Associated Press — An Ebola outbreak that has killed more than 700 people in West Africa is moving faster than efforts to control the disease, the head of the World Health Organization warned as presidents from the affected countries met Friday in Guinea’s capital.
Dr. Margaret Chan, the WHO’s director-general, said the meeting in Conakry “must be a turning point” in the battle against Ebola, which is now sickening people in three African capitals for the first time in history.
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“If the situation continues to deteriorate, the consequences can be catastrophic in terms of lost lives but also severe socio-economic disruption and a high risk of spread to other countries,” she said, as the WHO formally launched a $100 million response plan that includes deploying hundreds more health care workers.
Medecins Sans Frontieres, also known as Doctors Without Borders, said the WHO pledge “needs to translate to immediate and effective action.” While the group has deployed some 550 health workers, it said it did not have the resources to expand further.
Doctors Without Borders said its teams are overwhelmed with new Ebola patients in Sierra Leone and that the situation in Liberia is now “dire.”
“Over the last weeks, there has been a significant surge in the epidemic – the number of cases has increased dramatically in Sierra Leone and Liberia, and the disease has spread to many more villages and towns,” the organization said in a statement. “After a lull in new cases in Guinea, there has been a resurgence in infections and deaths in the past week.”
At least 729 people have died since cases first emerged in March: 339 in Guinea, 233 in Sierra Leone, 156 in Liberia and one in Nigeria.
Two American health workers in Liberia have been infected, and an American man of Liberian descent died in Nigeria from the disease, health authorities there say.
