The WHO yesterday declared the killer Ebola epidemic ravaging parts of west Africa an international health emergency and appealed for global aid to help afflicted countries.
The decision after a two-day emergency session behind closed doors in Geneva did not immediately impose global travel restrictions to halt its spread as the overall death toll nears 1,000.
The WHO move came as US health authorities admitted on Thursday that Ebola’s spread beyond west Africa was “inevitable,” and after medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) warned that the deadly virus was now “out of control” with more than 60 outbreak hotspots.
Photo: EPA
WHO Director-General Margaret Chan (陳馮富珍) appealed for greater international aid for the countries worst hit by the outbreak, which she described as the most serious in four decades, echoing an earlier claim by MSF that the “epidemic is unprecedented in terms of geographical distribution, people infected and deaths.”
“The outbreak is moving faster than we can control it,” Chan told reporters on a telephone briefing from the agency’s Geneva headquarters. “The declaration ... will galvanise the attention of leaders of all countries at the top level. It cannot be done by the ministries of health alone.”
The agency said that, while all states with Ebola transmission — so far Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone — should declare a national emergency, there should be no general ban on international travel or trade.
Photo: EPA
Ebola has no proven cures and there is no vaccine to prevent infection, so treatment focuses on alleviating symptoms such as fever, vomiting and diarrhoea — all of which can contribute to severe dehydration.
WHO Assistant Director-General Keiji Fukuda said that, with the right measures to deal with infected people, the spread of Ebola — which is transmitted through direct contact with bodily fluids — could be stopped.
“This is not a mysterious disease. This is an infectious disease that can be contained,” he told reporters. “It is not a virus that is spread through the air.”
Photo: EPA
Fukuda said it was important that anyone known to have Ebola should be immediately isolated and treated and kept in isolation for 30 days.
“Based on scientific studies, people who have infection can shed virus for up to 30 days,” he said.
States of emergency were in effect across overwhelmed west African nations, including Libera, Guinea and Sierra Leone.
Soldiers in Liberia’s Grand Cape Mount Province — one of the worst-affected areas — set up road blocks to limit travel to Monrovia, as bodies reportedly lay unburied in the city’s streets.
Two towns in the east of Sierra Leone, Kailahun and Kenema, where put under quarantine on Thursday, as nightclubs and entertainment venues across the country were ordered shut.
Public sector doctors in Nigeria suspended a month-long strike with fears rising that the virus is taking hold in sub-Saharan Africa’s most populous country. The deadly tropical disease has already killed two and infected five others in Lagos.
Ebola has claimed at least 932 lives and infected more than 1,700 people since breaking out in Guinea earlier this year, according to the WHO.
As African nations struggled with the scale of the epidemic, scientists who discovered the virus in 1976 have called for an experimental drug being used on two infected Americans to also be made available for Africans with the disease.
One of the three scientists, Peter Piot, director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said: “African countries should have the same opportunity” to use ZMapp, which is made by US company Mapp Pharmaceuticals.
Spain flew home a 75-year-old Roman Catholic priest, Miguel Pajares, the first European victim of the epidemic, on Thursday. Officials said his condition was stable.
Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf said people should expect certain rights to be suspended as the country imposes “extraordinary measures” necessary for “the very survival of our state.”
In Sierra Leone, which has the most confirmed infections, 800 troops were sent to guard hospitals treating Ebola patients, an army spokesman said.
The outbreak in Nigeria’s most populous city has been minor compared to those in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
Lagos, a densely-packed city of more than 20 million people, has a poor healthcare system and officials say that if it sees a rise in infections, public hospitals will need to be operational in order to avert a catastrophe.
Benin said it had placed two patients with Ebola-like symptoms in isolation and was waiting for test results to establish if the pair were infected.
The two infected Americans, who worked for Christian aid agencies in Liberia, have shown signs of improvement since being flown to a specialist hospital in Atlanta, Georgia. They are being given ZMapp, according to reports.
There is no proven treatment or cure for Ebola, and the use of the experimental drug has sparked an ethical debate.
US President Barack Obama said it was too soon to send the experimental drugs to west Africa.
“I think we have to let the science guide us. And I don’t think all the information is in on whether this drug is helpful,” he said on Wednesday.
US regulators meanwhile eased restrictions on another experimental drug that might allow it to be tried on infected patients in west Africa.
Canada-based Tekmira said the US Food and Drug Administration changed the classification of its drug TKM-Ebola from full clinical hold to partial hold.
US health authorities also warned that Ebola’s spread to the US was “inevitable” due to the nature of global airline travel, but added any outbreak was not likely to be widespread.
The worsening outbreak prompted the US to order the families of embassy staff in Liberia to return home, with the US Department of State also warning US citizens not to travel to Liberia.
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including