Conakry

MONROVIA, Liberia — The U.N. chief on Saturday appointed a new head of the emergency mission responding to West Africa’s Ebola crisis amid hopes that the world’s deadliest outbreak of the virus will soon come to an end.

A statement from Ban Ki-moon’s office said Peter Jan Graaff of the Netherlands will work closely with David Nabarro, the U.N.’s special Ebola envoy, in addressing an epidemic that has claimed more than 10,000 lives in the three hardest-hit countries: Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone.

Outgoing head Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed was appointed as special envoy to Yemen on Saturday.

Graaff had been serving since October as the U.N.’s Ebola crisis manager in Liberia, which has recorded more Ebola deaths than any other country.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/africa/un-chief-names-new-head-of-ebola-mission-as-outbreak-calms/2015/04/25/46ba3320-eb84-11e4-8581-633c536add4b_story.html

DEVEX byAlison  Campbell                                                                          April 23, 2015

The Ebola crisis in West Africa was quickly recognized as being driven as much by misinformation and rumors as by weaknesses in the health care system. Mohamed Komah interviews an Ebola survivor at the Donka Ebola treatment center in Conakry, Guinea. Photo by: Internews

International response agencies invested significant resources in rolling out the Social Mobilization and Community Engagement drive, a wide-scale intensive social behavior change communication campaign. The result was a massive and rather poorly coordinated blast of messaging shared on billboards, in print, on radio and TV, through health outreach workers and community organizations, via SMS and call-in hotlines.

A preliminary assessment done by Internews in November found more than 300 types of social mobilization and messaging systems in the three worst-affected countries: Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone. This chaotic information landscape consisted mainly of information “out,” with little opportunity for community dialogue....

AFP 

(Scroll down for complete WHO report                                                                                         April 22, 2015

Geneva - More than 26,000 people have been infected with Ebola since the outbreak began and more than 10,800 have died, the World Health Organization said Wednesday.

The UN health body also warned that the decline in confirmed cases appeared to have stagnated, urging increased efforts to stop transmission of the deadly virus.

In all, 26,079 people have contracted the disease over the past 16 months, and 10,823 of them have died, almost all of them in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone....

In the week leading to April 19, 33 new confirmed cases were reported, with 21 in Guinea, 12 in Sierra Leone and none in Liberia.

That compares to 37 new confirmed cases the week before, and 30 the week before that....

ALL AFRICA by Sarah Naraghi                    April 2, 2015

(Scroll down for releated report and story.)

Research on potential Ebola vaccines should seek to protect great apes as well as humans to prevent the disease from decimating gorilla and chimpanzee populations, say experts.

                   Chimps play at the on Tacugama Sanctuary in Sierra Leone which is under threat of closure

Work is continuing on trials of potential Ebola vaccines and the rate of fresh cases of the disease in the West African outbreak is slowing.

But unrelated outbreaks among Central Africa's great ape populations could happen at any time, says a report from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). The study estimates that Ebola has wiped out thousands of gorillas and chimpanzees since the early 2000s, with some rainforests experiencing a 90 per cent decline in their great ape populations...