Ebola news 9/15

[Buster's Uncle]

US works to step up Ebola aid, but is it enough?
Associated Press
By LAURAN NEERGAARD  1 hour ago



FILE - In this Sept. 9, 2014 file photo, Valor Christian High School sophomore and volunteer Paige Kula loads a pallet with medical supplies bound for Sierra Leone to combat Ebola, inside the warehouse of Project C.U.R.E., in Centennial, Colo. The US strategy in fighting Ebola is two-pronged: Step up efforts to deliver desperately needed supplies and people to West Africa, while making sure hospitals at home know what to do if someone travels here with the infection. In addition to shipments of hospital beds and protective suits, the government is taking unusual steps to encourage a variety of health care workers to volunteer to go to the outbreak zone _ and is offering some training before they head out. Here are questions and answers on the U.S. response. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley, File)



WASHINGTON (AP) — The American strategy on Ebola is two-pronged: Step up desperately needed aid to West Africa and, in an unusual step, train U.S. doctors and nurses for volunteer duty in the outbreak zone. At home, the goal is to speed up medical research and put hospitals on alert should an infected traveler arrive.

With growing criticism that the world still is not acting fast enough against the surging Ebola epidemic, President Barack Obama has called the outbreak a national security priority.

Obama is to travel to Atlanta on Tuesday to address the Ebola crisis during a visit to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the White House said. During his visit, Obama is to be briefed about the outbreak and discuss the U.S. response with officials.

The administration hasn't said how big a role the military ultimately will play — and it's not clear how quickly additional promised help will arrive in West Africa.

"This is also not everything we can and should be doing," Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., who chairs a Foreign Relations subcommittee that oversees African issues, told the Senate last week.

He called for expanded military efforts and for Obama to appoint someone to coordinate the entire government's Ebola response.

"I've heard from organizations that have worked to transport donated supplies and can fill cargo plane after cargo plane but are having difficulty getting it all to West Africa," Coons added, urging government assistance.

Supplies aren't the greatest need: "Trained health professionals for these Ebola treatment units is a critical shortage," said Dr. Steve Monroe of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC.

Aiming to spur them, the CDC is beginning to train volunteer health workers headed for West Africa on how to stay safe, Monroe said. CDC sent its own staff to learn from Doctors Without Borders, which has the most experience in Ebola outbreaks. CDC will offer the course at a facility in Anniston, Alabama, for the next few months, teaching infection-control and self-protection and letting volunteers — expected to be mostly from nongovernment aid groups — practice patient triage.

"It's gone beyond an Ebola crisis to a humanitarian crisis. It does require more of a U.S. government-wide response, more than just CDC," Monroe said.

Here are some questions and answers about that response:

___

Q: What is the U.S. contributing?

A: The U.S. government has spent more than $100 million so far, said Ned Price of the National Security Council. Last week, the U.S. Agency for International Development announced it would spend up to $75 million more to provide 1,000 treatment beds in Liberia, the worst-hit country, and 130,000 protective suits for health workers.

The Obama administration has asked Congress for another $88 million to send additional supplies and public health experts, and to develop potential Ebola medications and vaccines.

Also, the State Department has signed a six-month contract, estimated at up to $4.9 million, for a Georgia-based air ambulance to be on call to evacuate any Ebola-infected government employees, and other U.S. aid workers when possible.

"The ability to evacuate patients infected with the Ebola virus is a critical capability," said Dr. William Walters, the State Department's director of operational medicine.

___

Q: Beyond delivering supplies, what's happening on the ground?

A: The CDC currently has 103 staffers in West Africa working on outbreak control and plans to send about 50 more. They help to track contacts of Ebola patients, train local health workers in infection control and help airport authorities screen whether anyone at high risk of Ebola is attempting to leave.

Two of the CDC workers are in Ivory Coast to try to stay ahead of the virus, helping health authorities prepare in case an Ebola patient crosses the border into that country.

___

Q: What are the U.S. military's plans?

