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What an Ebola curfew looks like

Killian Doherty, an Irish architect working for the Architectural Field Office (AFO), has been in Sierra Leone’s capital, Freetown, for much of the Ebola epidemic. He documented the curfews in some dramatic photographs

THE GUARDIAN by Killian Doherty and René Boer for Failed Architecture                                   Dec. 15, 2014

FREETOWN -- Sierra Leone has been severely affected by Ebola. Over the last six months, the country has seen a high death toll, immense human suffering and a wide range of restrictive measures that have hampered economic and urban life. Most dramatically, in Sierra Leone’s capital, Freetown, the authorities have instituted a set of curfews that have forced residents to stay at home, resulting in a seemingly deserted city. 

 

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Ebola-Zone Airline Capacity to Outside World Declines Up to 81%

BLOOMBERG by Chris Jasper and Simeon Bennett                                                                          Dec. 15, 2014

The number of airline seats on offer between Liberia, the African nation with the most deaths from the Ebola outbreak, and the outside world has dropped 81 percent in the past year, according to official capacity figures.

Seat availability to Sierra Leone will be 75 percent lower in January than it was a year earlier, while the total for Guinea will be down 39 percent, flight scheduling database provider OAG said today in a report.

Kenyan health officials prepare to receive arriving passengers at an observation area at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi on Oct. 28. The number of flights in the Ebola zone has plummeted after outside carriers scrapped services in response to the spread of the disease... Photographer:Tony Karumba/AFP via Getty Images

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They survived Ebola only to become social outcasts

USA TODAY  by Greg Zoroya                                                                                          Dec. 13, 2014

MONROVIA, Liberia — Landlords won't rent to them. Employers won't hire them. Taxi drivers won't give them a lift. Barber shops refuse to cut their hair without gloves.

Juliet Boima, 19, a survivor who works at the ebola clinic since she is immune now. Despite being unable to contract ebola, she still must wear protective gear to eliminate the chance that she could carry the virus to someone else.(Photo: Gregory H Stemn for USA TODAY)

They are Ebola survivors. In one place where they are desperately needed as workers, Ebola treatment clinics, many survivors have nightmarish memories of barely staying alive.

Thousands of West Africans have beaten the odds and survived Ebola. More than 6,500 people have died in the outbreak, and only 30% who have contracted Ebola have survived the aggressive disease that robs the body of fluids and causes major organs to fail.

Most who emerge from the clinics fully recovered discover a cruel society eager to distance itself from them and the plague.

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Ebola Survivors Face Hardships, But New Programs Help

LIVE SCIENCE  by Rachel Rettner                                                                                  Dec. 12, 2014

Ebola survivors in West Africa are often shunned by their communities, and they have few possessions because many of their personal belongings are destroyed to prevent the disease from spreading.

But several organizations are working to help Ebola survivors make the transition back into their communities — for example, by providing them with bedding and other basic items, and speaking with community members to reduce the stigma, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Survivors are thought to be immune to the strain of Ebola causing the current outbreak, and many now work as caregivers for those with Ebola, the report said.

Read complete story.
http://www.livescience.com/49110-ebola-survivor-support.html

A 2014 photograph of a West African Ebola treatment cente. Credit CDC

 

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Contest Seeks Novel Tools for the Fight Against Ebola

NEW YORK TIMES  by Donald G. McNeil, Jr.                                                                              Dec. 13, 2014

NEW YORK --The well-prepared Ebola fighter in West Africa may soon have some new options: protective gear that zips off like a wet suit, ice-cold underwear to make life inside the sweltering suits more bearable, or lotions that go on like bug spray and kill or repel the lethal virus.

A prototype for one of the protective suits in contention for the U.S.A.I.D. "Grand Challenges" award. Credit John Hopkins University/Jhpiego

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The fight against Ebola: Exorcising the ghostly fever

In-depth description of the evolution of the Ebola crisis

THE ECONOMIST                                                                                                                               Dec. 13, 2014

AKPOIMA AND FREETOWN--Slowly and messily, the struggle against the virus is being won

 Read complete story.

http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21636081-slowly-and-messily-struggle-against-virus-being-won-exorcising

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Ebola outbreak: weaknesses in health-care systems in Liberia, Sierra Leone revealed

CANADIAN BROADCASTING CORP                                                                                               Dec. 11, 2014

GENEVA --Ebola in West Africa has made it almost impossible for people to get treatment for other ailments, health ministers from the three worst affected countries say.

The health systems in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea were barely functional before the Ebola outbreak struck.

Liberia's Chief Medical Officer, Bernice Dahn, said the country's Ebola outbreak needs to be contained and routine health-care services need to be revived.

Liberia's Chief Medical Officer, Bernice Dahn, said the country's Ebola outbreak needs to be contained and routine health-care services need to be revived. (Martial Trezzini/Keystone/Associated Press)

"We want to expand the health workforce because it's crucial for providing quality health care," Dr. Bernice Dahn, Liberia’s chief medical officer, told World Health Organization in Geneva today....

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The Path to Zero Ebola Cases

Op-ed

NEW YORK TIMES by Jim Yong Kim, President of the World Bank Group      Dec. 11, 2014                                              

MONROVIA, Liberia — In my career as a medical doctor and global health policy maker, I have been in the middle of monumental struggles, including fights to make treatment accessible in the developing world for those living with H.I.V./AIDS as well as multi-drug resistant tuberculosis. But the Ebola epidemic is the worst I’ve ever seen...

Members of District 13 ambulance service disinfect a room in a village north of Monrovia, Liberia. Credit Jerome Delay/Associated Press

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UN Says Several Months Needed to Control Ebola

ASSOCIATED PRESS by EDITH M. LEDERER                       Dec. 11, 2014

UNITED NATIONS-- The U.N. Ebola chief said Thursday it will take several more months before the outbreak in West Africa is under control, an assessment that makes clear the World Health Organization's goal of isolating 100 percent of Ebola cases by Jan. 1 won't be met.

Dr. David Nabarro said there has been "a massive shift" over the last four months in the way affected governments have taken the lead in responding to the epidemic, communities are taking action and the international community has pitched in.

But he said greater efforts are needed to combat Ebola in western Sierra Leone and northern Mali, to reduce the number of new cases in Liberia and to limit transmission to Mali.

WHO conceded that it didn't meet an interim Dec. 1 target of isolating 70 percent of Ebola patients and safely burying 70 percent of victims in hardest-hit Sierra Leone. But it hasn't made clear what that means for its Jan. 1 goal, which it set in September. It has acknowledged that its patchy data could compromise the goal, since the agency does not know how many Ebola patients there actually are and is unable to track all of their contacts.

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