ebola

Aid and development charity, Oxfam, has responded to the International Monetary Fund's announcement of debt relief for Ebola stricken countries.

Head of Oxfam’s Washington Office, Nicolas Mombrial, points out that, "The IMF's move will provide welcome relief to countries whose economies have been devastated by Ebola.”

A United Nations (UN) trust fund seeking nearly US$1 billion for rapid, flexible funding of the most urgent needs to fight Ebola in West Africa has received a deposit of just US$100 000 nearly a month after it was set up.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in September that US$988 million is needed to tackle the deadly haemorrhagic fever over the next six months and since then, US$365 million has been committed to stop Ebola in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, which have been hit hardest by the epidemic.

Medecins Sans Frontieres says that amid collapsing health systems, people in countries worst affected are too afraid to report all Ebola cases.

Field workers from the international aid organisation, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), who returned to South Africa last week after having worked in Ebola-stricken countries in West Africa, say far more people have died of the disease than the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) estimated 4 000.

Director of the University of Pretoria's Centre for Human Rights, Frans Viljoen, believes South Africa should have played the leading role in the fight against the spread of the Ebola virus in Africa.

Speaking at the University of Pretoria’s panel discussion on South Africa's preparedness for Ebola, Viljoen stresses that, “As a beacon of public health on the continent, as a country that stands for African problems being resolved by Africans themselves, South Africa should have taken a leading role.”

The international medical agency, Medecins sans Frontieres, says the world was ‘losing the battle’ to contain Ebola as the United Nations (UN) warned of severe food shortages in the hardest-hit countries.

MSF told a UN briefing in New York that world leaders were failing to address the epidemic and called for an urgent global biological disaster response to get aid and personnel to West Africa.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) states that, the death toll from the Ebola epidemic has risen above 2 000, however hopes that a vaccine could be available in November 2014.

Following a two-day crisis meeting in Geneva, WHO confirmed that the deadly virus has claimed 2 097 lives out of 3 944 people infected in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone since emerging in December 2013.

Zimbabwe has started setting up health ports to strictly monitor visitors coming in via air or land routes and will quarantine them if necessary in a bid to curb a possible Ebola outbreak.
 
This, despite confirmation from Zimbabwe’s director of epidemiology in the Ministry of Health and Child Care, Portia Manangazira, that no Ebola cases had been detected in that country.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) says people infected in the West African Ebola outbreak can be offered untested drugs, however, the scarcity of supplies has raised questions about who gets priority access to treatment.

Liberia plans to treat two infected doctors with an unproven Ebola medicine called ZMapp, as they become the first Africans to receive the drug, which has already been given to a Spanish priest who later died and two United States aid workers.

Mozambican health authorities draw up a questionnaire that will be asked to all passengers who have come from, or passed through, the West African countries where Ebola has been reported in an attempt to ensure that the deadly disease Ebola does not reach the country.

The health ministry says the measures will be implemented at all the country's international airport, ports and land borders, in addition, anyone from the affected areas who presents possible Ebola symptoms (such as fever, severe weakness and muscular, head and throat pains) will also be questioned.