A: The Defense Department has provided more than 10,000 Ebola test kits to the region and plans to set up a 25-bed field hospital in the Liberian capital for infected health care workers.

Pentagon spokesman John Kirby suggested Friday that more could be coming.

"The Department of Defense has capabilities that might prove helpful," he said, adding, "We're having those discussions right now."

___

Q: Will Ebola come here?

A: U.S. health officials are preparing in case an individual traveler arrives unknowingly infected but say they're confident there won't be an outbreak here.

People boarding planes in the outbreak zone are checked for fever, but symptoms can begin up to 21 days after exposure. Ebola isn't contagious until symptoms begin, and it takes close contact with bodily fluids to spread.

___

Q: Where would sick travelers be treated? The U.S. only has four of those isolation units where Ebola-stricken aid workers were treated.

A: "There's still a perception in the public that the only place these people can be treated is at one of these specialized facilities like the one at Emory or Nebraska, and that's just not the case," Monroe said. "We are confident that any hospital in the U.S. can care for" an Ebola patient.

After all, five U.S. cases of similar hemorrhagic viruses — one Marburg virus, the others Lassa fever — have been treated in the past decade.

The CDC is telling hospitals to ask about travel if someone has suspicious symptoms, to put the person in a private room with a separate bathroom while asking CDC about testing and to wear a gown, mask and eye protection when delivering care.

"This virus is completely inactivated by all the normal disinfectants used in a hospital setting," Monroe noted.


http://news.yahoo.com/us-works-step-ebola-aid-enough-071500523.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Obama to detail plans on Ebola offensive Tuesday: WSJ
Reuters
5 hours ago



United States President Barack Obama (C) is joined by former U.S. President Bill Clinton (L) for a AmeriCorps Pledge ceremony on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington September 12, 2014. Clinton's administration established the program in 1994. REUTERS/Gary Cameron



(Reuters) - U.S. 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 reported on Sunday.

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.

Obama could ask Congress for an additional $88 million to fund his proposal, the WSJ reported. 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.


http://news.yahoo.com/obama-detail-plans-ebola-offensive-tuesday-wsj-062941597.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Obama to ask for $88 mn to boost anti-Ebola effort
AFP
1 hour ago



Health workers burn used protective clothing that was used to treat Ebola patients the Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) clinic in the Guinean capital Conakry, on September 13, 2014 (AFP Photo/Cellou Binani)



Washington (AFP) - President Barack Obama plans to ask Congress to approve his request for $88 million to fund a major Ebola offensive in West Africa that would include greater military involvement, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday.

Obama is due to outline his plan Tuesday during a visit to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia.

The initiative could include sending additional portable hospitals, doctors and health care experts, as well as providing medical supplies and training local health workers, the Journal cited people familiar with the matter as saying.

It is expected to have four components: controlling the outbreak where it emerged in West Africa; increasing the competence of the region's public health system, especially in hard-hit Liberia; building local capacity through enhanced health care provider training; and increasing support from international organizations such as the United Nations and World Health Organization.

"There's a lot that we've been putting toward this, but it is not sufficient," Obama's counterterrorism adviser Lisa Monaco told the newspaper.

"So the president has directed a more scaled-up response and that's what you're going to hear more about on Tuesday."



The Ebola outbreak ravaging West Africa has killed more than 2,400 people since it erupted earlier this year, according to the World Health Organization (AFP Photo/Zoom Dosso)


The US military could help direct supplies, set up tent hospitals and deploy medical personnel needed around the world to isolate and treat those sickened with the disease in order to stop it from spreading and improve their chances of recovery.

"We think these measures, this enhanced response, will help us bring this under control," an administration official told the newspaper.

"The military has unique capabilities in terms of logistical capacities, in terms of manpower, in terms of operating in austere environments."

The Journal said Obama would seek commitments of funds, material and health workers during a world leaders summit at the United Nations next week to build a stronger international response.

