Guinea

After the international community pledged $3.4bn for West Africa, Alpha Condé is cautiously optimistic and taking stock of lessons learned

Guinean president Alpha Conde speaks to UN members during an International Ebola Recovery Conference on 10 July. Photograph: EDUARDO MUNOZ ALVAREZ/AFP/Getty Images

THE GUARDIAN by Raya Jababi                        June 11, 2015
NEW YORK--More than a year after the charity Médecins Sans Frontières sounded the alarm on the Ebolaepidemic that would claim more than 11,000 lives, the international community on Friday pledged $3.4bn to help affected West African countries recover.

un.org - July 10, 2015

The international community has pledged more than five billion dollars to support Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone in their efforts to recover from the devastating effects of Ebola, at a high level United Nations Conference in New York today (Friday).

Opening the International Ebola Recovery Conference United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said: “Together, let us jumpstart a robust recovery process over the next two years, and usher in a better future for generations to come.”

The Secretary-General was joined by the Presidents of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, and the Secretary-General of the Mano River Union, who were seeking international support as well as financial commitments for their national and regional recovery strategies over the next two years.

submitted by George Hurlburt

A group of volunteer medical workers carry the bodies of Ebola victims to a car in order to bury them in Kptema graveyard in Kenema, Sierra Leone, on August 24, 2014. Mohammed Elshamy/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

wired.com - by Erica Check Hayden - June 30, 2015

. . . The patients held the answer. If they survived, they carried antibodies that targeted the very viruses that had almost killed them. The samples he’d been working with didn’t contain antibodies, but if he could get blood from survivors, he might be able to figure out how to make the same antibodies that their immune systems had produced. It would not be easy or fast, but he couldn’t stand by while more people lost their lives—if not in this outbreak, then in the next one, or the next one after that. It was time for a new plan. . . .

. . . Once your body knows how to make antibodies specific to a disease, it never forgets . . . So physicians use survivor serum in the hope that amid the trillions of antibodies an adult human can make, the ones that fight a specific disease will be in the mix. It’s not a new idea.

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CLICK HERE - Global Health Media - The Story of Ebola - English

June 26, 2015

This animation—produced in collaboration with International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, UNICEF, and Yoni Goodman—brings to life key messages that help people see and understand how Ebola spreads and how to protect themselves and their communities.

CLICK HERE - About the film:

The story features a young girl whose grandfather dies from Ebola and puts the rest of her family at risk. The film makes visible the invisible Ebola germs to help people see and understand how Ebola spreads and how to protect themselves. Critical messages are woven through the story so that people better understand Ebola, see themselves within the context of an outbreak, and see how to act in ways that can keep themselves safe from the disease and protect their communities.