Ebola News 2/27

[Buster's Uncle]

Obama, Liberian President Sirleaf discuss Ebola recovery
Associated Press
By DARLENE SUPERVILLE  2 hours ago



President Barack Obama meets with Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Friday, Feb. 27, 2015, to discuss the ongoing response to the Ebola outbreak in Western Africa and Liberia's recovery from the deadly virus. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)



WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama said Friday the world has made "extraordinary strides in driving back Ebola" because of the efforts of the U.S., Liberia and other partners.

Addressing reporters before an Oval Office meeting with Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Obama said reported Ebola cases in West Africa, the region hit hardest by the outbreak, are down 95 percent from the peak of the crisis that panicked the world last year. The deadly virus has killed more than 5,000 people and infected more than 14,000 others in West Africa.

Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea were the hardest-hit countries.

Several Americans, including hospital workers in the U.S. and American aid workers overseas, were infected with Ebola but recovered after treatment.

Obama said the outbreak presented an extraordinarily difficult challenge and produced a level of death and destruction not seen in modern history. He praised Sirleaf's handling of the issue, saying that because of her leadership and heroism and efforts by the U.S. "we have made extraordinary strides in driving back Ebola."

"What could have been an even more devastating crisis has been brought under control," he said.



President Barack Obama meets with Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Friday, Feb. 27, 2015, to discuss the ongoing response to the Ebola outbreak in Western Africa and Liberia's recovery from the deadly virus. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)


But in terms of stamping out Ebola, Obama said "our job is not yet done." He said he and Sirlfeaf would talk about how to avoid complacency, given that Ebola remains a threat. Obama said they would also discuss ways to support Liberia's economy, which suffered because of the crisis, and to help rebuild its infrastructure.

Sirleaf thanked Obama for his leadership on the issue, including an effort he undertook to pressure other countries to send money and supplies to West Africa.

"We know that there was fear in this country and we understand that, because we were fearful ourselves," she said, referencing calls for the U.S. to ban travel from the affected region. "We want to thank you for standing firm ... and rallying the American people to see this for what it was."

Sirleaf also agreed with Obama's assessment that there is more to be done to combat Ebola, noting that Sierra Leone and Guinea "have not reached the level of success and progress that we have."

Sirleaf met earlier Friday with Secretary of State John Kerry.


http://news.yahoo.com/obama-meets-liberian-leader-discuss-ebola-recovery-160035627.html

[Buster's Uncle]

U.S. military ends Ebola mission in Liberia
Reuters
By James Harding Giahyue  12 hours ago



Participants wear protective clothing and equipment during training for the Ebola response team at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas October 24, 2014. REUTERS/Darren Abate



MONROVIA (Reuters) - The United States military officially ended a mission to build treatment facilities to combat an Ebola outbreak in Liberia on Thursday, months earlier than expected, in the latest indication that a year-long epidemic in West Africa is waning.

Washington launched the mission five months ago and the force peaked at over 2,800 troops at a time when Liberia was at the epicentre of the worst Ebola epidemic on record.

Nearly 10,000 people have died in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea over the past year. More than 4,000 of those deaths were in Liberia, but the number of new cases has plummeted in recent months, leaving many treatment centres empty and the mission has already begun winding down.

"While our large scale military mission is ending...the fight to get to zero cases will continue and the (Joint Force Command) has ensured capabilities were brought that will be sustained in the future," said U.S. Army Major General Gary Volesky.

The troops were deployed to support the international Ebola response mission led by the U.S. Agency for International Development. The operation was initially expected to last between nine and 12 months, said Volesky, the mission's commander.

Speaking to lawmakers during a visit to Washington on Thursday, Liberia's President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf thanked the United States for its support during the crisis.

U.S. soldiers built treatment centres, set up mobile testing labs, and provided transportation and logistical support. Military medical teams trained around 1,500 local health workers.

"A lot of our health workers of this country died during the course of the Ebola crisis," Liberian nurse Juma Kollie told Reuters. "There was a need to have some attention giving to them. So the American government came in that direction."

