Today, Friday August 8th 2014,
The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared the Ebola Epidemic an International
Health Emergency. WHO pointed that the Epidemic demands an “extraordinary
response in order to stop and reverse the
international spread of Ebola" which has killed almost a 1000 people in
four West African countries.
At the emergency meeting today, WHO
said the declaration of the Ebola Epidemic as an international emergency will
help in raise the level of vigilance for transmission of the virus.
WHO did not say that there should be
general international travel or trade bans because of the outbreak. Rather they advised countries identified to have been
infested by the deadly Ebola virus - Guinea, Nigeria, Sierra Leone
and Liberia - to declare a state of emergency.
In
a statement released today, WHO called the spread of the disease an
“extraordinary event,” and described the potential consequences as
“particularly serious.” They stated that
there is no licensed protocol of treatment or vaccine to halt the disease. But
the body also said the disease could be contained.
Keiji Fukuda, WHO's head of health security
said “This
is an infectious disease that can be contained. It is not a virus that is
spread through the air.”
Also
today, some news reports said that a suspected case of Ebola had been detected
in Uganda, the first such report from East Africa. A traveler from South Sudan
who had Ebola-like systems of fever had been isolated. Physicians were awaiting
the results of the tests carried out on him, The airport officials were also
quoted as saying that Uganda’s last known outbreak of Ebola was in 2012.
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