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Ebola Crisis
Topic Started: 23 Mar 2014, 12:52 AM (2,795 Views)
skibboy
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22 March 2014

Guinea deaths: Ebola blamed for deadly fever outbreak

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Ebola was first identified in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1976

The Ebola virus has been identified as the cause of an outbreak of haemorrhagic fever now believed to have killed nearly 60 people in southern Guinea, government officials say.

Scores of cases have been recorded since the outbreak began early last month.

There is no known cure or vaccine for the highly contagious Ebola virus.

It is spread by close personal contact with people who are infected and kills between 25% and 90% of victims.

Symptoms include internal and external bleeding, diarrhoea and vomiting.

Outbreaks of Ebola occur primarily in remote villages in Central and West Africa, near tropical rainforests, the World Health Organization says.

Analysts suggest it has never been recorded in Guinea before.

Recent years have seen outbreaks in Uganda and Democratic Republic of Congo.

'Overwhelmed'

"We got the first results from Lyon yesterday (Friday) which informed us of the presence of the Ebola virus as the cause of this outbreak," Guinean health ministry official Sakoba Keita told AFP.

"The Ebola fever epidemic raging in southern Guinea since 9 February has left at least 59 dead out of 80 cases identified by our services on the ground."

"We are overwhelmed in the field, we are fighting against this epidemic with all the means we have at our disposal with the help of our partners but it is difficult."

Medical aid charity Medecins sans Frontieres said on Saturday it would strengthen its team in Guinea and fly some 33 tonnes of drugs and isolation equipment in from Belgium and France.

Dr Armand Sprecher, an emergency physician and epidemiologist working with MSF in Guinea, told the BBC that doctors had to identify all patients with the disease and monitor anyone they had been in contact with during their illness.

The latest outbreak could be brought under control if people acted quickly, he said.

"Based on our history with these sorts of outbreaks it will happen. Ideally, sooner rather than later," said Dr Sprecher.

"The more quickly we can contain this the fewer cases we'll have, then the smaller the scale of the epidemic. That's the idea of going in as strong as we can early on."

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03 April 2016

Liberia says latest Ebola fatality travelled to Guinea

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© AFP/File | A health worker walks towards patients under quarantine at treatment centre in Guinea, a country where a resurgence of Ebola has killed seven people

MONROVIA (AFP) - A woman who died of Ebola this week in Liberia, months after it was declared Ebola-free, had travelled to Guinea with her three children, one of whom is also sick, the health ministry said Sunday.

The 30-year-old woman died of the deadly virus Thursday while being transferred to hospital in the capital Monrovia, more than two months after the epidemic had been declared over in the country.

George Sornor, the ministry's communication's officer, told AFP that the unidentified woman had crossed into Liberia from neighbouring Guinea, where a fresh Ebola outbreak has killed seven of the eight cases registered since mid March.

Liberia had closed its borders with Guinea after news of the outbreak March 17 and had reopened them several days later until Friday, after the woman died.

"The woman came from Guinea on the 21st of March when the borders were closed. We don't know how she crossed," Sornor said.

"Her husband in Guinea just died from the virus. She came to Liberia with her three children. One of those children is down with the virus. Now, we have two cases in the country."

He said authorities were checking on 46 people who had contact with the infected woman and that four people were in the Ebola Treatment Unit, her three children and her sister.

On Saturday, the ministry put out a statement urging citizens "not to panic in the wake of the new Ebola case"

Sierra Leone has announced beefed up security measures along with screening and surveillance points at all border crossings with Guinea.

Liberia was the country worst hit by the outbreak of the disease which has claimed 11,300 lives since December 2013, the vast majority in the West Africa countries of Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone.

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04 April 2016

Sierra Leone Ebola survivors protest government inaction

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© AFP/File | People walk under an Ebola's information board featuring Sierra Leone's president Ernest Bai Koroma on January 22, 2016 in a street of Freetown

FREETOWN (AFP) - Ebola survivors jostled with police in Sierra Leone's capital on Monday as they protested perceived government inaction over their care in a health system badly hit by the virus.

Several hundred protesters in Freetown gathered in the city centre calling for the free health care and scholarships for their children they said had not been delivered.

Police pushed back male protesters while women and children stood behind barricades waving placards and shouting slogans.

A smaller protest in the city of Makeni attracted around 100 people, who delivered a petition to local government officials.

The president of the Ebola Survivors Association in Makeni, Mohamed Conteh, told AFP that planned provisions had "so far not had any impact on our lives."

"We were promised scholarships for child survivors, free health care, while adults were supposed to be given livelihood skills and other benefits," one demonstrator told AFP.

The group carried placards that read "our living conditions are deplorable" and "we demand to be cared for."

Sierra Leone's minister in charge of social welfare was recently sacked and his replacement has yet to take office, delaying already slow work.

According to Doctors Without Borders (MSF) there are more than 4,000 Ebola survivors living in Sierra Leone, while the virus killed many of country's already limited number of health workers.

The economy has also suffered from being paralysed for so long, limiting the government's ability to cope, experts say.

The Ebola virus can stay in semen for at least nine months after a patient has recovered, six months longer than previously thought.

Scientists are working to establish how long it can persist in other bodily fluids and tissues such as the spinal column and the eye, and for how long it could remain infectious.

"Ebola survivors are a particularly vulnerable group, who face continuing health challenges such as joint pain, chronic fatigue, and hearing and vision problems," MSF said in a recent report.

"They also suffer from stigmatisation in their communities and need specific and tailored care."

A resurgence of Ebola in a rural Guinean community has killed seven people in the last few weeks, and two more cases were confirmed in Liberia last week despite the epidemic being declared over.

Although the outbreak -- the worst on record -- has officially claimed more than 11,300 lives since it first began in Guinea, a significant number of deaths are believed to have gone unreported.

The epidemic was first reported to have spread to Sierra Leone in May 2014.

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05 April 2016

Ebola claims another victim in Guinea as vaccinations ramped up

CONAKRY (AFP) - A new outbreak of Ebola in rural Guinea has claimed another victim, health authorities said Tuesday, as experts work to establish whether a cluster of deaths there is linked to two other cases in Liberia.

"We have eight deaths out of nine confirmed cases. The last fatality dates back to Sunday," said Ibrahima Sylla, spokesman for Guinea's Ebola response unit.

Sylla said the victim -- a woman -- died at an Ebola treatment centre in the city of Nzerekore, where a handful of other patients have been cared for in recent weeks following a spate of cases among a family near the border with Liberia.

"There is just one confirmed case still receiving treatment at the centre," he added.

The World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed the new tolls and said it would look into links between the cases in Nzerekore and a woman who crossed the border from Guinea into Liberia, when it was briefly closed, before dying of the virus in Liberia's capital Monrovia.

The victim's husband had died of Ebola in Guinea, after which she left the country with her children, the world health body said.

One of her children has tested positive for the virus while two others are being monitored, along with her sister.

"Now the investigation is going to determine whether there is a link between those two flare-ups. It is understood that there is a person who was travelling from Guinea to Liberia who was tested positive," said WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic in Geneva.

