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Ebola death toll rises to 7,588 globally, WHO says – Business – CBC News
Ebola death toll rises to 7,588 globally, WHO says – Business – CBC News.
The global death toll from Ebola has risen to 7,588 out of 19,497 confirmed cases recorded in the year-old epidemic raging in West Africa, the World Health Organization (WHO) says.
The virus is still spreading intensely in Sierra Leone, especially in the north and west, with 315 new confirmed cases reported in the former British colony in the week to December 21, it said. These included 115 cases in the capital Freetown.
“The neighbouring district of Port Loko experienced a surge in new cases, reporting 92 confirmed cases compared with 56 the previous week,” the WHO said.
In Sierra Leone, information about how to prevent and treat Ebola was provided to more than 5,000 households between 10 and 17 December as part of a major awareness campaign, it said.
In Guinea, 156 confirmed cases were recorded during the same period, “the highest weekly case incidence reported by the country in this outbreak”, the WHO said.
“This largely due to a surge in cases in the south-eastern district of Kissidougou, which reported 58 confirmed cases – one-third of cases reported in the country in the past week.”
Sierra Leone orders lockdown over Ebola – Africa – Al Jazeera English
Sierra Leone orders lockdown over Ebola – Africa – Al Jazeera English.
The Sierra Leone government has declared a five-day lockdown in the country’s north to step up efforts to contain the Ebola epidemic, while making an exception for Christmas.
The lockdown is designed to intensify the containment of the Ebola virus, the government said on Wednesday.
“Muslims and Christians are not allowed to hold services in mosques and churches throughout the lockdown except for Christians on Christmas Day [Thursday],” Alie Kamara, resident minister for the Northern Region, told the AFP news agency.
“We are working to break the chain of transmission,” he said.
Ebola death toll in three African countries hits 7,373: WHO | Reuters
Ebola death toll in three African countries hits 7,373: WHO | Reuters.
The death toll from Ebola in the three worst-affected countries in West Africa has risen to 7,373 among 19,031 cases known to date there, the World Health Organization said on Saturday.
The latest data, posted overnight on the WHO website, reflected nearly 500 new deaths from the worst ever outbreak of the hemorrhagic fever in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone since previous WHO figures were issued on Dec. 17.
Sierra Leone accounts for the most cases, 8,759, against 7,819 for Liberia. But Sierra Leone’s death toll of 2,477 is far less than 3,346 recorded in Liberia, leading some experts to question the credibility of the figures reported by Freetown.
Sierra Leone’s government this week launched a major operation to contain the epidemic in West Africa’s worst-hit country.
President Ernest Bai Koroma said on national television that travel between all parts of the country had been restricted as part of “Operation Western Area Surge”, and public gatherings would be strictly controlled in the run-up to Christmas.
Top Sierra Leone doctor dies of Ebola – Africa – Al Jazeera English
Top Sierra Leone doctor dies of Ebola – Africa – Al Jazeera English.
One of Sierra Leone’s most senior physicians has died from Ebola, the 11th doctor in the country to succumb to the disease, a health official said.
Dr. Victor Willoughby, who tested positive for Ebola on Saturday, died on Thursday, Dr. Brima Kargbo, the country’s chief medical officer said.
“Dr. Victor Willoughby was a mentor to us physicians and a big loss to the medical profession,” said Kargbo.
“He has always been available to help junior colleagues.”
The 67-year-old died just hours after an experimental drug arrived in the country for him.
The arrival of ZMAb, developed in Canada, had raised hopes for Willoughby’s survival. But he died before a dose could be administered, said Kargbo.
UN says Ebola-hit nations at risk of hunger – Africa – Al Jazeera English
UN says Ebola-hit nations at risk of hunger – Africa – Al Jazeera English.
Up to one million people are at risk of going hungry in West African nations battling the Ebola virus due to border closures, quarantines and crop losses, UN food agencies have said.
