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Tag: Ebola

  • Ebola: EU, ECOWAS warn against border closure, isolation

    Ebola: EU, ECOWAS warn against border closure, isolation

    The European Union and the Economic Community of West African States have warned against closure of borders or isolation of countries affected by Ebola Virus Disease.

    EU and ECOWAS said such action could be counter-productive.

    Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea are most hit by the virus that has killed over 2,000 people in the last six months.

    Nigeria had also been hit by the virus that was imported into the country by a Liberian-American, Patrick Sawyer. Seven people had been killed by Ebola in the country.

    The appeal was made at the 10th Edition of the ECOWAS/Development Partners Annual Coordination Meeting held in Abuja.

    Officials from both regional bodies and other institutions are meeting for days to discuss the virus, terrorism and other issues.

    The EU Ambassador to Nigeria and ECOWAS, Michel Arrion, in his remark explained that closing borders against Ebola ravaged countries was not the solution to containing the spread of the virus.

    “There is the need to isolate the virus, but there is no need to isolate the countries,” he stated.

    Arrion said that if the sub-region’s ability fails, the whole West African countries may face an extremely dangerous threat to public health and security with the scourge of the disease.

    The ECOWAS Commission’s President, Kadre Desire Ouedraogo, while speaking with journalists, said although it is important that borders are not closed, member states must be very conscious in terms of surveillance.

    “I want to appeal to all ECOWAS member states not to close their borders, not to isolate the affected countries because this will be counter-productive. We should cultivate the spirit of solidarity,” Ouedraogo said.

     

  • EBOLA: FG, NMA agree on schools’ resumption date

    The Federal Government and the Nigerian Medical Association on Monday finally harmonized positions on the September 22 resumption of schools nationwide.

    The NMA said the September 22 date earlier announced by the federal government for the resumption of schools was acceptable and that schools should resume “in order not to feed into the fear monster in the country.”

    The association while agreeing with the government’s position at a stakeholders’ meeting with the House of Representatives Committee on Education however gave six provisions to be followed to keep the country safe.

    The President of the NMA, Dr. Kayode Obembe, said the association changed its mind on the condition that the government would, among other conditions, maintain “highest level of vigilance” in the several entry points in the country, resuscitate infectious disease hospital in states and ensure comprehensive screening of travelers.

    NMA said the international Port Health Services should be put in the highest level of vigilance and preparedness to screen those coming into the country.

    “All recent travelers to all the provinces of the current endemic countries of the Ebola disease – namely Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, Sudan and Gabon-must be carefully scrutinized for the presence of the virus and epidemiologically treated accordingly,” NMA added.

     

  • Obama details Ebola plans Tuesday

    Obama details Ebola plans Tuesday

    United States President, Barack Obama, is expected to detail on Tuesday a plan to boost his country’s involvement in mitigating the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, the Wall Street Journal has reported

    The plan would involve a greater involvement of the U.S military in tackling the worst recorded outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus, the Journal reported, citing people familiar with the proposal.

    The outbreak has now killed upwards of 2,400 people, mostly in Liberia, neighbouring Guinea and Sierra Leone as poorly resourced West African healthcare systems have been overrun.

    The U.S government has already committed around $100 million to tackle the outbreak by providing protective equipment for healthcare workers, food, water, medical and hygiene equipment, Reuters says.

    According to reports, Obama could ask Congress for an additional $88 million to fund his proposal. Plan details are expected during Obama’s visit Tuesday to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

    The move would come just days after Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf appealed to Obama for urgent aid, saying that without it her country would lose the fight against the disease.

    The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned that the epidemic is spreading exponentially in Liberia, where more than half of the deaths have been recorded.

    The U.S military said recently it would build a 25-bed field hospital in Liberia to care for infected health workers but it would hand it to Liberians to run.

    On Friday, the U.S Ambassador to Liberia, Deborah Malac, said Washington would train security forces in isolation operations, after a boy was shot dead last month when Liberian soldiers opened fire on a crowd protesting at a quarantine in a Monrovia neighbourhood.

