Ebola cases rise sharply in Sierra Leone

[uppityperson]

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/11/06/sierra-leone-ebola-rising/18587607/

Sierra Leone is reporting an alarming increase in the number of new Ebola cases, with 435 confirmed in the past week. About 24% of the Ebola cases in Sierra Leone have been reported in the past three weeks, although the outbreak began in March, according to the World Health Organization.

Those stark figures contrast with the somewhat positive news last week from Liberia, where the number of new cases has been falling. Officials at the WHO have said this drop could be partly due to an increase in safe burials.

Health officials from the WHO have cautioned, however, that the Ebola virus is unpredictable. Cases may appear to fall or level off only to come raging back a short time later. Ebola transmission in Guinea, where the outbreak started, "remains intense," according to the WHO.

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Women in Sierra Leone are now at high risk of dying in childbirth because of the lack of doctors willing to perform C-sections, Moses said. Many doctors are afraid of contracting Ebola during the procedure because it involves a lot of blood....(more @ link)

[KMOD]

1. "Women in Sierra Leone are now at high risk of dying in childbirth because of the lack of doctors

willing to perform C-sections, Moses said."

The sad fact is, Ebola + Pregnancy = Fatality in West Africa. But now, even non-Ebola pregnancies are effected.

This is serious folks. This isn't just about the critical Ebola outbreak in West Africa, but how it also effects all.

We, and all, need to get a handle on this now.

[uppityperson]

2. Women in labor or with preg related problems have little help now.

Some of the few OB doctors there have died, and of they can not prove they do not have ebola, hospitals won't accept them. Of they can't prove they do have ebola, ebola facilities will not accept them.

Rock and a hard place and it is really bad.

[muriel_volestrangler]

4. Sierra Leone: Journalist arrested after questioning official Ebola response

A journalist in Sierra Leone who has criticised the government’s handling of the Ebola outbreak was allegedly beaten then jailed under emergency laws meant to help bring the epidemic under control.

David Tam Baryoh, a high-profile radio journalist whose reports have often needled officials, is being detained at the maximum-security Pademba Road prison in the capital Freetown. His popular weekly programme, Monologue, was taken off air mid-show last week as he interviewed an opposition party spokesman who criticised the president’s alleged intentions to run for a third term. During that show Baryoh also questioned arrests made in Kono, an eastern district put under curfew in October when a dispute between youths and police over a suspected case of Ebola degenerated into gunfire and rioting.
...
Legislators in Sierra Leone threatened to gag the media over their coverage of the controversial allocation in September of 60m leones (£8,620) to each MP to boost Ebola awareness in their constituencies. In Liberia, the hardest-hit country, police last month used batons and whips to disperse protesters as lawmakers debated a request to extend president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf’s powers beyond the already sweeping ones accorded by the state of emergency declared in August.

Sierra Leone’s state of emergency empowers president Ernest Bai Koroma to arrest any person without a court order. An executive order to arrest Baryoh was signed by the president, chief superintendent Ibrahim Koroma told Reuters. “The powers were derived from the Ebola emergency regulations the country is currently under,” he said, without detailing the charges against the journalist or specifying the length of his detention.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/05/ebola-journalist-arrested-over-criticism-sierra-leone-government-response