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.

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.

Dr Margaret Chan
Director-General of the World Health Organization

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”...

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http://www.cbc.ca/news2/interactives/map-ebola/

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.

Les présidents de la Guinée, du Liberia, de la Sierra Leone et de la Côte d'Ivoire sont attendus vendredi à Conakry pour participer à un sommet régional consacré à l'épidémie d'Ebola.

Un sommet régional consacré à l'épidémie d'Ebola se tient vendredi 1er août à Conakry en présence des chefs d'État de la Guinée, du Liberia, de la Sierra Leone et de la Côte d'Ivoire. La directrice de l'Organisation mondiale de la Santé (OMS), Margaret Chan, participera également au sommet où elle lancera un plan d'un montant de 100 millions de dollars.

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As the deadly Ebola virus continues to spread, Liberians are panicking as dead bodies of people who have died from unknown causes continue to dawdle around the city of Monrovia and its environs without the Ministry of Health collecting them. The situation is creating Health hazard as communities worry that Liberia’s Health ministry is incapacitated to cater to the Ebola crisis.

Monrovia - Following the government of Liberia’s declaration of a national health emergency in the face of the deadly Ebola outbreak that has killed close to 130 Liberians and an entire government ministry at risk because of an employee that died of the deadly disease in Nigeria, there have been reports of dead bodies lying around with no effort by the ministry of health to remove them.

(CNN) -- The fear began just after news broke Thursday that a long-range business jet with an isolation pod left the United States for Liberia, where it will evacuate two Americans infected with Ebola.

Twitter exploded with questions about the deadly virus, which according to the World Health Organization is believed to have killed hundreds in four West African nations. And with reaction to news that two infected Americans would soon be on their way back to the United States.

cdc.gov - July 31, 2014

CDC urges all US residents to avoid nonessential travel to Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone because of an unprecedented outbreak of Ebola.

http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/notices

The U.S. issued a travel warning Thursday for three African countries hit by an outbreak of deadly Ebola, but the White House said President Obama will go forward with a summit in Washington next week featuring African leaders.

C'est en visite d'urgence à Conakry en Guinée que Dr Margaret Chan, Directrice de l'OMS, doit recontrer d'urgence ce vendredi les chefs d'états des la Guinée, Sierra Léone et Libéria pour annoncer un plan de 100 millions de dollars pour lutter contre l'épidémie qui fait les manchettes dans le reste du monde.

31 JULY 2014 ¦ GENEVA/CONAKRY - The Director-General of WHO and presidents of west African nations impacted by the Ebola virus disease outbreak will meet Friday in Guinea to launch a new joint US$ 100 million response plan as part of an intensified international, regional and national campaign to bring the outbreak under control.