THE GUARDIAN   by  Ashoka Mukpo                               April 24, 2015

 MONROVIA, Liberia -- Archie Gbessay, 28, stands at an intersection in Monrovia’s West Point neighbourhood next to a stall where mobile-phone recharge scratch cards are sold. Across the street is a school that, in August 2014, became the focus of Liberia’s Ebola crisis. It was being used as a holding centre for Ebola victims when enraged residents broke through its iron gate and released patients.

Youngsters in the township of West Point take a leading role in the effort to bring the Ebola outbreak in Liberia under control. Photograph: Ahmed Jallanzo/EPA

AFP                                                                                                           April 15, 2015

Geneva- Traces of Ebola have been found in the semen of a man six months after his recovery, the World Health Organization said Wednesday, urging survivors to practice safe sex "until further notice".

The man had been declared free of the deadly virus in Liberia last September, WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic told AFP.

"He has provided a semen sample which has tested... positive for Ebola, 175 days after his negative blood test," he said in an email.

The UN health agency had previously said the virus had been detected in semen around three months after a patient had been declared Ebola free.

The new finding has led WHO to recommend that survivors abstain from having sex or that they practice safe sex using a condom beyond the three-month period previously prescribed.

Read complete story.

http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-virus-found-semen-six-months-recovery-104351981.html;_ylt=AwrC2Q7WeS5VaEoA82fQtDMD;_ylu=X3oDMTByOHZyb21tBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzcg--

GLOBAL HEALTH NOW Commentary by  Michael Murphy and Alan Ricks                       April 14, 2015
The aftermath of the world’s worst Ebola outbreak in history provides an important opportunity to reflect on the response; but most importantly, to acknowledge we have much more to do...our great fear is that the international community will declare Ebola’s containment a victory and move on, without addressing the reasons the outbreak was so devastating in the first place. The crisis is the canary in the mine, indicating a broader problem that long existed.

An unfortunate reality that plagues development assistance worldwide is what we call “short-termism.” It’s the tendency to mobilize health infrastructure resources only in crises. This is a reactive and costly strategy that prioritizes temporary stabilization without considerations for long-term security.... 

WHO                                                                                                          April 14, 2015
The story of how Liberia’s most populous county, Montserrado, turned around an exponentially-growing Ebola outbreak is intriguing. WHO’s team and national officials, aided by veterans from WHO’s polio eradication group in India, decentralized the response, using quality management principles that empowered local teams and held them accountable for results.

                                                                                                           WHO /Aphaluck Bhatiasevi

These local sector teams involved more than 4,000 community members, using business best practices and an incident management system to vastly improve surveillance, case finding, contact tracing, and overall management of key response activities.
Read full account.
http://www.who.int/features/2015/ebola-sector-approach/en/