Ebola crisis: WHO to announce $100m emergency response


The head of the World Health Organization and leaders of West African nations affected by the Ebola outbreak are to announce a joint $100m (£59m; 75m euro) response plan.

They will meet in Guinea on Friday to launch the initiative aimed at tackling a virus which has claimed 729 lives.

Sierra Leone’s president has declared a public health emergency over the outbreak after 233 people died there.

Ebola spreads through human contact with a sufferer’s bodily fluids.

Initial flu-like symptoms can lead to external haemorrhaging from areas like eyes and gums, and internal bleeding which can lead to organ failure.

Ebola kills up to 90% of those infected with patients having a better chance of survival if they receive early treatment.

Ghana to establish three isolated health centres 

In Ghana, government has announced plans to establish three isolated health centres purposely to tackle the deadly Ebola viral disease.

The announcement was made during a news conference held on Thursday July 31, in Accra, by the government’s inter-ministerial team on the Ebola Viral Disease.

The team comprises of the Ministers for Health, Interior, Defense, Communications and Local Government and Rural Development, and is under the Chairmanship of the Minister for Health, Dr. Kwaku Agyeman-Mensah.

Relaying the plans of the Health Service, Head of the Disease Surveillance Department of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), Dr. Badu Sarkodie, stated that these new health centres to be established will be set up in the southern, middle and northern belts of the country.

‘By the end of the week at least three designated facilities which shall cover the southern zone, middle zone, northern zone and based at Accra-Tema area, Kumasi and then Tamale to be specifically used for Ebola,’ Dr.Sarkodie announced.

Debunking rumours of suspected Ebola cases within the country, Dr. Sarkodie asserted that though they had earlier managed 24 cases suspected to be the Ebola virus, all of them tested negative. 

He further reminded all health workers across the country of their mandate to ‘ensure strict adherence of infection prevention and control measures within the health facilities’ and to ‘observe the regular universal standard practice of infection prevention and control’.

Comments:
This article has 0 comment, leave your comment.