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Here are the stories you need to know on Ebola response and recovery!
1. New Ebola Case Sets Liberia Back
A new confirmed case of Ebola was recorded in Liberia last Friday, just as Liberia was more than halfway through its countdown to 42 days with no new diagnoses.
"Ebola Must Go" in Monrovia, Liberia | UNMIL / Emmanuel Tobey
The patient is a 44-year-old woman from the Caldwell area near Monrovia, who first developed symptoms around March 15, the New York Times reports. She works as a food seller at nearby schools, and told officials she did not know how she became infected.
“If she has not travelled out of the country, there is no contact, there is no source,” Dr. Francis Kateh, acting head of the Liberia Ebola Case Management Team, told the Associated Press.
A total of 86 contacts have been placed in quarantine, Front Page Africa reports.
2. After Last Week's New Case, Sexual Transmission Concerns Liberians
Concerns about the risk of sexual transmission of Ebola are growing in Liberia, after last week's new case of the virus.
Vaccination Campaign in Monrovia, Liberia | UNMEER / Aalok Kanani
The patient, a 44-year-old woman from the Caldwell community of Monrovia, reportedly has a boyfriend who is an Ebola survivor. The Liberian government has said it fears she contracted the virus through sexual transmission.
But information minister Lewis Brown told the Monrovia daily Front Page Africa that the government is wary of widely disseminating information regarding sexual transmission, for fear of further stigmatizing survivors.
Dr. Philderald E. Pratt, assistant representative in Liberia of the United Nations Population Fund, told the New York Times that messages about sexual transmission are generally passed only to survivors, and not to the general public.
“We have to intensify those efforts,” Dr. Pratt said. “I think we allowed that to slip through the cracks.”
3. Case Numbers Falling in Sierra Leone
Sierra Leone's Ministry of Health recorded two new cases of Ebola on Monday, after consistently low case numbers over the previous days.
Kerry Town Ebola Treatment Unit | Crown Photography 2014 / Carl Osmond
On Friday, the country recorded zero new cases for the first time since the beginning of the outbreak. A further ten cases were recorded at the weekend.
The new lows contrast starkly with figures recorded at the height of the outbreak. In September, October and November, daily averages ran as high as 60 or 70 new cases.
4. MSF: Authorities Underplayed Threat of Ebola, Failing Patients and Costing Lives
Authorities in Guinea and Sierra Leone tried to cover up Ebola, fearing disastrous consequences for their international reputations and economies, the Telegraph reports, citing a new report released by Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF).
Ebola Treatment Unit run by MSF in Monrovia, Liberia | UNMEER / Simon Ruf
“The Ebola outbreak has often been described as a perfect storm: a cross-border epidemic in countries with weak public health systems that had never seen Ebola before,” says MSF general director Christopher Stokes in the report, “Pushed to the Limit and Beyond.”
“Yet this is too convenient an explanation. For the Ebola outbreak to spiral this far out of control required many institutions to fail. And they did, with tragic and avoidable consequences.”
“Global failures have been brutally exposed in this epidemic and thousands of people have paid for it with their lives. It is to everyone’s benefit that lessons be learned from this outbreak, from the weakness of health systems in developing countries, to the paralysis and sluggishness of international aid,” the report concludes.
Recommended Reads from Around the Web
The New York Times: One Year Later, Ebola Outbreak Offers Lessons for Next Epidemic
BBC: Ebola outbreak 'Over by August,' U.N. suggests
BBC:How Ebola Changed the World
Time: Ebola Continues to Punish Survivors One Year After Start of Outbreak
Washington Post: Deep in the Jungle, Hunting for the Next Ebola Outbreak
These stories come from daily summaries of the outbreak, originally published on Ebola Deeply, an independent digital media project working to improve the state of information around the Ebola crisis. Their goal is to build a better user experience of the story by adding context to content, integrating expertise in science, health, and public policy with a range of voices on the ground. The team is committed to a collaborative and solutions-driven model of journalism, surfacing new insights and elevating voices with knowledge to share. Find more content from Ebola Deeply here.