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WHO: Ebola stabilizing in Guinea as toll nears 3,000
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THE spread of Ebola seems to have stabilized in Guinea, one of three West African states worst-hit by the disease, but a lack of beds and resistance in affected communities means its advance continues elsewhere, the World Health Organization said.
Underscoring drastic measures being taken to halt the worst outbreak on record of the deadly virus, Sierra Leone put three more districts — home to over a million people and major mining operations — under indefinite quarantine.
An outbreak that began in a remote corner of Guinea has taken hold of much of neighboring Liberia and Sierra Leone, killing nearly 3,000 people in just over six months. Senegal and Nigeria have recorded cases but, for now, contained them.
World leaders and international organizations have warned of a crisis threatening the stability and economies of a string of fragile West African states. But they have also been criticized for doing too little too late.
“The upward epidemic trend continues in Sierra Leone and most probably also in Liberia,” the WHO said in its latest update on the disease, which has killed about half of those confirmed and suspected to have been infected.
“However, the situation in Guinea, although still of grave concern, appears to have stabilized: between 75 and 100 new confirmed cases have been reported in each of the past five weeks,” it added.
Experts are trying to straighten out data from the ground, where already weak local health systems over been overrun by one of the world’s deadliest diseases, muddying information on the current situation.
But most warn that the number of cases recorded so far represents a fraction of the real total, with many victims unable find places to get treated or unwilling to come forward due to fears over the disease.
WHO said this week that the total number of infections could reach 20,000 by November, months earlier than previously forecast. US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) warned between 550,000 and 1.4 million people might be infected in the region by January if nothing was done.
Overnight, Sierra Leone’s President Ernest Bai Koroma announced that the districts of Port Loko and Bombali in the north and Moyamba in the south would be quarantined.
Five of the country’s 14 districts are now isolated.
A spike in Ebola cases and warnings of exponential spread in recent weeks have spooked international leaders into greater pledges of action. The response is picking up momentum.
Governments and organizations from across the world, including the United States, Great Britain, France, China and Cuba, have pledged military and civilian personnel alongside cash and medical supplies.
But aid workers say it is still not enough.
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