The Ebola outbreak ravaging West Africa has killed more than 2,400 people since it erupted earlier this year, according to the World Health Organization.

Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia are the hardest-hit countries.

The World Food Program says it has stepped up its assistance to the three countries grappling with the worst-ever outbreak of Ebola.


http://news.yahoo.com/obama-ask-88-mn-boost-anti-ebola-effort-134301750.html

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As Ebola grows out of control, WHO pleads for more health workers
Reuters
By Kate Kelland and Tom Miles  31 minutes ago



World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Margaret Chan (L) pauses next to Cuba's Minister of Public Health Roberto Morales Ojeda during a news conference on support to Ebola affected countries, at the WHO headquarters in Geneva September 12, 2014. REUTERS/Pierre Albouy



(This Sept. 12 story was officially corrected to fix the number of local health workers needed to 10,000 in the seventh paragraph. WHO said Chan misspoke.)

LONDON/GENEVA (Reuters) - The number of new Ebola cases in West Africa is growing faster than authorities can manage them, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday, renewing a call for health workers from around the world to go to the region to help.

As the death toll rose to more than 2,400 people out of 4,784 cases, WHO director general Margaret Chan told a news conference in Geneva the vast scale of the outbreak -- particularly in the three hardest-hit countries of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone -- required a massive emergency response.

Sarah Crowe, a spokeswoman for UNICEF, said the U.N. children's agency was using innovative ways to tackle the epidemic, including telling people to "use whatever means they have, such as plastic bags, to cover themselves if they have to deal with sick members of their family".

"The Ebola treatment centers are full, there are only three in the country. Families need help in finding new ways to deal with this and deal with their loved ones and give them care without exposing themselves to this infection," she said via phone from Monrovia.

"It is quite surreal and everywhere there is a sense of this virus taking over the whole country," Crowe said. "We do not have enough partners on the ground. Many Liberians say they feel abandoned."

Survivors of the disease, who are immune to reinfection, were being used to look after thousands of children of people with suspected Ebola. About 2,000 children have lost one or both parents in Liberia alone, she said.

The key to beating the disease, said the WHO's Chan, was people power. Pledges of equipment and money are coming in, but 500-600 foreign experts and at least 10,000 local health workers are needed on the ground.

"The number of new patients is moving far faster than the capacity to manage them. We need to surge at least three to four times to catch up with the outbreaks," Chan said.


CUBA HELPS

Cuban Health Minister Roberto Morales Ojeda, sitting alongside Chan, said his country would send 165 healthcare workers to help in the fight - the largest contingent of foreign doctors and nurses to be committed so far. However, they will arrive in October and will go to Sierra Leone, while thousands of new patients are expected in Liberia within weeks.

Chan said the real death toll is probably far higher than the latest number of 2,400.

"We are very cognizant of the fact that any number of cases and deaths that we are reporting is an underestimate." she said.

The Ebola infection rate and death toll have been particularly high among health workers, who are exposed to hundreds of highly infectious patients who can pass the virus on through body fluids such as blood and excrement.

Almost half of the 301 healthcare workers who have developed the disease have died.

Some foreign healthcare workers in West Africa, including several Americans and at least one Briton, have also been infected. Two Dutch doctors who may have been exposed to the disease in Sierra Leone are set to be evacuated.

Chan’s call chimed with pleas from leading Ebola specialists, including Peter Piot, one of the scientists who first identified the Ebola virus in 1976.

Writing in the online scientific journal Eurosurveillance with his colleague Adam Kucharski, Piot, now director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said it was hard to track an outbreak with exponential growth in case numbers.

"There are currently hundreds of new Ebola virus disease cases reported each week; with the number of infections increasing exponentially, it could soon be thousands,” they said, adding that case numbers could double every fortnight.

“Fear and mistrust of health authorities has contributed to this problem, but increasingly it is also because isolation centers have reached capacity. As well as creating potential for further transmission, large numbers of untreated – and therefore unreported – cases make it difficult to measure the true spread of infection, and hence to plan and allocate resources.”

