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WHO, UN: Outlook for Ebola outbreak not hopeless
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WHO and the United Nations are committed to stopping the Ebola outbreak in Liberia, as well as restoring the overall stability of the nation, officials said during a press briefing.
“WHO and the United Nations organizations are committed to being here in Liberia and to working with you. Our goals are to stop this outbreak and really to help restore life back to normal. That’s what we’re trying to achieve,” WHO Assistant-General Director, Keiji Fukuda, MD, MPH, said during the press conference.
Keiji Fukuda
According to David Nabarro, CBE, FRCP, senior system coordinator at the United Nations, the organization is looking at ways to radically increase the support they provide, to ensure that “not only is the virus brought under control and is transmission stopped, but also that people benefit, that health services recover, that the economy gets back on track, that education and other services are also functioning again, that food security is there now and in the future, and also, that the security and stability of the nation is protected.”
These efforts will need to be quick and also super effective, Nabarro added.
Although the Ebola outbreak is unique, the situation is not hopeless, according to Fukuda: “It is clear that when patients are given the right care, when they get the clinical treatments early enough, it makes a difference. People survive this disease; this is not a hopeless situation.”
However, experts anticipate several months of hard work to quell the Ebola outbreak. Although the basic principles on how to fight Ebola are clear, efforts should focus on how to adapt to meet the realities of what is happening.
“We know at the heart of this, one of the key things which is absolutely necessary is to increase the clinical care available to people infected with Ebola. This is going to be one of the main things we are going to focus on – to increase that capacity greatly,” Fukuda.
As of Aug. 20, a total of 2,615 Ebola cases and 1,427 deaths have been reported to WHO.