The United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) today said any persons with an illness consistent with Ebola should not be allowed to travel by air, sea or land from affected countries unless it is part of a medical evacuation, as it also expressed concern over the threats and harassment of health workers in West African countries developing into a "worry element."

"Doctors, nurses and other health workers must be allowed to carry out their life-saving humanitarian work free of threat of violence and insecurity," said WHO Director-General Dr. Margaret Chan in a statement issued a day before World Humanitarian Day 2014.

Threats and harassment of health workers in West African countries have also been a worrying element of the Ebola virus disease outbreak, WHO said. "These professionals are taking personal risks to provide critical medical care, but have been threatened, shunned and stigmatized."

Meanwhile, the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has scheduled to meet with his Senior Coordinator on Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) Dr. David Nabarro arriving from Geneva. He is scheduled to speak to reporters at UN Headquarters tomorrow afternoon.

As the number of cases reported by WHO as of 13 August reached 2,127 in Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone, with a total of 1,145 deaths, the UN health agency today issued another update on travel and transport.

"Affected countries are requested to conduct exit screening of all persons at international airports, seaports and major land crossings, for unexplained febrile illness consistent with potential Ebola infection," the update said.

"Any person with an illness consistent with EVD should not be allowed to travel unless the travel is part of an appropriate medical evacuation. There should be no international travel of Ebola contacts or cases, unless the travel is part of an appropriate medical evacuation."

WHO repeated that it "does not recommend any ban on international travel or trade, in accordance with advice from the WHO Ebola Emergency Committee," adding that the risk of a traveller becoming infected with the Ebola virus during a visit to the affected countries and developing disease after returning is very low.

The health agency said in order to support the global efforts to contain the spread of the disease and provide a coordinated international response for the travel and tourism sector, the heads of WHO, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), Airports Council International (ACI), International Air Transport Association (IATA) and the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) decided to activate a Travel and Transport Task Force to monitor the situation and provide timely information to the travel and tourism sector as well as to travellers.

The current Ebola virus disease (EVD) outbreak is believed to have begun in Guinea in December 2013. This outbreak now involves community transmission in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone and recently an ill traveller from Liberia infected a small number of people in Nigeria with whom he had direct contact.

The risk of transmission of Ebola virus disease during air travel is low. Unlike infections such as influenza or tuberculosis, Ebola is not spread by breathing air (and the airborne particles it contains) from an infected person. Transmission requires direct contact with blood, secretions, organs or other body fluids of infected living or dead persons or animals, all unlikely exposures for the average traveller.

WHO also appealed for countries to provide their citizens traveling to Ebola-affected countries with accurate and relevant information on the Ebola outbreak and measures to reduce the risk of exposure.

On tomorrow's World Humanitarian Day, celebrated every 19 August, in addition to the Ebola-affected countries, WHO will draw attention to the continued trend of attacks on health-care workers, hospitals, clinics and ambulances in Syria, Gaza, Central African Republic, Iraq, South Sudan and other areas.

 

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Ngwa Bertrand

19.Aug.2014

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Threats of the Ebola virus are real and proximity to affected Nigeria does not help matters in the North West region . It is against this backdrop that the region has been mobilised to rise to expectation in the case of any Ebola attack. That was the subject of an emergency crisis meeting involving stakeholders in Bamenda on August 14, 2014. In the chair, Governor Adolphe Lele Lafrique dismissed rumours of the virus in the North West region. It was all about setting records straight with sensitization, education and facts about the Ebola virus.

A contingency plan was unveiled to ensure that in the case of an attack, Ebola will meet a region that is ready to face it. It was the Regional Delegate of Public Health, Dr Victor Ndiforchu who revealed that health personnel have been trained to receive and manage cases of the virus while other actors have been stationed at the borders of the region to determine, detect and report suspect cases. Surveillance, vigilance and information sharing are passwords of the Regional Contingency plan which equally advises communicators to stop spreading misleading information. The governor of the region is the Coordinator of the plan and expects all information to transit through him for proper handling.

It emerged from the sensitization session that the virus is not airborne. It is a lethal disease basically transmitted from animals, especially fruit bats to man. In the short and long of it, Ebola is a killer

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Ngwa Bertrand

16.Aug.2014

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 Health workers at Ebola outbreak sites are seeing evidence that the numbers of reported cases and deaths "vastly underestimate" the magnitude of the crisis as they work around the clock to stop the disease from spreading.

