Guinea

REUTERS  by Misha Hussain                                                    March 12, 2015sC

(Scroll down for links to press release and full report.)

DAKAR -- West Africa may lose up to $15 billion over the next three years due to the impact of the Ebola outbreak on trade, investment and tourism, according to a report by the United Nations.

The world's deadliest Ebola epidemic has killed almost 10,000 people in the three most affected countries of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, deepening poverty in one of the least developed parts of the world.

"The consequences of Ebola are vast," said Abdoulaye Mar Dieye, Africa director of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

"Stigma and risk aversion have caused considerable amounts of damage, shutting down borders and indirectly affecting the economies of a large number of countries in the sub-region."

Read complete story

http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-could-cost-west-africa-15-billion-over-150805196.html;_ylt=AwrBJSCTtwFVoAIAda3QtDMD

REUTERS     by Tom Miles                                                                                        March 11, 2015

GENEVA -Waning interest in Ebola could jeopardize efforts to stamp out the world's worst recorded outbreak of the disease, the World Health Organization said on Wednesday.

Case numbers have fallen to a low level and it should be possible to stop transmission by mid-year, but the disease is "not waning" and it is much too early to assume the outbreak will end, said WHO Assistant Director General Bruce Aylward.

"We talk often about how steep the drop in cases has been. The only thing that has dropped more quickly and more steeply is the new contributions in financing," he told reporters in Geneva. 

...the failure to make further inroads is "alarming", Aylward said.

"Getting from here to zero is going to require another reinvestment (in the drive to tackle the outbreak)."

savethechildren.org

CLICK HERE - REPORT - A WAKE-UP CALL - Lessons from Ebola for the world’s health systems (50 page .PDF report)

nytimes.com - by Donald G. McNeil Jr. - March 9, 2015

The world has spent more than $4 billion fighting Ebola, but according to a new report from Save the Children, it would have cost only $1.6 billion to bring health care systems up to minimum standards in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea, which might have prevented the outbreak or ended it faster.

Even before Ebola struck West Africa, more than 25 countries had health care systems worse than those in impoverished Liberia and Sierra Leone, the report also found.

ebolaresponse.un.org

Coalition Meeting Notes - Minutes from the weekly meetings held by the Global Ebola Response Coalition:

Global Ebola Response Coalition Meeting 21 | 6^th March 2015:

Issues Discussed and Next Steps

The twenty first meeting of the Global Ebola Response Coalition Core Group took place on 6 March. The main points covered in the meeting follow.

2.            Participants discussed the status of the outbreak.  The cumulative number of people who have been diagnosed with Ebola in the current outbreak is now 23,983. The number of people newly diagnosed with Ebola in the 7 days to 1 March, is 132; the figure was 99 in the preceding 7 days. This week’s total reflects increases in Guinea (35 to 51) and Sierra Leone (63 to 81) but a fall in Liberia (1 to 0). The volatility in numbers of people newly diagnosed with Ebola each week continues: the figure ranges between 90 and 160 new cases per week.  The majority of new cases are reported from the geographical region around the coastal border areas between Guinea and Sierra Leone.