WHO, African States to Launch $100mn Ebola Response Plan as Death Toll Rises to 729

إقرأ هذا الخبر بالعربية W460

The deaths of 57 more people from Ebola in west Africa have pushed the overall fatality toll from the epidemic to 729, the World Health Organization said Thursday.

The 57 deaths were recorded between Thursday and Sunday last week in Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone, the U.N. health agency said in a statement.

It said 122 new cases were detected over those four days, taking the total number of confirmed and likely infected cases from the outbreak so far to 1,323.

WHO said the trend in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone "remains precarious with ongoing... transmission of infection".

Guinea is suffering the worst from the disease, which causes often fatal bleeding and has no vaccine. The country's authorities reported 20 more deaths apparently from Ebola in the last four days of last week, taking its national fatality figure to 339.

Liberia saw 27 more deaths, for a total national death toll of 156.

Sierra Leone reported nine more deaths for a total 233 dead.

Nigeria, Africa's most populous country, reported its first death from Ebola in that period.

WHO said the medical sample taken from the patient who died in Nigeria shortly after arriving by air had still not been analysed by its regional lab because courier companies were refusing to transport it.

The U.N. agency added that it "does not recommend any travel or trade restrictions" be applied to Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, or Sierra Leone at this time.

The WHO's statement was available at: http://www.who.int/csr/don/2014_07_31_ebola/en/.

In response to the latest data, the head of the World Health Organization and presidents of the west African countries suffering the world's worst-ever Ebola outbreak will meet in Guinea on Friday to launch a $100 million (75 million euros) emergency joint response plan, WHO said.

"The scale of the Ebola outbreak, and the persistent threat it poses" requires WHO, Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone "to take the response to a new level," WHO Director General Margaret Chan said in a statement.

WHO said "several hundred" medical personnel need to be deployed to the affected countries to help overstretched workers and facilities struggling with the epidemic, which has claimed nearly 730 lives.

Those most "urgently" needed are "clinical doctors and nurses, epidemiologists, social mobilization experts, logisticians and data managers," it said.

The Ebola Virus Disease Outbreak Response Plan in west Africa aims to plug those gaps "as part of an intensified international, regional and national campaign to bring the outbreak under control".

The plan will also bolster efforts to prevent and detect suspected cases, urge better border surveillance, and reinforce WHO's sub-regional outbreak coordination center in Guinea.

Comments 0