Ebola news 9/21

[Buster's Uncle]

Spain to repatriate from Sierra Leone priest diagnosed with Ebola
Reuters
30 minutes ago



MADRID (Reuters) - Spain on Sunday sent a military plane to Sierra Leone to repatriate a Spanish Catholic priest working in the African country who has tested positive for the Ebola virus, the government said.

Spain's health ministry said in a statement that Manuel Garcia Viejo, a member of the Hospital Order of San Juan de Dios, worked in the Western city of Lunsar.

He is the second Spanish priest to be diagnosed with Ebola after Miguel Pajares, also a member of San Juan de Dios, who died last month after being brought back to Spain from Liberia.

Ebola, one of the deadliest diseases known to man, has killed more than 2,600 people, and infected more than 5,300, since the current outbreak was first detected in March, according to the World Health Organization.

The disease has spread to Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia as well as Senegal and Nigeria.

The plane left Spain around 0530 GMT, a spokesman for the defence ministry told Reuters. It was not yet clear whether the repatriation would take place on Sunday night or Monday morning.

Once in Madrid, Garcia Viejo will be taken to the Carlos III hospital, where Pajares was treated, the health ministry said.


http://news.yahoo.com/spain-repatriate-sierra-leone-priest-diagnosed-ebola-133110427.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Sierra Leone Ebola shutdown uncovers 70 dead in capital
AFP
By Rod Mac Johnson  1 hour ago



People wash their hands with soap and bleach on September 3, 2014 to prevent the spread of Ebola, at a market in the northern Senegalese city of Diaobe (AFP Photo/Seyllou)



Freetown (AFP) - Sierra Leone wrapped up its 72-hour shutdown on Sunday, with authorities reporting that the action aimed at containing the Ebola epidemic had uncovered up to 70 dead bodies in and around the capital.

Most of the west African country's six million people were confined to their homes for a third straight day, with only essential workers such as health professionals and security forces exempt.

Almost 30,000 volunteers have been going door-to-door to educate locals and hand out soap, in an exercise that was expected to lead to scores more patients and bodies being discovered in homes.

Deputy Chief Medical Officer Sarian Kamara revealed that the authorities had received thousands of calls but only a handful of new patients in the Western Area covering Freetown and its surroundings.

"We were... able to confirm new cases which, had they not been discovered, would have greatly increased transmission," she said.

"Up to this morning, we had 22 new cases. The response from the medical (teams) has improved and the burial teams were able to bury between 60 to 70 corpses over the past two days."

Independent observers have voiced concerns over the quality of advice being given out, deeming the shutdown a "mixed success" and complaining about the poor training of the door-to-door education teams.



A sign warning of the dangers of Ebola outside a government hospital in the Sierra Leonean capital Freetown on August 13, 2014 (AFP Photo/Carl De Souza)


Meanwhile aid organisations and medical experts have questioned the feasibility of reaching 1.5 million homes in three days and have argued that confining people to their homes could erode trust between the government and the people.


- 'Publicity stunt' -

Joe Amon, health and human rights director at New York-based advocacy organisation Human Rights Watch, described the shutdown as "more of a publicity stunt than a health intervention".

Kamara said however that the shutdown was "on track" in its objective to get information to the entire population on how to prevent Ebola spreading.

"There has been a total compliance to the order for people to stay at home... which made it possible for campaign teams throughout the country to reach families in their own homes to sensitise them about Ebola," she said.

Ebola fever can fell its victims within days, causing severe muscle pain, vomiting, diarrhoea and -- in some cases -- unstoppable internal and external bleeding.



A health worker, wearing Personal Protective Equipment, stands inside the high-risk area at Elwa hospital in Monrovia on September 7, 2014 (AFP Photo/Dominique Faget)


The outbreak has killed more than 2,600 people in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone this year, cutting a swathe through entire villages at the epicentre and prompting warnings over possible economic catastrophe.

The widespread fallout from the outbreak was underlined by India's decision Saturday to postpone plans for a summit in New Delhi to be attended by representatives of more than 50 African nations.

