WHO DECLARES EBOLA AN "INTERNATIONAL HEALTH EMERGENCY"

The World Health Organization WHO has referred to the Ebola epidemic as an "extraordinary event" that requires International Health Emergency to help contain the spread of the disease which has killed over 1000 people in four West-African countries.

In a news briefing today, 8th August at the WHO headquarters, Geneva, Magaret Chan(WHO, Director General) said, "The outbreak is moving faster than we can control it".  

WHO advised countries affected by the Virus including Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone - should declare a national emergency, there should be no general ban on international travel or trade. The agency said,"the declaration ... will galvanize the attention of leaders of all countries at the top level. It cannot be done by the ministries of health alone." continue reading....

Keiji Fukuda, the WHO's head of health security, said "This is not a mysterious disease. This is an infectious disease that can be contained," he told reporters. "It is not a virus that is spread through the air" he said.

Fukuda said it was important that anyone known to have Ebola should be immediately isolated and treated and kept in isolation for 30 days. "Based on scientific studies, people who have infection can shed virus for up to 30 days," he said.

David Heymann, a former WHO official and now director of the Chatham House Centre on Global Health Security, who this week urged the WHO to show greater leadership and to consider allowing the use of experimental drugs for Africans affected by Ebola, said governments should step up their response.

The major message, he said, was that the three known measures that stop Ebola outbreaks – hospital infection control, community understanding of risks of infection, and contact tracing - "appear not to have been robustly enough applied".