Regional crisis talks as Ebola death toll tops 1,500

Thursday, August 28, 2014
By Paul Martin

By Chris Stein with Ola Awoniyi in Abuja and Jonathan Fowler
Yahoo.com
Aug. 28, 2014

Accra (AFP) – Ebola-hit nations met for crisis talks on Thursday as the death toll topped 1,500 and the World Health Organization warned that the number of cases could exceed 20,000 before the outbreak is stemmed.

Nigeria announced that the virus had reached its oil-producing hub, dashing hopes that the country had successfully contained it to its biggest city, Lagos.

Hopes were raised meanwhile of a vaccine for the haemorrhagic fever after British medical charity the Wellcome Trust and pharmaceuticals giant GlaxoSmithKline said safety trials on a new drug could begin as soon as next month.

But new figures showed the massive scale of the crisis, which the WHO said could cost the international community at least $490 million (370 million euros) to tackle.

Bruce Aylward, the WHO’s head of emergency programmes, said that it could take six to nine months to bring Ebola under control, by which time the number of infections could have passed 20,000.

“That’s not saying we expect 20,000, that’s not saying we would accept, more importantly, 20,000 cases,” he told reporters in Geneva, calling the situation a “global health security issue”.

The Rest…HERE

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