At a national dialogue on Global Environment Facility Financing Mechanism held at the Sierra Lighthouse hall, Aberdeen, Madam Haddiatu Jallow on Wednesday told participants that Sierra Leone is rated the three most vulnerable country to climate change and other environmental hazards.
Mrs Jallow, Executive Chairman of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Sierra Leone, in her statement, explained to participants some of the crucial challenges that humanity is facing due to the rapid degradation of the environment and pointed out that some of the economic and agricultural impacts that Sierra Leone has been experiencing over the years.

who.int - February 24, 2016

CLICK HERE - WHO - Interim Guidance - Clinical Care for Survivors of Ebola Virus Disease

Overview

Today, there are over 10 000 survivors of Ebola virus disease. A number of medical problems have been reported in survivors, including mental health issues. Ebola virus may persist in some body fluids, including semen. Ebola survivors need comprehensive support for the medical and psychosocial challenges they face and also to minimize the risk of continued Ebola virus transmission.

WHO has developed this document to guide health services on how to provide quality care to survivors of Ebola virus disease. Table of contents include:

Introduction

Planning follow-up of the Ebola survivor

Common sequelae of Ebola virus disease and recommended evaluation and clinical management

Considerations for special populations

Monitoring for persistent Ebola virus infection in survivors: guidelines for testing and counselling

Infection prevention and control considerations in survivors

The Obama administration said Tuesday it will allow foreign nationals from Ebola-affected countries in West Africa to stay in the U.S. for another six months, even though global health officials said the outbreak that killed 11,000 people abroad is officially over.

As Guinea quarantines 816 

A fifth person has died of Ebola in southeast Guinea since March 17, a health official told Reuters on Tuesday, raising concerns that a recent flare-up of the deadly virus could spread.

The latest case was detected in Macenta prefecture, about 200 kilometers from the village of Korokpara where the four other recent Ebola-related deaths occurred, said Fode Sylla Tass, spokesman for National Coordination of the Fight against Ebola in Guinea.

Half of those who contracted measles over the past 15 years were unvaccinated, and in most of those cases the patient (or their legal guardian) refused the vaccination, reports a new study published online earlier this week by the “Journal of the American Medical Association.”

World Health Organisation had just announced ‘milestone’ of no new infections in neighbouring Sierra Leone when latest fatalities came to light

During the Ebola outbreak of 1995 in the Democratic Republic of Congo, eight patients with Ebola were given blood transfusions from people who had recently recovered from Ebola. Seven of them survived.

The blood of people who have recently recovered from an infection contains antibodies that the body develops naturally to fight that infection. The transfusion of these antibodies into infected individuals (as whole blood, plasma, or concentrated antibodies) has a long history and has been proposed as a possible treatment for Ebola virus disease.

see more at: http://www.dddmag.com/news/2016/03/treating-ebola-plasma

Image: A village hosting internally displaced people in Mora, Cameroon, where Boko Haram fighters have conducted raids on livestock. The hunt for food appears to be pushing the militants deeper into Cameroon. Credit Tyler Hicks/The New York Times

nytimes.com - March 4th 2016 - Dionne Searcey

At first, the attack had all the hallmarks of a typical Boko Haram assault. Armed fighters stormed a town on the border with Nigeria, shooting every man they saw.

But this time, instead of burning homes and abducting hostages, the fighters gathered cows, goats and any kind of food they could round up, then fled with it all.

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BLOOMBERG VIA GETTY IMAGES

huffingtonpost.com - by Claire van den Heever - February 26, 2016

CAPE TOWN, South Africa -- With the launch of Apple Pay in mainland China on Feb. 18, Apple has become the first foreign player to secure a place at the table for China's enormous mobile payment market. . . .

. . . Africa's largest lender by assets, Standard Bank, has opted for a more direct route: joining forces with WeChat to secure a piece of Africa's growing mobile payment market. The Standard Bank-backed WeChat Wallet was launched in November 2015 in the continent's most industrialized nation, South Africa, and gives users access to a variety of the Chinese version's most popular offerings, including peer-to-peer money transfers and in-app payments for taxis and other services.

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Improving local health workers’ access to real-time health information will enable a faster and better response to global health threats. / Neil Brandvold, USAID

medium.com/usaid-2030 - by Ann Mei Chang - February 11, 2016

. . . The next generation of health information systems have to not only quickly and accurately deliver the necessary information to healthcare workers, but they need to be able to communicate with each other. The wide range of people involved in combating epidemics such as Ebola need to be able to efficiently and seamlessly share information to ensure coordinated responses and better resource distribution. . . .

. . . To get the conversation started, USAID put out a call for innovative concepts for improving interoperability within health information systems in the developing world. We gathered over 40 organizations for a three-day co-creation workshop in Washington, D.C. in November. Almost 100 experts — including donors, engineers, software developers and implementers in the field — arrived to co-design a solution. . . .

Most people who survive an Ebola infection will have long-lasting health problems, say doctors from the US National Institutes of Health.

CLICK HERE - Press Release - American Academy of Neurology (AAN) - Most Ebola Survivors Examined in Study Experienced Brain Symptoms Six Months After Infection

CLICK HERE - Abstract - Survivors of Ebola Virus Disease Have Persistent Neurologic Deficits

nbcnews.com - by Maggie Fox - February 24, 2016

From headaches and memory loss to vision problems and infected semen, Ebola survivors are suffering serious, long-term effects from their battles with the deadly virus, new studies show.

The most high-profile patient may be Scottish nurse Pauline Cafferkey, who is back in a London hospital for the second time after her recovery from infection. But thousands of people in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone are also suffering, researchers say.

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Don't worry, African cities can cope. (AP Photo/Michael Duff)

New population figures paint a difficult picture for African cities. But there's more to the story than sheer numbers.

CLICK HERE - World population stabilization unlikely this century

CLICK HERE - State of African Cities 2014 , Re-imagining sustainable urban transitions

citylab.com - by Sam Sturgis - September 19, 2014

Numbers continue to stack up against the world’s poorest continent.

Global population levels are expected to increase from a current figure of 7.2 billion to nearly 11 billion by 2100, according to figures released . . . by the U.N. Previously, it was believed the world’s population would peak at around 9.5 billion. Nearly all of this new growth, meanwhile, will occur in Africa, which is expected to quadruple in size.

Aedes aegypti mosquitoes are seen inside Oxitec laboratory in Campinas, Brazil, February 2, 2016. REUTERS/Paulo Whitaker

Reuters - by Stephanie Nebehay - February 2, 2016

GENEVA, Feb 2 (Reuters) - The Zika virus linked to a microcephaly outbreak in Latin America could spread to Africa and Asia, and the World Health Organization will set up monitoring sites in the poorest countries with the highest birth rates, it said on Tuesday.

. . . ”Most important, we need to set up surveillance sites in low- and middle- income countries so that we can detect any change in the reporting patterns of microcephaly at an early stage," said Dr. Anthony Costello, WHO director for maternal, child and adolescent health.

A WHO global response unit "using all the lessons we've learned from the Ebola crisis" has been set up, he said. Some 20 to 30 'sentinel sites' for surveillance could be established worldwide, mainly in poor countries lacking robust health systems.

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