     

  • $62million war chest against Ebola in Nigeria, others

    $62million war chest against Ebola in Nigeria, others

    Microsoft founders Bill Gates and Paul Allen have donated over $60 million to contain Ebola in West Africa.  Allen is donating $9 million,  in addition to the earlier  $2.8 million to the American Red Cross for its work on the outbreak. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has pledged $50 million to the United Nations.

    Microsoft Corp  co-founder, Paul Allen, is donating $9 million to support the fight against the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, just a month after donating $2.8 million to the American Red Cross for its work on the outbreak.He joins the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which has pledged $50 million to United Nations agencies and other international groups to purchase supplies, such as protective gear for healthcare workers treating Ebola patients, and to expand the emergency response.

    Allen’s gift to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention comes at a time when international groups, including Doctors Without Borders and the World Health Organisation, have said resources to contain the epidemic and treat those affected are falling tragically short.

    “The tragedy of Ebola is that we know how to tackle the disease, but the governments in West Africa are in dire need of more resources and solutions,’ Allen said in a statement. ‘The developed world needs to step up now with resources and solutions.”

    Allen said the donation from the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation will help CDC establish emergency operations centers in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, where the worst Ebola outbreak on record has killed about 2,300 people and shows no sign of slowing six months after it began.

    U.S. President Barack Obama asked Congress for $88 million in new Ebola funding, including $25 million for CDC, but this week congressional leaders said they would provide no more than $40 million.

    Allen said his foundation’s gift would help CDC establish and equip emergency operations centers in the three most-affected countries, focusing on public health, not patient care.

    The centers will use ‘data management and communication systems for disease and patient contact tracing, to detect and stop the disease from spreading,’ Allen said.

    They will also expand lab testing to identify new outbreaks, and disseminate information about the epidemic to the public.

    ‘A winnable battle should never be lost,’ Allen said.

    CDC has just more than 100 public health experts in the Ebola zone, and plans to send more.

    ‘Ebola is raging through parts of West Africa like an out-of-control forest fire but it can be controlled if the world comes together,’ CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden said in a statement.

    The CDC Foundation, which was established by Congress in 1994 to raise funding to augment what CDC gets from Congress, recently committed $1 million to the Ebola response, including money for computers, personal protective equipment and thermal scanning thermometers for airport screeners, and training for healthcare workers.

    Since resigning from Microsoft in 1983, Allen has become a prominent philanthropist, supporting scientific research through the Allen Institute for Brain Science and the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence.

    He also owns the Seattle Seahawks football team and the Portland Trail Blazers basketball team.

    The donation from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will also support emergency response to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa — and represents the charity’s largest donation to a humanitarian effort.

    ‘It became clear to us over the last seven to 10 days that the pace and scope of the epidemic was increasing significantly,’ said Chris Elias, president of global development for the world’s largest charitable foundation.

    The Seattle-based foundation said the money will go to the United Nations, the World Health Organization, the CDC and international organizations involved in fighting transmission of the virus.

    The money will be used to purchase supplies and to develop vaccines, therapies and better diagnostic tools.

    ‘By fighting Ebola now, we can make sure it doesn’t become an endemic in (West) Africa,’ Gates tweeted on Wednesday.

    The foundation wants to help stop the outbreak as well as accelerate development of treatments and improve prevention.

    Elias said foundation officials have been talking to its partners around the world to assess the best use of its dollars and could not say yet how much would be spent on the emergency response and how much on research and development.

    ‘One of our key advantages is flexibility,’ he said.

    Global health and development dominate the work of the foundation, which has given away $30 billion since 1997.

    The foundation formed by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and his wife reported an endowment worth $40billion as of March 2014.

    The foundation was particularly influenced by the request on Friday by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon for $600million to fight the Ebola outbreak.

    Ban said efforts in the next few weeks would be essential to stopping the virus that has killed more than 2,000 people in Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria.

    The $50million includes $10million the foundation previously committed for emergency operations, treatment and research. Of that money, $5million went to the World Health Organization for emergency operations and research and development.

    Another $5million went to the U.S. Fund for UNICEF to support efforts in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea to purchase medical supplies, coordinate response efforts and spread information.

    Some of the $50million will support strengthening existing health care systems in the countries affected by the outbreak, the foundation said.

