Ebola news 9/5

[Buster's Uncle]

Sierra Leone to impose 4-day, countrywide anti-Ebola "lockdown"
Reuters
3 hours ago



FREETOWN (Reuters) - Sierra Leone will impose a four-day, countrywide "lockdown" starting Sept. 18, an escalation of efforts to halt the spread of Ebola across the West African country, a senior official in the president's office said on Friday.

The move underscores the radical steps West African nations are being pushed to take, over six months into an outbreak that is the worst on record and shows no sign of easing having already killed over 2,100 people since March.

Citizens will not be allowed to leave their homes between Sept. 18-21 in a bid to prevent the disease from spreading further and allow health workers to identify cases in the early stages of the illness, said Ibrahim Ben Kargbo, a presidential adviser on the country's Ebola task force.

"The aggressive approach is necessary to deal with the spread of Ebola once and for all," he told Reuters. As of Friday, Sierra Leone has recorded 491 of the total of suspected, probable and confirmed Ebola deaths, according to U.N. figures.

Kargbo said 21,000 people would be recruited to enforce the lockdown. Thousands of police and soldiers have already been deployed to enforce the quarantining of towns in Sierra Leone's worst-hit regions near the border with Guinea.

Organizations from across the world are rushing funds and equipment to West Africa, but Ebola is spreading faster than ever and experts say the lack of trained staff in weak health systems is a major obstacle to the response.

(Reporting by Umaru Fofana; Writing by David Lewis; Editing by G Crosse and Jonathan Oatis)


http://news.yahoo.com/sierra-leone-impose-4-day-countrywide-anti-ebola-214622478--business.html

[Buster's Uncle]

World's worst Ebola outbreak tests global response
Reuters
3 hours ago



(Reuters) - International agencies and governments are struggling to contain the world's worst epidemic of the Ebola hemorrhagic virus, which has killed over 1,900 people in West Africa.

Here is a timeline of the main developments in the outbreak.

March 22 - Guinea confirms that a previously unidentified hemorrhagic fever, which killed over 50 people in its southeast Forest Region, is the Ebola virus. One study traces the suspected original source to a 2-year-old boy in the town of Gueckedou. Cases are also reported in the capital, Conakry.

March 30 - Liberia reports two Ebola cases; suspected cases are also reported in Sierra Leone.

April 1 - Noting the spread, medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) warns it is "unprecedented", but a World Health Organization (WHO) spokesman calls it "relatively small still".

April 4 - An angry mob attacks an Ebola treatment center in southeast Guinea. Health workers in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia face increasing hostility from fearful and suspicious local people, many of whom refuse to believe the disease exists.

May 26 - WHO confirms the first deaths in Sierra Leone.

June 17 - Liberia says disease reaches its capital Monrovia.

June 23 - With the death toll surging above 350, making the West African outbreak the worst Ebola epidemic ever recorded, MSF says the outbreak is "out of control" and calls for massive resources.

July 25 - Nigeria, Africa's biggest economy, confirms its first Ebola case, a Liberian-American man who died in the commercial hub, Lagos, after traveling from Monrovia.

July 29 - Dr. Sheik Umar Khan, who was leading Sierra Leone's fight against the epidemic, dies of the virus.

July 30 - Liberia shuts schools and orders the quarantining of the worst-affected communities, using troops to enforce it.

July 31 - The U.S. Peace Corps withdraws all volunteers from Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, citing Ebola risks.

Aug 2 - An American missionary aid worker infected with Ebola in Liberia, Dr. Kent Brantly, is flown to Atlanta in the United States for treatment at Emory University Hospital.

Aug 4 - The World Bank announces up to $200 million in emergency assistance to help Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.

Aug 5 - Second U.S. missionary infected with Ebola, Nancy Writebol, is flown from Liberia to Atlanta hospital.

Aug 8 - WHO declares Ebola an "international public health emergency" but stops short of calling for a ban on international trade or travel.