The deadly haemorrhagic fever that has killed 6,800 people has severely disrupted daily life in the worst-hit nations of Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone. Guinea and Sierra Leone have gone so far as to ban Christmas celebrations.
The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation and the World Food Programme said on Wednesday the disease and the resulting restrictions had “caused a significant shock to the food and agriculture sectors in the affected countries”.
“The loss of productivity and household income due to Ebola-related deaths and illness as well as people staying away from work, for fear of contagion, is compounding an economic slowdown in the three countries,” the agencies said in a joint statement.
Restrictions put in place to curb the disease were also “seriously hindering people’s access to food, threatening their livelihoods, disrupting food markets and processing chains, and exacerbating shortages stemming from crop losses”.
Ebola outbreak: Sierra Leone to search house-to-house for patients – World – CBC News
Ebola outbreak: Sierra Leone to search house-to-house for patients – World – CBC News.
Sierra Leone said it would start house-to-house searches for Ebola patients on Wednesday and impose internal travel restrictions as part of a new push to combat the epidemic.
Health workers will seek Ebola victims and anyone with whom they have had contact, transporting those infected to new British-built treatment centres, according to a government plan announced this week.
Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia are at the heart of the world’s worst recorded outbreak of Ebola. Rates of infection are rising fastest in Sierra Leone and the country has more than half of the 18,000 confirmed cases of the virus.
- CBC’s Ebola coverage
- Ebola outbreak: Mali’s last known case released
- Canadian-developed Ebola vaccine trial suspended
President Ernest Bai Koroma said that under the measures, worshippers on Christmas Day must return home after services, and other festivities are banned. New Year’s Eve services must stop by 5 p.m. local time, while New Year’s Day festivities are prohibited.
“This is the festive season where Sierra Leoneans often celebrate with families in a flamboyant and joyous manner, but all must be reminded that our country is at war with a vicious enemy,” he said in a nationwide address.
Sierra Leone district faces Ebola lockdown – Africa – Al Jazeera English
Sierra Leone district faces Ebola lockdown – Africa – Al Jazeera English.
Authorities in Sierra Leone have imposed a two-week lockdown in the eastern district of Kono after health workers uncovered a surge of Ebola infections in the area where the epidemic was thought to be largely under control.
The worst outbreak of Ebola on record has killed 6,533 people in the three West African countries most hit by the disease – Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea – and infected 18,118 people, the World Health Organization [WHO] said on Thursday.
Sierra Leone, with a shortage of treatment centres and trained staff, has overtaken Liberia as the worst affected nation, and until now, the recent spread was believed to be centred on western areas around the capital Freetown.
However, the WHO said on Wednesday that it had found bodies piled up at the only hospital in Kono, a district of about 350,000 people bordering Guinea.
Officials from the WHO, health ministry and US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) discovered 87 bodies had been buried in 11 days.
Night-time curfew
Kono District Ebola Response Centre said it was placing the area on lockdown, allowing only essential vehicles in and out and introducing a night-time curfew.
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BBC News – Ebola crisis: Sierra Leone bodies found piled up in Kono
BBC News – Ebola crisis: Sierra Leone bodies found piled up in Kono.
Health officials in Sierra Leone have discovered scores of bodies in a remote diamond-mining area, raising fears that the scale of the Ebola outbreak may have been underreported.
The World Health Organization said they uncovered a “grim scene” in the eastern district of Kono.
A WHO response team had been sent to Kono to investigate a sharp rise in Ebola cases.
Ebola has killed 6,346 people in West Africa, with more than 17,800 infected.
Sierra Leone has the highest number of Ebola cases in West Africa, with 7,897 cases since the beginning of the outbreak.
