liberia

Ebola threat to world peace and security, launches mission to combat disease

In an unprecedented action, an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council has declared the Ebola virus disease “a threat to international peace and security” while Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced the formation of an emergency mission to fight the deadly disease.

Ebola threat to world peace and security, launches mission to combat disease

The Council, which usually deals with international conflicts, took on the disease ravaging three countries in West Africa, and approved a resolution Thursday sponsored by 131 countries “determining that the unprecedented extent of the Ebola outbreak in Africa constitute a threat to international peace and security”. Underlining the international concern over the disease with no vaccine available and cures rare, it was the largest number of sponsors ever for a resolution in the Security Council.

The Council president, US Ambassador Samantha Power, said this was the Council’s first emergency meeting on a public health issue.

Ban announced at the Council meeting the formation of the new organisation to take on the disease on a battle-footing.

“To be known as the United Nations Mission for Ebola Emergency Response, or UNMEER,” he said, it “will have five priorities: stopping the outbreak, treating the infected, ensuring essential services, preserving stability and preventing further outbreaks.”

He appealed for international aid for the effort, not only from governments, but also busineses. The UN has estimated that it would need $1 billion over the next six months to deal with the crisis.

Ban also called for ending travel and trade restrictions on three affected countries — Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leon — as these could affect medical personnel going there and delivery of supplies. The Council resolution took up the issue, expressing concern about major airlines and shipping companies introducing travel restrictions to the affected countries.

World Health Organisation head Margaret Chan told the Council that reports Ebola has affected more than 5,500 people and killed over 2,500 killed are “vast underestimates”.

“None of us experienced in containing outbreaks has ever seen, in our lifetimes, an emergency on this scale, with this degree of suffering and with this magnitude of cascading consequences,” she said.

Earlier, at a press briefing, a reporter asked the secretary-general’s spokesman about a potential threat of terrorists using Ebola. The spokesman said it was a matter of concern. “It can also impact the political stability of a country and lack of political stability can breed other problems. So, this is why, I think, the secretary-general
is focused on getting the UN system to work together in the most efficient way possible to stop the virus from spreading and to support national governments.

Source: yahoo news

Liberia must wait weeks or months for new Ebola centers, says WHO

The Ebola response in Liberia, the country worst hit by the outbreak, will focus on community-level care units since new treatment centers are unlikely to be ready for weeks or months, World Health Organization Assistant Director General Bruce Aylward said on Tuesday.

“The absolute first priority is to establish enough capacity to rapidly isolate the cases so that they are not infecting others. We need Ebola treatment centers to do that, very very quickly, but they take time to build, as you’ve seen,” he said.

“It takes weeks, if not months, to get these facilities up and running. We have firm commitments for more than 500 additional beds in Liberia and we think we will hear announcements that will take that even further over the coming weeks.” The WHO still has a goal to “bend the curve” in total Ebola case numbers across West Africa within three months, but some areas may be free of the disease sooner, he said.

“You definitely want to get Nigeria and Senegal obviously done quickly,” Aylward said. “In some capitals – Freetown, Conakry – we should be able to get those free in the near term. Guinea should be able to get most of the country free in the very near term as well.” In Sierra Leone and Liberia the disease is more entrenched over bigger geographic areas and the Liberian capital Monrovia was a “particular challenge”, he said.

The number of cases has shrunk to one single confirmed Ebola patient in Senegal, after two suspected cases were ruled out, and remained steady at 21 cases in Nigeria, he said. “I cannot say Senegal is safe. Remember, if a country has Ebola, the incubation period is about 21 days. I like to see at least two incubation periods without any cases to be absolutely sure. So that would take us way out into October. Never declare victory over this virus.”

Guinea, where the outbreak originated last December, has had 936 cases, Sierra Leone 1,602 and Liberia 2,407, he said

Source: fox news

Ebola scare at Delhi airport, 3 Indians taken for test

Three Indians who arrived at the Delhi airport on Tuesday morning from Ebola-hit Liberia have been isolated and taken for medical examination. A total of 112 people will be arriving on Tuesday at Delhi and Mumbai airports from the African nation.