  • Ebola:10 Liberian officials sacked

    Liberian President, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, has sacked 10 government officials who have been “out of the country without an excuse,” amid a national Ebola crisis.

    She said the officials had shown “insensitivity to our national tragedy and disregard for authority.”

    The 10 were given a one-week ultimatum more than a month ago to return home.

    Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea are the worst-hit countries in an outbreak that has killed more than 2,400.

    The 10 officials include two commissioners, six assistant ministers and two deputy ministers at the justice ministry.

    The BBC reports that a press release issued from the Presidency on Saturday indicated that the officials had been fired “with immediate effect.”

    The press release reads: “Junior officials who are not subject to presidential approval will forfeit all compensation and benefits until they return home to join in the fight against the Ebola virus disease.”

    It listed the names of eight people in the category.

  • Ebola death toll hits 2,400

    Ebola death toll hits 2,400

    Geneva – The Ebola outbreak has now killed more than 2,400 people, according to the United Nations (UN).

    The head of the World Health Organisation, Margaret Chan, warned that the spiralling tropical epidemic demands a stronger and faster response from the international community.

    “In the three hardest-hit countries, the number is moving faster than the capacity to manage them,” she told reporters in Geneva.

    The alarm call came as the UN vowed its peacekeeping force in Liberia — one of the worst-affected countries along with Guinea and Sierra Leone — would “stay the course” against Ebola.

    “As of 12 September, we are at 4,784 cases and more than 2,400 deaths,” a jump of around 100 since the WHO’s previous toll on Tuesday, the UN health chief said.

    She did not specify if the figures also included Nigeria, which has reported 18 cases, seven fatal, since the deadliest Ebola outbreak on record began in Guinea at the start of the year.

    Another 500 foreign health professionals and around 1,000 local doctors and nurses are needed to stop its deadly surge through west Africa, the UN health agency said.

    “The thing we need most of all is people,” Chan said.

    In neighbouring Liberia, Chan said there is not a single bed left to treat Ebola patients.

    The UN said its peacekeepers will not abandon the country, whose war-ravaged health services were on the slow road to recovery when the Ebola outbreak began.

    “We are here to stay the course and to help the people of Liberia and its neighbours to get through this terrible crisis,” UN peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous told AFP late Thursday.

    Ladsous was in Liberia to assess how the mission, known as UNMIL, can support the fight against Ebola and has held meetings with President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and cabinet ministers.

    The UN mission has been in the country since the end of 14 years of devastating civil war in 2003 but has been downsizing from a peak of 15,000 troops.

    “One has to recognise that a peacekeeping mission is not a public health operator,” Ladsous said.

    “But at the same time, we are there to support the country… to solve the root causes of a very long crisis.”

    Health workers in Liberia reported being overwhelmed by new Ebola cases on Wednesday, with the WHO predicting an “exponential increase” in infections across the region.

    The agency says that among Liberia’s 2,300 cases and 1,200 deaths, some 152 health workers have been infected and 79 have died.

    Ladsous said the actual toll was probably considerably higher.

    “We know that the actual numbers of victims are definitely higher and that as days pass they rise exponentially. Now it is — everyone recognises — a particularly bad time in Liberia,” he said.

  • Ebola: All exhibitors at Akwaaba to wear black armband

    The Organisers of West Africa’s leading travel fair, Akwaaba, have spoken about their plans for this year’s event amidst the fear of Ebola Virus Disease (EVB) in the region.

    According to the organizer, Rita Ikechi Uko, “We are deeply touched by the high number of victims both dead and infected and do sincerely commiserate with the people of the region that have suffered the disease and the attendant stigmatization that is currently ongoing against the besieged countries. It is our belief that Africans must stand by their brothers in this hour of need ,this is not the time to abandon anyone and  race to the bottom as we are currently doing.

    “Akwaaba 2014 offers an opportunity to stand in solidarity with our industry which is currently the most ravaged in the region. With airlines most of them exhibitors at Akwaaba losing billions of Dollars due to EVD, and most hotels in the region empty, Akwaaba 2014 will be an opportunity to rekindle hope in travel business. With gloom all over the travel and tourism sector it is not time to roll over and die. The tourism community must fight back, we have to continue in providing services to the best standards expected of us even if it is to a few persons. As organizers, we want to reassure our exhibitors that we will observe all the rules established by the Federal Ministry of Health and the Lagos State government for such events. These rules include use of Thermometer Guns to scan all visitors, the use of hand Sanitizers for visitors and frequent hand washing. We will also restrict attendance to only registered persons.

