• Death toll rises to over 6,800

• Mali may be cleared virus-free soon

• Sierra Leone to start house-to-house search for patients

 

AS part of efforts aimed at improving preparedness of 17 African countries in the event of an Ebola outbreak, experts at the World Health Organisation (WHO) have started providing simulated exercises in hospitals and technical training for immediate emergency response and communication.

 

The 17 African countries include: Mali, Nigeria, Senegal, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire, Central African Republic, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea Bissau, Mauritania, Niger, Togo, The Gambia, South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

 

A press statement released yesterday by the WHO reads: “WHO teams provide simulated exercises in hospitals and technical training for immediate emergency response and communication, to help countries identify opportunities for improvement in order to strengthen their preparedness in the event of an outbreak.”

 

According to the WHO statement, the checklist further helps teams to make recommendations on community engagement, infection prevention and control, case management, Ebola Treatment Centres, safe dignified burials or safe alternatives, epidemiological surveillance, contact tracing, laboratory capacity, and border crossing preparedness. 

 

Meanwhile, the WHO said yesterday that more than 6,800 people have now died from the Ebola virus, almost all of them in West Africa. 

 

The UN health agency reported that as of December 13, there had been 18,464 cases of infection from the deadly virus in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, and 6,841 people had died.

 

Also, Mali has released from quarantine the last 13 people being monitored for Ebola, and the country could be declared free of the virus next month if no further cases are recorded, the World Health Organisation said on Tuesday. Mali has recorded six deaths from Ebola. Mali’s last infected patient recovered and left hospital last week, while the remaining individuals who came in contact with an infected person finished a mandatory 21-day quarantine at midnight on Monday.

 

Also, Sierra Leone said it would start house-to-house searches for Ebola patients on Wednesday and impose internal travel restrictions as part of a new push to combat the epidemic.

 

The measures are part of a month-long effort around the capital, Freetown by the government, a British taskforce and international groups that aims to make a breakthrough against the disease within four to six weeks. Meanwhile, scores of Ethiopian health workers arrived in Liberia on Tuesday to bolster the response to an Ebola outbreak that the government says it wants to stamp out before Christmas. The 87 doctors and nurses will join an African Union (AU) mission against the worst Ebola outbreak on record, which has killed more than 6,800 people in Liberia and neighbouring Sierra Leone and Guinea.

They will join more than 175 Nigerian medics deployed to Liberia and Sierra Leone earlier this month.

 

Mamo participated in the training and said, “The mission is timely, as The Gambia prepares for Ebola. It has revealed a lot about our strengths and weaknesses and what we can do better, particularly in the area of coordination.”

 

Mamo is talking about the first component of the Ebola preparedness checklist, developed by WHO, that calls for overall emergency coordination- designating roles to all national and international agencies in case of an outbreak. The teams are using the checklist in their workshop to review with doctors, government officials, and border guards, among others, the first steps that need to be taken when a case of Ebola appears in the country. The comprehensive checklist follows WHO’s International Health Regulations and is used to identify concrete actions for countries and how they will be supported by the international community.

 

WHO did not provide an update of cases in other countries, but last week said the death toll remained the same: six in Mali, one in the United States, and eight in Nigeria, which was declared Ebola free in October.

 

Spain and Senegal, which have both been declared free from Ebola, meanwhile counted one case each, but no deaths. Sierra Leone, which last week overtook Liberia as the nation with the most infections, counted 8,273 cases and 2,033 deaths on December 13.

 

The toll up until December 10 stood at 8,069 cases and 1,899 deaths. Liberia, long the hardest-hit country, has meanwhile seen a decrease in the rate of transmission in recent weeks. As of December 9, the country counted 7,797 cases and 3,290 deaths, up from the 7,765 infections and 3,222 deaths tallied two days earlier.

 

In Guinea, where the outbreak started nearly a year ago, 2,394 Ebola cases and 1,518 deaths were recorded as of December 13. Three days earlier, the country counted 2,354 Ebola cases and 1,462 deaths.

 

Ebola, one of the deadliest viruses known to man, is spread only through direct contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person showing symptoms such as fever or vomiting. People caring for the sick or handling the bodies of people infected Ebola are especially exposed. As of the latest figures up to December 7, a total of 639 healthcare workers were known to have contracted the virus, and 349 of them had died, WHO said.

 

Mali’s prime minister’s office said in a statement that authorities will now keep focus around Ebola awareness and prevention efforts. Mali became the sixth West African country to record a case of Ebola when a two-year-old girl from Guinea died in October. It was close to being declared Ebola free in November before a second wave of infections. Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia are at the heart of the world’s worst recorded outbreak of Ebola. Rates of infection are rising fastest in Sierra Leone and the country has more than half of the 18,000 confirmed cases of the virus.

 

Health officials are alarmed by the widespread transmission in Freetown, which is similar to an earlier spread in Monrovia now slowly being brought under control. 

 

Health workers will seek Ebola victims and anyone with whom they have had contact, transporting those infected to new British-built treatment centres, according to a government plan announced this week.

 

President Ernest Bai Koroma said that, under the new measures, worshippers on Christmas Day must return home after services and other festivities are banned. New Year’s Eve services must stop by 5 p.m. local time (1700 GMT), while New Year’s Day festivities are prohibited.

 

Source

W.H.O