Health

 In a whole-of-government approach and with international partners, the United States is significantly upping its response to the West African Ebola epidemic to save lives now and halt future outbreaks, President Barack Obama said today during a visit to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. The president received updates from CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden and his team on the Ebola outbreak and efforts to help mobilize the international community to fight the deadly viral disease. "Faced with this outbreak, the world is looking to us, the United States, and it's a responsibility that we embrace," Obama said, after meeting with scientists who work at the center, including some who recently returned from the epidemic's front lines. "We're prepared to take leadership on this," the president said of agencies such as the Defense Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, "to provide the kinds of capabilities that only America has, and to mobilize the world in ways that only America can do. That's what we're doing as we speak."

Obama said that two months ago he directed his team to make the Ebola outbreak a national security priority, and today at CDC he was joined by administration leaders, including his national security team. "We're working this across our entire government," the president said, "and we've devoted significant resources in support of our strategy with four goals in mind."

The goals, he said, are:

-- To control the outbreak;

-- To address the ripple effects on local economies and communities to prevent massive humanitarian disasters;

-- To coordinate a broader global response; and

-- To urgently build up public health systems in countries with few resources.

Obama said Frieden and others at CDC had recently returned from the region, where the hardest-hit countries are Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. "The scenes that they describe are just horrific," Obama said. "More than 2,400 men, women and children are known to have died -- and we strongly suspect that the actual death toll is higher than that. Hospitals, clinics and the few treatment centers that do exist have been completely overwhelmed." Already weakened public health systems are near collapse in these countries and patients are being turned away. People are literally dying in the streets, the president said. "Now here's the hard truth: In West Africa, Ebola is an epidemic of the likes that we have not seen before," he added. "It's spiraling out of control. It is getting worse. It's spreading faster and exponentially. Today, thousands of people in West Africa are infected. That number could rapidly grow to tens of thousands."

If the outbreak is not stopped now, Obama said, the world could see hundreds of thousands of people infected in the region, with profound political and economic and security implications for everyone. Such an epidemic, he said, is not just a threat to regional security -- it's a potential threat to global security if the affected countries break down -- if their economies break down and if their people panic. That situation would have profound effects on people everywhere, he said, even those who don't contract the disease. As the president detailed the major increase in the U.S. Ebola response, he said that at the request of the Liberian government, the United States would establish a military command center in Monrovia, Liberia, to support civilian efforts across the region. The effort will involve an estimated 3,000 U.S. forces, according to a White House fact sheet.

Obama said the response would be similar to that of the U.S. humanitarian response to the 2010 magnitude 7.0 earthquake in Haiti, adding that Maj. Gen. Darryl A. Williams, commander of U.S. Army Africa, the Army component of U.S. Africa Command, will command the center and Operation United Assistance. "He arrived today and is now on the ground in Liberia," Obama said. "Our forces are going to bring their expertise in command and control, logistics and engineering, and our armed services are better at that than any organization on earth." The president said the team on the ground would create an air bridge to speed health workers and medical supplies into West Africa, and establish a staging area in Senegal to more quickly get personnel and aid on the ground. "We are going to create a new training site to train thousands of health workers so they can effectively and safely care for more patients," he said.

Personnel from the U.S. Public Health Service will deploy to the new field hospitals being set up in Liberia, and USAID will join with international partners and local communities in a community care campaign to distribute supplies and information kits to hundreds of thousands of families so they can better protect themselves, the president added. Service members also will build more treatment units, including new isolation spaces and more than 1,000 beds. "In all our efforts, the safety of our personnel will remain a top priority," Obama said. "Meanwhile our scientists continue their urgent research in the hope of finding new treatments and perhaps vaccines." The president said that today he would call on Congress to approve requested funding so people on the ground could carry on with all the critical efforts. The United States now has in the affected countries more than 100 specialists from multiple U.S. departments and agencies, including the departments of State, Health and Human Services, CDC, USAID and DoD.

Ebola is a global threat and demands a truly global response, the president said. The United States is working intensely on the effort with the United Nations, including the World Health Organization, and the governments of affected countries and other partners, including the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Norway, the African Union and the European Union. "This week the United States will chair an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council. Next week, I'll join U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to continue mobilizing the international community around this effort," Obama said.

