ACCRA (AFP) ― The United Nations reassured west Africa on Wednesday that the world’s deadliest-ever Ebola epidemic could be stopped in its tracks, telling the region’s health ministers: “We can handle this.”
The highly-contagious tropical bug has infected hundreds of people in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, with the latest World Health Organization figures showing confirmed or suspected cases had left 467 people dead.
The new toll represented a rise of 129 ― or 38 percent ― since the U.N. agency’s last bulletin given just a week ago.
“These kinds of outbreaks, these diseases, can be stopped,” Keiji Fukuda, assistant director-general for health security at the WHO, told AFP, as 11 west African health ministers gathered for a two-day conference in Accra on combatting the killer pathogen.
“This is not a unique situation ― we have faced it many times ― so I’m quite confident that we can handle this.
“This is, however, the most complicated Ebola outbreak ever because it is spreading so fast in both urban and rural areas.”
Since the region’s first ever epidemic of the deadly and highly contagious fever broke out in Guinea in January, the WHO has sent in more than 150 experts to help tackle the regional crisis.
Despite the efforts of the U.N. agency and other health workers, there has been a “significant increase” in the rate of new cases and deaths in recent weeks, the organization added.
Medical charity Doctors Without Borders, known by its French initials MSF, said last week that the spread of the virus, which has had a mortality rate of up to 90 percent in previous outbreaks, was “out of control”, with more than 60 outbreak hotspots.
The WHO has warned that Ebola could spread to other countries, warning those hardest hit could struggle to contain the disease.
koreaherald@heraldcorp.com
