Solutions

12:39 Tuesday 12 August 2014

A Spanish priest who contracted Ebola while working in Liberia has died in hospital, health authorities in Madrid have confirmed. Father Miguel Pajares (75) was the first European infected by a strain of the virus that has killed more than 1,000 people in West Africa.

He was airlifted from Liberia on August 7th after becoming infected while working for a non-governmental organisation there.

He was flown to Spain for treatment with his co-worker Juliana Bohi, a nun who has since tested negative for the disease.

cnn.com - by Susannah Cullinane - August 11, 2014

(CNN) -- The government of Liberia says that sample doses of the experimental Ebola drug ZMapp will be sent there to treat doctors who have contracted the deadly virus.

The White House and Food and Drug Administration approved the Liberian request for the drug to be made available to them.

Liberia identified itself as the recipient of the drug after the company that makes ZMapp said earlier that its supply was exhausted after fulfilling the request of a West African country, which it did not name.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

 msf.org

Ebola is one of the world’s most deadly diseases. It is a highly infectious virus that can kill up to 90 percent of the people who catch it, causing terror among infected communities.

Ebola is so infectious that patients need to be treated in isolation by staff wearing protective clothing. MSF has over 670 staff on the ground and we have brought in more than 40 tonnes of equipment and supplies to help fight the epidemic.

Read MSF's response to the World Health Organisation statement declaring the Ebola outbreak "an extraordinary event".

(CLICK HERE, THEN SCROLL DOWN TO VIEW THE MSF EBOLA GUIDE)

msf.org.uk - August 8, 2014

In a statement released today, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared that West Africa's Ebola epidemic is an "extraordinary event" and now constitutes an international health risk.

"A coordinated international response is deemed essential to stop and reverse the international spread of Ebola," the WHO said in a statement after a two-day meeting of its emergency committee on Ebola.

MSF reaction to WHO Ebola statement

In response, Dr Bart Janssens, Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) Director of Operations said:

“Declaring Ebola an international public health emergency shows how seriously WHO is taking the current outbreak but statements won’t save lives

“Now we need this statement to translate into immediate action on the ground. For weeks, MSF has been repeating that a massive medical, epidemiological and public health response is desperately needed to saves lives and reverse the course of the epidemic.

“Lives are being lost because the response is too slow.