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WHO calls for 'drastic action'
to fight the deadliest Ebola outbreak on record, as it announces an 11-nation
meeting to address the growing crisis.
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GENEVA - The World Health Organization on Thursday called for "drastic
action" to fight the deadliest Ebola outbreak on record, as it announced
an 11-nation meeting to address the growing crisis.
As of Sunday, 635 cases of haemorrhagic fever (most confirmed to be Ebola),
including 399 deaths, have been reported across Guinea, Liberia and Sierra
Leone, making the outbreak the largest ever "in terms of the number of
cases and deaths as well as geographical spread," WHO said.
"Drastic action is needed," the UN agency stressed in a
statement, warning of the danger that the virus could jump to other countries.
Earlier this week, medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) also said
the outbreak of the virus, which is deadly in up to 90 percent of cases, was
"out of control".
Since west Africa's first-ever epidemic of the deadly haemorrhagic fever
emerged in Guinea in March, WHO has sent in more than 150 experts to help
tackle the crisis.
Despite the efforts of the WHO and others, there has been a
"significant increase" in the number of cases and deaths reported
each day for the past three weeks, it said.
The agency is now "gravely concerned (by) the on-going cross-border
transmission into neighbouring countries as well as the potential for further
international spread," said WHO's regional director for Africa, Dr. Luis
Sambo.
"This is no longer a country specific outbreak but a sub-regional
crisis that requires firm action by governments and partners," Sambo
warned.
WHO's top Ebola specialist Pierre Formenty told AFP last week the recent
surge in cases had come in part because efforts to contain the virus had been
relaxed too quickly after the outbreak appeared to slow down in April.
"One case can restart an entire epidemic," he warned, justifying
the dramatic measures needed to contain the virus, which spreads through bodily
fluids including sweat, meaning you can get sick from simply touching an
infected person.
To address the growing crisis, the WHO said Thursday it would convene a
meeting of the health ministers from 11 countries in Accra, Ghana on July 2 and
3 "to discuss the best way of tackling the crisis collectively as well as
develop a comprehensive inter-country operational response plan."
Ministers from Guinea -- where nearly 400 confirmed, suspected and probable
cases have surfaced so far, including 280 deaths -- and Liberia, which counts
63 cases and 41 deaths, will take part in the meeting.
Sierra Leone, which has seen 46 confirmed Ebola deaths, will also be there.
In addition, neighbouring countries Ivory Coast, Mali, Senegal, Guinea
Bissau and Gambia, along with Ghana, and countries as far afield as Uganda and
the Democratic Republic of Congo, where Ebola was first detected nearly 40
years ago, have also been invited, WHO said.
A range of UN agencies and other aid organisations including MSF and the
Red Cross, as well as the western African, US, British and EU centres for
disease control, WHO said.
WHO has described the current epidemic as one of the most challenging since
the virus was first identified in 1976 in what is now the Democratic Republic
of Congo.
That outbreak, until now the deadliest, killed 280 people, according to WHO
figures.
Ebola is a tropical virus that can fell its victims within days, causing
severe fever and muscle pain, weakness, vomiting and diarrhoea -- in some cases
shutting down organs and causing unstoppable bleeding.
No medicine or vaccine exists for Ebola, which is named after a small river
in the DRC.
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