The force will withdraw over the coming weeks but more than 100 soldiers would remain in the country for several months to monitor the disease.

"We are not turning our backs. We’re transitioning to a civilian operation that is already supporting more than 10,000 civilians who are working in the region," U.S. Assistant Secretary for African Affairs Linda Thomas Greenfield said on Wednesday.

(Additional reporting by Emma Farge, Writing by Joe Bavier, Editing by Angus MacSwan)


http://news.yahoo.com/u-military-ends-ebola-mission-liberia-073529273.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Decision on Ebola mass vaccination in August at earliest: WHO
Reuters
By Stephanie Nebehay  7 hours ago



The World Health Organization (WHO) logo is pictured at the entrance of its headquarters in Geneva, January 25, 2015. REUTERS/Pierre Albouy



GENEVA (Reuters) - An independent advisory body will decide in August at the earliest on whether to recommend widespread introduction of an Ebola vaccine, depending on results of clinical trials and the epidemic's course, the World Health Organization said on Friday.

All three worst-hit countries in West Africa - Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone - aim to conduct phase III final-stage clinical trials of experimental vaccines.

Liberia is already testing both the GlaxoSmithKline and Merck-NewLink vaccines, while Sierra Leone and Guinea are due to announce plans soon.

Thousands of health care workers and others exposed to the deadly virus have volunteered to take part in the trials, but the question of mass vaccination of wider populations is open.

WHO spokesman Christian Lindmeier, reporting on a three-day meeting of experts, told a news briefing: "Vaccine introduction is by no means a given and will depend on the results of clinical trials and recommendations from WHO's Strategy Advisory Group of Experts (SAGE) on vaccines and immunization.



An Ebola trials notebook is seen in a laboratory during trials for an Ebola vaccine at The Jenner Institute in Oxford, southern England January 16, 2015. REUTERS/Eddie Keogh


"The earliest that the SAGE is expected to make recommendation on a wide-scale introduction is August. Decisions on whether or not to introduce the vaccine will be made by the respective ministries of health of countries."

There are "many unknowns", Lindmeier said. "It will depend on outcomes of clinical trials, evolution of the epidemic etc."

A steep fall in Ebola cases recorded in Liberia will make it hard to prove whether experimental vaccines work in a major clinical trial, meaning some testing may have to be moved to Sierra Leone, the head of the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) said in late January.

WHO spokeswoman Margaret Harris said: "We know the vaccines are safe, we know they produce a good immunogenic response in humans, but we don't know if they are effective when you actually have disease in community."

Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone reported 99 new confirmed Ebola cases in the week to Feb. 22, down from 128 the previous week, the WHO said on Wednesday.

In all, more than 23,500 cases have been reported in the three West African countries, with more than 9,500 deaths, since the world's worst outbreak of Ebola began in December 2013.

(Editing by Alison Williams)


http://news.yahoo.com/decision-widespread-ebola-vaccination-august-earliest-104526866--finance.html

[Buster's Uncle]

This drug blocks Ebola infection in mice, but it's banned everywhere except China
The Verge
Study shows how Ebola enters and infects cells
By Arielle Duhaime-Ross on February 26, 2015 02:00 pm



We’re finally starting to understand how Ebola infects living organisms, which means we’re getting closer to finding a way to stop it. The virus enters and infects cells thanks to channels in the cell’s membrane, according to a study published in Science today — and a molecule found in an Asian herb appears to be able to stop that process in mice.
 
About 23,600 people have been infected with Ebola since the beginning of the outbreak in West Africa, according to the World Health Organization. Of those, 9,500 have died. To curb the outbreak, researchers have been trying to come up with a vaccine — the most likely solution, given the number of Ebola vaccine trials currently underway. But some researchers have opted to take the road less traveled: they’re trying to understand how Ebola infects the cell, so they can protect people who have been exposed. Today's study provides the groundwork for that approach.