The WHO has said Ebola no longer constitutes an international emergency, but the announcement of new cases in west Africa has demonstrated the difficulty of managing the aftermath of the virus.

Jasarevic said a vaccination campaign was well underway in the area of Guinea where the new cases were registered, while monitoring of those in contact with the dead woman in Liberia was also a priority.

"In Guinea, already 1,200 people have been vaccinated. Right now the work is ongoing in Liberia to monitor 90 so-far-identified contacts, and there is also a plan to vaccinate them," the WHO spokesman said.

The Ebola epidemic was declared over in Guinea and Liberia months ago, though a significant number of deaths are believed to have gone unreported and "flare-ups" relating to the persistence of the virus in survivors' bodies pose ongoing challenges.

The WHO will hold a meeting this week with Liberian and Guinean authorities to work on cross-border surveillance, Jasarevic said.

The deadliest period in the history of the feared tropical virus wrecked the economies and health systems of the three worst-hit west African nations -- Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia -- after it emerged in December 2013.

The virus has since claimed 11,300 lives.

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10 April 2016

Sierra Leone on alert after new W.Africa Ebola cases

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© AFP/File | Sierra Leone health officials checking passengers transiting at the border crossing with Liberia in Jendema before authorities in Sierra Leone started enforcing on March 27 a three-day lockdown to curb the spread of Ebola

FREETOWN (AFP) - Sierra Leone called Sunday for increased vigilance to prevent a resurgence of the Ebola virus after new cases in neighbouring Liberia and Guinea, but cautioned against shutting off borders between the west African states.

The alert came after the World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed a link between a fatality in Liberia, months after it was declared Ebola-free, and new cases in its neighbour Guinea.

A woman died of Ebola in the Liberian capital Monrovia on March 31, after arriving from Guinea, where a fresh Ebola outbreak has killed eight of the nine cases registered since mid-March.

Two of her three children, aged five and two, have since tested positive for the virus.

Liberian Health Minister Abu Bakarr Fofanah told AFP Sunday that closure of the borders between the three countries "is not the right answer to the existing Ebola threats".

"Our findings were that everything was in place and we are keeping a constant health watch on both pedestrian and vehicular traffic entering and leaving," he said after returning from a visit to the Guinea border.

The WHO said on Thursday it had "established epidemiological links between new Ebola cases in Liberia and a current flare-up of Ebola in neighbouring Guinea following intensified case investigations and contact tracing".

Liberia was the country worst hit by the outbreak of the disease which has claimed 11,300 lives since December 2013, the vast majority in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone.

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14 April 2016

One known Ebola case left in Guinea after girl's discharge

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© AFP/File | The WHO has said Ebola no longer constitutes an international emergency

CONAKRY (AFP) - A dedicated Ebola clinic was treating Guinea's only known case of the virus on Thursday after the recovery of a girl diagnosed with the disease, the charity running the facility said.

The Alliance For International Medical Action (ALIMA) runs the country's sole treatment centre in the southern city of Nzerekore, where it has handled six of the 10 confirmed cases recorded since the outbreak was officially declared over in December.

"(Of) six confirmed cases, four have died, one was discharged after recovery and the sixth is still here," said ALIMA emergency co-ordinator Solenne Barbe.

Barbe attributed the high mortality rate to the fact that the recent patients arrived too late to be treated with a good chance of survival.

The newest confirmed case is an elderly man from Macenta prefecture to the north of Nzerekore, she said, thought to be a healer visited by one of the dead while still alive and infected with the virus.

According to health authorities, that deceased man's wife and her children crossed the border into Liberia before she too succumbed to the virus.

One son also died while another remains under treatment in Monrovia.

In a rare piece of good news since Ebola's reappearance, an 11-year-old girl left the centre on April 8 after a successful recovery, according to ALIMA.

The World Health Organization was first alerted to the reappearance of Ebola symptoms in a Guinean village near the Liberian border on March 16, the same day it declared a similar flare-up over in Sierra Leone.

Since then eight people have died, all in the same area, while the country's Ebola response unit confirmed Thursday that more than 1,700 people have been vaccinated against the virus.

The WHO has said Ebola no longer constitutes an international emergency, but the announcement of new cases in west Africa has demonstrated the difficulty of managing its aftermath.

The deadliest period in the history of the feared tropical virus wrecked the economies and health systems of the three worst-hit west African nations -- Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia -- after it emerged in December 2013.

The virus has since claimed 11,300 lives.

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20 April 2016

Last known Ebola patient discharged in Guinea

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© AFP/File | Guinea now no longer has any known Ebola patients, but a spate of recent cases despite the announcement of the end of the main outbreak in west Africa has demonstrated the difficulty of managing its aftermath

CONAKRY (AFP) - Guinea's health authorities and the medical charity treating the last known Ebola patient in the country said Wednesday he had been discharged after successfully recovering from the disease.

The elderly man, named as Gbana Kalivogui, was shown smiling broadly in images released by the ALIMA medical charity, which treated him at their dedicated unit in the southern city of Nzerekore.

"The last current confirmed case of Ebola hospitalised in Nzerekore left last night (Tuesday) fully recovered, and has gone home," said Fode Tass Sylla, a spokesman for Guinea's Ebola response unit.

Guinea now no longer has any known Ebola patients, but a spate of recent cases despite the announcement of the end of the main outbreak in west Africa has demonstrated the difficulty of managing its aftermath.

"There are no more current confirmed cases in hospital and no suspected ones admitted to the centre for the moment," ALIMA said in a statement.

The World Health Organization announced the reappearance of Ebola in a Guinean village near the Liberian border on March 17, the same day it said a similar flare-up had ended in Sierra Leone.

Since then a little over 1,500 people have been vaccinated after potentially coming into contact with the 10 known cases recorded in Guinea.

The deadliest period in the history of the feared tropical virus wrecked the economies and health systems of the three worst-hit west African nations -- Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia -- after it emerged in December 2013.

The virus has since claimed 11,300 lives.

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18 October 2016

New testing of Ebola vaccine to start next month in Canada

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© AFP/File | A health worker prepares a vaccination against the Ebola virus during clinical trials in Guinea in 2015

OTTAWA (AFP) - An Ebola vaccine developed by Canadian researchers and considered by the WHO to be the first effective treatment against the virus will soon start a new phase of clinical trials, Ottawa announced Tuesday.

The vaccine's safety and effectiveness will be tested on volunteers infected with HIV, starting in Ottawa and Montreal in November, and followed by trials in Senegal and Burkina Faso next year, the government said in a statement.

The tests are being conducted in partnership with US pharmaceutical company Merck.

"It is particularly important to study the effectiveness of this Ebola vaccine in vulnerable populations, such as those living with HIV," said principal investigator Cecile Tremblay.

"These populations can often be most at-risk during outbreaks, because of their compromised immune systems."

Ebola is spread by contact with bodily fluids, and causes a range of symptoms, from fever and body aches to vomiting, diarrhea and hemorrhage.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), Ebola has killed up to 90 percent of those infected during some outbreaks, though the average chance of survival is about 50 percent.

A 2014 epidemic killed more than 11,000 people in West Africa.

