Dr Margaret Chan
Director-General of the World Health Organization

Like most matters involving an Ebola epidemic, chronicling its first horrifying infection is not an easy endeavor. But even in circumstances in which details are hard to come by, certain similarities have emerged. The first contact often occurs in remote, rural communities where a victim handles an infected animal carcass, and things quickly progress downward from there.

One outbreak in Ivory Coast was sparked when an ethologist touched an infected, dead chimpanzee. In Gabon and the Republic of Congo, scientists linked several outbreaks to extensive deaths of forest chimpanzees and gorillas. And in this most current outbreak of Ebola in West Africa — which has been called “out of control”...

(CLICK HERE FOR MORE OF THIS ARTICLE)

(TO ENLARGE - CLICK ON THE IMAGE BELOW)

http://www.cbc.ca/news2/interactives/map-ebola/

Les présidents de la Guinée, du Liberia, de la Sierra Leone et de la Côte d'Ivoire sont attendus vendredi à Conakry pour participer à un sommet régional consacré à l'épidémie d'Ebola.

Un sommet régional consacré à l'épidémie d'Ebola se tient vendredi 1er août à Conakry en présence des chefs d'État de la Guinée, du Liberia, de la Sierra Leone et de la Côte d'Ivoire. La directrice de l'Organisation mondiale de la Santé (OMS), Margaret Chan, participera également au sommet où elle lancera un plan d'un montant de 100 millions de dollars.

(CLICKEZ ICI POUR LIRE LA SUITE DE CET ARTICLE)

cdc.gov - July 31, 2014

CDC urges all US residents to avoid nonessential travel to Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone because of an unprecedented outbreak of Ebola.

http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/notices

The U.S. issued a travel warning Thursday for three African countries hit by an outbreak of deadly Ebola, but the White House said President Obama will go forward with a summit in Washington next week featuring African leaders.

The World Health Organization is launching a $100 million response plan to combat an "unprecedented" outbreak of Ebola in West Africa that has killed 729 people out of 1,323 infected since February.

Liberia has suspended all football activities in an effort to control the spread of the deadly Ebola virus.

There was a risk of infection because football is a contact sport, the football association said.

The number of people killed by the virus in West Africa has now reached 672, according to new UN figures.

A major regional airliner, Asky, said it had halted flights to the Liberian and Sierra Leonean capitals because of growing concerns about the virus.

(CNN) -- A doctor who has played a key role in fighting the Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone is infected with the disease, according to that country's Ministry of Health.

Dr. Sheik Humarr Khan is being treated by the French aid group Medicins Sans Frontieres -- also known as Doctors Without Borders -- in Kailahun, Sierra Leone, Tim Shenk, an agency spokesman, told CNN.

(Read complete article here)

It was humid, muddy and raining when WHO staff approached a compound in heavily populated New Kru Town, outside Monrovia, Liberia to look for people who have had contact with people infected with Ebola. A WHO technical adviser from Rwanda, sent in to help the zone coordinator, spoke to a woman who had cared for an Ebola patient. She understood the need to be monitored for the disease, but another man with whom the team talked denied knowing anyone with Ebola and refused further contact with the team.

The efforts to contain the largest Ebola outbreak in history have so far failed. International response teams, desperate to limit the toll of the fast-spreading epidemic in three West African countries, have been calling for the use experimental drugs or vaccines to try to stop the deadly virus. Many experts, however, including the scientist who led the work on a Canadian-made Ebola vaccine, say that using untested medications in the current West African outbreak could be disastrous. Other scientists disagree. The World Health Organization reports that the current outbreak, which is the first in West Africa, has so far infected 844 people, causing the death of 518 of them. This is double the size of the next largest outbreak, in Uganda in 2000, and this outbreak has just begun...

(Read more...)

By Laura Smith-Spark, CNN updated 10:37 AM EDT, Fri July 4, 2014

(CNN) -- With their countries facing an Ebola epidemic of "unprecedented" proportions, the health ministers of 11 African nations have agreed to a joint strategy to try to stem its deadly advance.

As part of the plan, the World Health Organization will set up a "sub-regional control center" in Guinea -- one of the three West African nations at the heart of the outbreak -- to help coordinate the response.