Liberia’s grim Ebola situation prompts call for ‘nonconventional’ help

Tuesday, September 9, 2014
By Paul Martin

Lisa Schnirring
CIDRAP News
Sep 08, 2014

In an unusually grim statement today, the World Health Organization (WHO) said Ebola virus disease (EVD) illnesses are increasing exponentially in Liberia, where taxicabs are literal vehicles of disease transmission as they ferry sick people between treatment centers that are too full to admit them.

The WHO’s latest assessment, based on reports from an emergency team in Liberia, said “nonconventional interventions” are needed to control the outbreak there, because the demands have outstripped the government’s and partners’ capacity to respond. The group’s warning came as two countries—the United States and Britain—said they would mobilize military assets to help with outbreak response.

In another development today, the WHO said one of its doctors has been infected with the virus in Sierra Leone and will be evacuated to another country for treatment. The patient is the second WHO worker to be sickened by EVD.

US, Britain announce military involvement

President Barack Obama said yesterday on the NBC News show “Meet the Press” that the US military will help set up isolation units and equipment and provide security for international public health workers, the Washington Post reported yesterday. International aid workers have repeatedly been attacked and threatened by violence in some of the outbreak’s hot spots.

The president’s announcement comes in the wake of a recent visit to the outbreak region by US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Tom Frieden, MD, MPH, who said on Sep 2 that there was a window of opportunity to tamp down the outbreak, but the window is closing.

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