Health-care workers struggle to help people who have been traumatized by the epidemic.

The Ebola epidemic in West Africa may be fading, but its impact on mental health could linger for years. Survivors are often haunted by traumatic memories and face rejection by society when they return home, and those who never contracted the disease may grieve for lost relatives or struggle to cope with extreme anxiety.

The trauma caused by death and fear is having long-term ramifications on the people of Sierra Leone.

THE GUARDIAN  by  Lisa O'Carroll                                                                        March 4, 2015

The devastating impact of the Ebola crisis was laid bare this week with a report showing more than 12,000 children have been orphaned by the disease in Sierra Leone.

They have been identified in the first national survey of orphans, which was conducted by the British charity Street Child. It says the future for these children is dire. Many are living in fear without the support and security of parents, but the charity says there is light at the end of the tunnel “if the international aid community works together”.

The charity found that some children, rejected by their friends because of the stigma of Ebola, have tried to take their own lives, while girls are being forced into commercial sex work to earn money for food their parents would have previously provided.

Investment in universal healthcare: Improving health systems in three Ebola-hit African countries would have cost a third of relief effort there, says new Save the Children report

THE GUARDIAN      by Lisa O'Connell                                                                   March 3, 015
Up to 30 countries are vulnerable to an Ebola-style epidemic, unless the world sits up and helps get urgent investment into universal healthcare, a report (pdf) has found.

Health workers who have returned from west Africa and colleagues based in the UK walk to Westminster in support of Save the Children’s campaign to strengthen health systems globally. Photograph: Jeff Moore/Save the Children

REUTERS    by Emma Farge                                                                                      March 2, 2015

Five health officials and experts familiar with the incidents said the mistakes occurred at two different treatment centers and resulted as many as 52 botched tests, exposing many others to the virus and revealing weaknesses in Guinea's response to the crisis.

Dr Sakoba Keita, Guinea's anti-Ebola coordinator, confirmed the mistake had occurred but gave lower figures. He said in an emailed response to questions that 23 patients were affected, of whom four tested positive when they were retested and two died....

 Health officials, some of whom asked not to be named because they were worried about embarrassing the Guinean government, said the mistakes took place in Coyah, where Cuban medics are supporting a government-run center, and in Conakry, where medical charity Medicins Sans Frontieres runs another center at the Donka hospital complex, when staff placed blood samples in the wrong test tubes, damaging specimens.