With one of the Americans infected with the Ebola virus headed for Emory University’s hospital as we speak, we have reached the first time that a disease that has ravaged Africa in the past is being knowingly brought to North America. By all accounts, the steps that medical professionals are taking to ensure that the disease is not spread to others during his journey or during his stay at Emory represent the height of medical technology and there is very little risk of the virus spreading to medical workers, or to the general public. The same cannot be said for the African nations that find themselves in the grip of this latest outbreak, though. According to a report this morning, there are now some 1,300 confirmed cases of the disease in these nations, making this one of the biggest Ebola outbreaks in recent memory:
ABUJA, Nigeria — In an ominous warning as fatalities mounted in West Africa from the worst known outbreak of the Ebola virus, the head of the World Health Organization said on Friday that the disease was moving faster than efforts to curb it, with potentially catastrophic consequences, including a “high risk” that it will spread.
The assessment was among the most dire since the outbreak was identified in March. The outbreak has been blamed for the deaths of 729 people, according to W.H.O. figures, and has left over 1,300 people with confirmed or suspected infections.
Dr. Margaret Chan, the W.H.O. director general, was speaking as she met with the leaders of the three most affected countries — Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone — in Conakry, the Guinean capital, for the introduction of a $100 million plan to deploy hundreds more medical professionals in support of overstretched regional and international health workers.
“This meeting must mark a turning point in the outbreak response,” Dr. Chan said, according to a W.H.O. transcript of her remarks. “If the situation continues to deteriorate, the consequences can be catastrophic in terms of lost lives but also severe socioeconomic disruption and a high risk of spread to other countries.”
She said the outbreak was “caused by the most lethal strain in the family of Ebola viruses.”
The gathering in Conakry came a day after West African leaders seemed to quicken the pace of efforts to combat the disease, in what some analysts depicted as a belated acknowledgment that the response so far had been inadequate.
Before the meeting started, there were indications of discord. The leader of Guinea’s Ebola task force said that emergency measures in Liberia, where schools have been closed, and Sierra Leone could set back efforts to control the worst outbreak of the virus since it was identified almost four decades ago.
“Currently, some measures taken by our neighbors could make the fight against Ebola even harder,” Aboubacar Sidiki Diakité, the Ebola task force leader, told Reuters. “When children are not supervised, they can go anywhere and make the problem worse. It is part of what we will be talking about.”
Sierra Leone’s emergency measures include house-to-house searches for infected people and the deployment of the army and the police.
One person, traveling from Liberia, died in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, which introduced airport screening of travelers from the stricken region on Thursday.
Dr. Chan said that the virus seemed to be spreading in ways never seen before.
“It is taking place in areas with fluid population movements over porous borders, and it has demonstrated its ability to spread via air travel,” she said.
Making matters worse, health workers have been hit particularly hard. Top doctors in Sierra Leone and Liberia have died, and two American aid workers have contracted Ebola and were due to be flown back to the United States for further treatment at Emory University in Atlanta.
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Dr. Chan said that the virus seemed to be spreading in ways never seen before.
“It is taking place in areas with fluid population movements over porous borders, and it has demonstrated its ability to spread via air travel,” she said.
Making matters worse, health workers have been hit particularly hard. Top doctors in Sierra Leone and Liberia have died, and two American aid workers have contracted Ebola and were due to be flown back to the United States for further treatment at Emory University in Atlanta.
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As the alarm about the outbreak has grown, so, too, have concerns that the disease will be carried farther afield by travelers from the stricken countries, despite official efforts to tamp down such fears. The African Union, for instance, announced on Friday that it was postponing a routine rotation of its peacekeeping force in Somalia for fear that new soldiers arriving from Sierra Leone could be infected.
The Philippines said Friday that it would screen travelers from Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia when they arrived and monitor them for a month. Lebanon was reported to have suspended work permits for residents of the same three countries, news reports said. Emirates, an airline based in Dubai, said it was suspending flights to Conakry as of Saturday.
The biggest concern that health experts are worried about, obviously, is the possibility that someone who is carrying the Ebola virus and is unaware of it could get on a plane and travel anywhere in the world during the time when they are most infectious to others. It isn’t as implausible as it might sound largely because, in its early stages Ebola’s symptoms are very similar to influenza and hard to detect. Fortunately, the disease differs from the flu in that it cannot be transmitted through the air, but instead requires some exposure to bodily fluids. Nonetheless, when a case of Ebola showed up in Lagos, Nigeria this week it raised alarm bells around the world.
