinea 

1 August 2014

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How deforestation shares the blame for the Ebola epidemic

Like most matters involving an Ebola epidemic, chronicling its first horrifying infection is not an easy endeavor. But even in circumstances in which details are hard to come by, certain similarities have emerged. The first contact often occurs in remote, rural communities where a victim handles an infected animal carcass, and things quickly progress downward from there.

One outbreak in Ivory Coast was sparked when an ethologist touched an infected, dead chimpanzee. In Gabon and the Republic of Congo, scientists linked several outbreaks to extensive deaths of forest chimpanzees and gorillas. And in this most current outbreak of Ebola in West Africa — which has been called “out of control”...

(CLICK HERE FOR MORE OF THIS ARTICLE)

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Safe burial to reduce Ebola spread

Another challenge in trying to contain Ebola is the very strong cultural beliefs in that area of Africa.

The No. 1 contamination risk is touching the body around the time someone has died from Ebola.

"They do rituals before they bury the body that involves washing the bodies and even, sometimes, sleeping with them, the dead person."

So after someone dies at a treatment centre, the Doctors Without Borders staff bring the family to the centre and do what they call a safe burial.

"We wash the body and we put them in a body bag, but with the zipper open so they can see the face, and we bring the body to the village," in conjunction with the Guinea Red Cross, Forget says.

"People can still do a burial process but in a safe way so they don't touch the body … they can still pray and perform ceremonies but without touching the body.

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Spread of Ebola virus

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Algérie : 6 morts et 420 blessés après un important séisme à Alger séisme(83) - catastrophe naturelle(34) Lire l'article sur Jeuneafrique.com : Séisme | Algérie : 6 morts et 420 blessés après un important séisme à Alger

La ville d'Alger a été touchée vendredi par un violent séisme de magnitude 5,6 sur l'échelle de Richter. Six personnes sont mortes et 420 ont été blessées dans un mouvement de panique.

Le séisme de magnitude 5,6 sur l'échelle de Richter survenu à Alger vendredi 1er août à 05h11 (04h11 GMT) n'a causé aucun dégât important. C'est la panique qu'il a provoqué qui est à l'origine de la mort de six personnes. "Selon un bilan hospitalier définitif, il y a eu six morts ainsi que 420 blessés, pour la plupart des blessés légers", a annoncé un membre de la cellule de crise du ministère de la Santé.

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