The U.N. health agency has previously warned there could be as many as 20,000 cases in the region before the outbreak is brought under control.

In a glimmer of good news, the WHO said eight districts with previous Ebola cases - four in Guinea, three in Sierra Leone and one in Liberia - had reported no new cases for three weeks.

And 67 people who had contact with a person who had taken the disease to Senegal on Aug 20 had been traced, and none had so far tested positive for the disease.

The International Monetary Fund said on Thursday that economic growth in Liberia and Sierra Leone could decline by as much as 3.5 percentage points due to the outbreak, which it said has crippled their mining, agriculture and services sectors.

(Writing by Tom Miles and Kate Kelland; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)


http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-grows-control-pleads-more-health-workers-153108361.html

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End 'panic' measures undermining fight against Ebola: Ghana
Reuters
By James Harding Giahyue  12 minutes ago



Ghana's President John Dramani Mahama speaks during a session at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos January 22, 2014. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse



MONROVIA (Reuters) - Ghana's President John Dramani Mahama on Monday called for the easing of restrictions on West African nations fighting Ebola, saying "panic" measures had led to isolation and undermined the battle against the disease.

Airlines have halted many flights into and around West Africa, where governments have closed some borders and imposed travel restrictions in a bid to fight an Ebola outbreak that has killed over 2,400 people.

Experts have warned such moves are counter-productive as economies are crippled by the lack of trade and it becomes harder to move aid workers and supplies to fight the virus around the region.

"Now that we have a clearer understanding of the disease and how it spreads and all of the ramifications, we should not in panic take measures that will isolate the countries that are affected by this outbreak," Mahama said while in Liberia, on the first leg of a tour of Ebola-affected countries.

"Doing that will make it more difficult for the disease to be brought under control," he added. "As long as all of us are instituting proper screening mechanism, we can allow normal economic activities."

The worst Ebola outbreak on record was first identified in Guinea in March and has since spread across much of Sierra Leone and Liberia, where it is battering fragile economies and eating away at post-war gains.

The World Health Organization estimates 20,000 people will be infected before the outbreak ends.

"The more we take measures that restrict economic activities, the graver the effect ... on our country is going to be," Mahama said.

The IMF said last week that economic growth in Liberia and Sierra Leone was likely to drop by as much as 3.5 percentage points and Guinea's by over 1 percent.

The U.N. Security Council is due to hold an emergency meeting on the Ebola crisis on Thursday, diplomats said.

A council diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it would only be the second public health crisis to be discussed by the 15-member body, which met on HIV/AIDS in 2000.

Mahama has said Ghana is prepared to be the hub for moving supplies and people into Ebola-affected countries but he stressed donors must deliver quicker on their promises.

"We have received a lot of response and promises of resources. Those resources are very slow in coming," he said.

The World Health Organization has said that some $600 million is needed to fight the outbreak. Organizations like medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres have called for civilian and military bio-disaster response teams.

But former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan told Reuters he was "bitterly disappointed" with the international response to the Ebola outbreak and called for the rapid deployment of specialized units, including military personnel.

"What is a bit surprising here is that many people have died and are dying ... and yet we have not acted and responded in a manner that will have a real impact on the ground," he said.

(Additional reporting by Matthew Mpoke Bigg in Accra and Michelle Nichols at the United Nations; Writing by David Lewis; Editing by Andrew Roche)


http://news.yahoo.com/end-panic-measures-undermining-fight-against-ebola-ghana-181614406.html

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Sierra Leone: WHO too slow to help doc with Ebola
Associated Press
By CLARENCE ROY-MACAULAY  2 hours ago



A area that was used to treat Ebola virus patients forming part of the Lumley Government Hospital, where medical doctor Olivet Buck worked before contracting the Ebola virus and passing away on Saturday near the city of Freetown, Sierra Leone, Monday, Sept. 15, 2014. Sierra Leone accused the World Health Organization on Monday of being “sluggish” in facilitating an evacuation of a doctor who died from Ebola before she could be sent out of the country for medical care. Dr. Olivet Buck died Saturday, hours after the U.N. health agency said it could not help evacuate her to Germany. (AP Photo/ Michael Duff)



FREETOWN, Sierra Leone (AP) — Sierra Leone accused the World Health Organization on Monday of being "sluggish" in facilitating an evacuation of a doctor who died from Ebola before she could be sent out of the country for medical care.

