Ebola outbreak like fighting ‘war’, aid agencies warn

GENEVA – The Ebola outbreak that has already claimed more than 1 000 lives in west Africa is moving faster than aid organisations can handle, the medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said yesterday.

The warning came a day after the World Health Organisation (WHO) said the scale of the epidemic had been vastly underestimated and that “extraordinary measures” were needed to contain the killer disease.

The UN health agency said the death toll from the worst outbreak of the disease in four decades had now climbed to 1 069 in four afflicted countries.

“It is deteriorating faster, and moving faster, than we can respond to,” MSF head Joanne Liu told reporters in Geneva. “It is like wartime.”

WHO said in a statement late on Thursday it was coordinating “a massive scaling up of the international response”, in a bid to tackle the epidemic that has claimed lives in Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone.

“Staff at the outbreak sites see evidence that the numbers of reported cases and deaths vastly underestimate the magnitude of the outbreak,” it said.

“The outbreak is expected to continue for some time. WHO’s operational response plan extends over the next several months.”

As countries around the world stepped up measures to contain the disease, the International Olympics Committee said athletes from Ebola-hit countries have been barred from competing in pool events and combat sports at the Youth Olympics opening in China today.

The decision, which affects three unidentified athletes, was made “with regard to ensuring the safety of all those participating” in the games, the IOC and Chinese organisers said in a joint statement.

No cure or vaccine is available for Ebola, which the WHO declared a global public health emergency and subsequently authorised the use of largely untested treatments in efforts to combat the disease.

Hard-hit nations are awaiting consignments of up to 1 000 doses of the barely tested drug ZMapp from the US.

The plan has raised hopes of saving hundreds infected with the disease.

Canada says between 800 and 1 000 doses of a vaccine called VSV-Ebov, which has shown promise in animal research but never been test- ed on humans, would also be distributed through the WHO.

The last days of an Ebola victim can be grim, with the most severe cases succumbing to agonising muscular pain, vomiting, diarrhoea and catastrophic haemorrhaging as their organs break down.

The cost of tackling the virus is threatening to exact a severe economic toll on the already impoverished west African nations at the epicentre of the epidemic. “The outbreak risks having a direct financial effect on government budgets via increased health expenditures that could be significant,” Moody’s financial rating agency said.

A serious outbreak in Lagos, where Ebola has claimed four lives, could severely disrupt the oil and gas industry in Nigeria, it also warned.

Meanwhile, US President Barack Obama called the leaders of Liberia and Sierra Leone to express solidarity.