The Ebola vaccine, originally developed by the Public Health Agency of Canada, provided blanket protection in a field trial in Guinea, according to a preliminary study published in 2015.

The results published in The Lancet medical journal were hailed as "extremely promising" by the World Health Organization.

The world was "on the verge of an effective Ebola vaccine," the UN's health agency had said in a statement.

The final results of the study are expected to be published this fall, said the Canadian government.

"This next phase of clinical trials is an important milestone in the development of the world's first proven, effective vaccine against the Ebola virus," commented Health Minister Jane Philpott.

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Ebola adapted to easily infect people

By James Gallagher
Health and science reporter, BBC News website

7 hours ago

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Ebola dramatically adapted to infect human tissues with ease in the first few months of the 2014-15 outbreak, research suggests.

Two studies, in the journal Cell, found a mutation increased the virus' ability to infect human cells fourfold.

Scientists have argued the mutation may have been "pivotal" in the outbreak becoming the largest in recorded history.

There were 28,616 Ebola cases in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

And 11,310 people died during the outbreak.

Researchers at the University of Nottingham and the University of Massachusetts analysed the genetic code of nearly 2,000 Ebola virus samples.

What they noticed was a change on the surface of the virus that allowed it to lock on to human cells more easily.

Prof Jeremy Luban, University of Massachusetts Medical School, told BBC World Service's Science in Action: "The mutation makes the virus more infectious.

"It arose early in the outbreak, perhaps three or four months in."

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Prof Jonathan Ball, from the University of Nottingham, said an up to fourfold increase in infectivity was "not trivial".

He told the BBC News website: "When a virus is introduced into a new environment, a new niche, it will try to adapt to that new environment.

"That just happened to coincide with widescale spread of the virus - this was a mutation that appeared when the virus took off."

The Ebola outbreak in West Africa was not just the biggest of all time, but it was bigger than all other outbreaks combined.

One reason for Ebola's explosive spread was that the virus managed to get into dense urban cities such as Monrovia in Liberia.

But Prof Luban added: "One possibility is this mutation, which has never been seen before, in some way contributed to the severity of the outbreak and answering that question conclusively is probably something we cannot do.

"[But] it is hard to imagine the mutation was not relevant."

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The research provided other insights into the changes taking place in the Ebola virus.

As the virus adapted to more readily infected people it became less able to infect its likely natural host species - fruit bats.

And the people infected with the mutant form of the virus were more likely to die than those infected with the original version.

This runs slightly contrary to the prevailing thought that as Ebola spent more time in people it would evolve to become less deadly in order to help it spread.

Dr Ed Wright, from the University of Westminster, commented: "One of these changes occurred around the time when the number of cases started to dramatically increase.

"This gives rise to the possibility that this change could have been pivotal in the virus' ability to infect humans and ultimately the scale of the outbreak.

"However, these studies do not definitively answer the latter question."

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Winnipeg lab employee possibly exposed to Ebola virus

2 hours ago

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A lab worker in Canada may have been exposed to Ebola

An employee at the National Centre for Foreign Animal Disease in Winnipeg has potentially been exposed to the Ebola virus.

The employee was working on Monday in a lab with pigs that had been infected with the deadly virus when they noticed a tear in their protective suit.

Officials with Canada's public health and food inspection agencies made the announcement on Tuesday.

They said there is currently no risk to the public.

The unnamed employee is in self-imposed isolation and will be monitored for the next 21 days, which is the incubation period for the virus.

The employee was also offered an Ebola vaccine that has been used in clinical trials in Africa.

Risk 'expected to be low'

The employee was working in a high-security "level four" laboratory with six pigs that had been experimentally infected with the virus.

They noticed a split in the suit seam after leaving the containment lab during decontamination.

The risk to fellow employees and the community "is expected to be low," said Dr John Copps, director of the Winnipeg laboratory with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.

People with the Ebola virus are not infectious until they show symptoms and the virus is spread through direct contact of bodily fluids, officials noted.

The National Centre for Foreign Animal Disease is part of a federal facility that does research on dangerous and contagious disease-causing agents.

The research being done with pigs on the Ebola virus at the facility was to help understand the immune reaction in swine.

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15 November 2016

Ebola patients may show no symptoms at all: study

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© AFP/File | Some 28,000 people were infected with Ebola in the outbreak which began in late 2013 and continued through last year, killing more than 11,000 people mainly in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia

MIAMI (AFP) - More than a dozen people in Sierra Leone were infected with Ebola but showed no symptoms, suggesting that the massive and deadly West Africa epidemic was larger than previously thought, researchers said Tuesday.

The findings by a team of scientists at Stanford University offer new evidence to support previous theories that the hemorrhagic fever, Ebola, may not always cause severe illness including bleeding, vomiting, diarrhea and fever.

Some 28,000 people were infected with Ebola in the outbreak which began in late 2013 and continued through last year, killing more than 11,000 people mainly in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia.

Ebola, like most other viruses, can infect people but show few symptoms, said Stanford researcher Gene Richardson, whose specialties include infectious disease and anthropology.

"It provides important evidence on that front. It also means a significant portion of transmission events may have gone undetected during the outbreak," he said.

"This shows there was a lot more human-to-human transmission than we thought."

Ebola is spread through close contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person, including blood, vomit and diarrhea.

Since many patients become violently ill, family members and medical professionals who care for them face a high risk of infection.

Researchers recruited 187 men, women and children from Sukudu, a rural village of about 900 people in Sierra Leone for the study.

Participants had likely been exposed to Ebola through a family member or by using a public toilet shared by a person who had the disease.

"Of these, 14 were found to be carrying antibodies to Ebola, suggesting they had been infected at some point, though they had not been included in the original count," said the study in PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases.

Twelve said they had no symptoms, while two recalled having had a fever at the time of the outbreak.

The village was one of three major hot spots in eastern Sierra Leone during the Ebola crisis in 2014 and 2015.

Thirty four people in the village were infected with Ebola and 28 died.

Given the 14 previously unreported cases, researchers calculated that about one quarter of people in the village who became ill with Ebola had no symptoms or very minor ones.

Ebola is known to linger in semen for months after the initial infection, though it remains unclear whether people who never had any symptoms could spread Ebola to a partner.

The senior author on the study was Paul Farmer, a Harvard University professor and director of Partners In Health.

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23 December 2016

Ebola vaccine may be 'up to 100% effective': WHO

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© AFP/File / by Marlowe HOOD | In a major clinical trial, nearly 6,000 people in Guinea were given the test vaccine last year, at the tail end of a lethal epidemic of Ebola and non of them contracted the disease

PARIS (AFP) - A prototype vaccine for Ebola may be "up to 100 percent effective" in protecting against the deadly virus, the World Health Organization (WHO) said Friday.

If all goes well, the vaccine could become available in 2018 under a fast-track approval process, it said.

In a major clinical trial, nearly 6,000 people in Guinea were given the test vaccine last year, at the tail end of a lethal epidemic of Ebola.

Not one of the 6,000 contracted the disease.

But in a control group of volunteers that did not receive the vaccine, 23 Ebola cases occurred, researchers reported in The Lancet medical journal.