The spread of the virus made it "logistically difficult given the public health guidelines to manage" the Third India-Africa Forum Summit, a foreign ministry official said.

In Madrid, officials said a plane was being dispatched to fly a Catholic missionary infected with Ebola home from Sierra Leone.

Brother Manuel Garcia Viejo, 69, director of a hospital in the Sierra Leonean town of Lunsar, is the second Spaniard to contract the virus in the current epidemic.


- 'Still in denial' -

In Liberia, the hardest-hit country with more than 1,450 dead, health officials said action to halt the spread of the disease was being hampered by traditional communities still ignoring advice on staying away from highly infectious dead bodies.

"Some people are still in denial. Because of that they are not listening to the rules," said Gabriel Gorbee Logan, a health officer in Bomi County, northwest of the capital Monrovia.

"And there is still ongoing burial rites -- rituals that citizens are carry out. They’re in the habit of bathing dead bodies because tradition demands.

"Religion demands that they need to bathe these dead bodies before calling the health team, and by the time we get there, a couple of people have gotten into contact."

Health authorities have placed tribal and religious leaders at the centre of awareness campaigns, giving them the lead in advising their communities on preventing Ebola's spread.

"The people trained us not to bathe bodies, not to play with vomit and not to eat bush meat," said Boakai Sanoe, the imam of a mosque in Dewein district.

"And that's the same thing we're telling our people in the environment -- to avoid all of those things."


http://news.yahoo.com/sierra-leone-faces-criticism-over-ebola-shutdown-093419949.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Bill Clinton says must 'do whatever it takes' to fight Ebola
Reuters
By Caren Bohan and Sharon Begley  3 hours ago



Former U.S. President Bill Clinton leads a panel discussion during the U.S.-Africa Business Forum in Washington August 5, 2014. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst



WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - New initiatives from the United States, Britain, France and other countries to help fight the Ebola epidemic that has been spreading exponentially in West Africa marked a "good beginning," former President Bill Clinton said on Saturday, but said the world will need to do more.

"We're still a little behind the curve but we're getting there," Clinton told reporters in a conference call, a day before his charity, the Clinton Global Initiative, was set to begin its 10th annual meeting in New York.

A chartered 747 jet, carrying the largest single shipment of aid to the Ebola zone to date and coordinated by CGI and other U.S. aid organizations, departed New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport on Saturday afternoon bound for West Africa.

After refueling in Cape Verde, the Kalitta Air charter is scheduled to land in Freetown, Sierra Leone, on Sunday morning.

The shipment of 170 pallets containing gloves, gowns and other protective equipment for medical workers will be met by government officials and local aid workers, and distributed to some 200 healthcare facilities on Monday, said Thomas Tighe, chief executive of the California-based aid group Direct Relief, which collected the 100 tons of emergency medical aid.

Because Sierra Leone on Friday started a three-day government-ordered lockdown that prohibits most people from leaving their homes as health workers and others go door-to-door to educate people about Ebola and isolate the sick, the volunteers who will off-load the Direct Relief supplies have been staying at the airport for days.

The plane will continue on to Monrovia, Liberia, to deliver the rest of its cargo: 2.8 million gloves, 170,000 protective gowns, 120,000 masks, 40,000 liters of pre-mixed oral hydration solution, and 9.8 million doses of medications. The protective equipment can supply 280 healthcare workers treating Ebola patients for one year.

Since the outbreak was detected in March, Ebola has infected at least 5,357 people, according to the World Health Organization, mostly in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, and killed an estimated 2,630. It has also spread to Senegal and Nigeria.

In a major expansion of the U.S. effort against Ebola, President Barack Obama this week announced that the United States would send 3,000 troops to West Africa help tackle the outbreak, including a major deployment in Liberia.

"We're going to have to do whatever it takes to contain the epidemic," Clinton said.

"It's a sprawling, growing thing. But at least they're putting the infrastructure in and have shown a willingness to put some money behind it, and I think it's a good beginning."

