2014-08-30 10:13:00

Fight continues against Ebola


(Vatican Radio) The United Nations is to use Ghana as a base for supplies bound for countries stricken by an Ebola outbreak that has killed more than 1,550 people in West Africa. The office of Ghana’s president made the announcement in a statement heading into the week-end. More than  3 thousand people have been infected since the virus was first detected in remote regions of Guinea in early 2014. The virus – and the disease – quickly spread to Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria.

Senegal reported its first case on Friday.

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The World Health Organisation says the fight to stop the disease will require nearly a half-billion dollars over the next nine months. The WHO’s Assistant Director-General for emergency operations, Dr. Bruce Aylward, says nearly 13 thousand health workers are needed to help contain the disease in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, which remain the countries most severely affected by the outbreak. “We are dealing with this disease in large urban environments and over large geographic areas, he explained, adding, “this is what has required us to put together a new road map that looks at how we scale up strategies, how do we adopt strategies to that environment and get the disease down to the kind of levels needed.”

Meanwhile, scientists looking for a treatment have announced some promising news.

An experimental Ebola drug healed all 18 monkeys infected with the deadly virus in a study. The monkeys were given the drug, called “ZMapp”, three to five days after they were infected with the virus and when most of the animals involved in the test were already symptomatic. A slightly different version of the drug also seemed to protect six other monkeys who received it three days after infection. These studies represent the first tests ever done of ZMapp ever to be performed on monkeys.








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