Leading international health officials said Tuesday that the Ebola epidemic in West Africa is accelerating and the window for getting it under control is closing.
“Six months into the worst Ebola epidemic in history, the world is losing the battle to contain it,” Joanne Liu, international president of medical charity Doctors Without Borders, said in a briefing at the United Nations. She faulted world leaders for failing to recognize the severity of the crisis sooner and said charities and West African governments alone do not have the capacity to stem the outbreak.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Tom Frieden, who returned Monday from a week-long trip to the countries hardest hit by the epidemic — Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea — said he was shocked by how rapidly the disease is spreading.
There is widespread transmission in Liberia and Sierra Leone, and a troubling spike in cases in Guinea, which until now has had more success controlling the outbreak, he said. That increase has taken place in one community, where many have resisted preventive measures such as spraying bleach, and mistakenly believe the measures are spreading Ebola.
“There is a window of opportunity to tamp this down, but that window is closing,” Frieden said. “We need action now to scale up, and we need to scale up to massive levels . . . I cannot overstate the need for an urgent response,” he said.
No comments:
Post a Comment