Editor’s Note:
It was a week of extraordinary and historic action in the Ebola outbreak context.

Key developments included:
:: continuing escalation of the outbreak across Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone (see WHO Ebola Roadmap Report 4 below),

:: proposed formation by the UN Secretary General of an unprecedented UN mission – UNMEER (UN Mission for Emergency Ebola Response) – reporting directly to the SG and charged with coordinating UN system, government, NGO and private sector response and (see “Identical Letters dated 17 September 2014..” below),

:: unprecedented action by the UN Security Council and the General Assembly on resolutions declaring the Ebola outbreak a “threat the international peace and security,” affirming formation of UNMEER, and issuing calls-to-action to focus new global resources and coordinate their deployment (see Security Council and General Assembly resolutions below),

:: major commitments of support to fight the outbreak from a number of countries, including a commitment by the U.S. of 3,000 military personnel and other forms of support (see White House Fact Sheet below),

:: release by UN OCHA of a composite analysis detailing needed resources to fight the outbreak – now scaled at about US$1 billion – complementing the WHO Ebola Roadmap issued earlier (see OCHA joint report summary below),

:: release by the World Bank of dire projections of the economic impact on Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone (see report at The Economic Impact of the 2014 Ebola Epidemic: Short and Medium Term Estimates for Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone)

:: implementation now underway in Sierra Leone of a three-day home “quarantine “ across the country to allow largely volunteer health worker teams to move house to house to educate about and assess potential new cases of Ebola (see UNICEF Watch below).

As we noted last week, the volume of coverage, comment and analysis driven by the Ebola outbreak is growing and is occurring across media sources well beyond those we actively monitor. We will strive to present a coherent digest of what is happening using official sources wherever possible, with a special focus on vaccines and other interventions now in development and various trials globally. Reading this issue you will encounter additional Ebola content throughout.