In a brief ceremony before the 747 taxied down the runway at JFK, Liberia's minister of foreign affairs, Augustine Kpehe Ngafuan, said the aid shipment "will translate into saving lives." He added, "We have been able to place men on the moon. Let us do a similar thing for mankind. I appeal to the international community."


http://news.yahoo.com/bill-clinton-says-must-whatever-takes-fight-ebola-105512556.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Sierra Leone Ebola burial team attacked despite lockdown
Reuters
6 hours ago



An empty street is seen at the start of a three-day national lockdown in Freetown September 19, 2014. REUTERS/Umaru Fofana



FREETOWN (Reuters) - A team burying Ebola victims was attacked in Sierra Leone's capital on Saturday, a member of parliament said, as some residents defied a three-day lockdown aimed at halting the worst outbreak of the disease on record.

Claude Kamanda, MP for the Waterloo district of Freetown, said that armed policemen accompanying the burial team quickly arrived, causing the attackers to flee.

Sierra Leone has asked its population of 6 million to stay indoors for three days as volunteers circulate to educate people about the disease as well as isolate the sick and remove the dead.

Ebola has infected at least 5,357 people in West Africa this year, mainly in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia, killing 2,630 of those, according to the World Health Organization.


http://news.yahoo.com/sierra-leone-ebola-burial-team-attacked-despite-lockdown-080035399.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Sierra Leone reaches final day of Ebola lockdown
Associated Press
By CLARENCE ROY-MACAULAY and ROBBIE COREY-BOULET  59 minutes ago



Sierra Leone residents remained in lockdown on Saturday as part of a massive effort to confine millions of people to their homes in a bid to stem the biggest Ebola outbreak in history. (Sept. 20)



FREETOWN, Sierra Leone (AP) — Frustrated residents complained of food shortages in some neighborhoods of Sierra Leone's capital on Sunday as the country reached the third and final day of a sweeping, unprecedented lockdown designed to combat the deadly Ebola disease, volunteers said.

While most residents welcomed teams of health care workers and volunteers bearing information about the disease, rumors persisted in pockets of the city that poisoned soap was being distributed, suggesting that public education campaigns had not been entirely successful.

The streets of the capital, Freetown, were again mostly deserted on Sunday in compliance with a government order for the country's 6 million residents to stay in their homes.

Spread by contact with bodily fluids, Ebola has killed more than 560 people in Sierra Leone and more than 2,600 across West Africa in the biggest outbreak ever recorded, according to the World Health Organization. The disease, which has also touched Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Senegal, is believed to have sickened more than 5,500 people.

Sierra Leone's government was hoping the lockdown — the most aggressive containment effort yet attempted — would turn the tide against the disease. There were rumors in Freetown that officials would opt to extend the lockdown, though government spokesman Abdulai Bayraytay said Sunday afternoon that no official decision had been reached.

Health care workers took advantage of the lockdown to bury 71 dead bodies by Sunday morning, Health Ministry official Dr. Sarian Kamara said on a radio program. The bodies of dead Ebola victims are highly contagious, making safe burials essential to stopping the spread of the disease.



Empty streets are seen during a three-day lockdown to prevent the spread on the Ebola virus, in Freetown, Sierra Leone, Sunday, Sept. 21, 2014. Volunteers going door to door during a three-day lockdown intended to combat Ebola in Sierra Leone say some residents are growing increasingly frustrated and complaining about food shortages.(AP Photo/ Michael Duff)


Sundays are usually quiet for residents in Sierra Leone, who go to church or stay at home with many businesses and restaurants closed.

In the city center, despite police efforts to encourage people to stay inside their homes, most families sat on their verandas chatting as radios blared through the streets. People have been urged to stay tuned to their radios and televisions for public information on the lockdown.

The National Power Authority has also provided uninterrupted electricity during the lockdown, so people haven't had to rely on generators.

In Bonga Town, a shantytown community near the national stadium in Freetown, some residents were upset that handouts of rice were distributed only to some families, said Samuel Turay, a 21-year-old volunteer.

The community often serves as a way station for rural Sierra Leoneans trying to relocate to the capital, and many homes are makeshift and dilapidated, with heavy rocks holding down zinc roofs so they don't blow away with the wind.