 

WHO, in its latest update on the Ebola outbreak in West Africa dated August 14, said no new cases have been detected in Nigeria, attributing the outcome to extensive contact tracing and monitoring, implemented with support from the United States Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

"Elsewhere, the outbreak is expected to continue for some time," WHO said.

The most recent statistics compiled by WHO show that the outbreak of Ebola in West Africa continues to escalate, with 1975 cases and 1069 deaths reported from Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone.

But WHO also said: "Staff at the outbreak sites see evidence that the numbers of reported cases and deaths vastly underestimate the magnitude of the outbreak."

On the humanitarian side, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) is delivering food to the more than one million people locked down in the quarantine zones, where the borders of Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone intersect, and several countries have agreed to support the provision of priority food staples for this population.

The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), in a blog post from Sierra Leone on the "joys of survivors" of the deadly disease, says that "Ebola survivors can play a valuable role in dispelling myths and in gaining community support in the fight against Ebola."

"Some people in Sierra Leone still have not accepted that Ebola is real. While many survivors fear stigma, some are now coming forward and telling their brave stories," wrote UNICEF consultant Jo Dunlup.

WHO said it is mapping the outbreak in great detail, to pinpoint areas of ongoing transmission and locate treatment facilities and supplies.

"CDC is equipping the hardest-hit countries with computer hardware and software that will soon allow real-time reporting of cases and analysis of trends," according to the UN agency's update.

WHO Director-General Dr. Margaret Chan in Geneva regularly meets with ambassadors from United Nations missions based in the Swiss city to identify the most urgent needs within countries and match them with rapid international support.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has appointed Dr. David Nabarro as Senior United Nations System Coordinator for Ebola, in support of the work done by the WHO team. WHO has expressed its disappointment that some airlines have stopped flying to West Africa. It is "hard to save lives if we and other health workers cannot get in," WHO has said.

WHO has repeatedly said the Ebola virus is highly contagious – but not airborne. Transmission requires close contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person, as can occur during health-care procedures, home care, or traditional burial practices, which involve the close contact of family members and friends with bodies.

The incubation period ranges from 2 to 21 days, but patients become contagious only after the onset of symptoms. As symptoms worsen, the ability to transmit the virus increases. As a result, patients are usually most likely to infect others at a severe stage of the disease, when they are visibly, and physically, too ill to travel.

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Ngwa Bertrand

16.Aug.2014

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Cameroon is to suspend all flights from Ebola-affected countries, to check the spread of the disease into the Central African country.

Sources told PANA that the decision was announced on Thursday at the end of a meeting between officials of the Health and Transport ministries.

As Nigeria, with whom Cameroon shares a 2,000 km border, confirms about a dozen cases of the dreaded disease with three deaths, the Cameroonian authorities have stepped up prevention measures.

André Mama Fouda, minister of Health, said: “Surveillance has been tightened in all health districts at the country’s borders, airports and ports. The surveillance is being carried out within the framework of a network of partnership and sharing of views bringing together not only countries hit by the epidemic, but also other African countries that are exposed.”

The Ebola virus disease has killed some 1,069 people so far, with the epicentre being Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia.

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Ngwa Bertrand

15.Aug.2014

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The medical school professors no longer want Kadiatou Fanta in the classroom. Her boyfriend has broken up with her. Each day the 26-year-old eats alone and sleeps alone. Even her own family members are afraid to touch her months after she survived Ebola.

Long gone are the days when she was vomiting blood and wracked by fever. And even with a certificate of health declaring her as having recovered, she says it's still as though "Ebola survivor" is burned on her flesh.

"Ebola has ruined my life even though I am cured," she says. "No one wants to spend a minute in my company for fear of being contaminated."

The Ebola virus is only transmitted through direct contact with bodily fluids of the sick, such as blood, saliva, urine, sweat or semen. When the first cases emerged in Guinea back in March, no one had ever confronted such a virulent and gruesome disease in this corner of Africa.

The current outbreak now has killed more than 1,000 people, according to the latest figures from the World Health Organization. The fatality rate in previous Ebola outbreaks has been up to 90 percent, though health officials say this time up to half of victims are surviving.

While there is no specific treatment for Ebola, patients can be given supportive care such as intravenous fluids to keep them hydrated. If they can live long enough to develop antibodies to the virus they can survive, though they could still contract other strains of Ebola in the future, medical experts say.

