Ebola Virus Inflicts Deadly Toll on African Health Workers
Mounting Deaths Increase Strain on Front-Line Medical Staffers; Obama Says Better Infrastructure Can Help Control Virus
By Drew Hinshaw
WSJ.com
Aug. 7, 2014
The number of people to have died in the worst Ebola outbreak in history has risen to at least 932, the World Health Organization said on Wednesday, as overworked hospital staff struggled to quell the epidemic and in many cases became its front-line victims.
Between Saturday and Monday, 45 people died of the disease in West Africa, with 108 new cases reported during that period, the WHO said as it began a two-day emergency meeting in Geneva to determine whether the outbreak constitutes a public-health emergency and how to address it.
he figures didn’t include additional cases and deaths that have been attributed to Ebola since then. On Wednesday morning, a man in Saudi Arabia who was suspected of having the virus died when his heart stopped and attempts to resuscitate him failed, the Saudi Ministry of Health said.
A nurse in Nigeria also died from Ebola, while five other hospital workers have been confirmed as infected and were isolated, said Onyebuchi Chukwu, that country’s health minister. Each helped treat a Liberian-American consultant, Patrick Sawyer, who got sick during his air travel between Monrovia, Liberia, and Lagos, Nigeria, Mr. Chukwu said.
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