Empty streets are seen during a three-day lockdown to prevent the spread on the Ebola virus, in Freetown, Sierra Leone, Sunday, Sept. 21, 2014. Volunteers going door to door during a three-day lockdown intended to combat Ebola in Sierra Leone say some residents are growing increasingly frustrated and complaining about food shortages.(AP Photo/ Michael Duff)


"They expected, when they saw us, that we were coming with food, but unfortunately we are just coming to talk to them. So they were not so happy about it," Turay said.

The city's poorer residents generally use the money they earn each day to buy food, making planning for a three-day lockdown impossible, said Miatta Rogers, a mother living in the west of Freetown.

"Things are not going smooth right now. Everyone is not happy," she said. "When the government makes a ruling like this, then we all just have to abide by it, but it is not very easy."

The World Food Program provided food packages including rice, beans and a form of porridge throughout the lockdown, though its staffers were not going door to door and were instead focused on serving houses placed under quarantine by medical teams, spokesman Alexis Masciarelli said Sunday.

The agency distributed two weeks' worth of rations to 20,000 households in slum communities just prior to the lockdown, he said.



A pig with it's babies walks past an ambulance used at the Connaught Hospital, as part of their Ebola virus fleet, during a three-day lockdown to prevent the spread on the Ebola virus in Freetown, Sierra Leone, Sunday, Sept. 21, 2014. Volunteers going door to door during a three-day lockdown intended to combat Ebola in Sierra Leone say some residents are growing increasingly frustrated and complaining about food shortages.(AP Photo/ Michael Duff)


Some residents of Bonga Town and other similar communities said the provisions they received were insufficient, Turay said.

Another volunteer, Kabarie Fofanah, said some families were refusing food outright out of fear it was poisoned. Both Turay and Fofanah said they encountered Freetown residents who feared the soap being distributed by outreach teams was poisoned and potentially lethal.

"There was this lady shouting saying we want to kill her, she is not interested in the soap," Fofanah said. "We tried our level best to talk to her but she refused to take the soap. She is afraid."

Other reports said some families were removing stickers indicating their homes had been visited, in hopes of receiving more soap.

"Some are tired of the lockdown, but most are happy because they are afraid of the virus and they want to be protected and have this country be declared as Ebola-free," Fofanah said.



A man travels along a street in his wheelchair during a three-day lockdown to prevent the spread on the Ebola virus in Freetown, Sierra Leone, Sunday, Sept. 21, 2014. Volunteers going door to door during a three-day lockdown intended to combat Ebola in Sierra Leone say some residents are growing increasingly frustrated and complaining about food shortages.(AP Photo/ Michael Duff)


Officials say residents have overwhelmingly complied by staying in their homes. Only one incident of violence has been reported, when health workers trying to bury five bodies in a district 20 kilometers east of Freetown were attacked on Saturday.

After police reinforcements arrived, the health workers were eventually able to complete the burial.

The two other countries hit hardest by the outbreak are Liberia, which has recorded the highest number of cases and deaths, and Guinea, where the first cases were confirmed in March.

On Saturday, Guinean officials said five doctors contracted the disease while performing a Caesarean section on a woman in the capital, Conakry.

Dr. Sakoba Keita, national coordinator for Ebola, said the incident was due to the doctors' "carelessness" but also underscored how vulnerable health workers are to Ebola.

In Liberia on Sunday, officials opened a new 150-bed treatment center, the country's largest, in the Bushrod Island section of Monrovia. Four ambulances arrived almost immediately, full of sick patients.

__

Corey-Boulet reported from Abidjan, Ivory Coast. Michael Duff in Freetown, Sierra Leone, Youssouf Bah in Conakry, Guinea, and Jonathan Paye-Layleh in Monrovia, Liberia, contributed to this report.


http://news.yahoo.com/sierra-leone-reaches-final-day-ebola-lockdown-140600732.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Sierra Leone's Ebola lockdown likely to be extended
Reuters
By Umaru Fofana  1 hour ago



An empty street is seen at the start of a three-day national lockdown in Freetown September 19, 2014. REUTERS/Umaru Fofana



FREETOWN (Reuters) - A three-day lockdown in Sierra Leone aimed at stemming the worst Ebola epidemic on record has identified dozens of new infections, but has not reached everyone in the country and is likely to be extended, a senior official said on Sunday.