More nations will come together to strengthen global health security to better prevent, detect and respond to future outbreaks before they become epidemics, he said. The effort was announced several months ago at the G-7 meeting before the Ebola outbreak, the president said. "We anticipated the fact that in many of these countries with weak public health systems, if we don't have more effective surveillance, more effective facilities on the ground and are not helping poor countries in developing their ability to catch these things quickly, that there was at least the potential of seeing these kinds of outbreaks," he said. "We now see that our predictions were correct," Obama added. "It gives more urgency to this effort -- a Global Health Initiative -- that we have been pushing internationally." The Ebola epidemic will get worse before it gets better, the president said. "But right now, the world still has an opportunity to save countless lives," he said. "Right now, the world has the responsibility to act, to step up, and to do more. "The United States of America intends to do more," Obama continued. "We are going to keep leading in this effort. We're going to do our part and we're going to continue to make sure that the world understands the need for them to step alongside us as well."

 

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Ngwa Bertrand

17.Sep.2014

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The Managing Director of the Equatoguinean airline, Ceiba International, Siméon Esono Alogo Nchama, announced the suspension of Malabo-Douala-Malabo and Bata-Douala-Bata flights “until further notice”.

According to Equatoguinean authorities, this additional measure, which comes after the suspension of air travel between their country and most countries of West Africa in an effort to stem the spread of the Ebola epidemic.

Indeed, although no cases have been suspected or declared in Cameroon, its neighbour Nigeria has already confirmed 18 cases of the haemorrhagic disease which has officially killed seven people in that country, five in Lagos and two in Port Harcourt.

From the official confirmation of the first Ebola case in Nigeria, Cameroonian authorities had also announced the closure of the 1,500 km border that separates the two countries.

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Ngwa Bertrand

17.Sep.2014

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The Red Cross plans to train more than 2,000 extra volunteers to step up its response to the deadly Ebola outbreak ravaging West Africa. “With dozens of new cases emerging daily, this outbreak is showing no signs of slowing down,” said Alasan Senghore, the head of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies' Africa unit. “People are dying. If we are serious about stopping Ebola, we cannot afford to delay ramping up our response,” he said in a statement. Since the outbreak began at the beginning of the year, the IFRC said it had trained some 3,500 volunteers across the three hardest-hit countries, Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia, and that it planned to push that number to over 5,600.

The three countries are among the poorest ones in the region and the hardest-hit by the worst Ebola epidemic on record, which has killed nearly 2,300 people. Cases in this Ebola outbreak were first confirmed in Guinea in March. The disease has since spread to Liberia and Sierra Leone, and cases have also been reported in Nigeria and Senegal.The World Health Organization has warned that Ebola may infect up to 20,000 people in West Africa. “Engaging communities through our trained volunteers will have an immediate and large pay-off, as messages of prevention will be shared by community members themselves,” Senghore said.

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Ngwa Bertrand

12.Sep.2014

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Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will convene leaders gathering in New York for the upcoming high-level segment of this year's United Nations General Assembly to highlight the urgent needs and required response to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. The UN World Health Organization (WHO), meanwhile, today said the number of cases topped 4,200, and reported that thousands of new cases are expected in Liberia over the coming three weeks. "Conventional Ebola control interventions are not having an adequate impact in Liberia," WHO said in an update on Liberia issued Monday, "though they appear to be working elsewhere in areas of limited transmission, most notably in Nigeria, Senegal, and the Democratic Republic of Congo." In a new update issued today, WHO said that as of 6 September, 4,269 cases and 2,288 deaths have been reported in the current outbreak of Ebola virus disease in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. In Nigeria, there have been 21 cases and 8 deaths. In Senegal, one case has been confirmed.Meanwhile, at UN Headquarters, the Secretary-General's Special Representative for Liberia, Karin Landgren, briefed the Security Council today, warning that the Ebola crisis has become complex, with political, security, economic and social implications that will continue to affect the country well beyond the current medical emergency. Ms. Landgren added that Liberians are now facing the gravest threat since the war – one that would challenge any Government or society.

Under-Secretary-General for UN Peacekeeping Operations, Hervé Ladsous, is scheduled to travel to Liberia from the 11th to 12th of September. During his visit, he is expected to hold meetings with national authorities and UN mission (UNMIL) personnel to discuss how the UN Peacekeeping efforts can further support the fight against Ebola in Liberia. The Secretary-General spoke yesterday with the United States President Barack Obama and discussed the need to urgently scale up international efforts to combat the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said. The spokesperson also announced that the UN chief has requested that Ms. Ameerah Haq, Under-Secretary-General for Field Support, postpone her departure from the United Nations, given the severity of the crisis and that she has graciously agreed.

