Crisis not getting better in Liberia, Sierra Leone

The Ebola crisis in West Africa continues to spiral, with new cases, deaths and twists emerging by the day. From the past week’s headlines, here are the most important developments from the Ebola front lines: Liberia’s crises deepens In a strikingly grim update, the World Health Organization said on Monday that cases in Liberia are “increasing exponentially” and demands have “completely outstripped” the capacity to respond. Liberia now accounts for roughly half of cases and deaths reported in West Africa — and there is no telling how many cases are being missed, with the WHO still trying to “estimate the underestimation.” With treatment centres overflowing, desperate families are now cramming into taxis in search of available beds — only to be turned back to their communities as the contaminated taxis move on to their next passenger. The severity of the crisis was perhaps best summed up by the country’s defence minister this week: “Liberia is facing a serious threat to its national existence.” Sierra Leone orders three-day lockdown The Sierra Leonean government announced a countrywide shutdown for three days starting on Sept. 19 — a drastic move that will see citizens banned from leaving their homes and health workers going door-to-door in search of missing cases. This is the second time Ebola has prompted a shutdown of the country, with a more loosely-enforced “National Stay At Home” day declared in early August. Medical aid organization Médecins Sans Frontières has warned, however, that lockdowns tend to drive patients underground, ultimately spreading the disease even further. Canadian scientists return to the hot zone Just over a week after it evacuated three scientists, the Public Health Agency of Canada sent a new team back to Sierra Leone on Saturday. A rotation of PHAC lab technicians have been working in West Africa since June, when the health agency first deployed its “mobile lab” to an MSF treatment centre in eastern Sierra Leone — but its third team was evacuated after people at their hotel tested positive for Ebola, including a Senegalese epidemiologist working for WHO. As of Thursday, the evacuated scientists — who had no direct contact with any infected patients — were still healthy, a PHAC spokesperson said. Another WHO expert infected with Ebola On Monday, the WHO announced it was evacuating one of its doctors who tested positive for Ebola, marking the second time a WHO-deployed expert has been sickened by the virus (the first was the Senegalese epidemiologist). The doctor was working in eastern Sierra Leone at the Kenema Government Hospital, where more than 20 health workers have died since the country’s first confirmed case in May. On Thursday, government officials also announced that a fourth Sierra Leonean doctor, Olivette Buck, has now been infected and will be evacuated for treatment. U.S. military joins Ebola front lines In a televised interview on Sunday, U.S. President Barack Obama called Ebola a “national security priority” and signalled for the first time that American “military assets” would be deployed to West Africa. Few specifics have been announced but the Pentagon said on Monday they will provide a $22-million field hospital in Liberia — with 22 beds and for foreign health workers only. The announcement has triggered criticisms that the contribution is far too meagre; the WHO estimates 1,000 beds are urgently needed in Liberia’s Montserrado county alone. The U.K. also announced it will send military and humanitarian staff to Sierra Leone to build a treatment centre outside the capital. With human trials underway, experimental vaccine shows promise in new study On Sunday, the journal Nature Medicine published a study showing that an experimental vaccine could confer immunity for up to 10 months — the longest any Ebola vaccine has shown protection against the virus, according to the research team led by the U.S. National Institutes of Health. Human clinical trials for this vaccine have already begun in both the United Kingdom and United States. Gates Foundation gives Ebola effort $50-million boost The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced on Wednesday that it is committing $50 million toward the Ebola emergency response — a staggering private donation worth more than what the British govern- ment has committed so far ($40 million) and nearly half of what the U.S. given. The funds will scale up the work of U.N. agencies, international organizations and governments already responding to the outbreak, and “accelerate the development of treatments, vaccines and diagnostics,” said CEO Sue Desmond-Hellman.