"If we compare zero to 23, this strongly suggests that the vaccine is very effective, that it could be up to 100 percent effective," Marie-Paule Kieny, WHO's assistant director-general and lead author of the study, told AFP.

Her team of three dozen researchers calculated a 90-percent likelihood during a full-fledged epidemic that the vaccine, dubbed rVSV-ZEBOV, would work in more than 80 percent of cases.

"After 40 years, we appear to now have an effective vaccine for Ebola virus disease to build upon," Thomas Geisbert, a scientist at Galveston National Laboratory in Texas who did not take part in the study, wrote in a commentary, also in The Lancet.

- 'Compassionate use' -

First identified in 1976 in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Ebola virus erupted periodically in outbreaks of up to a couple hundred cases, mainly across west and east Africa.

In early 2014, however, a handful of infections in southern Guinea mushroomed rapidly into an epidemic.

Over the next two years, more than 28,000 people fell ill, mainly in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. Some 11,300 died.

With a mortality rate above 40 percent, the disease -- one of a category of so-called haemorrhagic fevers -- has an incubation period of up to three weeks.

It causes violent and painful symptoms, including vomiting, diarrhoea, organ failure and internal bleeding.

The new vaccine was initially developed in Canada by public health authorities before being taken over by pharmaceutical giant Merck.

It is slated to be submitted by Merck to health authorities in the United States and Europe sometime next year under a fast-track approval process.

"We may have a vaccine which is registered in 2018," Kieny told journalists at a press conference Thursday, noting that the standard approval process for a new drug takes a decade, if not more.

In the meantime, Merck has committed to ensuring that 300,000 doses of the vaccine are available for emergencies under a protocol called "compassionate use".

"They will be able to produce a million in very short period of time," Kieny noted.

- Unanswered questions -

There are still questions to be resolved concerning the vaccine, including side effects.

Initial tests last year did not include children, while the most recent trials covered those over six years old.

Of the more than 6,000 people injected with the Ebola vaccine only two showed serious adverse effects, the study reported.

Both recovered fully.

But it is still unknown if the vaccine is safe for children six and under, pregnant women, or people with the AIDS virus -- all groups that were excluded from the most recent trials.

Another unknown is how long innoculation lasts.

"With the Canadian Merck vaccine, you have a protection very early after vaccination, but we don't know if it will last after six months," Kieny said.

Other Ebola vaccines under development -- some of which have been tested in humans -- could prove more effective over a longer period.

British firm Glaxosmithkline and Johnson & Johnson, based in the United States, each have experimental products in the pipeline.

China and Russia have also developed vaccines, with the Russian one having just finished the second phase of three-step clinical trials.

Some of these vaccines require two doses three weeks apart, and may confer a longer immunity.

"That might be better suited to immunise health workers in advance of an outbreak," Kieny said.

Health officials also point to the fact that other strains of the virus -- including one in Sudan -- will require the development of separate vaccines.

by Marlowe HOOD

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Successful Ebola vaccine will be fast-tracked for use

23 December 2016

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Guinea was one of the worst hit countries in the West Africa Ebola outbreak

A highly effective vaccine that guards against the deadly Ebola virus could be available by 2018, says the World Health Organization.

Trials conducted in Guinea, one of the West African countries most affected by an outbreak of Ebola that ended this year, show it offers 100% protection.

The vaccine is now being fast-tracked for regulatory approval.

Manufacturer Merck has made 300,000 doses of the rVSV-ZEBOV vaccine available for use should Ebola strike.

GAVI, the global vaccine alliance, provided $5m for the stockpile.

Results, published in The Lancet medical journal, show of nearly 6,000 people receiving the vaccine, all were free of the virus 10 days later.

In a group of the same size not vaccinated, 23 later developed Ebola.

Only one person who was vaccinated had a serious side effect that the researchers think was caused by the jab.

This was a very high temperature and the patient recovered fully.

It is not known how well the vaccine might work in children since this was not tested in the trial.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________


Analysis - Tulip Mazumdar, Global Health Correspondent

Ebola has been around for 40 years now.

But it wasn't until the height of the 2014 outbreak in West Africa that the world decided to invest some serious money into finding treatments and cures.

I watched as families of those who had become infected were isolated in their homes.

Often entire neighbourhoods were quarantined behind orange fencing.

That was their best chance of not becoming infected and infecting others.

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Visiting a house under quarantine in Port Loko, Sierra Leone

But as hundreds of people continued to die, and cases started being exported to Europe and the US - the world decided to act.

Now, two years later, we have a vaccine. It usually takes around 10 years.

There were some mild side effects reported in this trial, and the vaccine is only known to protect against one of the strains of Ebola, but it is the most deadly Zaire strain.

Today's news is a very welcome and much needed breakthrough.

However, as the WHO points out, more lives would be saved if countries invested in vaccines before outbreaks, rather during them.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________


The director of British-based medical research institute the Wellcome Trust described the findings as "remarkable".

"Had a vaccine been available earlier in the Ebola epidemic, thousands of lives might have been saved," Jeremy Farrar said.

"We have to get ahead of the curve and make promising diagnostics, drugs and vaccines for diseases we know could be a threat in the future."

The trial was led by the World Health Organization (WHO), working with Guinea's health ministry and international groups.

The WHO's Marie-Paule Kieny said the results could help combat future outbreaks.

"While these compelling results come too late for those who lost their lives during West Africa's Ebola epidemic, they show that when the next Ebola outbreak hits, we will not be defenceless," said Dr Kieny, the lead author of the study.

Other drug companies are developing different Ebola vaccines that could be used in the future too.

The Ebola virus was first identified in 1976 but the recent outbreak in West Africa, which killed more than 11,000 people, highlighted the need for a vaccine.

The outbreak began in Guinea in 2013 and spread to Liberia and Sierra Leone.

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14 January 2017

Ebola's long-term effects revealed

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© Getty/AFP/File / by Mariëtte Le Roux | Three-quarters of Ebola survivors had post-disease symptoms when they enrolled for a trial in Guinea about a year, on average, after they were discharged from hospital, researchers reported

PARIS (AFP) - People who survive Ebola may still battle debilitating health problems a year after being declared infection-free, according to an ongoing trial in Guinea which highlighted the need for patient followup.

Three-quarters of survivors had post-Ebola symptoms when they enrolled for the trial about a year, on average, after they were discharged from hospital, researchers reported Saturday.

Eighteen percent experienced eye problems, including eight individuals who went blind, a team wrote in The Lancet Infectious Diseases.

Two percent -- 19 people -- were deaf.

This is the largest and longest-running assessment of Ebola survivors to date.

Nearly one in four participants, the study said, suffered joint and muscle pain, 35 percent had headaches, and 22 percent stomach pain when they enrolled.

Seventeen percent had symptoms of depression.

The study also confirmed previous observations that Ebola virus can remain in the semen of infected men for 18 months or longer, raising the spectre of sexual transmission.

The team recruited 802 Ebola survivors between the ages of one and 79 from four hospitals in Guinea between March 2015 and July 2016.

