Sierra Leone

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'Moral Bankruptcy of Capitalism': UK’s Top Public Doctor Shames Western Society Over Ebola

Staff Writer | RT News | August 3, 2014

Western countries should tackle drugs firms’ “scandalous” reluctance to invest in research into the virus which has already killed over 700 people in West Africa, the UK’s top public doctor said, adding, “They’d find a cure if Ebola came to London.” The pharmaceutical industry are reluctant to invest in research to produce treatments and vaccines “because the numbers involved are, in their terms, so small and don't justify the investment,” said Professor John Ashton, president of the UK Faculty of Public Health, an independent body for specialists in public health in the United Kingdom. Read More »

1 Month To Stop Ebola Before It's 'Totally Out Of Control' - Global Aid NGO

Staff Writer | RT | October 2, 2014

The International Rescue Committee (IRC), on behalf of 34 NGOs battling Ebola in West Africa, has warned that the number of cases is doubling roughly every three weeks and the globe has only four weeks to stop the crisis from spiraling out of control...

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3-D Printing a Better Prosthetic

Jessa Gamble | Nextgov | July 31, 2016

In 1981, Ian Gregson popped into the prosthetics shop in a Vancouver hospital to buy a new leg. The shopkeeper took various measurements, then made a plaster cast of the amputee’s residual limb to craft an attachment. Prosthetic limbs, particularly the sockets that hold them on, must be carefully fitted to an amputee. Now, a stunt man in the film industry and a two-time competitor at the Paralympic Games, for shot put and discus throw, Gregson describes his current socket-maker as an artist, a master who passes his skills on to a few select protégés...

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7 Reasons Why Sierra Leone Is Winning Against Neglected Tropical Diseases

Mary Hodges | The Guardian | June 24, 2014

Despite poverty and a recent civil war, Sierra Leone has rapidly expanded treatment for NTDs. What can other countries learn?  The Lancet recently published a report on gains made towards reaching the 2020 neglected tropical disease (NTD) elimination goals set by the 2012 London declaration. Despite being one of the world's poorest countries, Sierra Leone, in particular, has made incredible strides.

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Africa's Mineral Wealth Hardly Denting Poverty Levels, Says World Bank

Mark Tran | The Guardian | October 5, 2012

Report finds discovery of oil and mineral resources doing little to improve prospects for poor people, whose lot may even worsen Read More »

African Leaders Agree Steps To Fight Runaway Ebola Outbreak

Saliou Samb | Reuters | August 2, 2014

West African leaders agreed on Friday to take stronger measures to try to bring the worst outbreak of Ebola under control and prevent it spreading outside the region, including steps to isolate rural communities ravaged by the disease.  The World Health Organisation and medical charity Medicins Sans Frontieres said on Friday the outbreak, which has killed 729 people in four West African countries, was out of control and more resources were urgently needed to deal with it...

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After Ebola, Liberia’s Health System on Path to Recovery

World Bank | Relief Web | June 7, 2017

Shirley Kamara, 37, an expectant mother, smiled as she received medical care at C.H. Rennie Hospital in Kakata, just over 40 miles (68 km) north of Monrovia. “Our hospital is far better now since the Ebola outbreak,” she said. “We are encouraging our people to come here because everything is getting better.” C.H. Rennie Hospital in Liberia’s Margibi County was one of the facilities hardest-hit during the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) outbreak in 2014; 14 of its health workers died...

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Air Force Is Building Mini-Hospital In Liberia To Fight Ebola

Bob Brewin | Nextgov.com | October 7, 2014

The Air Force’s Air Combat Command has started installation of what its command surgeon, Brig. Gen. Sean Lee Murphy, described as “a mini-community hospital” in Liberia as part of the Defense Department’s response to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa...

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Bill Gates Won’t Save You From The Next Ebola

Robert Fortner | Huffington Post | April 30, 2017

In late August 2014, Tom Frieden, then director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, traveled to West Africa to assess the raging Ebola crisis. In the five months before Frieden’s visit, Ebola had spread from a village in Guinea, across borders and into cities in Liberia and Sierra Leone. Médecins Sans Frontières, the first international responder on the scene, had run out of staff to treat the rising numbers of sick people and had deemed the outbreak “out of control” back in June...

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CDC Tracks Cell Phone Location Data To Halt Ebola

Aliya Sternstein | Nextgov.com | October 9, 2014

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is tracking the approximate locations of cell phone users in West Africa who dial emergency call centers in an effort to predict the onset and spread of Ebola outbreaks...It’s one of the high-tech approaches the U.S. government is piloting to stop the spread of the disease...

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Cuba Sending Dozens Of Doctors, Nurses To Fight Ebola In West Africa

Maria Cheng | Yahoo! News | September 12, 2014

Cuba's health ministry said Friday it is sending more than 160 health workers to help stop the raging Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone, providing a much-needed injection of medical expertise in a country where health workers are in short supply...

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Deadly Disappointment Awaits At Ebola Clinics Due To Lack Of Space

Drew Hinshaw | The Wall Street Journal | September 7, 2014

...Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea—the three nations bearing the brunt of the [Ebola] outbreak—need at least 1,515 hospital beds for the more than 20,000 people who could be infected before the outbreak can be curtailed, according to World Health Organization estimates...

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Developing Nations Improving Health Communication Through the Use of DHIS2 (Part 1)

DHIS2 implementations are spreading steadily among national health services in developing countries as well as among international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) working to improving health in the developing world through the use of health information technology. As an open source solution, DHIS2 offers developing countries the advantage of adopting a cost-effective and flexible solution for aggregate statistical data collection, validation, analysis, management, and presentation as well as for data sharing between healthcare professionals and facilities. Organizations and individuals who work with humanitarian software solutions will need to know what DHIS2 is, how it works, and how it might be implemented by national health services and other health-related projects across the globe...

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Development and Deployment of the OpenMRS-Ebola Electronic Health Record System for an Ebola Treatment Center in Sierra Leone

Shefali Oza, Darius Jazayeri, Jonathan M Teich, Ellen Ball, Patricia Alexandra Nankubuge, Job Rwebembera, Kevin Wing, Alieu Amara Sesay, Andrew S Kanter, Glauber D Ramos, David Walton, Rachael Cummings, Francesco Checchi, Hamish S Fraser | Journal of Medical Internet Research | August 21, 2017

Stringent infection control requirements at Ebola treatment centers (ETCs), which are specialized facilities for isolating and treating Ebola patients, create substantial challenges for recording and reviewing patient information. During the 2014-2016 West African Ebola epidemic, paper-based data collection systems at ETCs compromised the quality, quantity, and confidentiality of patient data. Electronic health record (EHR) systems have the potential to address such problems, with benefits for patient care, surveillance, and research. However, no suitable software was available for deployment when large-scale ETCs opened as the epidemic escalated in 2014...

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Ebola Is Scary, But Antibiotic Resistance Should Scare Us More

David Robert Grimes | The Guardian | November 24, 2014

Ebola is the stuff of nightmares...But while the grim spectacle of dying patients in treatment centres in the affected African countries has stoked fears, cases in the west have been extremely rare in spite of a spate of false alarms across Europe and the US...

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