A new study found Ebola could come to an end in Liberia by June, if the trend toward better hospitalization and preventive care continues. From VOA:
The study, published in the journal PLOS Biology, looked at factors such as the location of infection and treatment, the development of hospital capacity and the adoption of safe burial practices.
John Drake, a professor at the Odum School of Ecology at the University of Georgia and lead author of the report, said the study looked at how various interventions that have been put in place affected transmission of the virus.
“We developed a computer model and our initial aim was to estimate the level of intervention that would be required for containment to occur. And ultimately, we used that model to project what the future of that epidemic will look like,” he said.
He said the model used took into account variables such as how many patients are hospitalized and how many health care workers are infected, rates of transmission from funerals where the corpses of victims are touched, and the relative effectiveness of Ebola control measures.
Drake said his team used information from the World Health Organization and the Liberian Ministry of Health and Social Welfare from July 4 to September 2.
He said there is a good chance Ebola can be eliminated or at least reduced to very low levels by the middle of this year.
“It will require continued vigilance and watchfulness on the part of the government health ministry; it will require continued willingness by the people of Liberia to participate in the counter-infection measures that have been taken so far,” Drake said.
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Global Health and Development Beat
Even as his country registered 19 new Ebola cases over a 24-hour period, Sierra Leone’s president is predicting there will be zero new confirmed cases by the end of March.
The Guardian’s global media campaign to End FGM joined with grassroots activists, anti-FGM pressure group Kepsteno Rotwoo and schoolgirls to launch the first ever poster-art competition and campaign in Kenya’s West Pokot region warning thousands of the dangers of female genital mutilation.
A new study by the United Nations Development Program finds the Ebola epidemic is dramatically setting back prospects for economic development in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. The study urges recovery plans for West Africa’s three Ebola-affected countries to begin now and not to wait until this deadly disease is contained.
Eighty percent of people phoning a toll-free Ebola help number are prank callers, the head of the Ebola Call Centre in Sierra Leone Reynold Senessie said.
Plan International has been helping to develop radio programs and distribute solar radios to reach out-of-school children in Sierra Leone. Once lessons are recorded, they are aired to 41 community radio stations across the country through a central hub, with a target of reaching 1.5 million children.
The governments of Iceland and Suriname are hosting a high-level conference designed to change the way men and boys think and engage in discussions about gender equality.
Malawi President Peter Mutharika has declared half the southern African country a disaster zone after torrential rains over the past few days killed at least 48 people and left around 70,000 homeless.
Syrian refugee families will resort to increasingly drastic measures to survive unless the world does more to help, the U.N. refugee agency said, as it released a study showing that one in six Syrian refugees in Jordan live in “abject poverty.”
The World Bank said Wednesday the Philippines can eliminate poverty within a generation as sustained economic growth in recent years has translated into more jobs and higher incomes.
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Buzzing in the Blogs
A fantastic piece of reporting on Dr. Sheik Humarr Khan, the doctor in Sierra Leone who led the Ebola response in Kenema and eventually died from the virus. It is a long, but worthwhile read. Here is just an excerpt:
Nobody understood why so many nurses were getting infected. In the early days of the outbreak, Khan had introduced a rigorous decontamination procedure. After treating patients, staffers were thoroughly sprayed with a 30-percent chlorine solution. They would meticulously remove their personal protective equipment, or PPE — face shields, boots, and outer gloves — wash their hands with a 10-percent chlorine solution, a less abrasive but still effective mixture, and, after pulling off their second pair of gloves, receive a final squirt of Ebola-killing disinfectant. Still, they were falling ill. Some suspected that the problem was not the PPE-removal and cleaning-up process, but the PPEs themselves. It was widely believed that Fonnie and three other nurses had picked up the virus at the same time in mid-July, while helping another nurse, infected with Ebola, deliver her stillborn baby inside the isolation ward. The birth produced a massive amount of infected blood and other bodily fluids, and colleagues assumed that some viral particles had leaked through the PPEs.
Khan “was frustrated, distraught, and overwhelmed,” says one Centers for Disease Control scientist. He spent much of his time trying to hold the hospital together. The facility was unguarded, and some patients, believing they weren’t sick, wandered off, escaping into the streets to return home. Crowds had begun to gather outside the hospital gates, bewildered and angry by the deaths of so many people. None could believe that a disease could be killing their loved ones so fast; they assumed there had to be a plot behind it. One peaceful vigil for nurse Fonnie nearly turned violent when a rumor spread that she had died. “Let’s storm the hospital,” somebody yelled, and hundreds surged forward. After the outburst, they directed their rage at Khan. “The doctor is killing people, and these nurses are taking people’s hearts,” they cried. Khan had no choice but to address the crowd himself. He walked out of the hospital and assured them the rumor was false. “I’m putting my own life on the line,” he told them. “My nurses are dead, and I don’t know if I’m already infected or not.”
Seeing Khan, exhausted and alone, the people quieted down and wandered back to their huts in the bush and jungle-covered hills.
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Capital Events
Thursday
10:00 AM – Top Priorities for Africa in 2015 – Brookings
12:00 PM – The UNEP and Climate Change – Environmental Law Institute
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By Mark Leon Goldberg and Tom Murphy
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