Signaling a new public health emergency, the World Health Organization warns that if polio is not completely eradicated it could become endemic again. Worldwide, 74 cases of the crippling disease have been confirmed this year, with Syria, Cameroon and Pakistan leading with the most occurrences. Jeffrey Brown learns more from Dr. Jon Andrus from the Pan American Health Organization.

Persistence is key to wiping out polio outbreaks in fragile nations

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How effective will new U.S. aid and military support be in fighting Ebola? Laurie Garrett of the Council on Foreign Relations and Lawrence Gostin of Georgetown Law School join Judy Woodruff for a deep dive into the plan. Then special correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro offers an update from Nigeria, a country that has been relatively successful in controlling the deadly virus.

As epidemic escalates, can U.S. aid for Ebola be deployed quickly enough?

The United States will offer 3,000 troops and financial help to health care systems in West Africa that are overwhelmed by Ebola. President Obama announced that U.S. forces will build new treatment facilities, airlift hundreds of thousands of home health kits and train and treat health care workers. Meanwhile, the WHO predicts that infections will double every three weeks. Judy Woodruff reports.

Obama pledges money and military personnel to nations struck by Ebola

The number of deaths from the worst Ebola outbreak on record has now surpassed 2,300. To combat the epidemic, the U.S. has pledged funds, research and additional medical resources. Judy Woodruff sits down with Nancy Lindborg of the U.S. Agency for International Development for a detailed look at what the U.S. is providing.

U.S. offers support to fragile, West African health systems to combat Ebola

After reaching their fifties and raising their own children, Jenny and Richard Bowen adopted 2-year-old Maya from China after learning of poor orphanage conditions for abandoned girls. Sixteen years later, the Bowens have two adopted daughters from the same region and have started a non-profit called Half the Sky to transform orphan care with the cooperation of the Chinese government. Fred de Sam Lazaro reports.

One family’s quest to unite orphaned Chinese girls with a happy home

The international head of Doctors Without Borders has charged that many of the efforts to curtail the Ebola outbreak in West Africa have actually made it worse. Jeffrey Brown joins director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Tom Frieden, who just returned from surveying the situation in West Africa, to discuss the impediments to containing the disease, and the prospects of it spreading.

Persistence is key to wiping out polio outbreaks in fragile nations

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