Dr. Olivet Buck died Saturday, hours after the U.N. health agency said it could not help evacuate her to Germany.

Buck is the fourth Sierra Leonean doctor to die in an outbreak that has also touched Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Senegal. The West African outbreak has been blamed for more than 2,400 deaths, and experts say it is out of control. The U.S. has called an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council for this week to discuss the crisis.

At a heated news conference Monday, a Sierra Leonean government official read a statement saying that the Buck is the second doctor from that country to die because negotiations on evacuation had dragged on. Dr. Sheik Humarr Khan, the country's top Ebola expert, was being considered for evacuation when he died of the disease in July.

"In both the cases of late Dr. Khan and Dr. Buck, we have observed a sluggish willingness by WHO in facilitating medical evacuation of Sierra Leonean Ebola-infected doctors for advance treatment abroad," according to a statement from a presidential communications task force read out by Deputy Minister for Political and Public Affairs Karamoh Kabba.

He added that the two doctors died while their fates "hung in negotiations."



In this Sept. 9, 2014 file photo, Valor Christian High School sophomore and volunteer Paige Kula loads a pallet with medical supplies bound for Sierra Leone to combat Ebola, inside the warehouse of Project C.U.R.E., in Centennial, Colo. The US strategy in fighting Ebola is two-pronged: Step up efforts to deliver desperately needed supplies and people to West Africa, while making sure hospitals at home know what to do if someone travels here with the infection. In addition to shipments of hospital beds and protective suits, the government is taking unusual steps to encourage a variety of health care workers to volunteer to go to the outbreak zone _ and is offering some training before they head out. Here are questions and answers on the U.S. response. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley, File)


But the World Health Organization responded Monday that it can only evacuate its own staff and that, given the number of health workers becoming infected, the solution is not to evacuate them all anyway. Some 300 health care workers have been infected so far, about half of whom have died.

"We would like to help everyone, but we cannot help every health worker that gets infected," said Tarik Jasarevic, a spokesman at WHO. "We need to ensure enough quality health facilities in those countries so everyone can get treated, firstly health workers."

Sierra Leone had requested funds from WHO to transport Buck to Europe. But on Monday, Kabba said that money was not the main impediment to evacuating Buck. It would have cost $70,000, he said, and the government had the money, but it needed WHO's help to facilitate the evacuation. He did not elaborate on what that meant.

Jasarevic said that WHO is "not a medical evacuation agency." Earlier, the agency had said that it would instead work to give Buck "the best care possible" in Sierra Leone, including possible access to experimental drugs.

Several foreign health and aid workers, including a Senegalese epidemiologist working with WHO, have been evacuated when they became infected. In at least some of those evacuations, the patients' home governments and employers played a role in getting them out of West Africa.

Because Ebola is only transmitted through bodily fluids of people who are symptomatic, health care workers are at a particular risk. Some 300 have become infected since the outbreak began, exacerbating shortages of health care workers in countries that had too few doctors and nurses to begin with.

Meanwhile, International SOS, a medical and travel security risk services company, said it flew two Dutch doctors who may have been exposed to Ebola in Sierra Leone to the Netherlands on Sunday. The National Institute for Public Health and Environment said last week the doctors, who were working with an aid group, were not showing symptoms of Ebola but they had contact with infected patients without the proper protective equipment. Upon their arrival in the Netherlands, they were initially taken to the Leiden University Medical Center and their condition will be monitored.

