healthmedicinet

The Ebola epidemic in West Africa has led to 1,427 deaths out of 2,615 known cases, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday.
 
In its latest update, the WHO reported 142 new laboratory-confirmed, probable or suspected cases of Ebola and
77 more deaths from four affected countries — Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone.
 
Earlier on Friday, Nigerian Health Minister Onyebuchi Chukwu said the country has confirmed two new Ebola cases, the first two that have spread beyond those who had direct contact with the ill traveller from Liberia who brought the disease to Nigeria.

Chukwu said in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital, that the two new cases are spouses of patients who had direct contact with Liberian-American Patrick Sawyer, who flew into the country last month with the virus and infected 11 others before he died.

The two are spouses of caregivers who treated Sawyer, both of whom later died.

These two new cases bring the total number of confirmed infections in Nigeria, including the traveller, to 14. Chukwu says five patients have died, five have recovered and four are being treated in Lagos.

Elsewhere, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday that it had drawn up a draft strategy plan to combat Ebola in West Africa over the next six to nine months, implying that it does not expect to halt the epidemic this year.

A UNICEF worker speaks with a woman and infant in the Matam neighbourhood of Conakry, Guinea, earlier this week. ‘No one knows when this outbreak of Ebola will end,’ a spokeswoman for the World Health Organization said Friday. (Timothy La Rose/UNICEF/Reuters)

More than 1,300 people have died this year from the virus in the worst ever outbreak and WHO has faced criticism, including from medical charity Doctors Without Borders, that it has done too little too late to fight the disease.

• Ebola treatment of Kent Brantly, Nancy Writebol holds lessons for others
• Ebola outbreak demands ‘action in the field’
• WATCH | Disease Without Borders, CBC-TV’s The National
• Africans understandably wary about promised Ebola cures
• Dying Sierra Leone Dr. Sheik Umar Khan never told Ebola drug was available
• The evolution of the Ebola epidemic, CBC-TV’s The National

“WHO is working on an Ebola road map document, it’s really an operational document how to fight Ebola,” WHO spokeswoman Fadela Chaib said at a news briefing. “It details the strategy for WHO and health partners for six to nine months to come.”

Chaib, asked whether the timeline meant that the United Nations health agency expected the epidemic now raging in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone to continue until 2015, said: “Frankly no one knows when this outbreak of Ebola will end.”

Why epidemic underestimated

Ebola will be declared over in a country if two incubation periods, or 42 days in total, have passed without any confirmed case, she said. Nigeria is the fourth country with known cases.

“So with the evolving situation, with more cases reported, including in the three hot places — Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia — the situation is not yet over,” Chaib said.

“So this is a planning document for six to nine months that we will certainly revisit when we have new developments.”

In a statement on Friday, the WHO described some of the reasons it says the Ebola outbreak has been underestimated, including:

• Lack of staff, equipment and medical supplies such as masks, gloves and gowns.
• Overwhelmed health facilities. In Liberia’s capital of Monrovia, an Ebola treatment centre with 20 beds that opened last week was immediately filled with more than 70 patients.
• Many families hid infected loved ones.
• In rural villages, bodies are buried without notifying health officials to investigate the cause of death.

The WHO expects to issue details of the plan early next week, Chaib said.