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EU sends Ebola airlift to West Africa

AFP                           OCT. 8, 2014

Brussels (AFP) - The European Union said Tuesday it is urgently airlifting relief goods to West Africa to combat the Ebola crisis, as the disease threatened its shores with an infection in Spain.

Three 747 jumbo jet cargo planes carrying 100 tonnes of aid will be sent to the worst-affected countries of Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea, the European Commission said.

The first plane leaves on Friday for Freetown carrying personal protection equipment including masks and gloves and medicines.

 SEE FULL ARTICLE

http://news.yahoo.com/eu-sends-ebola-airlift-west-africa-191524011.html?utm_source=October+8+2014+EN&utm_campaign=10%2F8%2F2014&utm_medium=email

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The Fight Against Ebola Is a Fight Against Inequality

Commentary by Jim Young Kim, President of the World Bank Group 
                                                              Oct. 6, 2014

As the spread of the Ebola virus in West Africa shows, the importance of reducing inequality could not be more clear. The battle against the virus is a fight on many fronts -- human lives and health foremost among them.

But the fight against Ebola is also a fight against inequality. The knowledge and infrastructure to treat the sick and contain the virus exists in high- and middle-income counties. However, over many years, we have failed to make these things accessible to low-income people in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. So now thousands of people in these countries are dying because, in the lottery of birth, they were born in the wrong place.

See full article

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jim-yong-kim/the-fight-against-ebola-i_b_5938716.html

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Obama: U.S. Will Beef Up Airport Screenings for Ebola

UPDATED  With additional information  (Scroll below).

TIME

By Zeke J. Miller                              Oct. 6. 2014                5:24 PM

President Barack Obama said Monday that the U.S. is working on additional passenger screenings for airline passengers flying from Ebola-stricken West Africa, two weeks after a Liberian man infected with the disease entered the country.

Officials are “going to be working on protocols to do additional passenger screenings both at the source and here in the United States,” Obama said, addressing reporters following a briefing on his administration’s response to the epidemic in Africa and efforts to keep the disease from spreading to the U.S. “All of these things make me confident that here in the United States at least the chances of an outbreak, of an epidemic here are extraordinarily low.”

The president did not give specifics on the new screening measures, and Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) declined to elaborate further in an interview with CNN after the meeting.

 

 

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As Ebola patient in Texas fights for his life, his family copes with stigma and isolation

EBOLA VICTIM IN DALLAS IS IN CRITICAL CONDITION WHILE FAMILY MEMBERS SUFFER FROM STIGMA AND ISOLATION

WASHINGTON POST

By DeNeen L. Brown, Abby Phillip and Sean Sullivan October 5 at 8:05 PM

DALLAS — As a Liberian man diagnosed with Ebola was fighting to survive Sunday in a Texas hospital, his worried family members and others who were in contact with him said they are being ostracized by the local Liberian community, which is struggling to cope with fear, isolation and the stigma associated with the deadly disease.

A cleanup crew on Sunday sanitizes the apartment where Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan was staying before being admitted to a hospital in Dallas. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

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Ebola's shadow extends to would-be Mecca pilgrims

 

TWO ARTICLES ON EBOLA CONCERNS DURING THE HAJJ

 

Al Jazeera                              Oct 5, 2014

Millions of pilgrims from all corners of the world traveled to Saudi Arabia for the start of the hajj in the past week, but some West African Muslims will not be able to take part in the sacred journey this year because of public health fears surrounding the Ebola outbreak.

Saudi Arabia issued a travel ban on citizens of Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone as what it called a “precautionary measure,” saying the risk of Ebola infection is too high for travelers from those countries to be allowed entry now.

The Ebola-stricken countries each have sizable Muslim populations... Saudi authorities have turned down about 7,000 requests for hajj visas from the three countries because of Ebola concerns, according to the United Nations.

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OUT OF CONTROL: How the world’s health organizations failed to stop the Ebola Disaster

WASHINGTON POST's  detailed front page account of how the Ebola epidemic got out of control in West Africa.  Oct. 5, 2014

     by Lena Sun, Bradly Dennis, Lenny Bernstein and Joel Achenbach

The glow from a crematorium lights the sky as the bodies of people who died from Ebola are cremated last month in Monrovia

---Michel Du Cille, THE WASHINGTON POST

.... "The virus easily outran the plodding response. The WHO, an arm of the United Nations, is responsible for coordinating international action in a crisis like this, but it has suffered budget cuts, has lost many of its brightest minds and was slow to sound a global alarm on Ebola. Not until Aug. 8, 4 1 ⁄ 2 months into the epidemic, did the organization declare a global emergency. Its Africa office, which oversees the region, initially did not welcome a robust role by the CDC in the response to the outbreak.

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Ebola Victim's Air Journey shows weak spots in screening.

NEW YORK TIMES              October 3, 2014

MONROVIA, Liberia — The arrival in the United States of a Liberian man infected with the Ebola virus shows how difficult it is to control or restrict the disease from spreading, and how porous current procedures are in a world of globalized air travel.

Liberian officials said on Thursday that they planned to prosecute the passenger, Thomas E. Duncan, for lying on an airport questionnaire about not having contact with a person infected with Ebola before his travel — a pivotal part of the country’s screening process.

Mr. Duncan took three planes as he flew from Monrovia, the Liberian capital, to Dallas last month, connecting in Brussels and Washington.

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U.S. Efforts to combat Ebola in Africa hampered by local conditions

NEW YORK TIMES                Oct 3, 2014
by Helene cooper

MONROVIA, LIBERIA

Detailed description of the delays and problems the U.S. military is facing in building hospital and other facilities to counter the Ebola epidemic.

Problems include breakdowns in equipment used by local contrators in preparing the sites and need to repair the battered runways of the main Liberian airport.

Read Full Report

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/03/us/us-effort-in-liberia-barely-gets-on-the-ground.html?_r=0

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Sierra Leone Situation worsens: Estimated Five New Cases per Hour

SIERRA LEONE SITUATION    TWO ARTICLES  (Scroll down)

THE GUARDIAN             OCT. 2, 2014

 Nowa Paye, 9, is taken to an ambulance after showing signs of the Ebola infection in the village of Freeman Reserve Liberia. Photograph: Jerome Delay/AP

Ebola is spreading at the rate of five new cases an hour in Sierra Leone, according to figures released as world leaders and experts on disease control gathered in London to discuss the outbreak.

The figures from Save the Children showed there were 765 new cases last week in the west African country alone, but only 327 hospital beds to treat infected patients. ...The rate of spread of the deadly virus is projected to double to 10 people an hour in the country before the end of October, Save the Children said.

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Man in U.S. With Ebola Had Been Screened to Fly, but System Is Spotty

NEW YORK TIMES   Oct. 2, 2014

By Matthew J. Wald and Jad Mouawad

As he was preparing to leave Liberia for Dallas two weeks ago, Thomas E. Duncan, the man confirmed to be the first Ebola case in the United States, was checked at the airport for signs of the disease. He was determined to have no fever and allowed to board his flight, American officials say. 

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