In one of the most extreme strategies employed since the epidemic began, Sierra Leone ordered its 6 million residents to stay indoors as volunteers circulated to educate households as well as isolate the sick and remove the dead.

"There is a very strong possibility it will be extended," Stephen Gaojia, head of the Emergency Operations Centre that leads the national Ebola response, told Reuters after meeting with President Ernest Bai Koroma.

"Even though the exercise has been a huge success so far, it has not been concluded in some metropolitan cities like Freetown and Kenema."

Gaojia said 92 bodies had been recovered across the country by the end of Saturday, the second day of the lockdown.

Some 123 people had contacted authorities during the drive, believing they might be infected. Of these, 56 tested positive for Ebola, 31 tested negative and 36 were still awaiting their results, he said.

Ebola has infected at least 5,357 people in West Africa this year, mainly in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia, killing 2,630 of those, according to the World Health Organization. At least 562 have died in Sierra Leone.

The lockdown was intended to allow 30,000 health workers, volunteers and teachers to visit every household in the country.

Some criticised the measure before it began on Friday as a rush to stock up on provisions caused a spike in prices, leaving many of Sierra Leone's poor unable to buy food.

The medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres has also warned that the lockdown could lead people to conceal cases.

Residents have largely complied with the plan, and the streets of the capital have remained mostly deserted, except for ambulances and police vehicles.

A team burying Ebola victims was attacked in Freetown on Saturday, however, as a small group defied the lockdown.

Meanwhile, Spain sent a military plane to Sierra Leone on Sunday to repatriate a Spanish Catholic priest who tested positive for the virus.

Spain's Health Ministry said that Manuel Garcia Viejo, a member of the Hospital Order of San Juan de Dios, had been working in the western city of Lunsar.

He is the second Spanish priest to be diagnosed with Ebola. Another member of the same order, Miguel Pajares, died last month after being brought back to Spain from Liberia.

Once in Madrid, Garcia Viejo will be taken to the Carlos III hospital, where Pajares was treated, the ministry said.

(This story has been refiled to remove typo paragraph 15)

(Additional reporting by Julien Toyer and Rodrigo de Miguel in Madrid; Writing by Joe Bavier; Editing by Kevin Liffey)


http://news.yahoo.com/sierra-leones-ebola-lockdown-likely-extended-175025054.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Spain repatriates from Sierra Leone priest diagnosed with Ebola
Reuters
42 minutes ago



MADRID (Reuters) - Spain on Sunday repatriated from Sierra Leone a Spanish Catholic priest working in the African country who has tested positive for the Ebola virus.

The Spanish military plane sent to repatriate Manuel Garcia Viejo, a member of the Hospital Order of San Juan de Dios who worked in the Western city of Lunsar, left the capital Freetown at around 1750 GMT, Spain's defence ministry said.

It was scheduled to land in Madrid at around 0100 GMT on Monday, it also said in a statement.

Garcia Viejo is the second Spanish priest to be diagnosed with Ebola after Miguel Pajares, also a member of San Juan de Dios, who died last month days after being brought back to Spain from Liberia.

Ebola, one of the deadliest diseases known to man, has killed more than 2,600 people, and infected more than 5,300, since the current outbreak was first detected in March, according to the World Health Organization.

The disease has spread to Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia as well as Senegal and Nigeria.

Once in Madrid, Garcia Viejo will be taken to the Carlos III hospital, where Pajares was treated, the health ministry said.

(Reporting by Julien Toyer and Rodrigo de Miguel; Editing by Mark Potter and William Hardy)


http://news.yahoo.com/spain-repatriate-sierra-leone-priest-diagnosed-ebola-111420206.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Liberia to provide 1,000 Ebola beds in overwhelmed capital
AFP
By Zoom Dosso  58 minutes ago



Residents arrive at JFK hospital's Ebola treatment center in Monrovia, on September 17, 2014 (AFP Photo/Zoom Dosso)



Monrovia (AFP) - Liberia announced plans Sunday for a four-fold increase in beds for Ebola patients in its overwhelmed capital Monrovia, as US troops arrived to help tackle the deadly epidemic.

