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WHO: International organizations 'underestimated' Ebola RT, Moscow, 3 September 2014 Margaret Chan, director general of UN's World Health Organization (WHO), hit out at international bodies for failing to promptly respond to the Ebola epidemic when it first appeared months ago, admitting the disease is now "racing ahead of doctors." "All international organizations underestimated the disease," she said following a speedily-called United Nations meeting on combatting the virus, which continues to spread through West Africa. "The outbreak will get worse before it gets better. And it requires a well-coordinated, big surge and huge scale-up of outbreak response urgently." Chan said that officially more than 1,500 have died from the virus in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea, since the epidemic began, possibly as early as last year. "The outbreaks are racing ahead of the controlled efforts in these countries," lamented the Hong Kong-born official, who pointed out that the new outbreak was different from a handful of previous epidemics, which occurred in isolated areas in the countryside, not crowded cities. Countries such as Liberia, which had about 50 qualified doctors for a population of 4 million, have been poorly-equipped to deal with the disease, which can only be tackled through following strict containment measures. "My colleagues have cared for more than two-thirds of the officially declared infected patients. Even as we have doubled our staff over the last month, I can tell you that they are completely overwhelmed. Doctors Without Borders has been ringing alarm bells for months, but the response has been too late, too little," said Joanne Liu, president of Doctors Without Borders (MSF). The real number of those who have fallen ill could be a magnitude greater than those officially diagnosed, as the patients may be cared for at home, and buried secretly, to avoid stigma. Unsurprisingly, these cases, where proper sanitation measures have not been complied with, contribute to the further spread of the disease. But until an effective cure can be developed, there is little help for those who decide to seek medical help. "Ebola treatment centers are reduced to places where people go to die alone, where little more than palliative care is offered. It is impossible to keep up with the sheer number of infected people pouring in our facilities. In Sierra Leone, infectious bodies are rotting in the streets. Rather than building a new Ebola care center in Liberia, we are forced to build crematoria," said Liu. The MSF chief said the deployment of "civilians and military assets with expertise in biohazard containment" was imperative. From: http://rt.com/news/184656-who-ebola-underestimated-epidemics/ -- -- You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected] . You don't have to put anything in the "Subject:" field. You don't have to put anything in the message part. All you have to do is to send an e-mail to this address (repeat): [email protected] . --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "YCLSA Discussion Forum" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
