Geneva -The Ebola epidemic is moving faster than
the authorities can handle and could take six
months to bring under control, the medical charity
MSF said Friday.
The warning came a day after the World Health
Organization said the scale of the epidemic had
been vastly underestimated and that "extraordinary
measures" were needed to contain the killer
disease.
New figures released by the UN health agency
showed the death toll from the worst outbreak of
Ebola in four decades had climbed to 1,145 in the
four afflicted West African countries -- Guinea,
Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone.
"It is deteriorating faster, and moving faster, than
we can respond to," Joanne Liu, the chief of Doctors
without Borders, known by its French acronym MSF,
told reporters in Geneva.
She added that it could take six months to get the
upper hand.
"It is like wartime," she said a day after returning
from the region. "I don't think we should focus on
numbers. To really get a reality check, we're not
talking in terms of weeks, but months" to control
the epidemic."
Elhadj As Sy, the new head of the International
Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies,
painted a similarly bleak picture, speaking of a "fear
factor" in affected countries that was hampering
medical assistance.
Also recently returned from the region, As Sy said
he agreed with MSF's six-month timeline for
bringing the outbreak under control.
The WHO said Thursday it was coordinating "a
massive scaling up of the international response" to
the epidemic.
"Staff at the outbreak sites see evidence that the
numbers of reported cases and deaths vastly
underestimate the magnitude of the outbreak," it
said.
There were signs too that affected countries were
stepping up their efforts to contain the virus.
Sierra Leone's President Ernest Koroma announced
plans on Friday for the construction of several more
Ebola treatment centres, while urging the
international community to "act quickly" in the fight
against Ebola.
The four new centres would be built by the Red
Cross and MSF, he said.
- Experimental drugs -
The epidemic erupted in the forested zone
straddling the borders of Guinea, Sierra Leone and
Liberia earlier this year, and later spread to
Nigeria.
Liu said while Guinea was the initial epicentre of
the disease, the pace there has slowed, with fears
now focused on the other countries.
"If we don't stabilise Liberia, we'll never stabilise
the region," she said.
The last days of an Ebola victim can be grim,
characterised by agonising muscular pain, vomiting,
diarrhoea and catastrophic haemorrhaging
described as "bleeding out" as vital organs break
down.
No cure or vaccine is currently available for Ebola,
with the WHO authorising the use of largely
untested treatments in efforts to combat the
disease.
Hard-hit nations are awaiting consignments of up to
1,000 doses of the barely tested drug ZMapp from
the United States, which has raised hopes of saving
hundreds.
Canada says between 800 and 1,000 doses of a
vaccine called VSV-EBOV, which has shown promise
in animal research but never been tested on
humans, would also be distributed through the
WHO.
But MSF's Liu warned against focusing on drugs.
"In the short term, they're not going to help that
much, because we don't have many drugs available.
We need to a get a reality check on how this could
impact the curve of the epidemic," she said.
Sierra Leone's chief medical officer Brima Kargbo
this week spoke of the risks facing health workers
fighting the epidemic, which has killed 32 nurses
since May as well as an eminent doctor.
"We still have to break the chain of transmission to
separate the infected from the uninfected," Kargbo
said.
- Economic toll -
The cost of tackling the virus is also threatening to
take a severe toll on the economies of already
impoverished West African nations hit by the
epidemic.
In Nigeria, in particular, a more serious outbreak
could severely disrupt its oil and gas industry if
international companies are forced to evacuate
staff and shut operations, rating agency Moody's has
warned.
Nigerian sex workers also reported suspicion from
customers, with business down drastically. One
woman in Lagos who gave her name as Bright told
AFP that Ebola was "worse than HIV/AIDS. You can
prevent HIV by using condoms but you can't do the
same with Ebola."
Across the region, draconian travel restrictions have
been imposed and a number of airlines have
cancelled flights in and out of West Africa.
Guinea, where at least 380 people have died,
became the latest country to declare a health
emergency, ordering strict controls at border points
and a ban on moving bodies from one town to
another.
As countries around the world stepped up
measures to contain the disease, the International
Olympics Committee said athletes from Ebola-hit
countries had been barred from competing in pool
events and combat sports at the Youth Olympics
opening in China on Saturday.
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