CONAKRY: West Africa’s Ebola-hit nations have agreed to impose a cross-border isolation zone at the epicenter of the world’s worst-ever outbreak, amid warnings that the deadly epidemic is spiraling out of control.
The announcement came at an emergency summit in the Guinean capital on Friday to discuss the outbreak, which has killed more than 700 people, with the World Health Organization warning Ebola could cause “catastrophic” loss of life and severe economic disruption if it continued to spread.
“We have agreed to take important and extraordinary actions at the inter-country level to focus on cross-border regions that have more than 70 percent of the epidemic,” said Hadja Saran Darab, the secretary-general of the Mano River Union bloc grouping the nations.
“These areas will be isolated by police and military. The people in these areas being isolated will be provided with material support,” she said at the meeting in Conakry.
Opening the summit, WHO chief Margaret Chan told leaders that the response of the three countries to the epidemic had been “woefully inadequate,” revealing that the outbreak was “moving faster than our efforts to control it.”
“If the situation continues to deteriorate, the consequences can be catastrophic in terms of lost lives but also severe socio-economic disruption and a high risk of spread to other countries,” Chan said.
She described the outbreak as “by far the largest ever in the nearly four-decade history of this disease.”
“It is taking place in areas with fluid population movements over porous borders, and it has demonstrated its ability to spread via air travel, contrary to what has been seen in past outbreaks,” she told the summit.
“Cases are occurring in rural areas which are difficult to access, but also in densely populated capital cities. This meeting must mark a turning point in the outbreak response.”
US aid workers set to arrive
The first of two American aid workers infected with the deadly Ebola virus while in Liberia is set to arrive in the United States on Saturday to begin treatment in isolation at an Atlanta hospital, officials said.
A plane equipped to transport Dr. Kent Brantly and missionary Nancy Writebol back to the country can carry only one patient back at a time and it was unclear early on Saturday which of the two would be arriving first.
“We have learned that we will be receiving a patient with Ebola at Emory University Hospital on Saturday,” Holly Korschun, spokeswoman for the facility where they will be treated, said late on Friday. “The second patient was going to follow in the next few days,” she added.
Despite alarm by some in the United States over the transport, health officials have said bringing the sickened aid workers into the country would not put the American public at risk.
The patients were helping respond to the worst West African Ebola outbreak on record with the North Carolina-based Christian organization Samaritan’s Purse and missionary group SIM USA when they contracted the disease.
Meanwhile, a retired American doctor who was working with Ebola patients in West Africa returned to the United States this week — and put himself in quarantine.
Dr. Alan Jamison volunteered in the Liberian capital of Monrovia this month as part of an international medical group.
Jamison, 69, said he’s had no symptoms of the deadly virus, but has been in seclusion since Monday, when he returned to his hometown of Morristown, Tennessee.
Emirates suspends flights
Dubai’s Emirates said it had suspended flights to Guinea, one of the West African countries affected by an outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus.
The airline said in a statement on its website. “The safety of our passengers and crew is of the highest priority and will not be compromised,” it said
The leaders of Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea used the summit to launch a $100 million (75 million euro) action plan that will see several hundred more medical staff deployed to battle the epidemic.
The three countries will also bolster efforts to prevent and detect suspected cases, urge better border surveillance, and reinforce the WHO’s sub-regional outbreak coordination center in Guinea.
Darab did not outline the exact area to be part of the isolation zone, but the epicenter of the outbreak has a diameter of almost 300 kilometers (185 miles), spreading from Kenema in eastern Sierra Leone to Macenta in southern Guinea, and taking in most of Liberia’s extreme northern forests.
“The health care services in these zones will be strengthened for treatment, testing and contact tracing to be carried out effectively,” she said.
The meeting came after Dubai’s Emirates became the first global airline to announce it was suspending flights to the stricken area, while the United States, Germany, France and Italy have issued warnings against travel to the three African countries.
US President Barack Obama announced on Friday that the United States would screen delegates traveling from Ebola-hit countries to Washington for a three-day Africa summit next week.
Meanwhile Nigeria quarantined two people who had “primary contact” with a man who died of Ebola in Lagos last week.
The WHO raised the death toll by 57 to 729 on Thursday, announcing that 122 new cases had been detected between Thursday and Sunday last week, bringing the total to more than 1,300.
“Current numbers of national and international response staff are woefully inadequate,” Chan said, revealing that 60 health workers had died treating patients in the outbreak.
The US Food and Drug Administration said in an e-mailed statement the agency “stands ready” to work with companies and investigators working with patients “in dire need of treatment.” A senior official within FDA told Reuters the agency would consider proposals for providing treatments under special emergency new drug applications, if the benefits of the treatment outweighed the potential safety risks.
“We take this very, very seriously,” the source said.
FDA’s statement follow calls by doctors fed up by the lack of progress on Ebola treatments, a market deemed too small to gain much attention by large pharmaceutical companies.
Sierra Leone’s leader Ernest Bai Koroma has announced a state of emergency, quarantining Ebola-hit areas and canceling foreign trips by ministers, while Liberia has closed all of its schools and put government workers on leave.
Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf warned ahead of the summit that the crisis was “nearing a catastrophe” and appealed for more doctors and supplies.
Ebola, which has no vaccine, causes severe muscular pain, fever, headaches and, in the worst cases, unstoppable bleeding.
It has killed around two-thirds of those it has infected since its emergence in 1976, with two outbreaks registering fatality rates approaching 90 percent.
The death rate in the current outbreak is a lower-than-average 55 percent.
Fears that it could spread to other continents through air travel have been growing, with European and Asian countries on alert alongside African countries outside the Ebola crisis zone.
In Britain, Sierra Leone cyclist Moses Sesay was quarantined and tested for Ebola at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, before being given the all-clear, the athlete told a British newspaper.
Kenya, Ethiopia, Democratic Republic of Congo and Benin said they had enhanced screening at border points and airports.
Pan-African airlines Arik and ASKY have halted flights to and from Liberia and Sierra Leone, while Asia-Pacific nations from Hong Kong to Australia have announced tighter security measures at airports, some warning against travel to the Ebola-hit countries.