The announcement came two weeks after the World Health Organization (WHO) warned that the country, worst-hit in the regional outbreak, with more than 1,450 deaths, would soon face thousands of new cases.

"Patients are being rejected... because there is no space. So the government is trying its best to finish the 1,000 beds so we can accommodate all the patients," Information Minister Lewis Brown told AFP.

Brown, who also announced the opening on Sunday of a third treatment unit in Monrovia, said the plan was to have the extra beds in place by the end of October.

"That way, we will curtail the spread because those who are rejected go back to their communities where they can possibly infect other people," he said.

A second deployment of US troops arrived on Sunday at Liberia's international airport, 55 kilometres (35 miles) east of Monrovia, as part of an eventual 3,000-strong mission to help battle the outbreak.



Two people sick with the Ebola virus arrive at a hospital in Monrovia on September 12, 2014 (AFP Photo/Zoom Dosso)


"Some American troops came this morning. They arrived with tactical jeeps," an airport source told AFP, without giving the size of the unit.

Pentagon spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby told reporters on Friday that a C-17 transport aircraft with equipment and seven service members had already landed, with two more cargo planes carrying 45 personnel due to follow.

The team will set up a headquarters for Major General Darryl Williams, who will oversee the US mission to train local health workers and establish additional medical facilities, he said.

Military engineers are due to build new Ebola treatment centres in affected areas, the Obama administration said last week, while US officials will help recruit medical personnel to work at the units.

The latest WHO figures show Liberia reporting 2,710 Ebola cases, but those were given a week ago, and the government's two Ebola units in Monrovia say they have been deluged by patients in recent days.



Liberians wait outside the Medecins Sans Frontieres Ebola treatment center, in Monrovia on September 17, 2014 (AFP Photo/Zoom Dosso)


- Begging for their lives -

The centres currently provide 100-120 beds, with aid agency Doctors Without Borders offering a further 260-70. The third centre opened Sunday will add a further 150 beds.

The deadliest Ebola epidemic the world has seen is spreading across west Africa, with Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, the worst affected nations.

The fever that the virus unleashes can fell its victims within days, causing severe muscle pain, vomiting, diarrhoea and -- in many cases -- unstoppable internal and external bleeding.

The death toll has topped 2,600 across west Africa, out of more than 5,300 people infected.

The WHO says the number of new cases is moving far faster than the capacity to manage them in Ebola-specific treatment centres.

Two weeks ago it called on development partners trying to help Liberia respond to the outbreak "to prepare to scale up their current efforts by three- to four-fold."

An Ebola treatment facility hastily improvised by WHO for the Ministry of Health, was recently set up to manage 30 patients, but had more than 70 patients as soon as it opened, the WHO said.

"In Monrovia, taxis filled with entire families, of whom some members are thought to be infected with the Ebola virus, crisscross the city, searching for a treatment bed. There are none," the agency said.

"As WHO staff in Liberia confirm, no free beds for Ebola treatment exist anywhere in the country."

In Monrovia, aid workers have reported having to take on the grim task of turning away patients who were begging for their lives.

When patients are turned away from Ebola treatment centres, they generally return to their communities, where they infect others, perpetuating constantly higher flare-ups in the number of cases, the WHO says.

"I am here since this morning, I was here yesterday and the day before, but they keep telling me to go and come back," Fatima Bonoh, 35, told AFP on Sunday, shivering at the entrance of the Redemption hospital, an Ebola referral unit.


http://news.yahoo.com/liberia-1-000-ebola-beds-overwhelmed-capital-200241983.html

[Buster's Uncle]

World leaders to gather at U.N. in shadow of Islamic State, Ebola crises
Reuters
By Louis Charbonneau and Michelle Nichols  1 hour ago



United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon speaks at a news conference ahead of the 69th United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters in New York, September 16, 2014. REUTERS/Mike Segar/Files



UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - World leaders gather in New York this week to tackle a host of crises: the violence Islamic State militants are wreaking in Iraq and Syria, the exponential spread of the deadly Ebola virus in Africa and deadlocked negotiations on Iran's nuclear program.

