Doctors without Borders on Tuesday said that the
ebola virus is now out of control in West Africa,
with more than 60 outbreak hotspots
MSF warned that if the governments of West Africa
do not take measures to stop this epidemic, the
virus would continue to spread unabated.
“The scale of the current Ebola epidemic is
unprecedented in terms of geographical
distribution, people infected and deaths,” MSF said
in a statement.
The rapid spread of the disease, which is deadly in
up to 90 per cent of cases, has overwhelmed aid
agencies and health workers and terrified local
communities.
MSF director of operations, Bart
Janssens said, “The epidemic is now out of
control. With the appearance of new sites in
Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, there is a real
risk of it spreading to other areas.”
MSF called for a “massive deployment” of medical
resources by governments in the region to curb
the epidemic.
This is the first time the disease has spread
through the region and MSF said it had identified
more than 60 separate locations with confirmed
cases of the virus.
“Ebola is no longer a public health issue limited to
Guinea: it is affecting the whole of West Africa,”
Janssens said.
The News Agency of Nigeria reports that ebola
virus live in animal hosts, and humans can
contract the viruses from infected animals.
NAN reports that after the initial transmission, the
virus can spread from person to person through
contact with body fluids or contaminated needles.
According to WHO, fruit bats of the Pteropodidae
family are considered to be the natural host of the
Ebola virus.
WHO said, “Severely ill patients require intensive
supportive care. No licensed specific treatment or
vaccine is available for use in people or animals.
“Ebola first appeared in 1976 in 2 simultaneous
outbreaks, in Nzara, Sudan, and in Yambuku,
Democratic Republic of Congo.
“The latter was in a village situated near the Ebola
River, from which the disease takes its name.”
No comments:
Post a Comment