Johns Hopkins-Jhpiego Win US Award for Improved Protective Suit to Combat Ebola

An advanced protective suit for healthcare workers who treat Ebola patients, devised by a Johns Hopkins team, has been selected as a winning design in a global competition aimed at quickly getting new tools into the field to combat Ebola, this deadly disease. The Johns Hopkins prototype suit was developed in partnership with Jhpiego, an international health non-profit and university affiliate, and designed to provide improved protection to keep...

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UN Urges Critical Improvements of Ebola Affected Countries’ Health Systems

NEW YORK, 12 December 2014 / PRN Africa / — The international community must help Ebola affected countries reboot their health systems so that they emerge from the current crisis more resilient and more focused on prevention efforts than ever before, a high-level meeting coordinated by the United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva heard today. “People in Ebola affected countries are dying – not only from Ebola but also from...

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Bodies of Ebola victims found piled up in Sierra Leone hospital

Health officials in Sierra Leone fear a major Ebola outbreak may have gone largely unreported until now in a remote district where the World Health Organization (WHO) said scores of bodies piled up in a hospital. The WHO said on Wednesday that it had sent a response team to the diamond-rich Kono district following a worrying spike in reported Ebola cases in the district, which lies along the country’s eastern border with Guinea. “They...

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Liberia: Ebola outbreak contained in Lofa County, MSF hands over activities

The Ebola situation has improved in Lofa County and Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has decided to withdraw from the area. New actors have arrived to help and since 30 October there have been no more Ebola patients in the Ebola Management Centre (EMC) in Foya. The success of MSF’s intervention in northern Liberia can be considered a model of response, benefiting from a comprehensive approach and constant community involvement. When MSF took over...

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Ebola outbreak: Mali’s last known case recovered and released

The last Ebola patient being treated in Mali has survived the disease and been released, the Health Ministry said Friday, leaving no known Ebola outbreak cases in the West African country. Mali had recorded eight cases of Ebola, all of them linked to people who crossed from neighboring Guinea. The country now has no confirmed or suspected cases, according to the ministry, but authorities are still monitoring 26 people who had contact with the sick....

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Ebola: Facing Death Without Spreading Disease

FREETOWN, Sierra Leone — The most “intense” Ebola epidemic in the world, as the World Health Organization puts it, can now be found in Sierra Leone, which is witnessing more than 500 laboratory-confirmed new cases per week, and hundreds more suspected and uncounted infections. The virus is spreading all over the country, but about half of new cases are arising in the capital city of Freetown and neighboring districts. When I was in Freetown three...

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Ebola Outbreak Will Take Several More Months to Contain: U.N.

Helen Regan The U.N. goal of containing 100% of Ebola cases by Jan. 1 will not be met. The U.N.’s special envoy on Ebola said Thursday that it would be several months before the ebola outbreak in West Africa is under control. Dr. David Nabarro said international governments as well as local communities had taken a “massive shift” in responding to the crisis over the past four month, the Associated Press reports. However, he noted that more needed...

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Health partners unite to build stronger Ebola health systems

WHO – 12 DECEMEBR 2014 ¦ GENEVA – On 10-11 December 2014, Ministers of Health and Finance of Ebola-affected countries, international organizations and development partners assembled for a high-level meeting on how to strengthen systems of health in Ebola-affected countries and agreed on what needs to be done to rebuild and strengthen essential ebola health services in these countries.  “People in Ebola-affected countries are dying –...

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Sierra Leone Grapples With Spike in Ebola Numbers, Fears Underreporting

The outbreak of the Ebola virus continues to devastate Sierra Leone, where the number of cases are spiking and humanitarian organizations reported discovering piles of dead bodies in a remote hospital earlier this month. “Guinea has stabilized, Liberia seems to have stabilized, but we are still spiking up,” Vandi Chidi Minah, Sierra Leone’s ambassador to the United Nations, told Newsweek on Thursday. Minah said spikes in neglected areas that “seem...

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1,000 New Cases in Ebola Ravaged Sierra Leone

The country has surpassed Liberia… In the last 21 days, Sierra Leone has reported 1,319 new cases of Ebola virus infections, the World Health Organization (WHO) reports.   The country has surpassed Liberia, which has experienced a decrease in cases over the last four weeks with 225 new cases in the last 21 days. Liberia has reported7,719 cases of the disease so far, and Sierra Leone has reported 7,897. Sierra Leone is hardest hit in...

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