Together, the group represented 74 percent of Guinean survivors of the 2013-16 Ebola epidemic in west Africa -- by far the worst outbreak in the disease's 40-year history.

Some 11,300 people died in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, compared to a total of 1,700 worldwide in the preceding four decades.

An estimated 17,000 survived the most recent outbreak.

"The high number of survivors... has raised several new issues: long-term clinical complications, psychosocial consequences, risks of EVD (Ebola virus disease) reactivation and secondary transmission due to viral persistence in body fluids," the study authors wrote.

- Sexual transmission? -

They conducted routine analysis of blood, semen, breast milk, urine and saliva at regular intervals, as well as psychological examinations.

Ten male survivor who gave semen samples tested positive for Ebola virus -- one of them a full 18 months after falling ill, the team found.

"Precisely how long the virus might linger in semen remains unknown," they wrote.

Until semen is confirmed to be virus-free, follow-up "is clearly needed to reduce risk of sexual transmission from survivors."

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), sexual transmission of the Ebola virus from men to women is a "strong possibility", but as yet unproven.

Urine tested positive for Ebola in two cases, and saliva in only one, said the researchers.

No breast milk or vaginal fluid samples contained Ebola virus.

There were more eye problems by the time patients enrolled in the trial than when they had left hospital, the team said, "implying that ophthalmological screening should continue long after discharge."

Children retained fewer serious health problems than adults.

The study highlighted the scarcity of medical laboratories in the affected region to keep tabs on Ebola survivors' health and any potential for renewed virus spread.

"Our results indicate that a close follow-up of convalescent patients might be warranted for at least 18 months after discharge... and perhaps even longer," said the team.

In 2015, a study in Sierra Leone said nearly 80 percent of some 277 survivors experienced joint pain four months after their hospital discharge, 60 percent had vision problems and a quarter hearing difficulties.

The Guinean trial aims to monitor patients for two years.

by Mariëtte Le Roux

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13 February 2017

Small percentage of people spread most Ebola cases: study

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© AFP/File | An MSF facility treating ebola in Kailahun in 2014

MIAMI (AFP) - Most of the people infected with Ebola in the West Africa epidemic that began in 2014 got sick through contact with a small number of "superspreaders" with the disease, researchers said Monday.

The study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows such "superspreaders" can be extremely dangerous when it comes to infectious disease outbreaks.

The West African Ebola epidemic was the largest in history and killed more than 11,300 people, with many of the cases involving people infected while caring for a sick person or burying a body.

"We now see the role of superspreaders as larger than initially suspected," said co-author Benjamin Dalziel, an assistant professor of population biology in the College of Science at Oregon State University.

"It was the cases you didn't see that really drove the epidemic, particularly people who died at home, without making it to a care center."

At the time, researchers counted cases according to those seen in medical centers, but they later realized these were a small fraction of the total.

"There wasn't a lot of transmission once people reached hospitals and care centers," said Dalziel.

"In our analysis we were able to see a web of transmission that would often track back to a community-based superspreader."

In fact, 61 percent of those infected with the disease caught it from people accounting for just three percent of those who got sick, the researchers said.

The study included researchers from Princeton University, Oregon State University, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, the Imperial College London, and the US National Institutes of Health.

If superspreading had been completely under control about two-thirds of Ebola cases could have been avoided, the report said.

Superspreaders have also played a role in the epidemic of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, in 2003 and Middle East respiratory syndrome in 2012.

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04 May 2017

Next Ebola outbreak 'inevitable' but world better prepared: WHO

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© GETTY/AFP/File | The Ebola crisis that began in December 2013 killed 11,300 people in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia and has left thousands more survivors with long-term health problems

CONAKRY (AFP) - A new outbreak of the Ebola virus is "inevitable" but a new vaccine and rapid-response measures mean it will be more effectively contained, the head of the World Health Organization said Thursday.

The Ebola crisis that began in December 2013 killed 11,300 people in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia and has left thousands more survivors with long-term health problems.

The WHO was criticised at the time for responding too slowly and failing to grasp the gravity of the outbreak.

Speaking at an event in the Guinean capital dedicated to individuals who fought to control the disease in their communities, WHO chief Margaret Chan also thanked the Guinean government for its role in developing the vaccine, announced in December, but added a note of caution.

"Scientists do not yet know exactly where in nature the Ebola virus hides between outbreaks, but nearly all experts agree that another outbreak is inevitable," she said, speaking to an audience of scientists, Ebola response coordinators and dignitaries.

"When this occurs, the world will be far better prepared," Chan added.

In a major clinical trial using an innovative "ring", or group method, nearly 6,000 people in Guinea were given the test vaccine in 2015, during which not one of them contracted the disease.

Even with an "initially limited" first batch of the vaccine, Chan said, health authorities had another option in their arsenal "beyond isolation and quarantine".

First identified in 1976 in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Ebola virus erupted periodically in outbreaks of up to a couple of hundred cases, mainly across west and east Africa.

In early 2014, however, a handful of infections in southern Guinea mushroomed rapidly into an epidemic.

Chan emphasised that another positive outcome of the Ebola crisis was renewed focus and funding for vaccines against other contagious diseases, including the fatal Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) as well as the Lassa and Nipah viruses.

"These significant spillover effects strengthen the world's collective defences against the never-ending threat from emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases," she said.

Also speaking at the event, President Alpha Conde said it was "time Africa benefited from cutting-edge technology, notably in the field of biomedical sciences," and called on industrialised nations to share their expertise.

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Ebola: WHO declares outbreak in DR Congo

5 hours ago

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The world's deadliest Ebola outbreak hit West Africa in 2014-2015

The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared an Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

At least one person has died after contracting the virus in the country's north-east, the WHO says.

The Congolese health ministry had notified the WHO of a "lab-confirmed case" of Ebola, it added on Twitter.

More than 11,000 people died in the Ebola outbreak in West Africa in 2014-2015, mainly in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia.

The last outbreak of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo was in 2014 and killed more than 40 people.

Of the nine people suspected to have contracted the deadly virus, three died, with one case of Ebola confirmed through tests at the national laboratory in the capital Kinshasa, WHO Congo representative Allarangar Yokouide said in a statement.

People began to get sick on or after 22 April in Bas-Uele province in the country's far north, he added.

The region affected lies 1,300km (800 miles) north-east of Kinshasa, close to the border with the Central African Republic.

"It is in a very remote zone, very forested, so we are a little lucky. But we always take this very seriously," WHO Congo spokesman Eric Kabambi told Reuters news agency.

The WHO described the outbreak as "a public health crisis of international importance".

It said the first teams of experts, including epidemiologists, biologists and hygiene specialists had been dispatched and were due to arrive in the affected region by Friday or Saturday.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________


No need to panic: Tulip Mazumdar, BBC Global Health correspondent

While this outbreak will be extremely worrying for communities in this remote part of northern DR Congo, it is important to remember that the country has stamped out more Ebola outbreaks than any other place on earth. It is well practiced in fighting the deadly virus.

Ebola was first identified in DR Congo (then Zaire) in 1976.

Since then, there have been at least nine outbreaks in the country.

