Ebola Virus - Credit CDC
#8784
Despite local and International attempts to control it over the past three months, the Ebola epidemic in West Africa continues unabated, with scores of new cases being reported each week. With well over 600 cases (suspected & confirmed) reported across three nations, this outbreak is easiest the largest both in numbers and geographic spread.
Exact numbers are always hard to ascertain, regardless of where a disease outbreak occurs, but is likely doubly so in Western Africa, where surveillance and medical resources are limited.
Yesterday, the World Health Organization Regional Office for Africa released a statement (see Ebola epidemic in West Africa: WHO urges comprehensive inter-country response) calling Ebola `no longer a country specific outbreak but a sub-regional crisis that requires firm action by Governments and partners', and announcing :
`A special meeting of Ministers of Health of eleven (11) countries and partners involved in the Ebola outbreak response in Accra, Ghana from 2-3 July 2014 to discuss the best way of tackling the crisis collectively as well as develop a comprehensive inter country operational response plan.
Today the WHO has released the following statement:
Ebola Challenges West African countries as WHO ramps up response
Report from World Health Organization
Published on 26 Jun 2014
Geneva- The emergence of an Ebola virus disease outbreak in West Africa in 2014 has become a challenge to the three countries involved, as the Governments of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone work intensively with WHO and other partners to ramp up a series of measures to control the outbreak. Since March 2014, more than 600 cases of Ebola and over 390 deaths have been reported in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. While the number of suspected, probable and confirmed cases and deaths changes rapidly, the outbreak is causing concern among health authorities because the deadly disease is being transmitted in communities and in health-care settings, and it has appeared in cities as well as rural and border areas. The disease, which causes severe hemorrhaging and can kill up to 90% of those infected, is spread by direct contact with the blood and body fluids of infected animals or people.
WHO, the Global Alert and Response Network (GOARN), and its partners are providing guidance and support and have deployed teams of experts to West African countries and to WHO’s African Regional Office in Brazzaville, Congo.
These experts include:
- Epidemiologists to work with the countries in surveillance and monitoring of the outbreak.
- Laboratory experts to support mobile field laboratories for early confirmation of Ebola cases.
- Clinical management experts to help health facilities treat affected patients.
- Infection and prevention control experts to help the countries stop community and health-care facility transmission of the virus.
- Logisticians to dispatch needed equipment and materials.
- Social mobilization and risk communications teams to help health officials deliver appropriate messages about how to report, handle, and treat Ebola cases.
Recognizing that a coordinated regional response is essential, WHO is convening the leading health authorities from the affected and nearby countries in Accra, Ghana July 2 to 3, to agree on a comprehensive operational response to control the Ebola outbreak. A wide range of partners have been invited, and Ministries of Health of Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone will report on their preventive and control measures, contact identification and tracing; case management; infection and prevention control; social mobilization; and situation reports.
The countries are working to bring supportive care to the ill, inform affected communities of recommended practices, trace contacts of infected patients, control infections in health care settings, and taking other measures to control the outbreak. Despite their progress in implementing preventive and control measures, health authorities still face challenges in curbing the spread of the outbreak, and will discuss these at the Accra meeting .
The latest numbers, which change as cases are discovered, investigated, or discarded, are:
Guinea has reported some 396 cases and 280 deaths,
Sierra Leone has 176 cases and 46 deaths,
Liberia reports 63 cases and 41 deaths.
Sharp-eyed readers may notice that the number of deaths reported out of Sierra Leone has dropped from 78 to 46. This is apparently due to a change in the way that Sierra Leone chooses to report cases, as was explained in an email from the WHO this morning:
While there were 78 deaths, only 46 are listed because of a change in the reporting methodology on the part of Sierra Leone. The new method does not include probable or suspect deaths, only deaths of laboratory-confirmed cases.
While this may look better on Liberia’s official tally sheet (and they may well have legitimate reasons for changing their criteria), it is generally preferable when everyone uses the same methodology.
