WHO likely to declare Nigeria Ebola- free today

EU to meet to scale up Ebola response

Lagos/ Paris, Oct. 19: Nigeria is expected to be declared Ebola- free on Monday, just three months after fears that the virus could spread like wildfire through Africa’s most populous nation. The World Health Organisation ( WHO) is preparing to announce that Nigeria has not had a confirmed case of Ebola for 42 days, or two incubation periods of 21 days, just as it did for Senegal on Friday.

The achievement is being welcomed, with no end in sight to the disease that has claimed more than 4,500 lives in 2014, most of them in west Africa, and mounting fears about cases around the world.

Close attention is being paid to how Nigeria, with an underfunded and ill- equipped health system, managed to contain the virus, as specialists look for a more effective response to control its spread. But there were warnings against any premature celebration, with complacency still a risk and luck considered to have played a part in containing the outbreak.

Meanwhile, European foreign ministers meet on Monday under pressure to scale up their response to the Ebola epidemic after warnings it could become the “disaster of our generation”. Ahead of the talks, Aid agency Oxfam, which works in the two worst- hit countries, Liberia and Sierra Leone, issued a stark call for more troops, funding and medical staff to be sent to the west African epicentre of the outbreak. “There is a very strong political focus on this as the most immediate crisis facing us,” a European diplomat said ahead of the meeting in Luxembourg. Another EU diplomat said Britain, which has a Navy ship bound for Sierra Leone laden with medical staff and supplies, hoped to “galvanise EU action on Ebola”.

“There is a real sense that this is a tipping point and we must get to grips with it now,” said the diplomat. “If we can deal with it in the country, we don’t have to deal with it at home.” The worst- ever outbreak of the deadly virus has so far killed more than 4,500 people, mainly in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.