Mr. Ban, who has been making a series of calls to key countries and organizations to urge more support for countries affected by the disease, informed President Obama that he is planning to convene a high-level event during the General Assembly to highlight the needs and required response from Governments, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), the private sector and academic institutions. In addition, the UN chief appointed Assistant Secretary-General for Field Support Anthony Banbury as UN Deputy Ebola Coordinator and Operation Crisis Manager, working out of the United Nations Operations Crisis Centre. Mr. Banbury will coordinate the operational work of the UN System, Member States, NGOs and other stakeholders under a single platform. He will work closely with Dr. David Nabarro, Senior UN System Coordinator for Ebola and WHO Director-General Dr. Margaret Chan and her team in managing the overall response to the Ebola crisis. In Geneva, Dr. Sylvie Briand, WHO Director of the Department of Pandemic and Epidemic Diseases, in response to a question about risks associated with the Muslim hajj to Saudi Arabia where two million people were expected, said that Saudi Arabia had stopped issuing visas to affected countries and exit screenings were in place in the affected countries.

 

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Ngwa Bertrand

10.Sep.2014

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 Cameroon Concord's Dr.AkwoThompson Ntuba reports that two senior North American Ebola experts are not happy with the West reaction in containing the outbreak of the Ebola virus. Dr. Barbara Knust and Dr. Gary Kobinger expressed their dissatisfaction recently in Washington Dc 

Dr  Barbara Knust of the center for disease control Atlanta Ga  USA, and Dr Gary Kobinger from the national microbiology lab Winnipeg in Canada have expressed regret over the delayed international response to the 2014 West Africa Ebola virus outbreak Cameroon Concord has learnt. Though optimistic with the present mobilization of human and material resources from Africa, UN, Western and Eastern block of nations, both medical experts made their positions public in a forum facilitated by DR Michael Schmidt at the Washington Convention Center DC during the just ended inter science conference on antimicrobial agents and chemotherapy [ICAAC] which is an annual event of the American microbiological society [AMS]. Dr Gary Kobinger in his medical discourse “Ebola outbreak response  in West Africa : A diagnostic, scientific, and Humanitarian perspective cited a number of challenges including the population , size of outbreak, complexity of the environment and the delayed international response . For her part,Dr Babara Knust while presenting her paper  “ Responding to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa:Current Status  and Lessons Learned” gave her unflinching support to Dr. Kobinger.

Members of the press were informed that many vaccines are in the pretrial phase of development like the chimpanzee VSV. Among the therapeutic trials are ZMAPP, which was produced in very small quantity for research purposes. Drs Kobinger and Knust also did inform the media that Canada is sending mobile laboratories to the countries affected to help respond appropriately with rigorous infection control which will include good burial practices without touching the bodies of the dead, disinfecting with bleach and above all training of health personnel on effective care procedures and health workers protective measures. The US and Canadian medical brains revealed that collaboration with Medecins Sans Frontiers,Samaritan Purse and other multilateral and bilateral donors will go a long way to control the outbreak .

The US Department of health and human services [HHS] including CDC ,the national institutes of health[NIH] , the food and drug administration [FDA]  and the biomedical advanced research  and development authority [BARDA] are involved in highly collaborative international research efforts towards the development of save and effective vaccines . USaid has committed more than $19 million to the Ebola response and the funds support public outreach and education, safe burial, the development of a response plans, delivery of critical medical supplies and support to health personnel. The speakers were optimistic that should the major three core activities to stop Ebola outbreak including detection of new cases, appropriate response with rigorous infection control and prevention of future interrupting transmission control be put in place, the present West Africa Ebola outbreak will be controlled.

 

 

 

 

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Ngwa Bertrand

10.Sep.2014

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UK government has announced plans to dispatch military and humanitarian experts to Sierra Leone to set up medical treatment centers in areas affected by the Ebola outbreak. A 62-bed facility will be built and operated by military engineers and medical staff, said an official British government press release on Monday, adding that the medical center will become operational within eight weeks. The health facility is in addition to the UK’s 25-million-pound package of support to contain and control the disease, which includes multilateral support as well as direct funding to aid agencies operating on the ground, the press release further noted.

According to the official document, British military personnel will begin to survey and assess the site later this week. Based near the capital Freetown, the facility will treat victims of the disease, including local and international health workers and medical volunteers. According to the latest World Health Organization (WHO) data, the total number of deaths from Ebola in the worst-hit areas including Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone has topped 2,100. Meanwhile, the WHO believes it will take six to nine months to contain the spread of Ebola.

The United Nations has stated that it will cost the region $600 million to try and contain the epidemic. The European Union pledged $180 million to the region on Friday. "The situation is going from bad to worse," said Kristalina Georgieva, the EU commissioner responsible for humanitarian aid. "We are helping make a difference on the ground but the needs are outpacing the international community's capacity to react."

 

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Ngwa Bertrand

09.Sep.2014

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