In the study, researchers stained cells with a dye to show their anatomy. Then they observed the Ebola virus enter cells using powerful microscopes. They found that a calcium channel called "two-pore channel 2" (TPC2) controls the final stages of Ebola virus entry into the cells. In short, the channel is involved in the release of the virus's genome into the cell — the final step before viral replication.

"We identified a new step in Ebola virus infection process," says Robert Davey, a virologist at the Texas Biomedical Research Institute and a co-author of the study. Blocking this step might therefore result in the virus being destroyed — a side effect that could be exploited to treat people infected with Ebola.

To test this idea, Davey and his team searched for molecules that could block TPC activity. They identified a few, but one drug stood out: tetrandrine, a drug derived from an Asian herb. People in China — the only country where it's approved — use tetrandrine to lower blood pressure in humans. When the drug was given to mice who had been given a lethal dose of Ebola the day before, half of the mice survived. "Tetrandrine was the most potent and caused the least side effects," Davey says.

Figuring out that Ebola needs TPC2 to enter cells "is exciting," says Darryl Falzarano, a virologist at the University of Saskatchewan who didn’t participate in the study. "The data supporting the requirement for TPC2 is really solid," he says. And the mouse experiment shows that this technique could work; blocking TPC activity with tetrandrine appears to trap the Ebola virus in the membrane compartment it’s using to enter the cell. Because it can’t get out to replicate, it’s "destroyed by the cell," Davey says. "This stops infection."

Unfortunately, tetrandrine isn't an ideal drug candidate; it's banned for human use in most countries. Plus, treating a human with a dose equivalent to the one given to the mice could be toxic, according to Falzarano. Moreover, the effectiveness of the drug was reduced in mice when the treatment was delayed by a single day.

Despite these issues, the findings relating to how Ebola enters cells are significant, Davey says. Other research groups have been able to increase survival in mice infected with Ebola using known drugs, but they weren’t able to explain the mechanism behind the survival effect. Understanding the mechanism is a crucial step if you want to make better drugs and gain FDA approval, he says.

These findings have been a long time coming. In 2008, Davey and his team published a study that showed that switching off calcium-sensing proteins stopped Ebola virus infection. "We thought it must be something to do with calcium channels, but we did not know which ones," Davey told The Verge. It wasn’t until 2012 that the researchers realized that TPC proteins were the root cause. And it took an additional two years to understand that TPC proteins were controlling the way the virus moves into cells.

Now that Davey and his team have figured out that tetrandrine can block Ebola infection in mice, the next step will be to test the drug on monkeys. "We are testing the treatment to make sure it is safe in animals and are also looking to see if related compounds have lower side effects." These tests will take quite some time to complete.

"This does not mean we have a miracle treatment," Falzarano says. Blocking TPC activity could form the basis of future drug interventions, but any drug that acts that way would have to be very efficient, he says — so much so "that I think it is unlikely to be successful on its own." Moreover, tetrandrine isn’t an approved drug, so the finding "will have no effect of the ongoing outbreak," he says. We may one day have a drug that can be used to block infection in people who have been exposed to the virus, but that probably won’t happen soon. "I still think that implementing one of the vaccine platforms will have the most significant public health impact," Falzarano says.


http://www.theverge.com/2015/2/26/8114765/ebola-drug-block-infection-banned

[Buster's Uncle]

US, Liberia start 1st formal test of ZMapp Ebola virus drug
US, Liberia start 1st formal patient study of ZMapp, Ebola virus drug used on emergency basis
Associated Press
By Linda a. Johnson, AP Business Writer  1 hour ago



TRENTON, N.J. (AP) -- The U.S. and Liberian governments have just begun the first formal patient testing of an experimental Ebola virus treatment that's previously been used only on an emergency basis.

The drug, ZMapp, contains three genetically engineered proteins designed to hone on a target on the surface of the deadly virus to stop the disease's progression. ZMapp, developed by San Diego-based Mapp Pharmaceuticals Inc., is "grown" in tobacco plants engineered to make large quantities of the virus-blocking proteins.

Adults, as well as children of any age, will be enrolled in the study if they are admitted to Ebola treatment units in Liberia or are health care workers who have returned to the U.S. for treatment after being infected with Ebola while serving in West Africa.