  • Ebola: Cuba sends 165 health workers to West Africa

    Cuba is sending 165 health workers to West Africa to help in the fight to stop the spread of Ebola.

    They will include doctors, nurses, epidemiologists specialists in infection control, intensive care specialists and social mobilisation officers.

    The country’s Health Minister, Robert Morales Ojeda, said Friday that the first batch of the workers would arrive Sierra Leone early next month and serve for six months.

    The World Health Organization expressed gratitude for the help and said that Cuba’s contribution will make a significant difference against the raging outbreak.

    “If we are going to go to war with Ebola, we need the resources to fight,” WHO chief, Margaret Chan, said.

    “Cuba is world famous for its ability to train outstanding doctors and nurses and for its generosity in helping fellow countries on the route to progress,” she added.

    Chan stressed the importance of human resources across the region, notably experienced doctors and nurses.

    She added that in Liberia there is not a single bed available for an Ebola patient and noted that 1,500 health workers are needed in the region.

    Since the 1959 Cuban revolution, the country has sent its first-class doctors to Venezuela and Brazil to work on issues from maternal health to cataracts. After the 2010 Haiti earthquake and subsequent cholera outbreak, a Cuban medical brigade of 1,200 health workers who have been in Haiti since 1998 treated more than 30,000 patients in 40 centres across the island.

     

  • Nigerian economy resisting Ebola – Okonjo-Iweala

    Nigerian economy resisting Ebola – Okonjo-Iweala

    The Ebola outbreak in West Africa is not adversely affecting the Nigerian economy, the Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has said.

    “We have a team monitoring the economic impact and we don’t feel we are yet at the point where we can say it’s having a huge impact on the economy,” Okonjo-Iweala told Bloomberg TV Africa late Thursday.

    “There’s been some fall-off in hotel occupancy, in Lagos in particular, some meetings have been postponed, but you still have other business people who are arriving,” she said.

    Nigeria has recorded 19 cases of the virus, and seven people have died within its borders, according to the World Health Organization.

    The virus has claimed at least 2,288 people in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

    Okonjo-Iweala also said the country’s Excess Crude Account, where a portion of oil revenue is stored to cushion the economy against volatility, stands at $4.11 billion.

    The minister said in January she was concerned that a decline in the account balance to about $2.5 billion at that time had left the economy “vulnerable” and should be redressed this year.

    The country plans to open the Development Bank of Nigeria by March.

    It is expected to be capitalized with $2 billion which may rise to $10 billion and fill a gap in Nigerian business lending, the minister said.

    “It’s very difficult for business people, especially small and medium-sized enterprises, to find any money for five years, seven years,” she said. “Mostly they can borrow for a year to three years. If you want to build a business sustainably and you want your economy to have sustained growth you’ve got to fix access to finance,” Okonjo-Iweala stated.

    The development bank will be partly financed by the Federal  government, and is also due to receive $500 million each from the World Bank and the African Development Bank, and a credit line from the German development bank, KfW Group, she added.

     

  • Ebola: South African woman tested negative

    The South African woman suspected of the Ebola Virus Disease has tested negative.
    According to Minister of Health, Prof. Onyebuch Chukwu, the test conducted on the woman came back negative.

    She is however being investigated for other disease.

    The South African woman, whose identity was not revealed, flew into the Murtala Muhammed International Airport from Morocco on Thursday.

    She was treated as a suspected case and was being taken to Lagos’ Ebola treatment centre for tests to see whether she actually had the virus, Reuters reports.

    The traveller, who lives in Cape Town, filled out a health questionnaire on her arrival at Lagos in which she acknowledged suffering from diarrhea and vomiting, both possible symptoms of the Ebola hemorrhagic virus.

    “This person has been in Guinea and Sierra Leone since April and she has symptoms,” Dr. Morenike Alex-Okoh, director of Port Health Services at MMIA, told Reuters.