Ebola outbreak scale ‘vastly underestimated’ – WHO

Sierra Leone government burial team members load the body of an Ebola victim onto a truck at an MSF facility in Kailahun, on August 14, 2014. (AFP Photo / Carl de Souza)

The official death toll from the deadly Ebola outbreak in West #Africa is currently standing at 1,069 deaths out of 1,975 cases, but the numbers could be vastly underestimated, the World Health Organization has warned.

“[WHO] staff at the outbreak sites see evidence that the numbers of reported cases and deaths vastly underestimate the magnitude of the outbreak,” the organization wrote on its website.

While no new cases surfaced, the outbreak is expected to continue “for some time” in West African states affected by the virus, the WHO said, adding that the “operational response plan extends over the next several months.”

WHO is coordinating the international response such as the World Food Programme and is using its “well-developed logistics to deliver food to the more than one million people locked down in the quarantine zones, where the borders of Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone intersect.” The organization is also mapping out the outbreak to effectively locate closest treatment facilities.

Meanwhile Guinea has declared a “health emergency” as the number of people killed by the Ebola virus reached 377 in the country.

As the number of deaths rises, the affected countries eagerly await experimental drugs from Western pharmaceutical firms that have been blessed by the WHO as ethical to treat the ill.

Surviving Ebola: Life after illness and the ethics of testing drugs on humans

In the worst epidemic since the disease was first discovered in 1976, the death toll has now reached 1,069 with 56 people dying in the last two days and a total of around 2,000 infected. RT

Drought, war in E Africa put 14m people at risk: UN

African People fleeing

NAIROBI : Poor rains and multiple conflicts across eastern Africa have put over 14 million people in need of food aid, three years since extreme drought devastated the region, the United Nations said Friday.

"The situation is very worrisome," said Matthew Conway, spokesman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) for Eastern Africa.

"There are similarities to the situation that we saw leading to the 2011 crisis," he said, adding that the United Nations was appealing for $2.6 billion (1.9 billion euros) in aid. Conditions are still far from the crisis in 2011, when some 12 million people in four nations were hit by one of the worst droughts in 60 years, with parts of Somalia declared famine zones.

The 14.4 million people classified by the UN as food insecure are spread over nine nations, with the hardest hit countries including war-torn South Sudan and Somalia.

Aid workers say famine could be declared in South Sudan within weeks if fighting continues, while last month the UN warned Somalia is sliding back into an acute hunger crisis.

Arid northern Kenya, which like much of the region suffers from recuring droughts, is also struggling.
Oxfam said failed or poor rains, conflict and drought have contributed to the rising food insecurity in the region. "It is imperative that we learn from the lessons of 2011," Oxfam's regional director Fran Equiza told AFP. "Early intervention has the potential to save thousands of lives and keep millions more from the brink of starvation."

Some 2.7 million people are in dire need of supplies in Ethiopia and 1.3 million in Kenya, many of them refugees from neighbouring Somalia. Some 120,000 are in need in Djibouti.

In Sudan, five million people are at risk, while in South Sudan 3.5 million are struggling. Tens of thousands are also in need in Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda. More than 250,000 people, half of them children, died in the devastating 2011 famine in Somalia. The Nation News

WHO calls for emergency talks as death toll reaches 467 in West Africa

Members of Doctors Without Borders (MSF) put on protective gear at the isolation ward of the Donka Hospital in Conakry, where people infected with the Ebola virus are being treated.

The #Ebola outbreak in West Africa has now killed 467 people says the World Health Organisation (#WHO). The deadly #virus has a mortality rate of 90 per cent and no known cure. It’s spread by contact with the bodily fluids of infected humans or animals, with symptoms including fever, fatigue and internal bleeding setting in two weeks after infection.

The current outbreak is believed to have begun in Guinea at the beginning of 2014. The virus has since spread to neighbouring Sierra Leone and Liberia and has been declared the worst outbreak in history.

Health ministers from 11 West African countries will meet in Ghana this Wednesday and Thursday to discuss the current crisis with WHO calling for “drastic action”.

"Containment of this outbreak requires a strong response in the countries and especially along their shared border areas," said the United Nations organization.

The latest report shows a 38 per cent increase in deaths and 27 per cent increase in the number of suspected cases since the last update a week ago. “As of 30 June 2014, the cumulative number of cases attributed to EVD in the three countries stands at 759, including 467 deaths,” said WHO.

The health body said that the spread of the virus is being facilitated by “cross-border transmission” between Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, “where commercial and social activities continue among the border areas of these countries.”

Doctors Without Borders (MSF) is believed to be the only aid organization currently treated people affected with the virus, with director of operations Dr Bart Janssens describing the situation as “totally out of control”.

“We have reached our limits,” said Dr Janssens. “Despite the human resources and equipment deployed by MSF in the three affected countries, we are no longer able to send teams to the new outbreak sites.”

MSF has urged WHO to deploy the resources needed to fight such an epidemic, with Dr Janssens warning: “Ebola is no longer a public health issue limited to Guinea: it is affecting the whole of West Africa.” Independent News