The last was in 2014, when - at the same time - parts of West Africa were fighting a separate outbreak, the worst in history.

DR Congo was able to bring an end to its epidemic within four months.

In West Africa, which had never experienced an Ebola outbreak before, it took two years.

Authorities in the DR Congo will need to act quickly to contain the virus, and ensure it doesn't spread to more populated areas.

This time, for the first time, health officials have another weapon they can use.

The world has an experimental vaccine that could be deployed if needed.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________


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01 July 2017

DR Congo declares end of Ebola outbreak

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© AFP/File | Health workers work at an Ebola quarantine unit on June 13, 2017 in Muma, after a one case of Ebola was confirmed in their village

KINSHASA (AFP) - The Congolese health minister on Saturday declared the end of an Ebola outbreak in a remote northeastern region of the Democratic Republic of Congo which caused four deaths in the area.

On May 12, officials declared an outbreak of the highly contagious disease, the eighth to date in the sprawling country, in Bas-Uele province -- an equatorial forest zone near the Central African Republic.

"I declare the end of the Ebola outbreak in Likati in DRC from midnight tonight," Oly Ilunga told reporters.

Ilunga said none of the 105 suspected cases had tested positive and that the country had recorded no new cases since June 2.

The incubation period for this highly contagious disease is 21 days.

An Ebola outbreak in 2014 left 11,300 people dead, mainly in west Africa.

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15 December 2017

Sierra Leone health workers sue government in Ebola case

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© AFP/File | The Ebola virus surfaced in Guinea in late 2013 and spread to neighbouring Liberia and Sierra Leone the following year, killing 11,300 people and infecting 28,000 victims overall until the disease was fully contained

DAKAR (AFP) - Two Sierra Leonean health workers on Friday sued their government in a West African court, alleging its misuse of donor funds during the Ebola crisis had contributed to the deaths of thousands.

The Ebola virus surfaced in Guinea in late 2013 and spread to neighbouring Liberia and Sierra Leone the following year, killing 11,300 people and infecting 28,000 victims overall until the disease was fully contained in 2016.

Allegations of abuse of the millions of dollars donated to relief organisations and channelled through government agencies have surfaced in all three countries, though this is believed to be the first case lodged at the supranational Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) court in Abuja.

The two unnamed plaintiffs caught Ebola while caring for victims infected with the virus and "continue to deal with the numerous health, physical and psychological challenges," suffered by survivors, according to a legal briefing issued by Sierra Leone's Centre for Accountability and Rule of Law, which helped them bring the case.

Survivors have reported eye problems, joint and muscle pain, headaches, and stomach pain months after being declared infection-free, according to a study released in January.

The administration of President Ernest Bai Koroma and its health ministry failed to follow "relevant accounting and procurement controls", the health workers allege, leading to "a greater number of deaths from Ebola than would otherwise have occurred."

"The mismanagement and possible loss of funds meant for Ebola response directly violated the rights of the plaintiffs to life and health," the briefing from the Sierra Leonean civil society organisation added.

The pair are seeking acknowledgement that their rights to life and health, along with thousands of others, were violated and the formation of a national commission to probe civil and criminal liability arising from the misuse of funds.

They are also seeking damages of an unspecified amount for themselves and anyone left in a similar position.

The ECOWAS court oversees cases from its 15 member states and its rulings are legally binding, but in practice many countries ignore its decisions.

The International Red Cross said in October it had uncovered evidence of "likely collusion" between employees and a bank in Sierra Leone that led to a potential financial loss of $2.15 million (1.8 million euros) earmarked for Ebola relief.

Scams in Guinea and Liberia could also have cost $3.9 million, the Red Cross said.

Two government officials in Guinea were convicted in July 2016 of stealing around $55,000 worth of funds destined for training programmes, but in general prosecutions for Ebola funds theft have been rare.

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Ebola: DR Congo confirms new outbreak in country's north-west

43 minutes ago

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The last Ebola outbreak in the DR Congo was in 2017 and killed four people

An Ebola outbreak has been declared in the north-west of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

There are two confirmed cases of the virus and 17 deaths, the health ministry said on Tuesday.

The incident in the town of Bikoro comes more than a year after an outbreak in the country killed four people.

In 2014. more than 11,000 people were killed in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia.

The outbreak declaration was made after laboratory results confirmed two cases of Ebola out of a sample of five suspected patients, the World Health Organization (WHO) said.

"Our top priority is to get to Bikoro to work alongside the government," the WHO's Peter Salama said in a statement.

"Working with partners and responding early and in a co-ordinated way will be vital to containing this deadly disease."

The international health organisation says it has released $1m (£738,000) from an emergency fund and has deployed more than 50 experts to work with officials in the country.

This is the ninth time an Ebola outbreak has been recorded in the DR Congo.

The virus was first discovered there in 1976 (when the country was known as Zaire) and is named after the Ebola river.

Ebola is thought to be spread over long distances by fruit bats and is often transmitted to humans via contaminated bushmeat.

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9 May

Ebola outbreak: Nigeria imposes airport screenings

Kunle Falayi
BBC Yoruba, Lagos

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Passengers with a high temperature will be handed over to health officials

The Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) says it is taking swift action to ensure that Ebola does not enter the country following a fresh outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

NIS spokesperson Sunday James told BBC Yoruba that immigration officials would tighten vigilance at airports and make more use of thermometers to screen passengers:

"We are sending a signal to all entry points in the country. The intention is to ensure that any suspected case can be promptly handed over to health officials at the airports.

This is a matter which everybody must be concerned about. All hands must be on deck."

During the 2014 outbreak in West Africa, more than 11,000 people died – mainly in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Ebola also spread to Nigeria when Patrick Sawyer, who was infected with the virus, flew into the country from Liberia.

Nigeria’s response to the crisis was generally praised. Eight people died, including Dr Stella Ameyo Adadevo, who first attended to Mr Sawyer and helped to ensure a more devastating outbreak was avoided in Nigeria.

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11 May

WHO plans for Ebola 'worst case scenario'

The World Health Organization is planning to send Ebola vaccines to the town of Bikoro in north-western Democratic Republic of Congo, which is grappling with an outbreak of the deadly virus, news agency Reuters reports, quoting a top official.

WHO Deputy Director-General of Emergency Preparedness and Response Peter Salama said the organisation was "preparing for the worst-case scenario".

This outbreak started back in December, about 20 miles from Bikoro, in Equateur province.

At least two people have tested positive for the virus since and at least five others, including two nurses, have possibly been infected and are being monitored.

Mr Salama said he hoped DR Congo authorities would approve the deployment of an experimental vaccine, but warned that the drug was not a magic bullet.

The WHO says neighbouring countries have been alerted about the outbreak but that the risk of the disease spreading was "moderate".

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Health workers during a 2014 outbreak in Kinshasa

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WHO prepares for worst in response to DR Congo Ebola outbreak

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© John Wessels, AFP | Quarantine area for Ebola patients in the village of Muma in DR Congo, June 13, 2017

Text by Florence RICHARD

2018-05-12

Heavily criticised for its response to the 2014-16 Ebola epidemic, the WHO is now on the front line in dealing with the emergence of new cases in DR Congo.