Aug 12 - WHO says death toll from outbreak rises above 1,000, approves use of unproven drugs or vaccines.

Spanish priest infected with Ebola dies in Madrid hospital.

Aug 14 - WHO says reports of Ebola deaths and cases from the field "vastly underestimate" the scale of the outbreak.

Aug 15 - MSF compares the West African Ebola outbreak to "wartime," says it will take about six months to control.

Aug 20 - Liberian security forces in Monrovia fire live rounds and tear gas to disperse crowd trying to break out of Ebola quarantine. One teenager later dies of gunshot wounds.

Aug 21 - The two American missionary aid workers treated in Atlanta are released from the hospital free of the virus. They received an experimental therapy called ZMapp.

Aug 24 - Democratic Republic of Congo declares an Ebola outbreak in its northern Equateur province, apparently separate from the larger West African outbreak.

Infected British medical worker flown home for treatment from Sierra Leone.

Aug 28 - WHO says death toll climbs above 1,550, warns outbreak could infect more than 20,000 people. The U.N. health agency announces a strategic plan to fight the epidemic, says $490 million needed over the next six months.

Aug 29 - Senegal reports its first confirmed Ebola case.

Aug 30 - World Food Program says it needs $70 million to feed 1.3 million people at risk in Ebola-quarantined areas.

Sept 2 - MSF President Joanne Liu tells United Nations members the world is "losing the battle" to contain the Ebola outbreak and slams "a global coalition of inaction".

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) says the Ebola epidemic has endangered harvests and sent food prices soaring in West Africa. FAO warns the problem will intensify in coming months.

Sept 3 - Pace of the epidemic accelerates, with death toll topping 1,900. Officials say there were close to 400 deaths in the past week.

The United Nations says $600 million in supplies will be needed to fight the outbreak in West Africa, and Guinea warns the virus has penetrated a new part of the country.

Officials announce human safety trials for two vaccines and a U.S. government contract to accelerate testing of the experimental ZMapp treatment.

A third U.S. missionary infected with Ebola, Dr. Rick Sacra, a 51-year-old Boston physician, is flown out of Liberia for treatment in the United States.

Sept. 5 - WHO puts Ebola death toll in West Africa at more than 2,100 out of about 4,000 people thought to have been infected.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban-ki Moon says the world body plans to set up a center to coordinate the response to Ebola and to strive to halt its spread in West Africa within six to nine months.

U.S. medical missionary Dr. Rick Sacra arrives at Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha for treatment.

The European Union pledges 140 million euros (US$180 million) toward the fight against Ebola.

WHO says experts agree that blood-derived drug therapies and serum from survivors may be used to treat the virus and calls for investment in the experimental drugs.

Israeli hospital tests Nigerian visitor for possible Ebola after admitting her for fever.

Sierra Leone says will impose a four-day countrywide "lockdown" starting Sept. 18 as it escalates efforts to half the spread of Ebola. Citizens will not be allowed to leave their homes between Sept. 18-21.

(Writing by Pascal Fletcher and Jonathan Oatis; Editing by Toni Reinhold)


http://news.yahoo.com/worlds-worst-ebola-outbreak-tests-global-response-210252379.html

[Buster's Uncle]

France sends experts to West Africa help fight Ebola spread
Reuters
September 4, 2014 10:26 AM



Mego Terzian, head of Medecins sans Frontieres France (MSF), poses during an interview with Reuters at the MSF headquarters in Paris August 29, 2014. REUTERS/Charles Platiau



PARIS (Reuters) - France said on Thursday it would send about 20 specialists in biological disasters to West Africa to help stop the spread of Ebola after international health organizations lamented the lack of aid from the West to tackle the epidemic.

"In response to the World Health Organization call ... France is increasing its help to fight the Ebola epidemic by sending a contingent of health and medical experts to Guinea," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

The worst outbreak of the Ebola virus in history will not be brought under control unless wealthy nations dispatch specialized biological disaster response teams, the head of charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said on Tuesday.

