After being declared Ebola-free months ago, Senegal is still relentless in controlling any possible outbreak of the Ebola virus in its country.

With a dozen tents and twelve beds surrounded by a double fence, an Ebola emergency treatment centre has been built in the Fann Hospital in Dakar to contain the virus in case it penetrates the country’s porous borders,RFI reports.

The centre, a partnership between the government, Red Cross and the Japanese cooperation, will also be used for outbreaks associated with other infectious diseases.

In many African societies, traditional healers are solicited for many reasons. They are called healers or witch doctors for their talents in hunting evil spells and for their mastery of medicinal plants. They are listened to and respected by communities who have full confidence and trust in their skills. It is how these men and women earn a living.

During the Ebola epidemic response, traditional healers were quickly identified as key actors to help raise awareness about the disease in communities, particularly in remote areas where they maintain close relationships with the people they serve.

Doumbouya Idrissa is a traditional healer and President of the Traditional Healers Network of the Lower Guinea region in Guinea. Known as Simbo, which means “strong man” in Sussu, one of the local languages, he played a key role in the mobilization of traditional healers and their commitment to help end the outbreak through the sharing of knowledge on symptoms and preventive measures.

For more than a month in 2015, a multidisciplinary team including infectious disease and critical care physicians and nurses, respiratory therapists and other specialists at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) treated a critically ill patient who had contracted Ebola virus disease in Sierra Leone. A new report by the medical caregivers details the clinical course of the 34-year-old American healthcare worker who was admitted to the NIH Special Clinical Studies Unit on day 7 of his illness. The patient survived his illness with intensive supportive care, despite multi-organ failure.

Upon admission to the NIH Clinical Center, the patient was enrolled in a clinical trial and was randomly assigned to receive optimized supportive care only. The trial's other arm included treatment with experimental therapies. In the first few days after admission, the patient's condition worsened dramatically and he experienced sequential organ failure, despite intensive supportive care that included maintenance of optimal fluid and electrolyte balances. His prognosis was poor.

Community engagement helped turn the tide of Ebola, and will be critical in combatting this latest outbreak.

This is no secret. Getting trusted community members, religious leaders, and local media on board increased adoption of difficult, often alien preventive behaviors like safe burials, which ultimately helped stop the spread of the disease.

But there’s a broader lesson here. If we are to prevent future epidemics, communities need to remain actively engaged in efforts to strengthen the health sector.

POSTED BY: PUBLISHER AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER KABS KANU MAY 18, 2015

POSTED BY: PUBLISHER AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER KABS KANU APRIL 10, 2016

SUNDAY, April 10, 2016 -- The cost of health care that could save the lives of millions of children and their mothers every year would be less than $5 per person, researchers report. 

The money would expand basic health services -- such as birth control, nutritional supplements and medication to treat serious illnesses such as pneumonia and malaria -- in 74 low- and middle-income countries. Those countries account for more than 95 percent of mother and child deaths each year, according to the study published April 9 in The Lancet.

The researchers reported that, worldwide, in 2015 nearly 6 million children under age 5 died, as did more than 300,000 women from pregnancy-related causes.

POSTED BY: PUBLISHER AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER KABS KANU APRIL 10, 2016

Scientists in Brazil have uncovered a new brain disorder associated with Zika infections in adults: an autoimmune syndrome called acute disseminated encephalomyelitis, or ADEM, that attacks the brain and spinal cord.

Kambia, April 6, 016 (MOHS) - Health and Sanitation Minister, Dr. Abu Bakarr Fofanah has said that Ebola is a stubborn disease and has the tendency to re-emerge based on historical evidence, and lauded border personnel for being vigilant.

Addressing the Military, Police, Port Health Workers, Immigration Officers and Community Elders at the Gbalamuya Sierra Leone - Guinea border crossing point in the Kambia district, Dr. Fofanah reminded his audience that after the end of the outbreak announcement by WHO in Sierra Leone, the country unexpectedly experienced the re-emergence of a case, and similarly for Guinea and Liberia, and warned against denial and complacency.

“I lost my father, my mother, my stepmother. I lost nine relatives, including my husband,” says Aisha Kamara, a nurse at the government hospital in Kenema, Sierra Leone who remarkably managed to survive Ebola, even after having treated her sick father. 

Nine family members. Just like that. Gone. “Ebola just came and destroyed all our families,” says Aisha, whose story rings true for many families across Sierra Leone. Now, with the outbreak over (Sierra Leone reported two flare-up cases in January after the outbreak was declared over in November 2015), these families must somehow pick up the pieces and figure out a new normal. 

Garmai Sumo welcomes us with a pleasant smile. Dressed in an elegant African printed top and basic jeans, she looks radiant with her new hairstyle. “I have put away the gloves, mask and gown. Ebola is now over!” she exclaims, transforming her smile into a real burst of laughter before hastening to add, “but washing my hands remains a daily reflex.”

The young woman of 29 was among the 5,000 volunteers trained and mobilized by the Liberia National Red Cross Society during the Ebola outbreak, displaying courageous efforts to stop the disease through the provision of safe and dignified burials, contact tracing, psychosocial support, and surveillance and social mobilization.