Ebola ‘won’t go quietly,’ WHO says, as cases edge up
It will take an extraordinary effort to finish the job, WHO’s special representative for Ebola says
CBC.ca
May 19, 2015
Guinea and Sierra Leone reported 35 new Ebola cases in the past week, four times as many as the week before, in a reminder that the virus “will not go quietly,” a top World Health Organization official said on Tuesday.
“It will take an extraordinary effort to finish the job,” the WHO’s special representative for Ebola, Bruce Aylward, told a briefing attended by health ministers.
“With the start of the rainy season today, the doubling of effort will be that much more difficult,” he added, referring to increased logistical challenges.
Ghana president John Dramani Mahama said on Tuesday that the West African regional bloc ECOWAS expected zero Ebola infection in West Africa “in the next couple of months, if not weeks.”
The 35 cases in the week to May 17 were in six districts of Guinea and Sierra Leone, with most in Guinea, Aylward said. Nine were confirmed the previous week.
Liberia, the other worst-hit country, was declared Ebola-free earlier this month.
“The virus has shown how easy it is for a single cross-border traveller or unsafe burial to reignite the epidemic again,” said WHO Director-General Margaret Chan.
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