Zimpapers Logo

GENEVA – The outbreak of Ebola in West Africa will take at least six months to bring under control, the medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) says.

Speaking in Geneva, MSF President Joanne Lui said the situation was “deteriorating faster, and moving faster, than we can respond to”.

Earlier, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said the scale of the outbreak appeared to be “vastly underestimated”.

It said that “extraordinary measures” were needed.

The epidemic began in Guinea in February and has since spread to Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria.

So far, 1,069 people have died.

Lui said that although Guinea was the initial epicentre, the pace there had slowed and other countries – particularly Liberia – now had to be the focus.

“If we don’t stabilise Liberia, we will never stabilise the region,” she said.

“In terms of timeline, we’re not talking in terms of weeks, we’re talking in terms of months. We need a commitment for months, at least I would say six months, and I’m being, I would say, very optimistic.”

Lui also called for more action from the international community and stronger leadership from WHO – the UN’s health agency.

“All governments must act. It must be done now if we want to contain this epidemic,” she said.

“WHO needs to take leadership and bring some strong elements into the field at all operational levels. It’s already started but it needs to happen at all levels.”

Ebola is transmitted by direct contact with the body fluids of a person who is infected.

Initial flu-like symptoms can lead to external haemorrhaging from areas such as eyes and gums, and internal bleeding which can lead to organ failure.

The WHO – which declared a global health emergency last week – recently said that the risk of transmission of Ebola during air travel remained low, as the disease is not airborne.

As a consequence, Kenya Airways has rejected pressure to suspend its flights to the Ebola-hit states of West Africa.

Mutuma Mathiu in The Daily Nation describes the move as “reckless” while The Star says the airline is “holding on to its lucrative West African routes as if they were the only business on its portfolio”.

“The government needs to get serious. An Ebola outbreak… would result in serious long term-damage” to the national brand, it continues.

The Standard notes that while it makes business sense for Kenya Airways to take advantage of West African destinations, the “economic escapade could be costly. The safety of Kenyans supersedes any profits and must come first.”

However, George Bodo in Kenya’s Business Daily recalls the carrier’s ailing share prices. “In calling on Kenya Airways to suspend nearly half of its high-margin flights, someone should, ideally, be ready with some form of compensation. Otherwise, its stock price will continue being more vulnerable in the coming weeks.”

The WHO said in a statement that its staff had seen evidence that the number of reported cases and deaths did not reflect the scale of the crisis.

WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl said that experts going house-to-house in Kenema, Sierra Leone, in search of infected people were discovering more cases.

“We have seen with the opening of new treatment centres, many more Ebola patients come forward, and so this has given rise to the belief that there are probably a lot of patients out there that we haven’t traced or contacted yet,” he said.

He said that an 80-bed treatment centre that recently opened in Liberia’s capital Monrovia filled up immediately and that the next day, dozens more people turned up to be treated.

Tarnue Karbbar, of the aid group Plan International in northern Liberia, said medical teams were not able to document all the cases erupting.

He said many of the sick were being hidden at home by relatives, and many victims were buried before teams could get to the area.

The outbreak is also affecting the Youth Olympic Games about to start in China. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has ruled that athletes from Ebola-hit countries will not be allowed to compete in combat sports or in the pool, and Sierra Leone and Nigeria have withdrawn from the Games.

Meanwhile,the new chief of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) called for coordinated efforts to contain the spread of Ebola virus disease.

Effective response to the epidemic required the coordination of all parties, Elhadj As Sy, the Secretary General of IFRC who took office earlier this month, said after his latest visit in his new role to Guinea and Sierra Leone, two of the most affected countries by the Ebola outbreak.

The senior humanitarian official called on governments of affected countries to engage with regional and international institutions to scale up and sustain the momentum of the ongoing response operations.

“The Ebola outbreak is revealing the fragility of the health systems in the affected countries, which will require long-term engagement from all parties in making sure that we build or rebuild the capacities to respond and anticipate this kind of crisis,” said Sy in a statement.

He drew attention to three fundamental and essential elements that need to be applied for an effective response: fast reaction, clear results and accountability at every level.

Based on this, Sy decided to establish a regional coordination platform to be based in Conakry, Guinea, which would coordinate efforts at a regional level, align responses in all countries and work on preparedness measures in surrounding countries, with an aim of leaving no one behind.

He also highlighted the importance of volunteers of National Red Cross Societies in contributing to stemming the spread of the disease within the communities.

In response to the Ebola outbreak, over 1,500 volunteers, mobilised by National Red Cross Societies in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia and supported by IFRC, have been actively engaged in numerous activities at community level such as social mobilisation, dead body management and contact tracing, as it was introduced.

World Health Organisation (WHO) declared last Friday that the Ebola outbreak raging in West Africa constitutes an international public health emergency and provided advice to countries to help contain the current Ebola outbreak and prevent it from spreading further.

According to WHO statistics released on Thursday, the cumulative number of cases attributed to Ebola virus disease in Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone stands at 1,975, including 1,069 deaths. –  BBC/Xinhua