VOICE OF AMERICA by Joe DeCapua                                                   April 30, 2015

 The World Health Organization is set to declare Liberia Ebola free. It will make that declaration on May 9th if no new cases are reported. In a sign of how the situation has improved, the Liberian Red Cross has handed back responsibility for safe burials to the Ministry of Health.

ASSOCIATED PRESS                                          April 30, 2014

MONROVIA -- American officials are shutting down a special treatment unit they set up in Liberia at the height of the Ebola crisis last year.

It's the latest sign that life is returning to normal in the West African country where more than 4,600 people have died from Ebola.

 Liberia has gone 32 days now without a new Ebola case. If it stays that way until May 9, the World Health Organization could declare the country Ebola-free.

The United States government last year deployed more than 2,000 troops to fight Ebola in Liberia, setting up about 15 treatment centers. Six of them are still being actively used by local health workers for various purposes.

Read complete story.
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/us-shuts-ebola-treatment-center-liberia-30703643

THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION Study  by James Jay Carafano, Ph.D., Charlotte Florance and Daniel J Kaniewski 

 April 24, 2015

Executive Summary

 This report presents the observations, findings, and recommendations of a task force formed to examine the global response and the response of the U.S. government (USG) to the 2013–2014 Ebola outbreak and global transmission. Specifically, the task force sought to derive lessons learned and insights from the USG response to the Ebola outbreak both internationally and domestically with the goal of crafting recommendations to improve the government’s ability to respond to natural disasters, acts of bioterrorism, and various public health crises related to significant outbreaks, epidemics, and pandemics....

The report’s major recommendations include:

STARAFRICA.COM                                                                                 April 30, 2015

ABUJA, Nigeria  --Governments in West Africa should improve health governance by scaling up investments in health infrastructure and human capital to ensure proactive responses against pandemics such as Ebola, a panel of discussants on Ebola has recommended.

A statement by the ECOWAS Commission on Thursday in Abuja said that the panelists at the debate on “Ebola; one year after,” organized by the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES) in Abuja on Tuesday, explained that such investments would engender effective preventive and preparedness initiatives and also address the weak health systems of countries in the region, which suffered the heaviest burden of the latest Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) outbreak...

In particular, they recommended that public education and sensitization as well as community mobilization, participation and vigilance must be sustained until the disease is totally eliminated. There should also be effective psycho-social support and reintegration programmes for survivors and children orphaned by the disease....

Read complete story.

Amid lingering disease fears and economic fallout, most children have stayed away from recently reopened schools.

 AL JAZEERA  by Tommy Trenchard                                                                    April 30, 2015

FREETOWN, Sierra Leone -- 

...the most dramatic change since Ebola swept across the country last July - forcing the school system to shut down completely - was in the number of students.

Sixth-grade teacher Andrew Kabia writes Ebola prevention messages on a blackboard [Tommy Trenchard/Al Jazeera]

Out of a total of 150 pupils in class six, less than 20 actually turned up on a recent Tuesday. It is not unusual in Sierra Leone for the school year to start slowly, but this year's figures were extremely low. A week later, classrooms were still not even half full....

Between the restrictions on movement brought in to stem the spread of Ebola and the fear of markets and crowded spaces, small businesses everywhere have felt the pinch, leaving many families unable to continue supporting their children's education.

WHO                                                                                                   April 29, 2015

Weekly report

SCI DEVELOPMENT NET                                                                                April 29, 2015
(includes links to five feature stories and editorials on communication issues and other subjects.)
The outbreak of Ebola that has affected West Africa since December 2013 is the largest to date, with enormous human and economic costs. It has also exposed weaknesses in the global response system, including the handling of communication and complex social responses. What can we learn from this to better manage future health emergencies?

This Spotlight presents an in-depth analysis including opinions, facts and figures, and key resources. It features commentary by Sylvie Briand of the WHO, Rosamund Southgate of Médecins Sans Frontières and Annie Wilkinson of the Institute of Development Studies. 

It includes first-hand accounts by researchers with experience in the field, and interviews with social science expert Melissa Leach and communications managers at Médecins Sans Frontières-UK and BBC Media Action.
Read complete articles.

The epidemic may be nearing “zero cases” — but it's still disrupting the delivery of vaccines for measles, polio, and other deadly childhood diseases.

FOREIGN POLICY                                                                                                    April 27, 2015

by Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, President of Liberia, and Seth Berkley,  President and CEO of the Gavi vaccine alliance

When the Ebola epidemic in West Africa comes to an end, it will be marked by two simple words: “zero cases.” But this momentous milestone will also signal the beginning of a new struggle as the long and difficult process of recovering from a crisis that has claimed more than 10,000 lives commences. Ebola has not only drawn attention to the vast gap that exists between rich and poor nations; it has widened that divide too, setting the people of Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea even further back. The opportunity to narrow and ultimately close this gap cannot be neglected.