In addition, adults and children who may have acquired Ebola in the United States from contact with an infected person will be enrolled. That has happened to only a handful of Americans so far, most notably two nurses who treated patient Thomas Eric Duncan, who had traveled from Africa and died at a Dallas hospital.

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases said Friday that half the participants will receive three ZMapp injections once a day for three days, with the dose based on the person's weight, along with supportive treatment. The other half, the control group, will only receive supportive treatment, including intravenous fluids, medication for any other infections they get and therapy to maintain blood pressure and sufficient oxygen intake.

Each participant will be monitored for up to a month after hospital discharge, including any follow-up outpatient treatment, and researchers then will compare how well the two groups fare. Such studies — with a control group and patients randomly assigned to one group or another — are considered the gold standard for evaluating a treatment's value.

The goal is to enroll 100 patients in each group, though that may be difficult because there have been so few U.S. cases and the epidemic is waning in Africa, particularly in Liberia. Each patient must agree to participate after the study is fully explained to them.

The study is expected to wrap up in December 2016.

The goal is to then conduct similar studies of five additional experimental Ebola treatments. Meanwhile, at least three potential vaccines against Ebola also are in testing.

ZMapp has previously been given under emergency authorization to a total of nine infected patients in the United States, Western Europe and Africa. Nearly all recovered. In testing in primates, the drug proved potent against the virus and saved animals from death as much as five days after they were infected with the Zaire Ebola strain, the one causing the West Africa outbreak.

The current outbreak is the worst in history. So far, the virus has infected nearly 24,000 people and has killed more than 9,600, according to the most recent numbers from the World Health Organization.


http://news.yahoo.com/us-liberia-start-1st-formal-171524937.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Sierra Leone reports sharp spike in Ebola cases
AFP
By Rod Mac Johnson  February 25, 2015 3:43 PM



Health workers from Sierra Leone's Red Cross Society Burial Team 7 prepare to carry a corpse out of a house in Freetown, on November 12, 2014 (AFP Photo/Francisco Leong)



Freetown (AFP) - Sierra Leone said on Wednesday it was seeing a spike in Ebola infections, blaming unsafe burials that threaten to undermine the recovery from the deadly epidemic.

The west African nation, which has registered some 3,400 deaths in the nine months since the outbreak spread from neighbouring Guinea, had seen a steady decline in new cases over recent months.

But it has warned that the trend was being threatened by people flouting a ban on traditional funeral rites, seen as a key factor in the spread of the highly infectious virus.

Palo Conteh, head of the government's National Ebola Response Centre, told reporters in the capital Freetown that the daily count of infections had risen to a peak of 16 so far this week.

In the previous week the daily tally had dropped as low as two, he said.

"We warned then against complacency and stated clearly that we must anticipate spikes in cases as we strive to get to zero," Conteh added.

"These numbers are rising because people continue to flout the law with impunity."

Ebola, one of the deadliest viruses known to man, is spread only through direct contact with the bodily fluids of the recently deceased or an infected person showing symptoms such as fever or vomiting.

Preventing unsafe burials has been a top priority in the response to the epidemic, yet the World Health Organization (WHO) says Sierra Leone reported 45 in a single week up to February 15.



Health workers putting on their personal protective equipment in the Kenama treatment centre, Sierra Leone, on November 15, 2014 (AFP Photo/Francisco Leong)


Families of victims are supposed to inform the authorities, who ask Red Cross experts dressed in biohazard suits and carrying disinfectant to bury the bodies.

Conteh said funeral homes had also reopened illegally across the country, accepting medical certificates as proof that the deceased were Ebola-free.

"Let me state that the safe medical and dignified burial policy still stands and I am sending a strong warning to all district medical officers, heads of hospitals and municipalities to desist from issuing certificates that permit people to embark on unsafe burials," he said.


- 'Collective duty' -

The WHO said in its latest update on Wednesday that, as of Sunday, 9,589 people had died of Ebola since the epidemic emerged in southern Guinea in December 2013.

