The World Health Organisation says it will evacuate one of its expatriate staff who has tested positive for the Ebola virus.
Speaking at a press conference yesterday, the WHO Assistant Director General for Health Security, Dr Keiji Fukuda said the Senegalese epidemiologist who was based in Kailahun and is now at the treatment centre there, would be evacuated for further treatment. He did not say when or to where.
Over the weekend the unnamed official became the first WHO worker to test positive for Ebola which is wreaking havoc across West Africa.
At the same presser, the United Nations point man on Ebola, criticised countries that have closed their borders with Ebola-hit countries and airlines that have suspended flights to the affected countries.
Dr David Nabarro told a news conference at the end of a two-day visit that "the understandable decision by some countries not want to receive aeroplanes that have touched ground in this country or in its neighbours, that understandable decision has huge operational impact ...on our ability to bring in staff and to bring in goods".
He said this was "making the job a whole lot harder" and called for help in finding "a way to continue having airlines fly into the capital cities and the provinces of the affected countries so that we can do our job properly" even if assuring that those countries would not be "exposed to risk".
On the Ebola outbreak in the region, Dr Nabarro said "it appears that the outbreak is still advancing; and it's advancing in many parts of the country".
He said the United Nations planned to upgrade their intervention in the region assuring that they would take "exceptional measures for the next six months to really make certain that we get the disease under control quickly in a way that the whole world can see".
A long list of countries - among them South Africa, Ivory Coast, Kenya and Zambia have banned citizens from Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia from entering them. All but Royal Air Maroc and Air France have either suspended or cancelled flights to Sierra Leone.
(C) Politico 26/08/14
