The Ebola epidemic is moving faster than the authorities
can handle and could take six months to bring under control, the
medical charity MSF said Friday.
The warning came a day after the World Health Organization said
the scale of the epidemic had been vastly underestimated and
that "extraordinary measures" were needed to contain the killer
disease.
New figures released by the UN health agency showed the death
toll from the worst outbreak of Ebola in four decades had climbed
to 1,145 in the four afflicted West African countries -- Guinea,
Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone.
"It is deteriorating faster, and moving faster, than we can
respond to," Joanne Liu, the chief of Doctors without Borders,
known by its French acronym MSF, told reporters in Geneva.
She added that it could take six months to get the upper hand.
"It is like wartime," she said a day after returning from the
region. "I don't think we should focus on numbers. To really get a
reality check, we're not talking in terms of weeks, but months" to
control the epidemic."
Elhadj As Sy, the new head of the International Federation of Red
Cross and Red Crescent Societies, painted a similarly bleak
picture, speaking of a "fear factor" in affected countries that was
hampering medical assistance.
Also recently returned from the region, As Sy said he agreed with
MSF's six-month timeline for bringing the outbreak under
control.
The WHO said Thursday it was coordinating "a massive scaling
up of the international response" to the epidemic.
"Staff at the outbreak sites see evidence that the numbers of
reported cases and deaths vastly underestimate the magnitude of
the outbreak," it said.
There were signs too that affected countries were stepping up
their efforts to contain the virus.
Sierra Leone's President Ernest Koroma announced plans on
Friday for the construction of several more Ebola treatment
centres, while urging the international community to "act
quickly" in the fight against Ebola.
The four new centres would be built by the Red Cross and MSF,
he said.
- Experimental drugs -
The epidemic erupted in the forested zone straddling the borders
of Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia earlier this year, and later
spread to Nigeria.
Liu said while Guinea was the initial epicentre of the disease, the
pace there has slowed, with fears now focused on the other
countries.
"If we don't stabilise Liberia, we'll never stabilise the region," she
said.
The last days of an Ebola victim can be grim, characterised by
agonising muscular pain, vomiting, diarrhoea and catastrophic
haemorrhaging described as "bleeding out" as vital organs break
down.
No cure or vaccine is currently available for Ebola, with the WHO
authorising 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 United States, which
has raised hopes of saving hundreds.
Canada says between 800 and 1,000 doses of a vaccine called
VSV-EBOV, which has shown promise in animal research but
never been tested on humans, would also be distributed through
the WHO.
But MSF's Liu warned against focusing on drugs.
"In the short term, they're not going to help that much, because
we don't have many drugs available. We need to a get a reality
check on how this could impact the curve of the epidemic," she
said.
Sierra Leone's chief medical officer Brima Kargbo this week
spoke of the risks facing health workers fighting the epidemic,
which has killed 32 nurses since May as well as an eminent
doctor.
"We still have to break the chain of transmission to separate the
infected from the uninfected," Kargbo said.
- Economic toll -
The cost of tackling the virus is also threatening to take a severe
toll on the economies of already impoverished West African
nations hit by the epidemic.
In Nigeria, in particular, a more serious outbreak could severely
disrupt its oil and gas industry if international companies are
forced to evacuate staff and shut operations, rating agency
Moody's has warned.
Nigerian sex workers also reported suspicion from customers,
with business down drastically. One woman in Lagos who gave
her name as Bright told AFP that Ebola was "worse than HIV/
AIDS. You can prevent HIV by using condoms but you can't do
the same with Ebola."
Across the region, draconian travel restrictions have been
imposed and a number of airlines have cancelled flights in and
out of West Africa.
Guinea, where at least 380 people have died, became the latest
country to declare a health emergency, ordering strict controls at
border points and a ban on moving bodies from one town to
another.
As countries around the world stepped up measures to contain
the disease, the International Olympics Committee said athletes
from Ebola-hit countries had been barred from competing in pool
events and combat sports at the Youth Olympics opening in
China on Saturday.