___

Associated Press writers Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations and Sarah DiLorenzo in Dakar, Senegal contributed to this report.


http://news.yahoo.com/sierra-leone-too-slow-help-doc-ebola-175329952.html

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UN Security Council to meet on Ebola
Associated Press
By EDITH M. LEDERER  5 hours ago



UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The United States called an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council Thursday on the Ebola crisis in West Africa, saying the situation on the ground is "dire" and getting worse every day.

U.S. U.N. Ambassador Samantha Power said the United States has asked the 193 U.N. member states to come to the meeting with "concrete commitments" to tackle the outbreak, especially in hardest-hit Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.

"The trendlines in this crisis are grave, and without immediate international action we are facing the potential for a public health crisis that could claim lives on a scale far greater than current estimates, and set the countries of West Africa back a generation," Power told reporters on Monday. "This is a perilous crisis but one we can contain if the international community comes together to meet it head on."

The worst Ebola outbreak in history has hit Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea hardest and also reached Nigeria and Senegal. It has been blamed for more than 2,200 deaths. Ebola is spread through direct contact with the bodily fluids of sick patients, making doctors and nurses especially vulnerable to contracting the virus that has no vaccine or approved treatment.

"We can contain this," Power said. "We know how to do it and we must avoid panic and fear, but our collective response to date has not been sufficient. We must move forward aggressively in a coordinated fashion."

Power said the meeting Thursday afternoon would mark a rare occasion when the Security Council, which is responsible for threats to international peace and security, addresses a public health crisis.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is expected to brief the council along with World Health Organization chief Dr. Margaret Chan and Dr. David Nabarro, the recently named U.N. coordinator to tackle the disease, as well as representatives from the affected countries.

A diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity because the official announcement has not yet been made, said it would be only the second time the council takes on a public health issue.

The late former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Richard Holbrooke, organized a council meeting in January


http://news.yahoo.com/diplomat-un-security-council-meet-ebola-173631944.html

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Countries scramble to make up 'precious time' lost in Ebola fight
AFP
By Catherine Boitard  3 hours ago



Health workers put on protective clothing at an Ebola treatment facility in Kailahun, on August 15, 2014 (AFP Photo/Carl de Souza)



Brussels (AFP) - The European Union urged the international community Monday to boost aid to make up for "precious time" lost in the response to west Africa's deadly Ebola outbreak, as the UN Security Council announced an emergency meeting on the crisis.

The worst-ever Ebola contagion has killed more than 2,400 people in west Africa since it erupted earlier this year and aid agencies deplore an inadequate international response to an emergency that shows no sign of abating.

The United Nations said last week that Ebola cases are multiplying "faster than the capacity to manage them" and the president of Liberia, with more than half the victims, has warned the outbreak is destroying the country's social fabric.

The UN Security Council will hold an emergency session on Thursday to discuss ways to ramp up the global response to the epidemic, the US Ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, announced in New York.

The United Nations is appealing for $600 million (465 million euros) for supplies, with countries asked to send doctors, nurses, beds, trucks, equipment and other vehicles to the affected nations.

"Our collective response to date has not been sufficient," said Power, whose country holds the presidency of the 15-member council this month.



European Commissioner for International Cooperation, Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Response Kristalina Georgieva (C) attends a meeting to coordinate EU aid to help fight the Ebola outbreak in Africa, September 15, 2014, in Brussels (AFP Photo/Emmanuel Dunand)


"The situation on the ground is dire and is growing worse by the day."

Several monttepping up plans to make up the lost ground.

"We are behind the curve and for a reason," EU Humanitarian Aid Commissioner Kristalinahs into the crisis, an international response is beginning to get on track, with both the European Union and the United States s Georgieva said at the special talks in Brussels to devise a Europe-wide response to the outbreak.

"When the warning signs were there, it took some time for the international community to pay attention. Precious time was lost."

To make up the ground, the commission last week announced 150 million euros ($195 million) in aid to fight the crisis and Georgieva on Monday urged member states to add more.