It says that it is preparing for the “worst case scenario”.

“We’re very concerned and are preparing for all scenarios, including worst case scenarios,” Peter Salama, Director of the World Health Organization (WHO)’s Health Emergencies Programme, said on March 11 about the re-emergence of Ebola in the DRC.

In light of the use of this worrying declaration from the WHO, Médecins sans Frontères has sought to sooth fears.

“This is by no means the same magnitude as in 2014-16 – the most serious Ebola epidemic since its first known outbreak in 1976, killing 11,300 people, 99 percent of them in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia,” said Axelle Ronsse, emergency co-ordinator for MSF Belgium, in an interview with FRANCE 24.

“This time it’s located in a remote part of the DRC that’s used to these small epidemics,” Ronsse pointed out.

This is the ninth time that the DRC has faced an outbreak of Ebola, which was named after a river in the country near where it first struck in 1976.

Goal to prevent spread to urban areas

Between April 4 and May 9, the WHO reported 32 Ebola cases (two confirmed, 18 probable and 12 suspected) in the Bikoro region, northeast of the capital Kinshasa and near the border with Congo-Brazzaville.

So far, 18 people have died, and the first tests showed that this outbreak is in the form of the “Zaire” strain – one of the most dangerous.

“More samples are being taken for testing,” Salama noted.

Although the outbreak is in an inaccessible part of the country, Ebola has hit three different places and has spread to three healthcare workers, one of whom has died.

The WHO is concerned about its possible spread to the nearest urban centre, the town of Mbandaka, where the virus would be harder to contain.

Médecins sans Frontières, which has also sent teams to the affected area, shares the WHO’s anxiety about the virus spreading to built-up areas.

“The important thing is to confine the epidemic to the villages where it’s emerged so that it doesn’t get to more densely populated places,” said Ronsse, who added that she works “in close collaboration with the Congolese authorities”.

In total, WHO has released $1 million (€840,000) to “stop the spread of Ebola in neighbouring provinces and countries”, including the provision of an airlift to deliver equipment to the area, which suffers from poor infrastructure.

They don't want to waste time or repeat the mistakes that were made in 2014.

'We will now screen everyone arriving from DRC'

That year – after a series of alerts from MSF, which was on the frontline of the fight against the rapidly spreading epidemic – the WHO was accused of not being responsive enough.

It only declared a state of emergency after Ebola had killed 1000 people.

The WHO got a new leadership team in 2017 and seems to have learned from the 2014 fiasco.

“This time we didn’t need to step up because everyone is doing the job of raising awareness,” said MSF’s Ronsse.

African countries also seem to have learned from the 2014 outbreak.

Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea have set up specialised Ebola laboratories, which provide the necessary screening tests.

And Guinea, the Gambia, Kenya and Nigeria have all announded in recent days that they are taking steps to prevent Ebola from spreading to their territory.

Nigeria has also set up an “emergency centre” in case Ebola reaches the country, while the country’s health minister Isaac Adewole has announced that “we will now screen everyone arriving from the DRC and neighbouring countries”.

After the mistakes in dealing with the 2014 Ebola outbreak, this time everyone seems to have prepared to deal with the threat.

This article was adapted from the original in French

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14 May 2018

WHO reports new Ebola case in DR Congo, vaccine this week

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© UNICEF/AFP | Bikoro Hospital is at the centre of the latest Ebola outbreak in the DR Congo's northwest, where so far 18 people have died

KINSHASA (AFP) - The head of the World Health Organization said Sunday there has been another reported case of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo and that an experimental vaccine to fight the disease is expected to become available in the country this week.

Doctor Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, on a two-visit to DR Congo, said the suspected new case was in Bikoro, at the centre of the latest Ebola outbreak in the country's northwest, where so far 18 people have died.

It brings to 35 the number of reported cases, including two confirmed, according to the WHO tally.

The WHO is planning to begin a vaccination campaign in the area, near the border with the Republic of Congo, using an available stockpile of an experimental vaccine.

"The vaccines are going to arrive on Wednesday or Thursday. We have enough of them," said Tedros, without specifying the number of doses.

After meeting with DR Congo President Joseph Kabila in Kinshasa, the WHO chief praised "the government's very strong leadership" in responding to the health crisis and its "good coordination" with partners such as Unicef and Doctors without Borders (MSF).

On Friday the UN health agency had announced that it was preparing for all scenarios, including the "worst case scenario", in the latest Ebola outbreak in DR Congo.

Tedros said he hoped for a "better result" in this ninth Ebola outbreak in the vast central African country since 1976, when the deadly viral disease was first identified by a Belgian-led team.

Ebola is one of the world's most notorious diseases, being both highly infectious and extremely lethal.

The worst-ever Ebola outbreak started in December 2013 in southern Guinea before spreading to two neighbouring west African countries, Liberia and Sierra Leone, killing more than 11,300 people out of nearly 29,000 registered cases.

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DR Congo Ebola outbreak spreads to Mbandaka city

5 hours ago

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Twenty-three people are known to have died

The Ebola outbreak in DR Congo has spread from the countryside into a city, prompting fears that the disease will be increasingly hard to control.

Health Minister Oly Ilunga Kalenga confirmed a case in Mbandaka, a city of a million about 130km (80 miles) from where the first cases were confirmed.

The city is a major transportation hub with routes to the capital Kinshasa.

At least 44 people are thought to have been infected with ebola and 23 deaths are being investigated.

Ebola is a serious infectious illness that causes internal bleeding and often proves fatal.

It can spread rapidly through contact with small amounts of bodily fluid and its early flu-like symptoms are not always obvious.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has called an emergency meeting of experts to talk about the risk that Ebola might spread beyond DR Congo.

It will meet on Friday to decide whether to declare an international public health emergency which would trigger a larger global response, like in the case of the 2014-16 Western African Ebola outbreak and the 2016 Zika virus in Latin America.

Why is the spread to a city such a worry?

The 2014-16 West Africa outbreak, which killed 11,300 people, was particularly deadly because it spread to the capital cities of Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia.

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Senior WHO official Peter Salama said the spread to Mbandaka meant there was the potential for an "explosive increase" in cases.

"This is a major development in the outbreak," he told the BBC. "We have urban Ebola, which is a very different animal from rural Ebola. The potential for an explosive increase in cases is now there."

Mr Salama, the WHO's deputy director-general for emergency preparedness and response, said Mbandaka's location on the Congo river, widely used for transportation, raised the prospect of Ebola spreading to surrounding countries such as Congo-Brazzaville and the Central African Republic as well as downstream to Kinshasa, a city of 10 million people.

"This puts a whole different lens on this outbreak and gives us increased urgency to move very quickly into Mbandaka to stop this new first sign of transmission," he said.

What is being done to contain the outbreak?

So far only three of the 44 cases have been confirmed as Ebola and involve people who are still alive, the WHO says.

There are a further 20 probable cases and 21 suspected cases.

The cases were recorded in three health zones of Congo's Equateur province.

Posted Image

Isolation and rudimentary Ebola case management facilities had been set up in Mbandaka to cope with cases, Mr Salama said.

