By Jim Yong Kim and Paul FarmerAugust 31 at 7:45 PM
Jim Yong Kim is president of the World Bank. Paul Farmer is the Kolokotrones University professor at Harvard University. Farmer and Kim, who are infectious disease physicians, co-founded the nonprofit organization Partners in Health.
If the Ebola epidemic devastating the countries of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone had instead struck Washington, New York or Boston, there is no doubt that the health systems in place could contain and then eliminate the disease.
Hospitals would isolate suspected cases. Health workers would be outfitted with proper protective clothing and equipment. Doctors and nurses would administer effective supportive care, including comprehensive management of dehydration, impaired kidney and liver function, bleeding disorders and electrolyte disturbance. Labs would dispose of hazardous materials properly. And a public health command center would both direct the response and communicate clearly to the public about the outbreak.
Ebola is spread by direct physical contact with infected bodily fluids, making it less transmissible than an airborne disease such as tuberculosis. A functioning health system can stop Ebola transmission and, we believe, save the lives of a majority of those who are afflicted.
The deadly Ebola outbreak in West Africa has spread to major Liberian cities, including the capital Monrovia, which has become a major focal point for the epidemic.
The head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says "immediate and urgent action" must be taken to avoid an Ebola 'catastrophe' in Sierra Leone.
The United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) has identified six countries at risk for spread of the Ebola virus disease, adding that it is working with them to ensure that full surveillance, preparedness and response plans are in place.
“The following countries share land borders or major transportation connections with the affected countries and are therefore at risk for spread of the Ebola outbreak: Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, and Senegal,” the agency said in the first in a series of regular updates on the Ebola response roadmap that was issued yesterday.
The effort to contain Ebola in Senegal is "a top priority emergency," the World Health Organization said Sunday, as the government continued tracing everyone who came in contact with a Guinean student who has tested positive for the deadly disease in the capital, Dakar.
Senegal faces an "urgent need" for support and supplies including hygiene kits and personal protective equipment for health workers, the WHO said in a statement Sunday.
Liberia, where infection rates are highest, plans to build five new Ebola treatment centers each with capacity for 100 beds, government and health officials said on Saturday.
The Minister of Health Affairs for the Darfur Regional Authority, Firdos Abdel Rahman Yousif, denied reports of the deadly disease in El Geneina, capital of West Darfur state. The Sudanese health authorities, however, announced measures to combat the spread of the Ebola virus across the states of Darfur, and formed committees in order to cope with the disease.
Guinea-Bissau launched a nationwide hygiene drive on Saturday, declaring itself "on alert" after the announcement that the Ebola epidemic ravaging west Africa had spread to neighbouring Senegal.
The campaign will involve the cleaning and disinfection of public places "across the entire country" on the last Saturday of every month.
An experimental Ebola drug healed all 18 monkeys infected with the deadly virus in a study, boosting hopes that the treatment might help fight the outbreak raging through West Africa – once more of it can be made.
Scientists used advanced genomic sequencing technology to identify a single point of infection from an animal reservoir to a human in the current Ebola outbreak in West Africa.
The spread of the most recent strain of the Ebola virus across parts of West Africa has highlighted not just the lethality of the disease but also the strains on the existing medical infrastructures there. For further insight, Stephen Morse, a professor of epidemiology at Columbia University and Estrella Lasry, a tropical medical advisor at Doctors Without Borders, join Hari Sreenivasan.
The first Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) teams arrived in Boende health zone, in the North-West of Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), ten days ago, and they were reinforced this week by the arrival of 17 specialists, including doctors, nurses, logisticians, pharmacists, and hygiene and sanitation experts. In the next few days, these teams will have as their primary mission the establishment of a treatment center for patients with symptoms of Ebola. They will also conduct outreach activities in the community.
A total of 13 tons of medical equipment has already been shipped to Boende, and another 15 tons will be shipped within the next few days. MSF is concerned, however, that there is no mobile lab service available yet....
The United Nations food agency said inadequate supplies are snarling its efforts to feed 1.3 million people in Ebola-stricken Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia.
The three West African nations are at the heart of this year’s outbreak of the deadly viral illness, and have borne the brunt of a death toll estimated by the World Health Organization at more than 1,500. Governments have imposed quarantines and shut down trade and transport routes, increasing the hardship for millions of people in some of the world’s poorest countries.
The World Food Programme has suspended distribution in Guinea after managing to get supplies to about 40,000 people spokesman Steve Taravella said in an e-mail, even as need is projected to grow to 404,000. It will take $70 million to continue food distribution in all three countries, he said.
The agency, which has increased its projections for the numbers in need of food aid in the three countries by about a third, “urgently needs funding to be able to purchase food and scale up its assistance,” Taravella wrote.
In Sierra Leone, 16,000 people have received assistance and the WFP aims to serve 400,000. In Liberia, food has gone to 57,000 people in quarantined areas, and the goal is to reach more than 400,000, Taravella said.
A U.S. health agency is speeding up clinical trials of a possible vaccine against the deadly Ebola virus that so far has killed more than 1,500 people in West Africa. If successful, the next step would be a larger trial in countries where the outbreak is occurring. VOA's Carol Pearson has more.
The United Nations will use Ghana as a base for supplies bound for countries stricken by an Ebola outbreak that has killed more than 1,550 people in West Africa, the Ghanaian presidency said in a statement on Friday.
MORE than 80 trucks carrying various cargo, including copper from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) en route to South Africa, are marooned in the border town of Kazungula because Botswana officials have refused to allow them entry...
South African immigration officers at Beitbridge border post are reportedly turning away truck drivers plying the Democratic Republic of Congo route where two confirmed cases of Ebola have been reported.It is understood that on Thursday, the drivers mainly Zimbabweans, Congolese, Malawians and Zambians, were told to go back to the Zimbabwean side of the border for screening.The South Africans turned the travellers away even though they had already been screened by Zimbabwean authorities.See more at: http://www.bulawayo24.com/index-id-news-sc-national-byo-53118.html#sthash.11td5MuJ.dpuf
...Ebola is now spreading from the remote provinces and into the teeming cities such as Freetown, where 1.2 million people jostle for space. Previous outbreaks had been limited to remote villages, where containment was aided by geography. The thought of Ebola taking hold in a major city such as Freetown or Monrovia, Liberia’s capital, is a virological nightmare. Last week, the World Health Organization warned that the number of cases could hit 20,000 in West Africa....
Two Ebola patients, given the experimental drug ZMapp, have been allowed to leave a treatment centre in the Liberian capital after testing negative for the disease.
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