French Health Minister Marisol Touraine arrives at a high-level meeting to coordinate EU aid to help fight the Ebola outbreak in Africa, Sptember 15, 2014, in Brussels (AFP Photo/Emmanuel Dunand)


- 'Important moment' -

The United States is also set to raise its response.

On Tuesday, US President Barack Obama will ask Congress to approve a request for $88 million to help tackle the outbreak.

Obama will also travel to Atlanta to meet medical authorities at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a hub for Ebola research, and announce new aid to affected regions in west Africa.

The Pentagon has already announced it will send a 25-bed field hospital to Liberia and the US military could help direct supplies, set up tent hospitals and deploy medical personnel needed to isolate and treat those suffering with the disease.



Pupils look at an Ebola prevention poster during a sensibilisation campaign by the United Nations Development Programme at a primary school in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, on September 15, 2014 (AFP Photo/Sia Kambou)


"This is an important moment in the fight against Ebola," said French Health Minister Marisol Touraine in Brussels, adding that France was also to set up a treatment centre in Guinea.

At the EU meeting, a dozen countries offered to boost aid, including Ireland and Germany.

EU officials meanwhile urged countries not to give in to fear.

"We must isolate the disease, but not the country," said Tonio Borg, the EU's Health Commissioner.

He was referring to international airlines that have cut links to the affected countries, which also include Sierra Leone, Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The call was echoed by Ghanaian President John Dramani Mahama, who during a visit to Monrovia on Monday called for an end to measures "taken in panic".

"I believe that as long as all of us are implementing appropriate measures, we can allow normal economic activities to take place," said Mahama, who also heads the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).

The tropical Ebola virus can fell its victims within days, causing severe fever and muscle pain, weakness, vomiting and diarrhoea -- in some cases shutting down organs and causing unstoppable bleeding.

No widely available vaccine or treatment exists but health experts are looking at fast-tracking two potential vaccines and eight treatments, including the drug ZMapp.


http://news.yahoo.com/world-lost-precious-time-ebola-fight-eu-155551584.html

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Dutch doctors feared to have Ebola leave hospital
AFP
2 hours ago



A girl walks past a sign warning of the dangers of Ebola outside a government hospital in Freetown, Sierra Leone, on August 13, 2014 (AFP Photo/Carl de Souza)



The Hague (AFP) - Two Dutch doctors flown home from west Africa after fears they might have been contaminated with the killer Ebola virus have left hospital "in good health," their employer, the Lion Heart Medical Centre, said Monday.

But the pair, Erdi Huizenga and Nick Zwinkels, have put themselves into voluntary quarantine for another two weeks at an unspecified location in the Netherlands as a precaution, it added in a statement on its Facebook page.

"They don't want to pose any risk for those around them and think that it would be best to not yet return to their homes," the charity said.

Huizenga, 39, and Zwinkels, 31, were on Sunday repatriated from Sierra Leone, where they had been working in a clinic their charity runs in the western town of Yele.

They were not presenting any symptoms of Ebola, a virus which has killed more than 2,400 people in west Africa so far this year in an epidemic international organisations said was running out of control.

But Zwinkels recently told Dutch state television that he and Huizenga has come into contact with Ebola-infected patients in the Sierra Leone clinic, which mostly treats malaria cases, and were "very concerned" because one other staff member in the hospital had died of the virus.

Several Western health workers have been flown home after being contaminated and given experimental drugs to combat the disease. Most have recovered.

The Ebola outbreak ravaging west Africa has killed more than 2,400 people since it erupted earlier this year, according to the World Health Organization.

Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia are the hardest-hit countries.

