Today marks Anniversary of Ebola in Sierra Leone

Last year on May 24, a pregnant woman and a friend stagger in to a hospital in Kenema, They were diagnosed as Sierra Leone’s first Ebola cases. International Development Secretary Justine Greening said “A year ago today it was confirmed that the deadly Ebola virus had reached Sierra Leone. In the months that followed this terrible disease swept across the country claiming thousands of lives, devastating communities and temporarily crippling...

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Ebola case numbers quadruple in Guinea

Today, Sierra Leone berated the “selfish and shameful” behavior of people risking a resurgence of the Ebola virus by ignoring quarantine restrictions, as authorities announced a spike in cases. Already devastated by Ebola, Guinea and Sierra Leone saw a spike in new cases last week, the World Health Organization said Wednesday, crushing hopes that the deadly outbreak was petering out. The country’s National Ebola Response Centre...

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Italian Healthcare Worker Tests Positive for Ebola

On May 12th 2015, The World Health Organization (WHO) received notification of a laboratory-confirmed case of the Ebola virus disease in Italy. The nurse had worked with an Italian aid group in Sierra Leone, one of the West African countries hit by the outbreak last year. He started showing the first symptoms two days after his return last Sunday to his home in Sassari, Sardinia. He immediately isolated himself in his room and was safely transferred...

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Liberia Cautiously Celebrates End of Ebola

Saturday marks 42 days since Liberia’s last Ebola case — the benchmark used to declare the outbreak over because it represents two incubation periods of 21 days for new cases to emerge. The World Health Organization on Saturday called the milestone a “monumental achievement for a country that reported the highest number of deaths in the largest, longest, and most complex outbreak since Ebola first emerged in 1976.” Just...

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Bushmeat is Back

Bushmeat was a popular fare in Nigeria, but with the threat of Ebola people have been less interested in it. Wild animal meat is thought to be the origin of the current Ebola outbreak. Now the the Ebola scare is dying down, hunted animals are once again being seen along roadsides for sale. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) says… The term “bushmeat” refers to meat that comes from wild animals captured in developing regions of the world...

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Ebola can spread through sex

Health officials now think Ebola survivors can spread the disease through unprotected sex nearly twice as long as previously believed. A Liberian woman appears to have contracted Ebola from unprotected sex with a man who survived the virus, health officials said today. Scientists thought the Ebola virus could remain in semen for about three months. But this case in West Africa suggests infection through sex can happen more than five months later. Based...

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Is Influenza worse than Ebola?

Influenza Worse Than Ebola?   Despite the heavy media coverage and widespread concern surrounding the Ebola virus, Americans face a more serious health threat — influenza or as what we like to call it the Flu.   “It’s complicated. It’s exotic. It’s something you hear about on the news every day,” said Dr. Edward Waltz, director of the Center for Public Health Preparedness at the University at Albany, of the...

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Ebola closed schools reopen across West Africa

Almost 2 million children in Sierra Leone have returned to school after an eight month break due to Ebola. The Government of Sierra Leone and UNICEF along with other partners are working to ensure that children are safe through teacher training, hand-washing and regular temperature checks. Similar safety standards are in place in Liberia and Guinea, where schools reopened in January and February. In Guinea, more than 1.3 million children have returned...

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Ebola Outbreak Leads To Thousands of Malaria Deaths

According to new research, nearly 11,000 extra malaria deaths may have occurred last year due to the disruption of healthcare services in West Africa currently experiencing widespread Ebola virus outbreaks. A further 3,900 deaths may have resulted from interruptions in the delivery of insecticide-treated bed nets (ITN), according to outbreak modelling data published in The Lancet on the eve of World Malaria Day. This suggested the haemorrhagic...

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Ebola Analysis Finds Virus Hasn’t Become Deadlier, Yet

Research from The University of Manchester using cutting edge computer analysis reveals that despite mutating, Ebola hasn’t evolved to become deadlier since the first outbreak 40 years ago. The surprising results demonstrate that whilst a high number of genetic changes have been recorded in the virus, it hasn’t changed at a functional level to become more or less virulent. The findings, published in the journal Virology, demonstrate that the much...

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