- Title: HEALTH-EBOLA Ebola could hit again, we would hardly do better - MSF
- Date: 13th June 2015
- Summary: DAKAR, SENEGAL (JUNE 13, 2015) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) INTERNATIONAL PRESIDENT OF MSF, JOANNE LIU, SAYING: "The reality today, if we were to have Ebola to hit at the scale that it did in August and September, we would hardly do much better than we did last time around."
- Embargoed: 28th June 2015 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Sierra Leone
- Country: Sierra Leone
- Topics: General
- Reuters ID: LVABRAB89GG88ADV82BSHLVX6J0H
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: The Ebola epidemic could flare up again in West Africa, and international organisations are no better equipped to control it than they were a year ago, the head of medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors without Borders) said on Saturday (June 13).
Leaders of the Group of Seven (G7) industrial nations this week vowed to wipe out the epidemic that has killed more than 11,100 people across West Africa, but offered little concrete action.
But while the virus is spreading more slowly than at the peak last year and Liberia has defeated the outbreak, cases have risen sharply in the past two weeks in Guinea and Sierra Leone.
"It's not over until it's over. I'm very concerned about the fact that there's a general fatigue and waning of attention on Ebola, and that people are basically declaring victory before it's time. And that is really detrimental. We need to finish the job. To get to the finish line, we're going to probably need to double our effort, otherwise we will never get there," Joanne Liu, the international president of MSF, told Reuters, referring also to a World Health Organisation meeting last month.
Jerome Mouton, the head of MSF Guinea, described a state of "semi-denial" about the virus similar to a year ago, adding that another major flare-up of the disease was possible.
"Today it's the same; we are in the same situation as before. We're overly optimistic saying it's almost finished, we're ending this now, there's no problem, go about your business as normal. But in fact, yes, there's a big problem as there is sufficient potential for this to set off a big epidemic again. I'm not saying this is going to happen, but that needs to be taken into account. The denial we saw a year ago was a big obstacle to getting a response on a big enough scale to face the problem. So today, this new semi-denial about the risk has the same potential for the quality of the response now," Mouton said.
The WHO did not declare an international public health emergency until August last year, more than eight months after the first Ebola case, delaying resources to the sick.
Liu said concerted political effort was needed for solutions to be found for an international health force that could tackle epidemics of this magnitude.
"What happened in Ebola is we didn't get one earthquake, but we've been getting a mass casualty event on a daily basis for 10 months. Can we sustain that? And will there be an international workforce ready to deploy that long? And that's what we need to ensure, that it's not only a very appealing sexy ideas, but it's the fact that how will it translate into action in the field afterwards?" said Liu.
The head of MSF also wasn't optimistic about the world's response to another potential outbreak.
"The reality today, if we were to have Ebola to hit at the scale that it did in August and September, we would hardly do much better than we did last time around," Liu said.
Sierra Leone reported the highest daily Ebola case count in nearly three months earlier this week and the government has since introduced a curfew for the affected areas.
In Guinea, the outbreak has spread into districts previously free of the disease, including the border area with Guinea Bissau. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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