Continue reading the main story
Ebola deaths in West Africa
Up to 3 – 6 December
6,346
Deaths – probable, confirmed and suspected
(Includes one in the US and six in Mali)
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3,177 Liberia
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1,742 Sierra Leone
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1,412 Guinea
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8 Nigeria
The WHO said in a statement on Wednesday that over 11 days in Kono, “two teams buried 87 bodies, including a nurse, an ambulance driver, and a janitor drafted into removing bodies as they piled up”.
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BBC News – Ebola outbreak: Virus still ‘running ahead of us’, says WHO
BBC News – Ebola outbreak: Virus still ‘running ahead of us’, says WHO.
The Ebola virus that has killed thousands in West Africa is still “running ahead” of efforts to contain it, the head of the World Health Organization has said.
Director general Margaret Chan said the situation had improved in some parts of the worst-affected countries, but she warned against complacency.
The risk to the world “is always there” while the outbreak continues, she said.
She said the WHO and the international community failed to act quickly enough.
The death toll in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone stands at 6,331. More than 17,800 people have been infected, according to the WHO.
“In Liberia we are beginning to see some good progress, especially in Lofa county [close to where the outbreak first started] and the capital,” said Dr Chan.
Cases in Guinea and Sierra Leone were “less severe” than a couple of months ago, but she said “we are still seeing large numbers of cases”.
‘Hunting the virus’
Dr Chan said: “It’s not as bad as it was in September. But going forward we are now hunting the virus, chasing after the virus. Hopefully we can bring [the number of cases] down to zero.”
The official figures do not show the entire picture of the outbreak. In August, the WHO said the numbers were “vastly under-estimated”, due to people not reporting illnesses and deaths from Ebola.
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Ebola Fight Sees Canadian Forces Medical Team Deployed To Sierra Leone
Ebola Fight Sees Canadian Forces Medical Team Deployed To Sierra Leone.
A Canadian Forces medical team left CFB Trenton in Ontario on Saturday en route to Britain, where they’ll undergo training before deploying to Sierra Leone as part of the effort to combat the Ebola outbreak, the military said.
The Forces said about 40 nurses, doctors, physicians’ assistants, medics and support are to train alongside U.K. military personnel, and most of them will continue on to Sierra Leone by later this month.
“There’s no question it’s a little scary, but we also have very good training and we’re a team. We’ll be working with the British and will be there to help people,” said Cpl. Lisa Ouellette before departing for the U.K.
Lt. Melanie Espina, a physician, said contagion risks are minimal “when proper equipment is worn.”
Treating health workers
The Canadian Forces team will be working at a British-built clinic in Sierra Leone treating local and international health care workers, who themselves have become infected in the course of treating Ebola patients from the general population.
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Belgian expert: WHO messed up Ebola response – Africa – Al Jazeera English
Belgian expert: WHO messed up Ebola response – Africa – Al Jazeera English.
A Belgian scientist who helped discover Ebola in 1976 has accused the World Health Organisation (WHO) of mismanaging the current outbreak response.
Peter Piot, an award-winning microbiologist, told Al Jazeera that “we wasted too much precious time”.
“It took three months for the WHO to find out there was an Ebola outbreak. That I understand. Guinea had a poor laboratory infrastructure,” said Piot in an interview due to be aired on Saturday.
“I have much more of a problem with the fact that it took five months for WHO, for the international health regulations committee, for that’s what it is, to declare this a state of emergency.
“It took a thousand dead Africans and two Americans who were repatriated to the US because they were infected. There’s no excuse for that… It took too long.”
Tarik Jasarevic, a spokesman for WHO, told Al Jazeera by email that “declaring a public health emergency of international cncern is not a measure of WHO’s operational response”.
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2014 Goals for Ebola Treatment May Not Be Met, U.N. Health Officials Say – NYTimes.com
2014 Goals for Ebola Treatment May Not Be Met, U.N. Health Officials Say – NYTimes.com.
GENEVA — The World Health Organizationexpressed doubt on Monday about achieving important United Nationsbenchmarks in battling Ebola, saying the year-end goals of isolating and treating all patients and safely burying all the dead would be major challenges.