ASSOCIATED PRESS by Maria Cheng                                                        April 28, 2015

LONDON — The World Health Organization says it aims to identify and isolate all new Ebola cases in West Africa by the end of May to stop the spread of the lethal virus before the rainy season.

In a new Ebola plan released on Tuesday, the U.N. health agency said it hopes to limit transmission of the virus to the coastal areas of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone before the rainy season begins, normally in April or May.

WHO said the decline in Ebola's spread has "plateaued," partly due to "persistently high transmission" in Guinea and Sierra Leone. Officials say the rainy season will make it more difficult for responders to reach remote areas....

BUSINESS STANDARD                                                                        April 27, 2015

HYDERABAD, India --Ella Foundation, which has taken up research for finding a potential vaccine for the deadly Ebola virus, today said it had successfully completed preliminary studies on the virus, which was responsible for high fatalities among humans in central Africa.

The Hyderabad-based foundation said it had completed the preliminary animal (with mice) experiments of the virus' glycoprotein with the targeted adenovirus, and the "immune response results have been good", which would be followed by toxicology tests and the subsequent clinical trials involving human beings.

Adenoviruses are responsible for respiratory infections, gastroenteritis, cystitis, and primary pneumonia in humans, and are therefore used as a clear target to understand the human immunity characteristics in laboratory. However, the efficacy of the vaccine is judged by the outcomes seen in human trials.

Read complete story.

http://www.business-standard.com/article/current-affairs/ella-foundation-announces-key-outcomes-in-ebola-vaccine-research-115042700631_1.html

MONROVIA, Liberia — The U.N. chief on Saturday appointed a new head of the emergency mission responding to West Africa’s Ebola crisis amid hopes that the world’s deadliest outbreak of the virus will soon come to an end.

A statement from Ban Ki-moon’s office said Peter Jan Graaff of the Netherlands will work closely with David Nabarro, the U.N.’s special Ebola envoy, in addressing an epidemic that has claimed more than 10,000 lives in the three hardest-hit countries: Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone.

Outgoing head Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed was appointed as special envoy to Yemen on Saturday.

Graaff had been serving since October as the U.N.’s Ebola crisis manager in Liberia, which has recorded more Ebola deaths than any other country.

Read complete story.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/africa/un-chief-names-new-head-of-ebola-mission-as-outbreak-calms/2015/04/25/46ba3320-eb84-11e4-8581-633c536add4b_story.html

AFP    by Zoom Dosso                                                            April 24, 2015
Monrovia -- As the Ebola epidemic retreats across west Africa, international health authorities are turning their attention to the little understood long-term effects of the often-deadly virus on the survivors.

Matshidiso Moeti, the WHO's new head in Africa, told AFP that Liberian survivors had been reporting a range of problems, including sight and hearing impairment.

"We need to be aware that (complications) may be occurring and pay attention when people are being treated in case there is something that can be done to help them," she told AFP in the Liberian capital Monrovia.

Read complete story.

http://news.yahoo.com/west-africa-battles-mystery-post-ebola-syndrome-034727521.html;_ylt=AwrC0CM1rDtVtDoA83rQtDMD;_ylu=X3oDMTByOHZyb21tBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzcg--

DEVEX byAlison  Campbell                                                                          April 23, 2015

The Ebola crisis in West Africa was quickly recognized as being driven as much by misinformation and rumors as by weaknesses in the health care system. Mohamed Komah interviews an Ebola survivor at the Donka Ebola treatment center in Conakry, Guinea. Photo by: Internews

International response agencies invested significant resources in rolling out the Social Mobilization and Community Engagement drive, a wide-scale intensive social behavior change communication campaign. The result was a massive and rather poorly coordinated blast of messaging shared on billboards, in print, on radio and TV, through health outreach workers and community organizations, via SMS and call-in hotlines.

A preliminary assessment done by Internews in November found more than 300 types of social mobilization and messaging systems in the three worst-affected countries: Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone. This chaotic information landscape consisted mainly of information “out,” with little opportunity for community dialogue....

AFP                                                                                                             April 24, 2015
PARIS --The collapse of health services in three west African countries devastated by Ebola may have caused some 11,000 additional deaths from malaria, a preventable and curable disease, researchers said Friday.

Desinfected gloves dry at Elwa hospital in Monrovia, Liberia on September 7, 2014 (AFP Photo/Dominique Faget)

A further 3,900 deaths may have resulted from interruptions in the delivery of insecticide-treated bed nets, according to outbreak modelling data published in The Lancet on the eve of World Malaria Day.

This suggested the haemorrhagic fever outbreak "could have resulted in a comparable number of malaria deaths as those due to Ebola itself," said a statement issued by the medical journal.

Read full story.