The disease may have been brought there, he said, by two or three people who had attended the funeral of an Ebola victim in Bikoro to the south of Mbandaka before travelling to the city.

On Wednesday more than 4,000 doses of an experimental vaccine sent by the WHO arrived in Kinshasa with another batch expected soon.

These would be given as a priority to people in Mbandaka who had been in contact with those suspected of carrying the Ebola virus before people in any other affected area, in order to stop Ebola spreading in the urban region and beyond, Mr Salama said.

The vaccine from pharmaceutical firm Merck is unlicensed but was effective in limited trials during the West Africa Ebola Outbreak.

It needs to be stored at a temperature of between -60 and -80 C. Electricity supplies in Congo are unreliable.

Health workers had identified 430 people who may have had contact with the disease and were working to trace more than 4,000 contacts of Ebola patients, who had spread across north-west DR Congo, the WHO said.

Many of these people were in areas only reachable by motorbike, Mr Salama said.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________


A poor city with intermittent power

By Jacques Matand', BBC Afrique

Mbandaka is a poor city on the banks of the River Congo.

Those of its residents who can afford to pay for electricity only get it for three to four hours a day, otherwise people use generators or solar panels.

The city has two hospitals, which have received money for renovations. But even they do not have a regular electricity supply and have to rely on generators.

For water, Mbandaka's residents use wells or the river. Many people also use the river as a toilet, meaning there is a high risk of diseases, not just Ebola, spreading.

Passenger boats used to operate along the river to Kinshasa but these are no longer working.

However, traders still use wooden canoes to reach the capital to buy and sell their goods - and this is how it is feared Ebola could spread.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________


What about travel restrictions?

The WHO said it was not recommending any trade or travel restrictions either within DR Congo, for example between Mbandaka and Kinshasa, or internationally.

But Mr Salama said that 13 countries in the region were boosting border screening measures and said DR Congo itself was increasing exit screening measures.

"The good news is that the DR Congo population is very used to Ebola outbreaks," he added.

"They know to protect themselves by avoiding mass gatherings and mass funerals. They know as well that traditional healers can amplify the outbreak."

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An experimental vaccine has arrived in the country

Observers described the international response so far as "remarkable and very rapid".

"The logistic issues... will also be considerable on the ground to identify who should be vaccinated and to get out in this vast and very difficult area and provide vaccination in an appropriate way," New York-based Ebola expert Dr Laurie Garrett told the BBC.

"It's never been done before in the midst of an exploding outbreak so we'll watch it very closely."

Why does Ebola keep coming back?

There have been three outbreaks in DR Congo since the 2014-16 epidemic.

Ebola is thought to be spread over long distances by fruit bats and is often transmitted to humans via contaminated bushmeat.

It can also be introduced into the human population through close contact with the blood, organs or other bodily fluids of infected animals.

These can include chimpanzees, gorillas, monkeys, antelope and porcupines.

The disease is endemic to the area and it is not possible to eradicate all the animals who might be a host for Ebola.

As long as humans come in contact with them, there is always a possibility that Ebola could return.

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DR Congo Ebola outbreak 'not global emergency'

6 hours ago

An Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo is not yet an international public health emergency, the World Health Organization has said.

It said there was a "strong reason to believe that the outbreak can be brought under control".

At least 45 people are believed to have been infected in the current outbreak and 25 deaths are being investigated.

Cases emerged in a rural area with one now confirmed in the north-western city of Mbandaka.

The city of about one million people is a transport hub on the River Congo, prompting fears that the virus could now spread further, threatening the capital Kinshasa and surrounding countries.

Ebola is an infectious illness that causes internal bleeding and often proves fatal.

It can spread rapidly through contact with small amounts of bodily fluid, and its early flu-like symptoms are not always obvious.

What did WHO conclude?

At an emergency meeting, WHO experts said that "the conditions for a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) have not currently been met".

Had they decided otherwise, a larger response to the outbreak would have been triggered.

Although Ebola had already spread to an urban area, the experts said they believed the outbreak could be brought under control.

They also stressed that it was "particularly important there should be no international travel or trade restrictions".

The WHO said it had identified more than 500 people who had potentially come into contact with Ebola patients in the country.

It said they would be closely monitored for symptoms of the disease and were likely to be among the first to be given an Ebola vaccine, which - although still in the experimental stage - proved effective during a trial.

The WHO said some health workers had become infected with Ebola.

WHO has previously admitted that it was too slow to respond to a deadly Ebola outbreak in West Africa from 2014-2016 that killed more than 11,000 people.

Life in the Ebola zone

One teacher in the region told the BBC's Newsday programme that people had stopped shaking hands when they greet.

Ziko Ilema said: "I tried to greet a friend by shaking hands and he said: 'No, did you forget that Ebola is here?'"

"They forbid people to greet by using hands, eating animals from the forest, and people are now living with fear," he added.

Ebola is thought to be spread over long distances by fruit bats and is often transmitted to humans eating contaminated bushmeat - meat from wild animals such as monkeys or antelopes.

Bars, restaurants and offices in Mbandaka have started to provide soap and basins of water for people to wash their hands as a way to prevent the spread of the disease, according to the AFP news agency.

It also reports that officials are using infrared thermometers at the city's river ports to scan travellers in case they have a fever.

"But we don't have enough of the thermometers, so people are crowding up and getting annoyed," said Joseph Dangbele, an official at the private Menge port.

Health Minister Oly Ilunga has announced that all healthcare in the affected areas would be free.

What is being done to contain the outbreak?

WHO says that of the 45 Ebola cases reported, 14 are confirmed, 21 are probable, and 10 are suspected.

They were recorded in Congo's Equateur province.

Mbandaka is the provincial capital.

Mr Salama said that isolation and rudimentary management facilities had been set up in the city.

He said the disease could have been taken there by people who attended the funeral of an Ebola victim in Bikoro, south of Mbandaka, before travelling to the city.

On Wednesday more than 4,000 doses of an experimental vaccine sent by the WHO arrived in Kinshasa with another batch expected soon.

These would be given as a priority to people in Mbandaka who had been in contact with those suspected of carrying the Ebola virus before people in any other affected area, Mr Salama said.

The vaccine, from pharmaceutical firm Merck, is unlicensed but was effective in limited trials during the West Africa outbreak.

However, it needs to be stored at a temperature of between -60 and -80 C, which is a challenge in DR Congo because electricity supplies are unreliable.

WHO said health workers had identified 430 people who may have had contact with the disease and were working to trace more than 4,000 contacts of Ebola patients who had spread across north-west DR Congo.

Many of these people were in remote areas, Mr Salama said.

Why does Ebola keep returning?

This is the ninth outbreak of Ebola in DR Congo - it was named after the country's Ebola river.

Ebola can be introduced into the human population through contact with the blood, organs or other bodily fluids of infected animals.

These can include chimpanzees, gorillas, monkeys, antelope and porcupines.

It is not possible to eradicate all the animals who might be a host for Ebola.

As long as humans come in contact with them, there is always a possibility that Ebola could return.

Source: Posted Image.com
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