Liberia has registered the highest death toll of 4,037 fatal cases while Sierra Leone has seen almost half of the total of 23,694 cases.

While Liberia is showing only a tiny handful of new cases each week, Guinea and Sierra Leone continue to be a worry to the authorities, who say they still do not have the epidemic under control.

Sierra Leone is halfway through a two-week door-to-door operation in the hard-hit Port Loko district, east of Freetown, to find out if families are harbouring Ebola patients or concealing bodies.

Conteh said outreach teams had so far uncovered no new cases.

"We sent in a high-level team to beef up the operation and I am happy to report that there has been all-round cooperation," he said.

Around 25 children were quarantined at the British-run St George Foundation orphanage near Freetown last week after one of its staff was diagnosed with Ebola.

"We are paying particular attention to the residents including the children and assessing the situation daily," Conteh said.

The leaders of all three countries have pledged to eradicate the virus by mid-April.

Guinea said on Wednesday it had launched an awareness campaign in the capital Conakry and several other cities against the practice of unsafe burials.

"One insecure hazardous burial can generate dozens of new cases. We know that we still have sensitive areas and focus our efforts there," said government spokesman Damantang Albert Camara.

"More than ever, vigilance and mobilisation must remain at a maximum. It is a collective and individual duty and a civic responsibility."


http://news.yahoo.com/sierra-leone-reports-sharp-spike-ebola-cases-204336059.html

[Buster's Uncle]

FDA approves Corgenix's Ebola test for emergency use
Reuters  February 26, 2015 10:19 AM



(Reuters) - Diagnostics company Corgenix Medical Corp said on Thursday U.S. health regulators had approved its rapid Ebola test for emergency use, in response to the world's worst outbreak of the virus that killed more than 10,000 so far.

The company's ReEBOV Antigen Rapid Test, which involves putting a drop of blood on a paper strip and waiting for at least 15 minutes for a reaction, was cleared by the World Health Organization last week.

The test is less accurate than the standard test, which has a turnaround time of 12-24 hours, but is easy to perform and does not require electricity. It is able to correctly identify about 92 percent of Ebola-infected patients and 85 percent of those not infected with the virus, the WHO said.

The WHO is still assessing four or five other rapid test candidates.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration cleared Roche Holding AG's Ebola test, which takes up to three hours to generate results, for emergency use late last year.

Earlier this month, German drugmaker Stada said it would launch a test next month that can diagnose Ebola virus infections within minutes.

The FDA's emergency use authorization is not intended for general Ebola screening, Corgenix said.

Corgenix's pink sheet shares were up 3.5 percent at 27 cents in early trading.

(Reporting by Natalie Grover in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel)


http://news.yahoo.com/fda-approves-corgenixs-ebola-test-emergency-143844482--finance.html

[Buster's Uncle]

99 Ebola cases in past week, nearly two-thirds in Sierra Leone: WHO
Reuters  February 26, 2015 2:49 AM



Health workers push a wheeled stretcher holding a newly admitted Ebola patient, 16-year-old Amadou, in to the Save the Children Kerry town Ebola treatment centre outside Freetown, Sierra Leone, December 22, 2014. REUTERS/Baz Ratner



GENEVA (Reuters) - Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone reported 99 new confirmed Ebola cases in the week to Feb. 22, down from 128 the previous week, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday.

Sierra Leone accounted for the bulk of the latest infections with 63, signalling a halt to a steep decline recorded from December through January, followed by Guinea with 35 and Liberia just a single case, the U.N. agency said in its weekly report.

"Cases continue to arise from unknown chains of transmission," the WHO said. Sixteen of the new cases were identified in Guinea and Sierra Leone after post-mortem testing of people who died in the community "indicating that a significant number of individuals are still either unable or reluctant to seek treatment."