France said it was sending about 20 experts from the EPRUS institute, which specializes in responding to health emergencies. The first five will leave on Friday, it said.

The experts would be based in Guinea for the next three months to coordinate with local authorities.

(Reporting by John Irish; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)


http://news.yahoo.com/france-sends-experts-west-africa-help-fight-ebola-142626551.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Miners step up safeguards in mineral-rich Africa amid Ebola crisis
Reuters
By James Regan  19 hours ago



A U.N. convoy of soldiers passes a screen displaying a message on Ebola on a street in Abidjan August 14, 2014. REUTERS/Luc Gnago



SYDNEY (Reuters) - Mining companies are beefing up protection against the spreading Ebola virus in West Africa while maintaining investment in new projects in a region with vast untapped mineral wealth.

Attempts to keep the deadly virus out of work sites range from turning away anyone who has come from countries where Ebola is present to installing infrared heat monitors to measure body temperatures of employees as they pass through mine gates.

Similar devices have been deployed in airports to identify carriers during outbreaks of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), bird flu and swine flu.

In iron ore-rich Guinea, where the first deaths from Ebola were confirmed in March - the outbreak has since spread to Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, and Senegal - the government anticipates $50 billion of mining investments over the next decade, Minister for Mines Kerfalla Yansane said this week..

David Heymann, a professor of infectious disease epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, is calling on companies to consider installing sonar bat repellant technology at mine sites.

Some medical experts believe that bats and other animals are the natural hosts of the Ebola virus, which has led Guinea to ban consumption of bat soup, grilled bat and other such items.


DISCOURAGING BUSH MEAT

Eating "bush" meats, such as rats and other rodents, by employees should also be discouraged, according to Heymann.

"Instead of packing up and leaving, mining companies should work with the affected country to try and stop the outbreak," Heymann said in a telephone interview from an "Africa Down Under" mining investment conference in Perth, Australia.

"The most effective approach is to conduct a risk assessment before going into a country and determine what the factors might be and make sure that they can be mitigated," Heymann said.

More than 200 Australian mining companies with more than 700 projects operate in Africa.

Tawana Resources in August suspended all non-essential field work at its mine in Liberia after a state of emergency was declared, but there has been little to suggest mining companies are taking investments elsewhere.

Nearly a third of global mineral reserves are in Africa and the continent as a whole offers the highest prospects for unearthing new mineral resources, according to geologists.


GOLD HOT SPOT

Papillon Resources Ltd expects to start construction of the Fekola gold mine in Mali in the next quarter - the same time as it beds down a $650 million merger with B2Gold Corp of Canada.

"Fekola is a $350 million mining investment and we are ready to go," Papillon Managing Director Mark Connelly said.

West Africa remains a "gold industry hot spot", says Ann Ledwidge, an exploration manager for Orbis Gold Ltd, which is constructing three gold mines in Burkina Faso.

"This is the sort of appeal attracting a significant representation of international companies," she said.

In Burkina Faso, Gryphon Minerals Ltd is "on the cusp" of obtaining finance from Australia's Macquarie Bank to help fund construction of a $97 million gold mine, Gryphon Managing Director Steve Zaninovich said.

To reduce the risk of the transmission of Ebola, Rio Tinto, which is spending $3 billion with Chinese partner Chinalco < 3668.HK> on the Simandou iron ore project in Guinea, asks staff who have visited highest-risk areas to stay at home for up to 21 days before returning to work, a company spokesman said.

Perseus Mining, which has mines in Ghana and Ivory Coast, has issued health warnings and barred anyone coming from Guinea, Sierra Leone or Liberia from its sites.

It has also bought infrared heat monitors to take the temperatures of workers to identify anyone running a fever, which could signal infection by the Ebola virus.

"We will do all that we can, but at the end of the day we are a mining company, not medicos," Perseus Managing Director Jeff Quartermaine said.


http://news.yahoo.com/miners-step-safeguards-mineral-rich-africa-amid-ebola-064952972.html