This mornings key headlines from GenerationalDynamics • Liberia announces end of Ebola state of emergency • Ebola cluster growing in Mali, hundreds possibly exposed • U.S. scaling back troop presence in Liberia Liberia announces end of Ebola state of emergency A woman crawls toward the body of her sister as a burial team takes her away for cremation on October 10 in Monrovia, Liberia. The sister had died from Ebola earlier in the morning while trying to walk to a treatment center. (Getty / CNN) Liberias President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf announced that Liberias Ebola state of emergency, imposed in August, would not be extended. There is some evidence that the rate of growth of new Ebola cases in Liberia has begun to level off, justifying the end of the state of emergency, which was supposed to control the Ebola outbreak by curbing movement of people in worst-hit areas of the country. In one particular region of Liberia, Lofa County, Ebola cases have plummeted. Thats because Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF, Doctors without Borders) developed a strategy where health-care workers developed trusting relations with people in all the villages in the county, and were able to change behaviors. However, its hard for me, at least, to see any reason for less concern. According to the latest World Health Organization (WHO) Ebola situation report, the number of cases in Liberia increased from 4665 to 6878, or an almost 50% increase, in the 17 days from October 25 to November 11. Thats still pretty much the same rate of doubling every month, so I dont see what the difference is. And even if the number of cases in Liberia is leveling off a little, WHO reports that the number of new Ebola cases is still surging in Sierra Leona. BBC and Washington Post and WHO Ebola Situation Report, 14-Nov-2014 Ebola cluster growing in Mali, hundreds possibly exposed It now appears that an Ebola cluster is growing in Bamako, the capital city of Mali. So far, there have been only four cases and four deaths. However, hundreds of other people may have been exposed. The chain of transmission was started by a 70-year-old man living in a town along Guinea’s border with Mali. He was sick, but no one tested him for Ebola. He traveled by car to Bamako, where he was treated in a local hospital and died. Because of his religious status as a Grand Imam, his body was treated with a ritual washing ceremony, and then sent back to his home in Guinea for a traditional funeral. Hundreds of people were in contact with the body, and Ebola wasnt recognized until the nurse who treated him was diagnosed with Ebola. Health workers in Mali are now doing contact tracing in a panicked state, hoping to stop the spread of Ebola in Mali, and keep it from joining Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea as entire countries in chaos, devastated by Ebola. We wont know until at least the end of the year whether theyre successful. NPR and Reuters and NBC U.S. scaling back troop presence in Liberia The Pentagon doesnt plan to deploy the full 4,000 U.S. troops to Liberia as had been previously announced. Instead, the current 2,200 troops will grow to nearly 3,000 by mid-December. The troops have been tasked with building 17 100-bed treatment centers for Ebola, and have already built a 25-bed facility for medical personnel who contract the disease. NBC News KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Liberia, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Médecins Sans Frontières, MSF, Doctors without Borders, World Health Organization, WHO, Lofa County, Mali, Bamako, Guinea, Sierra Leone Permanent web link to this article Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Posted on: Sat, 15 Nov 2014 18:38:36 +0000
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