Sierra Leone

WALL STREET JOURNAL by Betsy McKay  June 4, 2015
HARPER, Liberia --The deadly disease may have receded, but it is still exacting a heavy toll. Run-down, poorly staffed and equipped health facilities allowed Ebola to explode.

 Since it was identified in early 2014, the epidemic has claimed the lives of 507 health-care workers in three West African countries, all of which already were short of medical professionals. The health-care system was so overwhelmed with Ebola victims that many other patients couldn’t receive care for malaria, heart disease or pregnancy complications. That bill is coming due.

“There are more people who are going to die from Ebola, but not have Ebola,” says Paul Farmer, a Harvard professor and co-founder of the Boston-based charity Partners in Health.

(Two stories. Scroll down.)
REUTERS by Kate Kelland                                                           June 5, 2015
LONDON -- Global health leaders will ask G7 leaders this weekend to back the creation of a specialist rapid response unit to tackle outbreaks of infectious killer diseases.

The corpse of a patient who passed away is given back to the family for funerals after being decontaminated by the MSF teams. It was washed with chlorine solution and put it in a hermetic bag also disinfected to leave the high risk area.

The move reflects how the World Health Organization in particular was caught unprepared last year by Ebola, which spread through three West African countries, has killed 11,000 people, and will not be stamped out before the end of this year.

Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust global health charity, said the unit should come under the WHO, but be free of bureaucracy and able to act independently "in days" when a potentially fatal epidemic begins...

REUTERS by Maria Caspani                                                                                                June 4, 2015                     

NEW YORK -- The global health system is unable to handle another mass epidemic like the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, Médecins Sans Frontières said, urging wealthy nations to develop coordinated response plans and drugs to fight neglected diseases.

Late and slow international response, the absence of solid leadership as well as the lack of treatments and vaccines are a recurrent scenario in many of today's health emergencies and are not unique to the Ebola epidemic, the medical charity said.

"If a global pandemic were to strike tomorrow, there is still no well-resourced, coordinated international response in place to kick in," Joanne Liu, the international president of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), said in a statement on Wednesday.

Read complete story.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/04/us-global-health-ebola-idUSKBN0OK0MS20150604

 Relief agency sees its mission expanding after leading response to West Africa epidemic.

NATURE by  Erika Check Hayden                          June 3, 2015

GENEVA -- Joanne Liu, president of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), is not overly concerned with diplomacy. Participating in a panel in Geneva, Switzerland, on 20 May with officials from the United Nations, the World Health Organization (WHO), Liberia and Sierra Leone, she propped her head on her hand, stared into space and rolled her eyes during another speaker’s remarks. When she spoke, she excoriated the world for leaving West Africa vulnerable to the largest Ebola epidemic in history. “We’re failing, guys,” she said.

Joanne Liu visiting an MSF trauma centre in Kunduz, Afghanistan.