BBC         22 September 2014 Last updated at 14:11 ET

A three-day curfew aimed at containing the Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone has been declared a success by authorities.

They say more than a million households were surveyed and 130 new cases discovered.

Sierra Leone is one of the countries worst affected by the outbreak, with nearly 600 of the almost 2,800 total deaths recorded so far.

Some health groups have criticised the lockdown, saying it would destroy trust between patients and doctors.

Nearly all of the deaths in the world's worst Ebola outbreak have been recorded in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

The World Health Organization (WHO) says the situations in Senegal and Nigeria have now been "pretty much contained".

According to the UN agency, the number of overall deaths from Ebola has risen to 2,793 and the disease remains "a public health emergency of international concern".

The deadly virus is transmitted through sweat, blood and saliva, and there is no proven cure.

In other developments:

courier-journal.com/The Chigaco Tribune - Sep 22, 2014

Faced with a brutal and wily adversary, President Barack Obama on Tuesday ordered a scaled-up military assault. Not on terrorists in Syria, but Ebola in West Africa.

The president dispatched some 3,000 American troops to help build 17 treatment centers. The Pentagon will establish a military command center in Liberia to coordinate the civilian response to the epidemic. American military health experts will help train thousands of African health care workers. American aid workers will help distribute supplies and information to families there.

The U.S. — and, we hope, the rest of the world — is getting serious about confronting this plague blazing through Africa. The official Ebola toll as of late Tuesday: 4,985 cases and 2,461 deaths. Some experts, however, suspect the actual death tally is much higher. And the rate of Ebola infection is growing exponentially. The number of Ebola cases could spike to 20,000 in a matter of months.

By Elizabeth Cohen - Sep 22, 2014 - cnn.com

Monrovia, Liberia (CNN) -- As I stood in the sweltering heat outside the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta earlier this week, President Barack Obama whispered in my ear.

Okay, he didn't exactly whisper, and his words were intended not just for me. In one of the most significant addresses of his presidency, Obama declared to the world that he would send 3,000 troops to Ebola-stricken West Africa.

Obama's speech was being piped into my earpiece, and I was about to go on CNN when I picked up my phone and emailed my friend Jake Tapper, the host of the show.

"World knows how to fight this disease," I wrote in the subject line, quoting the words I had just heard Obama speak.

After getting off the plane, Elizabeth Cohen has her temperature taken, since a fever is one symptom of Ebola. Her temperature was normal.

In the body of the email, I wrote to Jake, "Does it?"

And that's why I took an airplane to Liberia. I want to answer my own question.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

theguardian.com - 22 September 2014

As health authorities attempt to halt the spread of Ebola in Liberia, many citizens are struggling to feed themselves. People who have lost members of their household to the virus are often confined to their homes for weeks, making it difficult to collect food and other essentials. The UN World Food Programme (WFP) is distributing food to families in quarantine in 10 counties across Liberia

http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/gallery/2014/sep/22/life-under-ebola-quarantine-in-pictures

reuters.com - Sep 22, 2014

An outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus in Democratic Republic of Congo, unrelated to the epidemic in West Africa, is "almost over" with no new cases detected for several days, Prime Minister Augustin Matata Ponyo said.

The government body coordinating the response to Ebola released data on Monday showing Congo had recorded 68 cases in Equateur province since August. Four previously suspected cases had tested negative, but one new case was added.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/09/22/us-health-ebola-congodemocratic-idUSKCN0HH2KA20140922

CBC News - Sep 22, 2014

Sierra Leone's three-day shutdown to try to contain an Ebola virus outbreak has ended, but it's unclear how much the effort helped.

About six million citizens in the West African country were asked to stay indoors until Sunday night as 30,000 health workers, volunteers and teachers went door to door to look for people who may be infected and to give out information about the disease.

The Ebola virus has infected an estimated 5,762 people since March and killed an 2,793 as of Sept. 18, according to the World Health Organization.

"There was massive awareness of the disease," Stephen Gaojia, head of the Ebola Emergency Operations Centre, said on Monday.

Authorities reached more than 80 per cent of the targeted households, he added.

By Fred de Sam Lazaro - Sep 22, 2014 - pbs.org

The story of Ebola in Nigeria is an unusual and frankly rare one about things going right somewhere in Africa, albeit with fingers crossed for fear that it could quickly change.

The numbers are remarkable: just 21 cases of Ebola and eight deaths, in a nation of 170 million, according to the latest World Health Organization report. Compare that to Liberia, with a population of just over 4 million, which has suffered nearly 1500 deaths so far.

Nigeria’s achievement truly hits home for a television crew working “in the trenches” of a country the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency describes as “hobbled by … insecurity and pervasive corruption.”

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/reporters-notebook-covering-ebola-nigeria-navigating-corruption/

At the time of Wednesday’s announc

ement out of Guinea that seven of nine missing Ebola workers had been found dead, we knew little. Men with knives had abducted members of a group sent there to spread awareness about the disease. Two relief workers were missing; the rest, dead. Six suspects were in custody.

By Friday morning, we knew more. These details, the stuff of horror films. A local government group of relief workers—a mix of doctors, religious leaders, and journalists—had arrived Monday to educate the remote southeastern village of Womey about Ebola. Just 24 hours after their arrival, violence broke out, allegedly sparked by the false belief that a disinfectant being sprayed was actually the disease itself. An angry mob brandishing machetes, stones, and knives lashed out.

Yahoo News - Sep 21, 2014

Monrovia (AFP) - A second deployment of United States troops arrived in Liberia on Sunday as part of an eventual mission of 3,000 soldiers helping its beleaguered health services battle the Ebola outbreak.

"Some American troops came soon this morning. They arrived with tactical jeeps," a source at Roberts international airport, near Monrovia, told AFP.

http://news.yahoo.com/more-us-troops-ebola-hit-liberia-airport-source-192002446.html

By Marcy Kreiter - Sep 21 2014 - ibtimes.com

As many as 500,000 people could be infected with Ebola virus disease by the end of January, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. The CDC estimate, due to be released this week, is based on “dynamic modeling” and assumes no additional aid to help battle the disease, a person familiar with the report told the Washington Post.

Infectious-disease experts, aid workers and global health advocates said the number of Ebola cases is increasing much more rapidly than the World Health Organization, or WHO, had projected, especially in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, collectively the West African epicenter of the outbreak. Villagers are complicating containment efforts with police reporting health-care workers in Sierra Leone coming under attack while trying to bury victims.

http://www.ibtimes.com/ebola-outbreak-cdc-estimates-many-500000-ebola-cases-end-january-1692525

MONROVIA, Liberia — While the terrifying spread of Ebola has captured the world’s attention, it also has produced a lesser-known crisis: the near-collapse of the already fragile health-care system here, a development that may be as dangerous — for now — as the virus for the average Liberian.

Sep 20, 2014 - by Q13 FOX News Staff

NEW YORK — The Ebola virus has already killed thousands in West Africa, an immeasurable loss for many families. As medical workers try to quell its spread, global organizations are calculating the economic impact of the disease.

“Their economies are basically being devastated,” said Daniel Epstein, a spokesperson for the World Health Organization. “Economic activity has halted in many areas there. The harvest isn’t going on. People can’t fly in and fly out.”

WHO workers even had difficulty flying into the Ebola-stricken nations of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, Epstein said.

http://q13fox.com/2014/09/20/fight-against-ebola-is-grossly-underfunded/