Although no vaccine is commercially available, early treatment involving constant rehydration and medication to alleviate fever increases the chances of survival.


http://news.yahoo.com/dutch-doctors-feared-ebola-leave-hospital-224344873.html

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Rampant Ebola fear takes toll on Africa tourism
Associated Press
By RODNEY MUHUMUZA  12 hours ago



In this photo taken Wednesday, March 28, 2012, a man offering camel rides for tourists leads his animals along the Indian Ocean beach of Diani, a popular tourist destination on the coast of Kenya. Ebola is thousands of miles away from Kenya’s pristine Indian Ocean beaches but the deadly disease appears to be discouraging tourism there and elsewhere in this vast continent, with tour operators across Africa saying they face difficulties as the Ebola outbreak, which has killed more than 2,400 people in four countries, continues to defy international efforts to control it. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)


KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) — Ebola is thousands of miles away from Kenya's pristine Indian Ocean beaches, but the deadly disease appears to be discouraging tourism there and elsewhere in this vast continent.

Harald Kampa, a hotelier near Mombasa, says the Ebola outbreak in West Africa is hurting his business.

For two weeks in August he had no international arrivals at his Diani Sea Resort, leading him to suspect that Ebola had frightened away his clients. He noticed an improvement only after Kenya Airways canceled flights to the Ebola-hit West African nations of Sierra Leone and Liberia, action that the local tourism fraternity said was necessary to assure tourists of Kenya's determination to keep Ebola out.

Kampa is not alone. Tour operators across Africa say they face difficulties as the Ebola outbreak, which has killed more than 2,200 people in four countries, continues to defy international efforts to control it. Tourism, a major source of revenue for many African countries — especially Kenya and South Africa — is increasingly being hurt as some potential visitors hesitate over visiting the continent which is home to the disease.

In Nigeria, where there have been very few Ebola cases, occupancy rates in five-star hotels in the commercial capital Lagos have fallen drastically, with many conferences postponed until further notice, said Nigerian economist Bismarck Rewane of the Financial Derivatives Company. Occupancy rates now generally hover around 30 percent instead of 65 percent at this time of year, and the drop is even higher for bar and restaurant traffic in Lagos, he said.

"I think people are less inclined to mix with others ... People are now more cautious about mingling," he said.



In this Friday, Aug. 8, 2014 file photo, nurses from the Uganda Ministry of Health, seen through a glass window, check passengers arriving from the Democratic Republic of Congo at Entebbe Airport in Uganda. Ebola is thousands of miles away from Kenya’s pristine Indian Ocean beaches but the deadly disease appears to be discouraging tourism there and elsewhere in this vast continent, with tour operators across Africa saying they face difficulties as the Ebola outbreak, which has killed more than 2,400 people in four countries, continues to defy international efforts to control it. (AP Photo/Rebecca Vassie, File)


In South Africa there is "alarm in the market" stemming from misconceptions about how the Ebola virus can be contracted and the location of the affected countries, said the Tourism Business Council of South Africa. Although there have been no Ebola cases reported in South Africa, many in its tourism industry fear a downturn.

The current Ebola outbreak is "a big deal" and has raised "significant" concerns over African travel, said Blake Fleetwood, president of New York-based Cook Travel. Roughly half the people booking through his agency canceled trips, he said. Some clients "figure somebody from Sierra Leone is going to go to Morocco and the infection is going to spread through the continent," he said. Some trips to Egypt and Morocco have been scrapped and at least 14 groups booked for safaris in Kenya or South Africa have been canceled, he said.

Even though the World Health Organization and international trade groups say there is low risk of transmitting the virus during air travel, major airlines such as British Airways, Kenya Airways and Air France have cancelled flights to some Ebola-hit countries.

South Africa's government last month issued a travel ban for all non-South Africans traveling from Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, three of five West African countries battling Ebola. Kenya's government has taken similar action.

Apes and monkeys are often mentioned by health experts as possible carriers of the virus. That may hurt the gorilla tourism in Rwanda and Uganda where a permit to see the great apes their forested habitat costs about $600.

"Ebola is associated with primates and Uganda is associated with primates," said Amos Wekesa, a tour operator in the Ugandan capital of Kampala. "It just sends people out of the country," Wekesa lamented. "In the mind of many travelers around the world, Africa is one country."

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Associated Press reporter Scott Meyerowitz in New York contributed to this report.


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