In all, more than 23,500 cases have been reported in the three West African countries, with more than 9,500 deaths, since the world's worst outbreak began in December 2013.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay)


http://news.yahoo.com/99-ebola-cases-past-week-nearly-two-thirds-074957697.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Ebola doctor Craig Spencer says media's disease hype was deadly
Vox
Updated by Julia Belluz on February 26, 2015, 11:00 a.m. ET@juliaoftorontojulia.belluz@voxmedia.com



Dr. Craig Spencer, who was diagnosed with Ebola in New York City in October, at a November news conference at New York's Bellevue Hospital after being declared free of the disease.  Spencer Platt/Getty Images



Yesterday, I was on the phone with a Liberian man who survived the world's worst Ebola epidemic. I asked him to rate his fear of the virus during the height of spread in his home city, Monrovia. When he knew little about the disease, he said, he was extremely fearful, even preemptively pulling his children out of their classes before schools across the country shutdown.

But as he learned more, his fears went away. "Ebola is simple," he reasoned, calmly. "Obey the rules and you won't get infected."

Then he said something interesting: "The media hype on Ebola was so much that the fear of Ebola probably killed a lot of people."

He was speaking from experience: his sister-in-law, who was three months pregnant, died because no one would admit her to a hospital when she was having problems with her pregnancy. Irrational fears about the virus, he believes, caused many of the doctors and nurses to walk off the job in Monrovia, and turn otherwise healthy patients like his beloved family member away.

This fear, he said, was entirely whipped up by the media who focused too much on conspiracy theories and pseudoscience and not enough on educating the public about the virus.

He's not the first to observe that the overwrought reactions to this virus had damaging effects. Closer to home, Dr. Craig Spencer — who became infamous for bowling with Ebola in New York — said much the same thing in a new piece in the New England Journal of Medicine.

He too blames the media (and self-serving politicians) for stirring fear and hate, unnecessarily vilifying returning humanitarians like himself despite the fact that we know from science it would have been almost impossible for him to transmit the virus:

After my diagnosis, the media and politicians could have educated the public about Ebola. Instead, they spent hours retracing my steps through New York and debating whether Ebola can be transmitted through a bowling ball. Little attention was devoted to the fact that the science of disease transmission and the experience in previous Ebola outbreaks suggested that it was nearly impossible for me to have transmitted the virus before I had a fever. The media sold hype with flashy headlines — "Ebola: `The ISIS of Biological Agents?'"; "Nurses in safety gear got Ebola, why wouldn't you?"; "Ebola in the air? A nightmare that could happen" — and fabricated stories about my personal life and the threat I posed to public health, abdicating their responsibility for informing public opinion and influencing public policy.

We — the media and the public — need to absorb this Ebola lesson. It applies to every disease and health issue that becomes a matter of public concern. We need to emphasize reason not fear, scientific explanation not conspiracy theory, compassion not derision and hate. Peoples' lives hang in the balance.


http://www.vox.com/2015/2/26/8114299/ebola-media

[Buster's Uncle]

Liberia leader thanks US as Ebola mission ends
AFP
By Jo Biddle  23 hours ago



President Obama is pulling nearly all of the U.S. troops out of Liberia, a little more than two months after their Ebola mission started



Washington (AFP) - Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf paid emotional tribute to the American people on Thursday as the United States formally wound up its successful five-month mission to combat the west African nation's Ebola outbreak.

With Liberia now in recovery from the worst outbreak of the deadly virus in history, the visiting Sirleaf thanked the United States for coming to the region's aid in its hour of need.

"America responded, you did not run from Liberia," Sirleaf told US lawmakers in Washington, expressing the "profound gratitude" of Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone.

Liberia, once the country worst hit by Ebola, has registered 4,037 of around 9,600 deaths in the epidemic, which began in Guinea in December 2013.

At its height in the final four months of last year, Liberia and Sierra Leone were recording between 300 and 550 confirmed, suspect and probable cases a week.

It was in some of the darkest days in August when the Liberian leader said she reached out to US President Barack Obama and to the US Congress amid "grim and terrifying" international predictions that before the end of January at least 20,000 people would die every month.