There is little hope the 193-nation U.N. General Assembly will achieve much in the annual five-day marathon of speeches. But on the sidelines, U.S. officials plan to lobby allies for pledges of concrete military assistance to help defeat Islamic State, whose hardline Sunni Islamist fighters have taken over swaths of Syrian and Iraqi territory.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said more than 140 heads of state or government will attend the assembly's annual "general debate", which begins on Wednesday and ends Sept. 30. He noted an unusually large number of serious conflicts: in the Middle East, Africa and Ukraine.

"The world is facing multiple crises," Ban told reporters.

"All have featured atrocious attacks on civilians, including children," he said. "All have dangerous sectarian, ethnic or tribal dimensions. And many have seen sharp divisions within the international community itself over the response."

U.N. officials and delegates say the top issue for Western and Arab leaders is the rampage of Islamic State militants, who are blamed for a wave of sectarian violence, beheadings and massacres of civilians.

"Together, we will address the horrendous violence in Syria and Iraq, where conflict and governance failures have provided a breeding ground for extremist groups," Ban said.

U.S. President Barack Obama is expected to use the U.N. podium on Wednesday to call for more countries to join his coalition of more than 40 nations to prevent IS from expanding its territory. The United States has been bombing IS targets in Iraq for the past month but has yet to bomb Syria.

The White House said it was unlikely that Obama would meet with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani while both are in New York this week. But Secretary of State John Kerry is expected to meet with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif at which they are expected to discuss Iran's atomic program and IS.

On Friday, Kerry told a special meeting of the Security Council that Iran could play a role in helping tackle IS, an apparent shift in the U.S. position. Both Iran and the United States have ruled out military cooperation.


EBOLA OUTBREAK

In addition to speeches by Obama, Rouhani and other high-profile leaders, other important attendees making their U.N. General Assembly debut this week include Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

On Wednesday, Obama will chair a rare summit meeting of the U.N. Security Council on the problem of foreign fighters. He last chaired a council summit in 2009 on eradicating nuclear weapons.

At Wednesday's meeting, the council plans to adopt a resolution demanding countries "prevent and suppress" recruitment and travel of foreign fighters to join extremist militant groups like IS by ensuring it is a serious criminal offence under domestic laws. Foreign fighters in IS are believed to be the group's cruelest.

U.N. member states will also tackle the Ebola crisis in West Africa. Obama and other leaders will also attend a high-level meeting on the exponentially worsening hemorrhagic fever outbreak that has devastated Liberia, Sierra Leone and other countries in the region.

The meeting comes just after the Security Council declared Ebola a "threat to international peace and security" and established the first-ever U.N. mission dedicated to tackling a public-health threat.

Since the current outbreak was first detected in March, Ebola has infected at least 5,357 people, according to the World Health Organization, mostly in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia. It has also spread to Senegal and Nigeria. The virus has killed an estimated 2,630 people.

Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf had been due to speak at the General Assembly this week but canceled her trip to New York because of the Ebola crisis.

While the General Assembly speeches are going on, senior foreign ministry officials from the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China are meeting in New York with Iranian officials. They will try to break a deadlock in talks aimed at ending sanctions in exchange for curbs on Iran's nuclear program. Foreign ministers from the six powers may join the talks in the course of the week.

Even though a Nov. 24 deadline for a long-term deal is a mere two months away, diplomats close to the talks say a deal in New York is unlikely.

Just ahead of the General Assembly on Tuesday, U.N. chief Ban will convene a global summit meeting on climate change that aims to set the stage for a major environmental conference in Paris next year. Obama is expected to use the session to highlight strides the United States has made on climate change.

There will also be high-level side meetings on conflicts in Syria, Libya, South Sudan, Ukraine, the Central African Republic, Mali, the Israeli-Palestinian problem, and the U.N. war on poverty.

(Editing by David Gregorio)


http://news.yahoo.com/world-leaders-gather-u-n-shadow-islamic-state-222550851.html