VIENNA: The UN atomic agency said on Monday it had sent Sierra Leone equipment first used in nuclear processes that can help it quickly diagnose the deadly Ebola virus and it was also in contact with other West African states about their needs.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has said its specialized technology could make a “small but effective contribution” to combat an outbreak that has killed 4,950 people, mostly in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea.

Countries from the United States to China and Cuba have deployed resources and health personnel in a UN-led aid surge.

The IAEA says a nuclear-derived diagnostic technology known as Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) allows Ebola to be detected using fluorescent markers within a few hours. The equipment in its original form had used radioactive isotope markers.

Other methods of detecting Ebola require growing on a cell culture for several days.

An IAEA spokesman said a shipment of an RT-PCR machine left for Sierra Leone on Sunday, without giving further detail.

Meanwhile, a Maine nurse who battled officials over her quarantine after she returned from treating Ebola patients in West Africa says she’ll continue speaking out on behalf of public health workers.

Monday marks the 21st day since Kaci Hickox’s last exposure to an Ebola patient, a 10-year-old girl who suffered seizures before dying alone without family.

On Tuesday, Hickox will no longer require daily monitoring for Ebola symptoms, and says she looks forward to stepping out her front door “like normal people.” But the Texas native says she won’t back away from the debate over treatment of health care workers.

Hickox says she’s concerned the “wrong people” like politicians are leading the debate over quarantines and making the decisions.

Strategy change

Medical aid agency Doctors Without Borders called Monday for a change of strategy in the fight against Ebola in Liberia, to fund rapid response teams rather than huge isolation units.

The charity, known by its French initials MSF, said it is seeing a decline in the number of patients admitted to case management centers in Liberia for the first time since the outbreak started.

But new hotspots continue to emerge and the global response must adapt to this new phase of the epidemic, added MSF, which has around 3,300 staff across Liberia and neighboring Sierra Leone and Guinea.

“Financial support is starting to flow into the country and huge resources are being put into constructing large-scale Ebola isolation centers,” said Fasil Tezera, MSF head of operations in Liberia.

“Isolation units in Monrovia and some other parts of the country now have adequate capacity and we must adapt the strategy if we want to stay ahead of the curve and beat the epidemic.

“Priority should be given to a more flexible approach that allows a rapid response to new outbreaks and gets the regular health care system safely up and running again.” MSF says its 250-bed ELWA3 center in Monrovia is treating around 50 patients, while in the northern town of Foya, at the epicenter of the outbreak, the number of patients fell to zero on October 30, with no confirmed cases since.