Ebola survivor James Mulbah, 2, stands with his mother, Tamah Mulbah, 28, who also recovered from Ebola in the low-risk section of the Doctors Without Borders (MSF), Ebola treatment center after survivors' meeting on October 16, 2014 in Paynesville, Liberia. (John Moore/Getty Images)


But with US help, including a military force which reached 2,800 personnel at one point, there are now only one to three new infections each week in Liberia.



US soldiers stand in front of an Ebola treatment center built by the United States army in Tubmanburg, the provincial capital of Bomi County in western Liberia on November 10, 2014 (AFP Photo/Zoom Dosso)


- 'Ran towards danger' -


"We are chasing the very last element of the chain of transmission we have," Sirleaf said, praising all the international and regional military and aid workers who "reached beyond their fears and ran towards the danger and not from it."



US soldiers of the 101st Airborne Division case their colours during a ceremony at the Barclay Training Camp in Monrovia on February 26, 2015 (AFP Photo/Zoom Dosso)


Sirleaf is due to meet Obama at the White House on Friday to discuss the Ebola response and the gruelling task of economic recovery.

The US military wrapped up its operation at a ceremony in Monrovia earlier Thursday, although some troops will remain for several weeks.

"The importance of the progress we see today means more than just the reduction in the number of new or suspected cases of Ebola," said mission commander Major General Gary Volesky.

"This progress is also about Liberians being able to get back to a normal way of life."

The Pentagon says around 100 US troops are to remain in the region to strengthen "disease preparedness and surveillance capacity" of local governments.



A student washes her hands before heading to her classroom at Don Bosco High School as schools reopen in the Liberian capital Monrovia on February 16, 2015 (AFP Photo/Zoom Dosso)


The latest data from the World Health Organization shows fewer than 400 new Ebola cases across the three countries in the three weeks to Sunday.

But while cases continue to arise from unknown chains of transmission in Guinea and infection remains widespread in Sierra Leone, the recovery is much further advanced in Liberia.


- Infections plummet -

Authorities in Monrovia reported just one new confirmed case nationwide in the week to Sunday -- a registered contact associated with a known chain of transmission in the capital.

Government spokesman Isaac Jackson said the number of patients being treated in Liberia's 19 Ebola treatment centres had dropped to as low as two last week.

"This is an indication that Liberia is making significant progress in the fight against Ebola," he told state radio.

When an American who travelled to Liberia died from the virus last year, public fears spiked in the US, and Washington officials scrambled to take measures to prevent any possible outbreak.

Volesky said the mission was originally expected to last up to 18 months, rotating thousands of troops.

The US forces, the vast majority of whom were stationed in Liberia, constructed Ebola treatment units, trained 1,500 health workers, provided logistical support for aid agencies and set up labs to test blood samples.

Although US troops in Liberia and Senegal had no contact with patients, the Pentagon has placed all military personnel returning from west Africa in quarantine as a precaution.

Officials so far have not detected the virus in any US soldier that worked in the region.


http://news.yahoo.com/us-wraps-ebola-military-mission-liberia-151753224.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Emergency responders investigate possible Virginia Ebola case
Reuters  February 26, 2015 1:05 PM



WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Medics, firefighters and a hazardous materials team investigated a possible case of the deadly Ebola virus in a Virginia suburb of Washington on Thursday, an official said.

Emergency crews transported a patient from an apartment in the Clarendon section of Arlington County to Virginia Hospital Center using Ebola precautions, said Lieutenant Sarah-Maria Marchegiani of the county's fire department.

Marchegiani said the patient had recently traveled to a country affected by Ebola and exhibited symptoms of the disease.

The patient was unlikely to be suffering from the disease, Marchegiani said.

Nearly 10,000 people have died from Ebola in the West African nations of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, the three countries hit hardest by the outbreak.

At least 10 people are known to have been treated for Ebola in the United States, and two people are known to have contracted the virus in the United States.

Calls to the hospital were not immediately returned.

(Reporting By Lisa Lambert and John Clarke; Editing by Bill Trott and Will Dunham)


http://news.yahoo.com/emergency-responders-investigating-possible-ebola-case-virginia-local-170546894.html