Month: March 2015

By Adrian Croft BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The three West African states hardest hit by the Ebola outbreak asked for help from donors on Tuesday to repair the damage to their economies now that the epidemic seems to be waning. Leaders of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone voiced confidence at a major international conference on the Ebola outbreak in Brussels that they were winning the battle but said they must remain focused on stamping out new infections. There will not be total victory until we get to a resilient zero (new cases) in the three most affected countries,” Sierra Leone President Ernest Bai Koroma told the conference. Ebola cases have declined sharply in recent weeks, but there has been a worrying recent surge in new infections in Sierra Leone, where Vice President Samuel Sam-Sumana put himself in quarantine after one of his bodyguards died of Ebola.
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Leaders of the west African countries worst hit by Ebola urged the world on Tuesday to back a "Marshall Plan" to help them stamp out the disease and rebuild their shattered economies. Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Sierra Leone President Ernest Bai Koroma and Guinean President Alpha Conde pressed the need for recovery at an international conference in Brussels as the number of new cases slows. More than 9,700 people have died of the disease since the west African epidemic emerged in southern Guinea in December 2013, with nearly 24,000 people infected, according to the World Health Organization. The most important long-term response to Ebola therefore rests in plans and strategies for economic recovery," Sirleaf told the EU-backed conference.

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Doctors may be under-estimating the risks to patients from long-term use of paracetamol, the world's most popular painkiller, researchers said Tuesday. Chronic users of the drug — people who typically take large, daily doses over several years — may increase their risk of death, or kidney, intestinal and heart problems, they found. Led by Philip Conaghan at the Leeds Institute of Rheumatic and Musculoskeletal Medicine in northern England, the team analysed data from eight previously-published studies into long-term paracetamol use. The data came only from people who had paracetamol prescribed by a doctor, as opposed to over-the-counter purchases.

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By Misha Hussain MELIANDOU, Guinea (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – A charred kapok tree and around a dozen graves scattered amongst the mud brick houses of Meliandou are painful reminders of the toll Ebola has taken on this village in southeast Guinea. Scientists traced the source of the worst-ever outbreak of Ebola to two-year-old Emile Ouamouno, who they believe contracted the disease while playing near the tree, home to hundreds of bats that may have been hosting the deadly virus. The boy's father, Etienne Ouamouno, said Emile fell ill in December 2013, and infected his sister and mother who was eight months pregnant at the time. Over a year later, having lost all his immediate family, Etienne Ouamouno has difficulty in finding words to describe his grief.

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By Misha Hussain MELIANDOU, Guinea (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – A charred kapok tree and around a dozen graves scattered amongst the mud brick houses of Meliandou are painful reminders of the toll Ebola has taken on this village in southeast Guinea. Scientists traced the source of the worst-ever outbreak of Ebola to two-year-old Emile Ouamouno, who they believe contracted the disease while playing near the tree, home to hundreds of bats that may have been hosting the deadly virus. The boy’s father, Etienne Ouamouno, said Emile fell ill in December 2013, and infected his sister and mother who was eight months pregnant at the time. Over a year later, having lost all his immediate family, Etienne Ouamouno has difficulty in finding words to describe his grief.
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