Violence-Related Setbacks Keep Derailing Global Ebola Response Efforts
The virus has taken advantage of the response teams' violence-related limitations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. As of Saturday there have been 358 confirmed and probable cases in this outbreak, and 213 of those people have died, making it the third largest Ebola outbreak on record.
Stat:
Ebola Response Suffers Another Setback, As WHO Evacuates Some Staff
The World Health Organization has evacuated 16 people working to contain the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo following a rebel attack near the area where they were staying, Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Saturday. The decision marks another violence-related setback for the response to the outbreak, but Tedros said in an interview with STAT that he hoped containment operations could resume as normal soon. (Branswell, 11/17)
In other international health care news —
The New York Times:
Rapid Cure Approved For Sleeping Sickness, A Horrific Illness
The first treatment for sleeping sickness that relies on pills alone was approved on Friday by Europe’s drug regulatory agency, paving the way for use in Africa, the last bastion of the horrific disease. With treatment radically simplified, sleeping sickness could become a candidate for elimination, experts said, because there are usually fewer than 2,000 cases in the world each year. (McNeil, 11/16)