Health workers hope that seeing living proof that people can survive Ebola will encourage fearful communities to get medical care instead of hiding the sick at home where they can infect relatives.

In Sierra Leone, Sulaiman Kemokai, 20, was released from an Ebola treatment center on Sunday after spending 25 days there. He still feels stiffness in his joints but says he is gaining strength each day.

"When I became sick, I was scared to go to hospital, I hid from my family, from health workers. After four days I couldn't hide anymore, I was too sick. An Ebola ambulance collected me and took me to the hospital," he recalls.

But some within his community are reluctant to have any physical contact with Kemokai. Those released from treatment centers are no longer contagious, though Ebola can still be present in men's semen for up to seven weeks.

Kemokai will have more family support than most: His older brother and sister also have survived Ebola, while the disease took their mother's life.

Fanta, the Guinean medical student, says she was working as an intern at a clinic in Conakry, the capital, when a patient came in from the provinces sick with what doctors initially thought was malaria. She took the man's vital signs — but as is common in Guinea — she had no protective gloves or face mask.

About two weeks later, in mid-March, she started having diarrhea and soon was vomiting blood. She says her lasting troubles began when doctors declared her cured and discharged her from the isolation ward at the hospital in early April.

Although she no longer had the virus in her bloodstream, she still was visibly unwell after nearly three weeks in the hospital. Word of her sickness and return spread quickly in the poor suburb of Tanene where she was staying with extended family.

The boyfriend she used to see every day disappeared when he heard she had Ebola. Now he won't take her calls, even months later.

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Ngwa Bertrand

15.Aug.2014

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Saying they were unhappy about being stigmatized over fears of Ebola, some African countries have withdrawn from a Youth Olympics tournament set to begin Saturday in the Chinese city of Nanjing.

Nigeria said it was in the process of sending home a delegation of 19 officials and teenage athletes who had arrived in China earlier this week.

Sierra Leone and Liberia decided against even sending delegations to China.

The International Olympic Committee in Geneva announced Friday that athletes from Ebola-impacted countries would not be allowed in swimming or combat events. The committee said the decision was made after consultation with the World Health Organization and Chinese officials.

"I am sad that the athletes are suffering twice, first because of the outbreak of the disease in their region and second because they are not able to compete here in Nanjing," said IOC President Thomas Bach while touring the competition's youth village Friday in Nanjing.

"Unfortunately, we had to take some precautionary measures to ensure the safety of the young athletes taking part at the Youth Olympic Games.

Nigerian officials, however, decided to send their athletes home because of their treatment in China.

"Morale is not very high,’’ Nigeria’s consul general in Shanghai, Eniola Ayorinde Otepola, said in a telephone interview Friday. The athletes “were excited to be participating in an international athletic event and arriving to face this kind of stigma and suspicion would not allow them to perform very well.’’

A delegation of 19 Nigerian athletes and officials arrived at the Shanghai airport Tuesday and it was clear from their reception, Otepola said, that it would be difficult for them to compete in China. He declined to elaborate on exactly what happened at the airport.

“They will go home tomorrow,’’ he said.

China announced earlier in the week that it was setting up special channels at international airports for passengers arriving from West Africa. A photo distributed Friday by Chinese state media showed four Nigerians wearing face masks and undergoing a health inspection by officers with the entry-exit inspection and quarantine bureau, who were dressed in full-body protective suits.

The head of Sierra Leone's National Olympic Committee, Patrick Cocker, said officials decided to withdraw from the competition after being warned by the Chinese Embassy in Freetown that the country's delegation "might find themselves in a troubled and awkward situation once they get to China's port of entry,’’ according to the Associated Press.

The Youth Olympics are scheduled to begin Saturday and run for two weeks, through Aug. 28. About 3,000 athletes are expected to participate. These are only the second Youth Olympics, the first tournament having taken place in 2010 in Singapore.

Of the four countries impacted by Ebola, only Guinea is continuing its participation in the event, with four athletes competing in track and field events. Two other Guinean athletes, who were supposed to compete in diving and judo, have been withdrawn.

Emmanuelle Moreau, the IOC’s spokeswoman, said the committee had been informed of Sierra Leone's and Liberia’s withdrawal, but was still hoping that Nigeria would at least participate in the opening ceremonies.

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Ngwa Bertrand

15.Aug.2014

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