West Africa sees spike in Ebola cases as decline stalls: WHO

[Buster's Uncle]

West Africa sees spike in Ebola cases as decline stalls: WHO
Reuters
By Saliou Samb and Emma Farge  1 hour ago



A transmission electron micrograph shows Ebola virus particles. REUTERS/U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases



CONAKRY/DAKAR (Reuters) - The number of new Ebola cases rose for the second week in a row in West Africa, nearly doubling in Guinea, suggesting declines in the disease seen earlier this year had stalled, the World Health Organization said on Wednesday.

Efforts to wipe out the deadly virus were being hampered by people's mistrust of health workers, and the number of people continuing to hide sick friends and relatives from authorities, particularly in Guinea's capital Conakry, officials said.

West Africa recorded 144 new confirmed cases of Ebola in the week to Feb. 8 compared with 124 the previous week, the WHO said in a report.

"Despite improvements in case finding and management, burial practices, and community engagement, the decline in case incidence has stalled," the U.N. agency said.

In Guinea, where the outbreak began, there were 64 new cases compared with 39 the previous week.

"The main threat to achieving our goal of zero cases in 60 days is this resistance in Conakry," Dr. Sakoba Keita, national coordinator for the fight against the epidemic in Guinea, said.

Guinea's President Alpha Conde has announced a plan to have no Ebola cases by early March.

But in an illustration of the remaining challenges, youths from the Conakry suburb of Yimbaya spilled onto the streets on Monday, burning tyres after an imam suspected of conducting a secret Ebola burial was detained by authorities.

The U.N. said this week that 70 schools across the country had been unable to open because of local suspicions of medical kits being distributed to students.

The worst outbreak on record has now killed at least 9,177 people out of 22,894 recorded cases, mainly in the three worst-affected West African nations, Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia.

Sierra Leone remains the country with the highest transmission, although case numbers dropped week-on-week to 76 from 80. Liberia, once the epicentre of the outbreak, reported just three cases in the same period.

President Barack Obama said on Wednesday he was bringing back nearly all U.S. troops fighting the Ebola epidemic in West Africa and marking a new phase in the battle to help countries "get to zero" cases. Guinea has the longest way to go in ending the outbreak, he added.

Obama said wealthy countries needed to invest to ensure that poor nations have basic health systems to detect and fight diseases.

"This is not charity," he said in a speech at the White House. "The investments we make overseas are in our self-interest."

(Reporting by Saliou Samb, Emma Farge and David Lewis; Editing by Andrew Heavens and Robin Pomeroy)


http://news.yahoo.com/west-africa-sees-spike-ebola-cases-decline-stalls-182538553--business.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Obama to bring back most U.S. troops fighting Ebola in Africa
Reuters
By Roberta Rampton  18 hours ago



The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday that President Barack Obama is set to announce the United States will withdraw most of the American troops sent to West Africa to battle the Ebola epidemic. It quoted U.S. officials as saying that over the coming weeks, Washington would pull out most of the 1,300 U.S. forces currently working in Liberia and Senegal, where officials believe the crisis has largely been contained.



WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama is set to announce on Wednesday that he will bring back nearly all of the 1,300 U.S. troops deployed in West Africa to fight the Ebola epidemic by April 30, the White House said late on Tuesday.

Obama, who was excoriated last fall for a slow start to his Ebola outbreak response, will hold a White House event to showcase how U.S. leadership helped stem the epidemic, which has killed almost 9,000 people, mainly in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

The number of new cases each week has dropped to about 150 in recent reports, down from more than 1,000 new cases per week in October, the White House said.

"We are encouraged by the declining number of new Ebola cases in West Africa, but remain concerned about a recent increase in cases in Guinea, and an inability to further reduce case counts in Sierra Leone," the White House said in a statement.

"Moreover, given that a single case can lead to flare-ups of the virus, we must not lose focus," the White House said, noting about 100 U.S. military personnel will remain in West Africa to help.



Participants practice medical procedures on a soldier during training for the Ebola response team at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas October 24, 2014. REUTERS/Darren Abate


At the height of the epidemic, about 2,800 military personnel were deployed to West Africa.

Troops built 10 Ebola treatment units and a medical unit to treat infected healthcare workers.

At least 10 people are known to have been treated for Ebola in the United States, four of them diagnosed with the disease on U.S. soil.

Only two people are known to have contracted the virus in the United States - both of them nurses who treated an Ebola patient from Liberia who became sick and died in Dallas.

After that incident, which happened during the U.S. midterm election campaign, Obama named former White House adviser Ron Klain to coordinate government activities. Klain's job is slated to wrap up this week.

Obama secured more than $5.4 billion from Congress to fight the disease in West Africa and at home. Some of those funds are being used to support the development of Ebola vaccines and therapeutic drugs.

"This money will still be used as we do the hard work of trying to get to zero [Ebola cases] and continue to invest in domestic preparedness for this and other highly infectious diseases," an administration official said, speaking on background.

The government has worked to train U.S. hospital workers to detect and handle Ebola cases, and ramped up screening of people returning from countries where Ebola raged.

About 7,700 people returning from Ebola-afflicted countries were screened at U.S. airports and were required to watch for symptoms and report to health authorities for 21 days.


http://news.yahoo.com/obama-bring-back-most-u-troops-fighting-ebola-065117258.html