Ebola outbreak worst since 1976, says WHO

Ebola outbreak worst since 1976, says WHO

Wednesday, August 6, 2014 7:19 pm


Ebola nurses at risk

Ebola nurses at risk

With death toll inching towards the thousand mark, the current Ebola outbreak ravaging some West African countries, will go down in history as the worst ever.

It has already surpassed anything else in the  records, in terms of number of infections and even the geographical spread.

The worst Ebola outbreaks in history were the ones recorded in 1976 in Zaire ,now known as DR Congo, when it was first diagnosed and was named after a river in the country. Two hundred and eighty people died then out of 380 infected cases. It resurfaced  in the same country in  1995, killing 250 people. Like a plague that never goes away,12  years after, it came again in DR Congo, killing 187 people, out of 264 people infected.

The WHO announced today that the death toll in this year’s outbreak in West Africa   has risen to 932 after 45 patients died between August 2 and August 4. With the death of a nurse in Lagos, Nigeria and a Saudi national in Jeddah on 6 August, the number is now 934.

In battle gear for Ebola

In battle gear for Ebola

WHO reported that the number of suspected, probable or confirmed cases rose by 108 over the same period to 1,711. Of the newly reported deaths, 27 were in Liberia, which has had 516 cases and 282 deaths from the disease since the outbreak began in February.

Guinea, where the outbreak was first reported, had 10 new cases and 5 deaths, while the number of cases in Sierra Leone rose by 45 to 691, with 13 newly reported deaths, bringing its death toll to 286.

In Nigeria, the fourth country to be affected, the number of suspected cases climbed from 4 to 9.

The WHO data only  included one death in Nigeria, of a man who collapsed shortly after he arrived by plane from Liberia, via Ghana and Togo.

But a nurse who treated him also died, Nigeria’s health minister said on Wednesday.

The WHO figures also did not contain any mention of Saudi Arabia, where a man died on Wednesday after returning from a business trip to Sierra Leone.

The WHO is holding an Emergency Committee meeting on Wednesday and Thursday to decide if the outbreak constitutes a public health emergency of international concern and, if so, what to do about it.

 

WHO Director-General Margaret Chan briefed national representatives on Tuesday, the WHO statement said, and outlined a threefold response: intensifying measures in the four affected countries, steps to reduce the international spread, and treatment of one area of West Africa as a “unified sector”.

That area – on the borders of Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia – would be subject to “public health measures meant to reduce movement in and out of the area”, the statement said.

At the moment, there is no known cure for the ruthless virus, although the Americans claim they have been testing a serum on their afflicted citizens.

Ebola: quarantine officers at work in Congo in 2001

Ebola: quarantine officers at work in Congo in 2001

The World Health Organization says it will next week convene a panel of medical ethics experts to explore use of experimental treatment. 

“We are in an unusual situation in this outbreak. We have a disease with a high fatality rate without any proven treatment or vaccine,” WHO Assistant Director-General Marie-Paule Kieny said in a statement.

“We need to ask the medical ethicists to give us guidance on what the responsible thing to do is.”

Waiting till next week, may be too late, as Ebola contagion continues to kill  the infected and disrupt the  social life of  people living in badly hit countries, such as Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.

Reuters reported today that Ebola is hitting tourism, reducing travel and trade, and slowing farming and mining, delivering body blows to what had been buoyant GDP growth driven by increasing foreign investment, officials said.

“A common feature of these three countries is they’re all fragile states,” Makhtar Diop, the World Bank’s vice president for Africa, said on a call with reporters.

“It means that they’re countries that need more support from the international community in normal times … And this external shock that they’re currently facing, this crisis, is taking them even further back,” Diop said.

Liberia’s Finance Minister Amara Konneh said the outbreak had already cost his country’s economy $12 million between April and June – two percent of the budget – and the disease was still spreading. Liberia would have to revise down its projected GDP growth of 5.9 percent, he said.

“We are scrambling for a response for this crisis … If it is not contained it will have serious consequences for our economy,” Konneh told Reuters.

In the ramshackle ocean-front capital Monrovia, still scarred by a 1989-2003 civil war, relatives of Ebola victims were dragging bodies into the dirt streets rather than face quarantine enforced by troops.

Sierra Leone’s foreign minister, Samura Kamara, said his country could ill afford the costs of fighting the epidemic.

“You have to divert resources. You have to divert energy. So you are slowing down the other aspects of real economic development just to fight a disease that erupted out of nowhere,” he told Reuters on a visit to Washington.

An initial World Bank-IMF impact assessment for Guinea, where the outbreak started in a remote forest region and has killed over 350 people, projects the bauxite exporter’s GDP growth falling from 4.5 percent to 3.5 percent.

The World Bank and African Development Bank have committed $260 million to help the three worst-affected countries.

With two Ebola deaths also reported so far in Nigeria, fears are growing about how the deadly virus, which can kill up to 90 percent of those it infects, could impact Africa’s top oil producer and most populous nation, and the surrounding region.

FLEEING FARMERS, FALLING REVENUES

The World Bank said agriculture had been hit in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia as rural workers fled farming areas in the affected zones, where some Ebola patients have been shunning medical treatment and hiding away in their villages.

Liberia’s Konneh said a slowdown in farming and transport and reduced activity at popular markets could push up prices of essential food items and other goods.

“We’re watching inflation. So far it’s not been bad but we’re worried about the Lofa food belt where people are quarantined and major markets closed. We expect hoarding by people in urban areas that could drive food prices up,” he said.

In Monrovia, residents said the Ebola emergency, and the fear and suspicion it has generated, was disrupting daily life, affecting everything from street hawking to taxi fares.

“Prices have gone up high. They’re charging us as though we were dressed in suits with neckties. Transportation fare is up now,” said Seyon Tweh, a small trader.

Due to the fear of contagion from close contact – Ebola is spread by contact with the bodily fluids of infected humans or animals – taxis were now only taking two passengers in the back instead of the previous four, and this had pushed fares up.

Konneh said the government would prevent price-gouging.

Some major airlines, such as British Airways and Emirates have halted flights to affected countries, and expatriates there are fleeing the Ebola risk, government officials said, adding this reduced consumption and revenues.

 

 

 

 

 


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