Ebola scare at Delhi airport, 3 Indians taken for test

Government has taken elaborate precautionary arrangements. “As part of the tentative plan, the aircraft will be first taken to a remote bay and all passengers will be screened at the step-ladder exit after the arrival of flights at the Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport (CSIA),” Mumbai International Airport Limited (MIAL) said.

While the passengers without any symptoms will be cleared and shifted to the terminal for immigration and customs clearance, those coming from Liberia with symptoms suggestive of EVD will be shifted to designated hospital in ambulance from the bay, it said.

According to MIAL, Ethiopian Airline, Emirates, Etihad, Qatar, Jet and South African Airways are flying these passengers to Mumbai. Some of these passengers will first arrive in Delhi and then leave for Mumbai by domestic airlines flight, MIAL said.

Mial also said the baggage of the passengers needs to be kept separate by the concerned airline in their custody, adding disinfection of the flight will be carried out once all passengers would be deboarded.

Flights will be allowed to board the next batch of passengers only after thirty minutes of disinfection, it added.
Source: India Today

New Churches Damage Fight Against HIV in Liberia – Govt Official

An upsurge in ‘new generation’ churches that claim to be able to heal or perform miracles is having a damaging effect on Liberia’s progress in fighting HIV/AIDS, a government official said today.

Speaking in the week before World AIDS Day, Health Ministry official David Logan said there had been a dramatic increase in new generation churches that link their preaching to prevailing local beliefs in healing or miracle cures, with the result that people with HIV were not seeking proper medical treatment.

“Unlike traditional Catholic, Lutheran or Episcopalian churches, the new churches claim to be able to give spiritual deliverance, provide healing or perform miracles.

This is an attractive option for many people living in an impoverished, post-conflict Liberia,” Logan told Thomson Reuters Foundation by telephone from Monrovia.

“Transport and opportunity costs as well as the stigma associated with coming out with HIV has meant that patients from outlying communities are more likely to seek help in these nearby local new churches rather than medical centres based in the capital,” Logan said.

Liberia, a West African country still recovering from almost 15 years of civil war, has around 18,000 people who need anti-retroviral therapy (ART), the standard medical treatment for those living with HIV.

Only 6,000 people are currently enrolled in therapeutic programmes, and a further 10,000 are “in care” because they do not qualify for treatment under WHO guidelines, which stipulate that the patient must have a CD4 count of 350, or be at clinical stage 3 or 4, Logan said.

Most healthy adults have between 500/mm3 and 1,000/mm3 CD4 cells, which form part of the immune system, designed to fend off disease when the body is fighting infection.

A One Campaign report released today shows that Liberia is the only non-conflict country in sub-Saharan Africa in which progress towards the “tipping point” in the battle against HIV has been reversed. Mali is the only other country where the battle against HIV is being lost.

“The tipping point is the point where the number of people being treated exceeds the number of new infections. Liberia treated many more people in 2012 than it has in 2013, resulting in negative progress,” Erin Hohlfelder, the report author, told Thomson Reuters Foundation by telephone from Washington.

“We’re hoping it is just a blip, rather than the beginning of a new trend,” Hohlfelder said, adding that funding from traditional bilateral donors has been static over the last two years, leaving many African countries to fill the gap from their own budgets.

Logan said he hoped that funding provided by the Global Fund and the ESTHER Project would help to pay for outreach workers to reach isolated communities and ensure ART retention and follow-up, and that international days like World AIDS Day would help persuade local communities not to stigmatise those living with HIV.

New WHO guidelines released this year will increase the number of people eligible for treatment for HIV by raising the CD4 threshold for starting treatment to a count of 500/mm3, Logan said.

“The national programme is now working closely with these new churches so that they direct known HIV cases to our designated centres for medical care while they provide spiritual support,” he said.

Source: All Africa