WHO Calls For Urgent Action As Ebola Death Toll Reaches Over 4000
The Ebola outbreak has now killed more than 4,000 people, according to the World Health Organization.
On Friday the UN health agency said that the number of people known to have died has risen to 4,033 out of 8,399 cases in seven countries by the end of Oct. 8.
Majority of the deaths were in Liberia, Sierra Leone & Guinea.
The UN’s special envoy for the disease said the world’s response to the Ebola crisis needs to be 20 times greater than it was at the beginning of the month.
Without mobilization on a massive scale, “it will be impossible to get this disease quickly under control, and the world will have to live with the Ebola virus forever,” David Nabarro warned the UN General Assembly on Friday.
He urged all countries to act swiftly and generously, saying that contributions “within days” is more important than larger contributions within weeks.
Thousands of health workers, community mobilizers and people to construct and staff treatment centres are needed, Nabarro said, in calling for a scale-up in response. The outbreak presents an extraordinary challenge for the world that needs ingenuity and collective action against a virus that is invisible to our eyes and poorly understood by most.
The United Nations Mission for Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER) said the three countries most affected in the outbreak — Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia — recently showed high economic growth rates, but those may be halved in a year.
Culled from Cbc.ca