However, the W.H.O. said, significant progress has been made in reversing the upward trajectory of Ebola cases in many places across the three West African countries ravaged by the disease.
Among the biggest challenges now, the agency’s top official for the Ebola response said, is to track down every person potentially exposed. To do this, the organization plans to nearly double the number of its experts on the ground to assist 20,000 community health workers.
“To get to zero you have to find every case,” the official, Bruce Aylward, assistant director general for emergencies, told reporters at a briefing here.
The geography of Ebola has shifted, further complicating the efforts to eradicate it: For instance, in Guinea, Ebola is now thought to be in nearly twice as many districts as it was just two months ago, when the United Nations established a new mission to coordinate the international response. And in Sierra Leone, Ebola is ravaging the western part of the country, while only a handful of new cases are surfacing in previous hot spots.
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WHO reports sharp rise in Ebola deaths – Africa – Al Jazeera English
WHO reports sharp rise in Ebola deaths – Africa – Al Jazeera English.
The death toll from the worst Ebola outbreak on record has reached nearly 7,000 in West Africa, according to the World Health Organisation.
The toll of 6,928 dead showed a leap of just over 1,200 since the WHO released its previous report on Wednesday, according to a Reuters news agency report.
The UN health agency did not provide any explanation for the abrupt increase, but the figures, published on its website, appeared to include previously unreported deaths.
A WHO spokesperson was not immediately available for comment.
Just over 16,000 people have been diagnosed with Ebola since the outbreak was confirmed in the forests of remote southeastern Guinea in March, according to the WHO data that covered the three hardest-hit countries.
Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia have accounted for all but 15 of the deaths in the outbreak, which has touched five other countries, according to previous WHO figures.
In a separate development, Sierra Leone will soon see a dramatic increase in desperately needed treatment beds, but it is not clear who will staff them, a top UN official in the fight against the disease has said.
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Despite Aid Push, Ebola Is Raging in Sierra Leone – NYTimes.com
Despite Aid Push, Ebola Is Raging in Sierra Leone – NYTimes.com.
KISSI TOWN, Sierra Leone — Military choppers thunder over the slums. Nearly a thousand British soldiers are on the scene, ferrying supplies and hammering together new Ebola clinics. Crates of food and medicine are flowing into the port, and planeloads of experts seem to arrive every day — Ugandan doctors, Chinese epidemiologists, Australian logisticians, even an ambulance specialist from London.
But none of it was reaching Isatu Sesay, a sick teenager. She flipped on her left side, then her right, writhing on a foam mattress, moaning, grimacing, mumbling and squinching her eyes in agony as if she were being stabbed. Her family and neighbors called an Ebola hotline more than 35 times, desperate for an ambulance.
For three days straight, Isatu’s mother did not leave her post on the porch, face gaunt, arms slack, eyes fixed up the road toward the capital, Freetown, where the Ebola command center was less than 45 minutes away.
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UN: Deadline to curb Ebola will not be met – Africa – Al Jazeera English
UN: Deadline to curb Ebola will not be met – Africa – Al Jazeera English.
A deadline of December 1 to contain the Ebola virus will not be fully met due to escalating numbers of cases in Sierra Leone and elsewhere, the UN Ebola Emergency Response Mission which had set the target, said.
The mission set the goal in September, seeking to have 70 percent of Ebola patients under treatment and 70 percent of Ebola victims safely buried. That target will be achieved in some areas, head of UNMEER Anthony Banbury told Reuters news agency, citing progress in Liberia.
“We are going to exceed the December 1 targets in some areas. But we are almost certainly going to fall short in others. In both those cases, we will adjust to what the circumstances are on the ground,” he said in an interview.
Banbury has said the areas of greatest concern are in rural parts of Sierra Leone as well as the city of Makeni in the centre of the country and Port Loko in the northwest.
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